Things you learned in your dreams last night

[Lachrymose]

I figured this could be kind of fun.

A little bit of background on me first:

I have narcolepsy. As such, I tend to dream instantly as soon as I fall asleep. And I have many, many dreams throughout the night. I didn't even realize that this doesn't happen to everyone until well after I was diagnosed.

Also, I usually remember my dreams better than a lot of people I've encountered.

At any rate, I hope this thread doesn't just become my own personal dream journal.

So...on to the meat. Your post doesn't necessarily have to be from last night's dreams. The stranger, the better though!

So far, I only remember one thing from last night:

-I learned I have a basement under my yard. There's grass on top of a wooden "floor" about one inch thick (with no support whatsoever) covering it.

[Der Induktionator]

Sometimes I have a phase when I don't have a lot of dreams, but usually I do and they are pretty strange. I think I have a number of separate lives, each accessed through dreams. They often pick up where they left off in an earlier dream, though not necessarily the previous night.

- I learned that software development in dreams doesn't follow the normal rules of this reality. I have to think of a good example.

One thing I found out in casual conversation (not in a dream though), not everyone flies or even hovers.

So I have a question: When you fly, is it
1- head first on your belly (superman),
2- feet first lying on your back (Luge style),
3- head first on your back (Backstroke)
4- feet first lying on your belly (Uh, demonic abduction?)
5- freestyle/random orientation
6- hover only
7- Don't fly or even hover

I sometimes fly (2-Luge style).

[Lachrymose]

My dreams hate me. I don't usually fly. And the very few times I have, I can't even remember the position.

[Morning]

I fly on the bridge of a starship. A recent dream had me in the captain's chair with Scott Bakula at helm and David McCallum as science officer. This is only odd due to the fact the I'm usually the science officer.

A friend and I agreed that this dream means I'd like to be in charge of handsome men.

Morning
"Ahead, Warp Factor 3, Mr. Bakula".

[Richard W]

Hmm, I did actually have an unusual dream last night from which I learned things.

These were i) That I have no idea where to get cocaine in Valletta, even if all the people I'm with suddenly decide they want some cocaine, and ii) That the very attractive woman in the group is married or otherwise attached and not at all interested in me, even if she is being friendly because she likes me and thinks I might know where the cocaine is. I also realised that I was slightly alarmed to be sitting around with a group of people who would all suddenly say "Do you fancy some cocaine? Yes, that sounds a jolly good idea. Shall we go and get some? Richard, where do we go?"

(Actually, part i) might not be true, as I could guess where to start in the search for illegal substances at least, but I wouldn't know how to proceed from there...)

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Der Induktionator

So I have a question: When you fly, is it
1- head first on your belly (superman),
2- feet first lying on your back (Luge style),
3- head first on your back (Backstroke)
4- feet first lying on your belly (Uh, demonic abduction?)
5- freestyle/random orientation
6- hover only
7- Don't fly or even hover

1 and 5 for me. My main problem with flying in dreams used to be that if I wasn't concentrating, or was in slightly the wrong frame of mind, I'd suddenly uncontrollably shoot off vertically upwards, and it took quite a lot of effort to control that, and get back down to a reasonable altitude. If I got too high then it woke me up.

I've not had a good flying dream for years, though.

[mags]

I remember my dreams a lot, because I wake at the end of each sleep cycle just after REM. Fortunately I'm often able to go back to sleep after a few moments of "Huh. That was weird." It's not unusual for me to later dream more about the same thing, or dream I'm telling someone about whatever thing happened in the earlier dream.

I don't specifically remember last night, but the other night I had a continuing dream about a demon baby. I saw it born, then later it was causing problems because any dead bodies that were near it were coming back to life, of sorts, a la Pet Sematary or The Curse of the Monkey's Paw. What I learned is that, I don't hold that kind of thing against a baby, and actually found it more appealing than most babies who aren't demons.

I don't ever fly in my dreams, that I've ever noticed.

It's weird that my dreams are the inverse of what is going on in my life. If I have a lot of interesting things going on, my dreams tend toward the mundane, like cleaning or feeding the cats. When my daily life is boring, I have these extended, wild, what I call "epic" dreams.

Don't tell my husband that remembering dreams is a side effect of narcolepsy. He already suspects I have it, and he finds my dreams, especially the "epic" ones to be odd anyway.

[cehrriins]

Over the past few years, I've learned that dreams are the way my subconcious yells at me about stuff. . .

"Oy, you there! Yeah, figure this out. No, this is all I'm gonna tell you. Oh, suck it up, Cupcake!"

Then the entire next day, I'm left going, "Wait, what?"

[lyriccoloratura]

I don't fly so much as bounce along as if everything was a big trampoline. It's rather fun. I think there's a scene like that in Ghormengast.

Lyric - whee! - coloratura

[illiop]

Woohoo, a dream thread! Usually my dreams are stupid, but when I have had a tragedy or major life change they can be disturbing. As far as learning things, sometimes I learn that songs I know pretty well have alternate lyrics that are really weird. I remember having to ask friends if some weird lyrics were correct or if I was just having weird dreams and they laughed at me.

[Ellestar]

I'm not remembering any dreams from last night, but generally, I've learned from my dreams:

1. That I can't talk on the phone in dreams. I can't even dial a number as simple as 911. It gets to a point, in a dream where I'm witnessing an emergency and have to call for help, I get severe anxiety when I pick up the phone. Usually, in the dream, I have the thought, "It's okay. You're not dreaming. You will be able to dial this phone." And then when I can't (the numbers jump around), I will realize I'm dreaming, and often wake up from there.

2. If I hold my breath a certain way, I can stay underwater indefinitely. I don't have flying dreams, but I have swimming dreams where I dive underwater, but never have to worry about coming up for air.

3. If I have anxiety in real life, I will have anxiety dreams. This will include anything from real life situations where my students are demanding things of me, to metaphorical situations where famous people (usually Tyra Banks in the middle of trying to photograph me modelling) tell me that I'm not good enough at whatever I'm doing, to having to fight and battle people (friends, family, famous people) to get to where I need to go.

4. If I have a sex dream, generally there is going to be somebody else in the dream watching us. This is always disturbing (both in the dream and when I wake up) and I have no idea what this says about me.

[illiop]

Originally Posted by Ellestar

3. If I have anxiety in real life, I will have anxiety dreams. This will include anything from real life situations where my students are demanding things of me, to metaphorical situations where famous people (usually Tyra Banks in the middle of trying to photograph me modelling) tell me that I'm not good enough at whatever I'm doing, to having to fight and battle people (friends, family, famous people) to get to where I need to go.

I do this, too. Usually if I'm stressed about something or excited, whatever I'm stressed/excited about will keep happening in my dreams, all with different variations, but basically the same thing over and over.

[LyndaD]

I don't fly in my dreams, I leap. It's not like bouncing on a trampoline. I push off with one foot and gracefully leap over houses, trees and buildings, landing on the other foot.

My dreams often revolve around me trying to accomplish something and being unable to do so. the other night it was getting a group of children on a train. When my alarm went off, I at first thought it was the train whistle, but it didn't sound right and became an alarm. I startled so violently I almost fell off the bed.

[llewtrah]

Count me as one who wakes at the end of each sleep cycle. Some of my dreams make good short stories. Anyhow, last night I dreamt that my project team at work were all on a tour bus in Canada. The project manager was driving the tour bus. We got stopped at a checkpoint and I had to help check the vehicle for ice before the driver said "that's it, like it or not I have to deliver stuff" and carried on. All of which was a metaphor because I do quality assurance (the "checkpoint") for a project delivering to a Canadian customer.

I wish my dream life had an "adult channel". My subconscious insists on either finding a prophylactic or saying "no" when anything promising happens in the dream. And usually I wake up as a result! (Lucid dreaming techniques can't seem to conquer this particular scenario). I think all the guilt that doesn't exist in my waking life exists in my dream life .

I'm another one whose dreams can carry on from each other (like episodes in a TV series) as though I'm stepping into alternate lives. I specifically seem to keep visiting an alternate life in a somewhat dystopian future with "vertical cities". Also, rather than flying I levitate, but can only levitate to about 6 ft above ground (or above a horizontal surface). It's weird, it's like my mind has hands that it pushes against the ground in order to levitate above it. But can sometimes walk through walls okay in dreams.

[Lainie]

I don't fly in dreams, but I used to "fall" in my sleep. The landing always woke me up. I hated that.

[geminilee]

I have to swim my way up into the air to fly; it is hard work. I usually start from someplace high to make it a little easier, and if I quit jumping/swimming, I start to glide back down.

ETA: It is a little like an extended version of the Mario double hop.

[llewtrah]

To levitate from a standing position, I usually just fold my legs up so I'm sitting cross-legged in the air! Very occasionally I fly in Superman fashion, but usually still have the 6 foot off the ground limit no matter what I'm trying to escape from! And mostly I can only go the same pace I could walk or jog. My dreamtime has its own rules of physics!

[Der Induktionator]

My flying is about 6' off the ground too, especially when it's in the feet first mode.

I recently learned in a dream that I can't breathe through my eyeballs. This rather terrified me and I woke up to find that breathing through my mouth and/or nose worked just fine.

[Cervus]

When I fly in dreams, it's like I'm treading water. I have to keep my wrists flapping or I'll sink. But I fly vertically, mainly just hover a few feet off the ground. The last time I dreamt about flying, I was trying out some acrobatic work, curling myself into a ball while trying to stay "afloat" in the air.

The thing about my dreams is that they've always been real, intense experiences that I have. I often remember all the details, for years, as vividly as I do actual things I've experienced while awake. I still occasionally confuse dreams with memories from the waking world, and it is very very hard (and depressing) to convince myself that I can't actually defy gravity while I'm awake. The closest I can get is swimming.

Describing each of my dreams usually takes several pages because of all the details, sensory perceptions, and actions. There are physics and logic that only exist in my subconscious brain, but that make perfect sense to me and are essentially real things I've experienced, real places I've been and things I've done. Years ago I learned to distinguish dreams from waking memories because my dream-memories have a bit of a cloudy "film" over them, like I'm seeing them through a filter. But I can recall literally hundreds of dreams I've had (I've been writing them down since I was a child). I can go back and read a basic description of a dream I had when I was 10, and recall everything the same way I'd recall an old journal entry or a memory from a photograph. The things that happen to me in dreams really happen to me, as far as I'm concerned. It just happens on another plane of existence. Generally, I prefer it. My dream world is comforting and feels more like home than waking life.

When I was younger, my mother once asked me if I dreamed in color. It was the most mind-boggling thing to me...there are people who don't dream in color? Or who don't remember if they do? One thing I learned from dreams is that I apparently dream more intensely and have far more visual/sensory recall of my dreams than other people do. I've never heard anyone else describe their dreams as scenarios and events that actually "happen" to them.

[Venus]

I randomly have recurring dreams about tornados. Usually involving me escaping it by hiding in an unlikely place, like under a car, or in a crawlspace, or behind a wall I've just constructed out of stuffed animals.

If I have a flying dream it's usually hovering a few feet while in a standing position.