What did you dream about last night?

[David Prahl]

Believe it or not, this IS part of my AP Psychology homework! I'm keeping a "dream journal" for five days, and must find other people's dreams if I don't remember at least one from each night - and right now I could use a few!

What did you dream about last night (or recently)? Please be tasteful, and only post honest and un-exaggerated dreams. I also need some recurring dreams, so feel free to post those as well!

Thanks! (no "falling", "running" or "Palm goes bankrupt" dreams. Those are too common) :lol:

[DustyLBottoms]

Darn...I was gonna say "I have a dream...where one day plam uses and PPC uses will walk hand in hand with eatch other....but I digress"


Ok, seriously now.

I had a dream where I was in the little town....with neat old houses. I was walking down the street, and coming to the outskirts of town where a grassy hill rises, I saw the girl that I'm currently pursuing. I walked up to her, sat down, and we just smiled at eatch other.

That's it :D

Yes....sappy I know.....it's fun being in love :ppclove:

[karen]

I stayed up late watching Hindi movies, so I dreamt of organized crime, the movie industry, and corrupt police staff...

..and dancing in the middle of it all :lol:

[delfuhd]

My dream last night was that I met the lady on the cover of Dave Matthews' Recently (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002X4N/qid=1070228776/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-5947190-0364853) album, and we went out on a dinner/movie date I guess. I never could find out who she is, I think she's kinda cute. But oh well. I had the dream once before, but this one was slightly different...

[Kati Compton]

I frequently dream that I'm shopping in a bookstore.

[sublime]

I was interested in Dream Interpretation for a little while to understand my recurring dreams...and read Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" to understand them. Unfortunately, it wasn't until I got 3/4 of the way through when I read that Freud's theories of dreams aren't worth the paper they're written on anymore. Phoooey

Anyway, here are two dreams that occur often. Tell me what you make of them:

1) Setting: I'm on the main floor, in the kitchen. The kitchen has a sliding glass door pointing to the backyard. I can see the window in the living room that leads to the front of the house.
Dream: I look both ways and see many tornadoes heading for my house. I'm scared witless. Most often they destroy my house, but never harm me.

Second dream is somewhat related to running. Sorry:

2) Setting: I live in the basement of my house. My room has an exit to the backyard, while the front door on the 2nd floor is located at the other side. In the basement, I have a wall dividing the basement in, say, half, with a door with a lock on it.
Dream: I often dream that someone/something bad is after me and has just breached the front door. It's form is never the same (it was once a polar bear, once the FBI, once Frankenstein). I'm in my basement at the time. As soon as I know they are in the house, I close the door dividing the basement, run out of the door that leads to the backyard, run to the fence and jump it (which leads to one of my neighbour's backyards), continue running out of their backyard to the main road, run from the main road to the highway. From the highway I know I'm safe. What is weird about this dream is that it is part lucid, because every time it starts, I wind up thinking (oh boy, here's another chase dream. They'll never catch me, anyway). And I'm never scared. I'm amused that I can never be caught.

I've read these dreams as repressed thoughts, but I don't know if such readings hold any merit. The first relates to my fear of harm to my parents. I figured this out when one of the tornadoes (don't laugh) was made of chocolate milk. In real life, my father was having problems with his gallbladder, and I wondered if it was something new on his diet. He just started drinking chocolate milk around that time. The second dream, though this is just a guess, relates to my aversion to committed relationships. I know that the bad thing after me cannot hurt me physically, but I just don't want to be caught by it.

Tell me what you can glean from this.

[David Prahl]

At least to me, Freud's Psychoanalytical viewpoint isn't very good when it comes to interpreting dreams. But then again, I haven't even read his book on said topic.

DREAM 1: I wrote a few paragraphs and then realized that they were mostly questions - and I deleted them. So now I'll cram them all into one ugly theory and see what comes out.

As a young child you were told by a friend, family member, or movie that Tornadoes were a predator-like object that meant you harm. Although you've long since abandonded that idea, you still don't trust them. The Tornados don't represent an idea (like your parents), but rather a feeling. The house you live in feels unsafe to you, and you feel vulnerable in the kitchen. Once your mind realizes that it's unsafe, it calls upon the childhood fear of tornadoes to justify it's unrest.

DREAM 2: Very similar to the first dream, you feel that your house is an inadequate shelter. The distance from your bed to the locked door makes the space between seem large and empty (and therefore weak). Just like your brain "asked" for a reason to be afraid in the first dream, it finds justification for this fear in a monster or beast. Like the oncoming power of the Tornadoes, the scary form comes through the front door of the house and rumbles down the stairs toward you. At this point you think you're escaping the scary thing, but you're really escaping your house. The highway offers the strength and openness you find comforting.

In both dreams you escape the scary things (tornado or polar bear) unharmed, but your fear remains. If these dreams continue, try this:
-Think about your dream, and carefully dissect every aspect of it. Write it down like you've done here.
-Decide what the "turning point" in each dream is that makes it unpleasant.
-Re-write this point so that the rest of the dream will change.
-Write down your "new" dream, acting it out in your mind.
-Try different variations until your brain accepts one.


Keep in mind that I'm not a Psychologist or a doctor of any sort. In fact, I just turned 18 last Friday! :worried: This is not an expert interpretation of your dreams, it's an ambitious Psychology student trying to make some sense of them.

[Pat Logsdon]

When I remember my dreams (which isn't very often), they usually involve huge houses or "set pieces" that I explore with some kind of specific goal in mind. For example, last night I dreamed that I had to help a friend from high school find something. I'm not sure what it was, except that it was blue. :?: My friend also had a very large, walrus-like mustache for some reason, which looked totally wrong, as he's never been able to grow more than a light fuzz.

The house I was in was older, maybe Victorian, with lots of wood paneling - I remember that the grain of the wood was very fine and all of it was highly polished. There were lots of long hallways, and the rooms kept opening into spaces that couldn't possibly exist in the house. Every room had thick, heavy, closed drapes, and all of the light came from open flames - gas lamps, candles, etc, so there were lots of shadows, but also many bright points of light.

Very gothic, now that I think about it. :mrgreen:

All of my dreams are pretty pleasant, or at least interesting. The only bad dream I can remember was when I was about 6, and that was just a filmstrip (against a black background) going past my field of view, with a picture of a monster on each cell.

[sublime]

It's all because I saw Twister and it scared the bejebus out of me.

As for ridding myself of these dreams, I rid myself of the tornado dream soon after I linked the tornado with harm to my family (which is more of a prevalent fear than that of fear of the house) a few months ago. Before I made that equation I was having the dream at least once a week. The running dream, on the other hand, it a pleasure to have, oddly enough.

I'm guessing (as a literary scholar) that you were trying to do what I constantly try to do - find a common link that solves the puzzle of the text/dreams. This isn't denial, because I doubt I could be in a more comfortable living space than my house. I do nothing but read and write (and occasionally post), so a quiet living space is of the utmost importance, and with two quiet parents two floors above me, I have everything I can ask for where I live.

Unless......

Perhaps you're suggesting that these fears are subconscious? If that is the case then I cannot verify or refute them, since I have no idea about it. The subconscious, to me, is just metaphysics applied to psychology, since you can make grand statements about it, but neither affirm or deny anything about it. Ah well.

But I have a question. What texts are you reading for psychology? I'd like to read some more about it, but not a bulky text book. Are there any small texts by a single author of value, or are all psychology texts just $100 text books?

Thanks

[David Prahl]

Remember - this is a class in High School called "AP Psyhchology", so it's a college intro to Psych course. We're using Dennis Coon's textbook, but it's more of an overview of Psychology.

This might not have the substance you're looking for. If you'd like me to scan the TOC for you I could, or I could ask my Psych (or is that Psycho?) teacher for a reccommendation.

[maximus]

Dream : I was sitting under a tree, and suddently a tiny microchip fell on my head. I picked it up, and the writing on the chip mentioned :

Intel pentium 6, 16ghz, 3200mhz FSB, 32mb L1 cache, 8gb DDR SDRAM embedded.

I sold the microchip to AMD for 2 millions USD. Then, when I walked out from AMD's headquarter, another tiny microchip fell on my head. The writing mentioned :

AMD athlon 16ghz, 3200mhz FSB, 32mb L1 cache, 8gb DDR SDRAM embedded. And this time, I sold the microchip to Intel.

[Jerry Raia]

This is the dream right here! This cant be real. :sleeping:

[JustinGTP]

I had a dream that I was late to work but I didnt really care about it although I was driving, but I wanted to clean up something. The red digit digital clock kept changing from 5:30 to 7:56 by itself, when I am supposed to leave by 5:30.

This was an interesting dream and now Im afraid I will be late for work :(

-Justin.

[Jeff Rutledge]

I very rarely remember my dreams. But when I do, they're totally bizarre. I do often dream that I can fly, but I'm not very good at it. I have to take a run at it and then I kind of jump and use my arms to propel myself for a few meters before I can take off. Totally bizarre!

[David Prahl]

We had to write down everything and anything about our dreams for this class. I programmed my PC to start itself at 5:50 am, log me in, and open the file. Now THAT'S geeky! :mrgreen:

[disconnected]

I've often had dreams similar to Surgical Snack's -- houses or apartment buildings with impossible sets of rooms in random locations in the building -- the dreams aren't scary, I'm always just kind of bewildered in them.

I'm almost sixty now, and still (not often, thank goodness) have those anxiety-filled dreams of exams being held in locations I can't find because I've never been to any of the classes, or of not being able to locate my dorm room for some reason -- more bewildering buildings.

As a child I had a recurring dream of snowmen, or snowchildren actually, that came to life. I had this one a lot, and for a long time was not quite convinced that it was just a dream.

[Brad Adrian]

I know we all probably have that ONE certain recurring dream...

In mine, which I get about twice a month, I'm in some situation in which I urgently need to dial a telephone but can never connect. First, I misdial; then I forget the number; then the numbers on the phone move around...etc.

[Pat Logsdon]

I do often dream that I can fly, but I'm not very good at it. I have to take a run at it and then I kind of jump and use my arms to propel myself for a few meters before I can take off. Totally bizarre!
I've heard that the secret to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss. :mrgreen:

[nosmohtac]

I very rarely remember my dreams. But when I do, they're totally bizarre. I do often dream that I can fly, but I'm not very good at it. I have to take a run at it and then I kind of jump and use my arms to propel myself for a few meters before I can take off. Totally bizarre!

I used to have that same dream quite often, but haven't for many years now.

I have many bizarre dreams. I sometimes get a little carried away in my dreams too. My wife woke me one night, because I was making the strangest moaning sounds. When she woke me I was still very aware of the dream I was having, and still making the moaning sounds. I started laughing and told her that I was hiding from Bigfoot, and he was searching for me. I was trying to scare him a way. I know this dream comes from my childhood, because I was scared out of my wits when I was about 8 years old, after seeing the movie Sasquatch.

Many of my dreams are recurring, and involve one of two houses that I mostly just explore and find that there are many more rooms than it would appear from the outside of the house. Neither of these houses resemble any house that I have been to, but they are usually on an existing street in my town.

[rudolph]

I sometimes have dreams that my teeth are falling out... yea, it's wierd. They arn't often, but I've had them ever since I can remember. Sometimes my teeth just crumble and fall out, other times they fall out one bye one. From those dreams that I remember, I call the denist after they fall out, but it's a weekend so the office is closed.
Then i wake up, and my teeth are gone 8O ... j/k

Both my sisters say they had dreams where their teeth fall out too

:mrgreen:

[David Prahl]

I have a dream where I'm eating a 10 pound marshmellow. When I wake up, my pillow is gone.




:lol:
Just kidding!

[maximus]

Talking about dreams ... I often have these dreams where I actually conscious that I am only dreaming -- e.g. The dream is about being chased by a dinosaur, but I know that I was only dreaming, so I was not running as hard as I possibly can in the dream. That kills the fun out of the dream. I want a dream that is really a dream !

Anyone has that kind of consciousness during dreams ? What caused that consciousness anyway ?

[David Prahl]

What you're referring to is called "lucid dreaming". There are varying degrees of this R.E.M. state, from being aware of dreaming to being able to control every aspect of the dream (or create one).

I remember one particular dream when I was able to control every aspect of it, but only one. People can eventually be trained to increase the frequency and control of their lucid dreams, and most people are capable of lucid dreaming.

You should be able to find gobs of information on :google: .