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

(Fleetwood Mac of course, though The Coors have done a decent cover)

I ver rarely remember my dreams. In periods, I sleep lightly to badly towards morning due to racing dreaming activity that sort of wakes me up but not really. But they're gone when the alarm goes off. This morning, though, I did remember quite well:

Mrs SG V and I were somewhere cityish, vaguely British. We were going to have something to eat and/or drink at a cafe with tables both inside and it front. As if she'd been there all the time, our very own Mrs Zen was leaning over the table and telling us that the shop we wanted to go to was in Iran Road. Then she stepped into the car that had apparently been parked right next to our table all the time and neatly drove away.

Next, we were in some kind of large, indoor space - a cathedral or a shopping mall. On the floor somewhere in the middle, slightly off to one side, there was this little glass figure, rather 2-dimensional (think a silhouette cut out of a somewhat thick material) and vividly blue and orange. When we went up to a high floor or tower there was one of the tourist telescopes where you drop in a coin and can watch for a minute. And when you looked down on the wee figure on the floor below, the changing lights and shadows from all the feet and legs around him made it look as if he was dancing.

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I know there are many schools as to what dreams are and what you can get out of them. Personally, I side with the scientific version - like on many other topics. Danish brain professor par exellence Peter Lund Madsen gave a seminar at w**k a year or so ago about the brain and innovation and in this context gave a very compressed sumary of dream science.

According to which, while we sleep the brain's having a complete holiday and whatever impressions it creates is total randomness and biochemical molecules hitting each other in brownian motion. On top of which you can remember only the last 7 minutes or so if you're woken up suddenly - the connections between short term and long term memories are down when you sleep.

The science and experiments he outlined sounded solid - by the way, he said, do not plan a career in dream science: it is extremely boring, messes up your sleep pattern and you risk being extremely unpopular with your study subjects as you have to keep waking them up and asking them questions about what they just dreamt.

And it makes me quite more happy to accept that stories such as the one above is just hallucinations without the guilt of illegal substances. Rather than than sessions with Professor Trelawny!

Santra, I'm not sure why we sometimes remember minute details of dreams and other times can't recall them at all. One thing I do bedlieve is that dreams often deliver messages from our subconscious. Deciphering them is the tricky part.

I had a lovely dream once about a flooded castle. We sat on the battlements and looked down into the bailey, which was filled with clear water and very beautiful golden shrimp, swimming through the drowned trees, in warm evening sunlight. It was wonderfully peaceful. And extremely odd.

I think odd's the rule. Biochemistry let loose. And deciphering may be fun but eventually useless. IMHO.

Agree [1]