I saw another thread talking about dreams, I’ve had less than a handful of dreams throughout my life.
Do you dream? Every night?
Every night.
You almost certainly do too, but the part of our brain that commits things to long term memory is inactive when sleeping. When people recall their dreams, it’s at best just the ones that occurred right before waking up. Maybe you’re a heavy sleeper and tend to sleep through that window.
Also why people tend to not dream if using substances that have memory loss side-effects—weed is common. And same reason people get “black out” drunk or drunkenly repeat themselves. The brain just isn’t noting anything down, but it is happening.
I dream every night and can recall most dreams months sometimes years later. There just some dreams that never fade from memory.
From how I understand it, you dream every night as your body enters REM sleep, but you often don’t remember dreams. You can try and train yourself to better recall your dreams and in doing so you may find that you “dream more often”.
I’d say I have weeks where I remember my dreams, sometimes multiple, every night, and other times where I’ll go a week or more without recalling any. It varies on a lot of things. In particular, I’ll find if I stop smoking weed for about 4 or more days, I’ll start remembering dreams vividly and frequently, but that’ll lessen over 2 weeks.
The bigger issue IMO would be that not everyone has quality sleep, so they might not have a long uninterrupted time in REM to properly dream.
Personally even when I’m in the right state to experience dreams (the type that I do remember) they usually aren’t very vivid, for the above reason or possibly something else. I also have aphantasia so it may be related (or other brain/life stuff). Once I did have a colorful-yet-still(ish) dream related to then-recent photography.
Yeah, everyone dreams multiple times every night. I’m sure these days most people mean ‘don’t remember dreams’ when they say ‘don’t dream’, but when I grew up so many people honestly thought they did not dream and wouldn’t believe me when I tried to explain how that’s biologically impossible.
I dream in a fashion that I “experience” the dream and remember it later, but only around the changing of the seasons. For instance, in Central America where I live, were transitioning into the rainy season soon. I’ve been dreaming so vividly for the pas two weeks, and only started feeling rested two nights ago.
In a week or so, that will taper back to rarely remembering ant dreams, and not surface again until October or November when our dry season starts again. (Disclaimer: we haven’t had a rainy season with rain the past two Yeats, but we still call it the rainy season)
When I lived in New England, it was the same, but four times a year, and most pronounced in the fall-to-winter and spring-to-summer transitions.
That’s not to say I never dream outside of those times, but rarely remember, and not consecutively. Last night I had one dream from 3am to 7am. I woke up once and used the bathroom and easily returned to the same dream, albeit subdued.
I dream most nights, though the dreams themselves very rarely make it into my long term memory and are forgotten within minutes of waking up.
As far as I know, everyone dreams every night…it’s part of the sleeping process…but you usually forget it ASAP so it seems like you didn’t dream.
As for dreams I remember…less often as I get older, I find. Although I do get a few vivid dreams when using magnesium supplements, but I also acclimate to those quickly. And if I’m woken prematurely, sometimes a dream sticks around a bit more than it otherwise would.
Every night.
I’ve heard hella people say you don’t have dreams if you smoke weed, but it’s never stopped me. 🤷🏻♂️
I’ve smoked like 50g per month for the past few years and reduced by quite a lot now, and I only started to dream again once I did that. I feel like the thing about having no dreams is only really true if you smoke excessive amounts. How much do you smoke?
Excessive amounts.
Interesting, thanks for the reply
Multiple times a night. Typically I know I’m dreaming and can choose to wake up or alter the dream if I like, but I have some “uncontrolled” dreams as well.
I dream every night and my dreams are usually both very vivid and also very surreal. The last dream I had involved getting lost in a restaurant that was a non-Euclidean space
Every Night
I have a dream landscape? It’s like all the places I’ve ever been have blended together to create a new world. And in a dream I know I can get from the fancy section (where there’s the wierd Victorian house that is like a coop I used to live in, and sometimes there’s a special room I can access by crawling up a specific wall) to the bar/shopping district by walking/going south, while by going west I can get to the beach that’s an amalgam of several Texas and Mexican beaches along with a strong dose of Egypt. There’s an epic resort there I often end up at, sometimes as a guest, other times worrying the whole time how I’m going to pay for it. There’s also a subway system that leads to a New York/Paris/other massive cities I’ve been to with bad ass museums. I think that’s to the northeast…
Anyone else have this? Love to hear about it.
I have something similar I think, but yours sounds way cooler! Over the years I have essentially recreated a whole section of Denver Colorado in my dreams. My brain keeps adding things over time and many of the new stuff sticks; dream Denver now has a whole ocean north of downtown, and a boat ferry that goes to an island out there.
Crazy stuff.
That is super cool, though! An ocean right outside Denver?? With an island?? And a ferry?? That would be amazing. Think this is very similar. Are you from Denver / spent a lot of time there?
Yeah I lived there for three years during a stressful period of my life. It’s a lot of fun to dream about though, as I look forward to what’s going to be added next!
Yeah I dream, but mostly when I’m sleeping.
Almost every night now.
I used to never dream but I would go to bed with the TV on. I wanted to switch to falling asleep to music. At some point I realized I would have nightmares whenever I slept without either. It was like my brain couldn’t handle the lack of external stimuli.
But I wanted to dream more, so I started going to bed without it more and more often. Eventually those nightmares turned to dreams as I pushed through it. It was fantastical. Almost like hearing music for the first time after being deaf. It was a whole new world and I can’t get enough.
Do you use an alarm clock? The best way to remember your dreams is to be startled out of them and immediately thinking about them. If you wake up without an alarm clock and then start thinking about what you have to do later in the day it’s gonna be harder to remember them
I do, I can’t say it helps me recall much though.
When I wake up I notice that I was dreaming once or twice per week. It’s always weird dreams. Weird as in:
- aliens spitting on trees
- tomato fighting in the library, killing and burying the old librarian, to resurrect a god
- using a rolled newspaper as a magic wand, triggered by the word “photon”
- a vulture digging gold nuggets from my liver, a la Prometheus
- a pig praying (stupid dream bilingual pun)
- my cats preparing popcorn (I don’t even like popcorn)
Haha, I LOVE the weirdness of dreams. Clicked this thread just because I knew some people might share a few.
Nope, not anymore. As a kid yes I remember, but for maybe 10-15 years now, nope, super rare. Or I guess I dream but have no clue and don’t remember.