Dreams: What do we know about them?

I recently had a dream, but cant remember what it is /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif. Is there any research about it at all? Do dreams even serve a purpose? I mean, "it is purpose that created us,
purpose that connects us,
purpose that pulls us,
that guides us,
that drives us,
that defines us,
it is purpose that binds us
We are here because of you Mr Anderson, to"- anyway, are there any interesting facts about dreams? It seems to be one of those science topics that we dont have any info about just like black holes.

I have an online "dream diary" that I started in mid-2001.
The URL is http://safeco2.home.att.net/dream.htm if you or anybody else is interested.
On the front page, a link to Dream Forums Network is furnished.

I've heard dreams allow the brain to "debug" itself. The closest analogy I can think of is that the process is similar to deleting unneeded files on a computer and then defragmenting. I'll also add that I've dreamed up solutions to quite a few design problems I was unable to solve when awake. Fortunately, I remember a lot of my dreams so I was able to apply the solutions I dreamed about. I also have a lot of recurring dreams where I'm either back in high school or riding the subways to high school. I'm not sure what the meaning of those is though, other than maybe reliving one of the better times in my life. Even more interesting is that nothing in my dream appears as it does in the real world. Rather, the subways, the school, everything seems much more complex, elaborate, and larger than in real life, with many subtle layers. I've also had dreams within dreams where I awaken from a dream only to realize that I'm still dreaming.

On the flip side of dream are nightmares. I've had plenty of those as well. Nightmares of nuclear holocaust after reading Man's Fate, and other nightmares after 9/11. I had a particularly vivid recurring nightmare where I was on the upper floors of the WTC right when it started collapsing. It all seemed so real-the floor buckled, then a sensation of the entire building leaning, followed by the usual pit in your stomach sensation of freefall. Speaking of those dreams of falling, you always awaken before you hit the ground. It is a myth that if you don't you will die in real life. Whether this is true or not I don't know, but I have heard of people literally being scared to death, so who knows.

It helps to awaken slowly if you want to remember your dreams. Waking to a alarm clock or a phone call is the surest way to not only forget your dream, but to wake up less than rested. For those reasons, when I sleep I lock the door and otherwise tell everyone not to bother me unless the house is burning down.

BTW, good topic, Mags.

Thanks JTR! I now know twice as much about dreams before I read this thread. Maybe I dont remember dreams because I am always in a hurry to get to school in the mornings. My sister, mom, dad, brother screaming at me to wake up and its all gone. Someone told me once to write down my dreams, but gelling my hair, washing my face, brushing my teeth and eating breakfast is way too much to deal with. And some dreams, I cant explain what they were. Words didnt match them, and I have a very, very wide vocabulary. I seem to be in some colorless void, and I get this frightening feeling, and its like, I dont even know...

Also, is it true that if you have a sound sleep, you dont dream, and if you feel like you havent slept at all, you have dreams?

If you want to be able to remember your dreams you have to practice. Every day spend just a couple of min trying to recall the dreams you had in the last night. Do this right when you wake up, even before you get out of bed. For some, progress comes pretty quickly. (a month or so might be realistic for some) The more you work at it the better you get. A journal can help, too. You'll also need to bone up on interpretation.

Dreams are a way to 'hear' your subconsious, which never sleeps.

As to purpose, it depends on who you ask. Some will say that dreams are meaningless -- and some will say that they are the most important thing there is. I think that the truth lies somewhere in between. While I'm interested in what my subconcious may be saying to me in my dreams -- I know it's still just a dream.

A few years ago I worked at it and over a period of time I got much better at remembering my own dreams. I felt that it was worth the effort. I'm a lucid dreamer and I often have the ability to recall hypnogogic hallucinations, which doctors have told me is somewhat rare.

I very rarely remember my dreams. I do wake up to my radio, and get up earlier than I should for my teenage body. I wish I remembered more of my dreams in the morning.

I haven't had a dream in years.

[ QUOTE ]
Mags said:
Also, is it true that if you have a sound sleep, you dont dream, and if you feel like you havent slept at all, you have dreams?

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I think it's quite the opposite of that if by sound sleep you mean sleep where you wake up feeling rested. I've read that you don't awake rested unless you went into REM sleep. REM sleep is dream sleep. It takes anywhere up to an hour of non-REM sleep before a person enters REM sleep. On nights where I was constantly awakened, and didn't dream, I found that I might still be tired even after "sleeping" 6 or 7 hours. On the other hand, there have been times where I was dead tired, feel alseep immediately, entered REM sleep shortly thereafter, and felt perfectly rested on maybe 4 hour sleep. A consequence of dream or REM sleep is that you body makes lots of small, twitching movements. This is why dream sleep might not seem like sound sleep to an outside observer. Interestingly, a lot of higher animals also dream, about what we'll never know. My cats usually enter a twitchy state of REM sleep after maybe half an hour of regular sleep. For them the period of REM sleep seems to be shorter than for humans. My guess is that the more complex the mind, the greater the need for a longer period of REM sleep.

If you don't need to be up early on weekends that might be a good time to awaken slowly in order to try and remember your dreams a little better. It does take practice to actually recall what you've dreamt about but the insight gained into your psyche is well worth it.

I think there are some physiological benefits and a need for the body to enter the REM (rapid eye movement) state that occurs when dreaming. Brain waves are supposed to be different during dreaming. It seems like not getting enough sleep will suppress dreaming. I wish I could remember them better.

Geoff

I have managed to work out a few things about dreams for myself. I know that you can hit the ground in a dream. It works out fine. I dream in colour. I can use all of my senses in my dreams, including vivid smell and taste (no, it doesn't all taste remarkably like pillow /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif ). I know I can die in a dream too. I've got no problem with that.

Also, most nightmares (the ones about falling, being chased etc) can be remedied, even turned into great lucid dreams when you simply allow the "fate" to catch you. You soon realise that it has no power at all and you can take control from there. Great huh?

I love dreaming.

I wish I can do anyhting in a dream, which so far in my experiences, hasnt happened /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif. Bind, you can actually do what you want in your dreams? Wow lucky. So, how many flashlights did you have in your collection last night? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I'm pretty sure that dreams have a useful purpose or nobody would be having them. I agree with jtr1962 that REM sleep plays an important restorative function and without it a person wakes up feeling as if they haven't really slept much at all. I know I feel that way - on the nights when I have vivid dreams, I usually wake up feeling far more refreshed than I do when I don't dream.

For those who experience recurring nightmares of a type that actually wakes them up, they probably go through life feeling very sleep-deprived from their lack of uninterrupted REM sleep.

PW, what your saying makes sense to me. I have a mild form of sleep apnea and don't get REM sleep that I should. As I said above, I don't remember having a single dream since I was much younger. What you said works out in my mind.

[ QUOTE ]
Mags said:
I wish I can do anyhting in a dream, which so far in my experiences, hasnt happened /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif. Bind, you can actually do what you want in your dreams? Wow lucky. So, how many flashlights did you have in your collection last night? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha. My dream edc differs only slightly from my real edc. In my dreams I always have an arc aaa and a lionheart. That much is the same as in waking life.

Sometimes, however, I like to grab a Ken4 or something like that for a light that dispels all questions about spot or flood!

Yeah, in my dreams.

Years ago when I worked in technical theatre, if I was working tech at each rehearsal and performance of a musicial I would hear the songs so often that eventualy I'd start hearing the show tunes in my dreams. That's not exactly a nightmare, but depending on the show... it could be pretty close. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

What I am able to remember about my dreams is pretty entertaining. It's certainly stuff weird enough that I could never come up with it when I'm awake.

I don't know if I always dream in color but sometimes I remember the color of something in a dream vividly.

We all dream every time we sleep deeply. They key to remembering then has something to do with the intensity of the dream, as well as whether you wake up during a certain time "window" after they happen.

Dreams serve several purposes. One of them is involved with learning. When we learn a new task, our brain "replays and practices" the actions/concept, etc. in our sleep.

My dreams don't have regular feelings. Like I could be at fishing dock or in a school, and it does not feel like I am at a school or a dock. What I do feel is a feeling that I never really felt in the real world. I do remember the feelings, some times when I woke up that wired feeling that I do not know of stay with me threw out the whole day /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
When I am feeling sad or mad I try to remember the good feelings that I got from my dream and use them so I can get in a better mood. Some of these feelings are so overpowering. Some times these wired feelings that where in my dream can stay with me for days even weeks. A couple of summers back I had a feeling overdose, I was trying to remember a good feeling and I did but for to long. Every thing was different, my senses where unlike before. Every thing had a different smell, taste, touch, feeling. It was like in my dream(expect for the smell, taste, touch thing).
And then when I started school it went away. Still can remember that morning, it was sunny and couple of fluffy clouds where in the sky, the trees where still in full bloom.

I may have dreamed that I read the following about dreams: I *think*, many years ago, I read a paper that claimed that part of the reason for dreams is to work out conscious fears and troubling emotions, etc. It further stated that for that reason, if you don't remember your dreams, your sleep is more restful -- the point is for the subconscious to handle these things in dream sleep, not to pass it all back to the conscious again upon waking.

Whether it's true or not, I almost never remember my dreams, and the few times I do, I wake up rather less refreshed. Of course, some nights I don't remember my dreams, and also wake up less refreshed, so it doesn't mean much.

Like I said, I could be totally mis-remembering this, just a vague memory.

Joe

Dreams are also influenced by sound as your ears are always on. Nothing like going to asleep listening to adult swim on the cartoon network.

When I use to take 13 different pain killers I had amazing dreams. I would visit places, I even had smells, etc. I visited a few areas that were prone to flooding like texas and california. I would go outside and see what is in the parking lot. I then had dreams back in time right before I died or killed to be more exact. I will never ever, ever forget the time I was a cow boy and was killed in front of my wife. I got a phone call from a lady in Nebraska who said she had that same dream and was sorry for what happened back in the 1700s as she had nothing to do with it. That was freaking amazing. When I started telling this to my mom, she finished the story. Either she was in on it or it was freaking amazing.

I once had a dream where I was extinguished by a nuclear bomb. Let me go to my online dream diary and see if I can't snag that...BRB...

------------------------------------------------------------
April 24, 2002
I was dreaming I was back at my parent's house in Juneau Alaska. I was talking with my dad about dead sea animals washing up on shore. I remember saying "Last year, 54 dead {sea creatures} washed up between Sandy Beach and Tee Harbor. This year, there was only one." Right when I finished saying that, I became aware of an odd, low rumbling sound coming from outside, and I *knew* what it was. I thought to myself, "Oh {vulgar term for feces}, this is it!". About five seconds later, there was a blinding flash, a thousand times brighter than the sun. We had just been vaporized by a thermonuclear device! Right after the flash, everything around me quickly transformed or faded into pitch black emptiness, and I had the distinct sensation of floating or weightlessness. I thought to myself, "My God, that was a nuclear bomb, and I'm DEAD!" and then noticed that I didn't feel any pain at the moment of my immolation. I woke up with a jolt, looked around to be sure everything was as it should be, and then pricked up my ears to listen for that awful rumbling sound.
------------------------------------------------------------

I had another dream where I was shot in the head with a pistol. Let's see if I can go find that one now...BRB...

------------------------------------------------------------
AUGUST 17, 2001:
This dream happened while sleeping on a couch at 7 o'clock at night. The whole thing was spacey, but I only remember the very tail end.
I was in some kind of hotel or motel in north central Canada. For some reason I was removing & replacing items from my pockets, or maybe looking for something. I had various things in my pockets like a flashlight, keys, and an electronic sodium monitor that I turned on and stuck my finger with (it registered fairly low, only two dim yellow lights blinked on it). This was eventually replaced in my pocket along with the other items.

Some strange guy with a shopping basket was milling around, looking all weird. A muffled sounding radio or TV in the background was giving a weather report, and the announcer was saying something like "and today is the last day our average temperature will be at 76° before it begins its quick cooling plunge towards winter". Then I got to thinking I wanted to take a shower. So I stuffed everything in my pockets, and started looking for quarters. I pulled half a dozen or so bent quarters out of my carry kit (probably the lunchpail I use in real life), then looked around for my cane. Finding the cane, I went into the large bathroom past the front desk and locked the door.

While emptying my pockets out, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, someone standing in front of a wall urinator taking a whiz, and then I saw the guy with the shopping cart again. He was stealing an athletic jersey off a funny looking display dummy, and he gave me this odd look while he was yanking & tugging on it. He was wearing a white t-shirt at this time. I looked away, pretending to have not seen him.

A moment later, he came up next to me, and stood there for a moment. He had put on a yellow shirt over his white one. It wasn't the jersey he had stolen, but was from some other source. Then, he reached over and picked up a sterling silver lighter and some other silver accessory of similar size that I had set on a small shelf in front of me, and put them in his right pocket. I said, "Those things are mine" and he said "no they aren't, they're mine now". So I reached towards his right pocket, and he blocked, so I went for it with more "gusto". At that instant he pulled a pistol out of his left pocket and shot me in the head with it. I felt the bullet hit my right temple, then my sight quickly blurred, turned to grey, then to black. I felt myself fall backwards and somewhat to my left. All within maybe a second after the bullet hit.
Then I woke up.
Scary {vulgar term for feces}... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
------------------------------------------------------------