Last night I had the strangest dream experience that I’ve ever had in my life. I was having a dream and woke up the the middle of it. But when I was finally able to get back to sleep, the dream started up again, exactly at the point it had left off before. This happened at least ten times last night before the dream finally ended.
Has this ever happened to anyone else?
No (I have gone back into dreams after waking, but not at the same point. I wish I could sometimes!), But lately my dreams are far more strange than that.
Lately I’m having dreams where my logic and perception seem to be impaired. It’s very difficult to explain but basically I’m seeing very weird ideas/concepts as completely normal during the dream. I don’t mean like seeing elephants riding bicycles, I mean like not understanding abstract concepts properly. It’s like I’m insane in my dreams.
This happens to me a lot if I sleep in the afternoon. For some reason, mid-day dreams are extremely persistent, and if I wake up for something (someone’s dog barking, car alarm going off) and fall asleep immediately thereafter, I will very likely resume the dream. But my mid-day dreams are always a completely different experience than my night-time ones. More vivid (which is saying a lot), and more numerous.
My recent odd dream experiences have involved dream-history. I will dream a normal (for me) dream covering events over a day or so, but when I wake up, I know the complete history of everything preceding that day - who the complete stranger was, how I knew him, what he did to me four years before the dream, how many sisters he has, etc. All stuff completely unrelated to the dream.
All the time. When I wake up, one of the first questions (right after “do I have to pee?”) I ask is “Was that dream good enough to go back to?”.
Generally, I can’t remember by the time I’m conscious enough to ask that, but when I can and it is, and I manage to get back to it… ahh, it’s like TiVo for the mind!
Regarding the remembering-backstory-from-dream thing TellMeSorryButYesYouAreCrazy mentioned: From my limited research on the topic, it’s my opinion that this is a perfectly normal function of the human mind.
The brain likes to make connections, and to fill in details, as a way of making the observed universe more understandable. As an example, the Visual Blind Spot. You don’t notice that there’s a big hole in your vision where your optic nerve connects to your retina and there’s nothing there to sense light, because your brain ‘extrapolates data’ from your surroundings and fills in that hole.
This same ability comes into play during many hypnotic regression experiences. The patient/victim recieves a suggestion that something happened, and believes it… so their mind ‘makes it true’. Maybe Uncle Bob never really existed… but, with the right coaching, your mind can make up years and years of history about things you and he did together.
So it’s not surprising, to me, that the same thing happens in a dream. Character X appears and does Action Y, and for that to make sense History Z is created, subconsciously and instantly.
This ability is also wonderfully handy to use when one is writing stories.
In answer to your query, Euty; yes. I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do, they are quite vivid and in real-time. I apparently use my dreams as a means to solve real-world problems. I can re-dream the same dream until there is a workable solution to my real-world dilemma.
Yeah, I know it’s weird.
Extremely often. I usually don’t wake up a whole lot in between installments, usually just enough to look at the clock.
Yep, quite often.
Oh for sure I usually want that to happen because I love having dreams, “the minds theatre”.
Usually it doesn’t happen and that always sucks especially if it’s a good dream, sometimes I can make it START up again if I lay down and think about what I was dreaming about until I fall asleep.