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

Sorry Moonhogg, simulpost . That dream is pretty startling, but I'm glad it had a happy conclusion for you .

So am I.

Me too - while my wife was basking in the relief that things were okay (she hadn't told me about the dream until afterwards, so I was unaware of her worry), I experienced the most amazing experience ever - as she excercised her lungs for the first time with a huge howl, I reached out my hand towards my newborn daughter - her tiny hand grasped my finger, and gave it a surprisingly strong squeeze. I've never been so overcome in my life. I will never forget it as long as I live.

Sorry, I just felt like sharing that!

You can get back to the dream thread now...

Aww... they're quite tough little things, babies.

Back to dreams it is.

Not been posting cos things were getting a little, erm, supernatural which I don't think is the case. Although Moonhogg's post does give me pause for thought, it must be said.

What gets me though is the really bizarre dreams. Which for me are usually repeating, but at quite lengthy intervals.

One I have involves me needing, for some reason, to see the back or top or side of my head. Never really sure why. But in the dream, my solution is to take my head off my neck and then hold it in my hands. This isn't btw, in any way gruesome. No blood or anything, but my head is detached from my neck, and I am still functioning as it were. And it really doesn't ever seem to explain how, once my head is in my hands, I can see my head from a position as if it were still in place.

It really is most odd.

The other one I find odd is confusion over memory and dream, where I feel certain I have had a dream about something, but know that I haven't. A sort deja vu for dreams.

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I've had that once in a while - it's deeply confusing.

It is very, very confusing...

Like you know something has happened, but then you suddenly realise- hang on, that can't have happened- and you work out its a dream.

yeah, that's it exactly. Always had them, but not that often.

Some of them are very difficult to tell from reality though (cue Father Ted quotes ).

Especially if it is one where you told someone something, or did something and then think you had done it in RL.

I hope mine never do, last night I dreamt I was being chased by two men who were trying to shoot me, and the night before I dreamt that I went on a rollercoaster but I wasn't strapped in. I also have a lot of dreams about drowning.

drownings supposed to be a stress related one isn't it?

My stress related one was dreaming that I was turning into a vampire. (the explanation for that is that I used to have, due to a car accident years ago, very prominant canine teeth at the front of my mouth, thus looking like a hollywood vampire.) And yes, that is the dream that involved pain and where the pain continued after I woke up. The pain being in my teeth as they 'grew'.

I just decided to look it up in the dream dictionery this it what it says about dreaming you are drowning:

Dreaming that you are drowning means that you are overwhelmed by emotions or repressed issues that is coming back to haunt you. You may be proceeding too quickly in trying to discover your unconscious thoughts and therefore must proceed more cautiously and slowly. If you drown to death, then is refers to an emotional rebirth. If your survive the drowning, then a waking relationship or situation will ultimately survive the turmoil.

So I guess that would mean it is stress related but then again I have had them since I was very young, I'm almost used to it now.

Although I never have one anymore, most of the nightmares I've had involve water or swimming in some way, though never drowning. It's curious, because I absolutely love swimming and water. As an example, about a year ago now I had a terrifying dream where I got shot when I was swimming. For months afterwards I was wary in the swimming pool.

Try this link it might be worth a look http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dream that is where I got my dream definition from, I'm sure there is more sites on dream defintions too if you wanted to look it up.

I find a lot of the time that dream dictionaries have varying meanings for things , so if I want to figure out if a dream is trying to tell me, I think about the feelings of the dream and see if I can do a word-association type of thing.

I also have had the dream/deja vu type thing - it's very surreal when that happens . It seems to happen far more when I'm very stressed and when its PMT time, so I think it's my brain just going "wibble" in a number of ways. I can remember several occasions where I've started talking about something which I've been convinced was real, and then the realisation hits me that it was actually a dream... normally by the time it's too late to shut myself up without looking like a loony . I got it lots in the run up to my wedding.

"I'm sure there is more sites on dream defintions "

You ain't kidding! There's shed loads, from the scientific studies to the run of the mill explanations to the downright weird!

I wouldn't go for websites to try and understand my own dreams. Dreams are messages from me to myself, how could anyone else understand what they mean?
I did forget to mention that the feeling in which you wake up from a dream, sad, angry, surprised, frustrated, amused, is very important to the deciphering process. I can be frightened by dreaming of being jumped on by a frog (phobically hate frogs), while someone else, who likes frogs, or think they bring good luck, would wake up happy or relieved.

"I wouldn't go for websites to try and understand my own dreams."

This is a good point. Another issue is that dreams take their form and narrative from our own experiences, thus reading that dream a = condition B could well end up being a self fulfilling prophecy.

I know I regularly incorporate elements from everyday life into my dreams, be they from the past 24Hrs through to some of my earliest memories.

Out of interest, has anyone found even the remotest truth in the old saying about cheese giving you nightmares? I know I never have.

Cheese and nightmares? No, it isn't true.. The BBC WS even had a study thye talked about which showed it wasn't true, the other day, I think. Coincidence!

I never had 'Cheesey dreams'.
Don't see the connection, either.

hmm...