Sleep science is an area I have a passing interest in and I love documentaries that talk about dreams and sleep-walking. Current studies on dreams indicate that they might be correlated with learning and memory.
When I dream, 9 times out of 10 they're highly vivid and quite interesting. I know a lot of people say they don't remember theirs, but I thought I'd make a thread where we could record the random dreams we had. I'll start with the slightly bizarre one I had last night.
I dreamed I was living in a city that was a mix of modern and 1940's. The city butted up against a huge cliff-face on one end, and next to the cliff on the next side to the city was a vast lake filled with chunks of ice - rather like this was a city in some deeply northerly area. We were going to be attacked by an army - again 1940's style, and camping around the other two sides of the city were enemy troops. The city spent nights slowly escaping by flying hot-air balloons silently over the enemy encampments. At one point I was testing out a balloon and drifted over the edge of the lake. It was a comically small balloon with a one person basket, and I found it could not stay afloat very well as it had a hole somewhere in it. I went skimming along just above the surface of the lake, which was very blue and cold-looking, struggling to keep the balloon inflated enough until I finally landed with a little relieved thump on the shore.
I woke up and wrote all of this to a friend, who wrote back: "I think it means you're dissatisfied with your life in some way, and want to make a change. The balloons represent freedom, the ice represents the inhospitable future. Or something like that."
I've never been one to assign meanings to my dreams - very often they involve mundane things that I'm dealing with in real life - but it's no secret to good friends that I feel close to sinking in an unfriendly environment in my life right now. I thought it was an interesting interpretation from a person who's only just now getting to know me and certainly hasn't heard all of the details of life. Though...who isn't dissatisfied with their life in some way?
A particular favorite of mine: My room is one of the finished portions of the attic of the very old house my roommate and I inhabit. In the back of my closet is a tiny door one could crawl through to get into the unfinished portion. I call it the "slave door" because it resembles nothing so much as something you'd hear about in the Underground Railroad.
Anyway, one night I dreamed I was sitting across from the open closet door sorting bills and the little slave door swung open (I later wondered where all the clothes I have hanging up had disappeared to). Sitting just beyond it in the dark attic rafters was a demon child...such like you'd see in the Grudge or the like, with entirely black eyes. I forced myself awake, yelling, "Demon!" A couple days later a black squiggly spot appeared on the kitchen ceiling just under where that place would be. Hold it! I'm not ascribing it to anything paranormal - we had a party with silly string and I'm sure some party gak got squirted up there - but it made a good joke. What I enjoyed was that a couple days after that, I returned to the same dream, but this time the man I was dating stood next to me and commanded the demon child to flee while wearing his favorite bowler hat.
What about the rest of you? If you remember your dreams, do they have stories behind them? Strange meanings? Were you ever embarrassed by any of them - say, by a sex dream of someone you weren't supposed to be thinking of, or who you never thought you'd view that way?
When I dream, 9 times out of 10 they're highly vivid and quite interesting. I know a lot of people say they don't remember theirs, but I thought I'd make a thread where we could record the random dreams we had. I'll start with the slightly bizarre one I had last night.
I dreamed I was living in a city that was a mix of modern and 1940's. The city butted up against a huge cliff-face on one end, and next to the cliff on the next side to the city was a vast lake filled with chunks of ice - rather like this was a city in some deeply northerly area. We were going to be attacked by an army - again 1940's style, and camping around the other two sides of the city were enemy troops. The city spent nights slowly escaping by flying hot-air balloons silently over the enemy encampments. At one point I was testing out a balloon and drifted over the edge of the lake. It was a comically small balloon with a one person basket, and I found it could not stay afloat very well as it had a hole somewhere in it. I went skimming along just above the surface of the lake, which was very blue and cold-looking, struggling to keep the balloon inflated enough until I finally landed with a little relieved thump on the shore.
I woke up and wrote all of this to a friend, who wrote back: "I think it means you're dissatisfied with your life in some way, and want to make a change. The balloons represent freedom, the ice represents the inhospitable future. Or something like that."
I've never been one to assign meanings to my dreams - very often they involve mundane things that I'm dealing with in real life - but it's no secret to good friends that I feel close to sinking in an unfriendly environment in my life right now. I thought it was an interesting interpretation from a person who's only just now getting to know me and certainly hasn't heard all of the details of life. Though...who isn't dissatisfied with their life in some way?
A particular favorite of mine: My room is one of the finished portions of the attic of the very old house my roommate and I inhabit. In the back of my closet is a tiny door one could crawl through to get into the unfinished portion. I call it the "slave door" because it resembles nothing so much as something you'd hear about in the Underground Railroad.
Anyway, one night I dreamed I was sitting across from the open closet door sorting bills and the little slave door swung open (I later wondered where all the clothes I have hanging up had disappeared to). Sitting just beyond it in the dark attic rafters was a demon child...such like you'd see in the Grudge or the like, with entirely black eyes. I forced myself awake, yelling, "Demon!" A couple days later a black squiggly spot appeared on the kitchen ceiling just under where that place would be. Hold it! I'm not ascribing it to anything paranormal - we had a party with silly string and I'm sure some party gak got squirted up there - but it made a good joke. What I enjoyed was that a couple days after that, I returned to the same dream, but this time the man I was dating stood next to me and commanded the demon child to flee while wearing his favorite bowler hat.
What about the rest of you? If you remember your dreams, do they have stories behind them? Strange meanings? Were you ever embarrassed by any of them - say, by a sex dream of someone you weren't supposed to be thinking of, or who you never thought you'd view that way?