Tell me something about how you dream

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Inspired by Ask the guy with Exploding Head Syndrome

I’d say that most of the times that I dream, I’m aware that I’m dreaming. It’s pretty unusual that I sink so far into a dream that I accept it as a real experience.

Most of my dreams aren’t very visually stimulating. More often than not, my viewpoint is like a tv camera viewing the scene, rather then me looking out my own eyers. Even when I’m in the scene, I usually see it in the third person, and hear it in the first.

More often I dream of speaking, hearing, and holding conversations. The conversations are almost always with people I know in real life, even people I haven’t seen in many years. Or I think I know them – because a lot of times I don’t “see” them, but I either recognize the voice or I somehow attach the name of a person in my past to the voice.

Every one in a while I dream that my dream ends, and then I dream that I wake up. I’ve even cycled through this a couple of times – I dream I woke up, became aware that I was still dreaming, and dreamed that I woke up again, and realized that I was still dreaming… I’ve found this dream to be a pretty frightening one.

I very rarely have really scary nightmares.

Tell me something about HOW you dream, not necessarily about what you dream.

2

I am not sure if I dream in colour or black and white. My dreams are visual but somehow they are neither colour nor black and white. I couldn’t tell you what angle I see anything from either. I just experience stuff.

I often half realise I am dreaming, so for example, I know the dragon is just part of my dream and I am relieved that it won’t interfere with my plan to launch a rocket full of Spaniards to Mars, which of course is completely real.

3

I dream in the first person and in colour I think. I am nearly always very vaguely aware I’m dreaming so that even scary dreams are only scary in the way a movie is. I can’t control the dream though so I wouldn’t call it lucid.

I was recently having a nap in the living room on the couch and having a dream. Then I woke up and wandered into the kitchen. Through the kitchen window I could see some people walking around our front yard. I went to the front door and then realised our front door is not in the kitchen the way this one was and figured I was still dreaming. I woke up properly about then. I didn’t find that disturbing at all, more amusing than anything else.

4

I dream in color, first person and I am myself. I’ve experienced almost all of those things in a dream that some say you can’t do. I used to have falling dreams, until I hit bottom, then they stopped. I have been able to read in a dream a few times, mostly not. I had one dream I vivedly remember, with Terri Hatcher in a baby blue lace teddy, in which I could smell her perfume. Unfortunately my freind in the hotel room above me decided to do his morning exercises and woke me at an inopportune time. He did receive a sound bashing at breakfast for this! I dream of friends and relatives, past and present. Lately, I’ve been having dreams that are of epic movie quality, with perfect strangers in them. These tend to have me waking up tired. Years ago, I had one premonition dream of being on a Delta flight out of Atlanta and loosing an engine. The actual event happened almost exactly as the dream a week later, only it wasn’t a pretty brunette next to me, but another man. In my dream the outcome wasn’t as good as the real life one!

later, Tom.

5

First, I dream rarely, which is to say, I very rarely recall dreams. Maybe 1-2 times a year I will have even a vague recollection of dreaming.

When I do recall them, they are cinematic and have plots, a consistent cast of characters, and even “crane shot” sweeping camera angles. They are predominantly in the 3rd person (I would say always, but maybe I’m forgetting one…?)

Sometimes I think that the fact that I never dream, is one reason I have no fear of death-without-afterlife. Oblivion ain’t so bad.

6

I dream vividly and I’m often not aware I’m dreaming during dreams. My dreams are frequently unpleasant, often to the point where, when I wake up, I’m grateful that I was only dreaming.

7

In color with sound.

Sometimes in the first person, something in the first person as someone else, sometimes from a remote viewpoint.

My dreams rarely feature people I know well. Often they will feature people I haven’t seen in years or celebrities or just strangers.

Nightmares are rare unless I’m sick (fevers bring them on) or under extreme stress. Taking antihistamines can bring them on as well. Often they will be brief and linked to a myoclonic jerk. Spiders usually feature.

The non-nightmares are surreal to the point of being entertaining.

8

I always dream in first person, and definitely in color. (A red boat was central to a recent dream I had, and I remember it well.)

I seldom realize I’m dreaming, even though my dreams can be very surreal. They tend to change location suddenly and frequently. The locations are usually places I know, but not really; in other words, in the dream I might be at home, and I know it’s my home, even though it looks nothing like my real-life house. Nevertheless, I just seem to accept everything as it happens.

Some (maybe most) dreams are gone seconds after I wake up. But a few stay with me in vivid detail and can feel almost as strong as actual memories.

9

Here’s an example of a recent nightmare, albeit an extremely atypical one. I actually enjoy scary dreams – it’s like watching a horror film, except I’m the hero beset by the evil forces of darkness, etc. Under normal circumstances, the only dreams I find disturbing are those which recur night after night – usually an indication that there’s an obsession in my life that needs to be set aside temporarily, or permanently.

Most of my regular dreams are extremely detail-oriented, to the extent that they often derail the main thread of the dream itself. For example, a few nights ago, my dream involved meeting a gorgeous young woman, who invited me up to her apartment for some hanky-panky. While undressing, I glanced at my iPod and started browsing through the playlist: ABBA, Abbatoir, Abbadon Kikoskia (), AC/DC, Adam & the Ants, Aerosmith, After the Fire, Agent Smith (), a-ha, Air Supply (), Alice Cooper, Alien Ant Farm, Amon Duul, Amorphis, Ana Nicole Smith (), Anathema, Andrews Sisters, Anthrax, Apocalyptica, Apple Valley Village (), April Wine, Arch Enemy, Armageddon It (), Asia, Audioslave…

And that’s when I woke up. God, I hate when that happens…

(*) Yes, my “dream” playlist contains artists who don’t exist, or aren’t musicians, or are ones I’d never listen to in real life…

10

I have always had very vivid dreams, and a few years ago I taught myself to dream lucidly.
Now, with all of the stress in my life, I have a very hard time keeping my dreams from being frenetic and symbolic and I sometimes wake up tireder than I was when I went to bed.
I have been having the bad experience of waking at 0300 or so and having all of my worries come flooding through my mind. When I finally do get back to sleep I am sometimes able to sort of solutions through lucid dreaming, but usually I just wake in a state of background anxiety.

I am going to my MD for my annual physical next Tuesday and I intend to tell him about this. Hopefully he won’t refer me to a shrink.

I used to really love to dream.
Not so much anymore.

11

I dream in color and very vividly. Adter years of having ghastly insomnia and dreaming that I was lying awake on my floormat trying to fall asleep, I mastered lucid dreaming, making something so impossible happen that I would know I was dreaming.

Sometimes I will be thinking up a story in my head and I will fall into a light doze, and continue the story as a dream, my subconscious takingi t in a place I never could have imaged while awake.

12

I dream in color with sound and I’m myself. I have recurring dreams about places and usually only remember a dream if I’ve dreamed it before (dream deja-vu). I remember being aware of having a couple nightmares but I don’t remember what they were since they haven’t repeated. The only bad one that repeated was the tidal wave dreams where the wave loomed overhead but never crashed down on me.

13

I dream vividly every night and remember a lot of it. When I wake up, I enjoy trying to make connections with my real life that explain why I might have dreamed as I did.

A few nights ago I had a nightmare. I recognized that I was dreaming and tried to wake up but couldn’t, so I decided to try yelling myself awake. I could hear myself yelling and I remember thinking that I sounded like I had a speech defect, yet the nightmare continued and I couldn’t pull myself out until my husband started shaking me.

A few times this week, I have woken up at the very! Most! Important! moment of the dream. I’d like to know how my alarm clock manages that.

Gagundathar, my husband said taking calcium supplements before bed helped him sleep, but I didn’t like them because I thought they kept me from dreaming. If your dreams are disturbing you, you might try them.

14

I have several broad categories of dreams:

Movie Dreams–Mostly of the “foreign art film subtitled in a language you don’t know” variety. Vivid setting, people saying things I don’t understand (even if it’s in English), lots of staring at mundane objects that seem to be fraught with hidden meaning. People spout prophetic-sounding gibberish while dramatically lit. Then, there are the occasional “caper” films tossed in to mix things up. These dreams are usually in color, but not always, and involve watching from a third-person perspective even as I participate in events.

Theriomorph dreams–Dreams of being an animal of some kind, usually a bird (this is the only way I get flying dreams). They’re usually set in extremely vivid landscapes, but often feature altered senses, so colors look strange, or I don’t have a sense of smell. These are always first-person.

Nightmares–First person, and usually involve fighting something in the dark/fog/smoke. Things I can’t see hurt me, and I try to hurt them back. Sometimes they’re just monsters, sometimes they talk.

15

My least-favorite dreams are typical anxiety nightmares - I still have “exam anxiety” dreams - I had one last night, where I dreamed I had a class I’d been ignoring all term, and the exam was tomorrow. If I spent all day and all night studying, I might pass - but I didn’t own the textbook, I had no idea where the exam was being held, and I’d forgotten even which course it was - plus, part of me knew even in the dream I’d graduated from university twenty years ago … but I still felt the dread.

The odd part was, I enjoyed undergraduate university a lot, and never worried much about it when I actually went. I never have anxiety dreams about law school.

16

I have vivid, detailed dreams, in color. I experience sights, smells, sounds, (even completely unfamiliar and beautiful musical compositions), tastes, and sensations. I dream from different perspectives and as different people.

A lot of people, familiar and unknown, have parts in my dreams, with frequent celebrity cameos. I morph.

Sometimes I can’t figure out why I’m having a dream. It might as well be someone else’s, because the people in it and the way they feel and act are completely foreign to me.

Sometimes I dream in French, though it’s been years since I studied it.

I try to fall asleep at night visualizing interesting things that will transform into fun dreams. I have a fair number of nightmares. I’ve also had dreams that were uncannily close to what happened in real life later.

17

Sometimes I go to sleep listening to soft music through ear buds, and some piece of music I hear gets integrated into a dream.

18

A lot of my dreams involve fog or darkness, which is why I said in the OP that they’re not particularly visually stimulating.

19

I’ve had both the old fashioned dreams that are truly just visual, and I think they are real until they are almost over. But I’ve also had the dreams that are more like me just imagining stuff. There will be images here and there, but a lot of the time, I’m forcing stuff to happen, and I can’t even see it. In these, I’m usually aware it’s a dream.

And, yes, I also sometimes dream I wake up. I usually think I’m awake for a bit, then realize I’m really not, and try to wake up again. It takes a few cycles before I actually wake up.

20

In color and vivid, sometimes taking place in the established universe of some TV show but can be a computer game that I’ve been spending too much time with.