Just some interesting bits...
Daydream Studies show that we all have the tendency to daydream an average of 70-120 minutes a day. Day dreaming is classified as a level of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness. It occurs during our waking hours when we let our imagination carry us away. As our minds begin to wander and our level of awareness decreases, we lose ourselves in our imagined scenario and fantasy.
Lucid Dream
Lucid dreams occurs when you realize you are dreaming in the middle of your dream. "Wait a second. This is only a dream!" Most dreamers wake themselves up once they realize that they are only dreaming. Other dreamers have cultivated the skill to remain in the lucid state of dreaming. They become an active participant in their dream, make decisions in their dreams and influence the dream's outcome without awakening.
Nightmare
A nightmare is a disturbing dream that causes the dreamer to wake up feeling anxious and frightened. Nightmares may be a response to real life trauma and situations. These type of nightmares fall under a special category called Post-traumatic stress nightmare (PSN). Nightmares may also occur because we have ignored or refused to accept a particular life situation. Research shows that most people who have regular nightmares have had a family history of psychiatric problems, bad drvg experiences, people who have contemplated svicide, and/or rocky relationships. Nightmares are an indication of a fear that needs to be acknowledged and confronted. It is a way for our subconscious to make up take notice. "Pay attention!"
Recurring Dreams
Recurring dreams repeat themselves with little variation in story or theme. These dreams may be positive, but most often they are nightmares. Dreams may recur because a conflict depicted in the dream remains unresolved and ignored. Once you have found a resolution to the problem, your recurring dreams may cease. Healing dreams serve as messages for the dreamer in regards to their health. Dreams of this nature may be telling the dreamer that he/she needs to go to the dentist or doctor.
Prophetic Dreams
Prophetic dreams, also referred to as precognitive dreams, are dreams that seemingly foretell the future. One rational theory to explain this phenomenon is that our dreaming mind is able to piece together bits of information and observation that we normally overlook or that we do not seriously consider. In other words, our unconscious mind knows what is coming before we consciously piece together the same information.
Epic Dreams
Epic dreams are so huge, so compelling, and so vivid that you cannot ignore them. The details of such dreams remain with you for years, as if your dreamt it last night. These dreams possess much beauty and contain many archetypal symbology
1. One third of our lives is spent sleeping.
2. In your lifetime, you would've spent about 6 years of it dreaming. That is more than 2,100 days spent in a different world.
3. Dreams have been here as long as mankind. Back in the Roman Era, striking and significant dreams were submitted to the Senate for analysis and interpretation.
4. Everybody dreams. EVERYBODY! Simply because you do not remember your dream does not mean that you did not dream.
5. Dreams are indispensable. A lack of dream activity can mean protein deficiency or a personality disorder.
6. We dream on average of one or two hours every night. And we often even have 4-7 dreams in one night.
7. Blind people do dream. Whether visual images will appear in their dream depends on whether they where blind at birth or became blind later in life. But vision is not the only sense that constitutes a dream. Sounds, tactility, and smell become hypersensitive for the blind and their dreams are based on these senses.
8. Five minutes after the end of the dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 90% is lost.
9. The word dream stems from the Middle English word, dreme which means "joy" and "music".
10. Men tend to dream more about other men, while women dream equally about men and women.
11. Studies have shown that our brain waves are more active when we are dreaming than when we are awake.
12. Dreamers who are awakened right after REM sleep, are able to recall their dreams more vividly than those who slept through the night until morning.
13. Physiologically speaking, researchers found that during dreaming REM sleep, males experience erections and females experience increased vaginal blood flow - no matter what the content of the dream. In fact, "wet dreams" may not necessarily coincide with overtly sexual dream content.
14. People who are giving up smoking have longer and more intense dreams.
15. Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They do not appear in their own dreams until the age of 3 or 4.
16. If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.
17. Nightmares are common in children, typically beginning at around age 3 and occurring up to age 7-8.
18. In a poll, 67% of Americans have experienced Deja Vu in their dreams, occurring more often in females than males.
Why should you bother remembering your dreams?
1. Your dreaming mind has access to information that is not readily available to you when you are awake. Your dreams may reveal your secret desires and subconscious feelings.
2. In remembering your dreams, you will have an increased knowledge about yourself, bring about self-awareness and self-healing. Dreams are an extension of how you perceive yourself. They can be a source of inspiration, wisdom, and joy.
3. Learning to recall your dreams may help you become a more assertive person. In remembering your dreams, you are expressing and confronting your feelings.
4. Remembering your dreams can help you come to terms with stressful aspects of your lives.
Recurring Dreams
Most dreams contain messages that serve to teach us something about ourselves. Unfortunately many a times we forget what we dream about as we go about our daily routine. With recurring dreams, the message may be so important and/or powerful that it just will not go away. The frequent repetition of such dreams forces you to pay attention and confront the dream. The dream is trying desperately to tell you something. Such dreams are often nightmarish or frightening in their content, which also helps you to take notice and pay attention to them.
Recurring dreams are quite common and are often triggered by a certain life situation or a problem that keeps coming back again and again. These dreams may recur daily, once a week, or once a month, but whatever the frequency, there is little variation in the dream content itself. It usually points to a personal weakness, fear, or your inability to cope with something in your life - past or present.
The repetitive patterns in your dream can reveal some of the most valuable information on yourself. It may point to a conflict, situation or matter in your waking life that remains unresolved or unsettled. Or some urgent underlying message in your unconscious is demanding to be understood.
Following are some tips in overcoming your recurring dreams.
1. In understanding your recurring dream, you must be willing to accept some sort of change or undergo a transformation.
2. You must be willing to look within yourself and confront whatever you may find no matter how difficult it my be.
3. You must be able to look at the dream from an objective point of view. Try to get pass the emotional and reactive elements of the dream and get down to the symbolic images. Many times dreams are masked by elements that are disturbing preventing you to delve any deeper. This is a defense mechanism that your unconscious may be putting up.
4. Be patient. Do not get discourage if these dreams still recur even after you thought you have come to understand them.
5. Learn to accept yourself truly and fully.
Often times, once you discover what your recurring dream is trying to tell you, these dreams will change or altogether disappear.
Daydreams
Daydreaming is often disregarded and a neglected aspect of dream study. Not a lot of emphasis seem to be placed on our daydreams. They are often overlooked as fleeting and wandering thoughts. However, the meanings to your nightly dream symbols are also applicable to your daydreams. The content in our daydreams are helpful in the understanding of your true feelings and help in fulfilling your goals.
Daydreaming occurs when you are semi-awake and it is the spontaneous imagining or recalling of various images or experiences in the past or future. You more or less, let your imagination run away from you. When you daydream, your are accessing your right brain. The right brain is the creative and feminine side of your personality.
Daydreams are often viewed as light-hearted in nature and are no more than silly fantasies or wishful thinking. Actually, the worrying of things can be classified as a form of daydreaming. When you worry, you are visualizing an unwanted or negative outcome to a situation. By repeating these negative images in your mind, you are more likely to make them happen. Next time you start worrying, try to think of a positive outcome.
Just as your worrisome daydreams can unwittingly come true via repetition in your mind, you can use it as a tool to your advantage and make positive events happen. You can utilize daydreams as a technique to visualize what you want and hope to happen. It is said that many athletes. musicians and business leaders utilize daydreams to envision success. They anticipate or imagine landing the perfect jump, closing a deal, or making that hit single. Tiger Woods, for one, has said to use daydreams to improve his golf game. You too can utilize daydreams for something as simple as studying for and acing the next test or for landing that job.
Positive daydreaming is healthy. It serves as a temporary escape from the demands of reality. It is also a good way to release pent up frustrations without physically acting them out. All to often you worry about your job, your family, finances, a relationship, etc. It is a way to leave the world behind and ponder about what could've been or should've been. It relieves stress, improves attitude, fosters creativity and refresh the mind, body, and spirit.
Nightmares
We all have had nightmares at various parts in our lives. They are quite normal. But what is exactly a nightmare and why do we have them?
Nightmares are a subcategory of dreams. The distinction of a nightmare is its frightening and/or emotional content. You tend to wake up in fear in the midst of a nightmare. Because of its frightening nature, you tend to remember your nightmares and the vivid details. They have a bigger impact upon your waking mind and its images stay with you throughout the day.
One reason for nightmares may be a way of our unconscious to get our attention about a situation or problem that you have been avoiding. It is time to take notice and confront a problem or situation. Nightmares serve an important purpose in showing you what is troubling you from within you deeper levels. Discussing, analyzing, and understanding your nightmares can lead to a solution for some problem, internal conflict or personal difficulty.
Causes Of Nightmares
Childhood and Family - Present nightmares can be rooted in past neglect and trauma from childhood. From lack of love, neglect, alcoholism, to severe abuse, family members can be the most destructive influence on a person's life. Nightmares may be a sign of such inner turmoil.
Life - The way your life is going and the larger society as a whole can contribute to nightmares. Your perception of the world, heath, natural disasters, criticism about politics, crime in the streets and your inability to control such events may sometimes lead to nightmares.
Relationships - Your intimate relationships and your daily interactions with people can also be a source of your nightmares. You may have paranoia about how your think others perceive you. You fear that they do not understand and see who you really are. Isolation and unhappiness may appear in nightmares as abandonment and loneliness.
Stress - The way you handle and deal with stress can trigger nightmares. Nightmares are a normal response to unacceptable levels of fear and stress. People diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder frequently have nightmares about their traumatic event, like war, death of a loved one, car accident, plane crash, terrorism, etc.
Work - Since most of us spend the majority of our day at work, it is no surprise that work-related issues are a common source for your nightmares. Stress, job security (or there lack of), co-workers, unresolved work problems, or general dissatisfaction with what you do can manifest into a nightmare. The nightmare may reflect feelings of frustration and an inability to control your work-related issues. People in high-stress level or high-risk jobs often report of having nightmares. Nightmares of this nature may appear as you being attacked, chased, or being out of control.
In general, stress, trauma, fears, insecurities, feelings of inadequacy, health problems, marital issues, etc may all be reasons for having nightmares.
Having nightmares are normal, but a high frequency of nightmares can be a sign of being overwhelmed and excessive stress which should be dealt with. Nightmares can be an important resource for self-knowledge and emotional discovery. They convey an important message and help clear up the conflict in your life. it is important to distance yourself and work pass the emotional content (fear, grief, anger, etc.) of your nightmare and analyze it from an objective perspective. The disturbing emotions may be a way for your unconscious to prevent you from digging deep into the meaning of your nightmares. But it pays to try and make sense of those darker dreams.
A great site to understand what you dreamed the night before really means:
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/
(Edited by lostwitness at 6:56 pm on April 14, 2005)
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