h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting. There were some dream experiments doen recently. They made some groups play Tetris for days and then find out how many dreamed about it. It seems the ones that did improved their Tetris skills faster. The conclusion was something along the lines of dreams being a way of not wasting learning time when sleeping. I suppose a sort of like using a computer simulation to solve problems.

Well that might explain why I used to be demon Tetris player then

That and the 5,000,000,000,000,000 games I played of it

I wonder what job you can get if you're skilled in Tetris. Maybe one of those guys that pack your groceries in supermarkets. They could really use them here in Holland.

Well, I was pretty good a Doom too

I have dreamed about games I've played too much, but not for a long time. I can't remember which games I used to dream about, though. Sometimes, if I'm having trouble with something at work, I dream about the problem. I never find the perfect solution in my dream, unfortunately, At least, if I do, I can never remember it!

I heard, somewhere, that at night, while you sleep, you absorb and catalog all the things you learned during the day. Thus, memory in general improves when you get good rest. I imagine that this absorbtion process would cause dreams...

Yes, that's always been one of my favourite explanations for dreams. However, I also generally think that there's something else prompting them.

Color-- always. Sound-- always. (just watch, I'll have a b/w, soundless dream tonight just to prove me wrong)

What about viewpoints - are people's dreams always first person (through the eyes), or do people sometimes see things from outside their body.

I had a dream a few nights ago where I was arguing with someone who alleged I was going bald, (which I'm probably safe from IRL for another 40 years or so) and I could *see* my balding scalp at the same time I ran my fingers through my hair.

I do seem to have quite a few arguments in dreams, and other people (usually version of close friends) do seem to know things I don't.
It does seem my mental models of a few particular people are smarter than me at the things they're good at in reality, which can be a little infuriating.

I had a dream last night were I was looking through the eyes of the person who was walking beside me... spooky.

Twinkle, how do you `accidentally` format your hard drive? Or is that just an example of something that makes you feel sick?
I used to dream `on location` at my senior (last) school for many years after I left there. Then there were locations from jobs that I had for quite a while. The dreams, not the jobs. lol. Any action that is performed repetitivly `ad nauseum`seems to turn up later in your dreams.
I had a thought a few months ago about the `purpose` of dreams after waking from one and before falling asleep again, (must have been a w/e) and that was that dreams are the minds practise for when we die.
That long, permanent dream that starts as soon as we pass away and never ends. (Lets face it, how would we know?) Just a thought.

But an interesting one...

I dream in colour and b/w, but I don't have a sound card for my
dreams

The other morning I woke up from a dream that seemed to me to have lasted for almost an hour with this beeping sound in the background. It turned out it was my alarm clock trying to wake me up for my 9am exam. It seems that time in dreams doesn't flow at the same speed as in the 'real' world.

I've noticed a similar thing when being in the transition between sleeping and waking, but I suppose that's the only point where it could be noticed. The only way of knowing how long you were dreaming for in reality is for there to be some short real world thing happening that triggers a dream, and then wakes you up so you know you hadn't been dreaming for very long.

I'm not sure if there is something special about that half-sleeping state. I've certainly had quite deep flashes of insight at night just as I was falling asleep.

You're right, there is definitely something about that state that makes weird things happen. Perhaps it's because your conscious mind is shutting down, not making so much noise of its own, so you get the chance to listen to your unconscious for a while.

i'm pretty sure i dream in colour and with sound. but i quite often dream as though i'm looking at myself doing things rather than doing them myself. i once woke up with my radio alarm clock and fell back to sleep again, and dreamt, and in the dream i got this DJs phone number, and i woke up and i heard the numbre again on radio, cos it's the number you have to use if you want to text radio one...and more recently, i dreamt (among other things) that i was talking in french on the phone, and it was going fine, and then i phoned another person in french about the same thing, but i was more awake this time, and i couldn't think of the french for "drink-driving" and it made me completely forget how to speak french in my dream. it was about to turn into a nightmare, but then someone happened tocome in and wake me up. and a few weeks before my gse results came out i had two very significant dreams...i can remember vaguely what they were about, one was about swimming and the other was about a supermarket...i could remember them even now if i tried, but i never have significant dreams about anything, but as soon as i woke up, i translated them and they were to do with having to wait for my results and not knowing how well i'd done...
^. .^
= ' =

I dream in colour, and I have sound effects. But having been told early on that 'one dreams in black-and-white', I had to recondition myself to that belief. So is it true that these dreams are in colour, or are we imposing that system of spectral-analysis?

I had a fascinating dreaming experience today. I've been off sick this week, and sleeping during the daytime, so the dream was set at lunchtime. I heard my husband coming through the front door early, so I woke and got out of bed to meet him. We had quite a long discussion, and then he said, "Why don't you come down to talk to me?"

"Oh," I thought, still dreaming. "I ought to get up!" So I got up, out of bed, and went to talk to him in our living room. I reached the living room, and thought, "oops, I'm still lying in bed!" I got up, out of bed, reached the bedroom door, and thought, "Oops... I'm still lying down!" That time, I struggled to get my eyes open, and finally really woke up. My husband didn't come home early, and there was no conversation, but I was absolutely convinced each time that I'd got up!

Yuck!

x x Fenny (UT for bewildering dreams)

I don't usually dream.

Or if I do, I don't know it... (don't they say that you only really remember the dream if you wake up in the middle of it?)

But when I do, it is color, sound, usually from my persective, and i usually *don't* know I'm dreaming (ie, it doesn't fit into the equation of being "consious" of being in a dream state)... which is annoying. There have been a few times that it has penetrated my think skull that I'm dreaming, then I try to fly.

haha.

peace.

I've had a few dreams where I'm simply an observer... kind of interesting.