several years ago through a mutual friend. He had kept a daily nightly diary of his dreams for decades! His commitment to this inner exploration was phenomenal. If a dream woke him in the middle of the night he would turn on the light, reach for his diary on the bedside table and record detailed notes before the ephemeral vacated the moment. There were no gaps in the daily entries. Dozens of diaries had been filled.

Do you remember your sleeping dreams?
A quick flash when the head hits the pillow of the previous nights' voyage?
Used to keep a log upon awakening and would jot down scraps. Interesting stuff. Wonder where that ever went...

Like my own dreams, I do not remember his name or the details of the diary entries he shared. But I came away with a sense that dreams could be mined for insights, not only of individual insight, but also of some larger mysteries and questions of a more universal nature. All of those present at his reading came away impressed with both his extreme dedication to his calling as well as a sense of a connection to a larger, and mostly ignored, universe of possibilities speaking to us in our dreams.

They certainly can be liberating, and the flying dreams are by far the best.

I've got several recurring dreams, and one particular recurring nightmare that I've had for 50+ years. It happened a lot less frequently for a while, but it's back full force now 2 or 3 times a week, and that is the white-flash nuclear war nightmare. It starts out with something mundane, and ends up with the white flash. Sometimes there is warning and buildup, sometimes there's not. I usually wake up in a cold sweat with the flash, but sometimes here lately I sleep through it. What follows the white flash when I sleep through it is nothing at all. It is basically dead air for some period, and then another dream will start up after some time. I'd really like to see my EEG waveforms during that period, because I didn't think that dead air during REM sleep was a thing...

But just to show that I'm not simply a cold war one-trick-pony, over the last few years I've also developed a recurring swimming nightmare. In that one I end up jumping into some water to do something necessary, like trying to help a swimmer or an animal, or get away from a flood, or just to bob in the ocean swells with a drink with an umbrella in it, or whatever. And after a few minutes of swimming (which I really do enjoy during awake time) I come to the realization that my phone is in my pocket.

Ouch.

We have indeed become slaves to our appliances. It's to the point now that when I dream of water, I also try to dream of taking my phone out of my pocket, which just converts the nightmare into an inoffensive swimming dream. Now, if I could just figure out a similar in-dream technique for defusing the white flash, I'd be in fat city...

Everybody have a good one!

Don't forgetTa daaaaa

be well and have a good one

Maybe a gender thing. Women dream in color and most men don't dream from what I read.

what I am actually feeling during the day, but haven't brought to consciousness yet. A long time ago, during my very young first unhappy marriage, I had repeated dreams about various people invading my home and I couldn't get rid of them.

Divorce ended those dreams forever.

Now my recurring dream is of being someplace from which I cannot get home. example: on an island and I missed the last ferry. Top of a skyscraper and waiting for helo rescue. In a highrise staircase and every exit door won't open.

This was a wonderful thread, QMS and I thank you for the music also which got me going!

on dreams.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
(Hamlet, Hamlet)

"To die, to sleep – to sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause."
(Hamlet, Hamlet)

"I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing."
(Leontes, Much Ado About Nothing)

I've always gotten a laugh from watching both cats and dogs dreaming. Seems it's more rare in cats, or maybe they're just quicker about it ...like everything else.

The dog dreams I've seen almost always seem to involve running and biting. Usually the dreaming canine is resting on their side, legs and feet sticking out. Those paws will start "paddling," sometimes quite rapidly. Often the jowls will pull up, revealing teeth. Occasionally, you might even hear a slight "grrr!," but I haven't heard sounds all that often. Breathing doesn't seem to change all that much.

Cat dreams seem more subtle, which seems fitting since cats tend to hold their cards rather tightly compared to dogs. Still, they are similar to the dreams of dogs in that the feet get involved. I've never heard sounds from a dreaming cat, and hardly ever seen bared teeth. As a cat's tail has a language of its own, I've seen reactions from that ...usually a few hard slaps.

One thing I never do - I don't wake a dreaming dog or cat by touching them. Vocal only. Probaby lessens the chances of needing medical attention.

A Dream Within a Dream
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?