Music and Dreams

[Vermanubis]

Link to original post: [drupal=5395]Music and Dreams[/drupal]



How do your dreams affect you? With the exception of really bizarre or disturbing dreams, do you just wake up and forget about them? Do they move you at all?

A dream I had last night reminded me of something I've wanted to talk about for quite some time now. It wasn't a weird dream, rather, a... poetically scenic one, I guess you could say. I wouldn't say that I typically have dreams of any other kind--at least, not that I remember. By poetically scenic, I mean something phantasmic and inexplicably moving. To me, these dreams of mine are indeed so moving that a single one was my impetus to wake up one morning three years ago and begin pursuing music (though, given how beautiful I found the dream to be, I'd say it was more of a frenetic stalking rather than a pursuit).

Needless to say, most of these dreams are accompanied by a specific song. Though being able to analyze the mechanical underpinnings of abstract things is a skill I enjoy, I don't think I could even guess why I have these sorts of dreams, or why they're accompanied by a song. I just know that for some reason, when I wake up after having such a dream, I just really, really moved by it. Consequently, the song heard in the dream kinda develops a surreal property. I guess this would all be a fine explanation as to why I became so enamored with composing music.

Because of that ethereal quality that I ascribe to such a song, I'm always looking for places like those that I dream about so I can listen to those songs at them--it's just like being back in the dream, to me. Though, all things considered, it just simplifies to the fact that I have some absolutely ****ing beautiful dreams. Kinda glad I dream about these kinds of things rather than falling off of cliffs and **** lol.

For real though: do any of you guys pay attention to your dreams, or are you affected by them at all? That one dream I had once upon a time really was so forceful that I just sprung outta bed and music'd for the next three years.

Also, for anyone curious as to what the song in the dream was last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOoY1cJ23Lk

 

[#HBC | Joker]

I usually hear stuff more like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ryM7fEYVs

 

[Deleted member]

I had a DBZ-like dream I had back in 2004 which I still remember well to this date. While kind of a bizarre dream, it did eventually inspire me to make a few chapters of a horrible mega-cross over fanfiction I did on my first Internet forum back in late 2008 until I realized it was such a terrible idea that I dropped it. It did however, made me much more interested in cross-overs of franchises I enjoy, though being a fan of the Super Smash Bros. series obviously helped as well.

 

[Ramen King]

I dream about big booty hoes which in turn drives me to obtain more big booty hoes

 

[Ramen King]

But really there were so many words I never us in your post that it was difficult to understand. I've always been really into dreams and all that. I generally remember mine from each night, at least for a while. Mostly about a day to a few days after. There's been many times that my dreams have influenced me. A lot of times when when I just don't realize something in the day, my dreams will sometimes will reveal them to me. One example was I once lost my backpack and could not find it anywhere. I looked around pretty much all day. When I slept that night, I had a dream about where it was, and viola. Another thing is when I'm frustrated and have a lack of direction. A good dream will point me in a direction.

 

[Big-Cat]

Ever since my first dog died back in 2005, I've had recurring dreams where I get to be with him and our second dog "one last time", but they've been becoming far more frequent for some reason as of late.

Usually, the dream involves them just being alive and me remembering them being dead. One dream had the first dog replaced by a body double until that double's death which was three years after the real dog's death. Another was where I digged up his grave to see he was really there - at the time of his death, I couldn't emotionally handle seeing him buried so I never saw the burial - only to find nothing and see that he was alive ala Jesus. I've always wanted to see my dogs again, but I've accepted that they've passed on and believe they live on in me and those who loved them so I'm wondering why this recurring resurrection theme continues on.

Other than that, I tend to remember dreams greatly if someone I love dies - which leads me to calling them at 4 in the morning. However, I will remember dreams if I remember having a previous dream with a similar theme. Like, I recalled digging my dog's grave in a previous dream when I was dreaming last night. I should take more into account what kind of dreams I'm having and what I should gather from them.

Oh, and I had dreams for a while that had me naked in certain areas like school with me trying to find something to cover me up.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Dreams don't linger often in my mind after having taken place. A combination of my poor memory, constantly running mind the moment of conscious on separate things, and my general disinterest in the happenings of my dreams allow for little potential in that department. At any rate, a lot of the time, my dreams could only nonplus me, for the typical motif of them is that they are rather vague and consist of seemingly meaningless things, the sense-datum selection of my dreams, from what I can tell, is either random or such a mish mosh of things it is useless to even entertain the idea of "interpreting" them or obtaining some sort of inspiration out of them.

 

[KRDsonic]

Dreams for me at both a blessing and a curse because of how realistic they tend to be. I've had a lot of very fun dreams that feel very real, and some of those times I am completely aware that I am in a dream too and thus am able to do whatever I want in the dream (with certain limitations). Usually those dreams are amazing, being able to fly or hover around and stuff as if everything is normal, getting to visit cool places, etc.

However, that also means my bad dreams are very realistic too. I've always had trouble keeping a consistent sleep schedule due to the fact that I wake up from dreams very often just because they're so realistic that I need to get out of them, or I'll just wake up for the sake of having a reality check. After my mom passed away, I had a lot of dreams where she was in trouble and I would have to save her, and then right after I would get to the moment where I would save her, I would just wake up and have to tell myself, "that can't happen, she's gone." And usually I'm not able to go back to sleep for the rest of the night without the dream continuing. The same applies to nightmares. Heck, I'm way out of whack as far as sleep goes right now because of a dream I had last night that symbolized what it's like after death, and I needed to just snap out of that dream because I wasn't liking where it was going.

Now, I did have a dream one night a couple years ago where I got a bass guitar, and even though it wasn't anything special, that dream made me very interested in actually getting one to learn to play, and so I did. And I've been very glad that I decided to get one too, since it's one of my favorite hobbies now.

 

[Ussi]

I don't remember my dreams. I can usually just remember 1 part but even then i forget my dreams if i don't write it down somewhere or share it right away.

Even nightmares i don't remember, i wake with a fast beating heart and don't even remember why.

 

[Morin0]

Link to original post: [drupal=5395]Music and Dreams[/drupal]



How do your dreams affect you? With the exception of really bizarre or disturbing dreams, do you just wake up and forget about them? Do they move you at all?

A dream I had last night reminded me of something I've wanted to talk about for quite some time now. It wasn't a weird dream, rather, a... poetically scenic one, I guess you could say. I wouldn't say that I typically have dreams of any other kind--at least, not that I remember. By poetically scenic, I mean something phantasmic and inexplicably moving. To me, these dreams of mine are indeed so moving that a single one was my impetus to wake up one morning three years ago and begin pursuing music (though, given how beautiful I found the dream to be, I'd say it was more of a frenetic stalking rather than a pursuit).

Needless to say, most of these dreams are accompanied by a specific song. Though being able to analyze the mechanical underpinnings of abstract things is a skill I enjoy, I don't think I could even guess why I have these sorts of dreams, or why they're accompanied by a song. I just know that for some reason, when I wake up after having such a dream, I just really, really moved by it. Consequently, the song heard in the dream kinda develops a surreal property. I guess this would all be a fine explanation as to why I became so enamored with composing music.

Because of that ethereal quality that I ascribe to such a song, I'm always looking for places like those that I dream about so I can listen to those songs at them--it's just like being back in the dream, to me. Though, all things considered, it just simplifies to the fact that I have some absolutely ****ing beautiful dreams. Kinda glad I dream about these kinds of things rather than falling off of cliffs and **** lol.

For real though: do any of you guys pay attention to your dreams, or are you affected by them at all? That one dream I had once upon a time really was so forceful that I just sprung outta bed and music'd for the next three years.

Also, for anyone curious as to what the song in the dream was last night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOoY1cJ23Lk

I once had a dream where I heard a piece of music being played by a piano and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. It's kind of weird because I have not heard that specific music piece before. I woke up feeling like writing it down but alas, I do not know how to play the piano nor write sheet music. I felt pretty bummed about that. I kind of have an ambition to create music as well.

It was something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEjcFmKM_PA

 

[Life]

The only dream I distinctly remember was pretty recently. Let's just say my friends are now scared of me and leave it at that

 

[Teran]

Music rarely enters my dreams surprisingly, but most of the time when it has it has been really haunting choral style music ha. I dunno why.

One of my favourite music in dream moments was when I leapt out of a train on a high up railway and nosedived to the ground, pulling up at the last minute (I do that a lot because it's really fun), and rocketed on through this breathtaking pasture. I started humming this tune to myself as I pulled up, and it started ringing out as if the whole landscape was a giant boombox, 10/10 experience.

[yt]6gJuPplKBs0[/yt]

 

[z00ted]

I dream almost every night and write down them whenever I get the chance or feel as though they are worthwhile. I've always noticed them to be really important and interesting and my life and have some weird connection to music with them as well. The sad part is, like half of my dreams may be lost due to my hard drive crashing two or so months back. I had a lot of really important concepts and ideas (to me) on there.

I've found that my dreams will give me the opposite emotion of whatever I'm listening to upon falling asleep (very rarely), will be linked to a feeling or outlook on life I had when I first heard the song or realized how great it was on my initial listen, or they will have no effect at all. I've trained myself to lucid dream and distinctly remember as much as I can when I wake up because I kind of find the dream state to be more enjoyable and fun than the real world at times. It's some of the most fun I've ever had in my entire life and the feelings/emotions are really intense and passionate.

I've been studying dreaming for about a good year now. I don't know what got me so into it.. it just felt really linked to music for some reason. Like, REALLY linked and I find it really interesting and cool that you think the same, Verm. Some of my favorite artists are really into dream-like states/astral-projection/lucid-dreaming/sleep deprivation to compose their music and even prefer it at times, except I didn't even know about this until I myself started getting into it.

Dreams for me usually come in cycles within one night. I'll have one dream and it feels at least four hours or so, with that much detail and description then I'll go into an entirely new dream but still remember everything that happened to the one previously, and so on until I wake up. They usually feel about as long as I'm asleep and I've found that it's REALLY hard to start up or remember a dream if you're asleep for a short period of time. However, anything under thirty minutes is somehow memorable. I think it's the section between thirty minutes and two hours that we lose something (or at least I do).

I pretty much have full control and can almost predict what's about to happen to me in my dreams but allow it to anyways. If I want to wake up, I can.. but even if the going gets real bad I try to stay in it. I've had one dream where it was so evil and dark that I literally thought I was out of this world and somewhere else. The scariest part was when I woke up there was blood all over my sheets and I had one of the worst nose bleeds of my entire life. That was the day I got out of the hospital about three months ago, really crazy stuff. But on the other end I've had really beautiful and inspirational things happen to me as well.

I've also found that girls are like 50,000x more emotional and intelligent in my dreams. They are really easy to relate to, share similar interests as me, or are somehow extremely enticing if they don't. Nothing ever leads to anything sexual ever, but they always have an incredibly great sense of charm. I've talked to girls in my dream where I like them so much and then tell them that I know it's a dream and I won't ever get to see them again, and then they'll go ahead and tell me I can if I want to badly enough. It's almost like they're always pushing my curiosity and expectations of myself within my dreams and it's really something awesome that I love. And the conversations last FOREVER. I will sit there and talk/laugh with girls all day and night if the opportunity arises... it never gets boring. If we don't talk, we don't talk.. and we're okay with it as well. Moments of silence are just brief periods where we are sorting out our thoughts to talk to each other about something else or just chilling. It doesn't hold a sense of awkwardness between either one of us. Really mutual feelings.

Another thing that frequently happens is that I'm never actually IN my dreams. It'll be a third person eagle's eye kind of thing where I just watch someone's life play out or a concept being shown to me sort of like a movie. I've witnessed some really sad and interesting outlooks on people's motives within my dreams that make me question the real world and I've also had things that are awe-inspiring. People don't usually make the same appearances again and again that I know. People that I truly love and care about that I have a desire to see again but can't almost always pop up in my dreams constantly, but not the people that I know I can see whenever I choose fit. I think it's a way of me being able to see them despite not being able to in the real world.

Music is HUGE in my dreams. It's almost like always playing throughout and sometimes I'll just be sitting in a dark room with weird lights all over the walls (almost light christmas lights) luminating it up like with this neon-ish glow while I'm listening to whatever I want. I have NEVER heard a song from outside a dream inside a dream. So what I'm saying is, I've never heard like something by My Bloody Valentine within a dream, it's always new. The thing is, it's SUPER hard to remember and it's very very very choppy/twisted and not normal. It evokes emotions incredibly well though and I can't wait until I understand my instrument/music better so I can try to capture it once I come out. The only song that I can ever remember distinctly playing in one of my dreams is "Astral Weeks" by Van Morrison. When I woke up I had it spinning in my head still and I couldn't quite a finger on it because it was so chopped up/intertwined in my dream, but once I thought I knew what it was, I played the song and I could tell it was slightly different.

Here's the song, if any of you care - Astral Weeks

The song didn't have any vocals in my dream, NONE of them ever do.
Just this really really strong bassline, violin, guitar, and lush sound almost like an oasis throughout my dream.

That's another thing, I've had some intense colors through my dreams that I would never see in the real world. Like almost neon like, kind of when you put on those heat vision goggles and see those awesome shades of red and blue but not as drastic.. just with a lot of different colors. Or kind of when you stare at a lightbulb for a super long period of time then close your eyes really fast and see all those awesome shades against the black of your eye lids. Everything is illuminated kind of like that.

Nothing that I know isn't possible happens within my dreams. I cannot fly, people cannot fly, animals do not talk, there isn't magic. However, there I have a HUGE role on the role of "luck" or the chance game. If something normally wouldn't happen in certain circumstances, I can make them happen if I do some weird thing in my mind.. it's really hard to explain LOL. There still are extremely disturbing/beautiful things that happen throughout my dreams though.

Last thing... 222 is a number that I see all the time within my dreams and outside of it. My best friend, Jerm (Toon Link) told me about the number 222 and ever since one day he say it he's been seeing it like in an abundance over and over again. I believed him and immediately since that night I've been seeing the number EVERYWHERE. And I'm NEVER EVER looking for it. Walk downstairs to get a drink of water, 2:22. Change on receipt, $2.22. Movie theatre #222. Mailbox #222. License Plate with 222. In Office Space, the guy's HOUSE is 222. Ned's Declassified, one of the teacher's class is 222. In Being John Malkovich, the time in the movie is 2:22 like three times. I had a job call me up at 2:22 PM and tell me to go to some WEIRD address that was nowhere near me at 22222 North Fry Road, Katy Tx. I can't even sit here and count the amount of times I've seen some weird instance of 222 within my life since that night (probably like five months ago) because it would be in the thousands. I've seen it at least three to ten times almost every day since that day and it's crazy. Almost like it's spiritual or other-worldly on how real it is. I just take it now as some kind of weird path or direction of certainty. Whenever I'm really happy or feeling great about something in life 222 always pops up. It used to hold like a frightening stigma to it just because of how crazy it was, but it's so normal now that I love it.

It appears in my dreams in really strange ways. I remember about a week ago I was at Cici's Pizza in my dream and I saw this kid with a shirt of a band I really enjoy listening to music. I sat down next to him and asked him what he was listening to and it was a band I really enjoyed. He was like 14 or something and reminded me of myself at that age and we talked forever. Then I asked him for his number and he write down 281-222-4987 or something then looked directly at me, said "whoops" and scratched out the 222 and write like 369 or something. It was really weird and the dream ended right after that. I've had tons of instances like that within my dreams where 222 just pops up everywhere, it's kind of awesome.

Anyways, yeah. I wrote a lot (sorry).. but this topic really interested me.

For dreaming and remembering stuff distinctly, I recommend like three things.

1) Convince yourself that dreaming shouldn't be disregarded and is a very important part of life. You have to really tap into your emotions and open-mindset on certain things or you won't be able to really feel dreams as well. Doubt will destroy dreaming off the bat (same with music), so try not to.

2) Before you fall asleep or whenever you get that into that really woozy state.. tell yourself "I'm about to fall asleep, remember this dream for tomorrow." This works BIG time for me and sometimes I've almost lost dreams because I didn't do it. I think it helps prepare your mind for what's about to come so it can change whatever is going on up there for different thinking structures.

3) When you wake up, try to put together everything really fast. I've found that sometimes if I see something that I know happened in my dream (it can be as stupid as twisting a door knob or hearing a sentence that was said in my dream) tons of other memories will flow in as well. It's really weird, but it works. You can also like set up an item in your mind to bring into your dream and see if you see it in there. Once you get out and see the item next to you (like a lamp or something), it should help trigger a lot more memories than just that lamp.

Toby Driver is my favorite composer currently alive and his music used to be correlated with astral planes/projection and lucid dreaming when he was younger. If any of you are into/want to get into that stuff, I highly recommend getting into maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot which are two of his big projects. He's a genius and is very very very good at writing music. The genre is Metal for the most part, but has elements jazz, and tons of other genres. Just strong music in general. I really think you would appreciate both of his bands, Verm.

Here's what is likely his softest song (keep in mind the album is far heavier than this.. being mostly metal) - (Interlude 3)

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Yeah, the brain has a way of noticing particular things and then only getting a remarkable impression from those kind of things so to make it seem, upon reflection, to happen a lot or nigh almost every time. Kind of like people who look at the time and think, "I always see 11:11! Wow!" Yet, the brain doesn't really write down all of the more arbitrary selections. Same with people who think bad things happen to them or that "whenever anything bad can happen it will", the positive experiences have more of an impact than negative (lack of stimulus) experiences, i.e., it always seems a lot of the time I have a sore in my mouth, and yet, I can go a short while not even noticing that it disappeared or is starting to go away until something brings my attention to the absence of it. Most of the time, I don't have one.

I'd even venture to say that we probably unconsciously search for any pattern that we think exists, such as the 11:11 example, we are probably likely to be checking the clock at around such a period, the conscious mind is hardly the tip of the ice berg at best.

 

[z00ted]

I've read into it and yeah... people say we unconsciously look for the numbers, but this **** is like STUPID stuff. I don't unconsciously get someone to call me and tell me to meet them at 22222 or get a bill with the change as $2.22.

It's a little more than just things I can look for lol.
But I definitely understand what you're getting at.

 

[KRDsonic]

Sleep paralysis is annoying. I've only ever had it happen twice, and last night was one of those times. The first time it happened was a few months ago, and I had some dream, and in the dream there was an area of my house where something in the back of my mind kept telling me to stay away from it, yet eventually I explored it anyways out of curiosity, and then some dark shadowy figured jumped at me and attacked me and I instantly woke up from the dream and wasn't able to move or speak or anything for a few minutes, then after a couple of minutes it started to feel like there was something very heavy on my chest which made it hard to breath and I kept trying to call out to someone but wasn't able to, until finally after a few minutes it was gone and I was able to move again.

The one last night wasn't anywhere near as bad though. I don't remember exactly what the dream was about, only that it was a fairly good dream, and I was talking to someone, and all of a sudden I started getting a really bad feeling, like something evil was approaching, and I asked myself "Is it worth it to continue seeing what happens in this dream out of curiosity?" and then I told myself no and chose to wake up from it, and ugg, sleep paralysis. It only lasted about 15 seconds but it was that same thing of not being able to talk or move or anything. I'm not sure what causes sleep paralysis but it's annoying.

I just know that dreams, and sleep in general, seem to be a big part of my life. I actually feel bad for people who don't remember their dreams, and never have lucid dreams.

Of course, from what I know from talking with other people who lucid dream, I seem to have more control than most people... kind of. I'm able to rewind my dreams, meaning that if something happens that I don't like, I can just rewind it and try out a different scenario until I get the outcome I want. The problem is, that results in either that same dream, or another dream later that night "breaking". Basically, there will come a point in a dream later that will get stuck in a loop that lasts anywhere from half a second to 2 seconds, and it will just play over and over until I finally wake up. Sometimes it won't even be the whole dream that does that, but a person may get stuck in a loop, and other people in the dream don't even seem to notice what's going on and everything else still plays out like normal. It's really weird though, and frustrating enough that I usually have to wake myself up just to get the loop to stop.

Edit: I just realized that this makes it seem like all of my dreams are bad, which isn't true. I've had dreams where I've come up with entire songs off the top of my head, songs that don't even exist. I know I've had dreams at times where I was listening to an album that I like, and suddenly a song that doesn't exist will start playing in the playlist, and sometimes I'll tell myself "Wow, this sounds really cool. When I wake up I should write it out." Unfortunately, without fail, every time I wake up, I instantly forget everything about how it sounded.

 

[z00ted]

I kind of have the same stuff as far as "rewinding" goes, KRD.
I've never experienced sleep paralysis before... or noticed it at least.

I would love to, though.

 

[Teran]

@Holder's point, I seem to notice the time 23:37 a lot, dunno why but it's the time I happen to glance at on my clock most often ha.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

People value what they have, so I wouldn't pity those who don't have memorable dreams. Though, those who value what they don't have, say, if I were to desire having splendid dreams, that would be a good cause to feel bad for me. To me sleeping is exactly what it is, most of the time. I don't really want anything more to do with it honestly.

And Teran, beware, be aware of 23:37, it is likely this is a sign of grave danger in your future!

I've never experienced sleep paralysis (I'm like a sleep noob everything), but my brother will rarely suffer it, and according to his testimony, it is one of his greatest fears.

 

[Big-Cat]

For years, I've had to deal with sleep paralysis, and they've gotten progressively scarier. At first, I was just having dreams where it's just pitch black and I can't open my mouth, move, or make a sound, and my breath felt constricted, like I had slits for nostrils. Then, things got really frightening for me where I was afraid to fall asleep on car rides because I felt like I was going to die.

For the last few years, they haven't occurred because I try to avoid the conditions for it - sleeping in a cramped position or spot - but I have the paralysis in my dreams. I basically feel like most of my body's nerves are shot and it's a great effort to make any kind of movement, and I try to crawl on the ground, looking and asking for help. I remember having such a dream where I call to my dad for help, and he ignores me.

 

[z00ted]

I at least want to try it lol, but it sounds pretty frightening. Can't believe I haven't experienced it yet with the amount of stuff I have tried through dreaming.

Do you think it has to do with your emotions/mindset before falling asleep?
What are the conditions other than cramped positions?

 

[Big-Cat]

I don't think mindset has that big of a role with sleep paralysis for me, but one of the consistent conditions I've noticed is that I'm not sleeping at bed time when these typically happen, like I doze off.

I think it might depend on the individual and is not something I would tell others to experience because it sucks. It really, really sucks.

 

[Frostwraith]

Funny... I rarely remember my dreams. Sleep nights pass like a blink of eyes almost all times for me. But i already had dreams where I am a sort of Darklord and set to conquer the world. Wicked stuff indeed...



In a funny note, i was listening to the fountain of dreams music from melee while posting this...

 

[KRDsonic]

From what I've read, it has something to do with waking up during a certain stage of sleep, and your body doesn't trigger certain things like it should, so it thinks you're still asleep when you aren't. And since your muscles lose function while you're in certain stages of sleep (to prevent things like sleep walking or moving around a lot in your sleep and hurting yourself), you're still in that stage while you're in sleep paralysis, so you're literally paralyzed until it finally wears off.

Edit: I have no idea if emotions or anything trigger it. For me, it's only happened during times where something caused me to wake up suddenly from a dream. As far as positions go, both times it's happened to me I was in a normal position. The first time, I was laying on my back. The 2nd time I was laying on my side.

 

[Luco]

The amazing world of dreams... I could go on and on endlessly about this topic. At a basic level they're just your subconscious working images on you from often subliminal things. At a deeper level, they are a window in to your soul and are so much more powerful than they seem.

I'll get to that later though. Firstly, I also enjoy puzzling out the mechanics to abstract stuff and I also have no idea how dreams work fully... but I don't think anyone does. It's like how bees shouldn't fly or how planes only fly in theory (because I always have an image of a famous mathematician on a plane suddenly exclaiming "Hang on, according to this planes shouldn't be able to fly!" and all planes suddenly crashing to earth!).

On to the main thing... Apparently you have something like 1000 dreams per night on average but you only remember a couple of them the next morning, even fewer by the end of that day and so on. Usually a 'dream' is actually several dreams that run in to each other (ever had a dream that makes perfect sense to you at the time, though when you try to explain it later you go "Oh, well we were in the house... then suddenly the walls turned to bamboo and we were in this huge forest!" etc etc... I imagine that would be one dream running in to another with similar themes). Still, whether broken up or not, they make perfect sense to you and can impact upon you. Also considering that your brain runs at a different speed, it may seem like a dream goes on for hours even though you've only been asleep for a few minutes in reality.

I definitely have powerful dreams. I live next to the water, so when I had a dream one night and saw a boat there, that was nothing special. I jumped on to this dingy which looked very much like my father's and there was a trapdoor at the bottom of the front. Opening the trapdoor, I saw a ladder that went down a bit (which I know makes no sense as the boat was on the water but stay with me here). I came down in to this house. It was all wooden and beautiful. It was adorned with hundreds of items, coats on racks, glass cases with rare items inside them, beautiful rugs on the floor... I met a person inside that house too, he was very pleasant but I can't remember much more about him. There was a large window (which was made up of many smaller windows, like the type you see on ships from the 1700's - kind of thing, which looked out over the sea and the waves. It had many corridors, all filled with these wonderful items, old golden spy-glasses, things you might wear in a play (drama costumes)... I spent ages exploring this beautiful wooden house under the family boat. I felt entirely safe and entirely at home while doing it. I never finished exploring the house because I woke up before I could keep on going.

When I woke up, I asked my mother about it. A person who's done some research in to dreams, she told me that houses often represent you. The items inside that were beautiful, she said, meant I was a beautiful person. We went through for ages talking about what the items meant... Nowadays I take comfort in that house, the dream. I don't fully know what it meant but I still remember it so vividly... it's important to me.

So yes, I do have powerful dreams. Other dreams include things like deja vu (which everyone gets... Someone told me that scientifically, it's more a case of you see something that you've seen before waking and think that was a dream. I disagree as i've had deja vu with places i've never seen before, to which the person replied "well, that's the best science can say for now anyway! "), painful dreams (what's your worst? I've had my stomach ripped open by a monster in one of those dreams... ughhhhh...), lots of others.

There are dreams where I know i'm in a dream. I recall an instance where I was on a yellow taxi driving past houses in Britain (trust me, It was Britain. I've never been there personally but that was Britain.). I knew it was a dream, the first thing I did was call out to everyone that it was a dream. no-one responded, so the next thing I did was smash my head against the top of the taxi. Fourth or fifth hit and I woke up.

Others are where you subconsciously know you're in a dream. I was hiding on my balcony in a dream once and when the 'bad guy' saw me I decided it would be best to jump off head first on to the brick flood wall that was there (since the house that i used to live in was next to a creek, it had a flood wall), knowing that it would get me away from him.

You can have dreams where you're controlling what's going on, both when you know and don't know. Those are most fun when you know. I remember my first one, I was crawling through pipes but looking at it as though it was a puzzle game (so I could see the whole maze and me in it). There was a lolly in front of me and I remember eating it and enjoying it, so I made another and ate that one, and so on until the dream changed/I woke up (not sure which happened in that instance). Another early one was where I made myself fly and everything turned in to a spyro level (because my brother had been playing spyro and as a young kid I was always watching him and playing it myself.).

On that note, you can learn to control your dreams every time. My brother learnt to do it and did it for years. The trick is remembering something before you go to sleep, the better you know it, the more likely you'll recognize it in dream. I always used a metal vase that had significance to me when I was doing it. Basically, the trick works in that if you see the object out of place in the dream (for instance, if you memorized the moon and saw the moon in the middle of a street, you'd know you were dreaming.). That would alert you to the fact that you were dreaming. From there, you could begin to control it how you wished.

A very powerful type of dream is what my family calls a 'psychic dream'. My mother was in Sydney and he grandmother lived in Melbourne, many years ago. One night my mother had a dream where she was at the top of a skyscraper and at the edge her grandmother was clinging to the side. My mum rushed to her and their fingers brushed, before her grandmother fell in to the abyss below. The next morning my mother woke up and immediately got in to her car. She drove all the way to melbourne without warning. When she got there, she was directed to the hospital by family members and was told when she got to the hospital that her grandmother had literally passed away 30 minutes before she arrived. And she drove to melbourne without any provocation, no calls from family or anything. This is exactly the type of thing i'm talking about, that dreams can really influence you. if you wake up one morning and drive hundreds of kilometres because of a dream, then yes, i'd say dreams like that are extremely powerful.

I think the most powerful and best dream I have ever had was when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I've never had this happen again but I want it to. It's called Astral Projection. Most people who've had it (and I kind of agree with them) say it's the soul coming out of the body and going wherever you want it to go.

I had fallen asleep on the couch that night after coming home late from some kind of social function. Next thing I knew, I was watching myself sleeping from about 7 or 8 feet above the ground. I remember looking so peaceful. My sister had an instance where she did it as a young girl. She heard her parents in the other room talking... next morning she went and repeated every word of the conversation to them and found out they had had that exact conversation that night. A brother of a friend of mine projected when he was little and saw a house a few blocks away burn down. Next morning, turned out that exact house had burnt down that night.

Eerie but fun. It seems to me that it's not so much of a dream... your soul is actually moving through the real world, flying, watching, etc... I've promised myself that if I ever do that again and realise it, i'm going to travel a bit and see what I can see. It would be very cool to see a bit of China without ever actually going there in person!

So yeah, that's a bit of my experience with dreams. I'm not overly spiritual or anything like that, these are just experiences that I or family members have had and how they've impacted upon us.

I think that, whether we realise it or not, we are often very influenced by our dreams. They give us such insight in to ourselves and the world around us that we take things from them and apply that in real life, whether we know it (psychic dreams, dreams that reveal things about ourselves, etc.) or not (deja vu, etc.).

Sorry for the wall of text! That's basically what I wanted to say though.

 

[z00ted]

Yeah, I can relate to you with a lot of that stuff, Luco.
Dreams are awesome and I've only astral projected once before as well.

It was really cool though. I just remember seeing myself outside of my body and I could move around kind of like you stated. The psychic thing is really weird. My mom dreamed that her dad would die the day before he did, I've dreamed entire days planned out the night before, like where we'd go for dinner and what my Dad would eat. Just weird stuff like that.. I don't doubt it though, some of that stuff really does happen for whatever reason.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

I don't mean to discredit ya'll, but I'd be weary about this concept of "astral projection", people have already figured out the causes and nature of out-of-body experiences. It's quite literally the brain "forgetting" where your body through the normal sensations that tell it where it is are affected. Experiments can seriously reproduce it. Though I'm sure that people who have experienced "astral projection" would contend that the two things are different.

 

[z00ted]

Nope, I already know that you can experiment with it and reproduce it and I've read into it as well.

I just have only done it once on accident. I don't contend that the two things are different at all because I haven't experimented with it on my own yet and haven't done it in like three years.

 

[Luco]

I don't mean to discredit ya'll, but I'd be weary about this concept of "astral projection", people have already figured out the causes and nature of out-of-body experiences. It's quite literally the brain "forgetting" where your body through the normal sensations that tell it where it is are affected. Experiments can seriously reproduce it. Though I'm sure that people who have experienced "astral projection" would contend that the two things are different.

Hang on, you're not making sense there. I'm confused... Are you saying it's the brain forgetting where the body is and therefore placing your sight somewhere else??

Wait, that makes no sense either...

From what you're saying though, it doesn't sound quite right... >.>

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Your brain isn't actually going there, nor is it ACTUALLY looking at you. o_o The brain is simply confusing itself to be away from your body. Anything you see in "projections" are sense-datum provided from memory, the brain itself.

The actual studies would explain it better, in fact there is even an episode of Through the Wormhole that talks about it. If it interests you, use the internet and learn. It's not like I'm lying.

At any rate, I don't think someone who believes in the concept of astral projection is on any grounds to say that a scientific understanding of out-of-body experiences don't make sense, the idea of APs have no evidence or metaphysical grounds.


I remember once reading through a book that was like a journal for the world's like most renown astral projector, and it all sounded really interesting, irrespective of lacking scientific evidence or metaphysical grounds. Well, of course, until he started writing out entire complex lengthy conversations that he remembers with powerful inter-dimensional beings.

 

[Luco]

Your brain isn't actually going there, nor is it ACTUALLY looking at you. o_o The brain is simply confusing itself to be away from your body. Anything you see in "projections" are sense-datum provided from memory, the brain itself.

The actual studies would explain it better, in fact there is even an episode of Through the Wormhole that talks about it. If it interests you, use the internet and learn. It's not like I'm lying.

At any rate, I don't think someone who believes in the concept of astral projection is on any grounds to say that a scientific understanding of out-of-body experiences don't make sense, the idea of APs have no evidence or metaphysical grounds.


I remember once reading through a book that was like a journal for the world's like most renown astral projector, and it all sounded really interesting, irrespective of lacking scientific evidence or metaphysical grounds. Well, of course, until he started writing out entire complex lengthy conversations that he remembers with powerful inter-dimensional beings.

Oh nono, i'm not at all saying that you're lying holder, just that what you described didn't sound like what had happened to me, especially seeming as i've never seen myself from that angle before... I suppose it's possible and i'll probs take a look at that episode.

At the same time (and I know this sounds bogus), as a person who has literally gone through a rainbow (and I don't mean one of those small ones either, the ones you can create with a hose or something like that), I sometimes have problems believing that something is impossible based on science. You have to remember that there are multiple ways to look at the universe and that they may all have some truth to it. It's like looking at two sides of a coin. I might see heads, you might see tails, the person on the side sees the rim... but we are all looking at the same coin.

Science is all about disproving everything. Anything can be disproved, suggestions, theories, even laws have been totally debunked before. 400 years ago leading scientists thought the world was flat. 200 years ago the idea of evolution was completely thrown out the window. Only 50 years ago people were sure that there was no way to split the atom.

So what's changed?

 

[z00ted]

uh oh.......

had a feeling this thread would head in this direction LMFAO

 

[Luco]

uh oh.......

had a feeling this thread would head in this direction LMFAO

Yay science vs. non-scientific stuff debates!

Actually you're kind of right. I just have a lot of differing views to many people regarding these things... It's annoying when you experience something and everyone calls you crazy and disregards you for it, right?

It's like nay-sayers on climate change. I think it's alright to have your views... but professors, teachers and so on are thrown out of their jobs because they believe something against the majority.

Pet peeve. My bad. :/

EDIT: And i'm not accusing Holder of this... it's just, his argument kind of shifted me back in to place. Uhh, it's hard to explain. Anyway, nothing against anyone!

 

[The Fail Tracer]

Dreams interest me to no end. Unfortunately, though, all I have to say is that I'm always too lazy to record my dreams in any way. Every time I read something like this, though, I truly regret ever being too tired to record my dreams.

What Illmatic said about that nightmare with the bloody nose, though, was extremely unnerving. I often wonder about what would happen if I DID have a lucid dream and had to encounter something awful. I'd probably be petrified with fear, so much so that I couldn't even begin to imagine what to do to face the scare.

I just made up my mind: I'm going to record my dreams via voice memo. Thanks for this topic, it was a great reminder.

EDIT: Or I could try out what Luco said about visualizing something before sleeping.

 

[z00ted]

No joke, the dream was one of the sickest things I've ever encountered in my entire life.
Actually.. it was the sickest thing I've ever felt in my entire life.

I was scared to fall asleep for a good two days and I can't even remember the last time I was truly frightened before that. Really creepy stuff LOL.

Record your dreams, you'll be glad you did. It's really fun looking back and remembering all that information. Almost like two lives in one.

 

[Luco]

No joke, the dream was one of the sickest things I've ever encountered in my entire life.
Actually.. it was the sickest thing I've ever felt in my entire life.

I was scared to fall asleep for a good two days and I can't even remember the last time I was truly frightened before that. Really creepy stuff LOL.

Record your dreams, you'll be glad you did. It's really fun looking back and remembering all that information. Almost like two lives in one.

Hmm, I don't record my dreams. I always remember the ones that impact on me, I guess.

 

[z00ted]

Yeah, the big ones I definitely remember. Smaller ones that don't impact me as much I forget within like a good month. But I probably have like a good two hundred+ dreams stored in my mind and I've only been messing with them for like five months or so.

But writing them down gives everything really detailed.
You can also track patterns, which is kind of cool.

 

[Luco]

Ahh that's decent.

It's so weird to completely forget something that's just happened (when fully awake). Afterwards you'd be going "Well I don't remember anything... but that's the point! Oh man this is so trippy!"

 

[infiniteV115]

One example was I once lost my backpack and could not find it anywhere. I looked around pretty much all day. When I slept that night, I had a dream about where it was, and viola. Another thing is when I'm frustrated and have a lack of direction. A good dream will point me in a direction.

 

[Holder of the Heel]

Oh nono, i'm not at all saying that you're lying holder, just that what you described didn't sound like what had happened to me, especially seeming as i've never seen myself from that angle before... I suppose it's possible and i'll probs take a look at that episode.

Never seen yourself from that angle? Well, if that is somehow true, I'm pretty sure your brain would fill in the gaps pretty well.

At the same time (and I know this sounds bogus), as a person who has literally gone through a rainbow (and I don't mean one of those small ones either, the ones you can create with a hose or something like that), I sometimes have problems believing that something is impossible based on science. You have to remember that there are multiple ways to look at the universe and that they may all have some truth to it. It's like looking at two sides of a coin. I might see heads, you might see tails, the person on the side sees the rim... but we are all looking at the same coin.

You've kind of lost me here, not sure what you're going on about. XD Things are only true if there is some sort of scientific basis for them, and that also means it is logical (reality isn't illogical i.e. that's where we get our logic from) so metaphysically speaking things in reality can be explained. I'm all for appreciating experiences and understanding what that means, but if your experience has a scientific understanding and/or makes no logical sense, then it is safe to say that it doesn't happen precisely as you think it did. Even in circumstances involving probabilities, if something wondrous seems more likely than just something random, that still isn't grounds to accept that is truth if it defies scientific understanding and logic, after all, every so often unlikely/rare things occur.

I'm going to refer to Through the Wormhole again, they went over a study where it tested the human's ability to give meaning to randomness, and when they felt emotionally affected, they felt all the more certain that they were seeing symbols and signs in pictures of random pixels. In a sense this is kind of similar to people accrediting some meaning to experiences. That, and like I said, people like to instill value in the impressions their mind takes, particularly when it seems spectacular.

Science is all about disproving everything. Anything can be disproved, suggestions, theories, even laws have been totally debunked before. 400 years ago leading scientists thought the world was flat. 200 years ago the idea of evolution was completely thrown out the window. Only 50 years ago people were sure that there was no way to split the atom.

So what's changed?

Everything that science has disproved were things set up basically by religious dogma, things made with no basis at all or from "experiences" (i.e. the world seems flat, amiright?) Science isn't about disproving anything, it's just that there were a lot of things to disprove that was believed.

Now, I'm not going to say that astral projection just cannot be in anyway proven, but there is not only a lack of necessity for it, but it also involves tearing down a lot of our understanding that has seemed to make sense thus far.

Again, don't mean to be a downer or whatever, you may think as you wish, I have no problem with that. I myself in the past was interested in astral projection and similar "spirit science" things, mayhaps it is the reason why I feel compelled to attack it now because I dropped it not long after.