Depends on the dream. Most I forget once up and around. Never forgot the dream I had during finals week where i got to the exam room for my 11 am final only to be told it started at 9 and was now over. But that’s a common type dream. On the other hand I dreamed once that I had a pet elephant Who used its trunk to clean under dressers for me.
I’ve never had this dream. OTOH I actually did this as a college freshman. Holy crap, that was traumatizing! (Not the pet elephant one, the final exam one).
I had been studying for my 11 am exam in limnology that was either the next day or the one after. Luckily it really was at 11 am though I sure worried about it ! Sorry to hear about your experience. Hope the professor gave you a break!
I waited at his office starting at 7 AM the next day (it had been an afternoon exam). I brought several novels in case I had a very long wait. He arrived blessedly early and realized that he hadn’t seen me at the exam. To my surprise and delight he asked me if I wanted to take the exam then and there. Almost 50 years later it makes me emotional to think about his simple act of kindness and trust.
Some of each. Some dreams were terrifying and I had them many times, others were happy and I was sad to wake from them,. Strangest one was where I was being chased down the aisle of a train from car to car by a giant poison blueberry. I woke in a sweat before it caught up to me. ( I love blueberries so this one obviously was symbolic of something or someone else.)
Boy, have you got a lot of interpretations to choose from, including some for poison blueberries. Looks like blueberries are the all purpose dream element. A bowl before bed may be just the ticket.
I’m in between vague and vivid, sometimes lucid, but I don’t often recall extensive details.
In the “other” related musings category:
From the time I was in kindergarten until about third grade, I often wondered if I were an ant 🐜 asleep on another planet, dreaming up this Earth and all of humanity.
I was a weird kid.
Forty-some-odd-years later, I found myself at a huge defense industry conference asking the “Futurist” keynote speaker his opinion on the increasingly-mainstream scientific notion that, given Moore’s Law, odds are high that humans are characters in an advanced civilization’s SIM game. Imagine my surprise when the speaker geeked out completey and spent a good 10 minutes answering the question.
Imagine my surprise when the conference organizer tweeted something like, “First Question of the conference! Are we SIM game characters - and the crowd goes wild!”
Imagine my surprise when my geeky childhood thoughts were met with serious reactions.
All because I imagined I was a teeny little ant sleeping on another planet. 💭
Apart from the fact that most other mammals (and some birds and reptiles) dream, what I find particularly fascinating are what are called "lucid dreams." These are dreams you consciously know you are dreaming and, in my experience (to be passed on to Dear Leader as a good little Wordie) and that of others, can actually control to some extent, much like directing a play or movie. Neuroscience doesn't know exactly why this phenomenon occurs, but research indicates it might have something to do with the size of the site of the brain involved with decision-making and recalling memories. It's apparently bigger in those who regularly have lucid dreams, who also tend to be self-reflective and ruminative.
I generally do not like to hear about people's dreams (sosumi), and I really don't like the telling of dreams as a literary device. However, I was entertained by the duck dream.
I rarely get interesting dreams but sometimes I get do get recurring dreams that I suspect point to an ongoing anxiety. After I kept having dreams in which I wandered around a large, anonymous international hotel, either looking for the correct meeting room or the airport shuttle, I finally accepted that long TDY trips weren't good for my mental health and stopped doing them.
Again trying to answer the poll, seeing a "subscribed" in the corner of the page, and getting an error that I must be subscribed to answer this poll. It was happening, then resolved, etc. Maybe it's because I went to this from Substack and not email? Dunno. It's intermittent.
And my answer is somewhere between B and C. Sometimes I can recall, other times they are vague and wispy and then poof.
Also is there a term for when you know a person was in your dream but they didn't look like that person? You were at a place (home) but it wasn't your Real Life place?
Let's see, how can I make this fit the topic? OK, I dreamed you now look like Gregory Peck, ( a lie) ,so how is the healing of your serious face surgery, truly?
I’m reminded today that, when her family held a party to remember Norma Steuerle a year after they lost her on Flight 77, one of her daughters sang her favorite song, the Everly Brothers “All I Have to Do Is Dream.”
Great article in today's Sunday NY Times about New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast's forthcoming book, “I Must Be Dreaming.” According to the NYT, it's "a collection of cartoons and written observations about her own dreams, others’ ideas about dreams and, broadly speaking, wiggy stuff related to dreams. But Chast is Chast, and the sleeping world she depicts is only somewhat more absurd — and equally as funny and profound — as waking life."
Depends on the dream. Most I forget once up and around. Never forgot the dream I had during finals week where i got to the exam room for my 11 am final only to be told it started at 9 and was now over. But that’s a common type dream. On the other hand I dreamed once that I had a pet elephant Who used its trunk to clean under dressers for me.
Please send this in to the questions button.
Please send this in to the questions button.
I’ve never had this dream. OTOH I actually did this as a college freshman. Holy crap, that was traumatizing! (Not the pet elephant one, the final exam one).
I had been studying for my 11 am exam in limnology that was either the next day or the one after. Luckily it really was at 11 am though I sure worried about it ! Sorry to hear about your experience. Hope the professor gave you a break!
I waited at his office starting at 7 AM the next day (it had been an afternoon exam). I brought several novels in case I had a very long wait. He arrived blessedly early and realized that he hadn’t seen me at the exam. To my surprise and delight he asked me if I wanted to take the exam then and there. Almost 50 years later it makes me emotional to think about his simple act of kindness and trust.
Limnology eh ? Did you wake up damp ?
Some of each. Some dreams were terrifying and I had them many times, others were happy and I was sad to wake from them,. Strangest one was where I was being chased down the aisle of a train from car to car by a giant poison blueberry. I woke in a sweat before it caught up to me. ( I love blueberries so this one obviously was symbolic of something or someone else.)
Boy, have you got a lot of interpretations to choose from, including some for poison blueberries. Looks like blueberries are the all purpose dream element. A bowl before bed may be just the ticket.
Revenge of the blueberries? Maybe the blueberries collectively hired a Hit Blueberry to take you out.
I’m in between vague and vivid, sometimes lucid, but I don’t often recall extensive details.
In the “other” related musings category:
From the time I was in kindergarten until about third grade, I often wondered if I were an ant 🐜 asleep on another planet, dreaming up this Earth and all of humanity.
I was a weird kid.
Forty-some-odd-years later, I found myself at a huge defense industry conference asking the “Futurist” keynote speaker his opinion on the increasingly-mainstream scientific notion that, given Moore’s Law, odds are high that humans are characters in an advanced civilization’s SIM game. Imagine my surprise when the speaker geeked out completey and spent a good 10 minutes answering the question.
Imagine my surprise when the conference organizer tweeted something like, “First Question of the conference! Are we SIM game characters - and the crowd goes wild!”
Imagine my surprise when my geeky childhood thoughts were met with serious reactions.
All because I imagined I was a teeny little ant sleeping on another planet. 💭
Apart from the fact that most other mammals (and some birds and reptiles) dream, what I find particularly fascinating are what are called "lucid dreams." These are dreams you consciously know you are dreaming and, in my experience (to be passed on to Dear Leader as a good little Wordie) and that of others, can actually control to some extent, much like directing a play or movie. Neuroscience doesn't know exactly why this phenomenon occurs, but research indicates it might have something to do with the size of the site of the brain involved with decision-making and recalling memories. It's apparently bigger in those who regularly have lucid dreams, who also tend to be self-reflective and ruminative.
Several times, I've forced myself to wake up from a nightmare.
I generally do not like to hear about people's dreams (sosumi), and I really don't like the telling of dreams as a literary device. However, I was entertained by the duck dream.
I rarely get interesting dreams but sometimes I get do get recurring dreams that I suspect point to an ongoing anxiety. After I kept having dreams in which I wandered around a large, anonymous international hotel, either looking for the correct meeting room or the airport shuttle, I finally accepted that long TDY trips weren't good for my mental health and stopped doing them.
Mostly B but sometimes C or D.
https://img.memegenerator.net/instances/71690523.jpg
Again trying to answer the poll, seeing a "subscribed" in the corner of the page, and getting an error that I must be subscribed to answer this poll. It was happening, then resolved, etc. Maybe it's because I went to this from Substack and not email? Dunno. It's intermittent.
And my answer is somewhere between B and C. Sometimes I can recall, other times they are vague and wispy and then poof.
Also is there a term for when you know a person was in your dream but they didn't look like that person? You were at a place (home) but it wasn't your Real Life place?
Funny there must but two Melissas here because this one is a different one than the elephant dream person
You know which one you are, right?
I'm the Melissa with the weird Roman vessel as a face.
Let's see, how can I make this fit the topic? OK, I dreamed you now look like Gregory Peck, ( a lie) ,so how is the healing of your serious face surgery, truly?
Many thanks for the graphic rendering of The Lovely Rachel, at the top of the column.
How's your neck?
The image looks much like a character drawn by the late Al Capp. Damn, I'm old!
And then there's always the "searching for a toilet" dream ...
I’m reminded today that, when her family held a party to remember Norma Steuerle a year after they lost her on Flight 77, one of her daughters sang her favorite song, the Everly Brothers “All I Have to Do Is Dream.”
Great article in today's Sunday NY Times about New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast's forthcoming book, “I Must Be Dreaming.” According to the NYT, it's "a collection of cartoons and written observations about her own dreams, others’ ideas about dreams and, broadly speaking, wiggy stuff related to dreams. But Chast is Chast, and the sleeping world she depicts is only somewhat more absurd — and equally as funny and profound — as waking life."
Link here for those with an NYT subscription. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/10/magazine/roz-chast-interview.html
Thumbs up! We must be nearly the same age as my dream was the spring of 1974.
Sometimes!