I've written in the past about the awesomeness of dreams. The topic came up again about a month ago in a group setting, and a friend taught me some ridiculous but fascinating theories (maybe more than theories?) about dreaming, particularly lucid dreaming.
One example: if you want to have more lucid dreams (dreams in which you're aware that you're in a dream), cultivate a habit of looking at your hand while you're awake. This might cause you to look at your hand within a dream. And, as the theory goes, in a dream you won't have the right number of fingers. If you notice this discrepancy, you'll possibly realize you're in a dream and (ta-da!) welcome to lucid dreamland.
I came out of that conversation with one thought, a thought that has led to this blog post: "I need to keep a dream journal."
Dream Weaver
And by 'weaver' I mean 'journal', but you gotta love the Gary Wright tune
The idea is pretty simple. I just keep a piece of paper and a pen next to my bed. Any time I wake up in the middle of the night or morning and I have a memory of a dream, I write down a summary. All other benefits (like increasing my lucid dream capability) aside, it's just really fun.
But I've found there are several distinct types of entries in my drournal (that's not going to catch on, is it?). There are basically three categories:
- The chicken-scratch hieroglyphic? These dream summaries come from deep (way down deep) in the middle of the night, those groggy hours where light and rational thinking dare not go. I have no memories of these dreams, and in many cases I can't even read the handwriting.
- The remembered dream. These entries are marked by decent penmanship and a memory of what actually happened in the dream. But sometimes it's just one detached, miscellaneous scene.
- The Homeric saga. These epic synopses usually come in the morning when sunlight is in my room and I can see what I'm writing. They sometimes involve 2 or 3 separate dreams I've had over the course of the night. These are the dreams you daydream about.
As this is just an overview, I'll limit the number of examples I share. But I want you to get a picture of what my dreams and descriptions are like, so share I will...
1. Indecipherable nonsense
- "sleeping at Mom's ['char'], not quite right"
- "in movie; lightning fight; the girl "[scribble scribble] PG-13"."
- "Wheeling Park High School fire evacuation. Fill out form for firefighters"
- "[
Seth Myers] Jim Carrey, my Dad, Zach, and me in movie scene at a beach hotel"
2. Fleeting memories
- "Chris shows me innovations in channel surfing"
- "Pirates vs. 'Chicago Reds'; I run into Michael Jordan, who tells me McCutchen is out with an injury"
- "Mike and I do a huge group presentation in a gym about Tangent Space(s)"
- "Bob swims with a missile as swimming training from his in-laws"
- "car drive-thru laser tag game"
- "Movie trilogy -- zombie attack. In hotel, shoot zombies in throat. Two factions-- guy from Eureka (not my faction). Joke -- 'I like your annotation...'." /// In this dream, I was in the first movie of a zombie trilogy. I made the important discovery in an elevator that you must shoot the zombies in the throat to permanently kill them. Two human factions emerged, one in favor of total war and one in favor of exploring other avenues. The leader of the war faction, played by an actor from the sci-fi show Eureka, made his point by joking in response to my 'shoot the throat' discovery that he liked my annotation on killing the zombies, and that we should form a few sub-committees to decide whether or not to act on that finding.
- "Barney/Ted house, statue, fake face, theft. Fight --> real house." /// This tiny description summarizes an epic dream of deception. I was Ted from How I Met Your Mother, and Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris) tricked me into wandering through a strange house. He eventually took off a fake face and revealed himself, and we got into a physical altercation. I went back for revenge the next day, only to find a family living in the house! The family called the cops when they discovered me in their home.
So far I'm not convinced the frequency or quality of my dreams has changed noticeably, but it's cool to be able to remember more of my dreams. Without a dream journal, I'm pretty sure I dream every night, but I almost never remember them. Now I do-- or at least I wind up with some funny writings.
The shared dream
I pretty much made it through this entire post without one reference to Inception
Do you remember your dreams? If so, what's a crazy one you've had?
What do you think of keeping a dream journal?
Jon
Ahhh I love talking about dreams! I dream every night and remember 2-3 dreams most mornings. I always reflect on them as I'm waking up, so I have a hard time getting out of bed, but I remember the dreams throughout the day. Usually I have bad dreams so it's annoying, but sometimes they are really cool, and often I think they have a good enough plot to be made into a movie. I started a word doc where I've written a bunch of the ones I want to remember.
ReplyDeleteHere's an example of a mild dream that's just silly and funny:
i had a dream that i was the mother to these baby geese i found in this magical animal land. and then a whole bunch of people were in this room going down a slide and waiting for this gigantic seal (like probably 30 feet long/15 feet wide) to come out of the water, but we had dinner and i was afraid that the seal was chopped up in the dinner, but even if it was the seal still could've come back because it was that magical.
I keep having this crazy dream that I met this amazing guy, and we started dating, and then he asked me to marry him, and... wait a minute!
ReplyDeleteJon, I'm so glad you've brought up this topic. I, too, started a dream journal after hearing that it would help me learn to lucid dream. However, I feel this was too ambitious a goal because I never even remember my dreams, so sadly my journal only has three barely legible entries. I think you've inspired me to start it up again, though. Great post! I LOLed more than once.
ReplyDeleteI'll leave you with a pretty typical sample entry:
"Playing girl games like who can eat the most of those ringed fudge cookies [editor's note: this is not a "girl game" nor a game at all and I have never played it]. We won. Motion sensor didn't see me in the shower & it was dark - ugh small animals eating the fudge - so gross. Deb showing a car at the mall?"
Hope things are great!
So I realize I'm in the minority, but I absolutely hate dreams. Obviously I hate the bad/scary ones a lot more than good ones, but I really don't like any of them as they can play so strangely with reality. Maybe it's because my dreams have almost always been things that really could happen, rather than total fantasies, that I dislike them so greatly, but I consider it a good night of sleep when I'm completely dream-free (or at least memory-free of them).
ReplyDeleteIn response to your questions, though, I do remember quite a few of mine, particularly from when I was around 3rd grade. I had one dream that continued every single night for a few months in which my mom and I were running home from a high school football game in my neighborhood, and people were after us trying to shoot us. Every night, we'd get a little further up the street, and be hiding on a different neighbors porch...terrifying! For months! Another recurring one involved just me in the backseat of my parents' car, as it drifted backwards down our hill into town. Every night, for months, I was in that out-of-control car...again, terrifying. I'm sure the similar nature of these being on my street has some sort of psychological meaning....I prefer to just pray for dreamless nights and not eat sweets before bed rather than investigating the symbolism, though:-)
I also love to drournal, and I set an intricate series of snooze alarms every day so I can wake up slowly. I'm going to try the hand thing, for sure!
ReplyDeleteI had a recurring dream throughout my childhood in which I would stand in the play room in my grandparents' house. I called my cat, and I heard her meowing as she came down the hallway. BUT then a giant kewpie doll walked in, meowing. (To fully understand the terror, google "kewpie doll.") I woke up in a sweat every time. In spite of this, most of my happy dreams take me to my grandparents' house at some point.
An unrelated happy fave involved driving a school bus down a bowling alley lane.
I had a self-made (read: ridiculously uncomfortable) couch in my dorm room my senior year. One day I napped on it not long after getting up, and dreamt that I woke up on campus under a bench, realized I was late for something, and set to race across campus to make it in time. But - tragedy - I suddenly found myself asleep again, foiled in my haste. I awoke again, this time in another part of campus (don't remember where), only to fall asleep at third time. Then I woke up for real, on my hard-backed couch, literally quite dazed and confused. I spent most of that day trying to figure out if I was actually awake, or remained in an endless dream, never waking for real. Even wondering if the world itself were just one giant dream and I slept somewhere, Matrix-like, unaware of my stupor.
ReplyDeleteI also had a dream not long ago in which my one-year old daughter, morphed into a bird, and, as though it were to be expected, flew away from home, never to return. My wife matter-of-factly stated it as just a fact of life, our bird-child would just decide when it was time to go it alone and fly off. I remember waking up feeling terribly sad.
ReplyDelete