Dreams (You've Dreamed; Compendium)

[EnolaGaia]

... I've also had continuing characters and stories, and there's a definit dream landscape that revist bits and pieces of over the years. Sometimes 'new' places are recognizable 'overwritings' of older long established places. I've speculated before that this is something to do with the way that memory works, that we have some memory of a particular house that acts as the 'standard' house (for us) and we remember every other house by producing variations on that model.

It might explain while some dream places and images appear to be composites of one or more places or people or things.

In my experience, the landscapes / settings are a mixture of pieces and wholes ranging along a spectrum from 'actual / real' ones to 'fully synthetic' ones, with a vast range of 'hybrids' in between.

In general (and speaking only for myself...) it has always seemed that I'm more likely to encounter 'actual' elements for large-grained settings (outdoor vistas; exterior expanses) and more likely to encounter 'synthesized' elements in finer-grained settings (individual rooms).

For example, I recall one instance of an 'actual' rural road scene through which I followed the 'real' road to a 'virtual' or 'specimen' farmhouse analogous to 'real' specimens, within which there were rooms that bore no resemblance to any known 'real' analogue.

This correlation is not absolute. I've had 'actual' rooms appear in apparently 'synthetic' buildings, and 'actual' sites appear within 'synthetic' landscapes. However, these instances seem to be less frequent than the ones described above.

 

[almond13]

So then i stood there asking for every synonym of mug i could think of, only they all meant something else to the shopkeeper too, so i kept on trying to buy a mug and he kept on putting different items that weren't a mug in front of me...

It seems that you have a communication problem with the male gender. I have the same thing and I’m one of them. In my last job I used to dream that I was walking in treacle.

 

[escargot]

Treacle? We used to dream o'walkin' in treacle. Would've been a palace to us.

 

[OneWingedBird]

this has been bothering me a lot over the years. does anyone else's brain manufacture entire sets of memories for their dreams? ...

Yeah, i get that sometimes, though often i forget the dream upon waking, then remember it later in the day/week as though i'm remebering a real event, and (if it was a disturbing dream) sometimes freak out a bit until i get a handle on the fact that i'm only remembering a dream.

Sometimes too i have dreams where i suspect i'm having memory flashbacks into the content of the dream itself (i get flashbacks while awake sometimes, so that's probably not too surprising), which is well weird, and sometimes the stuff going on is just totally... *shudders*

Totally out of curiosity, does anyone else ever get dreams where the character that they are in the dream changes? or where they switch from being a participant to being a spectator on events, and/or back again?

 

[Timble2]

Totally out of curiosity, does anyone else ever get dreams where the character that they are in the dream changes? or where they switch from being a participant to being a spectator on events, and/or back again?

Yes, I've moved into narratives that I was reading in books or watching on stage or in films, I've also moved from being a participant to reading something in a book, quite frequently a comic book when this happens.

I've also changed who I'm supposed to be within the narrative of the dream.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Totally out of curiosity, does anyone else ever get dreams where the character that they are in the dream changes? or where they switch from being a participant to being a spectator on events, and/or back again?

In my experience, I might engage a dream within any or all of 3 roles:

- first-person participant embedded in the dream / plot
- an 'observer' at the periphery of the dream as if I were a character in a play about a play (the dream) and capable of commenting or reflecting on it
- a 'director' with the vantage of an 'observer' plus the power to stop, edit, or willfully modify the form or content of the dream

The roles are not mutually exclusive - I can 'telescope' or 'port' from one to another of the roles as a shift in context / perspective within which I maintain a consistent and continuous first-person vantage.

Personally, I prefer to treat the 'observer' and 'director' roles as distinct. Some of the most detailed / 'lucidly-present' dreams I've had have involved the 'observer' vantage without any invocation or self-knowledge of a capacity for deliberate 'control'.

On the other hand, some invocations of the 'director' role have been so framed as to put the dream scenario at arm's length and lose sight of the 'scene' out of which I'd removed myself (e.g., to a neutral setting in which I visually 'edit' characters). For me at least, it's not the case that significant 'control' (as director) is always associated with maximum 'lucidity of presence' in dream richness or detail.

It is in the 'observer' role that I sometimes remind myself to (e.g.) look for / at my hands as an exercise in 'lucidity', then return into the 'participant' role to enact the exercise. The 'director' role implies the characteristics of the 'observer' plus deliberative control over the foundations of the dream scenario itself. As an 'observer' I might conclude something is amiss with the scenario, and the scenario may 'self-correct' without any impression that I've enacted the change. As a 'director' this same conclusion might lead me to proactively freeze the dream and edit specific elements before resuming 'play'.

The simplest and most common (for me) invocation of the 'observer' role is when I 'back out of my first-person character' and 'reach for the exit button' (proactively bail out of the dreamscape owing to fear or boredom). This is phenomenologically distinct from backing out to contemplate terminating the dream as a 'director'.

This is why I've always had problems with delineating 'lucid dreaming' as high-fidelity phenomenology *and* deliberate control. For me these qualities don't necessarily vary with direct proportionality to each other.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Totally out of curiosity, does anyone else ever get dreams where the character that they are in the dream changes? ...

I've had dreams in which my form or identity mutates during the course of the dream - often without my 'conscious' knowledge. For example, I recall one dream in which I began as 'myself' (if only an anonymous 1st-person adult male assumed to be 'me'), then at a later point realized I'd morphed into a similarly-aged female analogue when reacting to an anomaly (I think it was the shoes or presence of a shoulder bag) and seeing myself in a reflective storefront.

I've had a few dreams in which I look in a mirror at my dream-self and deliberately modify my form or details of appearance before proceeding, but I maintain a 1st-person vantage and don't really change into another character's vantage.

I have no recollection of ever having transitioned to 'inhabit' another *extant* character within the dream (e.g., 'become' the third party with whom I'm speaking). I have transitioned to a new (not previously-extant) character that I 'adopt' (exclusively) for the subsequent section of the dream.

 

[almond13]

I find that I have dreams that show me future events every now and then and sometimes in vivid and unforgettable ways. I tend to agree that they have no purposeful meaning in the context of the threads. There is no warning of destructive events, winning lottery numbers etc., they are trivial and seemingly without motive. Most often I will dream of a place I will visit in the future and the dream becomes a reality.

The last one was different and took place a few months ago. In the dream I visited a place, taking note of the building on the outside. I can still remember looking at the walls and windows and doors as I went to the entrance at the side of the building. When I entered I spoke to two or three people, one of whom I had an argument with (I didn’t know this person) - no serious consequences. There was, however, a strong sense of foreboding as if something terribly bad was about to happen; to such an extent I woke up and jumped out of bed feeling very scared.
I had previously arranged to take someone else to this place – a lift. It had such a startling effect that I decided not to go.
I had never been to the place in the dream and knew nothing of its existence until it was coincidentally pointed out to me shortly afterwards, at which time I recognised all the landmarks in my dream – not a pleasant experience.
As far as I know the event took place with no problems, that I know of.

 

[rynner2]

Ever had those one of dreams where you're stuck in a place and can't find the way out, even though everything seems fairly familiar?

Last night I had the opposite: I was part of a large crowd of people (mostly young, for some reason), and we were returning to some place along a series of roads in a town. Suddenly I realised we were going the wrong way, so I retraced my steps, took a different turn, and soon recognised that I was now on the right route.

(And then, for some reason, the journey continued on a canal narrow-boat, although in real-life I've never been on one!)

:shock:

 

[rynner2]

And then, for some reason, the journey continued on a canal narrow-boat, although in real-life I've never been on one..

Oddly enough, I watched an Open All Hours rerun tonight, in which Arkwright and Gladys Emmanuel were discussing where they would go on honeymoon.

After some exotic idea from Gladys, Arkwright said he'd been thinking of hiring a boat on a canal - although, being Arkwright, he quite fancied the stretch of local canal, up to a few streets away!


So, am I pyschic, or is this one for the Coincidence thread? 8)


For the pedants amongst you, my TV guide, which I barely glanced at anyway, and not before today, didn't mention the canal part of the episode at all (unsurprisingly, as it was little more than a throwaway line).

And I hardly watched any TV last night, even assuming they bother to trailer old comedy repeats.

 

[escargot]

T'other night I dreamed about my father-in-law, which was strange as he died years before I even met my husband.

It was him, though. In the dream we had a short conversation, and when I reported this to my husband, he laughed and said, yup, that is EXACTLY what he would've said! :lol:

 

[felixgarnet]

T'other night I dreamed about my father-in-law, which was strange as he died years before I even met my husband.

It was him, though. In the dream we had a short conversation, and when I reported this to my husband, he laughed and said, yup, that is EXACTLY what he would've said! :lol:

Hiya! I would interpret that as a psychic contact with your father-in-law, and a very enjoyable one!

 

[escargot]

Hahaha, thank you, I am very happy with that idea!

I never knew the bloke but he seems to have been a pleasant and very 'handy' type. 8)

 

[rynner2]

Last night I dreamed about a bird, some kind of wader, perhaps, that had been shot with an arrow. The arrow was huge, and slightly tapered, but the bird was still alive! I was worrying about how to get the arrow out.

I had the radio on all night, so this dream may have been tiggered by a news item, but a search reveals nothing recent on the news.

But the pic on this link looks disturbingly like my dream, except that my bird was on the ground, not in a tree.
http://www.wftv.com/news/9497853/detail.html
Amazingly, this bird in Holly Hill could still fly, but I can't find out whether it was eventually caught.

Does anyone know the outcome, or anything on more recent similar news item that could have triggered my dream?

 

[maureenmac1]

Hi Rynner I'm sure there was another story in the news recently about a duck having being shot with an arrow. However the duck was caught and the arrow removed. Don't know if thats any help to you, if I can source the story I will provide a link - eventually!

 

[GNC]

I had a dream last night about a sitcom spinoff to Yes Minister all about Sir Humphrey. The part had been recast as Nigel Hawthorne is dead, and he was on the council to a small village. It was pretty bad, I remember thinking how can they expect to get away with this without Nigel Hawthorne?!

 

[uair01]

Last night I had such a weird dream that I can't resist writing it down. I have the feeling that it means something, but I don't have the slightest idea ...

I'm standing on the curb in what feels like a small American town (never been in one). The sun is shining. I have a banjo and play a tune on it fingerpicking style (never could do that) and even play in the higher positions on the neck (never could do that). Then I look up and see that two cars have crashed badly in the street. Both look highly crushed. The two middle aged lady drivers are not wounded and are arguing on the curb, close to me. What I'm most surprised about is that I was so busy playing that I didn't notice the crash at all.

I'm aware of methods of dream analysis and am often able to trace the dream to an event, thought or just a fleeting emotion from the previous day. But not now ...

The most plausible theory is that I will go on holiday soon and am subconsciously afraid of the long car drive and the risk of accidents.

 

[MercuryCrest]

I've recently become aware of a "new" type of dream for me....

I'm watching the dream in front of me, but it's very much like watching a movie, though I'm physically there, no one interacts with me until I decide to "step into it". Usually I've seen the "movie" many times in other dreams, and am well aware of the plot, though I have the choice to step in and change it.

I've found myself thinking,"Well that's not going to happen this time!" And that's when I step in to defeat the baddies/point someone in the right direction/save the damsel in distress/Give someone advice like "when you walk into the next room, there's someone waiting for you in the closet"/etc.

The "movies" are generally not remembered until I'm actually dreaming, then suddenly I am well aware of having seen a particular one a dozen times before.

...and yes, my "normal" dreams have a definite continuity about them. I refer to this as living a second life, though I can't really describe my dream world. I have distinct memories whilst I'm there, though they fade after I awaken.

My Dream-Types:
--My dream-world/life
--Standard-fare odd dreams
--Completely off-the-wall, bizarre, I-belong-in-a-loony-bin dreams
--Dreams where I meet "people" and learn things
--Dreams that somehow stick out even though I might not understand them, they just feel "special"
--Movie-Dreams
I think that's all. I may need to replace my quotation/apostrophe key after this.

 

[rynner2]

From
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... 142.600_fb

Recursive dreams

READER Leigh Bunting was dreaming one morning in the spring. He can't remember what the dream was about, but he does remember waking to find the bedroom door shut. This was odd, because usually it isn't. It was so odd that it woke Bunting from the dream of waking - at which point he found the door was open as usual.

"I have spent some time trying to think of a term for a dream within a dream," he tells us, and "finally came up with 'recursive dreams'. I thought I was being quite smart." A famous web search engine discloses, however, nearly 200 postings to blogs and bulletin boards about the phenomenon.

Blogger Steven Rainwater at http://tinyurl.com/2lygvj says he asked himself, after a dream within a dream within a dream, "how many recursive realities could I push onto the stack before my brain had a stack overflow and dumped core". Even if programming jargon is not your thing, you will appreciate the problem: if each dream occupies a certain amount of memory, at some point "pushing" another one onto the "stack" of nested dreams will use up all available memory, causing a crash that will spit out the whole lot.

Feedback's closest experience involves waking up in good time to go to a meeting, having an uneventful 10-kilometre journey to the venue, arriving precisely on time - and then waking up back home, at the moment the real meeting started. Assuming, that is, that we did in fact wake up and we aren't currently dreaming we're typing this.

-------------------------------------

And, totally unrelated to that, I had a typical insecurity dream last night.

I was packing for a move to somewhere else, but some of my stuff kept falling into a sink full of water and getting wet...

And I realised I had not organised transport, and couldn't call on anyone for a lift...

And (what is more!) I had no accomodation organised at my destination...

I was well relieved to wake up and realise I didn't have to go anywhere!


And during the dream, my mother made an entrance. I told her I'd just seen Dad (who is deceased)..

It was only when I awoke that that I remembered that Mum is now deceased too.... :shock:

 

[EnolaGaia]

I can relate to the 'recursive dream' topic. On rare occasions I've gone to bed, fallen asleep, and dreamed within a dream. More frequently, I have awakened from a dream to realize I'm still within a 'nested' dream on a 'lower level' (closer to the 'ground floor of reality', so to speak).

My clearest end-to-end recursive dream had 3 levels ('ground' = me asleep; 'level 1' = dream context spawned after going to sleep within the 'ground level' dream; 'level 2' = dream context spawned after going to sleep in 'level 1').

This occurred in summer or early autumn 1975 in Minnesota, where I was a full-time musician. I'd returned 'home' after a gig, gone to bed, and slept ('ground level'). Toward morning I was dreaming ('level 1') about playing a gig at the same club as the prior evening. After the level 1 dream gig I'd returned 'home' and gone to bed. At this level I started a 'level 2' dream that was a pure fantasy storyline involving a dark, ominous forest and having to find a particular tree to be saved. I failed to find the tree, and the diffuse dread turned to outright fear ...

... Whereupon I awoke - curled into my then-typical sleeping position in my bed. Unsettled and upset by the nightmare, I decided I couldn't get back to sleep. I arose, walked across the bedroom, put my hand out, and touched the doorknob. The only illumination in the windowless room was the faint outline of light around the door frame. I was wondering why the light had an odd grayish tone to it. As if an alarm had gone off in my head, I became aware I was not at 'ground level', but still at 'level 1'. I 'knew' that if I'd opened the door to the light and left the room into the outside at level 1 there was a risk I'd have cut myself off from the 'ground level'.

Very much afraid, I retreated to the bed, assumed my usual sleeping position, and willed myself to go under. I then awoke again (same bed; same position) and somehow 'knew' I'd made it back to 'ground level'. I walked across the dark room to the door (faintly outlined by a more golden sunlight tone), and exited.

 

[Timble2]

I've experienced the recursive dream phenomenon (often referred to as "false awakening") as long as I can remember. I have got up to five levels, which was rather disorientating, when I finally surfaced.

I sometimes call these my "parallel world" dreams, as when the dream has been long and complicated feel as if I've had a glimpse of an alternative timeline. (I realise that it's probably just my brain misreading memory as sensory input)

 

[skippinmizpippa]

Creepy Dream of Wife after her Death

I am relaying this story as it was told to me by a family friend. He grew up with my mother and was badly addicted to drugs and alcohol the last time she spoke with them. Apparently he has recently turned his life around and gotten back on track. We questioned him on his sudden change of heart and assumed it was because he had lost his wife to a drug overdose a couple of years ago and maybe decided he didn't want to go in the same fashion.

That was not the case. A few months after her death, he had a very upsetting dream about her. In the dream, he was walking through a fog and he could hear her crying. The fog slowly cleared and he saw her sitting on her grave, weeping in front of her tombstone. She told him that he needed to get help with his drug and alcohol addiction because the pain of the addiction would not go away after death.

He was so shaken by her crying that he tried to reach out to her and hug her. At that moment, a man came for her. He was around 7 feet tall, very dark, and wore a long coat. This man took the woman's hand and told her it was time to go back. At that time, her crying intensified and she was trembling and weeping. As they walked away, he noticed that the tall man had a very long dragon's tail trailing behind him.

He managed to quit the drugs cold turkey from that day on and said that he is still haunted by the dream, worrying that his wife is not at peace. He has since remarried and apparently his new wife has insisted he stop talking about it in her presence because he worries about it aloud so often.

Regardless of your beliefs or opinions, that would be a horrible dream to have about a deceased loved one.

 

[miss_scarlet]

What I dreamt last night

i did a search on dreams but none of the posts seemed to house a place where you could just write down what you dreamt.
So, here is what I dreampt last night, I would be interested in hearing other dreams or comments/opinions


I woke at 8:30am
Dream 2:
13/08/07

Last night I dreamt that I had been preyed apon/kidnapped by a group of people/witches who needed me for a ritual to summon the Devil (?) We went to a big, disused hall first.
I was supposed to fill viles for them at each of the 4 quarters using bodily fluids obtained by being aroused by the guardian of that Quarter!
When I got to the east I felt somthing gnawing on my hand...It was a wild, big cat kitten.
It brought me out of the semi trance I was in.
It had been sent by a man that I didnt know, but seemed to be involved with in this dream.
Hw tried to hell me escape but it seemed that having partisipated in some of the ritual already I was keen to be involved, I believe because of the physical enjoyment, and no longer scared!
So the 4 of the ritual group and myself broke into a spooky hall at the top of a winding an crumbling staircase, which was suprisingly easy to assend!
As we once again began the ritual we were disturbed once again by the police, sent by the man that I intimatly knew, but only in this dream.
He took my hand to help me run as the others were arrested for breaking and entry, but I refused to run to safety until I had found the cat, which was in an alley playing with a goat!
then I woke!

I woke at 3:30am
Dream 1:
13/08/07

I dreampt that I was cleaning stainless steel shelves with pots on them in the kitchen, of a pub that I had just brought.
There was some strange disease going around so a doctor came to vaccinate me using a high dose of Vitamin A and C!
The side effects of this injection were that i could then see purple marks on the shelves and became more obsessive with the cleaning.
On the top shelf there were alot of empty pots that had not been used for years, they were dusty and greasy. I took these down to wash and when they had been cleaned stored them in the long conservatory/greenhouse, which like the garden had not been used or tended for years.
I felt my intention was to rid the pub of clutter and grow food for the restaurant, utilising the greenhouse/conservatory!

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Zo, my dear, vould you like the Jungian, or ze Freudian interpretations, of you dreams?

Only joking!

I have to admit, I've had similiar dreams about wandering about big empty houses, often meeting people, friends, or acquaintances, I hasn't seen for a while and etc. I think, personally, it's got something to do with one's psyche, layers of consciousness and meaning.

 

[miss_scarlet]

Jungian please, as someone stole my book lol
It was a comparisson of the interpretations of yung and freud alas I am lost without it x :sob: :sob:

 

[miss_scarlet]

I think I have the pot one sussed
Empty pots..empty emotionally
putting them in the untended growing area, the intention of a change in that situation!

 

[henry]

i dont often analyse dreams but i think we should have a dream registry on this forum, certainly my very first post was a lucid dream... on behalf of a pal... and a plea to the other party who apparently shared it...

(here)

anyway, the first (part of the) dream above seems to suggest a level of sexual guilt to me... confused moral feeling around a sexual encounter? the cat i felt represented you... at the end playing with the goat... the other party?

i also find the second part sexual in terms of the vaccination, the overgrown greenhouse, the weeds growing higher than the garden... the domestic setting of you cleaning up etc representing one side of you/or one version of how you see yourself... ie., unsexual.

to me both parts seem related to the same theme... SEX!

 

[Forever_S]

Last night I dreamed I was in this quaint little church - except it wasn't a proper church it was more like a small library. There were people in there and they apparently practised a different form of christianity to what we are used to. For instance the Vicar (?) and three others wore pure white clothes - no not robes, but suits with ties and shirts and jackets and one even had a cloak over one of his shoulders and a white walking stick and white shoes. They were performing an elaborate ritual as I watched but I wasn't thinking "Eww.. religion sucks" or anything like that - actually it was more like occult ritual they were performing. About half way through there came a man dressed in blue and a sort of old style aristocrat wig, also wore make up and was white faced and apparently his name was "cake" . The vicar (?) shouted at him by name and asked him to go over but he did not do it, casting me a casual glance. I found myself walking alongside "cake".

So next thing I know I am at the entrance to a farmhouse with the same four people and "cake" who has lost his aristocrat wig. We go into the house to conduct some kind of investigation but end up just watching tv and lounging around and then sleeping together before leaving later on. (no sex btw)

Just before I woke up I found myself in a bathroom and was having a shower, I looked at the pool of water at my feet and a voice came from it which said "Do you know who I am?" Was a soft male voice.

I woke up around 4am with a name in my head that wouldn't go away and that name was "Pobus-Heart" or at least that's what it sounded like. No idea what it means at all.

 

[captainwack]

I was going to post this on the big/small thread but I'll post it here instead seeing as
the last post was quite recent.

I can't actually believe anyone else has experienced the big/small thing. It's something I think about from time to time but could never really put into words.

I used to get it alot as a kid just as I was falling asleep. When I closed my eyes,
the darkness had a kind of space to it, like being in a pitch black hall, but the hall felt like it was the size of the universe. At the same time I felt I was at the centre
of an atom, which kinda gave me a vast, out in the open/cosy, snug feeling!

It's really hard to describe. It was like I was hiding at the centre of the smallest
particle in the universe which also happened to be the most incredibly gigantic open space that could exist.

It happend again the other night, I hadn't felt that feeling for at least 30 years.
I can't tell you how strange it is to be telling someone else about this. I thought it was just me.

I was never afraid though, it was just so strange. The thing is, I always felt like I wanted to laugh every time it happened!

 

[rynner2]

Had the weirdest dreams last night - it would take an hour to write down all I remember.

It included coming home to find my house had been broken into by technicians who had to install some special equipment, allegedly to improve my TV reception...

Then there were episodes which involved great heights, with me failing to save pieces of heavy machinery, like large winches, falling off, and only just avoiding falling off myself, regaining my balance almost by an act of pure willpower...

But the weirdest part was a talking crocodile, quite friendly, who only seemed to want to dance with people, although deep down I still felt afraid of it...


Riddle me that little lot! :shock:

(I wondered if the croc came from something heard on the radio, but I can't find any recent croc stories on the beeb website.)