I saw another thread talking about dreams, I’ve had less than a handful of dreams throughout my life.
Do you dream? Every night?
Every night.
You almost certainly do too, but the part of our brain that commits things to long term memory is inactive when sleeping. When people recall their dreams, it’s at best just the ones that occurred right before waking up. Maybe you’re a heavy sleeper and tend to sleep through that window.
Also why people tend to not dream if using substances that have memory loss side-effects—weed is common. And same reason people get “black out” drunk or drunkenly repeat themselves. The brain just isn’t noting anything down, but it is happening.
If only they made weed strong enough to block out the nightmares…
I dream every night and can recall most dreams months sometimes years later. There just some dreams that never fade from memory.
I dream in a fashion that I “experience” the dream and remember it later, but only around the changing of the seasons. For instance, in Central America where I live, were transitioning into the rainy season soon. I’ve been dreaming so vividly for the pas two weeks, and only started feeling rested two nights ago.
In a week or so, that will taper back to rarely remembering ant dreams, and not surface again until October or November when our dry season starts again. (Disclaimer: we haven’t had a rainy season with rain the past two Yeats, but we still call it the rainy season)
When I lived in New England, it was the same, but four times a year, and most pronounced in the fall-to-winter and spring-to-summer transitions.
That’s not to say I never dream outside of those times, but rarely remember, and not consecutively. Last night I had one dream from 3am to 7am. I woke up once and used the bathroom and easily returned to the same dream, albeit subdued.
I dream most nights, though the dreams themselves very rarely make it into my long term memory and are forgotten within minutes of waking up.
As far as I know, everyone dreams every night…it’s part of the sleeping process…but you usually forget it ASAP so it seems like you didn’t dream.
As for dreams I remember…less often as I get older, I find. Although I do get a few vivid dreams when using magnesium supplements, but I also acclimate to those quickly. And if I’m woken prematurely, sometimes a dream sticks around a bit more than it otherwise would.
I usually have three or four dreams a night. I often wake up thinking I should write them down as plots for short stories. I’ve sketched out a handful of the really far out ones (like when Colin Farrell popped out of a statue in front of a frat house to warn me that Bill Gates was chasing me).
I written 3 stories based on dreams I have had.
Every Night
I dream every night and my dreams are usually both very vivid and also very surreal. The last dream I had involved getting lost in a restaurant that was a non-Euclidean space
Yeah I dream, but mostly when I’m sleeping.
I dream every night. I even dream frequently while taking naps, sometimes as short as 15-20 minutes.
Many dreams I forget shortly upon waking. As in, I can’t remember what it was about by the time I get out of bed. But, I do actually remember the dream for a few seconds, so I know it happened. The majority of my dreams I can recall for the rest of the morning or even day. If something noteworthy happened, I can remember the dream for days, weeks, or years. I really depends on how impactful/meaningful the dream was.
I have not used sleep journals or anything of that nature to help me remember dreams. I have always been like this. I also have had sleep paralysis and sporadic insomnia for about as long as I can remember - not severe or frequent enough to need treatment.
When I wake up I notice that I was dreaming once or twice per week. It’s always weird dreams. Weird as in:
- aliens spitting on trees
- tomato fighting in the library, killing and burying the old librarian, to resurrect a god
- using a rolled newspaper as a magic wand, triggered by the word “photon”
- a vulture digging gold nuggets from my liver, a la Prometheus
- a pig praying (stupid dream bilingual pun)
- my cats preparing popcorn (I don’t even like popcorn)
Haha, I LOVE the weirdness of dreams. Clicked this thread just because I knew some people might share a few.
I can’t. I lost the ability around age 7-8 and have never had problem sleeping sense. I do have a small 1-2 nightmares every 7-8 months though. They did a sleep and psyc study on me and found that I just sleep heavy and my brain relaxes and i go i to deep sleep for most of the duration instead of processing information. It is also the reason I can fall asleep on “impulse” and also why studying before sleep works well for me since my information retains where it left off. It is my one super power if I was to say I had one.
That’s fascinating! I can remember snippets from hundreds, if not thousands of my dreams, but it takes me at least 60-90 minutes to fall asleep each night.
My SO is the same way, and jokingly she hates me that I can just close my eyes and be instantly gone as she used to get upset that “I don’t dream about her” since she dreams a lot and remembers lots too. But I don’t dream about anything she knows that now but took a while for her to realize that.
It doesn’t seem fair! I think I’d rather have the extra sleep than the dream memories; the sleep seems more valuable.
Oh I agree, I drew the golden rest ticket. And it is OP. Feels like it makes life happier and easier in general tbh since I employ the tactics of “sleep on it” pretty much anytime and helps me process info and take time as well as cool off mentally if needed. In famous words of Bueller, “If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.” Good luck though, keep working on it and you may be able to train yourself.
I used to, usually several different dreams a night - sometimes flowing seamlesly from one to other.
I probably still dream just as much, but remember fuck all. I get up knowing I dreamed something but that’s it. Incredibly frustrating.
Nope, not anymore. As a kid yes I remember, but for maybe 10-15 years now, nope, super rare. Or I guess I dream but have no clue and don’t remember.
I have a dream landscape? It’s like all the places I’ve ever been have blended together to create a new world. And in a dream I know I can get from the fancy section (where there’s the wierd Victorian house that is like a coop I used to live in, and sometimes there’s a special room I can access by crawling up a specific wall) to the bar/shopping district by walking/going south, while by going west I can get to the beach that’s an amalgam of several Texas and Mexican beaches along with a strong dose of Egypt. There’s an epic resort there I often end up at, sometimes as a guest, other times worrying the whole time how I’m going to pay for it. There’s also a subway system that leads to a New York/Paris/other massive cities I’ve been to with bad ass museums. I think that’s to the northeast…
Anyone else have this? Love to hear about it.
I have something similar I think, but yours sounds way cooler! Over the years I have essentially recreated a whole section of Denver Colorado in my dreams. My brain keeps adding things over time and many of the new stuff sticks; dream Denver now has a whole ocean north of downtown, and a boat ferry that goes to an island out there.
Crazy stuff.
That is super cool, though! An ocean right outside Denver?? With an island?? And a ferry?? That would be amazing. Think this is very similar. Are you from Denver / spent a lot of time there?
Yeah I lived there for three years during a stressful period of my life. It’s a lot of fun to dream about though, as I look forward to what’s going to be added next!
I dream every night and it is always some kind of a crazy bizarre acid trip that may morph into a nightmare on occasion if I had a bad day or something is weighing on my mind. I’ve had this all my life and sometimes when I don’t dream (which is extremely rare for me) it feels weird waking up.
But that’s the regular stuff, the insane stuff is that I have dreams that reoccur and evolve for decades, and it’s like getting a new season of a show that you watched two years ago, but with new characters and plot lines.