SDG here. In my previous post I noted that my new review of Coraline begins with comments about something I’ve often told my children to reassure them after a bad dream. One thing I’ve said, again and again, is that the dream is all gone now and they don’t have to worry about getting back into it again — they won’t, I promise.
To this, someone commented below: “That’s a promise you can’t keep.”
Now, I’m convinced that, in fact, I’m right that they cannot and will not get back into the same dream again, for reasons I’ll explain. I would never, ever say something like that to my child unless I were convinced it was the truth. (Strictly speaking, though, it’s true that I can’t “keep” that promise, and I’m not sure the word “promise” is technically used correctly here. Properly speaking, a promise is ordinarily a commitment about future behavior; I’m not sure you can “promise” that something is true, though the word does get used that way.)
Semantics aside, I’m convinced that fears (or hopes) about getting back into a particular dream after waking up from it are either entirely misplaced, or at least almost entirely so. In fact, I’m pretty skeptical about the whole notion of recurring dreams. Either it doesn’t happen at all — whatever we may think we have experienced — or at least is much less common than people think. And I’m very skeptical that the process of waking up from a dream and then going back to sleep could ever produce a continuation of the same narrative.
Now, obviously general themes and motifs recur over time: flying, floating and fantasy dreams; anxiety dreams (being naked in a public place, missing or being unprepared for class, unable to find documents, clothing, children, parents, etc.); physiological dreams (needing to find a bathroom, standing in the cold, etc.); etc. We may also dream more than once of meeting someone who has died, etc.
In any greater specificity than that, though, I’m skeptical about the perception of recurring dreams. My belief is this. When people think they’ve had a specific dream before — not just general themes, but the same narrative — that sense of deja vu is mistaken. What really happens is that the dream itself creates a sense of deja vu, either because you really play through the same scenario more than once in a single dream, or else you play through the scenario anticipating what will happen, since of course what will happen is a function of what’s happening in your own head. (In either case the sense of recurrence may carry with it the option of revising the events.)
I used to believe that as a child I had a recurring nightmare about being sucked by rushing wind from my bed and down the stairs to the living room where there was a monster under the coffee table. Looking back, I’m willing to bet that I only had the dream once — but I anticipated the whole dream so clearly that I thought it happened to me again and again.
Even so, as skeptical as I am about recurring dreams in general, I just flat-out don’t believe at all that the process of waking up and going back to sleep can ever produce a continuation of the same narrative. If you’re anxious about something and you have an anxiety dream, you might fall asleep again and have a different anxiety dream, but not more of the same. Likewise, if you wake up from a wonderful flying dream and try to fall back asleep, you will not, alas, wind up flying again. Some other night, maybe.
Many times I’ve said to my children, “Trust me, the dream won’t come back. Let’s see if I’m right. When you wake up in the morning, tell me if the dream comes back.” So far it never has. And, Incidentally, I’ve talked this over with at least one Catholic mental health professional and a number of other people, and I’m convinced I’m onto something. So I’m willing to stake my moral certitude that I’m right for the sake of my child’s reassurance.
Now, what I would never tell a kid is that they won’t have a different nightmare — another dream just as bad as the first one. That’s obviously a live possibility, but strangely at the moment they aren’t worried about that. They’re worried about that dream: that monster, that scary scenario. In their minds, it’s out there waiting for them, like a real place they could find their way back to. I don’t believe it. Once they wake up, it’s gone. So I reassure them, and it works, and so far I’ve never, ever had a kid report that the dream came back.
Now, of course, it’s quite possible that some readers may write in the combox about their experiences with recurring dreams. Of course I can’t rebut what people feel sure has happened to them. But I remain skeptical.
I am sure that I have the same dream (Frankenstien chasing me down an alley) more then once, because it had different endings. So I guess I had the same section of a night mare at least twice.
I never had a recurring dream until the last couple of years. Now I have one that keeps coming back. But it’s curious how you describe a sense of deja vu in the dream, because that is not my experience at all. Every time I have this dream (and it is not a nightmare, but is based on a major event in my life associated with a lot of anxiety), I am convinced that it is real. As the memory of the dream’s recurrence is now strong enough to permeate into my dream, I now usually find myself wondering in the dream, “Is this that dream again?” And in the dream, I am always convinced that no, this is not a dream, this time it is real. When I wake up, I feel annoyed and maybe a little foolish that dream-perception tricked me yet again.
This dream is not identical every time. It’s not like a movie being played back each time. Rather, I am in a specific situation with the same themes, goals, etc.
What is the justification for your promise to your children that the dream will not re-occur? You concede that it “is much less common than people think”, but that grants that it may happen again, and thus that it is a “live possibility”. So, I can’t find any *justification* in your post for your promise to your children that this dream won’t happen again. The rarity of re-occurrence seems only to justify the claim to your children that the dream will *probably* not re-occur. If I were your child, and you made such a promise to me (that it *won’t* reoccur), and then I had the dream again, your credibility would be toast (along with all your other promises about God, Jesus, etc. etc. Are you willing to risk your credibility with your children on a probability? When my children ask me whether a tornado will hit our house (we live in the Midwest), I never say to them, “I promise that it won’t happen”, even though it is much less common than people think. I say, “It is highly unlikely that it will happen, but we need to be prepared in case it does.” I’m just surprised that the only evidence you are appealing to is what has happened to you and your children. That would be like me promising my children that a tornado won’t hit our house, on the grounds that no tornado has hit our house yet, nor any house that I have lived in. I think you need to expand your data set, before you make promises to children, if you care about preserving your credibility with them.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
I don’t remember having ever woken up after a repeated dream, but I do remember having had dreams that immersed me in a familiar ambiance that gave me the impression that it was a regular and frequent thing.
Also, I’m amazed at how time seems to be so relative when it comes to dreaming: many times, when the alarm clock sounds, I had a instantly retroactive dream that made me believe it was a telephone ringing that someone else should pick up.
When it comes to lucid dreams about which Jimmy has written, there is definitely a redundancy, but only, I think, in thematic terms, not a repetition of the same dream.
I’ve got to disagree on this one. There is one dream I very clearly had recurrently as a child, and a second which I [i]may[/i] have, but which also may have been something similar to SDG’s thought about having a dream only once and then believing you several times. This latter dream was actually about a stairway into the basement of my (then congregationalist) church, and going down it despite the fact that I knew – and indeed could hear – some sort of evil demon down there.
The recurrent dream was actually about trying to escape from hell with a group of people. Hell was the typical dark red firey cave. In the dream myself and a group of people would be trying to make our way out quietly so as not to be heard, going up a sort of spiral staircase in the cave. At some point in the dream, we would come to a ledge overlooking an open area below with devils, and then we would find that there were devils behind us blocking our way.
I actually believe that the first dream I described may have been the first half of the second, and that the stairway in that church led into hell. In any case, the “second dream” I am certain I had several times. The “first” in the church may have been only once.
Interesting in any case that I had these dreams, not having been remotely religious or having had nearly any exposure to the concept of hell.
I didn’t. For one thing, I said “Either this doesn’t happen at all — whatever we may think we have experienced — or at least is much less common than people think.”
This is methodological objectivity, but in fact I am deeply skeptical about whether anyone ever really gets back into a dream after waking up from it. I’m slightly less skeptical about the sort of recurring dream that Shane describes — having similar dreams separated by weeks or months or years — but extremely skeptical that the process of waking up and then going back to sleep can ever produce a continuation of the same narrative. (My original post didn’t adequately make this distinction; I’ll look to revise it.)
It’s important to distinguish two different kinds of “improbability.” When you say it’s improbable that your house will be destroyed by a tornado, you say that in full knowledge that tornadoes do occur, that they do destroy houses, and that it is meteorologically possible that it could happen to your house.
But if I say it’s improbable that I will be abducted by aliens, that may be a different sort of statement entirely. I may mean that I consider it improbable that alien life of the sort required exists at all, and if it doesn’t exist then abductions are not merely improbable, but impossible. The language of “probability” here acknowledges only the limits of our certain knowledge; it doesn’t mean that alien abductions do sometimes happen but are very unlikely.
If you were my child and lost your faith in God because I was wrong about bad dreams, I would be a failure as a father, but not for the reason you suggest. I don’t want my children’s faith in God to rest on their trust in me. I’ve never made the mistake of telling my kids “You can believe God exists cause I promise you he does.”
My children know I’m not infallible. They also know that I’m completely honest with them about what I believe. I take my credibility with my children into my hands every time I tell them something I believe is true. I believe it is true they can’t get back into the dream, and that’s what I tell them.
Okay, I’ve edited the original post to make the distinctions clearer. Hopefully that helps.
The deja-vu is an intriguing idea. But I believe I have had some recurring bad dreams. This is how I dealt with them.
While awake I try to identify something in the dream (eg place, sight, sound, person etc.) which I would try to associate with the thought/reminder “am I dreaming?”. After a bit of practice, within the dream, with that memory trigger, the idea formes that I might be dreaming and I usually awake. Or sometimes ‘watch my dream’ as if at the cinema.
This does not work all the time. A side-effect has been to terminate pleasant dreams with the realization, within the dream, that I might be dreaming.
I’ve never had a truely recurring dream, only recurring themes or general plot outlines, most notably one where I discover a (adult) tooth is loose and then it comes out. I don’t think the dream is ever exactly the same though.
Still, I know several people who claim to have dreams that recurr identically and frequently. Given this fact and the complexity of the human mind and brain which we still don’t really understand, I don’t see the justification for saying with certainty that it never truely happens.
SDG, on topics of apologetics, I greatly value your comments. Unfortunately, you lose credibility when you veer off into posts like this and state emphatically on a topic, the “truth” for which you have no objective basis and which is simply your opinion.
I understand that you want to reassure your children and it sounds like it does reassure them.
But I would ask you to be a little more consistent: is this a belief or is it a truth that you hold? A belief is much less dogmatic (in the general sense) than truth. It took me a while to figure out the strenght of my reaction to your emphatic belief and realized that it may be that dreams have been used in mental health work and spiritual direction. Dreamwork is one of those topics that easily pull people into some um, unreliable interpretations and that is perhaps why I like to keep discussion as trustworthy, not just opinion, as possible. I’d be interested in a conversation with your cited Catholic mental health professional offline.
For the record, I’ve had recurrent dreams, the same dream which I eventually got into changing the “storyline.” While on the topic, I’ll have to look up what Jimmy wrote about lucid dreams.
SDG, on topics of apologetics, I greatly value your comments. Unfortunately, you lose credibility when you veer off into posts like this and state emphatically on a topic, the “truth” for which you have no objective basis and which is simply your opinion.
I understand that you want to reassure your children and it sounds like it does reassure them.
But I would ask you to be a little more consistent: is this a belief or is it a truth that you hold? A belief is much less dogmatic (in the general sense) than truth. It took me a while to figure out the strenght of my reaction to your emphatic belief and realized that it may be that dreams have been used in mental health work and spiritual direction. Dreamwork is one of those topics that easily pull people into some um, unreliable interpretations and that is perhaps why I like to keep discussion as trustworthy, not just opinion, as possible. I’d be interested in a conversation with your cited Catholic mental health professional offline.
For the record, I’ve had recurrent dreams, the same dream which I eventually got into changing the “storyline.” While on the topic, I’ll have to look up what Jimmy wrote about lucid dreams.
Dear SDG,
This is a complex issue, in part because we do not known or understand the mechanism of dreaming.
Let’s make a distinction between naturally occurring dreams and preternatural/supernatural dreams. I imagine that if St. Joseph hadn’t understood the angel’s message the first time, he might have it again, although the odds of misunderstanding such a direct communication on such an important issue are slim.
Likewise, some sort of preternatural influence might cause the same dream to reoccur. One might think of the dreams of St. John Bosco, for example.
As for naturally occurring dreams, the sort most people have, most of the time, I agree that the odds are slim for most people to have the same dream continue in a subsequent dream and certainly not repeat exactly days later, unless there is some sort of unresolved issue and then it is more a function of memory than dreaming. Children are almost always shielded from such things, so your reassurance has a pretty high probability of being right and that is all any child has a right to demand from a fallible parent (although they may not recognize this for many years).
There may, however, be pathological cases where one can re-enter a dream right after having one. Usually, having woken up and processed part of the dream, even if you have it again, you will bring that wisdom into the new iteration of the dream, so the response, in any case, will not be the same.
Dreaming is a important subject for me. I have mentioned, occasionally, that I have had sleep problems. Well, I know I am going to out myself for at least one lurker to this blog, since the condition is so rare and she knows me very well, but it is thought that dreams begin with excitation of the brain stem. I have a fairly rare condition called a brain stem cavernous angioma (which, because of its location is inoperable and untreatable) in which about 3.5 cm (about 1 1/2 inches) of the blood vessels in my brain stem do not have the same seven layers of lipids (epithelium) surrounding them that most people have. In this region of my brain, the blood vessels are very thin and blood flow is very slow, so as to not increase the pressure on the blood vessel walls. Unfortunately, these blood vessels will leak blood into the surrounding brain stem if my blood pressure goes too high or if my blood vessels go into vasospasms. One can see the blood on an MRI.
Blood contains hemisiderin, which is a by-product of the breakdown of blood in the tissue and is iron-rich. Iron, being the conductive element it is, can, essentially, short-circuit neurons and cause them to go into an excited firing pattern. The result is that, while you guys get a normal 1 1/2 hour sleep cycle from which you usually do not awaken, but go into the next sleep cycle, I wake up about every 30 minutes on a bad night and usually every two hours on a good night. Most of my time, because of the brain stem excitation, is spent dreaming. Sometimes, I wonder if I get much of any phase 2-4 sleep. This is not to say that my condition is so pathological that I cannot function. It is interesting to observe, however. I also have the usual problems with sleep that everyone has from stress and getting older. My sleep is a mess.
Now, do my dreams continue on? Well, it is hard to make a distinction between lucid dreams, REM dreams and the like. Since I don’t monitor my dreams (there are so many of them), I suspect it might, in fact, be possible that I have briefly woken and then gone back to sleep into the same dream, since my angioma is located in the thalamic region near the memory processing areas.
So, long story short: 1) your children have very little to worry about from recurring dreams because they do not have any pathologies that would make recurring dreams likely, and 2) the experience they would gain from the first iteration of the dream would mean that the recurrence of the dream would be in a different knowledge environment.
The best advice you can probably give your children is that God has placed their guardian angels to watch over them while they sleep and especially while they dream scary dreams. Also, if they have a bad dream, have them say a brief prayer to St. Christopher because he is the patron saint against bad dreams.
The Chicken
P. S. Seeking advice about this matter from a psychologist or psychiatrist, Catholic or not, is really useless. Since the neurophysiology of dreaming is not well understood, their opinion is about as expert as a cabdriver’s. A neuropsychologist might be better informed, but really, a sleep expert might be the best source and even then, we do not understand why we dream.
Hmmmph. I wrote a long discussion about dreams including some good advice for SDG and it seems to have been swallowed by Typepad. I will wait to see if it shows up before reposting. Since it contains some personal information from which I know one lurker can positively identify me, maybeeee, God didn’t want it to go through, but I’ll wait to see before I go trying to make such a statement.
The Chicken
That sentence:
Since I don’t monitor my dreams (there are so many of them), I suspect it might, in fact, be possible that I have briefly woken and then gone back to sleep into the same dream, since my angioma is located in the thalamic region near the memory processing areas.
Should read:
Since I don’t monitor my dreams, I suspect it might, in fact, be possible that I have briefly woken and then gone back to sleep into the same dream, since my angioma is located in the thalamic region near the memory processing areas.
I did not want to leave the impression that all I do is dream. I am sure that I do other things while I sleep, like chew the pillow 🙂
The Chicken
I see, for good or ill, the long post did get posted.
The Chicken
TMC, you always bring an interesting perspective. If it makes sense to pray for your sleep phases, I’ll do that.
But…. Seeking advice about this matter from a psychologist or psychiatrist, Catholic or not, is really useless? No, not necessarily. Yes, one needs to be cautious and careful because dreamwork is hardly standard, but in some instances it can be part of an overall plan. A clinician does need to be trained in good therapeutic technique, but does not need to be a neuropsychologist or even understand the physiological processes of dreaming.
I suspect to many (perhaps most) people, the term “recurring dream” may mean not so much “waking up from a dream and then going back to sleep” for a “continuation of the same narrative” that same night, but rather any experience of a dream substantially similar to another dream at any time in the past. And by substantially similar, I mean more than merely repeated general themes and repeated elements, but not necessarily 100% exactly the same dream in every respect. For example, some elements/events may vary from repetition to repetition, but the overall it’s the “same” dream.
In my experience, I can say with as much certainty as I’d recall most anything from the past, that I have both (a) awakened and then gone back to sleep in a continuation (extension) of a dream narrative (and have done so on multiple occasions), and (b) experienced substantially similar dreams on different nights, i.e. so-called recurrent dreams. In fact, just in the past week alone, I’ve twice had what would be called (in everyday language) a recurring/recurrent dream. This is reportedly not unusual among people. To quote one source, “On questionnaires, 50 to 65 percent of college students report that they have experienced a recurrent dream at one time or another in their lives (Cartwright and Romanek, 1978; D’Andrade, 1985). is great variation in the length of the period in which they occur, ranging from a few months to decades. There also is great variation in the frequency with which the dream appears within that time period–from once or twice a week to once or twice a year (D’Andrade, 1985).” To quote another, “Up to 70% of females and 65% of males report recurrent dreams.”
That said, though I’ve had dreams continue after awakening and then going back to sleep, as well as so-called recurrent dreams on different nights (and likely even in the same night), I don’t recall ever having had the exact same dream from before awakening repeated after then going back to sleep.
Mary Kay:
It’s a belief, a theory, about reality. I never said otherwise, and never stated, emphatically or otherwise, that it was emphatically “the truth.” (While I’m on the subject, I wonder what other posts you might be thinking of?)
But it’s a theory, not just a hypothesis, that I’ve been exploring for some time.
I’m not sure why you assume I have no objective basis for my view. Not conclusive proof, of course, not official studies or anything of the sort, but I have paid careful attention over time to my own dreams and my children’s, and I’ve talked to a lot of people about it, and I’ve seen a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for what I think.
The Masked Chicken:
All of this was consciously in my mind when I wrote my above post. I implicitly excluded supernatural and pathological cases. And certainly I appreciate the obscurity of the mechanism of dreaming, which is the reason for my tentative language to my children on this score.
That is pretty much exactly my analysis as well.
I was discussing theories informally, not seeking advice, but since I’m less concerned about neurophysiology than phenomenological evidence, a person who has talked to a lot of people about their dreams might easily be in a position to significantly confirm or disconfirm my theory.
Dear Mary Kay,
Although I appreciate the offer, my sleep cycle is tied to many things and I am always worried about tinkering, even in prayer, when the situation is not very clear-cut. So, I usually say in these cases that, unless I specifically ask for prayer (or it is obvious I would need it), that good thoughts be held, but not deliberate prayer. Sometimes, God might be trying to do one thing when we are praying for another. I could tell you many stories about prayer, as I’m sure we all could, but that would get us into pretty deep waters. I have seen prayer make situations better in some cases and worse in others, but even discussing this would require a lot of background into my life. I don’t want to get into a discussion of the theology of prayer, either.
I know everyone has their own experiences with prayer and this is not the thread to start talking about them, but my own experience leads me to keep this counsel. So, thanks for the offer, but tread lightly. There are other things that I cannot speak about and my life is probably among the most complex you will ever see. This statement is not, I think pride, but you would have to follow me around during a typical day (if there is such a thing) to know why.
Oh, there are days when I wish I could talk about what I have seen in life, but some things are best kept between a man and his God (and his spiritual director).
There, was that mysterious, enough? Someday, I might write a book about my life, but, perhaps it might make a better musical 🙂
As for the use of dreams in self-understanding, this is a subject that I have to be very careful about when I write. It is too complex to discuss in a combox.
I was talking above about asking a psychologist about the science of recurring dreams. Seeking their information about the science is useless. I was not talking about its therapeutic use. That gets us into a whole other ballgame and you and I would have to know each other a whole lot better before I get into that.
I’m getting too personal and I risk dragging personal experiences into the conversation. Permit me to back way off and leave this thread. Some days, it pays to keep one’s mouth shut. Sigh.
The Chicken
I think you’re right that it is really unusual for someone to have the same dream twice in one night. The only times I can remember are when I barely wake up (or start lucid dreaming for a bit) then fall back into dream sleep and repeat a similar story. But even in these cases you wouldn’t have to worry as the child wouldn’t have gotten out of bed to ask you to kill the monsters.
As for nightmares, my dad had an interesting way of helping me with mine. When I was little I had a lot of nightmares and, tired of me constantly waking him in the middle of the night, he told me “it’s in your head, so you have control over it.” Well, I believed my dad and started lucid dreaming; I don’t know quite how. I now have very few dreams (let alone nightmares) that I don’t realize are dreams very early on. Although, now that I think about it, I’ve had one very terrifying dream where I knew I was dreaming but couldn’t control it.
Exactly.
Yes, see, this is implicit in what I tell my children about dreams as stories we tell ourselves (see my review for the whole spiel) but I don’t explicitly say “You can control it” because sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t. I do think it’s empowering, though, to realize that the dream is something you create yourself, even if you can’t always consciously direct it. My kids have had some success in this area as well.
Dear Mary Kay,
I hope my comments above didn’t come across as harsh. You are one of the more charitable, nice, and looked-forward-to posters on this blog to me.
I was starting to get myself into a mess with the track I was taking in my comments, above. Also, discussing prayer and the offering and receiving, thereof, is a subject that is just too personal for me. This is one reason why I try to stay in objective mode when posting. Could we pretend I hadn’t posted, tonight? Maybe I should change my handle to the Masked Idiot.
I can discuss dreams from a scientific standpoint, but I should have left any personal information out. I am not asking for prayer, but the offer was kind.
Again, I hope no offense was taken.
The Chicken
TMC, okay, I’ll send good thoughts your way :^)
SDG, on my initial reading of your last post, when I thought perhaps I had misread you, this was my response:
I think what prompted my reaction was mostly the overall tone of certainty in the overall post and specifically in the statement “What really happens is that the dream itself creates a sense of deja vu” that sounded as if describing the mechanism of how dreams work. (the bold being what I meant by emphatic)
The “truth” part from “I’m not sure you can “promise” that something is true” although in hindsight I see that I may have misread it)
Now I’ve re-read your last post and despite the end-of-the-week fatigue that has set in, notice that I wasn’t so far off. You call it a “belief” but also “a theory, not just a hypothesis.” You’re using those words very loosely or at least not well defined and it’s the looseness that sent up a red flag.
I think of a theory is based on observations of events over a range of time and instances by people with a common background of knowledge. So far, you’ve described personal experience of yourself and family and checked with “several people” which could mean anyone. Even “mental health professional” could mean anything over a wide spectrum. You can take an informal poll here, but that’s not a theory. Your opinion may or may not be true (my experience of recurrent same dreams would tend toward not true), but it’s still an opinion rather than a theory. Do you see where I make the distinction?
At this point, I feel like I’ve thrown a wet blanket a topic that is obviously of mutual interest. Then again, a blog combox is hardly a conducive forum for that discussion.
On to “posts like these,” which was said in the heat of the moment and not an indication of previous posts. Sorry ’bout that.
Guess it’s time for me to back away from this discussion which others are enjoying.
TMC, good grief, not harsh at all. I appreciate all your posts and you’re absolutely right that some topics simply edge more into personal territory than usual. Unfortunately, after ripping out mistakes in the asbestos suit, all I can offer is an awkward-looking, what-might-pass-as-an-asbestos-blanket.
Mary Kay, given SDG’s post is titled “Recurring dreams”, one might take his claim “What really happens is…” to really be just another way of saying “In my recurring dreams…”.
Going back to sleep,
Me
To note, one “theory” about deja vu is that deja vu is actually a form of recurrent dreaming.
Awakening to the dream,
Me
“Me,” yes, okay. Awkward to say it sounds good to me because then to whom am I referring, you or me? :^)
SDG, sounds like you’re a great dad and whatever you want to call it works well for your kids.
I do, but I would cut the opinion/theory distinction otherwise myself, and I don’t think the dictionary demands the approach you outline. However, I do agree that my combox attempts to clarify my own usage were greatly unhelpful, so let me try again.
“Opinion” is a very broad word that can describe any sort of view that does not rise to the status of certain knowledge. It can be used to encompass matters of mere taste (“Sliders are disgusting in my opinion”) as well as debated matters of judgment (“Churchill is overrated in my opinion”). It can also include questions of theory (“Superstring theory is not even wrong in my opinion”).
One dictionary definition of “theory” is “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.” That’s a good definition of the way the word is used in ordinary speech, and more or less how I was using the word.
However, I admit I muddied the waters by saying “a theory, not a hypothesis.” This was unhelpful for several reasons: In informal usage the two terms are commonly used interchangeably, and the distinction suggested a scientific precision that I didn’t intend. In scientific usage, a theory is a well-established hypothesis that is widely recognized as the best available explanation. Obviously I am not using that technical sense here. Making matters worse, in technical usage a “hypothesis,” an educated guess based on evidence and experience that can be supported or disconfirmed by gathering more data, would have been quite a good word to use.
What I meant to suggest was that my view (of the generally false perception of recurring dreams, and of the non-possibility of returning to the same dream by falling back asleep) is not just something I thought up one day reflecting on past experience and memories, but is a proposition that I have been actively exploring, in myself and others, for years, and one that I find confirmed by more and more data. Obviously I’m not doing scientific study. However, at this point I have enough confidence in the reliability of my theory, or hypothesis, to act on it, as I do in reassuring my children that they won’t get back into the same nightmare.
Sorry for the terminological confusion.
Thanks!
For years and years, every dream I could remember having involved someone stalking me, kidnapping me, or attempting to kill me. In a sense, these dreams were not recurring, because the same plot normally did not occur twice; the dreams were variations on a theme.
On the other hand, I specifically remember one week when I had three different dreams that my mom had died and my dad was chasing me around with a knife. A few minor details were different, but the nightmare was the same, even down to what path I tried to take to get away from danger. I know that I dreamed this dream more than once, and that I did not just think I dreamed it more than once, because I wrote down what the dream was each of three different mornings. I would say that those were recurring dreams, because all of the essential details were the same; in fact, the only details that differed were the “background information” I somehow knew about what had happened prior to the start of the dream, like how my mother had died.
Oddly enough, the recurrent stalking/killing/kidnapping dreams almost completely stopped after my first meeting with my spiritual director, when he spent a lot of time praying with me about seemingly unrelated issues. He didn’t know about my nightmares and I didn’t even think about them during our session. But since then, I don’t have such a consistent recurring theme to every dream.
Oddly enough, I’ve had both reoccurring dreams and dreams that carried on after I woke up.
The most interesting reoccurring one is me driving a get-away truck of kids while Spiderman chases us, because the bad guy got him to believe we’re the bad guys; the dreams that carry on after waking up tend to have a narrative and distinctive characters, generally are scary, and the “plot line” is consistent in separate times of sleep.
If I understand your argument correctly, your response would be “you just *think* that’s what happens.”
Which makes a stalemate– I think that what I remember happened, and you think that, for lack of a better term, I imagined that it happened. No physical evidence– although my mom did hear about some of the reoccurring dreams on the multiple times they happened– so there’s no way to really prove it one way or the other.
a “hypothesis,” an educated guess based on evidence and experience that can be supported or disconfirmed by gathering more data, would have been quite a good word to use… a proposition that I have been actively exploring, in myself and others, for years, and one that I find confirmed by more and more data
A hypothesis must also be clearly expressed, otherwise it can be difficult to determine whether it’s supported or disconfirmed. What exactly is your hypothesis, clearly expressed? Sometimes your post was talking in a narrow sense about dreams in connection with waking up and falling back asleep, and other times it seemed to be talking in a broader sense simply about dreams one believes one has dreamt before. Likewise, though sometimes you equivocated by referring to probabilities and generalizations like “much less common than people think”, other times you used words like “doesn’t happen at all”, “flat-out don’t believe at all”, and “could ever”.
Anyway, the countless dream journals that people have used to record dreams, like Christina’s for example, as well as various survey results, are themselves “more and more data” supportive of the belief that there are recurrent dreams and tend to be disconfirmative of a “deja vu” hypothesis.
Further, for an experience to be classified as “deja vu”, as many people understand the term, the experiencer must not simply “feel” that she has had this experience before, but the experiencer must himself/herself effectively and primarily “know” that this is in fact a new experience despite the feeling that it’s not new. I mean, if I “know” I’ve been to a gas station before, I don’t say it’s not deja vu because I have journals and evidence that I’ve actually been there previously. Rather, it’s because I “know” I’ve been there before that deja vu doesn’t even come into consideration. It would be deja vu if I know I hadn’t been there before but feel that I have. In that sense, for a deja vu hypothesis regarding recurrent dreams, the person would have to “know” that he has in fact not dreamed a particular dream before but nonetheless “feels” that he has dreamed it before, otherwise it’s not deja vu as many people understand the term. I doubt that most people who claim recurrent dreams are saying they “know” they never had that dream before but “feel” they have. Perhaps “deja vu” is not the most appropriate term to describe when someone “know” she’s seen something before but it’s unproven whether in fact she has or hasn’t. Rather, deja vu is when someone “knows” he has NOT seen something before but feels he has.
Moreover, many deja vu claims can be discounted by historical evidence (unless one is speaking of past lives, alternate worlds, etc.) But with recurrent dreams, what method would one use to prove one never had a particular dream in the past? One could use dream journals to the extent they’re reliable and complete, but if one believes dream journals are reliable and complete, one must submit to the bounty of evidence which shows people have recorded the same dreams in their journals over and over again.
Snoozing,
Me
“I just flat-out don’t believe at all that the process of waking up and going back to sleep can ever produce a continuation of the same narrative”.
Well, afaik, it happened to me several times over the years— i.e., briefly waking up in the morning then falling back asleep into the same dream, “continuing the narrative”. You’ll have to take my word for it :-).
As for recurring nightmares, I had one when I was a child– the same nightmare over and over again— once in a while, not every day— but had it over the span of several months. It was a very simple but freaky nightmare like if I was a stick figure caught between two rolls of a cassette tape closing on me. (Doesn’t sound that awful when I write it like this, but in the mind of the child that I was, it was claustrophic and terrifying).
I’m skeptical about your skepticism. 🙂
My hypothesis is basically twofold. First, when you (really) wake up from a(n ordinary) dream, it’s gone; you can’t fall asleep again and get a repeat or a continuation of the same narrative. Second, perceptions of ordinary dreams recurring — consistent narratives experienced on different nights — are at least highly unreliable and very often mistaken. I’m not such a skeptic as to say ordinary dreams don’t recur at all, but I haven’t yet been convinced that they do.
Clarifications: “Really wake up,” as opposed to either dreaming that you woke up, or possibly rousing lightly from sleep without waking up completely. “Ordinary dream,” as opposed to, e.g., supernatural dreams, dreams arising from pathological physiological or psychological conditions, or possibly dreams relating to highly exceptional life circumstances.
Perceptions of recurring dreams, or of waking up from a dream and falling asleep to a repeat or continuation of the same narrative, should be critically evaluated. Points to bear in mind include:
a) As previously noted, dream perceptions can carry in themselves the experience of having had a dream before even when this is not veridical. (Sometimes, in keeping with previous comments, one is convinced that one is awake and now genuinely experiencing what one has previously dreamed about, even if no such previous dreams exist.)
b) Childhood memories are less valuable than either adult experiences or experiences with one’s own children. (This is true not only as regards dreams but as regards everything. Many things that in my picture of my childhood I imagine doing “all the time” or on a regular basis could in fact have happened only once or twice for all I know.)
c) The reflective perception (after the question has been raised) that this has happened in the past is less valuable than attempts to evaluate one’s ongoing experiences after the question has been raised.
d) The perception of waking up while in fact still being asleep, or mostly asleep, even becoming genuinely lucid mentally but still physically in a sleep cycle, is more common than many people realize.
e) On the other hand, I wouldn’t usually squint too hard at the “ordinariness” of a dream. I would think dreams should be presumed ordinary until proved otherwise, and exceptions should be truly exceptional.
The best evidence for falsifying the first hypothesis, or for establishing counter-examples to the second, would be dream journal documentation, such as Christine describes. (“Me”: If you are aware of specific documented dream journal evidence of specific recurring dreams, please share what you know.)
In the case of my primary hypothesis, the best-case scenario would be waking up after a dream, realizing that you are awake, ideally leaving some sort of evidence of waking up and/or of having had the dream (such as jotting a note in a dream journal; mental notes are less useful for reasons indicated above), falling back to sleep, and then waking up again with a repeat or recurrence of the dream fresh in your mind (and immediately jotting that down as well).
Even if the primary hypothesis were to be falsified by documented exceptions, I would still posit until shown otherwise that they are in fact exceptions to a highly reliable rule.
Shane’s reported dream about trying to escape from hell, and Foxfier’s reported dream about being chased by her father with a knife, both sound sufficiently specific and narratively cogent to constitute proposed counter-examples to my second hypothesis — if the memories are reliable, and if the dreams were ordinary dreams. (The imagery of Shane’s dreams is so striking as to at least justify the question of ordinariness, and the temporal proximity of Foxfier’s three dreams makes me wonder whether anything extraordinary might have been happening in her life that week.)
At any rate, in general my view is that the kind of experience Shane and Foxfier report is of a sort that likely reflects misleading memories, though I’m in no position to make pronouncements in any particular case. If I’m wrong, Shane and Foxfier may know it from their experiences, or perhaps their memories mislead them.
Shane, Foxfier, don’t think I’m dissing your memories! Twenty years ago I would have said the same about my childhood dream about the coffee table monster — I would have laughed at anyone who said I only had that dream once. But I’ve become more skeptical of my own perceptions in this regard, and since I know I was once certain about my own recurring dreams and no longer am, other people’s certitude, by itself, isn’t enough to convince me either. But I don’t deny that your certitude could be of a kind that excludes any possibility of error. It could be that I’m wrong and you know it. I’m just saying, I don’t know it.
Christine had the knife dream; mine was Spiderman. ^.^
That said, I think you telling your kids that the dream won’t come back makes it very, very probable that they won’t.
when you (really) wake up from a(n ordinary) dream, it’s gone; you can’t fall asleep again and get a repeat or a continuation of the same narrative
But I can, and I apparently can do it at will, repeatedly. From Me’s Dream Journal for today, Feb. 8, 2008, I dreamed that a Chicago entrepreneur had come up with an innovative tropical creamy white low-calorie food item. It was being sold in semi-clear deli-style containers with black printing, and it was all the rage and I wanted to find out more about it for financial investment purposes. I “really woke up” at that point, noted the foregoing in my dream journal and even called someone. I then thought about you SDG and your posts about dreams, and decided to go back to sleep to get the recipe for this food product and noted my specific intent to do so in my dream journal. And indeed, I did go back to sleep and dreamed that I was in a Chicago grocery store where I found the very product as described. I identified the manufacturer from the label and thereafter visited the manufacturer of this product, who gave me a tour of her facilities and showed me how the product is made. She also invited me to appear with her on the Oprah show when her product was being highlighted along with some other innovative food products, which I did. I then “really woke up” yet again and noted the foregoing in my dream journal. I then went back to sleep yet again, and in this third part of the dream, I (as person in the dream) was waking up from having slept overnight in Oprah’s studio. Everyone else was gone and I too left the studio and went down to the garage to get my car and return home, and I could see the sun shining through the garage exit and people walking about, at which point I “really woke up” again and got on with my day. At lunch, I spoke again with the person I had called and we talked about it all. Perhaps I’ll even try my hand one of these days at making the food product I learned about in my dreams today.
Even if the primary hypothesis were to be falsified by documented exceptions, I would still posit until shown otherwise that they are in fact exceptions to a highly reliable rule.
But I don’t think of myself as exceptional. 😉 For me, the “rule” is I generally have no interest in continuing a dream. But today, I found it interesting enough that I chose to continue it, so you may see that “Everything is possible for him who believes.”
It could be that I’m wrong and you know it. I’m just saying, I don’t know it.
What an understatement. You’re dismissing what others say while expecting them to take what you say on your word alone. It doesn’t work in apologetics and it doesn’t work on this topic.
At an earlier time in my adult life, I kept a dream journal for five years (and less rigorously since then). My experience in doing so disproves, repeat d.i.s.p.r.o.v.e.s., in other words, show as flat out wrong, your assertions (as least the ones I can bring myself to read). I brought my dream journal to spiritual direction (which took a huge leap of trust) and after some prayer, there was a huge and dramatic change (in the thems of my dreams and other areas of my life).
You have no credentials, and have cited none of the extensive literature, on memories. Although I wasn’t going to say so earlier, but I have no idea on what basis you’re making the distinction between “ordinary,” “supernatural” and whatever other categories you made and to tell you the truth, sounds bogus.
As a topic that you’ve obviously put a great deal of thought into and have something that works well in reassuring your children. But you’ll have to start handing out shovels and thigh-high Wellies if you persist in this certitude about your “hyposthesis.”
thems = themes
I had a recurring nightmare for many years as a child until I learned it was based on real life: the dog attack that left scars on my face. I don’t remember the attack (although I remember the sharp edges of stitches in my upper lip).
I have read that one of the ways to deal with recurring bad dreams is to coach the person to change the dream – to consciously think about it, and then one will be able to do it unconsciously. So if the psychological technique is there, I would hazard a guess that a large number of dreams are recurring.
Oh, I just recall another Christian apologist who evidentally believed in recurring dreams: C.S. Lewis. In “Voyage of the Dawntreader”, the children encounter the island where dreams come true, and Lucy (or was it Jill?) begins to hear a gong that was part of a recurring nightmare.
I have to admit, I’m sorry I brought it up, because it seems like I might have offended or angered some people, which wasn’t my intent. I’ve just become skeptical about perceptions and memories about dreams, including my own. Please don’t take it personally, y’all.
Foxfier, sorry about the mix-up, thanks for clarifying.
Yes, that is explicitly part of my calculus as well.
Mary Kay:
Not at all, for at least four reasons.
First, I’m not asking anyone to take what I say at all, on my word or on any other basis. I’m simply trying to say what I think.
Second, as noted above, my skepticism began at home, as it were. I’m merely extending to other people’s experiences/memories that seem to me like my own experiences/memories the same skepticism with which I have come to regard my own past experiences/memories. Even if I’m wrong, I don’t think I’m privileging my experiences/memories over other people’s.
Third, I have proposed a principle that “Perceptions of recurring dreams, or of waking up from a dream and falling asleep to a repeat or continuation of the same narrative, should be critically evaluated,” and offered a number of considerations that seem to me to weigh in favor of this principle. If you consider the principle unreasonable, offer counter-arguments, but don’t say I’m just arguing on the basis of my word.
Finally, I don’t “dismiss” Shane’s or Foxfier’s experiences at all. What I said was: “in general my view is that the kind of experience Shane and Foxfier report is of a sort that likely reflects misleading memories, though I’m in no position to make pronouncements in any particular case.”
I am impressed by Shane’s apparently diverging experiences of one dream he thinks might have been recurrent but which he acknowledges might have been like my seemingly recurring dream, and a (possibly related) dream that he is confident really was. That is interesting evidence. I don’t see that for another party like me it overwhelms the considerations regarding critical evaluation of perceptions of recurring dreams.
That’s the second time you’ve cited apologetics as some sort of parallel case. I don’t understand what connection you’re trying to make. Apologetics is the reasoned defense of public revelation. All I’m doing here is trying to think clearly about the data that happens to be available to me at the moment.
True. Which makes my opinion here ignorant and provincial, compared to either my opinion on matters where I do have training (such as theology and art), as well as the opinions on dreams and memory of those who have credentials and are more familiar than I am with the literature. Like everyone else, I am entitled to my own ignorant opinions where that may be all I have to go on at the moment. By the same token, I try to be willing to be instructed by those who know better than I, and to change my views if better instructed. However, I don’t generally expect anyone to acquiesce when I say “You’re wrong, take my word for it,” and I don’t generally acquiesce to such declarations from others either.
You don’t say which assertions you mean (I assume that “the ones I can bring myself to read” refers not to a subset of my assertions but a subset of your recorded dreams). In any case, I certainly respect the privacy of the records in question. I also can’t arrive at any conclusions based on evidence I haven’t seen.
MissJean:
I have practiced this very approach to modify unwanted dream patterns, but the kind of recurrence in question, at least in my case, was the common sort of recurring themes rather than of identifiable narratives.
I once wrote a novel that featured a recurring dream as a primary narrative device. I don’t think I ever thought the device was realistic, but kept it anyway. We all have (or many of us have) the experience of dreams that seem to be recurring dreams, and that’s enough to justify the literary device.
(coda) “Me”: Thanks for playing, friend.
BTW, “Me,” don’t know if you saw my comments about Jimmy’s recent clarification of the consistent-handle rule. As you know, in the past my approach has been to ask posters to maintain a consistent handle within each combox, but Jimmy wishes visitors to maintain a consistent, stable handle/identity. This is intended to enhance the social dynamics of the combox by facilitating recognition and shared social history, and to encourage commenters to take long-term responsibility for their conduct. Thanks.
This does not mean you are stuck with “Me.” If you’d like to pick something else to stick with, feel free. Just stick with it. Thanks.
Several times I have woken from a bad dream and gone right back into the same dream. Maybe it’s an inherited trait. My mom’s the same way.
I’ve had a couple of recurring dreams. The first one involved being lost in a maze and not being able to get find my way out. When I finally looked back on when I had them (change of school, graduation, new job), and realized it was at a transition point in my life, I stopped having that dream.
The second one, I haven’t figured out yet. It always involves getting to the airport and realizing I forgot something, and being unable to go back and get it, I miss my plane. I’m sure once I figure it out, it will stop as well.
Jimmy wishes visitors to maintain a consistent, stable handle/identity. This is intended to enhance the social dynamics of the combox by facilitating recognition and shared social history, and to encourage commenters to take long-term responsibility for their conduct.
Whatever the handle-du-jour, this “visitor” has no need to “maintain” any identity. My identity is always who I am. Who do you say that I am?
All believers – the baptized – know one another on the basis of the same Lord, the same faith, the same hope, the same love, which form us. We experience that in our inmost depth we are anchored in and share the same identity, our deepest identity: Christ within us. No identity is more stable.
With respect to Jimmy’s wishes, have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. Everything is possible for him who believes.
SDG, one last post to close out my participation in this thread. I’m not even going to attempt to respond to everything, just comments that cover the essentials.
You don’t say which assertions you mean (I assume that “the ones I can bring myself to read” refers not to a subset of my assertions but a subset of your recorded dreams).
No, I did not specify which assertions, but will in a moment. “What I can bring myself to read” does not refer to a subset of my dreams and does refer to your assertions. I have been unable to wade through your words, which is why I will finish this post and move on.
In any case, I certainly respect the privacy of the records in question.
It’s not a question of reluctance or concerns about privacy.
I also can’t arrive at any conclusions based on evidence I haven’t seen.
So this thread is about providing “evidence” for you? I’ll come back to that.
However, I don’t generally expect anyone to acquiesce when I say “You’re wrong, take my word for it,”
Let’s just say that I’m skeptical about that.
and I don’t generally acquiesce to such declarations from others either.
Fair enough.
First, when you (really) wake up from a(n ordinary) dream, it’s gone; you can’t fall asleep again and get a repeat or a continuation of the same narrative.
If that’s your definition of a recurring dream, then of course not. However, I’ve had the same dream on separate nights, which is something that you can’t seem to believe. That you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
That’s the second time you’ve cited apologetics as some sort of parallel case. I don’t understand what connection you’re trying to make.
The connection is that frequently apologetics is used to explain to someone who is skeptical, the same sort of skepticism that you express about recurrent dreams.
Given that this is probably long, I’ll start a new post.
It’s true that I haven’t given you examples of specific dreams. I finished that dream journal over ten years ago. Given my present circumstances, paying attention to dreams is so far down on the list as to not be worth mentioning.
However, five years of writing down every dream (with the exception of max 2 or 3 dreams during the 5 years) means that someplace among my books and notebooks is one with written instances of the same dream at different times. The recurrent dreams since then I haven’t written down, so no, you don’t have to take my word for them.
Second, perceptions of ordinary dreams recurring — consistent narratives experienced on different nights — are at least highly unreliable and very often mistaken.
Who says they’re “highly unreliable and very often mistaken”? Other than you, I mean. See, that’s an instance where you sound like you’re expecting others to take your word for it, just on your word. Do you know how pompous it sounds to tell people that their “perceptions” are mistaken?
“Ordinary dream,” as opposed to, e.g., supernatural dreams, dreams arising from pathological physiological or psychological conditions, or possibly dreams relating to highly exceptional life circumstances.
You never did explain what you mean by these terms or what the difference is/differences are.
Childhood memories are less valuable than either adult experiences
This is one of your comments that really ticks me off. In the field of child sexual abuse, there’s been a huge and ongoing debate about the validity of memories. This comment reflects the worst aspects of that debate: it’s bad enough that kids are violated by abuse, but compounding it by invalidating what they say makes it worse.
Even if the primary hypothesis were to be falsified by documented exceptions, I would still posit until shown otherwise that they are in fact exceptions to a highly reliable rule.
Again, you’re setting yourself up as not only the standard, but the reliable standard, based only on what you think. You don’t have to provide documentation, but think it’s okay to dismiss others’ documentation as “exceptions.”
I am entitled to my own ignorant opinions where that may be all I have to go on at the moment.
Yes, I have no problem with that. I don’t know that I’d use the word “ignorant,” more perhaps of not knowing what you don’t know. The problem is that you say one thing, that this is all informal, but what you do is go right back to scientific language: principle, evidence and the earlier theory and hypothesis as if to bolster your authority in making your claims.
I try to be willing to be instructed by those who know better than I
Let’s just say that I’m very skeptical of this. I’ve never known a learning situation where the student defined when, what and under what circumstances he would learn. In addition, you have enough loopholes (definition of dreams that “count”) to have the results fit your expectation.
It occurred to me that perhaps you should keep your own dream journal. Get a notebook just for your dream journal and keep it and a pen by your bed and write down your dream as soon as you wake up.
The format I followed was loosely based on a book now out of print, but the essentials are the date, all the details you can remember, affect (happy, sad, scared), what does God seem to be saying or asking through the dream, external life events. (also color or B/W)
Don’t worry about proving or disproving your recurrent hypothesis, just focus on consistently writing them.
It’s late here and this is enough for now.
Mary Kay,
It looks like we may have stumbled into what is apparently emotional territory for you.
I’m not sure if this makes a difference for you, but I think you may have misunderstood me on childhood memories, for one thing. I don’t mean that the memories/testimony of children is less valuable than that of adults. I mean that an adult’s memories of his or her own childhood are (tend to be, can be) less valuable (reliable) than an adult’s memories of adulthood.
This is not necessarily to cast doubt on any particular memory of even very young childhood (I know perfectly well that I remember, e.g., sneaking out of bed down the stairs of my grandparents’ house while the grownups were watching TV). It’s certainly not to cast any general doubt on memories of a traumatic event like abuse.
Which, in turn, isn’t to say that such memories are always reliable. Not uncommonly, what we think of as memories of distant events, particularly (though not limited to, nor applying to every case of) childhood memories, are not (or not entirely) memories of the event itself, so much as memories of memories, mental pictures reinforced and reshaped by, e.g., photos, family stories, stories we have told about our memories, and so forth. Sometimes a particular incident becomes so vivid and familiar one may think one actually witnessed an event at which in fact one was not present.
All to say, memory is tricky. Memories of dreams, especially distant dreams, doubly so. I propose this as a thesis for others to accept or not as their judgment dictates; I expect no one to accept it or anything else in this post/combox at my word, only as their judgment dictates.
(Ironically, it is precisely this that, for some reason, you doubt, along with my professed willingness to learn. “I’ve never known a learning situation where the student defined when, what and under what circumstances he would learn,” you say. On the contrary, all students do that, and wise teachers like Socrates know it perfectly well. At any rate, it seems you may have arrived at conclusions about me slighting to my character, candor or broad self-awareness. Well, you must judge as you your judgment dictates; others are free to do the same.)
Strangely, we seem to have more or less converging views on dreams being continued or repeated after waking up (despite memories of such cited in this combox; are you skeptical of those claims?). On a recurring dream narrative over multiple nights, I wouldn’t say I can’t believe (or can’t seem to believe) it happens. I just tend to be skeptical of particular remembrances of such a dream, whether in myself or someone else.
In a not entirely unrelated way — I’m illustrating a very general principle, not offering any sort of parallel case or analogy — I tend to be skeptical of particular reports of, say, Marian apparitions or miracles, but that doesn’t mean I can’t accept that Marian apparitions or miracles happen, given sufficient evidence. In the case of recurring dreams, I’m quite willing to accept their reality, given sufficient evidence — though I will, again, continue to be skeptical of particular reported cases that lack such evidence.
Finally, you seem to consider my scientifically inflected vocabulary as somehow weighing against my clear protestations that my views are informal, not scientific and not propounded with any authority. All I can say is: My views are informal, not scientific and not propounded with any authority, and any inferences to the contrary you may draw based on what you regard as the implications of my vocabulary are contrary to my express intentions. I use the vocabulary I do because it’s natural to the way I think, not because I’m attempting to wrap myself in a mantle of authority.
SDG, yesterday I said that would be my last post in this discussion and I intend to stick to that (not because of your assertion of “apparently emotional territory”). Enjoy your pondering of dreams.
Not to start another argument, but I kind of feel sorry for SDG here. I’m glad you wrote a post on dreams, actually. There is far too little written on the subject in my opinion. I don’t know anything about the technical side of things, but I do know that I used to wake up with nightmares frequently as a child. As in, almost once a week, and I still have them frequently. Often I had recurring themes in my dreams and sometimes almost identical dreams. However, I cannot think of a single instance where my dreams were exactly the same. At least one element was unique to each dream: the ending, the characters, the setting, etc. Having said that, I also know it is easy for me to believe I am going right back into the dream every time I close my eyes, though once I actually fall asleep, it doesn’t return. This is my personal experience and I don’t mean to discredit anyone else’s. How SDG parents his kids is not any of my business and I’m sure what he tells them is very comforting to hear. Thanks for the great posts, SDG.
-Elizabeth
My perspective is unscientific and uninformed and based entirely on anecdote, but I wonder if people might simply be different types of dreamers- hence all the disagreement in this thread.
SDG’s original post pretty closely reflects my own experience of dreaming, but I’ve found (in casual conversation over the years) that no one I know shares this experience. Although I’ve experienced a sense of deja vu in dreams , like SDG, I’m pretty positive I’ve never an identical dream more than once.
This is because I find that I don’t usually have visual dreams– or (since I don’t understand how dreaming works) maybe the fact is that I just don’t remember or associate images with my dreams. (My dreams are more like memories; I “know” this or that to have happened as I’ve dreaming it, but I rarely “see” anything.) Consequently, I generally have a pretty strong memory of the dreams where I have “seen” things and am sure I’ve never experience a repeat of that sort of dream.
I tend to think of my non-visual dreams in the same way SDG does, I’m pretty sure the sense of deja vu is something produced by the dream itself (& maybe this is because I don’t have specific images to remember these dreams by.)
However, most people I’ve spoken with have a very different experience of dreaming than mine– they see things, fly, etc. I wonder if those here “see” things in their dreams or not?
And this leads me to wonder if there are simply different varieties of dreamers- and perhaps some kinds can re-dream the same dream?
peregrinator-
I think you may be right.
Now that I think of it, I’ve *never* had a deja vu sense in dreams– it’s only after I wake up that I go “hey, that was just like the dream X!”
Another contrast, as you might’ve guessed from the examples I offered, is that my dreams are very visual and sometimes even physical– feeling the wind in my face, the impact of landing. Oddly, a lot of story-characters.
As another category, I also have the classic “falling through darkness” dream– but I *always* land, and it’s *always* like a slow-motion trampoline. (which, I know, is “supposed” to mean you’ll die)
Anyone else got input?
Non-visual dreams is an interesting thought.
I didn’t want to throw a wet blanket on this discussion. In fact, I wish it had remained simply a discussion of dreams because dreams are fun to talk about. My sole objection was the attempt to make some sort of quasi-scientific statemtent, or at least use quasi-scientific language. But since that seems to be an irreconcilable difference between SDG and me, I’ll back out of this thread.
Well during my childhood I had quite a few reoccurring dreams. Mostly nightmares, but a few not. I am am not talking about over the course of a few days but over years. Just every few weeks or so I would get the same dream. To the point I knew what would happen. And I could try to change it, to make it not so scary. I even now could describe in detail two of the scary dream “Plots” and one of the non scary ones.
So while in most cases you can say you won’t have the same dream, there are always exceptions to the rule. God made us all very different in some ways.
Totally off-topic, but…Steve, will you be doing a review of Bolt? And how about Doubt?
Thanks….
Diane
There are two distinctive issues in your post: one is about reassuring your children (and I don’t agree with you promising more than you can deliver) and the other one is about dreams, recurring or not(and whether there are just a sleep-generated narrative or whether there is more happening, involving the supranatural life, for instance).
In terms of parenting ethics, I would not recommend the line that you are using, it’s not even logical and you pointed it out yourself. It comes from good intentions, but I would rather teach children to rely on making a specific prayer to Mary or their Guardian Angel, before going back to sleep, asking their help in NOT getting back to the bad dream. And the fact that you are there, each time, to hold them and reassure them, should help them develop the strength needed when waking up from a bad dream, which is what growing up should do. But you are obscuring this with your promise.
As far as dreams are concerned, we do not know much, but I’m pretty sure there is much more going on than what you think, and much more than what modern psychology is admitting. Look at it this way: why would God have created us with a 1/3 of our day needing sleep, besides the physical rest and the mental rest and mental rehashing that is needed? What about the soul? why do our souls need these hours of body sleep? That’s an interesting question, isn’t it?