Support NeoGAF

[Pochacco]

Ever have a dream where you are dreaming?
It's the weirdest feeling. In your dream, you wake up and get a "whoa...it was just a dream!" - but then you wake up again and get a "whoa...it was just a dream...about a dream".

I just woke up from a (great) nap in which I think I dreamt about me dreaming about a dream that I had.
Usually, when I get these things, I get hit with some sleep paralysis too - which is no fun...
...but this time it was kinda trippy.

 

[NLB2]

Ever have a dream where you are dreaming?
It's the weirdest feeling. In your dream, you wake up and get a "whoa...it was just a dream!" - but then you wake up again and get a "whoa...it was just a dream...about a dream".

I just woke up from a (great) nap in which I think I dreamt about me dreaming about a dream that I had.
Usually, when I get these things, I get hit with some sleep paralysis too - which is no fun...
...but this time it was kinda trippy.

Yeah man, I have. It was crazy. I thought I was dead because in my recursive dream I had been in a sinking submarine.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

I've had one before, and I remember it vividly. The first time I woke up after drowning, I got up and looked at myself in the mirror like "oh it was just a dream"

Then my body sort of blew away like sand or something, and I woke up again. Trippy

 

[Naked Snake]

Yeah I had those a few times... never had sleep paralysis though.

 

[shuri]

I love dreams.

I have a reccurent episodic dream I've been doing since my early teen years, I'm hanging out at some mall, just walking around and visiting stores. Everytime, I actually realise that I'm dreaming, so i'm thinking "NEAT! I'm back at this mysterious mall, I wonder whats new"

What's pretty fucking cool about the whole thing is that it's very episodic. Most of the times when I dream about it, something changed, like new stores closed in. Last time I was there, the arcade had closed down :lol so last time, I was the big room that used to host the arcade thinking about how it sucked that the place closed down I usually visits the same stores, and check out the new stuff.

The nameless music store has a kickass selection of alternate albums of various bands I like. Once I woke up pissed off because I realised that I wouldnt be able to listen to this 'new' Dj Shadow album I bought over there :lol

It's a strange, alternate bizzaro world place. The clothes are from the future or something. It's very hard to explain. There's usually the same cast of regulars that I always hang out with.. They always tell me about what happenned since the last time I was there. It's fucked up lemme tell you.'

edit: OH! Recursive! Not recurent. Oh well

 

[AntoneM]

Usually, when I get these things, I get hit with some sleep paralysis too - which is no fun...

I hate that feeling, especially when I didn't know what it was the first couple of times, I was totally panicked and there's nothing you can do about it, you can talk, you can't move. It started when I started smoking weed and was is one of the main reasons I haven't toked in over 2 years, I also haven't had sleep paralysis since then. --Psycology/Biology majors, there's a project for ya.

 

[android]

Usually, when I get these things, I get hit with some sleep paralysis too - which is no fun...

Do they know why that happens?

 

[tralfazz]

I've never heard of the term sleep paralysis, but I have had situations where I've woken up conciously and even opened my eyes but have been unable to move my body. Must be the same thing. Never knew it was diagnosed or well known. Very freaky when it happens. I've never had recursive, but I have dreamed I was floating above my body assuming I was dead and then waking up with my finger on the wall socket next to my bed; wasn't receiving a shock or anything but it freaked me pretty bad.

 

[Pochacco]

I haven't experienced sleep paralysis for several months now.
I used to get it a few times a week. It was scary when I didn't know what it was (but thanks to GA, someone told me about it).

It seems to occur when I am sleep-deprived (e.g. after an all-nighter). I'm guessing that, since it occurs at the beginning of the REM sleep cycle; and since you get a ton of REM sleep when you're sleep deprived, this increases your chances of getting it. REM sleep also = vivid dreams.
I've also heard that sleeping on your back increases your chances - I pretty much agree with this. Sleeping on my side seems to reduce sleep-paralysis..

 

[Naked Snake]

I love dreams.

I have a reccurent episodic dream I've been doing since my early teen years, I'm hanging out at some mall, just walking around and visiting stores. Everytime, I actually realise that I'm dreaming, so i'm thinking "NEAT! I'm back at this mysterious mall, I wonder whats new"

What's pretty fucking cool about the whole thing is that it's very episodic. Most of the times when I dream about it, something changed, like new stores closed in. Last time I was there, the arcade had closed down :lol so last time, I was the big room that used to host the arcade thinking about how it sucked that the place closed down I usually visits the same stores, and check out the new stuff.

The nameless music store has a kickass selection of alternate albums of various bands I like. Once I woke up pissed off because I realised that I wouldnt be able to listen to this 'new' Dj Shadow album I bought over there :lol

It's a strange, alternate bizzaro world place. The clothes are from the future or something. It's very hard to explain. There's usually the same cast of regulars that I always hang out with.. They always tell me about what happenned since the last time I was there. It's fucked up lemme tell you.'

edit: OH! Recursive! Not recurent. Oh well

You're one lucky mofo.

 

[Greenpanda]

The nameless music store has a kickass selection of alternate albums of various bands I like. Once I woke up pissed off because I realised that I wouldnt be able to listen to this 'new' Dj Shadow album I bought over there :lol

:lol I've had similar things happen to me, too.

 

[thefit]

Yeah the paralisis dreams are wacky I've had them several times and they ususally beggin with me waking up from a nightmare where I'm being held down and asked to give up my soull to some kind of demon the last time it was that godamn golum from LOTR I of course just relax and actually end up shouting out loud some kind of obsenity to ward them away.

 

[AniHawk]

I love dreams.

I have a reccurent episodic dream I've been doing since my early teen years, I'm hanging out at some mall, just walking around and visiting stores. Everytime, I actually realise that I'm dreaming, so i'm thinking "NEAT! I'm back at this mysterious mall, I wonder whats new"

What's pretty fucking cool about the whole thing is that it's very episodic. Most of the times when I dream about it, something changed, like new stores closed in. Last time I was there, the arcade had closed down :lol so last time, I was the big room that used to host the arcade thinking about how it sucked that the place closed down I usually visits the same stores, and check out the new stuff.

The nameless music store has a kickass selection of alternate albums of various bands I like. Once I woke up pissed off because I realised that I wouldnt be able to listen to this 'new' Dj Shadow album I bought over there :lol

It's a strange, alternate bizzaro world place. The clothes are from the future or something. It's very hard to explain. There's usually the same cast of regulars that I always hang out with.. They always tell me about what happenned since the last time I was there. It's fucked up lemme tell you.'

edit: OH! Recursive! Not recurent. Oh well

That's pretty cool, though.

There was one time where I woke up in my dream (I can't remember the one that lead into the following). I was in my bed, so I checked the time. It was 10 something at first. When I looked away, I saw it was 3. I had a feeling I was dreaming, so I got out of bed, closed my eyes, and walked out to where the computer was. Someone was brushing their teeth. They asked me what I was doing, and I told them I was dreaming. They said I wasn't, that I was just walking around with my eyes closed.

I opened a program on the computer while the person kept trying to convince me I was awake. I opened my eyes and saw the program loading, however a second later, I was moving backwards at a pretty high speed towards my bedroom. I could feel the wind on my skin and everything. When I hit the bed, I woke up in the real world.

 

[Pochacco]

I have a strange way of dealing with sleep paralysis.
When I'm paralyzed, I'll jerk my head to regain movement...then I'll try to reach for my tv remote to turn on the tv. Once my tv is on, I'll usually be able to wake up for real.
Plus, the light from the TV helps me not see any weird shit in my room (e.g. demons).

But sometimes, I can't regain movement.
And sometimes, I'll fall back asleep, dream of turning on my tv, only to wake up again paralyzed and realise that my TV is off. It's really weird...

This must be what taking drugs would be like - trippy.. I could imagine the allure.

 

[tralfazz]

Yeah the paralisis dreams are wacky I've had them several times and they ususally beggin with me waking up from a nightmare where I'm being held down and asked to give up my soull to some kind of demon the last time it was that godamn golum from LOTR I of course just relax and actually end up shouting out loud some kind of obsenity to ward them away.

I've had these before too, but I'm talking about where you acutally wake up from your dream but your body is still asleep, essentially frozen or very sluggish, and no I've never done a drug in my life.

 

[Loki]

The most amazing thing about dreams is that they take 2-5 seconds to occur; even the longest dream you've ever had, where you're going here and there, doing this and that at a normal pace for what seems like hours only takes a few seconds. Incredible when you think about it, how the mind can fool us into believing that time has elapsed when it really hasn't. This likely has to do with the fact that episodic memory, which has a temporal component to it, is not utilized as the basis for dreams-- delocalized memory "traces" are, and these are unstructured and lack a temporal context.

 

[Pochacco]

I've had these before too, but I'm talking about where you acutally wake up from your dream but your body is still asleep, essentially frozen or very sluggish.

Sleep paralysis is even worse when you're half awake.
You can see your room and everything, can't move, and (because you're still half dreaming) see apparitions (usually of the evil sort) around you.
Some people hear sounds too...that would be extra freaky.

 

[tralfazz]

I've never seen or heard things; when it happens I've been "fully awake" mentally and am able to see the room around me but I can't fucking move or I fight like hell and move my arm an inch or two. Usually I close my eyes and wait a few minutes and feeling comes back.

 

[dskillzhtown]

Sleep Paralysis is waking up directly from REM sleep. Your body paralyses itself to keep your body from acting out the dreams and waking yourself up. So waking up at this time is scary as hell because you literally can't move, until you fully wake up. I got that from the ABC News UFO Special, lol.


I had it happen to me a few times and yes, it is scary as hell. Just very unnerving until you know what is going on.

 

[shuri]

I also have the ability to "resume" dreams If I wake up to take a piss or drink something. My method is try to avoid to think about anything while walking around the house to the bathroom and etc. If I go right back to bed without looking at a clock, it will usually work. It never actually resumes right where I was.

I noticed a few reccurent themes about the mall trips. I'm always looking for a LP of the Akira Soundtrack (!? :lol ?! ) with the picture of the Tokyo City nuclear explosion. I'm always casually browsing stores until i find a copy of it with the kickass AKIRA fonting on it. I'm always happy as fuck and spend the rest of the dream carrying it around under my arm

Also, I cant feel pain OR any other normal feelings, except for environnemental effects, like wind, movement, pressure, things like that. Last time I dreamed about the mall, I was at the electronic shop and this guy was showing me this crazy batshit insane subwoofer, and I remember feeling the vibrations and thinking about how incredible it felt.3

How the hell is that happening? My brain is fucking with me by recreating all those fake experiences.

I'm sure that one day, scientists are going to make a giant breakthrought and find out how to recreate those feelings on cue by stimulating a part of the brain

 

[AlphaSnake]

You know what the worst dreams are? The ones where your fantasies come "true". You have a lot of beautiful cars, a gorgeous wife, a big house and you live in a mansion. You have it all, and you feel downright incredible. What's worse is that you just...feel it. It feels so real. And when you wake up, it's all taken away from you. I try my damndest to fall back into the dream but it never happens.

*fuckin sigh*

 

[Deleted member 1159]

I've also had sleep paralysis, but not for several years now. I think I only had it for a few months when I was around 15, and usually it was being awakened from some satanic nightmare or something. It was really weird, I think the Exorcist was to blame

 

[Jotaro]

Remember those Fighting Fantasy books set in King Arthur universe, when you died?

"You dreamt that you had dreamt that you died, that in that dream you died." :lol

 

[totoro'd]

I hate sleep paralysis. I've had it twice in my life(that I remember), and both times it left me traumatized.

Lately I seem to be dreaming alot about vampires. Vampires chasing me, cute guys turning into vampires and chasing me, cute guy vampires in love with me, myself turning into a vampire, etc. I think it's because i've been sleeping so much during the day :lol

 

[Naked Snake]

I often wake up with one of my arms totally numb... just dead. I have to carry it with my other arm to move it, and it feels really really irritating... That happen to anyone? I guess it occurs when you sleep on it the wrong way or something and cut the blood flow to it.

The most amazing thing about dreams is that they take 2-5 seconds to occur; even the longest dream you've ever had, where you're going here and there, doing this and that at a normal pace for what seems like hours only takes a few seconds. Incredible when you think about it, how the mind can fool us into believing that time has elapsed when it really hasn't. This likely has to do with the fact that episodic memory, which has a temporal component to it, is not utilized as the basis for dreams-- delocalized memory "traces" are, and these are unstructured and lack a temporal context.

I heard about that since I was little... Is it really true though? Any good reads you can link me to about the subject?

 

[SlickWilly223]

Damn, I remember talking about sleep paralysis on these boards at least 3 times already.

I've had sleep paralysis once before, I mentioned it here on GA. Basically, I sort of work up, looked at my window, and there was this ugly ass brown alien with big eyes looking at me. Looked real as shit. All I could do was like, growl at it or something. I couldn't yell, I couldn't talk, I couldn't move.

Seconds later it just dissapeared and I was fully awake.

 

[Pellham]

I tend to have sleep paralysis when I try to sleep when i'm not tired, and then I fall asleep and try to wake up, and boom.

It's definately an excruciating experience.

As for recursive dreams, i'm sure i've had some but I don't remember what they were obviously.

 

[Cooper]

The most amazing thing about dreams is that they take 2-5 seconds to occur; even the longest dream you've ever had, where you're going here and there, doing this and that at a normal pace for what seems like hours only takes a few seconds.

I thought the idea of an "instant" dream was outdated, and newer research suggested dreams are more or less real time? Not that I've researched too carefully.

 

[pnjtony]

I often wake up with one of my arms totally numb... just dead. I have to carry it with my other arm to move it, and it feels really really irritating... That happen to anyone? I guess it occurs when you sleep on it the wrong way or something and cut the blood flow to it.

That happens to me all the time. I'll wake up and one arm is twisted up over my head and behind my neck. I'll wake up and see this hand near my face and not know where it came from. Then i'll take me free hand (not realizing it's my ONLY free hand) and try to touch it. It always freaks me out cause my initial reaction is that it's the disembodied arm of a dead man.

 

[Loki]

I thought the idea of an "instant" dream was outdated, and newer research suggested dreams are more or less real time? Not that I've researched too carefully.

Could be. We didn't speak about dream length (only length of REM sleep and other sleep stages) specifically in my cognitive psychology course; I was making that statement based upon things I've heard over the years-- mostly in casual conversation more than anything else. So they could, in fact, be experienced in real time.


It would certainly make much more sense than having to figure out why and how our minds "trick" us into believing that time is passing in the dream when in reality it is not. However, since some dreams really do seem to last for several hours (and the duration of REM sleep is not that long), it could just be that we experience dreams in real time for each specific "part" of our dreams, and then the mind "fills in the holes" between "scenarios". For instance, in a dream you might be talking to a friend, and then you're out at a club at night dancing; in dream-time, it feels as though many hours have passed, but in actuality, it could just be that the time when you were speaking to the friend was in real-time, and then the club scenario was real-time, but what you unconsciously "fill in" between those situations-- i.e., elapsed dream time-- is just put there by the mind to give it some semblance of continuity. Who knows.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

I also have the ability to "resume" dreams If I wake up to take a piss or drink something.

:lol That reminds me of that Dane Cook bit where he talks about how he's having a nightmare of a giant crab chasing him, and he wakes up, then falls back asleep and the crab was waiting for him or something.

I hate the really literal dreams; like when you dream that you get up and you take an exam, and you're like halfway through it, then the alarm starts going off and you realize you have to wake up and take the exam for real. Yeah, those have happened on more than one occasion.

 

[Tarazet]

I love dreams.

I have a reccurent episodic dream I've been doing since my early teen years, I'm hanging out at some mall, just walking around and visiting stores. Everytime, I actually realise that I'm dreaming, so i'm thinking "NEAT! I'm back at this mysterious mall, I wonder whats new"

What's pretty fucking cool about the whole thing is that it's very episodic. Most of the times when I dream about it, something changed, like new stores closed in. Last time I was there, the arcade had closed down :lol so last time, I was the big room that used to host the arcade thinking about how it sucked that the place closed down I usually visits the same stores, and check out the new stuff.

The nameless music store has a kickass selection of alternate albums of various bands I like. Once I woke up pissed off because I realised that I wouldnt be able to listen to this 'new' Dj Shadow album I bought over there :lol

It's a strange, alternate bizzaro world place. The clothes are from the future or something. It's very hard to explain. There's usually the same cast of regulars that I always hang out with.. They always tell me about what happenned since the last time I was there. It's fucked up lemme tell you.'

edit: OH! Recursive! Not recurent. Oh well

I sometimes get this whole fleshed-out, alternate universe too... I can remember details from previous weeks, months, years that I was supposedly in this same world, but when I look back on them after I wake up, I feel pretty sure I hadn't actually -had- a dream in that universe before, I just -knew- I had been there before (in the dream).

 

[Jotaro]

I dreamt about Ad Muncher. I dreamt a few days ago someone was yelling at me because he said I did not help websites to survive by cutting the ads. Last night (I swear it's real), I dreamt I was in the stickied Amazon thread and I was reading a heavy diatribe by WasabiKing about why I should not use Ad Muncher. :lol

 

[Borys]

Dreams are the shit.

I don't have recursive dreams, never had.
But about those places in dreams that repeat themselves... now that's just crazy. Once I "continued" a previous dream after... 2 years! The funny thing is I completely forgot about this dream in RL and after 2 years, bam, I dream again of this place and I sure as hell remember every detail of the last dream and I say to myself (in dream) that I've been here sometime ago, I notice what's changed etc.

I would love to have the ability to "tape" my dreams, record them. I'm sure we will be able to do it in the future, in year 3000, maybe sooner.

 

[sans_pants]

i have had only one instance of a recursive dream that i remember

it was some crazy shit where it was like christmas in my dream i guess but i was like looking at my face in a reflection of on of those hanging ball ornaments and some really demonic shit was going on behind me.

I just screamed really loud in the dream world to wake myself up, turned out it was another dream, similiar shit happening, and then when i finally woke up i puked


im interested in figuring out lucid dreaming, ive only had a few of those

 

[ohamsie]

Yeah the paralisis dreams are wacky I've had them several times and they ususally beggin with me waking up from a nightmare where I'm being held down and asked to give up my soull to some kind of demon the last time it was that godamn golum from LOTR I of course just relax and actually end up shouting out loud some kind of obsenity to ward them away.

Heh, the only time I've ever had sleep paralysis was from some weird demon sort of thing too. Here's the dream I had, I copie it out of my livejournal:

I was exploring these old abandoned buildings from an insane asylum with some girl. It was pretty weird, I don't know what we were doing there. Then we walked into this furnished room that looked really modern, like someone was living there. We looked around and then I turned around and saw an old man, and then it shifted, as dreams do, to a different scene that was somehow part of the same story.

I woke up in a daze (still in the dream) kind of like the old man had drugged me. I was in a small room, lying on an old, pink frilly bed. The walls were really old and dilapidated, the wallpaper was peeling, etc. It looked like a normal wall with reddish wallpaper. But if you got close and examined the wallpaper, you would see that the pattern was made by paintings of tortured human bodies, flesh being ripped off, fire, all kinds of gruesome things.

So I was laying on the pink bed and this random thought enters my head, "YOU KNOW, FREDDY KRUEGER KILLS YOU IN YOUR DREAMS". And then I was like, WTF? I wasn't scared or anything, but I knew I had to wake up. And so I woke up (for real), only I couldn't move my body at all (for real). After a short while I jumped out of bed, but I couldn't move my arms, they just hung there like they were dead. I shook my torso around and they flopped about, it was such a strange feeling. I could eventually move them after a few minutes, but that was really weird, it was like my brain had shut down and needed to reboot and reinstate the controls of my body. I don't know what that was about.

 

[Rocket Punch]

Sometimes I when I remember dreams I get this weird feeling of dream deja vu. Like I remember dreaming the same things or places before.

Other times I dream I'm walking at night and going to deserted placed. It kinda makes me wonder if I can astral project cuz I get the feeling I do that sometimes.

Other times I get this weird feeling that I'm falling down into this spiral thing unable to stop. Rather uncomfortable. I hate it. Not a dream tho, more like a sensation. I used to hate is as a kid but now I'm used to it.

Oh, and I sleep paralize once in a while. Oddly enough it never bothered me much. Except at the times that I feel someone is trying to wake me up or the phone is ringing and I wanna get up but I can't. But it's not real.

And this one time I dreamt I died. Someone cut my throat

 

[D-X]

I had a dream where I was in a real life computer game being chased by a boss. When my alarm went off my right thumb spasmed and I woke up to find my hands in a position as if they were holding a Megadrive control pad. Turns out my thumb was hitting the area where the pause button would've been as if I planned to resume the game the next time I fell asleep.

 

[Zaptruder]

dream state sleeping (REM state) is supposed to be the most restorative form of sleeping (fatigure wise), but they're all about waking up the entire mind, while paralysing the body... so I wonder if the brain releases some kinda super drug during that state.

Would be good to get a bit of that in pill form.

 

[Rocket Punch]

G'damn last night I dreamt I had a tag. I'm serious! :O