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Dreams -- the nighttime type. Thoughts?

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Post by Barretts_Salt Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:21 pm

Good morning.  I was wondering how other people dream and what theories you might have as to why.

I dream (that I can remember, at any rate) about four to twelve nights a month.  Sometimes just barely visualized, faint around the edges, dreams that dissipate within moments of waking.  Sometimes vivid colors, touch, and even smells, and events that stay with me until I stand in the shower for five to ten minutes.

Rarely, if ever, erotic though:)

Some of them I think are my subconscious trying to tell me things but others I'm pretty sure are just whirling mental detritus.  Occasionally fever dreams -- but that's a rarity these days.  The spider dreams were how my mother knew I had a high fever waiting in the wings.

Next?  Smile
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Post by Guest Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:34 pm

I used to dream a lot. Mostly nightmares, actually, but it was frequent when I was a child. Zombie apocalypse at the school, a faceless bully at school with a cyborg arm crippling people in arm wrestling contests challenged me to match and falling down a big hole and doing that thing in cartoons where you talk as you fall.

With regards to the actual presentation of the dream, mine always have a major colour filter. The cyborg guy always had a green one. I once dreamed that I cased and 'robbed' the Sydney Opera House and that had a yellow filter.

They are typically very clear and vivid, but I find it hard to remember them right away. Well, save for my latest dream / nightmare - I dreamed I was shot a lot by a bunch of gangsters. White filter this time. It stuck in my head, because I woke up as I 'died' in the dream and felt like there was spots of pain on me when I woke up. It was weird. As scary as it was, in hindsight it was actually sort of cool too.

I don't think they mean anything any more. Maybe as a child, but now they are just vivid images and scenarios. Which is awesome, even when scary.

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Post by Hae Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:53 pm

Interesting.
I have dreams, frequently nightmares, that I remember almost every night. They are surreal, rapid-paced, and extremely vivid. I wish I knew what caused them.

There was a time when I was having nightmares everyday for weeks. The problem was that they were so vivid, I wouldn't be able to shake them off for hours. And when I had those connecting recurring dreams, I had dejavu moments when reality would blend with the dreamworld. Not to mention my crying, begging, and sleep-punching.

I'm so glad that's just a fading memory. Cuz otherwise, I like to contemplate on my dreams like food for thought. It's amazing what alternate realities, cultures, and languages my brain comes up with. Oh, and it's funny I never get erotic dreams either.

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Post by UristMcBunny Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:09 pm

I used to get nightmares all the time - always vivid and disturbing, and often memorable - a lot of them took place in repeating locations or had repeating patterns, themes or events in them. I still dream a lot, although nightmares specifically are less frequent than they used to be. Some memorable repeating things include:


  • The back garden of my childhood home, except the grass is just a thin cover over a massive, deep, black still pond full of massive koi that would try to swallow me if I tried to walk across the garden (never the focus of the nightmare, just one of the barriers to cross).
  • The far back end of the garden at my childhood home - which in reality was cracked concrete and overgrown weeds facing the overgrown and slightly wild land separating homes from the train tracks. Except it would be full of old, splintered, long-abandoned rabbit hutches and hamster cages and hen cages, and I'd walk through it with an overwhelming sense of guilt and regret, certain that all the animals that had once lived in those cages had died due to my neglect.
  • Being able to "fly" by lifting one leg up at a time and positioning them in a cross-legged position. Or by lifting both knees up and just sort-of drifting.
  • An overwhelmingly dull repetition of dreams involving me going to school having not been there all year, and having an exam that day that I cannot even find because I've forgotten my class schedule and locations - I am 30 and STILL have these.


I always figured dreams were my brain's way of trying to process and understand the stuff that's happened to me, and my emotions surrounding it all.

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Post by Barretts_Salt Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:57 pm

UristMcBunny wrote:I used to get nightmares all the time - always vivid and disturbing, and often memorable - a lot of them took place in repeating locations or had repeating patterns, themes or events in them.  I still dream a lot, although nightmares specifically are less frequent than they used to be.  

Even apart from the spiders/fever-presaging dreams, I used to get both a repeating pattern of events and locations.  

There was a five-tiered, very wide, fully-furnished tower that had been abandoned and I was moving into it.

There was an off-white stucco Cretan restaurant in the crotch of a Y-shaped road going downhill.  The funny thing is that it had a second location somewhere in Vancouver B.C.

And then there were the cannibals that I always managed to hide from -- but *that* was the one with the most memorable smells:  always roasting flesh:(

The nightmares have mostly gone away by this point -- and I haven't seen any of these recurrent ones for a long time.  Maybe ten years?
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Post by Barretts_Salt Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:05 pm

MapWater wrote:
With regards to the actual presentation of the dream, mine always have a major colour filter. The cyborg guy always had a green one. I once dreamed that I cased and 'robbed' the Sydney Opera House and that had a yellow filter.

Hmm, interesting. The other day a link was tweeted about how people with colour-blindness see things, and it had major colour filters going on.

Thanks!
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Post by Barretts_Salt Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:13 pm

[quote="Hae"]  It's amazing what alternate realities, cultures, and languages my brain comes up with. [quote]

Yes, and how Lovecraftian the geometry of the buildings or various things I'm trying to make is sometimes:)

Thanks!
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Post by waxingjaney Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:14 pm

I usually have two types of dreams every night. First half of the night is replaying and thinking through elements of my day; second half my brain effectively says "let's get nuts" and starts making up all kinds of things.

And I have never had a nightmare.
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Post by reboot Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:26 pm

I have two types of dreams. One set I seem to believe I am going through a mundane day but the rules of the world I am in are all bendy and weird so things like going to the grocery store involve labyrinths and hopping down the road because it is rubber.

The other set are flashbacks which are way too vivid and always involve smell.
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Post by Barretts_Salt Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:33 pm

waxingjaney wrote:I usually have two types of dreams every night. First half of the night is replaying and thinking through elements of my day; second half my brain effectively says "let's get nuts" and starts making up all kinds of things.

And I have never had a nightmare.

Ah!  Except for the frequency, the first half is about what my housemate's brother said.  He said he dreamed of factual things once every couple of months or so.

And never has nightmares.

Thanks!
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Post by Barretts_Salt Fri Dec 05, 2014 11:39 pm

reboot wrote:I have two types of dreams. One set I seem to believe I am going through a mundane day but the rules of the world I am in are all bendy and weird so things like going to the grocery store involve labyrinths and hopping down the road because it is rubber.

The other set are flashbacks which are way too vivid and always involve smell.

I like the rubber and the labyrinths -- I've always found them fascinating.  The rubber makes me think of pogo sticks:)

Thanks for mentioning the other:)
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Post by Werel Sat Dec 06, 2014 12:21 am

I dream pretty vividly most nights, and some days. I have hypersomnia and super short REM latency, so I used to fall asleep in class, start dreaming within a couple minutes, then be crazy disoriented when someone would nudge me awake ("wait I was running through mud, how did I get to this classroom??"). Led to more than a few embarrassing moments where classmates were mistaken for dream personages.  Neutral  

Don't have many fully-recurrent dreams so much as recurrent dream themes:

  • Some seemingly insignificant inanimate object is actually upon closer inspection a tiny magical pet! Hooray!
  • A man older than me, some sort of uncle/mentor/protector who I love very dearly, is going to be executed or murdered and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
  • Lotta apocalypse dreams. Lots. All flavors of apocalypse. Haunt me for days afterwards, tough to shake off.
  • Lots of general grief dreams. Someone close to me has died or is terminally ill. Palpable relief upon waking up.
  • Task-oriented or quest-accomplishment dreams that usually have some vague dream-logic goal but very vivid settings. Still remember a lot of buildings and landscapes from dreams years ago.
  • Angry dreams! I have been betrayed by someone! Someone has harmed those I love! I finally get to confront old enemies! I am spitting in the face of oppressors! etc. These are usually just fun & cathartic.

Though the angry dreams were a problem when I moved in with my partner and discovered I'm a sleep-assaulter... I slapped him, punched him, scratched him, tried to suffocate him, and spit on his face during the first few weeks of living together. Ahhhh, romance...

UristMcBunny wrote:Except it would be full of old, splintered, long-abandoned rabbit hutches and hamster cages and hen cages, and I'd walk through it with an overwhelming sense of guilt and regret, certain that all the animals that had once lived in those cages had died due to my neglect.

I have this exact same one. Basement of childhood home. Sometimes they're full of animals I didn't remember I had, like a combo neglect-guilt-and-forgot-your-homework dream.

I've always wondered about dreams; I think it was the topic of the first proper research paper with citations I ever wrote, in middle school or so. I guess I don't disagree with the "mental detritus cleanup/neural pathway solidifying" hypothesis for most dreams I have, but (don't laugh at me) I also have had some dreams that felt very different from other dreams. Like they were not sourced purely from within my own mind. But that is not a cool thing to talk about in Western culture, so I'll go with "yeah just random neuron firings!" Razz

edit: I am often someone else in my dreams. Are most people themselves in their dreams?
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Post by The Wisp Sat Dec 06, 2014 1:27 am

I often have vivid dreams, and I dream most nights, but I don't remember them very well. Usually the dreams are extremely random mismatches of people and locations and events. Sometimes I'll wake up with a pounding heart, but usually not. I seem to dream more vividly in nights where I'm not sleeping well and keep waking up.
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Post by Enail Sat Dec 06, 2014 12:04 pm

Werel, I'm about 50/50 myself/someone else in dreams. Sometimes I'm a mix of the two, I'll start as someone else and end as myself or vice versa, or I'll just kind of simultaneously have a sense of me and the idea that I'm someone else in the dream, almost like acting in a play.
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Post by nearly_takuan Sat Dec 06, 2014 2:34 pm

I dream less often than I don't. I usually remember the subject/plot immediately upon waking up, but forget almost all of it in about a minute. When I do dream, I'm usually myself, and usually doing something mundane—attending a class, working, playing a video game, walking, running, or biking.

The next most common type is one where it's mostly just a bunch of people (usually people I know) talking to each other—sometimes I'm me, sometimes I'm an unnamed anonymous participant, sometimes I'm just watching it unfold, like a movie; these go bad frequently enough that most of the ones I vaguely remember happening are the ones that forced me awake. Ditto "falling" dreams, which often end with me rolling off my actual bed and/or waking up with briefly unresponsive legs. And yeah, sometimes I also get dreams about someone I know being hurt or in mortal danger, which is of course the scariest when it actually happens, but unlike the previous two I feel a lot better when I wake up and realize it wasn't real.

"Fun" dreams are rare, but I do occasionally get to be, for example, a military tactician in a medieval fantasy setting, or a shapeshifting mutant. Wish I could remember more details than that, 'cause I also wake from those kinds of dreams thinking that would make a cool short story or video game plot, and then that's the thought that promptly erases the memory of the dream itself.

I don't think I've ever had a dream that was totally unlike anything I'd seen or consciously imagined before (though that'd be quite a feat). Mental detritus seems like the best explanation to me.
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Post by Barretts_Salt Sat Dec 06, 2014 10:54 pm

Werel wrote:Though the angry dreams were a problem when I moved in with my partner and discovered I'm a sleep-assaulter... I slapped him, punched him, scratched him, tried to suffocate him, and spit on his face during the first few weeks of living together. Ahhhh, romance...

edit: I am often someone else in my dreams. Are most people themselves in their dreams?

I'm always myself -- and my sleeping body is an umpteenth-level sheet stealer.  Late of Lankhmar:)
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Post by Barretts_Salt Sat Dec 06, 2014 10:58 pm

The Wisp wrote:I often have vivid dreams, and I dream most nights, but I don't remember them very well. Usually the dreams are extremely random mismatches of people and locations and events. Sometimes I'll wake up with a pounding heart, but usually not. I seem to dream more vividly in nights where I'm not sleeping well and keep waking up.

But you think that your dreaming is more vivid because your sleep is shallower?  
Thanks!
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Post by Barretts_Salt Sat Dec 06, 2014 11:09 pm

Enail wrote:Werel, I'm about 50/50 myself/someone else in dreams. Sometimes I'm a mix of the two, I'll start as someone else and end as myself or vice versa, or I'll just kind of simultaneously have a sense of me and the idea that I'm someone else in the dream, almost like acting in a play.

Interesting.  My mother is *always* talking about being both herself and being someone else like in a play, but she is *most* definite about it being a play.  

You're the only other person I've heard mention it in that way.

Thanks :)
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Post by Robjection Sun Dec 07, 2014 9:39 am

Let's see ... when my dreams don't involve me being really tiny and then eaten by a giant woman (seriously brain, of all the dreams I've had over the years, you had to pick that as the recurring one), they usually involve me getting into some kind of argument with someone, usually over something pretty damn serious. I can tell it's a dream because, when I'm speaking, the other person shuts up and listens. If I tried making some of those arguments in real life, there would be interjections left, right and center.

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Post by Barretts_Salt Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:18 am

Robjection wrote:Let's see ... when my dreams don't involve me being really tiny and then eaten by a giant woman (seriously brain, of all the dreams I've had over the years, you had to pick that as the recurring one), they usually involve me getting into some kind of argument with someone, usually over something pretty damn serious. I can tell it's a dream because, when I'm speaking, the other person shuts up and listens. If I tried making some of those arguments in real life, there would be interjections left, right and center.

Protracted verbal exchanges?  Cool!  I don't believe I've ever even spoken -- and the most anyone else speaks is a sentence or two.

Thanks:)
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