weird dream I had

[qachyk]

I had a dream I was trying to edit... something, I'm not clear on what, in the presets for RPGM2, and every time I thought I had found the last thing to edit, I would go back to the original screen and find something new I had to edit, and finally it mutated into this surreal thing where I was editing 3d models by physically carting around 'blocks' that were apparently made of something a lot like Play-doh. As in, I was somehow inside the editor, physically and literally.

No. Really. I just woke up about 10 minutes ago from this.

[vespuleth]

maybe you should ummm... take a break or somthing.

[Doan the Nado]

Haha, I hate dreams like that. Well, I've never had one about RPGM2 (that I can remember), but about doing laborious work in a dream. I wake up the next day feeling like I didn't sleep at all. An example:

After my first day working a new cashier job when I had just turned 16, I dreamed the whole night about ringing people up. This may seem easy, but on your first day, it's really stressful because you don't know exactly what you're doing, and I was afraid of messing up. So I worked 5 hours and then dreamed 8 hours about my first day of work. Made for a long, tiring day.

On the other hand, I've had a lot of dreams where I was on a quest of some sort. Those dreams are always cool. I've also had dreams that had a pretty good storyline which made me want to go back to sleep so that I could experience the rest of the story. Finally, on a more somber note, I've had a few dreams where I actually died in the dream. I could see my dead body in a couple of them... so that rumor where people say if you die in a dream, you will die in real life, is completely false.

[christi]

I've yet to have an RPGM2 dream, although there have been several instances where I've spent a good portion of the day performing some sort of "repetitive" action, and subsequently dreamed about the action for the entire night. (As far as games go, Need for Speed: Underground, The Simpsons Road Rage, and The Sims have all done this to me.)

I also have a pretty substantial number of work-related dreams. (I had the same experience you did, Doan... my first job when I was sixteen was a cashier at Kmart, and on my first day, I spent that entire night "ringing people up" in my sleep. Pretty exhausting, especially when you have to go back for real in the morning.)

Hm... now I almost WANT to have an RPGM2 dream... particularly one where I come up with a really good twist to my storyline that I can actually use.

[qachyk]

I think the cashier first day dream may be some sort of universal experience, because I can still remember I had the same one when I first cashiered, too.

And yeah, other repetitive things. I've gone to sleep and dreamed about playing Bejeweled.

I think in this case that I was just spending a lot of time the day before trying to understand what all the presets were doing and what I could delete because I probably wouldn't use and what I should keep, etc.

[NASH7777]

Yeah I've died in my dreams too. I think maybe it's just those who fear death or something can't die in there dreams or something? I recently had a dream where practically everyone in my entire life was in it! Even if they weren't in it directly seen or mentioned they were relatively. Like all my classmates and family and everyone else...

[vespuleth]

i dont really dream and the dreams i have are dreams of people from my past... like from highschool and such.

[NASH7777]

Believe it or not we all dream a lot! We dream 100's of dreams every night, it is just that we don't remember them most the time. Look it up!

[vespuleth]

if you dont enter REM, chances are, you dont dream. you can, but the majority of dreams take place in REM, and its probable that thats the only place. so, its likely that a person can not dream at all. like me.

[qachyk]

Erg.

This my least favorite part of talking about dreams.

Ves, if you've been diagnosed with a sleep disorder and had the fun of washing EEG paste out of your hair, then you can confidently claim you don't hit REM sleep very often. However, even that won't rule out dreaming.

REM dreams are more vivid and longer-lasting but they're not the only stage people dream in. Stage 1 sleep in specific has a tendency to produce fragmentary dreams. It's possible to dream in any stage of sleep except possibly during delta sleep (and they're not sure about that).

More importantly, although many people with insomnia don't hit REM sleep the first time they fall asleep, each time your body is deprived of REM sleep, it tries to compensate by more rapidly throwing you into it. So if you're insomniac on a regular basis (*raises hand*) you may cycle down into REM sleep within a few minutes of falling back asleep.

People who remember their dreams strongly very often are waking directly from REM sleep. And there seems to be a correlation between amount of REM sleep and how likely someone is to remember their dreams. But not remembering dreams does not automatically indicate you're not dropping into REM sleep, nor does it mean you aren't having them.

At least that's the current theory set. Of course, in 20 years, they may change their minds again.

[Doan the Nado]

I definitely have a lot of vivid, memorable dreams outside of REM sleep. I can wake up like 10 minutes before my alarm goes off, and then go back to sleep and dream again before I wake up. In fact, almost every time that I sleep for less than a half hour, I have a dream that I remember.

[vespuleth]

*sigh*

first, i didnt say that you cannot dream if you didnt enter REM. i said that you most likely dont.

if you dont enter REM, chances are, you dont dream. you can, but the majority of dreams take place in REM, and its probable that thats the only place. so, its likely that a person can not dream at all. like me.

i stated that the majority of dreams take place in REM. and they... possibly do. in NREM sleep, a person has a 50% chance of dreaming. they will or they wont. (this is sciences way of saying they have no clue, probably, but as it is, thats the quote). however, it does not say that 50% of a persons dreams take place in NREM. they have a 50% chance of dreaming at all.

anyways:

Believe it or not we all dream a lot! We dream 100's of dreams every night, it is just that we don't remember them most the time. Look it up!

actually, dreams take as much time to dream as they would to actually happen.

REM dreams are more vivid and longer-lasting but they're not the only stage people dream in. Stage 1 sleep in specific has a tendency to produce fragmentary dreams. It's possible to dream in any stage of sleep except possibly during delta sleep (and they're not sure about that).

REM dreams are more vivid then other dreams. im not sure about stage 1 sleep, so ill take your word for it, but it doesnt make sense, given that stage 1 sleep most accurately resembles REM sleep. but again, see above on the 50% (a person has a 50% chance of having a dream in NREM). and it is possible to dream in any stage of sleep, i didnt dispute that.

by delta sleep, im going to assume that you mean states of sleep where delta brain waves are present, which are consistent w/ states of meditation, or clear mindedness. that would be stages 3 and 4. it would make sense if a person didnt dream here, but again, im not sure.

More importantly, although many people with insomnia don't hit REM sleep the first time they fall asleep, each time your body is deprived of REM sleep, it tries to compensate by more rapidly throwing you into it. So if you're insomniac on a regular basis (*raises hand*) you may cycle down into REM sleep within a few minutes of falling back asleep.

too true.

People who remember their dreams strongly very often are waking directly from REM sleep. And there seems to be a correlation between amount of REM sleep and how likely someone is to remember their dreams. But not remembering dreams does not automatically indicate you're not dropping into REM sleep, nor does it mean you aren't having them.

true again...

I definitely have a lot of vivid, memorable dreams outside of REM sleep. I can wake up like 10 minutes before my alarm goes off, and then go back to sleep and dream again before I wake up. In fact, almost every time that I sleep for less than a half hour, I have a dream that I remember.

hmmm... i would say that it could be that you enter REM quickly, or that not everyone falls into the same set of principles. thats the problem w/ psych.

At least that's the current theory set. Of course, in 20 years, they may change their minds again

i would agree, accept you make it sound like dreaming outside of REM is commonplace. not only is it not scientifically sound, its not logically sound either. (well, unless it happens in the reacceleration just before REM). scientists have correlated two brainwave patterns w/ dreaming, because they specifically appear in the wake cycle of consciousness, and also in the REM stage, as well as sporadic appearances in other sleep stages. the conjecture is that since only half of the population exhibits these waves outside of REM sleep, there is only a 50% chance a person will dream outside of REM. of course, all of this is dependant on whether the two brain waves (i dont remembr which two) actually have anything to do w/ sleep, but thats what the current theory i was taught is.

in any case, im done. i have to go back to work. more later...

[Deleted]

I think it's roughly 50-70 dreams a night (on average for most people). My English teacher told us about that and he's taken all these psychology and what not in college (he's the coolest and very smart). He said for a while he'd write down all the dreams he could remember each morning when he woke up, and got to the point of remembering 12 or so. The most I've remembered from one night's 4.

So, the "100's" is way too much, but it is still a lot.

[NASH7777]

Dude, all my dreams run together like I couldn't say I remember 5 dreams cause all the dreams will run into one another... I have a good memory of dreams even from many years ago, sometimes dreams trigger other memories of dreams, it's weird....

[qachyk]

vespuleth said:

i would agree, accept you make it sound like dreaming outside of REM is commonplace. not only is it not scientifically sound, its not logically sound either.

www.aafp.org/afp/20000401/2037.html

[vespuleth]

right... that website says it happens. you must remember that im not saying it doesnt happen. im saying its not... impossible to not dream in stages other then REM, and that dreams most likely happen in REM.

www.apsa.org/pubinfo/remqa.htm

(the american psychoanalytic association seems to agree)

youll have to forgive me for using the psychoanalytic association, but i couldnt find anything by the apa.



furthermore, all of the information ive quoted so far comes from my college book from last semester, written by Charles G Morris and Albert A Maisto (in case you think im making this stuff up).

anyways, dreaming 5-10% of the time while you are in non REM sleep in comparison to 85-90% of the time in REM sleep seems substantial enough to me, but further, neuro studies show that the parts of the brain science theorizes produces dreams are largely inactive most often, and also the whole deal w/ brainwaves.

again, im not saying it doesnt happen. im just saying that you are about 8 times more likely to dream in REM then you are any other stage.

edit: there is also a very interesting article by forensice psychologists (i didnt even know this was a profession) about brain activity and dreams.

and the paper you linked to is four years old. im not saying its wrong, but alot happens in science in four years.

in the lab where i work, we have upgraded equipment three times in the last two years, due to advancements. so.. um... yeah.

im done.

[qachyk]

Your textbook, if it were new last year, is probably operating on research from 3-4 years ago as well, given the lead time of writing and publication. I used to typeset textbooks, and my most recent job involved publishing medical research journals online, so I'm fairly well acquainted with the research publication industry.

APSA is quoting 5 year-old research; the cite at the bottom says they last updated the page in '99 and the cites are listed as in print, meaning they were also '99.

So what I quoted was as new as what you're quoting, and they say that 80% of Stage 1-2 sleepers report dreaming, and 40% of later-stage sleepers.

I have read plenty of materials that say EEGs taken in sleep studies support the idea of Stage 1 dreaming being common, I just didn't have another actual journal cite handy. Stage 4 delta sleep is the only one in which EEG readings don't seem to support it, although this particular article suggests it can happen there as well, but research conflicts on this point.

But if you'd like some newer cites, here you go:

Conscious Cogn. 2004 Sep;13(3):484-500.
J Sleep Res. 2004 Jun;13(2):137-44.
Clin Neurophysiol. 2003 Feb;114(2):210-20.

These are three fairly recent studies that all support the idea of dreams being common in NREM. I've only been able to read the abstracts -- one of the only things I'll miss about my last job is the free full-text access to several hundred journals online -- but they all focus on some aspect of NREM dreams under-reporting vs other ways of collecting evidence of them.

[vespuleth]

... sigh...

this is obviously getting no where...

your mom works in publishing...
you have been subjected to sleep studies...

so you are obviously not wrong.

unless i understand the science publication world because i have written for a scientific journal before or have both worked in and been a subject in a sleep lab.

but what are the chances both of those are true? wanna guess?

edit: dah, i just typed up some more on this, but in the process of going back and forth to quote your post, i lost the edit. no difference. arguing about this is moot at this point. so im bowing out. read below.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

anyways, this has gone off subject drastically, and as previously stated, isnt going anywhere. i can assure you that, unless you have something that disregards the things brought up in this post, i wont come and throw your topic off topic again, or push it further off topic. i am sorry for having done it in the first place.

so my final words on the matter:

if your right, it doesnt matter who thinks your wrong, and if your wrong, it doesnt matter who thinks your right.

~Ves

[qachyk]

vespuleth said:

... sigh...

this is obviously getting no where...

your mom works in publishing...

No. I work in publishing. 7 years experience, 5 of which are recent and have been specifically publishing research journals, including neurology and psychology journals, which means I have been keeping up on research topics that interest me, including this one, which specifically interests me because I am, in fact, a genuine card-holding sleep disorder patient, to wit, consistent insomnia and nightmares. And because psychology is a specific interest of mine overall.

I cited you specific, current research to support my point because it is, to the best of my knowledge, the current views on the topic. You can feel free to disagree, or cite research that disagrees, or drop the topic, or whatever.

[vespuleth]

what we practice in the lab says different. and the topic id dropped, and locked.

[Doan the Nado]

I hope she didn't leave just because this topic was locked...

[vespuleth]

*sigh...*

yeah, i hope not. thatd make me feel like a jerk.