Dream, reality, both? Or am I just nutz? =)

[Alex Franke]

What do you dream when you're just falling asleep?

The other night, for no obvious reason, I had the hardest time getting to sleep because every time I just entered that semiconscious dream state I had this terrible dream that a replacement part I got for a shop cabinet was -- in a very mysterious and convoluted way -- causing some other major problem in my life.

What do you dream when you're just waking up?

Many times in the past I've woken up to the alarm clock. I roll over, hit snooze and it keeps on buzzing. So I flip the switch to turn the alarm off, and it still keeps buzzing. So I get up and turn the whole clock off, and it still keeps buzzing. So I rip the plug out of the wall, and it still keeps buzzing. So I start busting it open and eventually toss it out the window only to find out that it's still buzzing. Only after I really feel like I've gone totally mad do I finally really wake up.

Do your dreams change when you're sick?

Mine get extremely frustrating and sometimes totally bizarre. I'll spend hours in "dream time" repeating a perfectly set-up cut only to find that some new little thing keeps going wrong every time I try it. Or I'll have these Dutch Boy scenarios where I'm always not quite at the solution to some elaborate and enormously complex technical problem.

Interestingly, when I have a migraine I often have images of strings of numbers bouncing around inside my skull. The numbers 4 and 7 hurt the most -- especially when they're repeated.

Do you fly in your dreams? Or revisit the same places again and again?

I fly. Not very often, but it's immensely fun when I do -- once I get over the shaky nerves. I also breathe under water sometimes. (I wonder if it's because I dream I'm under water so I'm really holding my breath until my body forces me to breathe -- voila! I'm breathing underwater!) I often end up exploring the expansive attic of my best friend from high school (>20 years ago) -- the attic is always *much* larger than the house it is over, and over the years I've discovered (and remembered) more and more places to go while up there.

Do movies or shows about dream/sleep problems freak you out?

They do me. Especially dream-related horror. You'll never catch me watching that stuff again.

Anyway, feel free to share some dream stories!

[Uncle Cracker]

Freud would have a field day with you (the shrink, not the tool company). After extensive empirical research and careful analysis, I think he would decide that you are a nutbar.

Seriously, I don't dream too much, but when I do, it's usually about Heather Locklear... (further details not available)

[billwmeyer]

Dreams

They claim everyone dreams, just some people do not remember their dreams when they wake up. I guess I fall into that category. I guess my dreams are too boring, or maybe alziemers starts during the dream state. When I do dream it is in black and white. I guess that black and white tv from my youth stunted my dreams.

Bill

[mpc]

I haven't flown in decades... actually not since I started working full time, ironically for an aerospace company. Never noticed that 'till just now. I used to fly a lot as a kid. I'd start from a sitting position, like at a dining room chair. Just pump my knees/legs a bit and up I'd go.

For some reason in my dreams "time" has no meaning... friends from elementary school will mix with current friends, or they'll be at work with me, etc. Nothing like being 9 years old designing airplanes with other 9 year olds. Or being 40 and a freshman in college again - ack!! NO MORE PAPERS!!

I rarely remember much of anything about the dreams either, once I fully wake up. Early in the morning, at the first half-wake-up, I remember things clearly and can even think about them - "gotta remember this one." I doze back off, the big mental eraser takes over, and all I remember later is that I had some goofy dream. The dreams between that first half-wake-up and when I finally do wake up are by far the most odd/goofy/disturbing.

My old college roommate used to flail about when he dreamed. He'd wake me up with the noise he made smacking his bed - he'd be laying on his stomach, palm-smacking the daylights out of his bed. ?? And one time a previous college room mate mumbled his ex-girlfriend's name a few times... then more loudly/clearly added "fee-fie-foe-fum." ??!?! How would Dr. Freud translate that one!!

mpc

[Pappy]

Seriously, I don't dream too much, but when I do, it's usually about Heather Locklear... (further details not available)

Stay away from my girl friend!

Used dream, or at least remember them, very seldom. A couple of the meds I am on now cause/alter dream patterns. Most of them are pleasant to remember.

[Uncle Cracker]

Stay away from my girl friend!

She's woman enough for both of us, Pappy (but I get her first...)

[Ed62]

My daughter was visiting the other day, and she and my wife were talking about having scary, recurring dreams. I told them I have one like that. It's always a bunch of 30 year old super models trying to pull me into a bedroom.

Most of the time, I don't remember my dreams.

Ed

[L. D. Jeffries]

I've always had the theory that dreams are a result of a bored mind..so it says to the brain, run a few unrelated movies just to amuse me (the mind). So the brain drags up a bunch of video clips and there you have it. Dreams as unrelated to the real world as can be. Well, thats just my theory!

[ragswl4]

Foundations, framing, electrical wires, plumbing, nail guns, chain saws, cabinet doors, dull router bits, spray guns, chisels, grinders, RAS, planer, jointer, clamps, glue,danish oil, hauling wood (the kind that comes from trees), well you get the idea. Too much going on. More like nightmares than dreams.

A dream would be a glass of wine on the deck, looking out at the mountains and Heather wearing nothing but a ..........................

[Stytooner]

No answers on the dreams, but about the numbers that hurt when rattling around in your skull, they are the numbers with the most sharp corners. The fact that they hurt the most is normal.

[cwsmith]

I used to have dreams of flying... funny, powerless flight that would start off as just running with longer, bounding strides until I was airbourne and then just "walking in the air". Funny, but years later, I heard this "tune" (instrumental) when having lunch in a restaurant, I really like it. So much so that I went looking to find out what it was.... "Walking in the Air". It was from a British musical as I recall. I guess such dreams are quite common.

In the last few years, I have dreams that often turn to frustration and stress; enough to wake me up some nights. They're about work, pushing hard to make impossible schedules and demands. They're "leftovers" from work, my last few years before I got out of that place, etc. I figure it's just some post stress situation that I'll eventually get over.

Do any of you have dreams that are simply about dreaming? Like you are sleeping, and your dream is about the sleep, and you know it's a dream, and you've got to wake up, but you can't, and you keep trying and you know you've just "got to"... like "snap out of it". You manage to overpower it and wake up, but then you're not really awake either. You're just dreaming that you're awake. Reminds me of some stupid sci-fi flick.

I dream almost everynight, most I don't remember the next day. The ones that I do, I don't like. I think I like the Heather Locklear dreams better... you'll have to do without her tonight, she's going to be occupied!

CWS

[cork58]

Dreams

My wife will fly but again not often. When I have a hard time I think of a horseback trip I took with just me and the critters. Could be to Denail or just Carpenters Creek. I have seen 30 mile on the Chickloon many times. It is always a good trip without the usual wrecks and blowups that always happen. Funny how I forget about the bees nest in the trail, my broken bones and horses lost to the trail, shale slides and critters trying to eat me. Never a bad trip, only good memories!

Try thinking of you best day, be it your wedding day of your first best job in the shop. Think of your best project you finished and how it started, how you changed the plan, and how you ended up with the perfect project. O.K. only you know the things that went wrong, but everyone thinks it is perfect!

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Ever look at the warnings on the side of the nicotine patch boxes? When I quit years ago, I used the patch. Not wanting to wake up wanting a smoke I left my patch on over night. WOW! The most vivid dreams I have ever had in my life! I guess the brain is still stimulated from the nicotine. Dreams of flying, dreams of Heather Locklear nature, seemed sooo real. I highly recommend it!

[Alex Franke]

Do any of you have dreams that are simply about dreaming? Like you are sleeping, and your dream is about the sleep, and you know it's a dream, and you've got to wake up, but you can't, and you keep trying and you know you've just "got to"... like "snap out of it". You manage to overpower it and wake up, but then you're not really awake either. You're just dreaming that you're awake. Reminds me of some stupid sci-fi flick.

When I was a kid I had this terrible recurring nightmare. It would start off as a peaceful summer morning -- the kind of morning where you wake up on your own after a very restful night to the distant sounds of kids playing, the neighbor washing the car, or a lawnmower humming a couple blocks away. I lay in bed for a bit just soaking in all the sounds, breathing the sweetest of air, and occasionally opening my eyes to look around my room to see everything just as I expected it to be, until I finally decided to get motivated. So I threw off the covers and stepped out of bed. But strangely, as soon as my toe hit the floor, I was just waking up again -- same peaceful sounds and smells.

"That was weird," I'd think, and just lie there for a while -- again with a smile on my face. And then when I decided to step out of bed, I was just waking up again. Each time, everything was so real, and my room was exactly like it was supposed to be, and each time I remembered all the times before. By the third or fourth time I knew something was wrong, and everything serene about the morning took a back burner to my growing sense of panic.

Eventually I was stepping out of bed immediately upon waking -- over and over again. It would start over even in the middle of my calling out for help. And after a few rounds of that I just became petrified. I woke up and lay there terrified -- often until my mom came in or I got up the guts to try again. Only then would it be clear that I was truly awake.

Pretty spooky... Fortunately I haven't had that dream since my teens...

I've had the "snap out of it" feeling several times, too. I often wonder if that's caused by becoming too conscious too quickly. I've read that at some point in the sleep cycle you're essentially paralyzed. I imagine that if your dream life becomes too conscious of this reality, then that might cause that feeling of being unable to act...

Weird stuff...

For me, Heather kind of morphed into Marisa Tomei, then Daisy Fuentes, then Cameron Diaz. I'm still waiting for all of them to show up in the same dream. ... or the same reality for that matter! =)

[LinuxRandal]

I haven't dreamed of flying, to the best of my knowledge, for SOME time. I'd like to eventually get back to it.
My dreams that I normally remember for a bit, after I awake, are the ones where it is more either a guilt trip about something I can't change, or wishing I would/could do something different, or fix some problem I either am or need to work on.
My dreams that I remember PAST the waking stage, and for a while there after, kinda scare me more, as well as make me wish I could control/decide when to have them. In them, I have the same senses that I do now (sight, sound, feel, smell, always, and sometimes taste (I don't remember eating in many of them)). They are every bit as real to me as this reality, and sometimes have made me wish I could pick one. Then I think (when I am awake) about not being able to pick one, and sliding into the other, and that flat out frightens me.
A very few of these, have turned into OBE's. When I awoke I felt non corporeal, like I was still offcenter from my body, and it was waying me down. I ONCE had one, from a conscious state, in elementary school (still remember it well). In the middle of a test, I started floating up out of my body, and went to wander around, then I got curious about someones answer on a test, then realized, "if I am here, how am I taking the test", and I slammed back in my body. Never again during conscious.