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I dream a lot, every night, usually in vivid detail. I dream every time I nap, even. It's always been this way, I don't recall it ever being different. Once, in the Time Before The Internet, I made an attempt to keep a dream journal. It consumed my entire life, when I woke I'd write down the outline of all the dreams to keep them fresh in my mind, then the ENTIRE DAY I'd be remembering more and writing it all down. A good half of the time I couldn't even finish writing it all out in between my doings of the day, before it was time for bed again.
I attempted this a few times over the years, with the same result. I very much enjoy being an avid dreamer, but I do not wish it to be my entire life. So now I just occasionally record the more strange and funny ones that I remember, I make no real effort to remember unless it makes a good retell.
As a result of this lifetime of frequent dreaming, I have a good bit of control over my dreams, I can do things that I've read by dream experts to be impossible. My dreams are always in colour (though I understand that's a debated point), I can smell the dream smells, and I can read and write. However it takes a LOT of concentration to read or write in dreams, and that's usually one of the triggers what tell me I'm in a dream if I was unaware. I enjoy most of my dreams, so don't make any serious effort to realise each one is a dream while I'm in it. If I notice, fine, if I don't, well, I just enjoy the ride.
With one exception, nightmares. I've pretty much trained nightmares out of my sleeping life. I can't recall a successful nightmare since my late teens. A few times a year my brain will try, once I realise it's too scary, I'll change the dream to something else, if I cannot, then I just wake myself up. I have dreams with content that some might view as nightmarish, but if it doesn't scare me badly, then it's fun. Watching a scary film type of scares = ok. Someone actually trying to kill me in real life type of scares != ok.
HOWEVER, in the past couple years my dream factory has gotten sneaky. Highly distressing or upsetting dreams don't (yet) trip my OMG WAKE UP GET OUT switch, so it has been successful at serving me such as nightmare alternatives. I could learn to get out of them as well, eventually, but I'm sorta not sure if I should. They're not as bad as actual nightmares, and I wonder if there needs to be some sort of balance, can't always have good dreams, maybe.
I'm fairly certain I've posted this, at least once, before.
I attempted this a few times over the years, with the same result. I very much enjoy being an avid dreamer, but I do not wish it to be my entire life. So now I just occasionally record the more strange and funny ones that I remember, I make no real effort to remember unless it makes a good retell.
As a result of this lifetime of frequent dreaming, I have a good bit of control over my dreams, I can do things that I've read by dream experts to be impossible. My dreams are always in colour (though I understand that's a debated point), I can smell the dream smells, and I can read and write. However it takes a LOT of concentration to read or write in dreams, and that's usually one of the triggers what tell me I'm in a dream if I was unaware. I enjoy most of my dreams, so don't make any serious effort to realise each one is a dream while I'm in it. If I notice, fine, if I don't, well, I just enjoy the ride.
With one exception, nightmares. I've pretty much trained nightmares out of my sleeping life. I can't recall a successful nightmare since my late teens. A few times a year my brain will try, once I realise it's too scary, I'll change the dream to something else, if I cannot, then I just wake myself up. I have dreams with content that some might view as nightmarish, but if it doesn't scare me badly, then it's fun. Watching a scary film type of scares = ok. Someone actually trying to kill me in real life type of scares != ok.
HOWEVER, in the past couple years my dream factory has gotten sneaky. Highly distressing or upsetting dreams don't (yet) trip my OMG WAKE UP GET OUT switch, so it has been successful at serving me such as nightmare alternatives. I could learn to get out of them as well, eventually, but I'm sorta not sure if I should. They're not as bad as actual nightmares, and I wonder if there needs to be some sort of balance, can't always have good dreams, maybe.
I'm fairly certain I've posted this, at least once, before.
