I heard once, I beleive it was in college, that a king who every night dreams he is a pauper is just as happy as a pauper who every night dreams he is a king, such is the power of dreams.
I find this theory quite fascinating. However, I have always been a person to take my dreams to mean something. I don't get into the habit of over interpreting them or anything like that (though occasionally the venture is fun), but I have just generally accepted that it is my mind's way of dealing with something, even if I don't know what that is.
I think the other general idea is that dreams don't really matter or serve a purpose, that they are just our brains firing off stray ideas leftover from the day, and yet it has been proven that without them we suffer.
And recent research shows that dreaming may actually help our creativity and daily functions. This article by Jonah Lehrer actually sums up a lot of recent dream research quite nicely. You should give it a read.
As I stated, I already suspected this. Some of my dreams are quite easy to interpret. When I was going through a rather harsh break up in college, after a few months, I started to relive the experience in my dreams. The setting would change and the outcome would change, but it was always the same. The break up happens, and my dream self tries to deal with it in a new way. It was an event for which I didn't feel there was closure and long after I had accepted it, agreed with it, wished I had been the one to initiate it, every now and then a dream about this person would creep up. I would see him in a supermarket or a party or on a vacation. Sometimes we would still be together and I'd be trying to break up with him. Sometimes we'd be married and getting a divorce. Then finally, I dreamed my last dream of him (well, so I thought. He pops up from time to time but it is more often as trivial as seeing my third grade teacher in a dream) I felt so good and refreshed when I awoke. It was ridiculous. Now, I have some trouble remembering what happened in the dream, but I beleive we sat down, talked, parted on good terms. Questions were answered, and even if they were fake it made it better.
Over time my memory of these dreams fade, but I did remember each of them. In fact, I remember about 95% of my dreams. These ones (described above) here are nothing special. And if I am remembering less than my actual dreams, then I spend a lot of time dreaming. (They are usually quite lengthy.)
Lehrer doesn't directly cover this, but I beleive I learned in psychology that even if you don't remember your dream, you still were dreaming. Years ago when talking to an actual psychologist, she had found it absolutely fascinating that I remembered most all of my dreams. Apparently remembering your dreams from near beginning to end is not a common ability. Nor is it common to remember them in the depth and detail that I do. It is also apparently odd that I am able to consciously come into my dreams and alter them while remaining asleep, and then return to deeper sleep where I once again lose control of the events.
Perhaps this is because my dreams are often focused around narratives of a complicated nature. I've certainly had the "I forgot there was a test today" dreams (and now that I teach, I've had the "I forgot I was supposed be teaching an entire class" dreams), but largely my dreams follow a plot line that, while it may not make sense to conscious waking sane individuals, is very real for my dream people.( I am seldom alone when I dream. There are always people about. Plenty of them.)
Perhaps this is why I'm able to intervene. Or perhaps the true reason is Nightmares.
I was going through a time when I was a teenager when I was having too many nightmares. Not too many perhaps for sanity or anything like that. Just too many for me. I was tired of it. I was also actually tired from waking up. Nightmares were stupid. Then, suddenly, one night I somehow intervened. Just when the dream was scariest, perhaps because it was starting to wake me up, my conscious thought "this would make a great horror movie" and boom, suddenly I was in control of the monster. I was the terrorizer and the people. I was directing my own mini horror movie inside my head. I stayed asleep, eventually losing conscious control and awoke refreshed and impressed in the morning. (In fact, this dream I still mostly remember.)
Talk about defense mechanisms.
According to this article you can train yourself to do this. I however had no mental rehearsing beforehand. I was simply just fed up. I have no explanation to how, but this has worked on every single nightmare I've had until recently.
After years of simply fending off any scary brain foe that would try to disrupt my slumber, my skill is slowly slipping. I guess it started about a year or two ago. I'd wake up in a start, still in the midst of the scariest part of the dream, usually waking Christopher with my start, or waking him shortly there after by my suddenly obsessive cuddling. He would relax me, make me feel better and off I'd go to sleep, just fine. It only happened a few times and I didn't think too much of it.
But then I had another one a few months ago. It was super creepy. I could feel myself trying to intervene but couldn't quite do it. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what the monster was going to do. But I couldn't stop my dreamself from wandering out into our hallway to get sucked up into the ceiling anyway.
This lack of control of this dream has made my waking self actually weary of the ceiling area between the bathroom and bedroom door at night. I think the true fear stems from my lack of ability to have taken control of it.
Then, a week or so ago, the unthinkable happened. I dreamed about a scary movie that I was actually directing.
It was completely my idea. Steven Spieghberg was there and insisted I give my input. Once we had the actors (Katie Holmes and Abigail Breslin) we went on location (a lake home gated community)and started filming. But suddenly, I realize that I won't be able to direct the film. It's too scary, I tell Steven. Steven then yells at me and tells me there's too much money invested for me to drop out now. So I agree to work a camera. So I watch, knowing everything that is going to happen to the actors (NOT ME mind you) before it happens, and I am totally freaked. It is scaring me. The effects are too good. Everything is too real. But since I'm already "directing" I'm not allowed to change the script unless it gets scarier because we're trying to make money after all. Then the camera men go away and I'm just watching the movie. Kind of in that third person omniscient dream state being. I can't really wake up because I'm stuck between: conscious that this is definitely a dream, but I lack control. So, of course, I finally wake when it is too scary.
Luckily it is the morning. Unluckily I remain disturbed.
Perhaps I should write the script and send it off to Hollywood.
But more importantly, why wasn't I able to intervene? And why did my brain so creatively institute a defense to my defense mechanism? (You can't take over something you're already technically controlling in the dream narrative, apparently.)
Which leads me to the next question. I have always so easily accepted that dreams are necessary, but are nightmares? Do we have to scare ourselves in our sleep?
By taking over my nightmares and preventing them from scaring me, have I been depriving my mental state of something necessary? And is it finally fighting back in order to get what it needs?
Or was it a simple fluke?
I can't really answer these questions. The article above mentions perhaps a reason for nightmares, but research thus far really does seem inconclusive.
What I do know is that I don't like the idea of nightmares being necessary; If that is true, then there is no true escape.
I find this theory quite fascinating. However, I have always been a person to take my dreams to mean something. I don't get into the habit of over interpreting them or anything like that (though occasionally the venture is fun), but I have just generally accepted that it is my mind's way of dealing with something, even if I don't know what that is.
I think the other general idea is that dreams don't really matter or serve a purpose, that they are just our brains firing off stray ideas leftover from the day, and yet it has been proven that without them we suffer.
And recent research shows that dreaming may actually help our creativity and daily functions. This article by Jonah Lehrer actually sums up a lot of recent dream research quite nicely. You should give it a read.
As I stated, I already suspected this. Some of my dreams are quite easy to interpret. When I was going through a rather harsh break up in college, after a few months, I started to relive the experience in my dreams. The setting would change and the outcome would change, but it was always the same. The break up happens, and my dream self tries to deal with it in a new way. It was an event for which I didn't feel there was closure and long after I had accepted it, agreed with it, wished I had been the one to initiate it, every now and then a dream about this person would creep up. I would see him in a supermarket or a party or on a vacation. Sometimes we would still be together and I'd be trying to break up with him. Sometimes we'd be married and getting a divorce. Then finally, I dreamed my last dream of him (well, so I thought. He pops up from time to time but it is more often as trivial as seeing my third grade teacher in a dream) I felt so good and refreshed when I awoke. It was ridiculous. Now, I have some trouble remembering what happened in the dream, but I beleive we sat down, talked, parted on good terms. Questions were answered, and even if they were fake it made it better.
Over time my memory of these dreams fade, but I did remember each of them. In fact, I remember about 95% of my dreams. These ones (described above) here are nothing special. And if I am remembering less than my actual dreams, then I spend a lot of time dreaming. (They are usually quite lengthy.)
Lehrer doesn't directly cover this, but I beleive I learned in psychology that even if you don't remember your dream, you still were dreaming. Years ago when talking to an actual psychologist, she had found it absolutely fascinating that I remembered most all of my dreams. Apparently remembering your dreams from near beginning to end is not a common ability. Nor is it common to remember them in the depth and detail that I do. It is also apparently odd that I am able to consciously come into my dreams and alter them while remaining asleep, and then return to deeper sleep where I once again lose control of the events.
Perhaps this is because my dreams are often focused around narratives of a complicated nature. I've certainly had the "I forgot there was a test today" dreams (and now that I teach, I've had the "I forgot I was supposed be teaching an entire class" dreams), but largely my dreams follow a plot line that, while it may not make sense to conscious waking sane individuals, is very real for my dream people.( I am seldom alone when I dream. There are always people about. Plenty of them.)
Perhaps this is why I'm able to intervene. Or perhaps the true reason is Nightmares.
I was going through a time when I was a teenager when I was having too many nightmares. Not too many perhaps for sanity or anything like that. Just too many for me. I was tired of it. I was also actually tired from waking up. Nightmares were stupid. Then, suddenly, one night I somehow intervened. Just when the dream was scariest, perhaps because it was starting to wake me up, my conscious thought "this would make a great horror movie" and boom, suddenly I was in control of the monster. I was the terrorizer and the people. I was directing my own mini horror movie inside my head. I stayed asleep, eventually losing conscious control and awoke refreshed and impressed in the morning. (In fact, this dream I still mostly remember.)
Talk about defense mechanisms.
According to this article you can train yourself to do this. I however had no mental rehearsing beforehand. I was simply just fed up. I have no explanation to how, but this has worked on every single nightmare I've had until recently.
After years of simply fending off any scary brain foe that would try to disrupt my slumber, my skill is slowly slipping. I guess it started about a year or two ago. I'd wake up in a start, still in the midst of the scariest part of the dream, usually waking Christopher with my start, or waking him shortly there after by my suddenly obsessive cuddling. He would relax me, make me feel better and off I'd go to sleep, just fine. It only happened a few times and I didn't think too much of it.
But then I had another one a few months ago. It was super creepy. I could feel myself trying to intervene but couldn't quite do it. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what the monster was going to do. But I couldn't stop my dreamself from wandering out into our hallway to get sucked up into the ceiling anyway.
This lack of control of this dream has made my waking self actually weary of the ceiling area between the bathroom and bedroom door at night. I think the true fear stems from my lack of ability to have taken control of it.
Then, a week or so ago, the unthinkable happened. I dreamed about a scary movie that I was actually directing.
It was completely my idea. Steven Spieghberg was there and insisted I give my input. Once we had the actors (Katie Holmes and Abigail Breslin) we went on location (a lake home gated community)and started filming. But suddenly, I realize that I won't be able to direct the film. It's too scary, I tell Steven. Steven then yells at me and tells me there's too much money invested for me to drop out now. So I agree to work a camera. So I watch, knowing everything that is going to happen to the actors (NOT ME mind you) before it happens, and I am totally freaked. It is scaring me. The effects are too good. Everything is too real. But since I'm already "directing" I'm not allowed to change the script unless it gets scarier because we're trying to make money after all. Then the camera men go away and I'm just watching the movie. Kind of in that third person omniscient dream state being. I can't really wake up because I'm stuck between: conscious that this is definitely a dream, but I lack control. So, of course, I finally wake when it is too scary.
Luckily it is the morning. Unluckily I remain disturbed.
Perhaps I should write the script and send it off to Hollywood.
But more importantly, why wasn't I able to intervene? And why did my brain so creatively institute a defense to my defense mechanism? (You can't take over something you're already technically controlling in the dream narrative, apparently.)
Which leads me to the next question. I have always so easily accepted that dreams are necessary, but are nightmares? Do we have to scare ourselves in our sleep?
By taking over my nightmares and preventing them from scaring me, have I been depriving my mental state of something necessary? And is it finally fighting back in order to get what it needs?
Or was it a simple fluke?
I can't really answer these questions. The article above mentions perhaps a reason for nightmares, but research thus far really does seem inconclusive.
What I do know is that I don't like the idea of nightmares being necessary; If that is true, then there is no true escape.
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