What did you dream of last night?

#62

Heh heh, the twist of all that is that your thinking heading and feeling brain are at war with each other, as I understand it. “Important” is not always (or necessarily even usually) interpreted by the thinking part of your brain. It’s not always even the same day. It can also vary based on what toxins your body is trying to release.

If there’s some strong emotion or discomfort that happened (or is happening whilst you sleep, like the overheating you mentioned), your body may just throw around objects that you associate with, say, fear, if that’s what it’s trying to interpret. It’ll just use items that you can associate with fear.

I’m no expert on this; this is just stuff I’ve learned over time from interesting studies and such. But randomness will always prevail with both sides of your brain competing for understanding.

(I wish I dreamt far more than I do; I have the curse of usually only partially sleeping like my father, so I sense the area I’m sleeping in fast motion and can usually wake up on a dime; I promise I’ll post any dream I get when it happens ;.; )

#63

Sometimes when I’m drifting halfway out of a dream it feels like I’m composing a story and I’m actively trying to add elements and ideas to a dream to keep it going.
Sometimes that works, for example when I sleepily snooze my alarm and try to go back to a dream by thinking about the things that happened in it and related stuff.
It’s actually not uncommon for me to be thinking about random topics to keep me somewhat entertained long before I actually fall asleep entirely.

Maybe my dreams are actually just a minor extension of me being in the habit of thinking about various things to keep me entertained while daydreaming but at nighttime, just that I experience it more vividly when I’m unconscious because external stimuli are dimmed and control it more haphazardly because I’m not thinking before adding material.

That way dreaming would be an author writing a story while his consciousness resides in the main character of the story. Kind of like letting auto-fill finish their story, except auto-fill is their subconscious.

#64

I think you’re overthinking this a little bit.

or you’re just smarter than I am… probably both…

#65

this is sort of how it feels whenever I successfully manage to pull off a lucid dream because it only ever works whenever I take a nap, not when I’m actually trying to sleep through the night. as I sort of dip in and out of consciousness, my conscious mind takes things from my unconscious mind and sends ideas back and forth as I switch between asleep and awake, until I finally enter this sort of mostly-asleep-but-not-quite state where I can send information to my arm and my dream arm moves instead of my real one.

of course, because this happens while I’m taking a nap the duration is extremely short, and sometimes it gets cut even shorter because I get excited about what’s happening and that excitement actually disrupts my ability to continue dreaming*. the first time it ever happened to me I was in a dark hallway with a very small 2-step staircase halfway through, and I just walked down the hallway curious to know where it went. I made it past the steps, but my arms and legs were getting extremely heavy and I collapsed. the position I landed in was exactly the same position as my real body was in my bed, and I woke up shortly after I realized I couldn’t move anymore.

*(that’s a tip for any kind of lucid dreaming btw, if you get excited that it’s happening and try doing crazy stuff too quickly you’ll lose the dream. take it slow if you ever recognize it’s happening)

that tends to be a recurring theme any time that happens: either my arms and legs get super heavy, and/or moving them burns like there’s super hot electricity flowing through them, which I imagine is colored red for some reason. I tried forcing myself up a larger staircase one time and when I made it to the top my legs and arms (cuz I had to use them to support my legs in a crawl towards the end) hurt so much I couldn’t move on and I just laid there at the top, which of course ended the dream. I think it’s getting better over time, but it’s been so long since I had one it’s hard to say for sure. again it only happens when napping, which means if I don’t need to nap (or can’t because I don’t have the time or whatever) then it never happens.

#66

I love influencing lucid dreams, and trying to poke holes in my imaginary world. I’m the opposite, never lucid dreams when I nap and only during nighttime.

#67

I actually remembered two dreams recently that I didn’t post here yet, but neither are particularly fancy lul.

Case 1: standard zombie apocalypse in my hometown, I think at this point I was bored and just mucked about avoiding losing my brain because I’ve had this dream several times now, in the same places.
Anyhow route I took this time started from elementary school towards my house, past a kids playground and a tesco, though :man_shrugging: honestly I don’t think anything interesting occurred after the initial ‘o shit apocalypse time’. Boring. Next.

Case 2: Was climbing up a huge mountain with thousands of other people towards the top, many whom I recognised. Best way to describe it would be tall tall mountain from Mario 64, but it looks realistic, I’m using that to explain the huge fucking holes in the floor everywhere :sweat_smile: there was a really long path round. I don’t quite remember if I got to the top or not, but I certainly got close.

I don’t understand either of these, plus they’re kinda boring compared to the other posts lmao.

#68

that was one of my favorite worlds from Mario 64!

#69

Jungian analysis would probably associate this one at least with ‘individuation’ - the process whereby the conscious and the unconscious reach a productive union, and the Self attains maturity. The ‘anabasis’ or ascent motif is a common one in such dreams (and indeed in archetypal myth - the reason why the Greek pantheon dwell atop Olympus). The ‘really long path round’, like the mountain ascent, fits also into this matrix of spiritual growth - I believe it can be called the ‘pilgrimage’ motif, and manifests in stories of a ‘quest’ structure. Following on from this, ‘the huge fucking holes’ might represent the threat of descent, or katabasis - the quite literal pitfalls on the way to individuation; places where the unconscious might exert destabilising control over the Self. Obviously the people near the top of the mountain might have a specific and personal meaning to you - but I’d hazard a guess and say that they’re also on a similar inward journey. Getting close to the top but not really remembering if you made it seems to be quite a common resolution to dreams of this sort - apparently because individuation is an extremely slow and gradual process, materialising involuntarily over years of engagement with dream.

Obviously this isn’t what the dream ‘means’ - that’s ultimately up to you (and it might very well mean nothing)… I merely offer my attempt at a applying a (fairly ridiculous) analytic scheme because dreams of this sort make me feel happy when I have them (aha! I’m getting closer to some mythical Self!! epic).

#70

woah

and here i was thinking all that was going on was my feet hurting in that dream

I mean I’m still sure it’s random thoughts my brain jumbled together, but its an interesting analysis

#71

Absolutely! Just another tool in the toolbox - I don’t hold anything by it myself, I believe that everyone interacts and engages with their dreams in a way that is foremost meaningful to themselves :slight_smile:

#72

I do remember one time incorporating my phone’s alarm into my dream, since it’s actually a chiptune song I listen to occassionally. Waking up kind of felt like one of those movie scenes, where the background music fuses into the actual movie - like, the camera pans down, and it’s revealed the music’s coming from the character’s radio.

#73

this scene was only like 5% of the whole dream, but it’s both the part I remember most vividly and the part I think you’ll find most entertaining:

the hero (“I” am not a character in this dream) enters a dimly lit room and suddenly and dramatically the spotlight turns on a very high up corner to reveal a sniper who laughs evilly at the hero who is about to get shot through the head and can’t possibly do anything to save himself. the sniper in question actually looks a lot like the TF2 medic, but I know it’s supposed to be a sniper somehow. the sniper takes aim at the hero’s head and fires. the camera does one of those super dramatic slow motion shots where it pans around the bullet (sort of like this), only instead of a spinning bullet it’s a large gold key tumbling through the air. the hero catches the “bullet” in his hand and uses the key on the door to advance to the next room. the sniper gets angry at his master plan being ruined. this actually made me laugh when it happened.

#74

Soooo… I had a dream last night

I was in what was apparently San Fransisco, but it was ideal future San Francisco. Like the buildings we’re all super tall and the sky was weirdly beautiful because we fixed the environment and plants were integrated into architecture making for a super nice mix of style and better air. It was always nice outside and everyone walked everywhere because the air was super nice, or took a future trolley, like a magnetic bullet train trolley. I tried both and the trolley was pog but so was walking.

Speaking of me, I was a light green haired femboy with a pony tail and sunglasses in my hair that I never wore, leather jacket but like a crop top jacket and also a crop top, and leather skirt. I really don’t know why this is how I decided to look in the dream, but that’s how I looked. I worked as an electrician on the trolley tracks. Magnetic trolleys were a big part of this dream. I also had a wife who had long rainbow hair, a short skirt and very large hoodie (which she always had the hood on because she was super introverted) and she was both ripped and slender, like a muscle girl, but not hefty or anything, still slender. I also had 3 children who all looked like variations of irl me (not femboy me) because that’s what children normally look like. 2 boys, 1 girl.

I spent what felt like a week in this dream, loving the life of this other version of myself that is for some reason a femboy, though being a dream that week probably took a minute or two irl and when I woke up I was aggressively depressed for the rest of the day because that dream was really good and by the end of it, it almost felt like it was real life but then it wasn’t and real life is disappointing and doesn’t have fast as heck magnet trolleys for me to work as an electrician on.

Also there was this really nice diner with sort of a steampunk atmosphere that I went to twice with my in-dream wife. They made some really good club sandwiches, but that is the last detail I remember.

The whole dream was vivid and felt real, but I slightly remembered real life and just assumed it was some weird dream but it was actually real life waiting to hit me like a truck

#75

Describing dreams is hard and even when I remember my dream the details get all mixed up. Why must dreams be like this? Why can’t I remember all several hundred of them that happen in the human subconscious every night?

#76

that sounds like it’d absolutely suck to wake up from, rip

I’ve had a couple dreams that felt like they lasted for many days, but neither of them were something I’d really miss like that. but that one sounds rough :\

#77

one of the worst feelings ever is waking up from really good dreams like that and i hate it. this morning i had a lovely dream and when i woke up from it i couldn’t help but feel the same as you did because what i wanted it to be real so badly but it was only a figment of my imagination.

#78

A few years ago I had a dream which I refer to as my ‘giant dream’. The dream concerned two warring factions of giants, one of which inhabited a castle like the one from Herbert von Rayl-Hanisch’s painting ‘Bad Dream’, mixed with a mossy hill. I was being taken round the castle and a giant was explaining the entire history of this world in excruciating detail; their culture; their art; he even showed me into a room with the COMPLETE FAMILY TREES of the two warring factions, complete with portraits and NAMES which were unlike any other names I have ever heard. It was unbelievably vivid and detailed, and when I woke up I thought ‘by god, there’s a whole novel in that’, and I told myself I’d write it all down immediately…

I searched for pen and paper for about 5 minutes, and when I finally found it, I had forgotten all the details, and I’ve never had that dream again. I will never forget forgetting it. Saddest morning of my life.

#79

Last night I dreamed a stereotypical evil amusement park dream - people were glowing purple when they sweated and shit, then I was asked to write all the good things about the amusement park. I gave it to the supervisor of amusement park detention then he somehow knew that I hadn’t been brainwashed yet and he chased me around the amusement park into a nearby shopping centre with a brainwash helmet in his hands. This all took place in the 5 min I snoozed my alarm clock. Then when the alarm clock rang I re-snoozed it and then I was back in the dream. Now, the amusement park guy was my mom’s best friend in high school, he was following me into my house which was a hotel. He banged on the door then smashed it and the alarm bell rang and the dream was over.

The weird thing is I’d not object to getting brainwashed irl, release is nice.

#80

Pretty sure that’s a whole fetish, but what do I know?

#81

not that i’d intentionally seek it out, just wouldn’t object,