Share your dreams

[puppykickr]

No sir. Once I awaken, I only retain the memory of coming up with something useful while sleeping. I never remember what it was so a pad would be of no use. I would like to remember just one dream sometime to see if I really had something or was just dreaming about helping out my fellow man.

I used to have nightmares when I was a kid.
There were also evidently dreams that I didn't identify as a type, but would cause me to get out from under the covers and turn 180° around.
As the house was cold, this caused poor sleep. Often I awoke minutes before my alarm went off- freezing.
I would get back under the covers to warm up, but when the alarm went off in a few minutes it was extremely hard to get out of bed.

Without any outside help, I realized that the solution was to become aware of my dreams as I was having them.

The best thing about dreams is that anything is possible in them- there are no boundaries or rules to follow.

So all you need to do is become aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming.

This takes practice, but eventually you will catch it while it happens.

For me there was some more practice to wake myself once I realized that I was dreaming.

This was actually more difficult than realizing when I was dreaming.

But after a while, it happened.

I caught myself turning around in the bed a couple more times, then after that I woke myself up before getting uncovered.
I also learned to wake myself up when I was having nightmares.

You could try this, along with a pad and pencil (not a pen*) to quickly write down anything before it escapes.

(*Pens are less reliable.)

 

[MoodyBlues]

I love your post about dreams, @puppykickr. Did you ever identify what you were dreaming about?

My husband and I are currently pondering a recurring dream I've been having for ≈2 years, involving my mom. A previous recurring dream, which I had for several months after my long hospitalization, morphed into this one.

In the first one, I was always alone, in a huge institutional, sanitary...place, with glaring white walls, and I was desperately looking for my mother. Its symbolism was easy to figure out. I had been in huge, sanitary institutional places for six months...and three years earlier had lost my mother. I 'lost' my mother. It made sense, as much as dreams can, and went away, turning into the second one.

It's very complex, but its effect on me is predictable, and truly unpleasant: I'm overcome by feelings that we had let Mom down, that we failed her when she needed us most, when she was dying...we didn't make it to her in time. I wake up near tears, overwhelmed by letting Mom down...then I'm fully awake, and know that wasn't true at all.

In fact, my husband and I went to great lengths to make her last days on earth happy and feeling loved. I'll never forget how, a day or two before she lapsed into unconsciousness, and could no longer speak, my husband sitting on her bed, slowly, gently spoon-feeding her ice cream, her eyes filled with joy, and me holding her hand. We're struggling to figure out why I'm plagued by this gut-wrenching dream in which we miserably failed her...

 

[lunatic59]

It's very complex, but its effect on me is predictable, and truly unpleasant: I'm overcome by feelings that we had let Mom down, that we failed her when she needed us most, when she was dying...we didn't make it to her in time. I wake up near tears, overwhelmed by letting Mom down...then I'm fully awake, and know that wasn't true at all.

Not that hard to analyze. Moody, that's classic "survivor's guilt". You made it through your illness, she didn't and your subconscious is struggling to rationalize why in one case 1+1=2 and in another 1+1=0. Human brains try to make everything simple which is why you are equating your life and death struggle with your mother's. Not the same thing. The more you think about it, the less you'll dream it.

Now, if I only had a couch and a cigar ....

 

[MoodyBlues]

Not that hard to analyze. Moody, that's classic "survivor's guilt". You made it through your illness, she didn't and your subconscious is struggling to rationalize why in one case 1+1=2 and in another 1+1=0. Human brains try to make everything simple which is why you are equating your life and death struggle with your mother's. Not the same thing. The more you think about it, the less you'll dream it.

I so hope you're right. This dream leaves me feeling depleted, sad, heartbroken...just generally awful. I'd really like it to stop.

Do you mind if I throw a few 'buts' into this? First, yes, I survived nearly dying--but I was [relatively] young, whereas Mom died from natural causes just shy of 90--by far, the oldest anyone on my maternal side has lived. She was healthy, vital, independent and active until her last year. So survivor's guilt in this scenario doesn't seem plausible.

Back in the '90s, when AIDS was taking its toll on vital, young [and some old] people left and right, I volunteered as an HIV/AIDS counselor at a clinic in Dallas. It was in the 'gay part of town,' and my friends there named me the clinic's 'token straight'--and an 'honorary lesbian.' I also volunteered, with friends from the clinic, doing hospice respite care. We'd stay with, and take care of, a dying patient so their loved ones/caregivers could spend some carefree time out of the house. I lost so many people I had come to love...went to so many funerals...but not once felt survivor's guilt.

So I don't know.

Now, if I only had a couch and a cigar ....

None of my shrinks ever had a couch--or a cigar!

 

[lunatic59]

So survivor's guilt in this scenario doesn't seem plausible.

The human brain always tries to simplify. Regardless of the details your ego (in the psychiatric sense) uses to understand and rationalize away the pain of loss/death, the fact remains that your mother died and you didn't.

... I had for several months after my long hospitalization ...

The dream started when you realized you weren't going to die, too.

I lost so many people I had come to love...went to so many funerals...but not once felt survivor's guilt.

Family -- mothers in particular -- are different.

None of my shrinks ever had a couch--or a cigar!

Mine had a couch ... i had the cigar. I thought it was fair considering how much he charged.

 

[puppykickr]

I have recurring dreams about my cats.
One per dream, not two together.

In my dreams, they are alive and with me, and happy.

Then I realize (in the dreams) that they are gone, and then I wake up in misery.
It affects a large portion of my day afterwards.

As these are not nightmares, and they are the only way I can be with them at all, I haven't tried to get rid of them.

As for the nightmares I had as a child, I really don't remember a thing about them.

Now, more recently, I had horrid nightmares that were so realistic that I could not force myself to realize that I was dreaming.

These dreams actually had roots in my real life, so to discern between the two was impossible.

I do know a family of Native Americans, and their son has been a very close friend and often a guardian of mine since we were eight years old.
We even went to WoodStock '99 together.

Anyway, he did some studying and became knowlegeable in making native jewelry- hand making things out of genuine materials, and doing whatever they do that makes them believe in whatever powers these items have.

My friend was not home, so I explained to his father what my dreams were and asked him what might I do.

He gave me a couple of necklaces that his son had made before he left, and instructed me in how to use them.

Now, I am a Christian, so these things are generally forbidden.

But I needed relief, and had no help from any other method.

So I hung one of the necklaces the way I was told, and in spite of my given faith the thing worked.

I can't say if it did it, if I did it, or if God finally had mercy and took them away.

Maybe (probably) it was a placebo effect.

All I know is that the dreams are gone, were gone in a few days, and have not come back in years.

The necklaces were dreamcatchers.

I haven't hung them up or worn them since, but if I need them I still have them.

 

[MoodyBlues]

@lunatic59, now that we've totally hijacked your inventions thread, do you want to split the dreams posts out into their own thread? I would. That way this thread can serve its intended purpose, and the dreams thread would stand on its own merit.

My 2¢....

 

[lunatic59]

Moved.

I do think we already had a dream thread, but I don't have the time to go searching this afternoon. If I find it later, I'll merge them (or anyone else with phenomenal cosmic mod powers).

 

[MoodyBlues]

Moved.

Excellent!

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I see dead people. But I know they're dead and it was a dream. So I've got that.
Trying to remember the last one?

 

[MoodyBlues]

I have recurring dreams about my cats.
One per dream, not two together.

In my dreams, they are alive and with me, and happy.

Then I realize (in the dreams) that they are gone, and then I wake up in misery.
It affects a large portion of my day afterwards.

I'm sorry. If it's any consolation, I do the same--only in one recurring dream, it's my big, blubbery cat, Willie, and in the other, my little boy [Great Dane], Freddie. It's just like you described...

Those dreams are very REAL. I can feel them, smell them, hear Willie purr, feel the warmth of his big, fat, pudgy body, look right into Freddie's beautiful brown eyes. They remind me of how, when he was very young, looking into his eyes gave us the sense that he was an old soul in a puppy's body.

When you're dreaming about your cats, does it feel real like mine? Do you FEEL them, their warmth, their breath?

I try to pull out of the sadness I feel afterward by reminding myself they're happily, free of pain, romping at Rainbow Bridge now, with all their brothers and sisters. It helps, a little.

When I had Willie cremated, this copy of Rainbow Bridge was included in the bag with the cedar chest containing his ashes. I took its pic and look at it from time to time:

...and sob...

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Anybody ever dream they were in a Hollywood movie?

 

[MoodyBlues]

Anybody ever dream they were in a Hollywood movie?

Yeah--Night of the Living Dead

 

[dontpanicbobby]

That was a Pittsburgh movie but I understand the mood.
It's not that bad yet though.

 

[Milo Willamson]

I have like a day dream of dating my girlfriend, and going out to here and there.
My recurring dreams are already scattered here online, and sometimes I freak out myself of knowing of like
a sixth sence thing into each of my storylines, maybe that is why I treasured them soo much..

 

[dontpanicbobby]

I hear you @Milo Willamson. You can do that in dreams.

 

[Milo Willamson]

I hear you @Milo Willamson. You can do that in dreams.

And they become real? Honest bobby, that is why I keepsafe nearly 99% in my notebook.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

OT: No @Milo Willamson.

 

[Milo Willamson]

OT: No @Milo Willamson.

Maybe that is why the ace of spades, decided me as a magician.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Tru' that.
I could float over sidewalks in my dreams.
Not gonna happen unless I can be dealt that hand.
Spades beat diamonds, right.
Or am I dreaming?

 

[Milo Willamson]

I kind of wonder if we are all consintantly dreaming of a better place,
to put our hat in the hallway?

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Focus @Milo Willamson, Focus.
You are wide awake.

Did you take the blue cookie?

 

[Milo Willamson]

Focus @Milo Willamson, Focus.
You are wide awake.

Did you take the blue cookie?

Wait what, blue cookie? "Wide awake" hey I know that band..

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Welcome to the real world.

 

[Milo Willamson]

Welcome to the real world.

I was promised a unicorn named "Happy!"