January 17, 2008

  • I have so many dreams, but I have not gotten a chance to record them here lately...

    A dream I had two days ago and that I still can remember found me in a place of a party. I was invited to a children's party. There were a lot of people, and mostly very warm people. I noticed that there was a popular movie star comfortably sitting on a couch smiling as she chatted with the party hostess. She looked plain without makeup, but she did not look different and was recognizable. I had a chance to chat with her; and asked her if I can have a photo souvenir with her and she were kind to oblige. She was ready to pose, but then I noticed that she looked a lot older than when she was sitting on the couch by herself. Anyway, I was looking for my cellphone camera, but I realized I did not have it with me. So I asked my brother who, in my dream, had the same cellphone as mine. He started looking for his cellphone but he could not find his either. Here was this female celebrity willing to pose with me and extremely patient waiting and I did not have a camera. I told her I would go home to get my cellphone and I will be right back. On my way back to the party, I was reminded that I left something at home that the party hostess told me to make for her birthday celebrant kid. I was so upset that I forgot to bring it with me because it was like a mobile toy for a baby all decorated with ice cream cake. I knew that it was just melting at the house and the ice cream cake would already be melting. The end of my dream.

    Yesterday morning, I had another dream. It was not a pleasant one. It was something about my past that keeps on coming back as a dream many times. Just different settings. I seldom think about this past, but for some reasons, this person in my past keeps on coming back in my dreams. I was trying to be civil to this person, but I was not really very happy of the arrangement in my dream. I kept on telling myself why I allowed myself to be in that situation again, but I could not seem to tell this person how I felt inside. I kept on trying to remember where I am now in my life, but I seemed to not remember. But at the end of the dream, I started to remember who I am now and told this person that I cannot be around this person anymore. I have a new, happy and joyful life now that this person cannot be part of.

    Top 10 Amazing Facts About Dreams

    10. Blind People Dream

    9. You Forget 90% of your Dreams

    8. Everybody Dreams

    7. Dreams Prevent Psychosis

    6. We Only Dream of What We Know

    Our dreams are frequently full of strangers who play out certain parts - did you know that your mind is not inventing those faces - they are real faces of real people that you have seen during your life but may not know or remember? The evil killer in your latest dream may be the guy who pumped petrol in to your Dad’s car when you were just a little kid. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces through our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during our dreams.

    5. Not Everyone Dreams in Color

    4. Dreams are not about what they are about

    If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. The unconscious mind tries to compare your dream to something else, which is similar. Its like writing a poem and saying that a group of ants were like machines that never stop. But you would never compare something to itself, for example: “That beautiful sunset was like a beautiful sunset”. So whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to be a symbol for itself.

    3. Quitters have more vivid dreams

    2. External Stimuli Invade our Dreams

    This is called Dream Incorporation and it is the experience that most of us have had where a sound from reality is heard in our dream and incorporated in some way. A similar (though less external) example would be when you are physically thirsty and your mind incorporates that feeling in to your dream. My own experience of this includes repeatedly drinking a large glass of water in the dream which satisfies me, only to find the thirst returning shortly after - this thirst… drink… thirst… loop often recurs until I wake up and have a real drink. The famous painting above (Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening) by Salvador Dali, depicts this concept.

    1. You are paralyzed while you sleep

    Believe it or not, your body is virtually paralyzed during your sleep - most likely to prevent your body from acting out aspects of your dreams. According to the Wikipedia article on dreaming, “Glands begin to secrete a hormone that helps induce sleep and neurons send signals to the spinal cord which cause the body to relax and later become essentially paralyzed.”

    Bonus: Extra Facts

    1. When you are snoring, you are not dreaming.
    2. Toddlers do not dream about themselves until around the age of 3. From the same age, children typically have many more nightmares than adults do until age 7 or 8.
    3. If you are awakened out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, you are more likely to remember your dream in a more vivid way than you would if you woke from a full night sleep.

    from the List Universe....

    I just listed the explanations that I am interested in. Now I know why my husband cannot remember his dream. He snores!  I do remember my dreams when I wake up in the morning and, then go back to sleep. And I would have another dream. I also remember my dream when I am sleeping on my left side.