Every once in a while, and much more frequently when I was a kid, I have dreams in which I become completely aware that I am in a dream. Often, I become irritated that I’m not in reality and try to jolt myself awake, either by slamming my head into something hard (in the dream of course) or trying to scream. The worst is when I have a dream within a dream, and I wake myself up only to another dream… generally I notice somthing in my room isn’t quite right, and think to myself “I must still be asleep… dammit!” I wish I could get myself not to panic and try to enjoy them.
Also, I can wake up from a dream, and if I’m enjoying it, I go back to sleep and pick up where I left off. Infact, I often hit the snooze alarm many times and check to see how long I have left to finish my dream.
And now, the question: Are these two phenomenon usual, or am I just a freak?
Yes sometimes I know I’m dreaming in a dream (I think). Yes I can OCCASIONALY go back to a dream where I left off, but not as often as I try to. And yes, you are a freak.
All spelling and gramtical errors are intentional.
I think this is called lucid dreaming, and it just indicates you are a little more awake than usual. It’s not too uncommon, but you may still be a freak.
Several times in the past I’ve woken up and was completely paralyzed. I was alert as ever, but I was simply too tired to physically move. NO MATTER WHAT I TRIED, I COULDN’T EVEN TWITCH. The first few times it happened, I’d just cease my brain and try to go back to sleep until I was rested enough to move. Eventually, I realized that I wasn’t really awake, I was dreaming that I was awake and too tired to move!
The last time I had any weirdness like this is when I had a bad break-up with a girlfriend, about two years ago, and nailed a bunch of cardboard boxes over my window.
I “woke up” at what I assumed was around five in the morning. I lay very still, letting the dream continue. I don’t know how many hours passed, in which time I didn’t question the strange longueur quality of the dream, until my friend Nick wandered into my room and scared the hell out of me. I asked him what he was doing in my dream and he just shook his head in consternation, everyone was a bit concerned with how I’d been acting recently, and told me it was three in the afternoon.
It was only after I was up and dressed that it hit me: if Nick didn’t come by, I’d have spent the rest of my life lying in bed, thinking I was asleep!
As soon as I realized it, I collapsed in laughter. My gasping explanation made me sound only more psychotic to Nick, but I still think it was hilarious. Those damn boxes, it was like I threw a blanket over my own birdcage.
I think there has been one or two threads on lucid dreaming. Try a search on it. (My computer is timing out tonight. It must not feel like doing searches.)
In the mean time, here is a sight with a little information on learning to direct your dreams when you become aware you are dreaming.
When I was a teenager I had a rather mundane dream - I was sitting in Algebra class. I then noticed that some of my classmates were from my old school, and realized I must be dreaming. I didn’t wake up immediately like I usually do when I realize I am dreaming, and decided to just walk out of class. I managed to get out of the school and walk several hundred feet down the road before I woke up.
My last nightmare was that there were two vampires standing on either side of my single bed, watching over me as I slept. A male and a female in their early 30’s, both completely normal looking except for their lengthened incisors and the diabolical look on their faces. It then occurred to me “There’s no such thing as vampires…I must be dreaming.” I remember struggling for literally ten seconds trying to wake up, attempting to use my legs to kick myself out of bed, but how typical: my limbs felt just like lead :rolleyes: They stood there with a smirk on their face obviously amused by my thrashing around. When I finally awoke I swear I could still feel them in the room.
Vampires?!?! Freaking vampires??? Pft! I wonder what my next nightmare will be. Frankenstein? The return of Count Chocula?? Gargamel? Are we all gonna do the Monster Mash?? :shaking head:
The way I learned to do it years ago was during a psychology class. The teacher said that you know it’s a dream because the scene changes too quickly to be reality; so several times during your (waking) day, close your eyes for 10 seconds then open them. Unless you’re in the Twilight Zone, you’ll be in the same place you were 10 seconds ago. Repeat to yourself “I am awake, I am awake, I am awake”. Do this for several days and there’s a good chance you will become a Dream Warrior[sup]TM[/sup], in control of your dreams. It’s amazing how much more confident I am the day following one of these episodes.
I can’t always control the dreams though, especially if I’m dead tired or have been on the jungle juice.
I usually know when I am dreaming, and once in a while, I get to “direct” the dream, by doing some things over because my previous idea didn’t work in the dream or pausing the dream so I can think. Am I weird?
I’ve had experiences in the past, but not recently, when I woke up and was completely paralyzed. It’s not that I was too tired to move, I just couldn’t. Actually, the last time I had it was when I was in the Army almost 40 years ago. Subsequently, I read that there is this phenomenon wherein a person upon awakening is paralyzed and cannot move. I forget the name of it, but it does happen occasionally to some people. Tiredness has nothing to do with it. A portion of our neuronal system is still asleep, that same part which prevents you from actually acting out your dreams.
I have them on average a couple of times a month, and BOY do I have fun… normally lots of sex, or kill people I dont like
I had a friend who could cause themselves to Lucid dream almost every night, but they didnt know how they were doing it
I had the paralysed waking thing aswell, its scary, and I lost all sense of time. I was probably only lying there for a matter of seconds, but it felt like hours, and my heart was in overdrive! Apparently its called “Atonia”?
A. Conventional wisdom: REM atonia is a normal function of the body. The muscles that move the body are “turned off” during REM sleep, which prevents you from acting out dreamed actions in reality. Non-REM sleep paralysis after waking up (“old hag”) is caused by a failure to re-activate the muscles immediately. Normally this condition lasts only a few seconds, but sometimes it can go for a minute, which causes a very scary feeling. You are damn sure you’re awake now but you can’t move. This is extremely unpleasant but at least not dangerous.
One term I’ve heard used to describe this is “false awakening”. I’ve had many lucid dreams, but only one episode of false awakening. I was fairly annoyed by it.
The best books on lucid dreaming that I’ve read were written or co-written by Stephen LaBerge. Go to Amazon.com and do a search on his name. You’ll come up with at least a couple of good books. The book called Lucid Dreaming is a bit older and deals primarily with the history of the investigations of lucid dreams, and their implications. Another one called Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming is more recent and has a stronger focus on the “how-to” aspects of lucid dreaming. I highly recommend both of them.
They are very interesting experiences. I have them an average of about one every month or two, but I used to have them much more frequently during my teenage years.
I’ve never had a lucid dream, but, upon waking, I’ve criticized ‘edits’ in my dreams…
When I dream, I’m not aware that I am dreaming. And that’s just fine to me. My dreams, the memorable ones, anyway (duh), are pretty damn hell ass cool. And Freudians would have a field day with them. One that occurs to me is a dream where I was a detective. A murder had occured at my hometown’s YMCA. I arrived at the scene, and asked the officer in charge of the scene what he knew. He replied, ‘Well, right now it looks like the cause of death was sexual destruction.’ Later on in the dream, I found a yellow wiffle-ball bat covered in blood and feces next to a creek. Subtext rules.
My dad has lucid dreams. One he had when he was young was the typical ‘falling’ dream. He realized he was dreaming, and remembered that he had heard that if you hit the ground before you wake up you die. He tried it out. As far as I know, I’m here.
As for ‘waking dreams’ (you’re like half-way awake, but still dreaming), it usually takes me like half an hour to realize that I’m dreaming, and then I’m just pissed cuz I could have been sleeping.
Anyone ever had a dream that involved drinking and/or drugs? I got good and drunk in a dream once. Waking up was just confusing.
While we’re at it, does anyone have inconsistencies in their dreams that you don’t notice until you wake up?
For example: in my dream, I might see someone I know while I’m walking down the street, and then I’ll see the same person again further down the same street. It’ll seem perfectly normal to me during the dream, but in that brief window of time after I wake up and before I forget the dream, I consistently have thoughts like: “wait a second…that was ridiculous”. Sometimes I spot the inconsistencies during the dream, and go into a semi-lucid state, but it usually the realization only comes afterwards.
My dreams suck. I have dreams that are so realistic I can’t tell they’re dreams. I work with my Dad on our farm, so alot of times I’ll dream I’m talking to Dad about what jobs I’m going to do that day. Also when I used to ride the schoolbus I would have dreams I was getting on the bus and riding off, and that was it. Nothing that wouldn’t happen in real life.
Sometimes, I’ll have a dream where it makes sense until I start to think about it. One time I had a dream where my sister was talking to one of my friends and asked me if I wanted to talk to them. She handed me the phone, and I talked for a while. I was having trouble hearing over the phone, so I said “Wait a minute” and all the sudden I was talking to them face-to-face! When I woke up, I thought it had really happened, until I started thinking about it and noticed I was talking on the phone part of the time and face-to-face the rest of the time. But most of the time, they’re really realistic.
