What was your latest dream?  (Daydreams included).

39 responses total.

I sometimes have very vivid dreams, but I can rarely remember them.

Are they in color?  Dreams are supposed to be in color, but I can't remember
the colors.  I will try to dream about a color (other than black) tonight.

Apparently some people dream in color, others in black and white.  Until
recently I wasn't sure, but I had a dream that involved some colors a few
weeks ago.

I attempted to dream in color, but it seemed like it was all grey.  How do
you know you were dreaming in color?

You remember, just as you may remember any aspect of a dream. 

For some reason, as hard as I try to dream in color, it does not work.  Last
night I kept dreaming about train noises, which are colorless.

How does one go about trying to dream about something or in
some particular way?

One thinks very hard about colors before falling asleep.  I find that my
dreams are usually about unfinished business fromthe prior day.  But I have
not been able to remember anything for a few days (my dreams, I mean).  Do
you dream in color?  What do you dream about?
The train noises were from this morning, and probably had something to
do with the next-door driveway.

I find if I'm thinking about something as I fall asleep, I tend to dream about
it.  Sometimes I will fall asleep thinking about some really complicated
problem, and will have a horrible night of thinking too hard in my dreams to
stay asleep very long.  Then there was the week when we had to renumber all
the computers and routers at work, and I found myself waking up dreaming about
IP addresses.

Did you actually come up with a solution to anything in your dreams?  I find
I usually just scramble together all the events of the previous day.  Early
this morning I woke out of a dream about my health insurance rates going down
as I got older because statistically older adults listen to less rock music
(see the health item on health and aging, which I must have responded to just
before going to sleep).  I often dream about noises just before waking, and
this  time I dreamed my knee was cold (it was, the blanket was off it).  Does
anyone have visual dreams who can tell us about whether they are in color?

I've been trying to pay attention.....and am pretty sure they are in
color.....but my waking memory of dreams is so fleeting that I am not sure.

Sometimes I have wonderful breakthru ideas in my dreams, and I might actually
scribble a note on waking up.  By midday the idea is seen as worthless.  :/

Occasionally I come to some great conclusion, which I rarely remember long
enough to do anything useful with it.  More often, I just keep waking up
thinking about whatever the problem is, and then feel horrible the next day.
Mostly, I try not to think too hard about anything while going to sleep.

I taught myself to dream in color, by asking myself, in the dream or when
I was reviewing it upon first waking, what color things were, and really
looking at them.  First was blue, then blue and green- really watercolory-
then full color.  I still remember the sort of blue-delft landscape, with
lots of stairs in the streets and on the houses, narrow and winding, neat.

Last night I had lots of "sorting things out" dreams, about stuff I'm
working on or dealing with lately.  Didn't take enough time to fix it in
memory- too busy capturing a small boy and dumping him in the shower- so
now I can't recall the details.  Pity, I wanted to sort it out and see
which bits are bothering me, it seemed interesting.

Last night, I had two dreams I remembered.  One was about getting an obscene
phone call, and getting into a lengthy discussion with the caller about
something.  The other was about a book I'd seen in the window of Dawn Treader
books.  I went back this morning to look for the book, and saw that it had
been sold.  I asked the lady at the desk, and she said she remembered the book
- so I know I'm not imagining this - but she didn't remember the name.

I don't know if this is really dream related or more "down-time
during sleep" related but when I'm working on a difficult
task, maybe something like a tricky rhythm in some music
I'm trying to play, I'll take the sheet music to bed and
read through the passage a number of times before going to
sleep.  Many many times I'll find that the next day, when
I actually go to practice the passage, the problem will
be solved.  

Amazing stuff.

I dreamed about filling in a set of forms, one of which was on yellow paper,
but I don't think I actually saw the yellow paper, just recall the word
yellow.  Maybe I don't dream in pictures, just sounds and words?  All I
usually ever remember is being woken up by some noise that worked its way into
my dream for a while.  Garbage trucks tend to turn into trains, etc.

Last night I dreamed about some sort of buffet meal with plates piled with
bread ends (Zingermans' recently sold us a bagful for 50 cents) all of which
were yellow.  I seem to be dreaming only in yellow.  I have an amber monitor,
could that be related?  I may switch to green and keep monitoring dreams.

(lee managed to pick up a loaf of bread for 59cents today, whee!)

Keesan, was there a light on, or light coming into your room?  Of what
color quality?  Were you driving somewhere with amber street lights
before you went to bed?  They might be factors.

No, I am a light sleeper and wear a black knit hat to keep the light out, but
I do bike home late at night, past a large number of street lights, porch
lights, and car lights, every night.  Well, last night I got home a bit
earlier, and dreamed that I had to hang up a bunch of shirts that were piled
on the bed, in green, brown and blue.  (I had been reading a book on CHinese
art before bed, also there really was a pile of clothes to put away.)  I don't
know if I actually saw the colors or just thought of them in words, though.
And there was a dark black airplane going over in my dream, just before a real
one woke me up.  I am a very light sleeper, my dreams are full of planes,
buses, and miscellaneous explosions.

Too much TV....  :)

Not sure what you are referring to, but I don't have a TV.  My dreams are full
of loud noises because of the loud noises going by at night, and my head
apparently attempts for a few minutes to treat them as a dream before I get
woken up by them.  I think I have also dreamt about being hungry or thirsty.
        Doesn't anyone else have a dream worth analyzing?  Rane?

I dreamed last night that I found a harmonica in the bottom of my desk drawer,
but no sound came out, so I decided to fix it.  

When I was younger, I frequently had vivid dreams that I remembered
in detail after waking up. I don't seem to have memorable dreams
anymore.

I don't think dreams are worth analyzing. This does not mean I don't
find them interesting or entertaining, or even in some cases frightening.
But all attempts to *analyze* them have proven fruitless. I know they
are generated in my brain, but my brain is full of decades of absorbed
information, both moderately correct to incorrect, from real or fictional
sources. If my brain wants to go rummaging in these closets and dustbins
that is up to it, and I can't avoid being a spectator. That's as far
as it goes.

I just read about an artist who lost his color vision after a concussion and
was also unable to dream in color after that.  Rane, what do you think of
Rorschach analysis as a useful tool for psychiatrists, or what do you think
of psychiatry in general?

I think it has some entertainment value. I am less certain it has any
medical value, though I do not disparage the attempt to understand
"mind". My contact with psychiatry was a very long time ago when I was
somewhat overwhelmed by personal problems and saw a psychiatrist. I
concluded that that psychiatrist had nothing to help me and I'd be
better off with a friend or counselor with more experience of life than
I then had. My conclusion at the time (and since, for that matter) was
that psychiatrists are persons that have personal problem *they* are
trying to cope with.

Stimulus-response exercises like Rorschach tests (especially) are the
subject of much humor, and deservedly. Getting responses of "what first comes
to mind" following a stimulus does divulge "something" about how a person
is thinking at that moment, and the responses obviously differ among
people at different times. But there is no *science* involved, as results
of the experiments are not reproducible and are totally open to subjective
interpretation. I therefore think that they are a waste of time for
medical evaluations. They can be fun at a kid's party.

Psychiatrists are also able to diagnose such metabolic disorders as
schizophrenia and manic-depressive (bipolar) disorder, which respond to drug
treatment (imbalances in neurotransmitters due to genetic defects).  But I
agree that talking to a good friend will generally be of much more use for
personal problems, unless your friends are also really mixed up.  My mother
wrote in her diary that they took my brother for psychotherapy to cure his
bedwetting, with no perceptible results.  It was related to stress, but
talking to some stranger was not going to make school a less stressful place
in which to raise your hand to ask in front of 41 other kids for permission
to go.  Some Chinese friends tried threats and massage on their kid, who grew
out of it despite them.  I am not trying to prove anything in a dream
discussion, it is just interesting to hear what other people dream about. 
        I often dream that I am unable to speak (which is true, the sensory
and motor nerves are decoupled from the brain during sleep), or unable to
urinate (same explanation).  Most of what I dream is related to recent events,
maybe stray firings of neurons that are consolidating info.  Does anyone know
that latest in theories of what causes dreams?

Psychiatry has taken on a new dimension with the discovery that some
mental illnesses have a physiological, not just a psychological, basis.
The psychiatrists actually have something that can be treated now, and
medications for that treatment. This is a good thing. 

I can often speak in my dreams, and also urinate (which turns out to be
a great *urge* to urinate, and I wake up before I do). 

The most recent article I saw about the cause of dreams was in the popular
press, and seemed to imply that we don't know a *purpose*, but that it
is *necessary* (even if one has no memory). I think the article suggested
it was the brain cleaning out some damaged files, unconnected preference
files, residual aliases... (they didn't use computer jargon to describe
it, but the analogy is useful). 

Would Medline have anything on the causes of dreaming?
I occasionally dream that I am flying, without waving my arms or using wings
or anything, I just fly sort of like Superman, I think about it and move
upwards.  This has been the only recurrent dream since childhood that I
remember other than speaking/urinating/cold/noises.  Does anyone else do
things in their dreams that are impossible in real life?

I could fly also in my dreams when I was a child. I also learned to know
that I was dreaming, and when things got difficult, I would tell my companions
in the dream that "this is only a dream". 

What I dreamed that is impossible in the waking state is transitions of
place and circumstances. I'd walk into another room and find myself 
someplace in the country, etc. 

Do you mean that you have forgotten how to fly?!  

I don't know. I no longer retain more than a very trifling recall of the
content of my dreams. I recall reading that the amount of dreaming one
does decreases significantly as one grows older.

Last night we returned bottles (found on train tracks, etc.) to the new
Kroger's west of town, and tried to find enough vegetables to spend the
coupons on.  Then we watched a video from the library, on how to slice
vegetables (and throw out most of your artichoke before tying it up neatly
with a string and lemon slice).  Oddly enough, I dreamed about a street full
of fruit and vegetable stores like in Italy, with everything laid out in
front, and they were very definitely in all colors (especially artichoke
green).  A couple of nights ago I dreamed about pink and red carpets, so I
have the full complement of color receptrs, except maybe blue, in my dreams.
I will try to have a blue dream next.

Last night I experienced one of the few dreams in a long time that
I can remember afterwards. I dreamed that the actor who plays the
prodigy in the movie "Good Will Hunting" was someone whom I knew on
M-Net years ago under a different name.

There were other events in the dream, but they're all a vague jumble
now.

I don't remember any of last night's dreams.  Ask again tomorrow

Orinoco, it is tomorrow, your turn again.

Erm, still can't remember any.  Although last night I slept weird, so I didn't
expect I would.  Maybe tonight I'll be back to a sane and normal sleep
schedule.

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