Who are the strangers in our dreams?

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Like who was the guy in my dream last night who laughed when my toupe fell off?

Or the hordes of strangers who sit typing away in all my work based dreams?

Do we make them up or are they people we have fleetingly seen?

This freaks me out.

― FionaBrucesFavourite Necklace, Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:23 (twenty years ago)

I guess they are all made up some way or another, whether they're constructed of past emotions, strangers you've noticed in the past, or even a jumbled mix up of people you already know.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:27 (twenty years ago)

One theory is that dreams are the attempt by the mind to resolve any issues of the day and that dreams are the result of trying to impose order on random neurological firings. So the people in dreams may be entirely fictional or people who you actually know.

― salexander / sofia (salexander), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

I read somewhere that strange faces in your dreams are faces you've seen that day but not consciously noticed.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

I've always been fascinated by how my dreams construct the world which they are based in. Usually lucid ones where I remember to investigate this fact I might pick up something off the ground or study a blade of grass to see just how detailed my mind has bothered to go into. then things usually just go bananas, especially when trying to read 'letters'.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:31 (twenty years ago)

Wow you have lucid dreams! That must be so cool. I rarely remember any dreams :( What about sleepwalkers -- apparently they can have seemingly coherent conversations with people while still technically asleep.

― salexander / sofia (salexander), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:34 (twenty years ago)

Do you ever have that weird thing where someone in your dream is quite obviously one person (as in, they look and talk like them), but your mind registers them as somebody compliment different?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:35 (twenty years ago)

Yes! I get this - like I'm talking to my aunt for example and I KNOW it's my aunt - but it isn't.

Same with places - I can be in my flat but it's not my flat.... odd.

― FionaBrucesFavourite Necklace, Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:39 (twenty years ago)

What about when you incorporate things from the real world into dreams, like the phone ringing. It's so startling when you wake up. Or have you ever had a v. pleasant dream and wake up feeling disappointed because -- of variants, that you haven't just won a trip to Tuscany.

― salexander / sofia (salexander), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:43 (twenty years ago)

What about when you incorporate things from the real world into dreams, like the phone ringing

try leaving the TV on! it's WEIRD

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

They are Weasts.

― dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah, drifting in and out of sleep with the TV on. bizarre fantastic.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

In Paul Martins Counting Sheep he puts forward the theory of dreams as memories. Some people lack the ability to distinguish between dream memories and real memories and consequently tell stories of "That time when we were in Paris, remember?" when they have never been before.

This has happened to me with childhood memories, I once thought I had been to Kent to visit a friend of my mums, when I asked her years later who the woman who lived in Kent was, she didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

But why should we seperate dream memories and real memories? Unless we have proof in the form of someone who can vouch that the memory is real, or some sort of photographic evidence.... a memory is a memory after all.

― FionaBrucesFavourite Necklace, Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:55 (twenty years ago)

Only if it's harmless though. There have been cases of "false memories" which have been v. damaging.

― salexander / sofia (salexander), Thursday, 27 October 2005 09:57 (twenty years ago)

i enjoyed another dream of getting bitten again last night.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:03 (twenty years ago)

Come again?! Who was doing the biting? Float, boat and all that.

― salexander / sofia (salexander), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

What about dreams where you write a book or compose a song or watch the best TV show in the world ever.... and then can't remember any of them when you wake up? Where do these creations come from? Why can't we tap into such creativity when we're awake? Or are our dream creations actually bobbins but while we're dreaming them we're simultaneously dreaming that they're good?

― Madeleine (Madeleine), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:27 (twenty years ago)

I don't know... Why don't you Ask Doctor Freud?

(My favourite sub-board, actually.)

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

Who was doing the biting?

I keep getting bitten by animals, I’ve mentioned this on another thread somewhere, but basically I’ll be having a normal dream then I’ll get attacked by an animal. The feeling is weird, I’ve been bitten in real life and I know it hurts but in the dreams it’s more annoying than fear driven. I’ve found out that this dream can mean, “Being bitten or attacked by an animal may suggest feeling hunted, vulnerable or doubting your own strength” which at the moment has some truth to it.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:30 (twenty years ago)

The strangers in your dreams are friends in real life. The only problem is real life has more friends than you could possibly imagine. Let me ask you this: who are the strangers on the sidewalk?

― Jovial Penishands, Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:32 (twenty years ago)

There are no strangers, only friends you haven't met.

Thank Jools Holland for that he said it on his show years ago and it’s stuck in my head.

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:35 (twenty years ago)

Yeah I've heard of false memories normally brought to the surfaces by psychologists or therapists where people think that they have been abused. Frightening.

I have a reccurring dream that I can skate really well - like world class - and it feels really easy and natural. I just can't apply it in real life though and can barely stay on my feet on the ice.

I use dreams to remember things - this is a successful method for finding things I've mislaid, or remembering names I've forgotten. It freaked me out the first time it happened, I'd lost a letter I desperately needed the following day and spent all day tearing the house apart looking for it. That night I dreamt it was in a biscuit barrel. When I woke up I went straight to the biscuit barrel and there it was.

Dreams are great.

― FionaBrucesFavourite Necklace, Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:35 (twenty years ago)

Dreams are great

Sometimes they are, sometimes they can put you in a bad mood all day.

A good few years back i had a dream my girlfriend cheated on me, when i woke i was in a foul mood and continued to be in a foul mood for the rest of the day. i found out a year later, she had cheated on me and it was around the time of the dream.

Scary!

― not-goodwin (not-goodwin), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:44 (twenty years ago)

i sleep with the tv on every night, it never affects my dreamstate.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

I had a sexy dream about one of my colleagues last night, i'm finding it difficult to look at him today. The night before i dreamt that i'd gone clubbing with Phil Oakey circa 1983.

― leigh (leigh), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:52 (twenty years ago)

I have had several dreams lately where I can run, very quickly (like race-winningly quickly, though the races are always long distance) and never get tired. I HATE running in real life but I do envy people who can do it and enjoy it.

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:53 (twenty years ago)

This thread needs an Onion infographic.

― The Black Dragon, Thursday, 27 October 2005 10:53 (twenty years ago)

i had a dream where i was giving someone my email address and it was [email protected]

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

I had a dream where someone gave me her email address and it was something like [email protected] or something like that...

― when something smacks of something (dave225.3), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

Oh my god! xpost! freaky!

― when something smacks of something (dave225.3), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

fuck off and that was an xpost ?!!

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:24 (twenty years ago)

i sleep with the tv on every night, it never affects my dreamstate.

perhaps you are a heavy sleeper?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:24 (twenty years ago)

Oh I hate the sex dreams! Or even the kissing ones - it's always some random colleague and then I feel guilty about it.

― FionaBrucesFavourite Necklace, Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:33 (twenty years ago)

Argh! Argh! I had a sex dream last night! How bizarre! My sex dreams are always really... graphic and messy and ugh lots of body fluids and spunk.

Especially because last night I was having dream sex with Thurston Moore. I mean, WTF? I don't even fancy him!

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:34 (twenty years ago)

ew thanks for that

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:36 (twenty years ago)

Yeah but do you see him in a different light now?

When I have a sex dream about a workmate I always feel kind of intimate and post coital around them the next day.

Evil deceptive dreams!

― FionaBrucesFavourite Necklace, Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

telling 'random-sex-dream' person about said dream C/D ?

my best mates girlfriend told me she had a sex dream about me once. felt slightly uncomfortable with that.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:46 (twenty years ago)

I don't ever seem to have graphic sex dreams about people I know. Except ex boyfriends. And that one time I had a graphic sex dream about an ILX0r. I do feel kind of strange about him now.

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Thursday, 27 October 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

My dreams repeatedly involve me being chased by faceless bureaucratic forces. They're always very hollywood-esque (ie. often look like chase scenes mostly in transit places like airports) but their regularity must mean something..

― Baaderonixx says DANCE!! TAKE A CHANCE!!! (baaderonixx), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)

you are the ONE!

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

Do you ever have that weird thing where someone in your dream is quite obviously one person (as in, they look and talk like them), but your mind registers them as somebody compliment different?

-- Dom Passantino (juror...) (webmail), October 27th, 2005. (Dom Passantino)

I have this. Sometimes the person even changes mid-way through the dream. I mean, the person I know they are stays the same, but their dream-avatar changes.

― Mickey (modestmickey), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

yeah i like when real life intrudes in dreams, i once fell asleep on a bus while i was looking out the window and my dream involved furniture falling down from a great height towards me, and when i woke up and opened my eyes i saw how the cars zooming up from behind the bus were doing exactly the same thing as the furniture, just that my head was at a different angle in the dream

― minna (minna), Thursday, 27 October 2005 12:49 (twenty years ago)

What the hell is a Weast?

― Masked Gazza, Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

Especially because last night I was having dream sex with Thurston Moore.

fender jag. makes anyone sexy.

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

except me, obv :(

― g-kit (g-kit), Thursday, 27 October 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

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