another dream question
David
A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
Hey there.
Well, we've had some threads here discussing ways to induce lucid dreaming and how to better remember dreams but does anyone have any advice on how to stop remembering dreams?
It's to the point where it's like I've run out of stuff to dream about so I dream about non-events.
A while ago I had a dream I still remember vividly about walking into the livingroom and noticing a new coffee table. I said to myself "Where did that come from?" and that was it.
Last night I had one where I was putting away a bag of groceries and pulled out the juice boxes. There was one row of six in the pack I thought had two rows of six. I said to myself "Crap, no wonder it seemed like a good deal" and that was it.
After the tinnitus went chronic and constant a year and a half ago I don't have silence during waking hours and I remember way too many dreams which makes it tough to get a good night's rest.
It's getting a bit annoying.
Any advice?
Comments
Dreams occur during your sleep period of REM, which often occurs in the couple of hours before waking.
Here's an interesting article on the different sleep levels or cycles.
It's possible you'll have to make changes to your sleeping habits, make the room cooler, have a warm drink, wake yourself up in the middle of the night to change your sleep pattern.
You could do worse than have a word with your doctor.
It's possible that you may need to examine WHY you dream what you dream, not that you dream at all.
Everyone dreams, but you risk the danger of entering a stressful state, because you'll 'fear' going to sleep, because of your dreaming habits....
I've had a fascination with dreams since I was a kid and had my first lucid dream when I was about 15. A few years after that I was doing research on it in the library and articles from OMNI magazine. I also took a fair amount of psychedelic drugs back then and was experimenting with dreams and visions.
It was perfect for a while but it got to be too much and I stopped trying to lucid dream. I can still turn the dream around which is nice but I just remember too many of them.
And there doesn't seem to be a "why" I dream what I dream. In a thread here not long ago I explained a dream I had where I was working alongside an alien being that looked like a tardigrade (water bear) made out of valour, the size of a couch. We couldn't speak the same language but we could easily communicate with body language.
That was probably just an imprint from too many Star Trek books but any TV show I binge watch will do it too.
And it's every night now to the point where I feel like I get no sleep or rest.
I'm also intrigued by dreams, but to a lesser degree than you are. Still, if I found myself remembering dreams like this, I think I might find it more interesting than bothersome. I might even find it desirable.
Given your interest and "research" you're probably more knowledgeable about this than most of your fellow Buddhists here. I certainly don't have any Buddhist-flavored advice specific to sleep physiology. It might be worth asking yourself in general whether you can simply observe and accept this phenomenon while it is present. Rather than be a stressor, make it a unique and interesting facet. Accepting/observing/enjoying might improve the restfulness of your sleep.
I've gone through periods of intense dreaming, and I've usually connected that to parts of the higher self being particularly active. Sometimes it has been a sign that I've not been valuing my connection with inner silence highly enough, my sleep for most of my life has been largely dreamless though the past few years have been more active.
Thanks @federica and @Steve_B.
I haven't really thought about talking to the doctor. Actually the only people other than my present wife and you guys I talked to about it are all passed on. Come to think of it the last one passed in October. I wonder if that has something to do with it.
And @Steve_B I found it desirable when I was first experimenting and I do have periods where it is interesting and enjoyable but like I said, it gets to the point of exhaustion during other periods. For perspective, I'm 44 now.
Like instead of waking up refreshed, it can feel like I just did an 8 hour shift instead. It leads to these migraines. Glasses helped but not for the ones due to being tired.
My intense dreaming has been there as long as I can remember. I still remember one about a puzzle I was putting together of a clown. In my dream that clown was much bigger than the house and he was peeking in the window to make sure I wasn't screwing it up. I don't think I was in grade 1 yet.
If the problem is my connection to silence I'm screwed because the only silence is in my dreams and when I'm able to tune out the tinnitus during meditation.
If you are aware that certain trends or habits might be a trigger for some of the content of dreams you've had (Couche-sized tardigrade! LOL!) perhaps you need to binge-read more and binge-watch less....? Or find a manual hobby you might enjoy getting into.
Now don't laugh, but I love to knit, cook and I have a new passion for Tillandsias (or Air Plants, as they're commonly known). I enjoy gardening and plant-care, and I like paper-crafting too... but my daughter is the real family Master of paper-crafting.
Seriously, what do you love to DO?
I probably watch about 4 hours of TV a week.
I'm here rather than in front of a TV screen, or in my kitchen, or sitting in my chair, knitting...
And don't turn up your nose at knitting, btw.... Kaffe Fassett is a major - and I do mean, MAJOR - name in the world of knitting and thread crafts, and he is both renowned and distinguished in the world of fabrics. My granddad used to be a prolific knitter (amazing what men were taught to do in the war!) and I have a jacket he knitted me, when I was a baby, to this day.
I particularly love Loom Knitting....
Silence is there in all of our senses. The steadiness of vision, the restfulness in our touch, all of these things are also manifestations of silence. It doesn't have to be sound.
Very wise. I never really put that together although I know it's true from meditative experience.
The problem with the tinnitus is it plays on the migrain which makes it more than noise and sometimes it's actually hard not to scream.
It's only been really bad a couple of times and the last few weeks counts as one.
Something I've tried to do in the past is remember to meditate in a dream state. I've never been able to yet but it would be great if I could make it there.
If I can't make that happen, I really need a way to help myself quit remembering so many of my dreams so I can get some rest.
No, you just need to get some rest.... I reiterate the consideration of consulting a medic, because if this gets out of hand, your sleep pattern could worsen and lead to real health problems. I kid not.
Knit!
I know.
I finally got a decent 6 hour sleep last night with no dreams that I remember except for when I nodded off on the couch for a couple of seconds. I was in a hot air balloon race. It's amazing how fast we can zip into a dream state.
Finally got some rest eh!
A stange thing that's been happening to me in dreams is that I keep dreaming a lot about my boss or past friends. When it's about my boss, she is always stressing me out in my dream even if it's just her presence in the dream (it's like like she is standing ove rme yelling at me). When it's my friends, it usually is me meeting them or seeing them after so long. I read something that said the dreams about my past friends is because I miss that life or miss them...but I don't and shouldn't (they weren't the greatest friends)
Have you considered sleep apnoea? Something your partner may have more insight into as they may observe you sleeping - lack of oxygen can lead to an interruption of deep sleep cycles which may translate as unfulfilling sleep / mounting fatigue - sleep debt is cumulative.
Using lucid dreaming techniques, if you have a symbolic way of acknowledging a dream without waking to then be lucid (for example, recognising the difference between where one is and the last solid memory being a marker before sleep - then an action in the dream to reinforce), it is possible to condition yourself with a similar symbol to abandon lucidity (for example, run from the thought that this is a dream by leaving it behind and running into a fog).
Imagery is one level of reality truly a universal language.
Quit the dream see the reality of the place your in - when fantasy stops reality begins and when in that state it will be very objective to the observer
@terminal, very nice.
Now, what exactly do you mean..?
She doesn't notice anything except when I actually do get some solid rest and that's a bit of snoring.
I am actually giving that a go as well. The other night I had a dream that there was a burglar who tackled me by the back door. As we hit the floor I figured out it was a dream as there was no hard floor and I couldn't see anything any more. I was still in a kind of bear hug but at the same time I knew I was in bed and not really being attacked. I was stuck in that mode for a bit and so I tried to ask my wife to help by saying "help". I tried that a couple of times to no avail and I could feel myself being suffocated so I held my limbs tight at my sides (so I didn't hit my wife) and thrashed violently back and forth to wake myself up (and to knock off the would be assailant). It worked and I woke up but as you can see I still remember everything.
@terminal, I might have the gist of the last part and I usually do try to just live in the moment but I just want to get some rest and just live while I'm awake for a while.
@federica
I've been practicing dream yoga for a number of years through the Sakya tradition and am no where proficient but have all the blessings with little of the aptitude. I have noticed when you become conscious of the reality here and are awake. I've had my glimpses. You are awake when you rest "in the dream environment". That is natural. Because we dream here we dream there.
Challenging speculating but could be - it may result from shape of nose, or throat or where the tongue rests, sleeping position, pillow, anything that serves to constrict the airway / diminish oxygen - if that happens to a level that is of concern to the body, normal sleep cycle may be interrupted and deep sleep sacrificed for shorter periods of rem and medium sleep which translates as tiredness and could perhaps be more dreaming and remembering dreams.
The Epworth Sleepiness Scale can be used to diagnose sleep apnoea- daytime 8/9 is about normal - above 16, seek medical advice.
To investigate further, there are sleep centres who specialise and in the UK at least the first port of call is your GP - I think there is more recognition recently that lower ends of the Epworth score, the mild cases, could perhaps benefit from therapies - mostly one is sent home with a portable device that measures breathing, heart rate and oxygen - if not for severe cases, there are more in depth tests at sleep centres that monitor brain activity.
Or it could be stress - has it been consistent and if not, are there possible triggers?
If none of the above and confined solely to lucid dreaming techniques that I've found useful - the process of lucid dreaming has steps, a lot like a form of perhaps self hypnosis - similar steps can be used for falling asleep but as with lucid dreaming it takes time and consistency.
So with lucid dreaming at various points in the day I make a conscious effort to think about lucid dreaming and past experiences of it, how it felt, what I saw or heard, the characters etc and then this intensifies until before sleep, I reinforce that I want to lucid dream and there are then set markers so there is more chance of it happening just before waking up.
I tend to forget the dreams that I wake up in without being a little lucid before, even if there is no control.
If you're recognising it is a dream, rather than struggling to wake up, take that marker and turn it into falling asleep mode - at the beginning of the night start with a procedure for falling asleep and then as you recognise waking up, apply it again.
If you wake up, as soon as you do, focus on anything but the dream, see if it won't crystallise into a memory - either back to sleep or onto the day.
Maybe.
Yesterday I was dreaming about a Buddha under a tree. I blame it on a hypnosis session from Youtube.
Hypnosis is a good way to program the subconscious and there are many examples of restful sleep inductions on Youtube that might prove helpful.
I'm retired now, but I occasionally have dreams where I am back at work....like a nightmare really.
I can imagine @SpinyNorman!
I have this dream that keeps recurring and I had it last night. I woke up a little angry since I believe it was right before my alarm went off. The dream is that I go somewhere with my friends (usually a part, bar or restaurant) and my friends get scattered throughout the establishment. At some point in the night when I want to go home or I'm just trying to find my friends, there is only 1 friend left in the place who never wants to leave with me and through them I find out all my other friends just left to go to other places and never let me know. Right before my alarm went off I called one of my friends and started yelling at them over the phone. What is really weird is that the majority of the friends in my dream I have not spoken to in 10 years - for good reason
I keep having this dream.
I often wonder if it's unusual that I never dream, ever, or at least don't remember any of them. I just go to bed, fall asleep, then wake up when my alarm goes off at 6 or my two year old shouts he wants to go downstairs at 5 in the morning!
@Lee82
People, physiologies, ages, hormonal states, moon and light influences vary widely.
Being semi conscious whilst sleeping, not dreaming, requiring very little sleep, a lot of sleep etc. are all variables I have experienced. So not unusual at all IMO.
I looked into dream analysis years ago and concluded that it's the feeling tone of the dream that is most significant. Apart from that I'm not inclined to read too much into the content. What I find more interesting is the stage between awake and asleep.