Craven Morehead

I seldom dream, or possibly I seldom recall dreams if I have them. Sometimes during the day I'll get this deja vu feeling about a dream I had that night, but that's really rare. Certainly less than once a month. Typically I can only recall a dream about once or twice each year. Don't have sleep apnea, do have some insomnia issues but lately not as bad. Any one else feel 'cheated' by not dreaming?

Baraka_Guru

For starters, you are most likely dreaming but not remembering them. I don't think we can easily get away from dreaming, but forgetting them happens.

I've been forgetting them a lot lately. When I went off caffeine and ensured I slept more than 7 hours, I would remember dreams vividly. It was quite astounding, because the memories of them started up in pretty short order.

I think the quality of sleep is a big factor, and possibly the amount of time you spend in the REM stage. I can't quite remember. I also remembered dreams more when I dabbled with yoga.

Try improving your sleep quality and quantity and see what happens.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Martian

My understanding of it is that it has more to do with when you wake up.

Dreams mostly occur during the REM phase of sleep. If you're woken up while that's occurring, you'll likely remember it. If you're woken up during another phase of sleep, however, you're far less likely to be dreaming, and therefore far less likely to remember a dream. We only remember the ones that are interrupted.

If my understanding of the situation is accurate, remembering your dreams wouldn't be related to the quality or quantity of sleep you get per se, but more with your individual rhythms and at what point in your sleep cycle you're typically awakened. People who tend to wake naturally, like myself, don't often remember dreams, because coming out of sleep on your own generally means you'll wake up during one of the shallower phases.

Again, this is just my understanding, but I believe that dreaming is strongly tied to REM sleep. Since we don't function well if we don't go through a few REM cycles per night, it stands to reason that anyone who's getting a reasonable amount of sleep should have two or three dreams per night, but remember very few of them.

I prefer not remembering my dreams. Sure I miss out on flying or whatever else people do in their dreams, but I also get to skip the potentially disturbing images that go along with it. I haven't had a proper nightmare in over a decade.

Incidentally, when I was younger I used to dream lucidly on occasion. I don't know what triggered it or how it happened, but I do remember occasionally deciding that I didn't like how a dream was going and deciding to change it as a consequence. This sometimes lead to a sort of struggle, as my subconscious seemingly wanted a dream to go in a direction that my 'conscious' mind (if that's the right term) didn't agree with. I would make a change, only to discover that as soon as I stopped concentrating on it it would revert.

I have no idea if that experience is typical.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

ShaniFaye

Martian is right....the remembering is based totally on the stage you wake up in. I have been studying this a lot lately. All people dream, if they were to do a sleep study on you, they'd tell you that you dreamt, you're just waking up in the wrong stage to remember them.

Im a very vivid dreamer, Im also a lucid dreamer. I had a sleep study done once to check me for a problem. When the results came back it showed that I completely skip one stage of sleep and only spent 1% in another one of them, I'd have to get my papers back out to remember which ones. They said I started dreaming 8 minutes into sleep and dreamt 90% of the total sleeping time (about 9 hours). They wake you up once during the sleep study..I got up went to pee, went back, got hooked back up and went to back to sleep, they said that time I was dreaming within 4 minutes.

It is not at all uncommon for me to be lucid, and since becoming diabetic that has enhanced...dont know if its a coincidence of not.

My dreams are so weird I've started keeping an online blog about them where I tell the dream and information such as how I felt in the dream, how I felt when I woke up, what the dreams dictionary says and if I can connect those meanings with whats going on in my life.

I had one reoccuring nightmare until I was 22, but when I moved out of the house I was living in (the one I grew up in) to get married I only ever had it one more time...a night I spent with my parents.

Now I only have nightmares where I actually wake up screaming if I take vicodin.

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Jetée

Alright. I'd like to give this a shot: how you do you define a dream?

Does a dream have to take place in which you visualize yourself in a situation, as if watching yourself on screen, or is it something else?

Do you have to dream about things that exist, and they are presented to you in your dreamscape as you progress? Is talking necessary? Is color necessary?

Maybe everyone dreams, though there could be exceptions; I do remember distinctly that a certain population (around 8%) cannot readily comprehend what is evident in their dreams, and if they were to try to recall it, around half of those questioned would remark of "white space", sometimes rippling, or as it was in a mirage (like on a hot day, you look 30 yards ahead of you, and the air gets fuzzy). I'm not sure if there is an article that restates this study, for it was around 25 years ago when I had first learned this. Given this, I don't know if what was being processed, culled, and/or retained in one's mind during the sleep cycles we go through can be defined as a dream, at least in the sense we know it as an unconscious "animated pocket of intrigue, with people and places we may or may not know".

__________________
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi

ring

I too, spend most nights dreaming 80 to 90% percent of the time. (light REM)
Some deeper restorative sleep is a welcome happening.

I can change the channel at will most of the time and slip into lucid dreaming.

It's very satisfying...when I get up to pee...hit the 'pause' button on the dream,
and then continue on as soon as I'm settled back into bed.

Oh yes.

JStrider

I very rarely remember my dreams.... and usually when I do they are a chasing/being chased type dream. usually they are in the morning and I wake up with a big whole body twitch/jerk.

I also on occasion will have sleep paralysis, where I wake up while my body is paralized from sleep hormones and I cant move at all... usually it comes with a loud buzzing sound and a vision of someone or something sitting on my chest or choking me... those are definitely stress related.

__________________
-=JStrider=-

~Clatto Verata Nicto

Craven Morehead

Oh yeah, I remember those when I was young. Scary as hell. Wake up and you're paralyzed.

Cynthetiq

I didn't dream for many many years. This was mostly due to having exhausted my serotonin levels from heavy pot smoking and other drug use.

I now dream pretty regularly since I no longer use any drugs.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Marlon's Mom

I've always wondered about this - it's about serotonin, huh? Because if I don't have bud, I have seriously freaky dreams. I'd rather the bud, thankyouverymuch. I sleep like a baby!

Cynthetiq

I did too for the first few months. After that my serotonin levels normalized and I have pretty normal less freaky dreams. That doesn't mean they aren't strange, but they are not freaky.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Lasereth

All 4 years of college I dreamed probably once every 3 months. Now it's probably once to twice a week.

PS: I know that everybody dreams every single night from the psych classes in college. When I say I didn't dream, I mean that I have absolutely no recollection of anything from the moment I lay down to the moment I wake up.

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert