The peculiarity of Dreams.

I am posting this to get an idea of the range of dreams that have occured to people in their lives as I find it a fascinating look at ourselves.I remember one particularly disturbing dream about "borrowing" my neighbours '67 Mustang {which was a incredibly powerful car} and racing into town at high speed, when ,in my dream I was appoaching a hill off a straight flat section of road about a half mile in length.
I could smell the freshly cut grass and hear and feel the engine rumbling vividly.As I started up the small hill I saw the light of an approaching train that was now below the road deck and to my left when I hit the top of the hill. Of course,at the top of the hill the road curves somewhat to the left and the nsomething snapped forcing me across the oncoming lane and off the road into the path of the train{I HATE when that happens!}.I recall the moment of impact and being thrown forward at which time I awoke staring at the ceiling unable to take a breath and totally disoriented. I had the sensation of a heavy crushing object on my chest. It took a long time for me to regain the ability to breathe again. It probably only was a few seconds but time is relative eh?That is one of mine. Over time I recall hearing the old phrase that if you dream of dying in your sleep you never wake up. Having come that close it made me wonder this. How the hell would you know if a person dreamt of dying in their sleep and subsequently did so?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I actually spend some time every morning thinking about my dreams. Most of my dreams are too chaotic to make any sense out of them.I have dreamt that I died before, at least once that I can remember. The scary part was that it actually felt good being dead. Then of course, the dream happened during finals week.

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The Laminator

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I am posting this to get an idea of the range of dreams that have occured to people in their lives as I find it a fascinating look at ourselves.

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Like most everyone, I too have had any number of odd dreams. And I think you are right that they can supply a candid look at ourselves, and perhaps for an interesting reason.The best (and most sensible) dream theory I have ever heard is that, "It is the best that our minds can do".Basically, the concept is that (for whatever reason), our minds tend to make random neural discharges while sleeping (at least in the REM stage). It is also thought likely that these discharges are more prevalent from areas of the brain that have been most stimulated during the day. While this happens during repeated periods throughout the night, in most cases we have no conscious memory of it.However, when those random discharges occur immediately prior to our mind's reaching a state of conscious awareness, (such as if we are awakened immediately following an REM period), the conscious mind's inclination is to force them into some sort of coherent context.IOW, our conscious minds are forced to turn a series of disjointed and random impulses into at least some sort of a coherent storyline. Much as if we, (while awake), were given a list of random, unconnected terms and concepts and were then asked to contrive, (within the timespan of mere seconds), any sort of sequential storyline.Thus, I think that the most telling insight about ourselves, is the storyline created by our conscious minds from the random impulses we experience immediately prior to awakening.I know this wasn't the recounting of a specific dream, and I don't mean for it to hijack this thread. But I did think that the concept was relevant and interesting.Amlodhi

This reminds me somewhat, of the program "Ghosthunters". They said (mediums) - that the ghost had to be told to "move on" because it still thought it was alive.But now I am thinking, that if you die in your dreams, you think you are still dreaming. But I don' know. There could certainly be a logical explanation for why your chest hurt. For example, you might have been sleeping in an awkward position, and your unconscious mind interpreted that uncomfortable position as a threat, and then your dream might have then produced a false threat.

I have died in my dreams numerous times. I usually wake up before my last heartbeat, except on a few rare occasions.Another theme that comes up on a regular basis has to do with guns. If I find myself in a threatening situation (in dreamland) I usually find a gun laying around. The only problem is that I lack the strength to pull the trigger. Needless to say, it is quite frustrating. The eery thing is this, one of my earliest memories is at my great aunts house. She had a toy gun that didn't quite work right. It took all of my strength to pull back the trigger to get the wanted effect, a spray of sparks out of the end of the barrel. Even though I find it improbable, I can't help but think that this early childhood memory is still being played out in my subconscious. It makes me wonder how one's early life as a toddler affects the subconscious in future life. Perhaps one's first memories marks the time in which the subconscious is just starting to develop? Anyway, I have always been fascinated by my dream life, nice to see other's enjoy it (or at least are affected by it).

Loudmouth Your mention of guns reminded me of another dream I had years ago that was also vivid but brief. It involved a girl I knew and her daughter. The scene that popped into dream was this.I was looking at her holding her child and we were both in a clearing by what I can only descibe as jungle.She was looking off to my left out of my dreams view and I heard people yelling angrily in a foreign language to which she took umburage and yelled back on them.The next event happened rapidly there was the sound of high powered rifles going off and a shocked look on my friends face then I actually felt the impact of what I assume were bullets going down the left side of my body.I do not recall if there was a sensation of pain by I do remember feeling both helples and outraged as I awoke to find myself drenched in sweat and and breathing like I had just done a 3 minute mile.It disturbed me enough that I refused to fall asleep for 48 hours. The funny thing was that it happened so abruptly that I did not even have time to face the direction of my assailants.

I have had several odd dreams. I still remember quite a few I had when I was like 12 that really messed with my mind. One of the dreams I remember particularly well was set in my house. I was like 12 and wearing whitie tighties and a white shirt. I was standing outside the door to my room and I was putting my hand on the knob to open it.Suddenly the door rattled very hard, like someone inside was trying to kick the door down. I jumped back with my back pressed against the wall. The door was kicked again and whatever was on the other side splintered the top part of the door.This was the part that really freaked me out, what I can best describe as a claw from some sort of lizard with 8 fingers started feeling around the hole in the door. At this point in the dream I knew that if the creature found me I would die. I turned and ran down the hall towards the door to my parent's room. About half way down the hall my legs just fail. It was as if the muscles in my leg just decided to stop. I fell down just a few feet shy of the door to my parent's room. It was then that I heard the third impact against the door to my room and I knew that it had been broken open.I can still remember the feel of the creature's warm breath on my back and the feel of the claws digging in just before the dream ended. I think that it was the most vivid and detailed dream I have ever had. My parents actually had to give me sleeping pills the next few nights because I refused to go to sleep.

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If ten thousand persons with Ph.D.'s say porn does not harm kids this means they are secret pedophiles and brazen liars.
-Willowtree

Oh... that freaked me out because it reminds me of some of the dreams I had when I was younger.When I was 7-12 years old I always had some freaky dreams about monsters killing me. Sounds immature, but they were intensly vivid; some of them I still won't forget. I'll just breifly mention a couple in chronological order:(4 yrs old) My best friend and I are in his backyard, and he's facing me, grinning. He says "hey (My name)!" and then all of a sudden a big, ghoslty terodactle(however ya spell it) swoops down and kills us.(7?) I get chased down the hall of a creepy house by a giant daddy longleg, then he eats me.(7)Y'know how you have dreams about your own house but it's not your house? Strangly, it took place in my room, except it wasn't my room. I was sitting on my bed facing the door, when a malevolent red glare came from all sides of the cracks. The door knob slowly turned, and when it opened there was a stocky kid with red eyes and obviously bad intent. Naturally I woke up in a sweat. Now, here's the creepy part: That room almost exactly resembles my current room, but I lived in a totally different house back then. With that in mind, it's always a little weird when someone opens my door suddenly.(8 or 9) This one's funny on hindsight. I'm standing at the checkout line at an Albertson's or something, except everyone in line including me is standing in line to be shot. Why we didn't have the sense to just go to another checkout line is beyond me.(10-11)This one still haunts me in a shameful way. See, my trick with unpleasant dreams was to blink in the dream, and then I'd wake up. In this particular dream I was walking along a snaking indoor path. The path had red carpet, and I didn't get a good look at the walls. I do remember that the wallish-things that jutted out from the actual walls to make the path snake side-to-side were made of glass with a pale blue water in it. I remember walking without control of my legs toward the other side, breathing heavily and hearing what sounded like a heart beat. All I knew was whatever was on the other side of that path was going to kill me. It was actually not that vivid a dream but it was probably the scariest I've ever had. I blinked not far down the path to wake up but I regret it to this day. I really want to know what was back there!Sorry about the long post, but it's an interesting subject for me.
(edited to fix a bad description)This message has been edited by Born2Preach, 07-17-2004 07:46 PM

I find one of the strangest things is how logic completely leaves. In your dreams you accept anything as real, everything makes sense. I had a dream just a night ago where my girlfriend left her apartment to live in a tree. It wasn't a tree house, but a door in the trunk which you could enter into this absolutely tiny area. It had a kitchen bench on one side and a toilet on the other, but no other furniture, no bed and standing room only. While I was seeing the place for the first time all of our frieds and family were visiting, and everyone thought it was a great place, no one had any complaints. I felt strange because I thought it was terrible but no one else seemed to agree. Finally I asked her how she could stand to live there, and she said "the rents cheap", which suddenly made it all make sense to me and I was perfectly happy.

Anybody ever see the movie "Waking Life?" It has a lot of interesting dialogue on the topic of lucid dreaming. One of the suggestions made by a character, which came to mind while I read Wertbag's post #10, is to learn to watch for little clues (basically the suspension of logic) that make you realize you're dreaming. For example, the protagonist flicks a light switch and the light doesn't go out. Or he wakes up (in a dream) and thinks he's awake until the digits on his alarm clock go all funky. Anyway... for anybody interested in the subject, it's a really cool flick.My two cents on the topic of dying in dreams: I too have heard the myth about dying in a dream and not waking up. Then, during my senior year of high school, I dreamed that I was out with an acquaintance playing with assault rifles, and for some reason we decided to kill each other. It was a friendly pact and we smiled as we aimed our weapons and simultaneously pulled the triggers, and everything just went dark. My dream ended after a moment of blackness; I woke up some time later, slightly disconcerted but otherwise fine.I wonder if that idea was the basis for "if you die in the Matrix, you die in real life"....

Zephyr, I too had a dream in which I died. All went black and then I woke up. It really shook me up but I lived.. Safety tip: dont play with assault rifles even in your dreams. cheers