Your Average Typical Dreamself
I am the kind of person who remembers my dreams more often than most. Part of that comes from practice, part of it comes from acknowledging that I will never remember everything, and part of it comes from a long-standing relationship with the dreamscapes flooding through my thoughts at night.
When it comes to falling asleep, sometimes it is quick. Other times I don't fall asleep for hours. I do have to note that I might possibly have sleep apnea, and I definitely have asthma that obstructs my breathing when I sleep. I am more prone to waking up, and that has to be acknowledged. So maybe it's always been easier to remember dreams because I am used to being startled from sleep.
The main reason I remember my dreams is more along the lines of self-reflection. I am aware that over the years my dreams have gradually changed, good dreams and bad dreams alike, and since from a young age I was always in the practice of activating my imagination, recording dreams was an extension of it. Childhood: even today I still question how deeply embedded my childhood landscapes influence the majority of my dreams.
Something I've noticed: my childhood homes have been the primary locations for most of my household dreams. Whether it's the bioluminescent mushrooms, or if it's hiding from Chevron cars (as I was notoriously afraid of back then), it's always those houses. And it's happened so much that I've been able to refer to each house by its specific location, and can actually recognize the layout once it appears in my dreams.
I think most of the self-reflection relies on acknowledging the common symbols in your dream. When you reflect on your dreams and the common objects inside them and what they mean to you, it's all the more likely that you'll recognize it in your sleep. And once you recognize it, something in your brain clicks and bam, there it is! There's this lucid moment of acknowledgment where you're like "Hey, this is something I recognize in my dream, and that means I'm dreaming". It's absolutely fascinating when that starts happening.
You can extend this self-reflection into recognizing locations and patterns. I've had enough nightmares to recognize the common pattern of being chased by the unknown--to the point that I grow frustrated in my dream once I realize that exerting all this mental energy is exhausting. A lot of people can't control their nightmares, which is the really horrendous part of it all, so hopefully at least people are inspired to take the chance and see if they can recognize these patterns and work to dismantle it from reality to the dreamscape.
Here are a bit of childhood locations I recognize:
When it comes to falling asleep, sometimes it is quick. Other times I don't fall asleep for hours. I do have to note that I might possibly have sleep apnea, and I definitely have asthma that obstructs my breathing when I sleep. I am more prone to waking up, and that has to be acknowledged. So maybe it's always been easier to remember dreams because I am used to being startled from sleep.
The main reason I remember my dreams is more along the lines of self-reflection. I am aware that over the years my dreams have gradually changed, good dreams and bad dreams alike, and since from a young age I was always in the practice of activating my imagination, recording dreams was an extension of it. Childhood: even today I still question how deeply embedded my childhood landscapes influence the majority of my dreams.
Something I've noticed: my childhood homes have been the primary locations for most of my household dreams. Whether it's the bioluminescent mushrooms, or if it's hiding from Chevron cars (as I was notoriously afraid of back then), it's always those houses. And it's happened so much that I've been able to refer to each house by its specific location, and can actually recognize the layout once it appears in my dreams.
I think most of the self-reflection relies on acknowledging the common symbols in your dream. When you reflect on your dreams and the common objects inside them and what they mean to you, it's all the more likely that you'll recognize it in your sleep. And once you recognize it, something in your brain clicks and bam, there it is! There's this lucid moment of acknowledgment where you're like "Hey, this is something I recognize in my dream, and that means I'm dreaming". It's absolutely fascinating when that starts happening.
You can extend this self-reflection into recognizing locations and patterns. I've had enough nightmares to recognize the common pattern of being chased by the unknown--to the point that I grow frustrated in my dream once I realize that exerting all this mental energy is exhausting. A lot of people can't control their nightmares, which is the really horrendous part of it all, so hopefully at least people are inspired to take the chance and see if they can recognize these patterns and work to dismantle it from reality to the dreamscape.
Here are a bit of childhood locations I recognize:
- the street where I grew up
- my sister's bedroom in my second childhood home
- spatial reimaginings of outer space
- including key locations such as an art gallery with a McDonald's playplace, a market at the end of black-and-white staircases, and a space station eternally on fire
- a clock tower surrounded by clouds
- a volcanic pool leading into a Seelie Court bluescape
Noticeably, over the years it's been that much more clearer that these symbols and locations are slowly changing, some for the better, some for the worst. There are some things that recurred so often in my childhood that I don't necessarily remember anymore. There are countless phenomenons that repeat themselves every time. I've noticed that the mood has significantly changed--although much of my dreamscape themes still center on exploration, I grow all too aware of the fact that I'm dreaming, so I'm unable to re-imagine it properly within the fantasy of the dream.
Here are my dream patterns nowadays:
- the recently fading notion of any land on Earth sinking, resulting in an Earth-wide massive ocean that I have to fly out of by soaring towards the sunset at a 45 degree angle
- latching onto golden hangers that either a) fall down as soon as I grab onto them, or b) launch me upwards towards the access point in the sky, where a childhood imaginary friend proceeds to lift me out of Earth
- this has continuously happened all these years, consistently, and I'm really appreciating this friend.
- a bourgeois tower (not a clock tower) that soars all too high against a very small and short town--dreamself is forcibly dropped, which wouldn't be a problem normally if I didn't suffer a massive adrenaline rush and wake up with a headache promptly after
- flying and flying upward into space before reaching a point where it's just difficult to escalate
- giant worms in dark chutes at the bottom of the universe
- massive wind tunnels rising upwards like air vents all throughout outer space
- a threateningly ice blue laser that happens to kill anything it sees in plain sight
I will be all too happy to delve into these dream patterns more and more once summer arrives, as I plan to do a project relating to the transition from childhood dreams to more modern dreams. It's something I'm very looking forward to making, and I hope that everyone gets to enjoy it when time resumes for a restless mind.
Keep dreaming.
Yours Sincerely,
Dianne
