Dreams

[Bodhitree]

I thought a thread for sharing dreams might belong here, it is after all the creativity of our subconscious. 

In recent months I've discovered a change in my dreaming. Whereas before I used to dream only maybe once a year, and I'd only recall super-vivid dreams, nowadays I dream more, and my dreams are of a different character... less laden with import and significance, more adventurous, longer, more rambling / less pointed. 


So here was was my dream last night. I don't recall how it started, my memory of it begins in a war-torn area on a concrete flyover strewn with rubble. I'm here trying to rescue a young woman, we are both sheltering behind some kind of obstacle, it could be a piece of concrete or a sofa (strangely). I'm just getting comfortable, laughing inside as the bullets whizz past, not worried in the slightest. Then a rocket barrage starts, just falling here and there, and we have to move. 

We retreat up the road, and we come across an old man carrying a large anti-tank rifle. I offer to help him with it, and he says he wants to take it to the barracks where they are collecting all the weaponry to keep it out of people's hands. There are a few more people here and the dress is middle eastern. So we walk down the road - the conflict seems to have stopped - and climb down to ground level. 

After a long walk along deserted and very wide boulevards the three of us come to the barracks, and the soldiers there show me to my room after we give them the gun. I have a wash. It's all grey concrete with a bed and a window on the first floor. And that's where the dream stops. 


It was all very realistic, often my dreams include elements of fantasy but this was very real-seeming, it could have been Iraq or Syria. There was dust and mountains in the distance, lots of concrete, some of it broken from bombing and shelling. I don't know what it means, but nowhere was I afraid despite the signs of war. It's as if I had come to terms with the fear of death, and was just helping people. 

But fear has been a theme in dreams in the past few weeks - it is usually fear of something I can't quite see, but which my imagination is filling in. It's as if my mind's "what if" functionality has been engaged and generates a more fearsome image than the dream is capable of displaying, and so some part of me fixates on this "what if" and is gibbering away while the rest is examining the dream and wondering why I feel fear. 

[snowstorm]

An interesting detailed dream, must be a good sign that you got to safety in the end :-)

[Bodhitree]

That was the first dream in which I can remember glancing to take a quick look at something, in this case the anti-tank rifle, without losing the rest of the dream. It's funny, Carlos Castaneda in his book The Art of Dreaming says it is possible to do that but this is the first time that I remember being curious in the dream, taking a glance at it to get a closer look, and then returning to the main dream.

[Deleted]

I dream every night and if I think of or see someone who was in the dream the on the same day I had it I remember it and how the dream went. But if I ever kept a dream journal I would have to write it down when I wake up or I would forget. When I was psychotic I thought I was having psychic dreams and took too much meaning out of them. Part of the content of my delusions and auditory hallucinations were related to the dreams.

[snowstorm]

Jul 25, 2017 12:32:07 GMT @daydreambeliever42 said:

But if I ever kept a dream journal I would have to write it down when I wake up or I would forget.

I do wonder about dream journals or whether we are meant to let them go and forget all about them, unless it's to look at a very repetitive dream. I suppose it depends on what works for the individual.
During episodes I had some stuck dreams, the dream not going anywhere - there's usually a 'story' isn't there, no matter how fantastical.

[Deleted]

People keep telling me that dreams mean nothing but they have some kind of significance in your life so I think it might be worth writing them down and analysing them..

[Bodhitree]

Jul 26, 2017 7:28:19 GMT @daydreambeliever42 said:

People keep telling me that dreams mean nothing but they have some kind of significance in your life so I think it might be worth writing them down and analysing them..

I think they do have a significance, but different dreams have different kinds of meanings. I've had dreams which were mystical metaphors for what was happening to my mind and energy, and I've had dreams which seemed to be designed to provoke a certain response like fear. I've also had dreams which seemed to carry some message, like the one above. But dreams always seem to have some motive force behind them, some energy that carries you along... I've never yet had a dream which was a quiet contemplation. 

But I do think it's useful to examine dreams with some care, it's like the very act of paying them attention gives them a place in your inner world. I have a lot of respect for dreams, they can tell you things you didn't know that you knew. 

[Deleted]

My dreams are so strange that I can't see how they make any sense a lot of the time though. If they have meaning then it is very complex.

I had one once where I went in a kind of time machine to a world where me and my ex (who has epilepsy) were lining up to have our ID cards read. We both had health problems so we were going to be sent to a labour camp I think. It never got that far though. I think I was going psychotic at the time.

I was a bit worried about the country turning into a dictatorship at the time but I couldn't decide if it referred to England or the whole of the UK. It became a big part of the psychosis and analysing it didn't really help.

[Bodhitree]

I had another dream tonight, I know I only remember about half of it because it was long and involved. I was on an island, it was quite large and I was walking, when I realised the island was subject to a natural disaster. A huge tidal wave was coming in from the sea, and there was no-where to hide, it was a pretty flat place. I had some vantage points but not high enough. So I remained quite calm and went to the bay where there were other tourists, it was as if I flew there, I went up really high in the sky and then came down again. At the bay I was met by a motorised buggy and I was invited to hop in, kinda scooped up almost. The tidal wave started to come into the bay when a plane came to take us away.

So the plane ended up taking us to another island, this one was more civilised with some towns built of stone and I was looking to continue my onward journey. I think I was going home to Europe. And one ship I found was a submarine... it was gorgeous, with a huge superstructure built of wood and thick glass panes, not very long but I walked around in it and it had several levels and a bunch of submariners who were practiced and serious types who really cared for their vessel, and who also liked fine wines as the ship had an impressive wine selection on board. So in the end I arranged to go on the submarine for the next leg of my journey because I wanted to see the underwater world with all its creatures...

And that was the end. I loved the submarine, thought it was a really good dream. Also I had some agency in the dream, I could make choices although it was not a lucid dream where I was aware I was dreaming.

[snowstorm]

Another danger to safety dream - had to smile at the fine wines bit...

[Bodhitree]

Jul 28, 2017 6:38:44 GMT snowstorm said:

Another danger to safety dream - had to smile at the fine wines bit...

Yes it's interesting isn't it. I've had a few "to battle" dreams in the past months, which looked almost like game graphics, but the final confrontations were always missing, just a representation of something that should be feared. While in these more recent dreams although there is danger there is no fear, I'm quite calm, and the look is much more realistic. 

[malli]

Part of my difficulties lie in variations of the same dream about when I was working.
I have these dreams every night.. variations on a theme, very stressful, I am either unable to do what I am supposed to or am undermined in some way by others (real people)

I don't remember any dreams about anything else if I have them.

It is incredibly distressing, I feel stuck in a time warp.. any suggestions on coping or breaking out of it would be really appreciated

[Bodhitree]

Maybe this will be useful to you... I've found that meditative concentration on the edge of sleep can change what you dream about. I find it easiest to do as I wake up, not as I fall asleep. As you wake up, you stay asleep but you maintain your consciousness, just floating gently in a kind of halfway asleep. In this space you can think but you can also vaguely communicate with your other half, the part of you that regulates your contact with the upper spaces and also helps you dream. It takes some practice, it took me about six months to learn a little how to do it and another six months to stop making silly mistakes, but I managed to stop myself having World of Warcraft style dreams recently.

edit: Just to add, the way to do it is to focus on the first moments you become aware that you're waking up. If you stay relaxed, and kind of adopt the attitude of having a snooze, then you can be in a beautiful peaceful space for a while. You're aware but your body feels heavy, you're still on the edges of sleep. That is the right space for this kind of meditation, it's like a naturally meditative state. I found it very pleasurable, which is why I stayed with it I think. 

[malli]

Thanks for that. I've tried meditation some nights before I sleep but being honest, I haven't made it a regular thing.

I will try the waking suggestion and stick with both. I really need to wind down. thinking about it when I was away last week, I slept better but I had a few days on my own in the Lake district. I just sketch all day, there is a little place I can stay with a garden looking on the Fells so it doesn't matter if it is raining or not. I always sleep better there.

I will give your suggestions a very long try and not give up. Thank you again

[Bodhitree]

I had another dream, I was in a small farming community helping them out. This was quite primitive, like Iron Age, pre-Roman Empire, times... the roofs were thatched, the walls were wattle and daub, they had chickens just running around, not in a coop. There was one major big house of wooden construction were most of the community slept, a yard in front of it and a number of smaller houses around the yard.

I was travelling with another man, who was a kind of wizard, much more knowledgeable than the farm folk. He was asking them lots of questions about how they lived and the kind of methods they adopted, and he'd sometimes make suggestions. At one point I suggested why don't we teach them about blast furnaces? They had a smithy, they would smelt metals there, with a blast furnace you can reach much higher temperatures and so smelt metals like nickel, which is what I learned in my engineering degree.

Once when they were preparing lunch I saw a couple of kids being given the task to capture a pair of chickens, which were going to be killed for food. I was kind of non-judgmental in the dream but now it makes me feel sad. These were living beings after all.

There was another portion to this dream which I don't remember very clearly, except for one bit where I recall I was female in the dream and sitting on a bed with a sword. It was also in a primitive time, perhaps Roman or classical. I must admit, my dreams are pretty life-like and many sided these days. Not so dramatic as they used to be but quite beautiful in some ways, quieter and less emotional.