This happens to me a lot, now that I think of it, and this thread caused me to wonder if it happens to others.
If I fall asleep with the TV or radio on, whoever is talking becomes someone in my dreams, talking about something about which I have a strong desire to respond to. I try to get a word in edgewise, usually in some kind of disagreement or alternative point of view, but of course I can’t. It becomes increasingly infuriating, because (in my dream state) I think they’re talking over me or just ignoring me, and often I wake up in an extremely agitated state. Then I realize it was just the TV or radio.
I dreamed once that I had gotten the girl I was dating pregnant, and for some reason that meant we had to flee the country. I awoke from this doubly unpleasant dream to find Steve Miller’s “Fly Like an Eagle” was playing on the radio.
It used to happen a lot when I used a radio alarm clock. In one dream, I heard Steely Dan’s “Doctor Wu” (I kept my radio tuned to Classic Rock WZLX) and realized that it contained deep wisdom about the nature of the universe and our place within it. When I woke up a few minutes later I could remember that part of the dream, but none of the words that were supposed to have revealed so much. I went on a frantic search for the album over the next couple of weeks until I finally found it, bought it, and brought it home to listen to.
I was very, very disappointed. Nothing connected in any way to what I’d dreamed.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great song on a great album, but after that dream anything would have been a letdown.
Sure. Imus in the Morning was much more interesting, if less comprehensible, when filtered through a light sleep in the 6 o’clock hour. I slept with MSNBC on, and the best part was you didn’t have to look at Imus.
Reminds me of the joke where a guy kept a notepad by his bed, and had a wonderful dream with the solution for world peace, the answer to what women really want, and a cure for baldness all rolled into one. Waking up, he scribbled the key part of the dream on the notepad, and rapidly fell asleep again. Waking in the morning, he remembered having the dream, but not the content. Eagerly he grabbed the notepad and written on it was only one word: Rhinoceros.
I have clock radio that awakens me to Morning Edition, so this happens quite often. The ones that get me are the dreams where the plot is quite convoluted (and seemingly lengthy), yet the story on the radio meshes perfectly with the dream and often provides some essential element to the plot. How does the brain DO that?!??
My sister fell asleep with the TV on A & E(she was watching the true crime shows she loves so much). She ended up with Dog the Bounty Hunter in her dreams.
Yeah, we wake up to early morning talk radio (Armstrong and Getty in Sacramento), so I wind up with current news stories or other stuff in my dreams. Happens all the time.
I don’t know how the brain does that, but my experience is like yours. The convoluted and lengthy plots also are the ones that get to me. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one.
Usually when you when you wake up in the morning you want to be well-rested, calm, and ready for a new day. But when I have these dreams, I wake up agitated; somebody was talking on and on without recognizing me, while I had a legitimate opposition to their comments. In my dream, I think that it’s a conversational situation, and that I am allowed to make comments, and that they should be recognized. Of course, it’s not, and I realize this when I’m fully awake, but still, there’s some lingering disquietude.
I don’t know if this is specifically the same, but when I fall asleep watching Adult Swim, I find my dreams often are more angry or violent, and it is usually when awaking to anime. If I leave Family Guy, Futurama, or whatnot, I don’t dream so violently. Often, I dream of video games, but in my dreams I am aware they are games and I’m playing them, not anything more…Usually this comes after months of non-play though.