Made Of This

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1760856]

Comments

[andrewducker]

The context being a discussion yesterday in the pub :->

My dreams tend to be semi-random collections of images/concepts with very little connecting them. Very occasionally I'll have a little bit of plot, but by and large they're more like someone is triggering random points in my memory/imagination one after another.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Mine are mostly like that, unless I go back to sleep in the morning instead of getting up, which often triggers a proper dream, with a plot. My guess would be those who don't have such dreams are not getting enough sleep.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

A dream prompted me to align beliefs and actions, and so become a vegetarian. 17 years and counting.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

I have colour, but mostly in my dreams it is dark/dull/overcast/indoors or my vision is by some other means reduced (e.g very hard to open eyes, hair in the way, mist, smoke etc). I'm a very light sleeper, with high awareness so maybe my brain still 'knows' it is dark(ish) [I have excellent night vision, enough to walk about happily in your average unlit room/house even with blinds and curtains drawn].

Also machinery never works right - cars, bikes anything man-made and mechanical. I'd be fascinated as to whether sailing boats are affected but, despite having it as a hobby, I can only ever recall one sailing dream (and it was all inside the cabin). I don't dream of computers either (though I have dreamt I was a complier/inside the code a few times).

I have a frequent odd kinaesthetic-heavy dreams in which I am very aware of the minute shiftings of my muscles/bones/connective tissues - whether these are awareness of "real data" or not, I can't tell.

I also have almost totally abstract concept dreams. If that makes any sense. As in a dream that consists only of abstract constructs, like a less rigorous version of abstract thought.

There are almost never any overt memory elements in my dreams - excepting the occasional presence of people who are now dead (and I am always aware in those cases that it is a dream).

Apparently my maternal grandfather dreamt purely in back and white stills, like a series of photographs.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

actually, I'll have to upgrade the effect time to "longer" because sometimes I wake up with song elements and sometimes get up and write down/record notes or just get up and work on it. Or get up, note, go back to sleep, dream some more, get up again etc...

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm slightly disturbed by how close this is to what I was about to comment, particularly the not being able to see properly thing - I'm also a light sleeper, which lends weight to your theory that that's somehow related - often when I was a child I would try so hard to open my eyes fully to see properly while dreaming that I would actually open my eyes and wake myself up - which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be impossible.

Do you also lucid dream to some extent, that is, do you find yourself able to to some degree control your surroundings?

In my case I can nearly always exert some control over the dream as long I adhere to its 'rules' - I need to stay within the scope of the dream but I do gain some level of control including the ability to rewind segments to repeat them sometimes when I deem it necessary (usually due to things not working correctly). It feels similar to the amount of control one has in a computer game. I wonder because you seem to imply you can return to the dream you just left - is that true? I do manage that on occasion, although I usually find that I reenter it rewound a bit.

Machinery, check, kinaesthetic dreams, check - I don't tend to have particularly abstract, conceptual dreams, though, that's different. I have dreams that are not only connected and narrative but they have narrative themes that run throughout a night (I wake up a lot so I remember more dreams than is usual) and also there are certain settings that my dreams keep returning to with new stories, settings that are distinctive enough in mood and have their own physical laws to the point where even a completely different area or timeline will still be recognisable as that setting from its 'feel'.

Do you ever have narrative dreams that you aren't actually in - that is, your observing them as though they were a film (in my case sometimes with some degree of control over the plot, see computer game thing again)? I get this quite often. Usually I'm observing from not that far above, as though I was at the vantage point roughly equivalent to being a CCTV camera up in the corner of a room.

Phew! Erin doesn't let me talk about my dreams.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Hah, I could, of course, have actually looked at your poll answer, which answered at least one of my questions. The rest stand!

[dougs.livejournal.com]

I tend not to remember dreams, so I'm not competent to correlate any emotional effects with the existence or otherwise of a dream.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

My dreams have apparently extraordinary and complex plots, and a wide range of sensory data. Of course, once you wake up you notice that the plot lacks coherence.

I do have lucid dreams, and dreams I can control, from time to time, but not often enough to call it 'I tend to have'.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

I have two distinct types of dream, the first being a random collection of concepts (usually stuff that's been on my mind recently), the second being epic movie plots with lots of dialogue and actions (but no sound and sporadic images)

[recycled-sales.livejournal.com]

My dreams are usually more fun than real life. Funnily enough, having watched Sucker Punch last night they're a similar layered pattern - different stories segue into each other, with different bits referring backwards throughout but the whole thing always changing and developing.

If I could film them, they'd be blockbusters.

[zz]

i almost never remember my dreams. as in only about once a month or two will i even be aware of having dreamed.

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I'm like this, too: very seldom remember dreams. But when I do remember them they seem terribly intricate and often important. I was interrupted from one this morning that had a dozen characters and an elaborate set and a plot and sound and color and as it was going in an uncomfortable direction for me I was able to redirect it to someplace better. I only get a dream like that once every few months.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

I seldom remember my dreams. When I do, they tend to involve escape through flooded areas from pursuing threats.

[usmu.livejournal.com]

I've damaged my sleep cycle to such an extent I either wake up early or late and neither times I remember my dreams. It's been a while since the last time I actually remembered one.

This is bad in a sense, as it means it's been a while since I've not been behind on sleep. Remembering a dream usually means you've woken up just before your sleep cycle ends, as the last step is forgetting your dream, so that might not necessarily be good either.

As I'm half way through the day on 5 hours of sleep I'm not sure that makes sense.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you find that your damaged sleep cycle contributes toward you not remembering dreams. I believe that my damaged sleep cycle is exactly why I remember so many.

[kashandara.livejournal.com]

I'd concur that since I found a way to at least slightly fix my sleep cycle, I'm remembering dreams less often.

The iphone app I recently discovered that monitors how much I'm moving about and judges if I'm deeply asleep or not, then wakes me within a half hour window at the point I'm least deep seems to have helped alot with my alertness when it does wake me up, but seems to mean I'm less likely to wake with that 'just pulled from another reality' feeling so the dream memories aren't there so much. Of course, I've no idea if this is all just in my imagination and all that the app does is make pretty graphs to reassure me that it's ok for me to wake up now. Not that it matters as I do so like pretty graphs.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Interesting-- I don't remember my dreams very often, but occasionally something hours later will bring back some bits of a dream. I wonder if dreams the night before are generally affecting my moods.

Other than that, my dreams always have color, have loose plots, and occasionally have backstory.

[tysolna]

I also dream in two, sometimes three languages, and have heard pieces of music (without the radio alarm being on).

[redshira.livejournal.com]

Multiple languages and music in my dreams, too.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

my dreams are frequently so lucid and involved that it takes me several days to figure out they never actually happened.

this has caused many highly amusing situations where people I am very close to have to explain that stuff I'm convinced happened, did not. Because they weren't there doing what I dreamed they were doing.
This does raise the awkward prospect that I've had lucid dreams I still believe really happened*, and actual situations that I may have convinced myself were dreams**

i am assured this is not a form of psychosis. On the occasions that I have written down those dreams [which I remember quite vividly], the results have been frickin awesome. Or scary. Often both.

most 'normal' dreams, I have BlackAdder moments, where I go "oh, this is a dream, isn't it..." and then very strange things happen [somewhat briefly] before I wake up and think wtf?


* the ultimate example is my only memory of my father. I am assured by my mother and sister that it did not happen. It remains the single clearest memory of my childhood.
** including a car accident I thought I'd dreamed until asking my mother where a scar on my head had come from.

[fearmeforiampink]

I either don't dream in a normal way, or just never remember those dreams. I possibly have done in the past, but those might be the same type as I'm about to describe, I just can't remember them clearly enough to say.

I have fairly lucid dreams whilst I'm half awake in the morning. I'm aware of my surroundings, can and do move around a bit, but I'm not getting up, checking my phone, or doing anything that active, I'm lying there enjoying being in bed, my mind is going in various directions, and sometimes it creates a narrative. I'm aware of it going on and I have a fair (but not total) ability to mess with the narative.

But it's much more telling myself a story, with some imagining of that story happening, than full on feeling myself within the situation/dream/scenario.

Re: dreams

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Usually when I remember my dreams, they'll've had color & plot but not always. Any impact tends to fade very quickly after I've woken.

But I've had dreams that twenty years later I still remember parts of it and they still have impact.

so, a bit a difference between what usually happens vs. what happens rarely.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I dream in full 3D sound and colour. I’m not aware of smell i.e. I can’t recall if I experience smell in my dreams but I’m not aware of it missing.

My dreams tend to have strong narratives. At least, the ones I remember do. I don’t remember having dreams that are a random collection of images and sounds.

I am usually me in the dream but occasionally with greatly enhanced capabilities.

I used to have series of dreams. Each dream would be an episode in a longer narrative. These often involved trying to get to somewhere but always. The longest series lasted for several years and involved my brothers and I trying to make our way down a large, long flooded river in a forest. I can still remember images and scenes from it clearly nearly ten years on. Or I may have once dreamed that this dream was the last in a long series of episodic dreams. Who can tell?

I often have lucid dreams and when I do so I can step into the dream and control myself. I don’t remember changing the plot, other characters behaviours or the laws of physics but I may have done. I have lucid dreams more often when I dream during a daytime nap.

I don’t dream as often as I used to or I don’t wake up mid-dream as often as I used to.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Really depends on the dream. The dreams I remember have a plot of sorts, but only a very confused one which mostly exists to justify 'logically' the various absurdities. "That's Barry Took. Hang on, he died didn't he, about ten years ago? OK so I must have gone back in time. If I've gone back in time I must be Doctor Who, that makes sense..."
But nothing more coherent than that. I've certainly never had a lucid dream, unfortunately. (At least as far as I remember - I only remember maybe one dream a month, and that usually vaguely).
As another commenter said, if I wake up and go back to sleep I tend to have more coherent dreams.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

The majority of dreams that I can remember tend to be somewhat reminiscent of mid-80s Channel 4 dramas, in that they usually have that slightly blue-tinged lighting effect that makes everything look quite stark. Mostly, there is at least some element of trackable storyline, occasionally some characterisation, and on more than one occasion the dream has ended on a suitably Eastenders-esque note that has left me wanting it to continue.

There have also been certain mechanisms that have remained a constant in my dreams from I can remember.
* Doors will never be locked when I need them to keep out the nasty monsters
* But they will always be locked when I need to get away from the monsters in the room
* Cars never obey standard Newtonian physics
* In most of my dreams I can fly, but doing so always involves me running as hard as I can to maintain a walking pace until I get above the 1st floor, after which I am as manoeuvrable as a swift. Though there is always a ceiling consisting of clouds and telegraph wires which, for some gods-only-know reason, has always makde me think of 1970s Burnley. Which is odd, as I've never been to Burnley, and likely hadn't consciously heard of the place when I first dreamt it.

I have only ever once experienced lucid dreaming, and that was at once both eerily chilling and soul-fillingly magnificent.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of one particular occasion where I woke up, got washed & dressed, went downstairs, had breakfast, got my bag & books, headed out the door, got on the bus to school, got into school, sat down in class then thought "hold on, why am I in school? I'm 24 and working for a voluntary services organisation," at which pont I woke up.

[andrewducker]

I woke up from an exam stress dream to realise that I was 30-odd and never had to do any exams ever again.

I have never been so relieved in my life.