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.
