Dream Journal: Month 1 Overview

Friends,

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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"

3. Near-unbelievable epics

• "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

Dreamers only

I think it's a little weird that we use the word "dream" to mean a hope or aspiration ("I have a dream...", "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas"), or the bizarre phenomenon that sometimes happens in which, while sleeping, our minds experience miscellaneous sensations and try to make sense of them ("I had a dream where I was a turtle", "I can't remember my dream from last night, but I know I had one").

I guess it's not that weird, since each definition deals with envisioning things that are not actual, current realities.

Anyway, this tangent is not about definitions, and it's not about reaching for the stars.  It's about the fun and mystery of having dreams while we sleep.  Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia (and greatest tangent generator ever), says that "the content and purpose of dreams are not yet understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history."  Let's speculate.

Some of the greatest features of the dream experience

Flying
I have had dreams with two different types of flying.  One that's just swimming in the air and one that is legitimate, awesome, Superman-like soaring.  The rare dream that lets me race through the air high above the city is basically the jackpot of all dreams.

Dream within a dream
This doesn't only happen in Inception.  [Mini-tangent: man, that movie was good.]  On a few occasions I have been dreaming, then "woken up" into another dream in which I'm in bed, musing about the original dream.  Then when I wake up into real life, I have about 15 seconds of existential terror during which I hug myself and question what is real.

Lucid dreaming
This doesn't only happen in Vanilla Sky.  [Mini-tangent: man, that movie was bizarre and mediocre.]  Sometimes something so outlandish will happen in a dream that I will think to myself, "This is a dream."  If it's a nightmare, I'll then will myself to wake up (which usually works).  Other times, I decide to take over. 

One great example of this is a dream I had a few years back in which my campus minister revealed he was a Satanist and tried to coerce me to join his dark ways.  As I ran away from him in slow motion (for some reason, dreams force you to flee from life-threatening situations as if you're running through syrup), I realized I was dreaming.  So I took over the dream, turned around, and started shooting blasts of light out of my hands at him and basically vaporized him.


Some other notable dreams I've had

• Many nightmares in which I'm about to go onstage to perform in a play but have no idea what play I'm in or who my character is.
• The common dream in which my teeth are loose and seemingly about to fall out.
• Some great celeb crush dreams: in elementary school, one in which Kelly Kapowski was in my backyard and I was working up the guts to tell her I liked her; in high school, one glorious dream in which Mandy Moore was my girlfriend.

Let's do an Inception "shared dream" thing

Sadly, that technology doesn't exist.  But definitely tell me about your favorite dream features and the craziest dreams you've ever had!

Jon