Dream Journal

[Hand-E-Food]

I'm surprised I couldn't find a thread on dreams here. As a comedian once said, "You think your dreams are weird, yet falling unconscious for eight hours and hallucinating daily seems perfectly normal to you?" It's not often I have dreams I can remember, but I had a nice lucid one the other night.

I was walking along in my neighbourhood before most of it was built. I walked past a steep dirt hill and there was a lot of wind about. I jumped up in the air. The wind currents swirled around like a small tornado and, catching my jacket, raised me several metres above the ground, letting me see over the hill. I slowly fell to the ground again, spinning as I did. That was awesome, so I jumped again! This time the air pulled me up a lot higher, maybe 20 meters, then the wind died. I was falling a lot faster than I liked, so I woke up.

I promptly fell asleep and started dreaming again.

I was back in my unfinished neighbourhood at a bus stop, waiting for the bus. (These things need to be clarified in dreams sometimes.) My dad and a friend of his showed up as well. They sat down on collapsible camping chairs. I started telling him about my dream (see above) but he ignored me and started talking to his friend. Then both their chairs collapsed at the same time. Serves them right, and I woke up.

[killerzzz]

I think I've started at least two (threads), though I can only find one (and I've related some dreams on other occasions).

The Dream Inside The Dream.

But it wasn't a general dream thread. I started with a real trippy dream, then gave my brief theory on dream function, we shared a couple dreams, and talked about lucid dreaming (I think Flix started that discussion and gave some theory and ways to pull it off).

We definitely need an official lasting place to dream-talk though, so when I have another good one I remember, I'll put it here! ;D

Killerzzz

[Galadriel]

I know a little bit about dreams since I'm interested in what dreams can mean for someone. but I have no experience in lucid dreams.
Before I used to have dreams that came through, but these were not dreams, more like nightmares, about accidents and stuff. Visions as I was told.
I also had a long period of time that i dreamed about my grandfather, I saw him on a beach far away, out of my hearing range, but I could see he was walking towards me with his arms open.
My grandfather died after a year of pancreas cancer, by that time i just joined the army and never went to see him. When he died, i carried such a big weight of guilt with me when those dreams started. No matter how hard I ran to hug him, he always stayed too far away.
When my great aunt was dying, i went to see her, all though i wasn't allowed to take such a trip cuz I was less then 3 months pregnant and had to lay down to avoid a miscarriage.
I held her hand and told her she would be with my grandpa soon, walking in Budapest (they're both born there and she missed her home country). I asked her to give Grandpa a hug and she kinda smiled. A few days later she died and I think the guilt feeling stopped as well cuz my last dream about him was where I could finally hug him and tell him that I was sorry for not visiting him when he was ill.

Nowadays I have my self made dream catcher in my bed room and I didn't have any visions about accidents either. I'm glad about that, because some of them were soo bad that I got scared of going to sleep.

Keeping a dream journal is an interesting idea Killerzzz, to find out why you dream the things you dream. And one piece of advice, don't listen too much to Freud's dream analyses.

[killerzzz]

Jan 14, 2010 8:42:32 GMT Galadriel said:

Keeping a dream journal is an interesting idea Killerzzz, to find out why you dream the things you dream. And one piece of advice, don't listen too much to Freud's dream analyses.

Don't worry, I don't. ;D

"So, doctor, I keep having this dream of being on a train that goes through a tunnel. What does it mean?"

"Well, Client, it seems you have some mother issues."

"Really? How do you figure?"

"Well, you see, the train entering the tunnel is the action of sex (train being the male privates and the tunnel the female). You are being brought into the tunnel, like sperm to the egg, where you will be born. You seek the comfort of the womb and wish to return to it. You feel abandoned and can't handle the pressure of the world. You--"

"Yo, listen, Freud, I'm real happy for you, and I'mma let you finish, but I just remembered I went on a business trip last week, on a train, and it broke down in the tunnel. It was kinda creepy in there, so its probably just nightmare-memories of that."

"... Nah, you got sex and mom issues and stuff. All that dream stuff is symbolic.... and things..."

"--but Charles Darwin was one of the best controversial theorists of all time. OF ALL TIME! Plus, his stuff actually made sense."

"... Well crap, what do we do now?"

"How much time I got left?"

"Like, half an hour."

"Wanna... play Clue?"

"... yeah!--"

"The lead pipe is not a penis."

"... fine, but Mrs. Scarlett's promiscuity is because she is a healthy individual who has come to terms with the fact that she can't engage in an enduring relationship."

"Whatever."


-----------------

On a different subject, I'm going to try an experiment on myself! (yay! 'speriment! my favorite gum flavor! )

I'm going to try to think of worlds of sci-fi and fantasy I've created and place myself there before going to sleep. I did this a few nights ago and had two (that I remember) dreams that had trippy fantasy and sci-fi settings.

Begin experiment Dream Genre!

Anyone wanna try it too? Perhaps with different genres? Making your own stories to think of, or putting your mind on ones already made?

Unfortunately, the dreams I had weren't coherent or interesting enough to record here. They don't live up to the real doozies! ;D

Killerzzz

[Elliot Kane]

Trains can also represent a journey - be it metaphorical or actual. Maybe not in freud's case, but he seems to have had a LOT of sex-related issues. I'm not sure he ever saw anything that he didn't relate back to sex in some way...

[Cat]

I actually think a lot of Freuds work holds a lot of validity.

Just sayin'

[Elliot Kane]

Well, he IS the Father of Psychology. I'm certainly not trashing everything he ever wrote (I'd have to actually READ it before I could even attempt that) but like all of us he was not always right. Which is all I'm saying, really

[killerzzz]

I'm not against everything of his. Just his dream theory, the Oedipus complex, the predominantly sexual aspects of subconscious and repression, etc. ;D

Though I have nothing against the Id, Ego, Superego, or the concepts of subconscious and repression in general.


On another note, I had another interesting instance of what I label the "Anxiety Dream" (nice label, mirite?). I dreamed that I had a responsibility to two different 'institutes' (I'll call them) and didn't have time to do either, let alone one. So I basically had to choose which would be done late, and which would be totally abandoned, while feeling crappy about the whole situation (understood to be my fault in the background of the dream-story). I'm all stressed and panicking and I leave to one of the places after making a choice, then figure out I went far in the wrong direction! Crap!

At that point, I started waking up and things started falling apart. I decided to fast-travel via my Dragon Age-esque map, then woke up.

I have several things to do in a short amount of time, and its kinda stressful. And that's what the dream means. ;D

Killerzzz

[rockergrl]

If I have a really good dream sometimes I like to type it up on Word then save it on a disk so I can look back and always remember it!

[killerzzz]

Woah! I had a craaazy dream-related experience last night. Like soooooo crazy that I can't even say what it was...






Okay, so here's what happened.

I'll bold the important part at the bottom if you want to skip my narrating, but I'll start with the dream.

I've been having strange ones lately. Two nights ago, I was a government agent who discovered that a midget government official was a traitor to his country. So I had to escort him back to headquarters. Unfortunately, he cut me on the knee with something causing me to bend over in pain, and his equally midget lover sprang from the darkness to stab me in the neck with a poisonous dart/syringe. I have just enough time to pull it out before the pain and paralysis begins... and I wake up.

However, that has nothing to do with anything.

Last night, I had a delightfully terrifying dream about being in a hotel that was beginning to be overrun with a sort of zombie plague. Problem with this one, as opposed to the traditional one, is that it is an airborne virus. However, certain people are immune to it, and others just get affected by it later on. For the immune people, the only way to get infected is the traditional bite. Hey! I just realize that that's sounding a bit like I Am Legend! ;D

The first signs of infection is swelling, most noticeably of the face, and blanching of skin. Eventually, mental functions break down and you get living-zombies. The slow staggering kind, and swollen too. If a zombie is around long enough, it might lead to Resident Evil-esque mutations, like becoming hulking monsters or becoming running-zombies. I seem to remember the idea of the dead rising to become un-swollen zombies (that probably didn't mutate) - yes, as a character in the story I was worried about it, but never encountered it. Bodies got too ravaged to come back to life.

So I must be part of a military group, cuz I'm in that hotel with soldiers, and we're packin' heat. I mean, we got machine guns, grenades, rocket-launchers, all the good stuff. We're also falling in numbers, and keeping an eye on our allies for swelling. Some civilians trapped in the hotel either die, or join the fight - the place is quarantined. Over all it was a pretty cool dream. I mean, scary, but kicking zombie ass is just great in so many ways. ;D

Fighting my way around the place, I eventually get to the top, and discover that someone, or something, released this virus on purpose. This someone/thing looks like a person, but acts un-human, even Terminator-esque. And then he sets his phaser to stun or something, and blasts me, paralyzing me while he reveals his evil plan. How cliché of him, am I right? The hotel was a test, and now he's going to wipe humanity off the face of the earth with the virus. Most uncool. Then I white-out (not black-out, everything goes white for a bit). When I come to, I'm still there, and the guy-thing is gone. I look out the window into the fading day to see, stories down, hundreds if not thousands of lookie-loos wondering what's happening inside the blocked-off hotel.

I hurry back down, cleaning up the last of the zombies as I go. Looks like we got some reinforcements or something. So I think. But I don't see any soldiers either. Where'd everyone go? I get down, and the doors to the place are open. They think the situation is over and contained, since the chaos is over. I walk out, wondering if I dreamed the whole thing (hah!). Then, as I go through the crowd, I see the first coughing, the first discolouration, the first swelling. All over. In the hundreds. No... I need to get out of here. It'll be a massacre. It'll be utter chaos. So many, all around me, and I the only one prepared for what's to come. I can't stop them all. I need to get somewhere to regroup. But is there time? Then, I'm suddenly woken up by someone.

Now here's the trippy part. A trip that I'm sure would impress a guy on acid. Since I hadn't slept the night before, I was on recovery sleep, so when I woke up, I was dazed. I shrunk away from the figure that had woken me, not hearing what it said, still partly seeing the soon-to-be-zombie-infested city of my dream. I backed away, and pushed backwards into the layer of reality behind me as thought it were water, feeling like I went further than my bed could possibly allow. At the same time, the reality of my dream literally BENT and FOLDED around the person who woke me as they leaned forward. I am awake, seeing and feeling all this happen! And I know I'm awake, I just still can't recognize whose waking me because they are pushed into reality, and its folding over their face and body making them unrecognizable! I pushed away at this matter-bending being that is interrupting my slumber, but then the reality behind me into which I have retreated springs me back forward into the natural area of reality and the layers bending around the persons body break loose and go back where they belong too, allowing me to recognize the person. "Oh yeah, its you, I remember why you're here."

I immediately explained why I didn't recognize them right away and, obviously thinking I was completely insane, laughed at my explanation.

Anyhow, it was really cool. Really messed with my head at the time, but right after it was over, I appreciated how neato it was.

Killerzzz

[LaFille]

Looks like you were awakened during a deep phase of sleep. Or that your sleep takes you in another dimension. And also that you watch too many horror/action movies. ;D

[killerzzz]

I'm banking on the dimension thing. ;D

Mar 14, 2010 21:06:06 GMT LaFille said:

And also that you watch too many horror/action movies. ;D

How did you know?


Killerzzz

[Hildor]

I had a pretty interesting dream to analyse this night. It was so weird and bad that for the first time in my life I was happy to hear my alarm clock go off.


As far as I remember it all starts with me and some guys walking around at a party. It all felt like in a haze, as if being half drunk. We weren't walking around on the dancefloor itself, but in a hallway or something next to it. Probably on our way to either the dancefloor or outside. I am talking to the guys I'm walking with, not saying really much of any meaning (the usual party drunk talk) and looking back for my girlfriend, wondering where she stays because she was there with me/us. Then I see her quite a few meters back, following, but you could see that she had drank too much. The next part I remember is seeing my girlfriend, drunk, kissing in that same hallway with someone else. I know that I knew who the guy was during the dream, but I can't remember him anymore. I do remember that he was small and somewhat weird looking. And although he was socially accepted and had "cool" friends, I always thought of him to be "lesser" than me. Seeing my girlfriend kiss someone else, and especially thát guy, brought up the reaction I always expect I would get in that sort of situation: anger. Doesn't matter who was how drunk, you are going to pay for this. The next scene of the dream is me beating the living [Censored]out of him.

And I mean really beating the living [Censored]out of him. I did it with a good friend of mine from college. We weren't drunk anymore at that point. We knew very good what we were doing. We decided together to learn the guy a lesson and so we went to him and just started hitting him. I didn't even hit him first. It was my friend who started it. And I can still lively remember how strange it felt to see his agression. The way he hit the guy was so hard that it was surreal. Harder even than how they fight in 18+ action movies. The guy fell directly on the ground. But although seeing my friend's agression lessened mine it didn't prevent me from taking my turns at hitting the guy. My friend was the one who knocked him on the ground, I was the one who kept on kicking him while he lay down. That went on for a while until the situation became very serious. We had beaten up the guy very, very hard. It ended while I was still bussy kicking and my friend pulled me away. We had to run because someone related to the beaten up guy had seen us. Other people had seen it too but we didn't care about that. It was the related guy that made us run away. While we left I knew that we were "seen" and that there would be consequences.

And the consequences were as intense as the fight itself. Everyone was extremely shocked with what I did. I was in real trouble. First I found myself at college and many students who where the guy's friends were very angry with me. One of them talked and yelled at me. He warned me that there was a group of students waiting outside to beat me up. I asked him terrified what I had to do, but I can't remember the answer. The next moment I found myself at my grandmother's house (God knows why). I know now that the beaten up guy lies in in the hospital and something very bad, probably legal prosecution, is awaiting me. My family enters the room and they are all angry at me. I remember one aunt shouting at me and me shouting back that I would say or do nothing before I had spoken to my parents. My grandmother was crying, dissapointed with me and afraid for what had to come. I tried comforting her without succes, saying everything would be alright, which I didn't believe myself. The last thing I remember is wanting to go apologize to the parents of the beaten up guy who were just leaving the hospital. And so dearly wanting to speak to my parents about it.

And then my alarm clock went off and I had never been so relieved to be awake before.


What I find so very strange about the dream are three things:
-My girlfriend wasn't really passionately kissing that guy. It was a drunk, floppy kiss. That made me not angry with my girlfriend but with the guy who was kissing her. Also, I trust my girlfriend absolutely. There's nothing stronger than my trust in her. Why do I dream about her cheating on me, drunk?
-How agressive my friend from college was. He didn't act agressively or shout, he just hit the guy extremely hard. I can still feel how terrifying it felt.
-How I wanted to speak my parents so dearly after I knew that those bad consequences (legal prosecution?) were about to come.


Where the hell does such a both violent and terrifying dream come from? I have never been in a fight or wanted to be in one, by the way. I like voilence in films like 300, not to do by myself. If an agressive situation comes up in reality, I try to chicken out.

[killerzzz]

Hmm, let me put forward a theory that may seem way out there.

You may have some anxiety/fear (conscious or unconscious) of messing things up for yourself, your life, and disappointing everyone in the process, leaving everything out of control.

(in short, have you thought about or possible felt an anxiety of messing everything up? - or an increase of anxiety of any sort?)

Anger is something that is difficult to control. Your friend's violence is something out of your control too. Your girlfriend cheating is a context for the situation (dream plot more than real-world relevant). You taking part is you screwing up. Everyone being angry at you and legal process coming is more things out of your control and your whole life falling apart. You want to talk to your parents and others to regain some control, to explain, but you can't.

If you're under a lot of pressure lately, it could all represent a fear of failing (displayed in an extreme way in the dream).

That's just a possible reading. This is might be an extreme form of what I like to call the Anxiety Dream.

Any of that analysis sound possible? ;D

Killerzzz

P.S.: Try to think if any situations might link to a memory. Something you experienced or saw (even in a movie/book). Have you been to a party recently? Have you seen or heard of someone cheating (been watching dramas?) or drunkenly kissing? Watch something that might have the sort of beating you saw in your dream? All these need not be necessary, as dreams usually draw upon the whole of your experiences for plot, but often enough have at least some main point that is based on recent memory (again, my theories, I don't have any research by theorists to fall back on ).

[LaFille]

Yeah, I would go with fear and stress too as hypothesis, and probably also perhaps a need to vent or at least release some steam. Seeing how important and how strong the impression of the beating and consequences had on you, it looks like those aspects could be more "meaningful" regarding the cause than unfaithfulness from your girlfriend's part. It all also feels to me a lot of something to trigger a reflection on the other people's influence on the way we behave. Food for thought...

[Flix]

Wow, reading other people's dreams sure is uninteresting.

I dreamt about werewolves attacking my family the other night. I'd go into detail (it was a long and detailed dream, almost epic) but I'm afraid it would be just as boring for others.

[killerzzz]

Apr 8, 2010 14:56:00 GMT Flix said:

Wow, reading other people's dreams sure is uninteresting.

I dreamt about werewolves attacking my family the other night. I'd go into detail (it was a long and detailed dream, almost epic) but I'm afraid it would be just as boring for others.

See, I'm just fascinated by dreams! ;D

Probably because my life was so effected by them, especially when I was younger.

Though I do prefer ones that have some crazy trippy aspect/effect, even some normal ones I enjoy.

Consequently, if you feel an urge to share that dream, especially if its an epic (!), you'll have at least one interested reader. ;D

As you can see in the discussions above, some of us are reading into each other's stuff; Fille even read my long ranty one. ;D

Killerzzz

[LaFille]

One of the great things about the internet is that you have the option to pass over what's uninteresting to you without it to show to the emittor if you don't want it to.

Sharing one's dreams is sharing something very personal IMO and that's a big part of what makes it interesting to me; the entertainment value is a bonus.

I'm trying to remember what I dreamt of lately and I don't remember any storyline or setting as such. These days I fall asleep while thinking of something, have a relatively deep sleep I think (sometimes being awakened by stuff like my dog coming or going), then I wake up in the morning thinking about the same thing as when I fell asleep. It can be course stuff I try to learn, something that I'm working on or something that happened during the day, and not necessarily intense either.

[Alrik]

Dreamt tonight of Mr. Mike Oldfield and his - rather towards older pop songs oriented band - having a show - they were attached *standing* to some giant vinyl LP standing upright (on the edge) on the stage. Mr. Oldfield appeared to have limbs that were attached to his body like some sort of SciFi-version of Rayman, you know that guy from these Jump & Run games by Ubisoft.