Dreams

[rgraham666]

I was chatting with a friend last night. We got talking about dreams, the kind you have when you're sleeping.

They said that they dream very frequently, and most are pleasant.

I, on the other hand, rarely dream. And they're never anything other than nightmares.

How about you people?

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

90% of people on the internet have lucid dreams.

It's staggering, really.

Personally, I probably dream as often as the next person--its a mostly forgettable and negligable part of my life, can't say I pay any attention to it at all.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I have lots of dreams. The weird thing was, when I first stopped dating guys and got hooked on women, I didn't have any erotic lesbian dreams for a couple of years. It was a real disappointment - but I seem to be making up for lost time these days

 

[Recidiva]

I never had a single nightmare until I hit puberty.

Then they never went away.

Stupid hormones.

 

[English Lady]

I dream most nights, it's unusual for me to wake up and not to remember even a little glimpse of a dream.

I think vivid dreams run in the family, my Nanna, my mum and my sister all have very vivid dreams -and at one time or another we've had nightmares about rats. (rats don't bother me in reality)

My husband lucid dreams -scared the living crap out of me once and has fucked me twice in his sleep, yup really -he was completely asleep.

Nightmares nearly always feature family members, and I always "wake up" then go to turn on a light and I can't do it and I know i'm still in the nightmare. I can wake myself up from nightmares, but it takes some effort to do so. I'm glad I don't have bad dreams very often!

 

[Equinoxe]

I remember my dreams some of the time and I don't know that I would characterise them as nightmares, but not all of them are pleasant either. They're usually more subdued and sad or outlandish, but neither disquieting nor enjoyable, than anything. On incredibly rare occasion (a handful of times in the course of my life), I have been known to have lucid dreams; it's never been all that interesting for me though, I realise it's a dream, ruin it, and then wake up.

I do find dreams utterly fascinating though, they're wonderful things.

 

[elsol]

I dream just about every night... some are even premonitional, but more in the same sense of 'practicing conversations' you might need to have... I practice the scene in my dreams.

The worst/funniest dreams are the ones where you wake up in a dream from a dream.

It's like...

"God that was a good dream... hey, hold on... this isn't my room, I'm still dreaming... zzzz".

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[carsonshepherd]

I dream constantly and intensely. I've dreamed people and then met them later. In my dreams, I've resolved things with people who are lost to me. I dream unbelievably detailed storylines almost like movies, and I'm the audience and all the actors in turn. I dream horrors that make me wake up screaming and afraid to move.
My dreams are my creative soul.

 

[Liar]

I suppose that I dream every night. But I only remember what I was dreaming about a third of the times I wake up. The times I remember the dream is when no alarm clock beep yanked me up from the wrong stage of sleep, but I got to wake up, on my own.

 

[McKenna]

I dream often. I dream of loved ones who've past on, and loved ones I've yet to meet. I still dream of my high school years, though it's been fifteen years since I graduated. Sometimes I dream that I'm still young and at my parents house, and when I wake up I'm completely disoriented for a few moments. I have "premonition" dreams. I dream things that later happen. I also dream a bunch of stuff that doesn't happen. Erotic dreams account for about 15% of what I dream.

I have nightmares, too, though usually only after watching horror flicks, which is why I don't normaly watch them.

 

[Katyusha]

I generally have either very strange dreams or recurring dreams. The recurring ones always center around one of three people in my life: my sister, my husband, or a dear friend of mine. I remember my dreams often, and a lot of the time they're very vivid.

I also have night terrors...the nightmares that people have in stage 4 sleep (as opposed to stage 1, where normal dreaming occurs, including nightmares) that cause them to only partially wake up and hallucinate the images of the nightmare into their surroundings, despite the fact that they'll never remember the dream itself. Mine are usually spiders, but not always.

 

[Matadore]

... dream very frequently...rarely dream

Rob,
pretty much everyone dreams, not everyone remembers their dreams according to the people who study these things. In fact, using Rapid Eye Movement (REM) as the sign that dreams are taking place, sleepers are awakened thus not allowed to dream, the subjects will develop symptoms resembling psychosis over a period of time. I don't recall if being psychotic inhibits dreaming, however.

Do you use your dreams as inspiration to write some of your stories?

 

[Belegon]

15%...decent odds. Hey, a guy can hope...


luv ya lass!

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I don't think being psychotic inhibits dreaming, because I dream. I usually dream stories, plotted out, sometimes even narrarated following the quasi-logic that can only come from my chaotic personality. They're usually pretty detailed and almost always in colour. I don't really understand those who say that we can only dream in black and white.

The most bizarre type of dreaming is done by a friend of mine who is a pretty powerful empath who often dreams entire days the night before they occur. He gets every occurance right down and whole conversations right down so much that he is insanely bored the next day because he is literally reliving the day. That's the kind of dreaming that makes you go QUA???

I wouldn't worry about not dreaming. From what I can tell people have all different methods of dreaming and different rules that apply that never seem to apply to other people's dreamworlds. Similarily, even regular dreamers go through various cycles or other stuff wherein some nights they may get a five hour epic dream and the next week sleep like a baby with nary a dream-like peep.

With that and how many "rules of dreaming" that are broken by friends of mine on a regular basis, I'm disinclined to give them much weight until more reliable methods that do not rely on Freud are used to study the phenomenon.

Until then, I'd hardly lose sleep over it. (Couldn't...resist...bad...joke)

 

[Darkniciad]

The only dreams I always remember are the nightmares. Other than that, the occasional vivid sex dream or utterly whakked out thing will linger even if I wake up naturally, not suddenly.

Every once in a while, my subconscious solves problems, albeit minor ones, for me in my dreams as well. Two of those that stand out in my mind were dreams I had in my teen years that showed me something I had missed consciously, that when tried allowed me to beat spots where I was stuck in video games *laugh*

When I don't get enough sleep, I tend to dream life, mostly being at work. I wake up after an eight hour shift to the alarm going off and realize I have to do it all over again, for real. The dreams are vivid, boring, and utterly realistic.

I can remember more of my dreams if I concentrate on doing so, part and parcel of having to learn to control my dreams when necessary due to nearly a decade of almost constant nightmares in my teen years/early twenties.

Other than the nightmares, "work" dreams, and a few others, most of my dreams actually have a movie-like quality. Those that I remember actually looked more like watching a movie than reality, having that two dimensional quality.

 

[rgraham666]

Rob,
pretty much everyone dreams, not everyone remembers their dreams according to the people who study these things. In fact, using Rapid Eye Movement (REM) as the sign that dreams are taking place, sleepers are awakened thus not allowed to dream, the subjects will develop symptoms resembling psychosis over a period of time. I don't recall if being psychotic inhibits dreaming, however.

Do you use your dreams as inspiration to write some of your stories?

So that explains my problem.

Almost all my inspiration for stories occurs to me when awake. Only had one story inspired by a dream. It's in my sig, my Memorial story.

 

[peppermintcrisp]

I also have night terrors...the nightmares that people have in stage 4 sleep (as opposed to stage 1, where normal dreaming occurs, including nightmares) that cause them to only partially wake up and hallucinate the images of the nightmare into their surroundings, despite the fact that they'll never remember the dream itself. Mine are usually spiders, but not always.[/QUOTE]

I also have night terrors about spiders! I see them crawling on my pillow. When I get stressed I dream the same dream: that I have to sit a maths exam (I hate maths!) in a couple of hours and I haven't done any study! I have had this dream at least ten times.

I do a bit of sleepwalking and talking in my sleep. Once I dreamt that this Duke was chasing me and I ran out of the house and down the street in my pyjamas and bed socks. Mum was really surprised.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

When I get stressed I dream the same dream: that I have to sit a maths exam (I hate maths!) in a couple of hours and I haven't done any study! I have had this dream at least ten times.

That's a classic. The "totally-unprepared-for-whatever" dream. In ine of mine, I remember being in an orchestra and being handed a French horn, an instrument I've never touched in my life.

The other classic is the naked-in-public dream, where no one notices but you.

I dream but I rarely remember them when I wake up. I take them seriously though, because dreaming is as valid as thinking in their own context, and we spend about a third of our lives doing it.

There's an easy and effective way to get yourself to remember your dreams too. Keep a pad and pencil at your bedside, and make yourself write down what you remember whenever you wake up. Nothing will happen for a couple nights, but then you'll start remembering them. It really seems to work.

I was always fascinated by the Yaqui Indian shaman Don Juan's advice to his student, Carlos Castenada - that one of the secrets to magical powers was to gain control over your dreams, to control what you did in them, the idea being to finally fuse dream-consciousness with waking consciousness and bring the powers of each together. It was considered a major magical accomplishment.

He gave Castenada a simple exercise to get him started: find your hands in your dream. Just look down and look at your hands in your dream. I've tried it on and off for years, and it's amazingly difficult.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I rarely remember any dreams, and I honestly can't attest to any particular similarities of when I do, simply because they're so rarely remembered. Perhaps my drinking and smoking, and high caffeine intake, and the possible ensuing effect they have on sleep patterns might have something to do with that...

You think, maybe?

Q_C

 

[impressive]

I dream constantly and intensely. I've dreamed people and then met them later. In my dreams, I've resolved things with people who are lost to me. I dream unbelievably detailed storylines almost like movies, and I'm the audience and all the actors in turn. I dream horrors that make me wake up screaming and afraid to move.
My dreams are my creative soul.

What he said (but that's no surprise).

 

[rgraham666]

I can't help but wonder if my lack of dreams when sleeping relates to my lack of dreams when awake.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Whether images of the past or premonitions of the future, I do not know. But I have always dreamt, since I was old enough to know of such things, of war, revolution, violence, and assassinations. I do not know why this is. Images of myself in some kind of violent, military, or political role are there. Rarely are my dreams of anything else, at least that I can remember, unless they are about sex. But that is usually in my daydreams, not my nightmares. Of course, I don't let myself go asleep early a lot of times, mainly because I want to delay the inevitable. A movie is one thing. But my dreams are like being stuck in a theater, with nothing but action and war movies all night long. No matter how much I like that genre, it gets old after a while.

 

[AchtungNight]

I too rarely remember my dreams. But most of the ones I do have somehow found their way into my stories.

 

[Aurora Black]

I dream constantly and intensely. I've dreamed people and then met them later. In my dreams, I've resolved things with people who are lost to me. I dream unbelievably detailed storylines almost like movies, and I'm the audience and all the actors in turn. I dream horrors that make me wake up screaming and afraid to move.
My dreams are my creative soul.

What Carson said.

 

[matriarch]

I know we all dream, its a fact of life, its a mental and emotional necessity.

I just rarely remember them. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of dreams I've remembered over the last, 20, 30 years. Just doesn't happen.

And the bit about waking up.......and the resulting pychosis.......bothers me. I wake up an awful lot at night. It's normal for me to wake 2, 3 sometimes 4 times a night. Get up, go to the bathroom, have a drink and go back to bed.

Perhaps those voices are right.