Dreams.

[Chest Rockwell]

Ha.. Yeah, I get occasional dream about being unprepared for a school exam. I think it's a pretty common one.

[Tommy!]

I used to have a recurring theme in dreams where I was either being beaten up, falsely accused and attacked for something or hunted down to be shot/stabbed.

I always used to fall or get thrown off things rather regularly too.

 

For example I remember one where some one deliberately tipped a drink on me in a bar and every one laughed at me, so I went to dry up, walked back and did the same to them. Every one glared and he beat the shit out of me.

Then every one checked how he was while I look in the mirror at my nose pissing blood.

 

In another I was being hunted down by some one through that hideout in the future from the Terminator flashback/flashforward bit. I escaped into some fields and got shot in the leg, which resulted in me rolling down a hill screaming and bleeding.

 

The past couple of weeks I keep dreaming about old work colleagues refusing to talk to me when I meet them by chance some where, and I wake up feeling really down beat as a result.

[Loki]

That's a common one, isn't it? I have a dream a couple of times a year that I'm back for one more year in 6th form, and don't know when any of my classes are.

[air_raid]

I too on occasion dream I have gone back to college to finish some A-level or another that I need for a new career path. Usually the dream never gets further than getting off the bus and thinking "I don't have any textbooks. What am I even doing here?"

[Astro Hollywood]

Last night, me, Ernie Hudson, Val Kilmer and Michael Madson were robbing a bank. It went bad pretty quick, as there were cops inside, and I blasted them all, so we hunkered down for a long shootout. I wandered to the back of the bank, where there was a shop in a little cubby run by an old man who hadn't realised what was going on. It was a novelty kind of shop, with wigs and clown noses, but he tried to sell me a piece of wood with some dead matches embedded into it, which were labelled as BOGEY DISPLAY POLES. "For your very best bogeys," he said, but I politely declined, and didn't shoot him.

[Ant]

Last night I dreamt I was stood outside a knocking shop in Glasgow. It was located on Argyle Street, and seemed to occupy the premises that houses Clarks shoe shop in real life. I was with a guy I used to work with years ago, and out of nowhere some guys start firing guns at us so we run and then I trip, and wake up.

 

Not the best dream to have hours after seeing the Lion King musical and dining in TGI Friday's. Neither are really dodgy experiences, at least in an illegal sense.

 

Though interestingly the guy with me in the dream has been shot on 2 occasions. For real.

[John Matrix]

Cant remember all of the specifics, but last night i was Robert De Niro, trying to save the country from a terrorist attack with help from a black prostitute, and in a seperate dream, i came third from bottom in the first week of X Factor, and in a new twist, won a consolation prize of a pram.

[Dead Mike]

I dreamt last night that I bumped into an old school crush on a night out & copped off with her. Woke up feeling incredibly guilty. That my friends is the definition of pussy whipped.

[air_raid]

Matrix' latest sounds a shade like Partridge verbally jizzing movie ideas into his tape recorder.

 

Malcolm McDowell is trapped in the future. He's being pursued by a cyberpunk from the past, played by Rutger Hauer.

Robert De Niro, trying to save the country from a terrorist attack with help from a black prostitute

Edited October 15, 2013 by air_raid

[John Matrix]

 

Brilliant!

 

Not entirely sure how to phrase this, so bear with me, but in recent weeks, i've noticed a trend in which i almost become self aware during a dream and start to manipulate it to my advantage. I'll spare you the details, as they'd portray me as quite the beast, but does this happen to anyone else?

 

Similarly, i used to get woken up by nightmares and occassionally still do, but i seem to have become able to sense that something isnt right, and actually wake myself up before anything happens. Literally in dream, i shut my eyes tight hoping to open them to the sight of my bedroom and not whenever ever is going on.

Edited October 15, 2013 by John Matrix

[air_raid]

Not entirely sure how to phrase this, so bear with me, but in recent weeks, i've noticed a trend in which i almost become self aware during a dream and start to manipulate it to my advantage. I'll spare you the details, as they'd portray me as quite the beast, but does this happen to anyone else?

 

Yes, it's called lucid dreaming. I used to be quite proficient at it, but it's been a couple years since I last did it.

 

Similarly, i used to get woken up by nightmares and occassionally still do, but i seem to have become able to sense that something isnt right, and actually wake myself up before anything happens. Literally in dream, i shut my eyes tight hoping to open them to the sight of my bedroom and not whenever ever is going on.

 

My skill has degenerated just to the point where this is all I can do - wake myself from a nightmare rather than change things completely.

 

One practice I read about to try and teach yourself lucid dreaming was to try and craft yourself a visual symbol - not unlike the "totem" idea in Inception - whereby upon seeing it in your dream, you would realize you were dreaming and be able to change it. The method was to put yourself to bed and think about your symbol as you caught yourself drifting off. It needed to be something fairly obvious though and perhaps out of keeping with "real life" so that you would really notice it, so I chose a red crescent-shaped moon. Sure enough on several occasions I'd be there, I don't know, in the woods being chased by a wolf or fuck knows what, then I'd look into the sky and see this red moon, and straight away I would think "hang on.... this is a dream" and change the setting entirely to something more pleasant. I got out of the habit though, I need to get back into it.

 

It's remarkable how something like that, that I read about in one of my dream books, really worked. Me and the ex would talk often about trying some of the techniques for shared dreaming, but never got around to it.

[Richie Freebird]

When I first started work many moons ago I often had dreams that were hybrids of being in work and school. I

[John Matrix]

Not entirely sure how to phrase this, so bear with me, but in recent weeks, i've noticed a trend in which i almost become self aware during a dream and start to manipulate it to my advantage. I'll spare you the details, as they'd portray me as quite the beast, but does this happen to anyone else?

 

Yes, it's called lucid dreaming. I used to be quite proficient at it, but it's been a couple years since I last did it.

 

 

Ah, is that what that is? Mine would be more appropriately described as lewd dreaming as - and i realise this reflects badly on a happily married, expectant father - but by "manipulate it" so far my only thoughts have been "I could get a nosher out of this". Caroline Flack was on the recieving end the other night. Got no say in it the poor cow.

[Chest Rockwell]

Air Raid - Often I'll twig that something isn't right and I'll "wake up" as a result, only to find out that I'm still dreaming and it'll happen again.. I get multiple dreams inside dreams, as my brain tries to trick me into believing what's happening is real but I'm not buying it.

 

Is this a common phenomena and does it have a name in the world of lucid dreaming?

 

Also, as a general point, I've always been fascinated by lucid dreaming. I've always wanted to give training myself to do it a go, but not really sure how to go about it. The guides I have seen online talk about dream journals and allowing yourself to sleep without an alarm and stuff, none of which is really conducive to keeping my job and learning how to do it.

 

Are there any other techniques I can try?

 

Or can you point to a good resource to read about it just on an informational and edumacational tip?

 

I'd be very interested in reading stories about people who have harnessed it as some kind of self improvement technique.

[air_raid]

Air Raid - Often I'll twig that something isn't right and I'll "wake up" as a result, only to find out that I'm still dreaming and it'll happen again.. I get multiple dreams inside dreams, as my brain tries to trick me into believing what's happening is real but I'm not buying it.

 

Is this a common phenomena and does it have a name in the world of lucid dreaming?

 

It's pretty common actually, unfortunately it's rather unimaginatively called a "false awakening." If you catch yourself false waking but are still dreaming but are still aware enough that you might still be dreaming, that's called a pre-lucid dream, as a false awakening almost only ever happens after a moment - however fleeting - of lucidity, i.e. your brain trying to wake you up, as you describe. I think it's a defence mechanism that your unconscious mind uses to try and preserve the state of REM which is important for maintaining cognitive functions.

 

I myself had a dream at uni where I false-woke from something strange/surreal and more dreamlike, and then managed to dream approximately a week of normal day-to-day stuff. I went to a couple of lectures, I went to the beach with my buddies, I had a Friday night out and a few drinks. I danced with the girl I liked, things happened, and we went out for a few days. We had a picnic in the hills, I bought her an ice cream on the promenade. It was bliss. Then I woke up. The melancholy that set in over the next 60 seconds as I realized that everything I had just dreamed had been a dream is indescribable.

 

Are there any other techniques I can try?

 

Or can you point to a good resource to read about it just on an informational and edumacational tip?

 

Well, all I really know about edumacation is "learn me a book" and this is what my favourite book says about invoking lucid dreaming :

 

"Though you can use the dream plane for rehearsing everyday situations, start with more exotic scenarios to stimulate the all-important imagination and expand your personal horizons of possibility.

 

1) Just before sleep, lie in bed and close your eyes. Create your ideal dream, whether it be a tropical shore, a big old house in the country, a castle or palace.

 

2) Imagine yourself as the central character. Walk through the golden palace rooms or swim with the multi-coloured fish beneath the sea. Create a story with yourself centre stage. You may find one particular scene works best to get you into the mood.

 

3) Now create a single symbol that will remind you that you are dreaming when you see it in sleep. Again, go for something out of the ordinary, for example, a rainbow-coloured bird, a golden peacock or a butterfly with jewels on its wings.

 

4) Re-run the imagined dream scene in your mind, letting the symbol reappear five or six times in different places or sections of the dream. As you imagine the symbol in each setting, say to yourself for example When I see the golden peacock I shall know I am dreaming.

 

5) When you are ready, drift into sleep and hold in your mind the symbol of the rainbow-coloured bird or whatever exotic image you choose.

 

The first night you may see only part of the scene you devised or have a different dream and may not recall that you are dreaming. Persevere, however, and before long you will realize that wonderful moment when you realize that you can fly over the monster's head or shrink a cheating husband to the size of a mouse before climbing into your luxury car with the hunky chauffeur waiting at the door to transport you into the sunset. Whatever the dream, you will wake up filled with optimism and determination because you took charge."

 

So basically, consciously imagine the dream you want to have (while picking a totem) and your subconscious may learn to oblige you.

 

Although I wouldn't suggest that you, Matrix, try that approach to try and repeat the Flack episode as you'll probably just end up playing with yourself instead.