"To sleep, perchance to Dream": How do you dream?

[Behind the Aegis]

I have seen a few threads here about dreams. I am interested in how people dream, not so much the content, but the dreams themselves. I think our dreams say much about us, and tell us about things to come in some ways. I also think they serve as a "clearinghouse" of sorts, taking out the trash, so to speak. So, how do you dream?

Me, I dream in color, black-and-white on occasion, and even had a few dreams in sepia (probably because of the art project I was working on at the time).

I dream in surround sound. I have had dreams with theme music, and "canned" music. You know, certain 'music' that plays with certain types of scenes. I have had dreams with no sound at all.

Most of my dreams are in English, my native language. However, I have had dreams in Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, and multiple languages at once. I have had dreams with sign language, and have had dreams with subtitles.

I have had "mash-up" dreams based on the number of TV shows I watch. I have also had mash-up dreams with people I know; meaning, people from my past interacting with people I know now, though they have never met, and in a few cases the people are deceased.

I have dreams about the future and the past. I have had dreams where I wasn't even a character. I have had ones where I was multiple characters. I have dreams that are like movies, and in some cases, I can actually stop, rewind, and replay a scene to my liking (a type of lucid dreaming).

I have had the ability to fly, turn invisible, shrink, do all kinds of cool martial arts, breathe under water, and communicate with animals.

My nightmares are always in color, always have music, are always violent, and the only way I can force myself awake is to see a clock and tell myself, "I am dreaming, WAKE UP!" I have died in my nightmares and stayed asleep. One dream, I actually saw the police find my body several weeks after I was murdered. When I woke up from that dream, I was sick to my stomach and had trouble sleeping for two days.

One 'side effect' of some of my dreams is I become ambulatory and/or physical. I have scratched myself until I bleed. I punched walls and backboards. I have actually walked out of my place of residence on at least 6 occasions. Thank G-d, I was at least dressed. I also talk in my sleep, and not always in English. A few times, people didn't realize I was asleep, mainly because I was talking and I do sleep with my eyes open on occasion.

What got me thinking about this? The other day, I was awakened from a dream when I was dreaming, and it went to static, and then a blue screen message appeared, "Cable service not available. Contact your cable subscriber." I woke up and thought, "wouldn't that be an interesting call to make to Cox!" LOL!

How's about y'all? Interesting dreams? Different features? Do you remember them? Please share.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. I'm often traveling across the country in a beat up car, on the way to a Dead Show.

So basically, I dream I'm 20 again.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. LOL! Nothing wrong with that at all!

I love escapist dreams. My favorites involve flying or sometimes, in my case, hovering.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Yeah, one weird thing is, when I was 20 I think I had a lot of dreams that were about my life *now*.

I'm only sort of kidding. I'm a very skeptical, rational person but there's some weird stuff around dreams I've experienced.

I used to have a lot of flying dreams, and a lot of jumping dreams- like long, slow jumps that would have a great deal of hovering in them. And some lucid dreaming, too. I've had many years in my adult life that I've tried to keep a notebook by the bed to write down what I can when I wake up; it helps to remember, and it also helps with that occasional weird thing where a data point comes up years later and you go "wait a minute...."

I haven't been doing that lately; too busy, esp. in the morning. But I have noticed that it helps me fall asleep if I can remember enough of the previous dream to get back into that head space.

[raccoon]

4. I think dreams can tell us a lot, about ourselves and what is going on in our lives.

My dreams are usually in color. Sometimes I have music in my dreams; a real-life song, sometimes a song my subconscious conjured up. Often I have the ability to fly, or just float up in the air.

I frequently write my dreams down in the morning. That way, if something/someone recurs in my dreams, I can go back and
look at previous dreams about the subject.

I used to frequently have what I call "the exam dream"--that I'm in college, and it's the end of the semester and I haven't done jack in some or all of my courses. Thank goodness I haven't had that one recently.

I wish I had more escapist dreams!

[backtoblue]

5. I have struggled with night terrors for most of my life

Most of the time I wake up with a sense of total dread, fear, and shortness of breath, sometimes complete paralysis that lasts for a few seconds.


On the occasion of an actual "dream", they are mostly in vibrant color and i'm in constant motion, like skipping or jogging or playing sports.