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

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens Brown paper packages /.../When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad"

Julie Andrews clearly knew how to harness the power of pure thought in order to elevate her mood. I considered attempting this whilst waiting for sleep last night, although what I hoped for was more ambitious than simply imagining a bunch of nice stuff. Instead, I wanted perhaps to let my mind be creative, to consider intriguing problems, and/or to imagine planning future engrossing activities, and all just to make my mind happy. In the event, I simply fell asleep*, so I'll have to try again next time I have headspace.

Is it something anyone else here does?

*actually, I did have a peculiar dream, in which I encountered someone who would sell me subtitles to my dream. So I seemed to be somehow aware that I was dreaming, despite it not being a lucid dream. Even though I was interested in the insights I might gain, I thought his service to be too expensive, and declined his offer, even though I felt that subtitles would explain things nicely, and even though dream money doesn't matter...

Cogito ergo sum.

I can't help but think that was a particularly creative idea! Having subtitles to your dreams would be so clarifying! Next time, you sould search out that guy, and take him up on the offer. I'm really envious, and want it too. You mind if I ask him for the same deal? Monopoly money works wonders in Dreamland, I heard...

Actually, even though that sounds like I'm being sarcastic, I'm not. I do envy you for having had the idea, and I would really like to have some explanations for my dreams. I dream a *lot*, and many times, I can tell my love about them just after I wake up. But then they are gone of course...

*needs a nap urgently, even though it's only 9.20 in the morning*
Revising chemistry with my daughter late last night wasn't good for my alertness levels, that's for sure...

>>I do envy you for having had the idea, and I would really like to have some explanations for my dreams.

When I told my youngest daughter about the dream, she suggested that I didn't pay for the subtitles because my brain already knew that they wouldn't explain anything, so it made me not have them. Not a bad theory for a 9 year old.

Now that made more sense than I like to admit

Tell her I admire her!

I try not to think too much, I'm afraid my brain will run out of steam....

but talking about dreams, sometimes in my dreams,someone is trying to explain something to me, a really good idea, in fact a fantastic idea and in the dream (I know its a dream) I ask him to write it down for me, which he does, so I can read it and remember it....

but I can't read his writing and frustration wakes me up and then, of course,I've forgotten just what this most amazing idea was...

I heard somewhere that in dreams, you can't read. So I thought to my self, that's a load of ...lies.

Not long after I dreamed, and smugly noticed that I *could* in fact read in my dream, like road signs, and so on. Trouble was, that next time I read the thing, the text had changed. Fooled again.

...wonder why it is that you can't read in dreams...I saw words and paragraphs, but nothing 'went in'...

I bet there is someone out there that could explain

(in simple terms...I don't want my brain to run out of steam)

I remember my dreams quite often and have several dreams that re-run every 6-12months.

I did once waken myself up one morning singing the Rolf Harris classic 'Two Little Boys' at the top of my voice, now that was

When thinking before sleep I usually stick to the mundane like how do they put the holes in Hula Hoops and I've 'invented' a lot of nice Willy Wonka type machines to do that ... in my sleepy head!

Did anyone else learn about the inability to read in dreams from the Batman cartoons of the mid-90s?

When my husband or sons talk in their sleep, I wish there were subtitles so I could figure out what they're talking about.

I learned about the inability to read in dreams from the New Scientist magazine.

It's one of the techniques used in lucid dreaming. To find out whether you are dreaming or not, you don't need a spinning top. You just read a sign, look away and then read it again. If it still says the same thing, then you are awake. This only works if there are more than 4 letters on the sign.

Since the part of your brain that handles reading is not active when you're dreaming, your brain just makes up a meaning for the sign on the spot, and it will do a different one the next time.

I used to suffer from insomnia and my brain would appear to actually think faster when I was lying in bed. Once I wrote an entire h2g2 Entry in my head (quite a long one). I got all the phrasing right and everything. Another time, I derived a mathematical formula that had always puzzled me.

I don't think they were for pleasure, though. They were just to give my brain something to do because I couldn't stop it.

Another totally amazing bit of information gleaned from 'Ask'. Thanks, that does make a lot of sense.

I meant about reading while dreaming, .

I think best when I am in the bath, which is why I insist on having a bath in the bathroom, rather than just a shower. If I think, in bed, I never fall asleep, so I try not to do it at all.

>>...which is why I insist on having a bath in the bathroom.....

Better than having a bath in bed....never get any sleep!

I'm a night-time decorator.

When I turn the light off I proceed to imagine how I would decorate various rooms, sometimes my own, sometimes in a dream home (that's my lottery win daydream). I never usually get very far before I fall asleep but I find if I'm having trouble dropping off I'm quite happy and relaxed looking at imaginary colour charts and working out what will go where.

This means I don't tend to get that tossing and turning stress which makes it even harder to fall asleep.

Deb

Note to New Scientist:
I can read in my dreams.
Not long passages or ever entire sentences.
But, because I am getting better and better
at retaining precognitive dreams, I rely on
seeing single words (signs) or numbers such
as an address or license plate number to
guide me through the next day.

Of course a lot of precognition is on a much
longer time frame. Weeks, months even years
may pass before I see a word or a number that
I recognise as part of a situation I have pre-
viewed.

I think a lot of deja-vu experienced by others
is simply that they have made no effort to retain
such fore-shadowings. When finally encountered and
consciously observed, these unremembered images
trigger a feeling of deja vu because they are also
being unconsciously recalled.

~jwf~