Huffdaddy's Links O' the Day
From XKCD a comic I have come to love in the absence of The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbs. I have had this dream numerous times, especially after leaving the Academy, but more recently I have been having High School versions...
A read that I highly recommend. Some may have a problem with the whole non-voting thing (Nancy) but I have pretty much come to realize that voting is a waste of my time...
It's interesting (and In think was inevitable) that the Chinese are calling for scrapping FRNs as the world's reserve currency. I guess the FRN will no longer buy me lots o' XX in Puerto Peñasco....
I have this stupid dream at least 4 or 5 times a year. There is a class that I never attend like English or some other liberal arts class. Suddenly in my dream it is the end of the semester and I have missed half the tests. I wake up from the dream with extreme anxiety. I hate it. I never knew this was a common dream.
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A LOT more common than you think. And the weird thing is that it is ALWAYS the same. You haven't been attending (or forgot to attend) and you are at the end of the semester and have to take a test (but it doesn't matter since you missed most of the tests anyway). My question (Lara) is why is it the same elements and so many people have the same dream?
My thought is that it is like the dream sequence at the end of the movie Prince of Darkness. Some demonic force is beaming quarks into our subconscious and causing panic attacks to F##K with us.
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OTOH, this test is the one I think I would be getting if I was having this dream:
http://xkcd.com/135/
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OK-quickly because I've got meaningless paperwork to be accomplished.
So Carl Yung posits the "collective unconscious" which is basically a pool of knowledge that all humans can access but don't always know they can or how to. This knowledge, however, is manifested to them through subconscious symbols, or what he called archetypes. My modern day interpretation of this concept is that a collective pool of experience is trasmitted in our genes.
So you take an archetypal or symbolic image from the dream..a class or a test for example, and ask the question "What is the deeper meaning of a class? What is the deeper meaning or a test? Or more specifically, what does this image/word mean to me as an individual. Jung says that we have common experiences that will summon something from the pool of knowledge. There are many common archetypes and many accounts of poeple dreaming about them with no previus knowledge of the symbol. For example, I used to have a recurrent dream about the jaws of an animal. Turns out this is an archetype signifying anxiety. Think about it...our ancestors could all identify with the danger posed by animal jaws..leading to anxiety. In modern times, most of us associate "class" with education/knowledge and "test" with a challenge or test of that knowledge. If you dream this dream perhaps you are anticipating a challenge, you feel anxious about your knowledge about something, or you are questioning your preparedness for some future event. I think archetypes and the collective unconscious are really interesting. Google it for more fun.
Final caveat...beware of generic interpretations of dreams. Each dream must be interpreted within the framework of the individual and their ideas/experiences.
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If you think your dreams of missed tests and class cause anxiety, try having Sleep Paralysis. I have it about 6 times a year or so. It took me a long time to master my anxiety during an episode. Look it up, pretty scary...
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Dude I had that once when I was a resident doing internal medicine rotation at the VA. I was so sleep deprived I had an episode. It was truly scary so I sympathize with you. hope I never have another...
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The test dream is probably some manifestation of a broader anxiety that everyone but supreme egoists probably have, namely that in life we will be called upon at some key time or point (i.e. "tested") and find ourselves unprepared or unable to cope. And that's a different type of failure then that of 'giving your best' and coming up short. Instead, it is a public fuck-up/humiliation; a failure that is below the mean (in that your normal peers would have no major difficulty with this test). For example, when faced with a choice on which way to run in a raptor attack.
I don't have these dreams (only rarely remember my own anyway). And no sleep paralysis. While I'm no doctor, I suspect a strict regimine of dxm will change your sleep outlook (ask Pepper about it)
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oh, i've heard of this dxm you bring from the mountainous region of colorado...i curse you.
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Wendell, remember when I lived in that party house on Kearney St. near the UofM. I call that time period my dark ages, lots of booze, bad grades and fun times. Back then my lifestyle left me a little chemically imbalanced; I had night terrors which would in turn cause my brain to wake up faster than my body, thus causing frequent episodes of sleep paralysis. I do not envy you, but I think once you get past what is causing you great anxiety, the sucubus will be taken off your chest. So to speak. Holla.
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I do recall those days...chemical imbalances weren't the half of it...
I am past the anxiety portion of it. Now I try to harness my mind during that transition between conscious and subconscious and use it toward mastering astral projection...if there is such a thing as mastering it.
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Astral projections, how lovely that would be, to go anywhere and do anything. Do you have lucid dreams often, or just the sleep paralysis. Back in the dark ages I read up on lucid dreams, they are the first step of astral projection. As soon I wanted to start trying to control my dreams I stopped having them. Good luck. I hope it works for you. I bet there is some chemically induced lucid dream. Maybe that would be a starting place for controlled study.
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I put the test dream in the same category as several others. all being based on the anxiety of not being able to perform. they come in many forms to me.
-being attacked and unable to run or incapable striking your opponent with any strength/missing altogether.
-unable to get where you are trying to go/find something
-the infamous nekkid in public.
-teeth falling out or breaking into pieces
-and many more
on the other hand there are very empowering dreams that fall in the opposite spectrum. johnny this is for you. i was like you in that becoming aware of the dream makes you wake up. so i started utilizing mid-dream pseudoawareness (my term). the big one was being trapped underwater until you could no longer take it and start breathing underwater. its confusing but not enough to wake you. from there i was able to control things to varying degrees of success. practice makes perfect so over time i was able to recognize dreams and start manipulating the environment. most often this involves flying. sometimes im able to completely fly at will, others i fail at the task and can only levitate or fly for short distances (perhaps a mutation of the anxiety dreams) be sure youre comfortable with the falling dream before trying.
some other randoms
-i dream in color
-i see myself in pictures and mirrors
-i have died in dreams and continued to dream without waking (usually being dead is no different than living except "youre dead")
-sometimes i dont die from mortal wounds
sleep paralysis
is this the same as partial sleep paralysis? i get that lots. really strange stuff. mass confusement. thats also another way ive learned to recognize dreamstates.
one last thing some of you may have experienced is the sensation of pulling massive objects with a thin, invisible thread. kind of the exact opposite of the feeling in the finger and toe tips when vertigo or zero-g hits you.
that is all
those of you who know me im sure all have their favorite "aaron doing wierd sleep shit" stories.
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I very rarely remember dreams... most of the ones I remember involve animals. What does it mean if you dream about being buried under a pile of snakes? Or about monkeys eating each other? Weird.
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Im sure Freud would have some interesting things to say about being amongst piles of snakes and monkeys eating each other, but to my knowledge he's been debunked as a quack and a perv.
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Sorry, forgot to add my name.
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I have a soft spot for pervs. Quacks, not so much.
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I myself also dream in color (may be a function of our shared genetics or it could be that most people dream in color also - not sure about the second question, I never bothered to ask people if they dream in color; I just always assumed they did).
I can honestly say I have never seen myself in a dream (mirrors, pictures or otherwise)
I have never died in my dreams. I always manage to escape or as to the next comment:
I have been able to breathe underwater on numerous occasions.
Cannot say I have ever has sleep paralysis. I have, however, scared the shit out of numerous people by talking to them in my sleep and sleep walking/sleep whatever.
I have had numerous experiences with dreaming things that turn out to take place later. I think this fits into the other discussions we are having along the lines of quantum physics, 4th-10th dimensions; and the e&m fields generated by your brain waves/cells. In one of my quantum physics classes we explored the deja-vu phenomenon and one possible explanation is the speed at which your nervous system works and the speed at which your conscious awareness becomes aware. One explanation is that you observe an event - the observation is transmitted to your brain where it is recorded as a memory before you actually "perceive" the event consciously. At that moment you realize you are perceiving the event but yet you already have a memory of the event - voila deja-vu.
OTOH, there is also the theories (as explained in the video posted by Aaron today in "New Topic For Discussion") that subatomic particles (including quarks) folding space and crossing dimensions to end up in your conscious and you experience other realities (or in Lara's explanation in the comment supra that there is a "collective conscious" wherein the e&m fields of others' brains interact with yours).
Lots of babble on my part but it is my $0.02 (which is about how much I have billed today since i am pontificating on dreams on this blog...)
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I have to say that I also have been fascinated with dreams. Especially when it comes to Deja-Vu. Unfortunately, the cool dreams only make up about 5% of my total dreams. 60% involve me in some weird place with a picture of the Eiffel tower, a pig in drag who appears to be smoking and recanting the Iliad while simultaneously mowing the lawn in an effort to save the earth from an overpopulation of Zabbarts. What are Zabbarts? I'm still not sure but the pig is so focused on getting rid of them that they must be important. Just as the plot thickens, I find myself swimming in a large vat of tapioca pudding and drinking bloody mary's that taste like a Dr. Pepper. The Governor walks in and I can't remember where I left my wallet. How did I get to Australia without my wallet? Why are the walls painted pale blue? I'm I crazy? Am I dreaming? There's a cat in my room trying to tell me something, I think he's saying "you should have listened to the pig." Is the bus coming at 8? Why do I taste peppermint? As I turn I see Harry Caray throw a low ball slider that smacks me right in the forehead. I wake only to find my daughter hitting me with some toy and laughing hysterically. The other 35% of the time I don't remember my dreams, and I wake up for another day to be a slave to the traffic light.
I usually tend to be a skeptic. I think most of the time that your brain is just firing and working in an effort to keep you alive while your on another planet. Can't explain Deja-Vu, but that $#!+ really freks me out!
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You only remember dreams that you wake up during or immediately after. im sure you all know about the whole sleep cycle and several dream periods per night. i imagine people with good sleep habits/patterns rarely remember any dreams.
some studies have shown that sleep deprivation leads to increased dreaming. i heard a theory that thats where DT hallucinations come from when alcoholics finally get restful sleep and end up dreaming while awake. i dont buy it cause i usually dream when passed out drunk.
im with tim on the dreams are just random pictures fired by your brain. any useful information gleaned from dream images should come from honest introspection while using the images as metaphor. their just chicken bones.
Deja Vu - have we met before?
Nick Rivers - i dont think so
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