Growing up I was told not to put any stock in dreams. They're nothing and you can get distracted from your purpose by trying to find meaning in them.
Yet I feel like there has to be something more to them than just the mind churning through influences of the day.
We still don't really know why we dream or why dreams are common among many animals. One theory is that they help us test things out before actually doing them. I don't know. I feel like if that were true, we would remember them better.
My experience with dreams has been becoming more intense lately.
To start out with, most of my dreams are very true to life. They are believable and realistic and about normal, every day activities. I tend to remember many of my dreams fairly well. There are some common themes, including the popular: dreaming that I'm going about errands while completely naked.
I noticed something a while back, which is that I often have trouble with my eyes in dreams. My eyes will be closed and I won't be able to get them open, or the lids will be very heavy, or I won't be able to raise my gaze or turn my gaze.
Sometimes this clues me in that I'm dreaming. More often, it just frustrates me. Within the dream I will think: this is something that tends to happen in a dream. Am I dreaming now? And I conclude that I'm not! Everything feels just too real.
Sometimes I force myself to test out whether I'm dreaming by jumping and seeing if I fly. Whenever I do this test, of course I do start flying and I have to acknowledge that it's a dream.
Recently I was having trouble with my vision and realized that it must be a dream, but I wanted to wake up. I really tried hard to wake up and couldn't. I felt trapped and panicked, afraid that I would never wake up. I kept dreaming that I was waking up but the vision problem remained the same. I dreamed I was laying in my own bed. I would try to stand up. Still dreaming. I would try going to the bathroom and splashing water on my face. Still dreaming. It was terrifying!
Shortly after that I had a dream where I was talking to my boyfriend while organizing a closet. I told him about how to tell that I wasn't dreaming. I know this isn't a dream, I said, because I have all my senses. I can feel the clothes that I'm touching, I can smell and hear and come into the present moment right here. But I was dreaming.
I had a similar conversation with a good friend in a dream later.
It reminds me of a Dr Who episode where Amy and Rory and the 11th Doctor are trying to figure out which reality is real and which is a dream. Each time they wake up to the other reality, they are absolutely convinced that the one they are in is the real one.
That's how I feel.
After I wake up, it's obvious it was a dream. While I'm experiencing it, it is so real that I refuse to believe that it's a dream. (Although I'm lucid dreaming more and more lately).
And I wonder if that's the point.
This is what the test is. Not to try out different experiences before trying them in real life, but to have a frame of reference for how what we think of as "real life" is actually a dream. A slightly different kind of dream, as its designed to last some 80 years rather than a few hours.
Yet I feel like there has to be something more to them than just the mind churning through influences of the day.
We still don't really know why we dream or why dreams are common among many animals. One theory is that they help us test things out before actually doing them. I don't know. I feel like if that were true, we would remember them better.
My experience with dreams has been becoming more intense lately.
To start out with, most of my dreams are very true to life. They are believable and realistic and about normal, every day activities. I tend to remember many of my dreams fairly well. There are some common themes, including the popular: dreaming that I'm going about errands while completely naked.
I noticed something a while back, which is that I often have trouble with my eyes in dreams. My eyes will be closed and I won't be able to get them open, or the lids will be very heavy, or I won't be able to raise my gaze or turn my gaze.
Sometimes this clues me in that I'm dreaming. More often, it just frustrates me. Within the dream I will think: this is something that tends to happen in a dream. Am I dreaming now? And I conclude that I'm not! Everything feels just too real.
Sometimes I force myself to test out whether I'm dreaming by jumping and seeing if I fly. Whenever I do this test, of course I do start flying and I have to acknowledge that it's a dream.
Recently I was having trouble with my vision and realized that it must be a dream, but I wanted to wake up. I really tried hard to wake up and couldn't. I felt trapped and panicked, afraid that I would never wake up. I kept dreaming that I was waking up but the vision problem remained the same. I dreamed I was laying in my own bed. I would try to stand up. Still dreaming. I would try going to the bathroom and splashing water on my face. Still dreaming. It was terrifying!
Shortly after that I had a dream where I was talking to my boyfriend while organizing a closet. I told him about how to tell that I wasn't dreaming. I know this isn't a dream, I said, because I have all my senses. I can feel the clothes that I'm touching, I can smell and hear and come into the present moment right here. But I was dreaming.
I had a similar conversation with a good friend in a dream later.
It reminds me of a Dr Who episode where Amy and Rory and the 11th Doctor are trying to figure out which reality is real and which is a dream. Each time they wake up to the other reality, they are absolutely convinced that the one they are in is the real one.
That's how I feel.
After I wake up, it's obvious it was a dream. While I'm experiencing it, it is so real that I refuse to believe that it's a dream. (Although I'm lucid dreaming more and more lately).
And I wonder if that's the point.
This is what the test is. Not to try out different experiences before trying them in real life, but to have a frame of reference for how what we think of as "real life" is actually a dream. A slightly different kind of dream, as its designed to last some 80 years rather than a few hours.
Interesting, I can hardly ever remember my dreams. Sometimes I have deja vu dreams of like 5 seconds and weeks or months later that smae situtaion with that same feeling and the same thoughts willl happen and only afterr that I will be like hey wait a minute didnt i dream that. Alot of people told me they had the same or somewhat similiar expierence but when i google deja vu they seem to describe it differently. I guess im not an intense dreamer because i never can control my thoughts in my dreams i just go with the flow. Did you actually practice that or is that natural?
ReplyDeleteI get deja vu a lot too! I don't know if it comes from having dreamed the situation or conversation previously. I don't remember those dreams, but I do have a frequent freaky feeling of having already experienced a conversation, etc.
DeleteThis is not something that I practiced at all and I'm finding it kind of scary, actually.
I have had so many deja vu moments
DeleteI am so glad i came to read today...this is something which has been on my mind too.
ReplyDeleteMany of my Hindu friends have explained that dreams are sometimes used to give us Karma. Say for example a test of your values. So you have a dream where Antonio Banderas is standing naked in front of you...and you have to decided.
At first I thought this was silly...but then about two years ago i had this same situation happening to me. I told him..."I can't I'm sorry...Ron is my soulmate...my Beloved husband."
Then the dream just ended. So maybe they were right...dreams are some test for us.
Yikes! That's a really scary thought, actually. I don't think my dream self always makes reasonable choices.
DeleteI don know that I ever make choices in my dreams. I feel like I am in situations and I am watching myself from the sideline
DeleteHey, I am a regular visitor of your blog but I don't think I have commented here before...anyways, just wanted to tell you what my Guru told me about some dreams that I was having...she told me that dreams were kinda a blessing from God, to wear off some of your karmas..There are some allocated emotions that we have assembled which needs to be released..so we do so in dreams..and that kinda made sense to me cause when you are dreaming,and suppose it is a scary dream, the fear you feel appears real i.e u r as scared as you would be had this not been a dream..so u r wearing off the fear u HAD to feel..ahem ...do I make sense?
ReplyDeleteThat makes a lot of sense. And I never thought about dreams as karma until you and Mahalaya mentioned it.
DeleteI have had somewhat similar dreams. I suddenly realize that I'm dreaming and think I wake up but then realize again I'm dreaming. It's very disconcerting. On the subject of dreams, the best book I've ever found for understanding and analyzing them is Ann Faraday's Dream Power. It was published in 1972 but the content stands the test of time.
DeleteI really like that thought...it fits with my impression of dreams
Delete