dreams
#1
dreams are an endlessly interesting topic, everyone (?) dreams, and each in his own way. the only times one encounters dreams unlike his own are storytelling media, and it has always fascinated me how little these have in common with my own dreams. there is an infinity of things to talk about, so please use this thread to share your meta- thoughts on dreaming--that is, not simply recounting an individual dream without tying it to a broader point.

a few self-observations: i never sleep without dreaming, it happens every time i sleep without fail. i never dream about being anyone or anything other than myself such as an animal (to my dismay; i wish i could experience flight just once). even when my dreams don't make sense they are never confusing, i am always confident in the underlying logic of the moment.

i have never had a prophetic dream, or a dream in which somebody "spoke" to me from beyond the veil, or shared a dream with somebody else. i am particularly interested to hear if anyone has experienced any of these.
#2
I remember reading that 'prophetic dreams' are a remnant of ancient times, and that something happened that switched out dreams from static, immobile conversations with the divine to those that are narrative-based, dynamic, self-centric and more abstract and surreal.
#3
I don't think I've ever had a dream from a perspective other than my own. The events in my dreams are often feasible but not always, and usually the absurd element has to do with architecture, especially stairs and verticality.
#4
I shared a dream once with my twin sister when we were kids and my sister shared one with my mother once. Neither dream was interesting.
#5
My dreams often take place in an area that is an amalgamation of many places I have been but in my dream logic, it is a single location. It often takes the form of my childhood home but with an element heightened. My house was on a hill and it had a nice view of the neighborhood. In my dreams, this element is increased. In one dream, all the windows were bigger and I had a stretched panoramic view. There was also a fantastical element to this dream with the inclusion of airships and an Art Deco cityscape.
[Image: HfVqWXY.jpg]
I simply follow my own feelings.
#6
I had a dream about my dead grandma a few days after she died. She was sitting in my kitchen and about 40 years younger with minimal gray hairs. As the conversation proceeded, I began to sense that this was an impostor, and then started to feel the presence of an evil spirit in the room, which always takes the form of a slow, deliberate gust of wind that I clearly understand as having sentience.

This is a specific type of nightmare I have occasionally, but only ever when I take melatonin. Another time I felt that same 'windgeist' above me as I lay in bed, and it was briefly sleep paralysis before the stress of the dream woke me up.

I often read text in dreams. At least once, I read a formal letter of about two-thirds a page length in a serif font like Times New Roman. The content of the letter I perceived to be unflattering truths about me coming from my subconscious. The idea of a subconscious is pseudoscience, but that's not exactly a synonym for false. To me it would seem to be another you that you don't quite know or understand. An interesting crank case could be made for the idea that the subconscious processes language quite fluidly in reverse, and therefore the back-masking of our speech often contains hidden phrases which are intentional.
#7
A few weeks ago I had a dream that I was being made the Pope. I primarily remember the sense of nervousness from it, along with having to confront a crowd. I'm not quite sure what it could mean.
#8
Most of my dreams have no deeper meaning, but the ones that do are interesting, in those ones im usually in a void or large instalation stretching for kilometers, all alone, searching for a void
#9
Has anyone had any experiences with glycine? I found that it helped me to sleep and made my dreams more vivid (I could recall the details of three of them on the same night and they stuck with me for a while), but it also made me insanely itchy after any kind of exertion, which I could not put up with.
#10
I've been taking magnesium glycinate recently and I have been remembering many more dreams than I usually do. My sleep has also been disturbed for unrelated reasons, though, which also cause me to remember more dreams, so it's hard to establish cause. I'm curious about the itchiness. Is there a visible effect on your skin? Does it happen when you sneeze or when you're startled?
#11
No visible changes. I was taking 2-3g of glycine daily for circa two months before the itching started. It occurred at least once a day during any kind of activity, such as a prolonged walk or lifting a heavy object; I didn't note it happening when sneezing. The sensation was concentrated around the back areas occassionally spreading to the torso, thighs and rarely the forehead. I would describe it as a type of itching usually associated with having ants or other insects on one's body but with an additional burning feeling. Each time it lasted for 10-20 minutes and was unpleasant enough to inconvenience me.
Taking glycine was the only large dietary change made recently so it was easy to recognize it as the cause, and the symptoms are already much weaker after quitting cold turkey for about a week. I will endeavor to start again after it ceases entirely but this time I will limit the doses to 1g per day. I have noted no signs of withdrawal except it is slightly more difficult to fall asleep (although othes causes might be at play here, my sleep patterns are far from optimal).
#12
I've been sleeping with a fan near my face for the past few days and my dreams have been more vivid. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe I am just more comfortable. A gentle breeze on my face is very comforting to me. In these dreams, my family and friends show me aspects of myself that I need to improve. This is interesting because normally my dreams don't have a clear meaning or message.
[Image: HfVqWXY.jpg]
I simply follow my own feelings.
#13
I dreamt that I was at a party, or some type of function, that had just ended. Near the function there was a hill, and a wilderness. Within this wilderness, a dead body was discovered. Venturing in the wilderness, more bodies were discovered. There was a tall several story cabin in the woods. We entered there to find out what was going on, and to search for possible suspects. 

It became apparent that the creepy residents were responsible for the murders. As I inspected a rug that was covered in some kind of oil, it suddenly burst into flames, forming a pentagram. I understood then that the inhabitants were part of a satanic society, and they were responsible for the murders. 

The rest of the dream is vague, but it became apparent that the satanic society was very large, and as it was now accused of the murders, it began to war with the authorities. These “authorities” were not represented as policemen, but more like “good warriors”, or “warriors of light”, in contrast to the “dark warriors”. 

The dark warriors were impressed by the conduct of the light warriors, and therefore agreed to a white peace with them. It was understood then that the dark warriors had a particular ethos - they respected warriors, and hated the common folk. Their murders were expressions of this hatred, which they believed to give them special powers. 

The dream showed me their ship, sailing away, waving cheerfully goodbye to the white warriors following the truce. I remember thinking that their ethos was kind of based. 

But then I remembered that, while their ethos was “based” in an emotive sense, they also displayed behaviour that was retarded. Yes, I am sure even the “white warriors” preferred the warrior class to the civilian class. But the fact is that it is not useful, in any way, to commence such superstitious hostilities upon common-folk as did the dark warriors. It might be more useful, in fact, to utilize them.

The ship accordingly was suddenly bombarded with a gigantic mass of cannonballs, sending it spinning through the water, destroyed in spite of the peace agreement that was just signed in a humorously excessive act of treachery. A white-warrior “pirate” looking character made an exalted gesture of victory, ending the dream. 

I remember thinking, “now that was really based”. I believe the moral of the story is something related to a Tweet I had recently made: 

“I have seen the theme explored a few times of a race of vampires that is responsible and understands that its host society must survive, vs one that is chaotic and doesn't care. This irl is what separates chad warriors from psychopathic retards.” 

As well as another tweet. In fact I vaguely remember thinking about this tweet in the dream: 

“Many religions are aesthetics for certain kinds of life. BAPism is an aesthetic for warriors. Original Christianity an aesthetic for beggars. Occultism an aesthetic for spies. Templism objectively describes society as a whole. It is appropriate to god-kings, leaders of all above.”

The “dark warriors” were not, in fact, differentiated by being dark. They pursued a “warrior aesthetic” that was not true or practical. They were differentiated by being retarded, and retards die.

I do not actually fully enjoy this message. I think the breaking of their truce was a little bit gay. But the moral still stands regardless.
#14
The night of June 18th 2023 I refrained from drinking the usual amount because I had commitments the next day. Right before I woke up, I experienced the most lucid dream I've had in a while. I was staying in some kind of communal house for some reason, and me and Joel Davis were talking in the "main room", while vague other people were sleeping in their respective bedrooms. The house's layout was pretty well-defined for someone as visual-spatially disinclined as me, it was basically a single-floor college type space with a living room in the middle. I understood the guy I was talking to to be "Davis", even while he didn't resemble him - longer hair, dissimilar features. The subject of the conversation escapes me before the point where he begins to attempt sexual contact, whether physically or verbally I don't know but I know that he's doing just that. I recoil and he then frantically runs in and out of his bedroom, acting increasingly erratically between each visit. The rest of the house wakes up to see what's going on, and by the end "Davis" is on the floor out of his mind. The dream ends with me yelling, "THIS MAN IS A HOMOSEXUAL, AND IS ON METH".

Ridiculous as fuck but I think it's worth sharing here. Read into it what you will.
#15
I’ve had recurring dreams of a great wan temple, perched on a brine lake deep in a cave. It's a nice place, the spires skillfully chiseled stalagmites. Nobody’s down there, only glowing fish-shaped presences in the shallow water.
The occurrence of this dream is random, yet the dream itself is consistent. Lucid, but no power to harness, nothing to pray to. Enjoy a monument erected to nothing.
Most recent occurrence was yesterday. Before that, June 8th. No meaning realistically, maybe it’ll become apparent with more visits.
#16
A year ago, I was in a state of mental conflict. Ever since I had become a Christian again and got older, I became more and more resolute and uncompromising in my aims but there was one thing that worried me to death: Should I become a writer and artist or should I become a lawyer, statesman and politician. I had recently been confirmed into the Catholic faith and due to being an extensively political man I knew that the seminary was not the right choice for me. What ended up happening in my opinion a demonstration of the mystical power of God. I decided before going to sleep on a Friday night, to ask God to reveal the truth: Am I meant to be an artist and writer or a statesman? I prayed for the intercession of my soon to be confirmation saint, alongside for the intercession of Constantine, Equal to the Apostles, as well as a few others. I got my answer that night. I had a vision in my dreams, of an older, married version of me. I was slightly taller and more well built and was clean shaven and was giving in an interview in the middle of what looked like a musuem or palace. I was comissioning a series of what looked like Baroque Art pieces in what I instantly recognized as patronage, in a press conference surrounded by dozens of journalists. I knew from that point that it would be a waste to not use that God given vitality in the political realm in my early life and as a statesman, I could elevate hundreds of artists and works that are not my own.
#17
I found the expectation fulfillment theory of dreams interesting. It attempts to give a complete account of dreaming that unifies psychoanalytic and biological theories. The basic claim is that dreams occur to meet the unfulfilled expectations of waking life each night.

During waking life, you have many fragmentary thoughts and emotional arousals that, for various reasons (repression, time management, etc.), are not able to be processed satisfactorily. Over time, these build up as tension in the mind/nervous system, thus each night the nervous system needs to deenergize/dearouse itself. Seen so, dreaming is mostly a kind of garbage disposal function, or else the brain's way of trying to discharge things that are taking up space.

Without this, the nervous system would slowly be overloaded with tension, such that it could no longer function as a receptive organ, and one would slowly lapse into insanity or schizophrenia. Inevitably the brain would lose its ability to distinguish reality from fiction, and drift off from consensus reality into its own world.

This theory does explain many of the peculiar things about dreams, to list a few:

- Why dreams seem to subsequently confirm whichever psychoanalytic model is used to interpret them. This is just because they will tend to reflect whatever was on your mind in the preceding days, rather than any phylogenetic or universal unconscious.
- Why dreams use such peculiar metaphorical imagery. This is necessary for thoughts or emotional arousals to be discharged. They can not simply be repeated, they must be represented in some new form, and for this the brain can draw from the deepest recesses of memory.
- Why dreams engage the REM system specifically. This is because the REM system is thought to provide the basic "reality interface" (perception of time, space, objects). The brain is trying to declutter and run maintenance on its most essential components, so to speak. This is also why in dreams any and every object can have multiple levels of meaning, and the world is like a matrix of images that produces itself endlessly.
- Why depressed people have more intense REM sleep. Apparently this fact has puzzled researchers, but the explanation would be fairly simple; depressed people have so many unprocessed negative thoughts and feelings that their REM system is overworked trying to dispose of it all each night. As a result, depressives wake up exhausted each morning. As you might guess, depression is a not a condition that suddenly befalls someone, but the final state of energetic depletion following some other neurosis, where the psyche's usual mechanisms can no longer compensate.


Briefly, I will note that there seems to be a kind of unexamined metaphysical biology to all of this, along with many other similar scientific frameworks like information theory, the free energy principle, most of cybernetics, etc. According to these the function of life is a kind of endless struggle to maintain homeostasis against the pointless chaos of the universe ("negentropy"), or binding energy into the most stable and specific configurations possible. Whereas I understand life as a movement of energy into higher unities with greater generality, and destruction of anything impeding this ascent. As such, dreams could have an active and positive function beyond just providing psychological balance. But that's all I intend to write for now, maybe this will be informative to someone.
#18
Someone I know pretty much lost the ability to eat meat of any kind after recurring dreams involving rotten flesh, I have never heard of something similar happening to others - maybe some of you have. 

As for myself, I've noticed unfortunate events in my life often happen soon after I have a dream involving rats, particularly them biting my neck. Rats are a personal phobia of mine, I dislike most rodents in general but rats especially freak me out, mostly after having to chase and kill a couple of big ones while working in a restaurant during uni years. 
However, I still can't be sure if these two are correlated. 
I've also dabbled in oneiromancy, but haven't had much success beyond several lucid dreams and a successful astral projection attempt.
#19
When I was working an office job and every day was the same banal routines i remember continually not being able to distinguish dream memories from reality. There was probably depression too. I wonder how many normies live like this.
#20
Something I've noticed is that with regards to my dreams I often feel physically ill upon trying to commit them to memory, even if only for a brief period, and for that which I can remember they are almost always mundane or without grandiosity. It's lost to me how people extrapolate higher meanings out of their own dreams, for I know it is plausible yet it feels that I'm never quite able to accomplish the same task.



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