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Author Topic:   the dream thread
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 1 of 27 (450156)
01-21-2008 1:07 AM


looking over razd's "i have a dream" thread, it seems like there's some potential for some discussion of dreams here. so to avoid hijacking that thread, let's have one here for the discussion of dreams, dreaming, significance of remembering or not remembering dreams, maybe some psychology and analysis, etc.
i think a good way to start will be by sharing recent dreams, or typical dreams (mine follow). please note, i'd like to keep this relatively unscientific, but also un-religious too. we have other threads for the discussion of the significance of dreams to human consciousness, and their place in human evolution, and even a religous thread or two about dreams there.


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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 2 of 27 (450158)
01-21-2008 1:22 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 1:07 AM


Incoherent
What little I remember of dreams is usually incoherent.

Let's end the political smears

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 3 of 27 (450163)
01-21-2008 2:01 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 1:07 AM


two of my typical dreams
i have two pretty commonly recurring dreams, though i suppose one you could call a nightmare. they're always a little different, but the same basic themes.
the flying/falling dream
when i was younger, i used to fly in my dreams. i was quite proficient at it. it was always sort of like swimming, involving flapping my arms or legs. never quite seemed remotely plausible in the waking world, but par for the course in dreams. i'd fly high, or low, and do all kinds of tricks. probably one of the most fun things you can ever really do.
as i got into my teenage years, i'd have dreams where mid-flight, i'd start to have problems. like sluggish responses to changes in direction, not getting enough lift, and puttering out to the ground. as this progressed, i reached a point where i'd just start randomly falling from the sky. eventually, it began to get harder and harder to stay aloft, or even to get off the ground. it was particularly frustrating, in this strange almost sexual sense, because i'm a smei-lucid dreamer. i'll know that i'm dreaming and that i've had similar dreams before, but i am for whatever reason powerless (or too stupid) to change things upon this realization. so i'll remember being able to fly, and spend the rest of the dream trying to figure out what's going wrong.
lately, this trend has been reversing itself. i've been getting up off the ground more and more easily, but i can't seem to figure out the controls anymore. so i'm sloppy, and reckless, and go crashing into things. for instance, i had one a few months ago where i seemed to be superman, but i couldn't control my power of flight very well. i got way up high, but came crashing down almost immediately leaving a nice crater. one a while back where i flew up high to go someplace, but overshot it by a long margin and ended up in a big artifical lake. and one i think last night where i got tangled up in a sheet and some powerlines. i'm flying again, just badly.
these dreams almost always take place in my own neighborhood, though there are generally several large changes. a new plaza just on the other side of those trees, a big billboard where those apartments used to be, etc.
the memory loss/paralysis nightmare
i remember the first one of these quite vividly because i woke myself trying to scream. i was with a crowd of people in a little wooden cabin. none of us knew how we got there or what we were doing. it was dark, lit by the moon and not much else. at the end of the short hallway was a screen door, and beyond that a small open area with grass, and beyond that the forest. seemed rather north of here, not a florida forest; pine trees and such. something about it said "freedom" so i ran for it. the others followed. something was chasing us.
i got to the trees, and turned around to see where everyone else was, but all i could see was our captor standing in the doorway. he wasn't human. i don't remember what he was wearing, because all i could focus on were his eyes. they were gigantic, white and featureless, and took up about half of his face. their edges were glowing electric blue, and buzzed audibly with rage as he pointed his index finger at me and... i was out.
i woke up in a pristine looking waiting area, like something out of 70's sci-fi. clean, but kinda tacky, with strange scenery in the background. pointed mountains and such. i didn't remember how i got there, or the bit that came before. i looked over, and saw someone i recognized, a girl i knew in middle school but lost touch with. she was equally confused. a nice looking middle-aged man with white hair in what appeared to be most of a cleansuit came out to meet us, and the others who were waiting on the benches. he took us on a tour of his facilities. he wasn't human either -- he was a representative of some kind of space alien society that had come to help mankind. good feelings all around, and they certainly seemed like nice people.
he walked us into a surgery observation area. the others of his kind, in full cleansuits this time, were busily working on someone on the table, using a big aparatus coming down from the ceiling with a rotary blade on the end. they were cutting into the person's side, on their left. i used to get random pains in that particular spot, never thought much of it, but it became significant in the dream. the nice man quietly explained to us that there were correcting some defect in human anatomy that would help us get along on their world, or some such thing. but it was clear they were putting something in as well. i didn't trust him, or his motivations for taking organs out of people.
as we went back out into the waiting area, i stood off a distance, alone, and watched him talk to my friend from middle school. i began, slowly, to notice things about him, visually, that were disguised as human before -- like his giant white featureless eyes. and all of a sudden, my memory of the previous half of the dream came rushing back. he looked at me, and knew. i stood their trying to shout a warning to my friend and the others there, but i couldn't open my mouth to speak. i jumped up and down, and tried and tried and tried to shout like the future of all mankind depended on it... and woke up.
these figures have since featured in at least one other dream that involved something like sleep paralysis, and one genuine case of sleep paralysis. the most recent case was in an empty school, where i started to become aware of little ones. nobody else could see them. they were actually sort of cute, big-headed and big-eyed like living anime. and they knew i could see them, so they took me by the hand and we played a bunch of childrens games in a kindergarten classroom. they accepted me as one of their own. but when they figured out that i wasn't one of them, they turned on me. again with the electric blue and the buzzing, only this time i could see their mouths as well -- and they were filling with giant pointy teeth. they surrounded me. i got the impression that they fed on souls and wanted mine. needless to say, i ran like hell. one got me in some kind of administrative room. desk and a computer and a door on either end. found myself on the floor unable to move, making a lot of grunting shining noises fighting against the paralysis, semi-aware of the real world outside of the dream and trying to get the attention of the people there. (since i hold odd sleeping hours, the people who were awake at the time pointed out later that i was making audible noises in real life). spent a good ten minutes fighting it until i was able to move... and i caught a regular school bus home from the bus loop. it didn't take me all the way, so i flew the rest of the way.
Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.


This message is a reply to:
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Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3598 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


Message 4 of 27 (450167)
01-21-2008 4:10 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 2:01 AM


Re: two of my typical dreams
Hi, Spidey.
Exploring a particularly bothersome dream is like exploring a surrealist play. It's a theatre where the narrative traffics in symbolism and affect and ambiguity--not cause-and-effect as we usually experience them. What at first feels disorienting has its own artistic logic. There are no final answers, but a good exploration begins with two questions. You ask what the symbols mean for that particular playwrite and you ask what the symbols mean generally in human experience.
The dreamer is the playwrite. Only the dreamer knows all the autobiographical details that might affect the content of a dream. So it's always a good first step for the dreamer to ask what these details are. For example: if you or a loved one have recently spent some time in the hospital, or if you read a SF novel that impressed you, that would suggest quite a bit for the second set of dreams you describe. The rest of us have no way of knowing what biographical details like this enter the picture for you.
It's also a good idea to look at wordplay. The unconscious is a genius at this and often gives visual form to puns.
I can help a bit with general symbolism.
A common motif in both dreams is loss of competence--the loss of the dreamer's ability to control or affect the environment. Another common motif in both sets of dreams is awareness of tension in the relationship between celestial and earthly life.
Flying has long been associated in the human experience with the realm of ideas, ambition. One navigates the heavens, the realm of the spirit (air). Your account suggests that as a child you enjoyed a natural freedom of movement in this realm. Everything the skies have to offer was available to you. Lately you are encountering more difficulty. Matters that were once simple are now revealing previously unsuspected complexities. Issues of gravity and weight are making the presence known.
A prominent feature in the second set of dreams is 'white featureless eyes.' At first this suggests blindness. It would be--to the world we normally see with our eyes. But it also suggests that the eyes are turned inward. They would thus see a world we do not normally see: the interior world, the inside of the creature. The inner life is one we often overlook in our preoccupation with external reality, but it is also one that can absorb us if the balance goes too far the other way. The figures seem to be calling on you to do as they do: to turn your gaze inward.
Aliens and angels, BTW, are essentially the same image. In each case you have a celestial being--a creature that makes its home in the skies--that is not really human (though it may appear so) and that possesses otherworldly knowledge.
You have shared a detailed and symbolically rich narrative. I don't pretend that these comments exhaust the possibilities. But I hope these general observations are helpful.
____
Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.

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CK
Member (Idle past 4128 days)
Posts: 3221
Joined: 07-04-2004


Message 5 of 27 (450169)
01-21-2008 5:24 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 1:07 AM


I had a dream last night - I was invited for a drink by a woman and when I got there, her boyfriend and two other men were waiting for me. I fought them off and managed to escape. They kept chasing me and I had to use more and more desperate tactics to get away.
Here's a recurring one - I know I can fly but I can only manage to get a few feet off the ground and it takes great effort.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3644 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 6 of 27 (450171)
01-21-2008 6:04 AM


Anyone else experienced this...
Over the past few months I have had several dreams where I have become aware that background speech, incidental to the dream 'topic', has actually been gibberish - e.g. presenter on TV that happens to be on, public speaking, etc. This has alerted me to the fact that I am dreaming - my brain is simply not filling in the detail - and I've usualy woken at this point. The question is: has this always been the case and I've just not noticed this before, or is my brain losing the capability to fill in such detail as it is getting older

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 7 of 27 (450172)
01-21-2008 6:46 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by cavediver
01-21-2008 6:04 AM


Re: Anyone else experienced this...
I have become aware that background speech, incidental to the dream 'topic', has actually been gibberish - e.g. presenter on TV that happens to be on, public speaking, etc. This has alerted me to the fact that I am dreaming.
You might be hearing actual political discussions from the US, too.
My most memeroable dream-related experience was close to "ESP" - and those of you who know me from this board will realize that I don't subscribe to woo like that.....
Through the late 80's, before Prozac, I was progressing into deeper and deeper depression. During that time, I had no dreams at all that I ever remembered/remembered even having on waking up. But one morning in September, 1990, I was awakened before dawn by some chaotic dream involving a little grocery store, some kind of a robbery, and gunfire. Nothing scary, really, but a bit remarkable because, Wow, it was a dream!
I got up at the alarm clock's insistence and trudged off to work. Within five minutes I learned that one of my best friends there had shot himself dead early that morning. {cue Twilight Zone music}
It was freaky. I checked into therapy two days later.

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macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3928 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 8 of 27 (450200)
01-21-2008 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 1:07 AM


i dreamed last night that everyone i knew lived in this huge apartment building (it also had churches and schools and everything else in it). i lived in an apartment with the boy. but. it really upset me because some guy got married and his wife didn't work out and then i married him. and i was about to go to bed that night and i got sick because i wanted to call the boy. i lived on the same floor across the courtyard from him. i could look across and see my empty room from before. it was horrible.

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ThreeDogs
Member (Idle past 5851 days)
Posts: 77
From: noli me calcare
Joined: 01-08-2008


Message 9 of 27 (450203)
01-21-2008 9:46 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 2:01 AM


Re: two of my typical dreams
I think your dreams retell the story from growing from chidhood, where everything is possible, to adulthood where limits are recognized and applied. Or, you are sleeping on silk sheets and have a problem staying put.

This message is a reply to:
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Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 27 (450220)
01-21-2008 11:00 AM


Dreamscapes
I can't remember my dreams anymore with regularity. Its like I remember the mood of whatever it is I am dreaming about, but the details evaporate as I become more awake. I know when I have bad dreams because I will clench my teeth at night and won't feel as rested. I know when I have pleasant dreams because I can feel the mood.
I'm not big in to Freudian psychobabble, but I do believe there is some justification to analyzing dreams, much in the way Archer describes. At the same time, I think people can also read way too in to them. Our minds never really stop. The brain has to be thinking about something and I have little doubt that dreams are every bit as important physically as sleep itself is to the body. Its probably a regulating mechanism.
The thing is that I used to be able to recall my dreams often. I'm not sure when it stopped because it probably happened progressively, but I can't remember it as soon as I am awake. The times I remember most is not during REM cycles, but during the moments when I'm close to waking up. So if I slept 7 hours, at the 5th through the 7th hour I am more apt to remember it. But when I am fully awake, they are gone -- like it never happened, even though I know it did.
I don't know if its because of the military, that I now possess the ability to wake up and be ready very quickly, or if it is an avoidance issue, like some sort of cognitive dissonance, but I wouldn't mind remembering my dreams again since what I do remember of them are extremely Dalian or MC Esher-esque with doors that lead out to rushing water that is stationary.

“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the 'wisdom' of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious" -C.S. Lewis

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anglagard
Member (Idle past 837 days)
Posts: 2339
From: Socorro, New Mexico USA
Joined: 03-18-2006


Message 11 of 27 (450240)
01-21-2008 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by arachnophilia
01-21-2008 1:07 AM


Hot off the Presses
I always dream if I get enough sleep and usually remember at least one.
Here is the one from a few hours ago.
I dreamed that my family and a few friends from the past were in Mexico. The family included my mother-in-law (deceased for over a year) and the friends were ones I had not seen for nearly two decades. Anyway we arrived via some form of transportation like a bus or train to a place where there was a mixed crowd of locals and tourists to the edge of a deep canyon with a trail along the side. I remember a friend saying "don't get up here on the trail if you are just going to fall down" I looked down and saw through a gap in the trees and rocks the canyon must have been a few miles down with about a 75 degree slope. It was quite green, like a rainforest at the bottom.
Then the canyon became an amphitheater that would seat a few thousand that had maybe a few hundred people there all being entertained by some form of mariachi music. The amphitheater had tables where several forms of candy were on the table and had place settings so it looked like some sort of meal would be served shortly.
Suddenly there was gunfire whizzing over the heads of the entertainers and into the audience who all ducked for cover. I remember hearing the sound of the bullets, some quite close and hearing then ricochet around in the rocks behind us. After a few hundred rounds the gunfire stopped and it seems no one had been hit.
The next scene was in the dining room of some brightly colored house with white walls, clearly still in Mexico. I wanted to thank our hosts for their hospitality but they were too busy talking about how they were at war with some other family who they called "the evangelicals."
End of dream, let the armchair psychoanalysts have at it.

Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis Bacon
The more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 12 of 27 (450245)
01-21-2008 12:17 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by anglagard
01-21-2008 12:01 PM


Re: Hot off the Presses
anglagard
This dream of yours reminded me of one I had many years ago. It was just a brief scene in which I felt as though I had just fallen into a film that was unfolding.I found myself in a jungle clearing and in front of me was a girl I knew carrying in her arms her young infant and she was yelling loudly at someone off to my left out of view.
What happened next was shocking to say the least. The people she was yelling at yelled back in a foreign language that was I believe was Spanish and then all hell broke loose as gunfire erupted and I felt multiple impacts down my left side followed by searing pain as I crumpled to my right.
I awoke on the floor next to my bed and I was sweating bullets{ no pun intended} {well maybe a little} trying desperately to catch my breath.
I have no idea what triggered that since I had not seen the girl in many years and in fact her child was grown up at that time but the smells and sounds and sights were totally foreign to me and to this day my palms get sweaty remembering it was that vivid.

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molbiogirl
Member (Idle past 2642 days)
Posts: 1909
From: MO
Joined: 06-06-2007


Message 13 of 27 (450338)
01-21-2008 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by sidelined
01-21-2008 12:17 PM


Re: Hot off the Presses
Back in 1995, I got hit by a bus. Broken neck, back, etc.
After the accident, I had the best dreams.
Something about the pain-induced haze between awake and asleep.
One dream was a black and white movie of a train chugging down some tracks. It was a MOVIE. Flickering, jumpy frames, the whole nine.
Another was a 2D world. A 2D girl living in an empty 2D room. Omigod, it was so cool.

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sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 14 of 27 (450341)
01-21-2008 4:40 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by molbiogirl
01-21-2008 4:31 PM


Re: Hot off the Presses
molbiogirl
Another was a 2D world. A 2D girl living in an empty 2D room. Omigod, it was so cool.
And the downer no doubt was that the guys were still just one-dimensional eh?

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 15 of 27 (450347)
01-21-2008 4:59 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Archer Opteryx
01-21-2008 4:10 AM


Re: two of my typical dreams
A prominent feature in the second set of dreams is 'white featureless eyes.' At first this suggests blindness. It would be--to the world we normally see with our eyes. But it also suggests that the eyes are turned inward. They would thus see a world we do not normally see: the interior world, the inside of the creature. The inner life is one we often overlook in our preoccupation with external reality, but it is also one that can absorb us if the balance goes too far the other way. The figures seem to be calling on you to do as they do: to turn your gaze inward.
...no, they're definitely evil. the eyes are sort of like your typical gray space-alien's eyes, huge and almond shaped. only those are usually black. it's been suggested that the large almond-shaped featureless eyes on relatively featureless or waxy colorless faces is some kind or archetypal image in the human brain. they can be produced in laboratory settings, are common to sleep paralysis victims, and seem to be the source of all these alien abduction stories.
A common motif in both dreams is loss of competence--the loss of the dreamer's ability to control or affect the environment.
indeed. in fact, there's a third rather common dream i forgot to bring up, the "not knowing my lines" dream. i used to participate in plays and such in school. i'm not sure why, i never really liked it. suffered from stage fright like you wouldn't believe -- guess i did it to get over my fears? but i still have this recurring dream where i'm on stage, and have no idea what the play is, and everyone's waiting for me to deliver lines i've never seen the script for.
Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.


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