Question of the Day: Sunday, June 8

My question is super random today, but bear with me. Early this morning I was dreaming that I was cleaning my house after my daughter had enjoyed a big sleepover with lots of friends. It was much nicer home than mine, but I wasn't aware of that in my dream. Anyway, at a certain point, when I was cleaning dressy shoes (from their dress-up play), I realized that I was probably dreaming. I tried to look at a clock because they say clocks never show time in our dreams. So I tried that and sure enough couldn't tell what time it was. So I knew I was dreaming, yet the dream continued.

That's never happened to me before. Anytime I've ever realized I was dreaming, I've woken up. But this went on, and it was out of my control. Weird stuff continued to happen and I continued to be aware that I was dreaming but just rolled with it. Very strange. 

Do you ever have dreams in which you are aware that you are dreaming? Do you ever have control over your dreams? What's the weirdest dream you've had?

Yes, l'm quite often aware that l'm dreaming. l can also on occasion control my dreams.

Also, there have been times when l've been dreaming, and questioned in my dream if l was asleep and dreaming. l dreamt that l pinched myself to see if l was awake, felt it in my dream, and dreamt that l was actually awake, only to wake up and realize l was indeed dreaming.

There have also been times when l've woken up from a great dream and wished that l could go back into it, and resumed dreaming about it.

Haha, I've had weird circular dreams wherein I dream I've woken up and began my morning routine only to realize I'm dreaming. Then I'm back in my bed and think I've actually getting up and actually getting ready only to then realize that no, I just reset and started dreaming I was getting ready again. XD

But yes, I'm with you on good dreams ending and wanting to go back into them!

Yes, I can lucid dream at will. My sister Linda taught me how to do it when I was very young. I grew up in a violent household and had nightmares and night terrors and severe asthma all during my childhood. That wasn't so bad, the real problem was when they were at the same time. The only way I could get out of the night terrors was to scream - which normally would be easy during one of those, but almost always I would be having an asthma attack at the same time and couldn't. I was trapped.  Linda taught me to realize I was dreaming, and change the endings of the dreams so I could calm down, get some air, and eventually wake up. It helped me A LOT!

Linda told me before she died that she figured it out and taught herself to do when she was a kid, before she taught me. I had never realized that she was having nightmares all those years, too, but of course now I wonder how I didn't realize that...

I guess some of the weirdest dreams I've had were out of body ones, flying through the night air, but I'd wake up so tired that years ago I asked my brain to please stop and I don't have them anymore.

I wish I had control over my dreams.  I don't know that I'm dreaming and some of the nightmares can get pretty bad.

I don't have much control over my dreams, and I don't think I'm cognizant it's a dream, but man.. I have some messed up dreams. I haven't been sleeping as many hours lately so I recall fewer, but during the school year the ones I could recall, I was accused of being on drugs when I had them hahaha. One of the more recent dreams involved a third person perspective of someone who had been held captive by an entire family, and when she escaped, she found herself in a school field where people had cows and were eating the cow pies.  I don't think I was present in the dream itself, more omniscient.

I can lucid dream as well.  Sometimes more consciously than others; if that makes sense.  It does help me if I'm having turbulent dreams. Sometimes I find I need to wake up to stop the cycle of them; but it usually works. And I can usually go back into a pleasant dream.  I also sleepwalk and sometimes talk. 

I'm not sure what my weirdest dream is.  I've had a lot of crazy and fun ones over the years.  I have this vague memory of one dream.  There was a panel in front of me with knobs and buttons.  It was sort of a blue gray color; like I think on a ship or something along those lines.  Some kind of control room panel.  I was standing at this panel pushing the buttons and pulling levers and things.  Then I heard my husband say "what are you doing?" and I realized I was standing up at our bedroom wall between his dresser and a small cabinet.   I don't remember how I answered him; just that I got back in bed and felt pretty silly. 

I had night terrors and sleep paralysis for decades....thankfully, they're pretty much gone. They are horrible, even though by the time I became an adult, I realized what they were and knew when I was in an episode. I haven't had one for about 5 years now; I'm 59, so I had them for a long, long time. (I'd be just dropping off into sleep, hear the gong and it was all downhill from there.....screaming didn't help me; I'd think I was screaming and I would literally pray for Rick to hear me and wake me up, but Rick said I was just whimpering, even though in my mind, I was screaming like a banshee.)

@Winchester: I suffer from awareness during sleep paralysis (ASP) also.

It started for me when I was 10. Crazy timing and the most beautiful lucid dream (my first ever lucid dream and in full color!) turned wicked nightmare/terror. It was more like a night terror, because I'd just fallen asleep and was definitely not in REM sleep, but like a nightmare in that I remembered every heart-pounding second of it when I finally woke up. The details require a lot of backstory, but I'll just say that I was very religious at the time (living with my fundamentalist Southern Baptist Christian mother who also suffered from ASP), and we thought at the time that it was the devil and his demons. She still believes it was.

That first ASP episode is the only one that was accompanied by a lucid dream. Never since have I had a dream that visually spectacular or so completely terrifying. I didn't sleep in my own bedroom again for two years, and I avoided sleeping on my back (the position I was in when it started) for almost 10, if that gives you an idea of just how frightening it was. 

Since then, when I have an episode, I just feel it start. No gong, but this ... almost like a static feeling. That "snow" as they call it when your cable TV goes out and you've just got that black and white mess with the white noise on your screen. If that were a feeling... I know that sounds weird. Anyway, that's what it's like for me. I feel that, then I'm paralyzed. I can also whimper when in my head it's a hoarse scream, I can control my breathing, and I can move my eyes (but not open them). My ex-husband and my ex-boyfriend knew that if I was breathing heavy in a funny pattern, it was happening. If they just touched me, it would end. Fighting it makes it last longer. Relax and it ends. 

It doesn't scare me now, and rarely happens. The last time for me was a few months ago, but maybe two years before that. It happened several times a week when I was a kid. Sometimes multiple times a night in the weeks after it first happened.

I am usually aware I am dreaming. But I can never seem to control it.. when I try to, I wind up "popping" back to place, lol.

I have a lot of weird dreams, but I always have the same dream at least once a year, nothing changes in this dream. I've had this dream for at least 20 years, give or take.

I also dreamt that my grandmother was dying- the entire family was sitting around my mom's dining table. we all were laughing and having fun. Typical italian fun with wine and such. Then suddenly my grandmother falls from her chair, appearing to have a seizure. she never once cried out for help.. the entire family carried on laughing and having a good jolly time. I remember one point in the dream, I did try to help my grandmother, but I would "pop" back into my chair, joining the family.
The next day, my grandmother passed away. I believe it was my grandmother's way of saying "do not be sad, carry on in life and enjoy it"

I was four years old. And why do I remember it so vividly? Because it was my first day of kindergarten. And when I came home from school, there was a man with a piano in the living room....it was also my first day of piano lessons. And that night was my first night terror. When it was over and I could scream, my parents said I screamed bloody murder, they turned the light on.....and I never slept with a light off for years afterward when I had to sleep alone. I shared a room with my sister and when she would sleep over with a friend, I would turn the closet light on. My dad would come in, see the light on, and beat the crap out of me for wasting electricity. Next night, if my sister was gone, I turned the light on anyway and he'd beat me again, even though he knew I was having trouble. I couldn't bear to sleep alone in the dark. I still can't to this day.

The terrors continued after I was married. Rick knew about them and when he'd get up in the morning and the hall light was turned on, he just say, "Bad night last night?" and that was it. If he heard me whimpering, he'd immediately awaken me and then it's like I was gasping for air. I heard heavy breathing, I knew somebody was doing things to me (but I don't know who, and nobody really was....it was just part of the terror). I heard people speaking strange languages as they were doing things. I heard a radio playing songs. There was a large dog at the foot of the bed one night; I could hear him. A great big black heavy dog holding my legs down. I couldn't do anything. I could move my eyeballs, but I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't move. I couldn't do anything until I was "released". Frankly, it was as bad as it gets for anybody.

I have been scared to death of the dark for decades and I simply cannot handle being alone in the dark even now. I think I'd probably have a heart attack from the fear. It took years for me to sleep alone in the house when Rick had to leave for somewhere. It's just been within the past few years that I can actually go back the hallway into our bedroom in the dark. I still need to sleep with the tv turned on when I'm alone in the house. But as long as the tv is on, I'm good. It used to be that I had to turn on every single light in the house and outside the house before it got dark. No showers after it got dark. Once it got dark, I stayed in the living room and kitchen. I slept on the couch with Hydrox. I couldn't go back the hallway and forget about going into the basement. No way. If I'd ever be alone in the house and a t-storm killed our electricity, that would be it. I'd probably turn into a basket case right then and there. 

Interestingly, when I worked in a paper plant, one of my co-workers and I started talking one night. He asked me why I always work night shifts when I could get them. And I told him. He had them, too, and he could remember every single one of his episodes; he always worked nights, too. I never knew anybody else who had them; I thought it was just me. This was way before the internet, so it's not like one could google "weird nightmares" or anything. He admitted that he had had treatment for them (which was basically just talking to a professional). He was told that the terrors tend to happen to people of above average intelligence. I looked at him and said, "Great. I'm smart, but I'm whacked!" But it's not like that and no amount of psychology or anything like that will help. Some people start in with them when they're young and then, when they reach a certain age, most people eventually grow out of them. I guess that's what happened to me.

I never know I am dreaming and never aware of trying to control it.  More a passenger then a driver I guess

I dreamed that a park had something really really bad happen and there was fire trucks, ambulances and cops swarming it.  I was not afraid at all as I did not know what was the reason and I was fine but I woke up screaming and sister screamed.  Mom rushed in not knowing who was dreaming/thinking someone broke in or something.

I have always had a lot of very bad dreams and oddly do no react to most of them in dream but they bother me when awake.  Only ones I hate are the ones when I am running late and can not move full speed-usually break teeth in those dreams. Or the ones where I can not move.  Some make me worry if I get up in night and leave house. Others I try to forget.

From a yogic perspective, lucid dreaming is considered to be an indication of an ability to perceive one's subconscious mind (well, that's the case from any perspective! )

But to yogis it is similar to a state of deep meditation, where you can actually witness how the subconscious mind behaves, and that's a significant step.

Mani said:

 
From a yogic perspective, lucid dreaming is considered to be an indication of an ability to perceive one's subconscious mind (well, that's the case from any perspective!

)

But to yogis it is similar to a state of deep meditation, where you can actually witness how the subconscious mind behaves, and that's a significant step.

Click to expand...

Oh, I do wish I could do that!

Very interesting.

I have had dreams talking with people who have passed on. I always feel so relaxed and calm.

I've gotten many weird dreams, but most of them are like inside jokes. Yesterday though, I had one that was sort of scary. I dreamt my cat grew to the size of a warehouse and started trampling over people because they wouldn't play with him. I chased him around town while he tried to hide behind buildings (including the Empire State building). I grabbed his front paws, because I know he hates that (in real life, it's the only time he'd ever hiss at me). He then hissed at me and caused a tornado, while I tried to hang on to his paw. He then stepped on me, and I could feel the pressure, and I guess if I suffered a fatal blow but couldn't die, this was how I felt.

At the same time, my sleeping body was in a state of sleep paralysis. I tried to open my eyes to wake up, but it was sealed shut. It was scary as heck. I did wake myself up after my bones were crushed in the dream and I let out a .... "funny noise" according to my roommate (I was napping on the couch).

Wow @FhiCat, that is a weird dream!

Yes, I lucid dream all the time. Most of the time I can manipulate the dream, but sometimes I am not able to do anything. I don't discuss dreams with anyone, as I believe they reveal too much about me.