I have not been sleeping well lately. I wouldn’t call it insomnia, but I have been waking up in the night, for no apparent reason. I can usually turn over and fall back to sleep, but not sleeping the night through is new and annoying to me.
I have still been dreaming, though. One theory of mine is that waking in the night makes your dreams more vivid and memorable. So far this has not really been the case. My dreams have been as indistinct as ever, and even less memorable than some.Â
But last night I dreamed that I was posting a poem to this blog. I have no idea why.
And I am not posting a poem to this blog, so it wasn’t prophetic.
Dreams and dreaming fascinates me. I would have, in the past, said I was “pretty good at remembering my dreams” but that was before I met many friends who are excellent at both remembering and influencing their dreams via lucidity. Lucidity eludes me; at least, it eludes me 99% of the time.
If you are interested in lucidity I suggest checking out lucidity.com Your results may vary. From my own experiences with it, I have decided that really trying to improve your dream recall takes as much concentrated effort and time as anything else in life that you are trying to improve, so be forewarned. I do not really keep a journal, though I usually write it down if I have a truly interesting dream.
I do not put any stock in dream “meanings” since I know that most of the time the things I dream about are the things I have encountered during the day mixed with fantasy adventure. If I see a dragon in a dream it’s not going to be a metaphor for something I have to battle – because I really like dragons. And flying is not necessarily escaping anything, it’s just how I prefer to move.
Feel free to recount any dreams, hints on better dreaming, jounalling ideas, etc. in comments. And if you want more information and links, let me know that too.
I just recently read about someone who wished badly that he had never heard of lucid dreaming; now he’s lucid in so many of his dreams that they’re not “fun” for him :/
I had a dream last night that I invited two people to come stay at my house on the same weekend, and I woke up panicking because AUGH why did I double-book
I have never read that, but I have heard a couple of people voice things like that.
I don’t believe it for a minute, though – even when I’m “vaguely lucid” I can’t usually influence anything, except I realize it’s a dream, so I don’t even see the difference, to me, whether I am lucid or not.
Last night I further dreamed that I was pushing a bike up a hill to the car at the top, and the bike folded (due to a series of joints) to fit into the car. Which is also very mundane, except for the fact that I don’t own a bike like that.
I’ve had a few much more massive dreams recently. Lemme just say it again… with lucid dreaming and stuff… if you’re “working” at it, you might be trying to hard. I admit, I have done “slow thinking” for a long long time, but that is what unlocked the most for me. That is, I will think about something in tiny bits for weeks. On a daily basis, I like to pry apart my dreams more than anything else. I remember parts slowly as I go through the day. I mean, of course you can sit down, connect the dots, and recall it all, but that’s not been as rewarding as slow but sure. It’s sort of relaxing too. And as for lucid dreaming, I forget if I told you that I sorta have hampered that, since it is sometimes awfully tempting to do as an escape. Have to be careful about that.
Anyhoo, my last lucid dream was hilarious. I was so bored doing a project/writing, that I sat back in my chair, and found myself asleep. So I just thought it’d be nice to swim, and found myself swimming under huuuuge glaciers… the resistance on my arms and legs made it feel so real, I had to argue for a moment about breathing. As soon as I remembered I was having fun, I just kept swimming around for a while… about 20 minutes. The water was way more lit up than normal, but a lot of times that’s what I enjoy the most in swimming dreams. Anyhoo, lucid stuff is more in my fam for another thing I recently found out… apparently a large part of my mother’s side of the fam goes into cat naps. Seriously. And I’ve been sleeping twice a day for a while now. And I feel great! It’s so weird, to sleep only six hours one time, and two hours another time. And yet, it works with my schedule, and I just nap whereever… even sitting up straight. And it totally helps me keep my dream life rather alive. But I dunno… it’s hard to manage cat napping… I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone. It’s pretty fun if you can figure out when and where to nap ahead of time, and horrific if not (like during long commutes… I literally can only have about 15 minutes notice before I’ll start losing consciousness. And oh man, not cool at all).
Please note that waking as you describe can be caused by sleep apnea or lesser issues. You might try those nasal strips at night to ease breathing. For another possible cause, check with your dentist to see if you might be grinding your teeth.
You wanted me to reset your password so you could tell me to see a dentist?!