What did you dream last night?

Quoting a NYTimes article today, about the Tuscon shooting,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/us/16loughner.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

"With “lucid dreaming,” the dreamer supposedly becomes aware that he or she is dreaming and then is able to control those dreams."

I'm aware when I'm dreaming of having concerns, urgent but not really scary, more that I'm hoping for some outcome from a scenario, but while I'm hoping in my mind about that, the "plot" skips along to a new matter. If I had to categorize this, I'd conclude I enjoy my dreams. I don't remember, and I think I would remember, having a real nightmare*, whereas I have friends who have dealt, or not dealt, with them, are really shaken by them.

Because of my benign experience, I see, even in my dreams, my dreams as a show, or I do as an adult. I think I always did. So, it has never occurred to me to control them, even if I might wish for some outcome ephemerally somewhere along the way. I usually wake up with a 'wow'.

*well, there is the odd spider that flashes once a year or so in a way that wakes me up, that soon becomes clear is not real, but that is just that, a flash, not a sequential set of episodes. I think of that as a brain burp.

Have you considered trying to control your dreams?

As I've said before on this thread, I think of dreams as some kind of brain biochemical housekeeping, readying for a clearance sale (though perhaps I didn't say those exact words).

I had a really wonderful dream last night after a very sad day. Due to budget cuts, my supervisor, whom I respect and love as one of the most genuine people I've ever met, lost his job- because he's an ex-army, REAL teacher - certified in literacy and numeracy instead of something like IT...anyway...such a crock that they chose HIM to let go. But they had to axe someone.

I didn't go to the break room, which was where and when he'd broken the news to everyone else, I was in the library, so he asked to see me at lunch to tell me before anyone else did.
I think - I KNOW-he knew/knows that I depended on him and had sort of adopted him as my British dad since my own father's death.
He reminds me of my father - ex-military, strong, straight, substantive to the core- but kind, always fair and sensitive to a fault.

Well, I was a cross between angry and sad for him and sad for the rest of us - including the men - who respect him and gain so much from just his presence in their lives - that I just started crying. We had one of those rare moments when two people just connect - no words necessary - just the look into someone's eyes that tells them how much you respect them and are happy that they've been a part of your world- and hate to see them shat upon.
He ended up comforting ME. That's just the sort of stalwart, lovely person he is.
I thought all the way home about what a wondrous thing it is when two people who probably never should have met - separated by a sea and a generation -still somehow meet.
That was my day yesterday.

So last night, I dreamed this lovely dream.
I dreamed that I was walking through the gym of a school I once taught in. And I was about to walk out the far door when a man on the bleachers called me back and said, 'Aren't you going to speak to her?'
I asked, 'Who?'
He said, 'Her' and indicated a little girl sitting on the bottom bleacher.
It was Mindy - my son's friend when they were both five or six - who I haven't seen since we moved away when they were both small children.
But even at that age - I could tell that she was genuine, real, strong and kind to the core.
She was just substantive - to the core- from the time I met her- which was when she was four years old.

I was so happy to see her. I took her face in my hands, she looked into my eyes...and that was the dream.

I called her mother tonight. She just had her first baby in November and is doing well.


This is her- she's the serious, pretty little girl with her mouth closed standing end right - next to my son:

A:
Invariably
every time I read something you've written
you reveal to me
some new aspect of you
unexpected
except for the part of me
which expects that
invariably
every time I read something you've written
I shall see something
something new and wonderful.
====
the girl in your dream is not your son's friend.
'tis you, my dear, the part of you
the best part of you
which shall sail past this latest scene
with all the best parts of you intact.

Joe(be well)Nation

PS You were right about David.

Wow Joe-sometimes, many times -life gives you just what you need, just when you really need it.

You can't know how much this resonates with me and how much I needed this right now. This past year has been THE saddest and hardest of my life.

As Barry, my supervisor, intuited (sort of - I talk to him all the time- so he also listened) I felt like I lost my anchor when I lost my dad.
I didn't feel that I'd ever emerge from my sadness intact.
But I think I am beginning to - and I believe you when you say I will.
Because you're just one of those genuine, real, strong, substantive people.
I bet your kids feel about you as I felt toward my dad.

As far as David goes - Yeah - see?! Didn't I tell you?
Next time I'm in NJ - I'll come up to the city and maybe we can all have a beer together.
That'd be a real and genuine experience - wouldn't it?

I wish you well too - always.
Thank you - Rebecca

Dreamt of a young man - looked a bit like Ashton Kutcher but seemed, heh, smarter. It got -- ahem -- earthy -- rather quickly.

Very sporty dream night last night.

First I dreamed that my mother was playing basketball. I have never seen my mother play basketball, but last night I was watching her run down the court toward the other basket and I thought, 'Damn - she's GOOD! I only saw her run and dribble - I didn't see her shoot - so I don't know if she made the shot or not.

Then I dreamed I was roller-blading with my dog on the leash pulling me. This is something I also do in real life - but only on flat, paved roads. In the dream, we were on a dirt path in a garden and it was a steep hill.
I baled half-way down the hill when I was losing control and knew I would fall and dove into a row of corn - the stalks were only about a foot high yet.

I rarely dream (or at least remember doing so) of real people I know. So this morning's dream including my stepbrother Travis, someone I have seen or talked to in over 10 years, was surprising.

It was a minor nightmare. He was a grade higher then me in high school but in the dream we were in the same science class. TO get to the point of the dream, I was panicking about an oral report due in that science class the next morning that I wasn't aware of until that evening (the time in which the dream was set).

Oh and I rarely if ever dream these type of school melodrama dreams. Let alone ever dream of them 20 years after high school graduation.

I was in a rowboat contest. There was an announcers, or maybe two announcers, broadcasting the event. It was just me and another guy in another boat. But, here's where the dreamlike action takes place.

The announcers were saying that in this kind of race "The participants take an unusually long time to prepare because of how long the race is."

So, I was very carefully coiling ropes and stacking boxes (food?) on the bottom of the boat and watching out of the corner of my eye the other boat.
He took off.
But I still had things to do. I undid one line and then started coiling more ropes. I noticed then that my boat had drifted downstream to the end of the rope still holding it. The announcers were saying that I would have to row hard to get back upstream and I was about to when morning arrived.

(This is the kind of dream you hope will have another chapter tomorrow.)
Joe(I want to row!)Nation

I had a dream way too long and complicated to recall everything. Two things I do remember is that at the beginning I was presented with something that had no apparent purpose, but I said to myself, "I'll hold on to this". At the end, whatever this object was ended up solving the entire story of the dream. Second, and best of all, everyone found someone to fall in love with!

ok.

I don't remember all of it, and am prolly better off for it, but...



two russian guys were searching the cabin as I returned home, looking for...

a very long ago ex's underwear.

and just as I was throwing them out as being crazy, they found them. but they were red cotton. thick like a diaper. and large. (she was petitish)

they got very excited, and started muttering in russian. it turns out that there was, written in faded ink, a diary on the inside. (in her flowing script)

I woke up before I found out if it said anything about me...

Rockhead: What a poetic brain!
Joe(symbols within symbols within symbols)Nation

I slept in, and I generally have dreams that I remember when I let myself do that. This one was funny. It changed and morphed as pre-wake-up dreams tend to. I remember the last part a little. I was with a small group of people trying to save mankind for aliens (think V). The aliens were, however, stuffed animals (WTF?). Different fleets of types - stuffed animal cats or stuffed animal alligators - were carrying pods of humans off earth. We tried to figure out how to save them. Someone hit on the idea of slicing open the alien bodies. Since they were stuffed, this didn't kill them, but it allowed the weight of the pods to pull the animal bodies apart. Then there was something with water, so we had to figure out how to drain the pods.

I wish I remembered the rest of it!

This is a great collection of dreams!

This is really long but I just have to document it 'cause it was so vivid and I remember so much. (I blame the Neo Citran I drank before bed.) It was like a documentary length commercial.

It opened at a carnival -- rides, games of chance, cotton candy and people trying to sell you stuff. This guy had come up with some new fangled broom that would clean any surface -- he had a checkerboard of different surfaces and he would sweep all of them, including a square of carpet, to show how well the broom worked. The broom was really rough looking -- the bristles looked like twigs with bark still attached -- and yet it was doing a really good job and people were gathering to watch and seemed interested.

Out of the crowd comes a guy with an oil spotted paper bag and he dumps a half dozen jelly filled doughnuts onto the carpeted square and gives the broom salesman a triumphant grin. Well, the broom didn't do too well cleaning up the doughnut mess, but then another guy appears carrying a small goat. The goat starts eating all the doughnuts and even licks the carpet until it's totally clean. The broom guy and the goat guy agree to develop a breed of goat that stays small and likes to clean carpet. Soon everybody has a carpet cleaning goat.

The commercial is serialized and follows a young couple as they purchase their fully carpeted sprawling suburban dream home. They have a carpet cleaning goat of course and the carpet always looks great. Years pass and the wife has a son and he plays with the goat. As the son grows up he and the goat are getting pretty rough and tumble -- the carpet still looks great but the furniture is taking a beating. Last scene the son -- about 6 years old -- is sitting quietly on the sofa looking at a large picture book and following the letters with his finger as he sounds out the words. No goat in sight.

The announcer says in a deep, sincere, serious voice:

Ritalin. Because you can always borrow a goat.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best.dream.ever. I woke up laughing. Didn't even try to explain why to my better half. May have to lay in a supply of Neo Citran.

Movie rights! Dibs on the movie rights!

I would be honoured to have you write the screenplay, Joe. Just give me credit as a creative consultant, or something ...oh, and maybe a 20% cut. (We could call it "The Men Who Stare At Carpet Cleaning Goats")

Tai (Maaaaaa) Chi

Yet another reason why I love A2K. Ritalin and carpet-cleaning goats.

Ok, you nailed it, the nature of dreams...

My dream last night was weird. I wish I remember more of it. There were different parts. All involved a sort of tattoo-carny family. A dark haired woman with braids and tattoos, a child, members of the troupe in and out. A brightly and eccentrically decorated upstairs apartment. A sense of the surreal. For example, there was time/space travel through gossamer tunnel/portal/wormhole. A sense of suffocation until the gossamer lifted. And there you were in a new world with softly green grass and wildflowers...... There was a man, a father-figure, also with dark hair. He didn't play a strong role. Then there was the sense of a long time. And a return to the decades older family through... teleportation maybe. A younger girl who you are lead to believe is your own, long lost daughter is there.

My dream must've been pretty good, because I didn't even get up like I usually go to pee all night long. It's the very first time in many decades.