Do You Dream?

Patiodog, I think Freudian dreamwork has long
been displaced by Jung - especially as it deals with dreams
& dream work. Jung did much more work than Freud WRT dreams.
Freud was looking at everything as if based on sexuality (or
conflicts thereof) While sex does influence aspects of our lives,
I can't honor a belief that it's "THE" influence. Maybe it WAS
for Freud! He did open a vast arena for study& learning, I credit
him that,yet I believe his own sexual issues interfered with his
neutrality in experimentation & judgment.
*You mention remembering a dream, your memory of it seems a
fond one. Sitting on a deck, on the lake. Calm. Why do YOU think
you remember it? Water in dreams frequently speaks to us of our
very own inner spirituality;are we immersed in it?, drowning in it?,
keeping a distance from it? What does sitting on a dock next to a
body of water, if water were to represent your own spirituality,
SAY to you?? Or, what does a runaway train suggest to you?
Perhaps an area of life that is "out of control" at the time?
Taking B vitamins aids in memory of dreams - just as alcohol
use generally disrupts dreams. I think we tend to see them as
meaningless because they do not speak to us in english.They
speak to us in symbols

Cheers, Babs! (Not really so grumpy about it as all that -- am just on a mechanistic kick right now as I try to absorb a bunch of science texts all at once. When I was acting and writing, my response would have been quite different.)

A question for you, though, since you've clearly thought a lot about this stuff: a runaway train is a pretty obvious symbol, I'd think -- but what does it say to you that a dreamer is not frightened by dreams which would, for most people, by nightmarish? This has always struck me as odd, esp. as my girlfriend of long-standing is, from my point of view, plagued by terrifying dreams...

I dont know if this is the right thread to post in ... I was trying to find some recent threads on dreams, dream explanations, but couldnt find any.

Ive always had dreams with convoluted narratives, kinda like adventure stories, sometimes good, sometimes bad, mostly just a jumble. Sometimes veering into the bizarre, like in the classic example when in my dream I saw a statue of Lenin with a red flag punting through the canals of Amsterdam (you know, moving forward like the gondola guys do, with a stick), while somewhere above the marathon crossed the bridge, with my father running in it. Classic because I remembered it and retold it - normally I forget my dreams, only if I recount them in the morning do they stay for a while.

Lately I have a lot of nightmares ... bad dreams. I keep having dreams about having stuff in my mouth - stuff that keeps me from being able to talk, or breathe, even. Like last night one. It was another awful, awful dream, but I've forgotten all about what the story line was, only remember this scene at the end. I was being held upside down, for some reason, and there was this open fireplace with a chimney (no fire), and instead of what was supposed to happen, the burst of air that suddenly came in sweeped all the soot from the chimney into my mouth. I had a black face, but mostly all this dry, dirty dust in my mouth ...

Other times in my dreams theres something stuck in my mouth that I cant get out, some thing or some substance, and I find myself tearing at it from inside. Trying to get some kind of paste or slime or something thats stuck at my palate, that I cant spit out, out with my finger or thumb. But it never works, cant get it out or theres always more, clogging up my mouth - dirty, rough, like sand for example. And sometimes, as its half-solid, I end up tearing at my tongue, tearing apart a piece or a strip of my tongue before I realise what it is, without, however, being able to tear it off altogether, so that the mess inside just becomes bigger. Had that several times, last night just a repeat of the elements, really.

I usually only remember my dreams if I'm woken up in the middle of one.

It's been 25 years since I've been a full time student, but I still have dreams about being back at school, forgetting my locker combination or class schedule etc. A few other people have told me they still have similar school dreams too.

have any of you ever had a "lucid" dream?

I agree, Joanne D., I have found messages for myself in my dreams--usually something not in the forefront of my consciousness but when I acknowledge it, I feel more at peace, more in touch with who I really am.
(sorry, just realized JoanneD's post was 7 months ago!)

As I have become older, I have experienced a new phenomenon of a kind of halfdream, just before I am really asleep, that is visually very vivid and colorful --no sound involved and usually a "still picture" not a series of events-- and it has a very high, amazing aesthetic quality, so if I had any physical artisitic talent, which I do not, I could paint a beautiful picture.

Anyone here know what I am talking about?

Dreams are great. They are one of the joys of life. I always look forward to sleep just incase I have one. Most dreams are forgotten over time but some still remain.They are such interesting riddles . There are tribes in East Malasia where the day starts by analyzing your dream with the chief of the tribe. Thats how important dreams are.

Dreams are also a gateway to other activities. The classic teaching being Don Juans instructions to Carlos Casteneda. Try to look at your hands while inside the dream. Once you achieve this, you can them start to have what they call. Lucid Dreaming.

Seems astro projection takes place at that fraction of a second between a waking state and one thats about to fall deeply into sleep. One of the most delicious realms I know is this area where you know your going to sleep or even doze off for a quick nap. Maybe the quick nap area is the most practical place to practice mind instruction befor ey ou go into the the dream possible state. tell your self to look at your hands, look at my hands, I'll have to look at my Hands, hands are what I look at Hands Hnads Hands Hands Hands, All I want is hands, Hands are Handy , I like my hands etc.................till you snooze.The best way is to give your hand a small irritation like a pin prick on the finger. Something that inflicts a constant reminder in which can help you with looking at your hands. Or any othr thing actually that serves as a reminder .

I wish that were true for me. Dreams always used to be, like, a random element in life - almost never did I remember them, and if I did, they ran the gamut of daydream-like softness to hectic adventure narrative to painful grief. But lately I've been having too many nightmares, and ended up remembering too many of them. Its part of why I end up not wanting to go to bed, postponing it - why I go to bed so late (well, I've always gone to bed late, but I still feel like it plays a role). Weird thing is, I dont have it when I fall asleep on the couch - we have this luxurious huge velvet-red couch. The bed in comparison is more like a prison. Postponing going to bed only makes it worse, though, I think ... cause I think chances of a nightmare are bigger when you are in bed till late, when outside its already light, I dont know why that is.

Thank you nimh, There must be something thats bothering you. Maybe it happened in another life. I would suggest going into these dreams with full gusto to solve a malicious little quirk that seems to think your not up to speed.

When people are very tired they sometimes begin to 'dream' before they are fully asleep. This phenomenon accounts for many peoples insistence that they have seen 'ghosts'. the usual term for a vision that one sees in this intermediate state is 'hypnogogic hallucination'.

Incidentally, a hypnogogic hallucination can also occur at the other end of sleep --ie. when one is waking up but is only 'half awake'.

PS
As I recall from my studies years ago, most people dream most nights.

The problem however is that when one is awake, the dreams 'evaporate' like morning dew in the sunshine.

If a dream is especially vivid or if, while we are newly awake, something pulls our attention to the dream, it may come flooding back before it has had a chance to 'evaporate.

When remembering one's dreams, it helps if you don't move. If you move, get up out of bed, you'll likely "lose" the dream more quickly . . .

This fact was mentioned earlier but people refuse to believe that they actually do dream every single night.

Yes, I believe that most of us dream, but forget them as soon as we open our eyes to the morning sun. c.i.

The sensory input of the 'real world' is, IMO, what drives the dream content out of the newly awakened mind. Insofar as 'moving' means getting out of bed and generating /experiencing a flood of sensory input,
what you say makes sense.

Wow.....surprised that this thread is still going.

Apologies if I'm repeating myself.....

My dreams often 'come back to me' after having been awake for several hours. I can usually remember the theme of the dream upon waking, but the details take a while to catch up.

Sometimes I wish those details wouldn't catch up!

I am also fascinated by the way people often describe their dreams using cinema terminology. Do you think the invention of movies has permanently changed human dream experience or just dream reporting?

I think 'cinema' came from someone's dreams.....Not the other way around.

We all dream, we sometimes don't remember them.

Most of the time, you can figure out your dreams, it's pretty much all right there, like a collage.

I've become pretty adept at figuring dreams out myself, thanks to my ever faithful dream interpretation book.

When i was a child, i was reading a magazine in school (a "scholastic" magazine) which posed a problem for a girl (you had been told at the beginning of the story that she was dreaming), and when you went to the back of the magazine to find out how she had resolved a very meaningful dilemna, the putz who wrote said that she should just wake up. I was p.o.'ed because of the cop out, but, weeks later when i started having a nightmare, i recalled this, and on the following nights when the nightmare began, i would just wake up. It works.

Over the years that followed, my "control" in my dreams got more and more elaborate. While in my 20's, i once dreamed that i was confronted by some gang members in St. Louis (don't ask, it's a dream, logic don't apply), and when one of them reached out with a knife and slit my throat, i mentally willed everyone to freeze, and then put my hand on my throat, healing the wound. I began, also, to take a run in my dreams, to launch myself, and although unsteadily at first, i would begin to fly. Thereafter, my dream would become one in which i avoided unpleasant situations, or danger, by flying out of harm's way.

Eventully, this all got more and more bizarre, and i lost either the ability or the inclination to control events in my dreams. I suspect this is not good for or perhaps just frustrating for whatever other than conscious portion of one's mind is active in dreams. But what Trailblazer wrote made me think of the sequel to all of this. When i gave up attempting to control my dreams, i started to have genuine "motion picture" dreams. I would be entirely a spectator, not even participating so far as to stand by and watch--it were as though i were in a theater. There were recognizable actors in these "movies," i recall that one "starred" James Garner, and another had Meryl Streep. This reached the height of absurdity when some of my dreams were animation--the backgrounds were watercolors, and the characters were furry little animals.

All of that ended years ago, and my dreams are more or less ordinary now.