Peterman's Choice*
Dream On

I hope you enjoy this Jungle Night.
http://www.petermanseye.com/photos/600201
It will give me good dreams tonight.

I usually star in my dreams and when I wake up I find out if I'm angry, happy, horny, etc.
 
That anger one really surprised me.
 
Quite the jolt when I woke up after a dream of beating the s**t out of my ex.

I dreamt I ate a five pound marshmallow, and could't find my pillow when i woke up....

I pre-program  what I want to Dream about, before I say the S'hema, before my head hits the pillow ... If I forget, I automatically go into Summer Re-Runs ... My Dreams are mostly Replays of the Good Times I have been Blessed with ... especially raising my Children, and Teaching them ... Sometimes I'll dream about my Cars, but I almost always dream about taking my Children for a Ride ....... Very Restful ... Very Repairative .......

Whew Mr Peterman - that link if you click on 'process' is a bit of a read.
I rarely remember my dreams. I had a nightmare the first time Dad read Little Red Riding Hood to me as a bedtime story.
One of the strangest dreams I've had was wandering around a large English country house which at first seemed deserted then I heard voices and located a room where a dozen handsome young men were seated at a long table, enjoying a meal with copious libations. I recognised one of them as somebody I had recently met and he said, indignantly "Hazel, what are you doing in my dream?" So we had a big argument about whose dream it was. Saw him a few days later and we both said in unison "I dreamed about you the other night." Strange.
I have a dream ~ Martin Luther King.
"Last night I dreamt of Mandalay" - can't for the life of me remember - first line of a black&white film.

"Peterman's Choice?" I'm assuming that this content is one of his personal favorites. It would be interesting to determine what if any symmetry he shares with us in his own dreams. Just can't believe that he spends 30-40% of his nights dreaming about food.....

I do dream about food. But only when I'm on a diet and then it's either butter pecan ice cream or a gorgeous turkey club sandwich. For a long time my dreams varied on the appearing somewhere, somehow, some way nude in public. Sometimes just topless, sometimes all- the-way-less. Not naturally outgoing, I've had to really work at it....as a child really disabling shy and every now and again it will kick in, my job gradually evolved into substantial public relations. I was expected to go to various business meetings, outings and the subsequent dinners and drinks after. Befriending people to get their business.

My interpretation of the naked dream was that everyone would one day know what a fraud I was.

Since retirement I've never again had that dream. Of course at this vast age public nudity would cause people to shield young children's eyes, afraid of the dreams it could cause.

Hazel....Would that be Rebecca?

I have a recurring nightmare of spiders.  I am laying in bed and they come from all over the ceiling (big ones, small ones...) and I cannot get out of bed before they reach me.  It's AWFUL.   Probably the strangest dream was about my husband and I in bed and the bed breaking in half like a large piece of ice with a deep dark nothingness in between us and he was cooking, in bed, while laying down.   Anyone care to analyze?

Clothing? As a kid in africa, I ran around naked, as all the black kids did. I was so annoyed when I had to put on school uniform and shoes every weekday. Formerly, it was just Sunday when I had to put a frock on and go to church. My family were never much bothered about nakedness - and it's never bothered me. I'd start in the garden early in the morning fully clothed and one at a time, garments would get hung up on bushes and trees. Gardening on a fine June morning in nothing but panties and gum boots is very refreshing. I am laughing my sox off imaganig the gents of the Village taking this good advice. Perchance I will dream about it.

Yes, it is Rebecca--Last night I dreampt I went to Manderley again.  What a great movie!

My favorite dream is where I can fly. I don't fly horizontally like Superman, but rather I just lift myself off the ground.  It's so easy while I'm dreaming, I almost believe I can do it when I wake up. Recently I had the same experience when I dreamed I could do a perfect squat. It was so easy, I just lifted my arms over my head bent my knees, back straight and my rear went easily towards the ground. It was perfect. I was so sorry when I woke up and found it impossible to make my body do that.

The most lasting dream I remember is not really the dream itself, but as a child being jolted awake by that horrible awful panic from free-falling in a dream. It happened soooooo long ago, but it as easily could have been just last night as the palpitations and the dread and terror are still real.  I've never been good at dream recall.  But my mother was a master of the art and breakfasts were a blow by blow account of her nocturnal adventures.  Unfortunately they were not humorous stories and left me as a kid just sad.  Like Ivan I try to pre-program some dreams, but since I don't recall them, I have no idea if I've been successful!

Just last night I was dreaming that I was about to trip and fall on the dock behind my former restaurant, and I woke myself up and saved a nasty fall out of bed.

Lately my dreams have been a real problem for me. They are so complicated and fulll of commotion that it makes me not want to go to sleep. There's a double edged sword in that I have lost my husband, best friend and both parents in the past five years, and damn, if they aren't there every night! Sometimes its nice to see them but frequently I dream of ordinary run of the mill annoying things. If I could draw, which I can't, I would do a NewYorker type cartoon of me getting in bed under a tree. On the branch above , perched next to each other are the 4 previously mentioned people only they are birds with human faces, waiting for me to go to sleep.

Goodness, TMI I suspect.

My scary dream scenario is that my breaks don't work on my car. I'm usually not going very fast, but I have to push so hard on the breaks and the car just slows, but never stops. It's such a recurring dream that the last time I had it, I remembered that this problem only occurred while I was dreaming and I promptly woke up.  In fact, that usually happens when I am frightened in my dreams, I wake up quickly.  No long, prolonged nighmares, thank goodness!

Imarjorie-I'd forgotten that one. I too was dreaming that I could fly. It was at a very bad time where my father was suffering from senile dementia, focussing all of his energies on me (undiagnosed until he died), my job was going sour, started losing my hearing....you know....life.

My interpretation of the flying dream for me was, quite simply, freedom.

CD - Like Ivan, perhaps you can turn that dream around. Plan on it, but instead of them being so frightening, perhaps they're looking out for you.

In old age, you can take solace in the fact that dreams about teeth
falling out have been recorded on Egyptian scrolls going back to 2,000 B.C.

Just damm!  It was only last week I had a dream about
teeth falling out.  I thought nothing of
it because my teeth are in excellent condition.

It must be that I AM getting
old.  Just damm!

Other tan the 'standard' dreams of being able to fly (it wasn'tt easy but amazingly I could do it); being chased by an animal I could not out runrun, I have had recurring dreams of being called back into military service and did not have uniforms to wear. I think my earliest dream was as a small child dreaming of being a baby chick nestled, protected, and warm under a mother hen's wings. Hey! This is personal stuff so don't let anyone else know about it, okay?! 

Then there are the dream songs, like "Dream Lover" to make us realize that everyone dreams, and some remember them! My dreams usually are about my children when they were young (now 41,43 yrs. old), and protecting them from something, or managing them in a strange place. Also, travel dreams with either of the different men who have been my partners, trying not to be lost.

Bobby Darin has it in song:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=dream+lover+youtube+bobby+darin&mid=58E812548C2354026B6058E812548C2354026B60&view=detail&FORM=VIRE1

My own dreams are vivid and in color. Usually they are about some school scene in which I have let my class go at the wrong time, or am trying to teach a room full of misbehaving teen boys, or a whole class is looking at me and I can't remember what the lesson content is! Or the lights are off, a movie about grammar is on, and someone is throwing spitballs!! School nightmares!

Reoccurring dreams have stayed with me for years and one is walking on a narrow jetty out across deep water to a little island, but as i near the center, the water washes over the walkway, and I have to hurry and run to get to the island before the walk is submerged! Great feeling of panic !

Then there is one in an old Victorian house with many rooms and a latticed back stair that leads down to a basement, and for some reason I have to go down there and I don't want to go, as it is dank and dark. Usually, I wait on the stairs and peer out the diamonds of the lattice to the garden until someone yells at me, "Are you back yet?!" and I realize I have to go down to the basement, and I go, and then run back up as fast as I can. Feeling out of breath when I awake.

Moose - just between us.............

Johnny Mercer said it best...
 
Dream
When you're feeling blue
Dream
That's the thing to do
Just watch the smoke rings rise in the air
You'll find your share of memories there

So, dream when the day is through
Dream and they might come true
Things never are as bad as they seem
So dream, dream, dream

Years ago I was dreaming about one of my sisters. She was being really annoying (in her own special way) in that dream. As a result, I was mad at her for months because of the way she acted in my dream. Very silly.

I was pretty young when my mother died (25) and for many years after her death, I woud dream about her. My mother could be a very difficult woman, but in my dreams she was always wonderful, loving. I would awaken very happy having spent some quality time with her.  I never remembered that she had passed in these dreams either.  After many years I started to have dreams where my mother was her more difficult self, and I would say to myself, in the dream, I thought Mom was dead?  Why is she here making my life so difficult?  I'm sure I could pay a shrink a lot of $$ to figure all this out. 

ANDY wise words and good advice...thanks

Chef Deb--Good luck on trying to control and plan your dreams. I don't know how Ivan does it. I just figure my dreams take me where I need to go.  You need to see that pack of lost ones--perhaps you have some unresolved anger issues that need to be resolved?  Or maybe you're just lonely for them.  Anyway, enjoy your time with them as best you can.

The flying thing ~ The hospital injected me with pethedine when I was in labour giving birth to my son. Amazing - I floated up from the bed and looked down at me me on the bed, I floated over the curtains to check out the lady in the next cubicle, had a wander around the ceiling to get the hang of steering my new vehicle - you just do it by thinking- I took off down the corridor and went  outside where I thought if I chose to I could zoom up into the sky and do a world tour. Told myself I'd better not as I was about to give birth any minute. Did all that stuff yelling 'I want my Dad!' As I was leaving the delivery room, the usual midwife jokes about 'See you in 9 months time' sure I said, forget the baby but I'll be back for the drugs - I had a great time.
 

I rarely remember dreaming when I wake.  A friend of mine told me that's why I always wake up tired.  She has a theory that the more vivid the dream the better rest the body gets during the sleep.  Sounds like as good a theory as anything else.
 
The dreams I do remember tend to be the ones that feel like out of body experiences where sounds and sights are distorted and I feel like I'm up on the ceiling of the room I fell asleep in.  It hasn't happened in years, but it was always so disorienting to wake up from those dreams.  They usually happened when I napped during the day, don't know if that has anything to do with it.
 
There is a Terry Pratchett book for young adults where the young heroine gets trapped inside dreams and has to find her way out, it is called Wee Free Men.  One of my favorite quotes from the book is "People who say things like "May all your dreams come true" should try living in one for five minutes."  So true.

I love Terry Pratchett ~  so sad to see him now coping with a disease that won't get better.

Remembered another one about having an argument with my my brother and I dropped and broke my favourite oblong pyrex dish - you know the one, perfect for lasagne, liver and onions, cottage pie. When my brother comes to visit, I take great care to avoid using that dish because I still feel it will provoke an argument and the dish will be broken. Funny how dreams can put such abiding fears into your mind.

My husband has "lucid dreams", something I envy greatly. He knows he's dreaming and can often change the outcome or control his responses.

This is astounding to me. I've been a lifelong vivid, nightmare or any other sort of emotion dreamer. Perhaps because I'm also an insomniac I just don't get deep enough under. I don't know. Sometimes I can recall them prefectly, sometimes just the last bit with whatever emotion woke me.

Sometimes we compare notes. Many, many guaranteed best-selling books and award winning movies have been discussed, dissected and forgotten.

PAOLOS:   The idea ... is to keep on getting Older ....... without ever getting, OLD !!!

Duvet time again. The birds and now all their chicks will be singing praises to God in 3 hours time. I'll just snuggle down and listen to the music. Nos da, dear people. Interesting day.x

One trick I have found is to make a point of thinking about what scene I am dreaming when i wake up at 3 am to visit the bathroom (old age is not for sissies), and that is to consciously remember the scene or location of my dream and the exact action before I open my eyes, so that when i come back to the pillows, i can close my eyes and just pick up right where I left off.

Yes. it does help to tell yourself before sleeping that you want to remember your dreams, and also not to open your eyes as soon as you realize you are regaining consciousness...but to keep them closed and "look at the dream" in your mind before you let light and the room interfere....You will remember the scene better if you make an effort to become aware of the dream.

Hazel - My absolute FAVORITE NOVEL EVER!! Rebecca... Read it once a year.... I tend to identify with the Second Mrs. DeWinter thru out the novel. Always find a different theme to the story every time I read it.

I rarely remember my dreams...but I tend to Daydream ALL of the Time...

Unlike Scrooge I never have stale gruel before bedtime but my drinking and eating habits like his seem to make a difference in my dreams particularly in terms of color and intensity. Dreams are yet another mysterious part of life like aging and genetics and memory that take us out of our desire to control things and into the realm of Oh Wow! Quite exciting. I think indulging our fears a little helps us understand them.

Bad dream? Just run it off the place like an unwelcome coyote.
Weird dream? Try to remember  what combination of food and drink may have caused it and then, avoid those things or write them down if you like weird.
I have never awoken from a good dream and felt disappointment… I just look around, smile and go back to sleep.

I had given some thought to responding to reprised topics by posting some of my favorite but unrelated comments. Too much work.

I suppose, in a hypothetical universe, if one were to wake up next to TMBWITW any dream would pale in comparison and waking thus how could one ever feel disappointment?  Sweet dreams, all.

Bingo

I love so much that you restore my faith in people. In just a few simple words.

The photo, if that's what it is, of a person in combat with white fabric is not unlike a recurring bad dream as a result of high fevers associated with tonsillitis.
It started out with a run through fresh smelling sheets hanging on the line but went west when it was impossible get out. It was very unpleasant even panicky.

JaxZ
Great to hear from you… don't tell anyone but I came close to putting the garbage out on the terrace and garbage day is tomorrow.
Must be a little jumpy about today's election.
I hope you dodged or survived what sounded like really nasty storms.
S

I wouldn't have snitched. Cross my heart.

We did duck under the deluge. I never realized an ugly word like sump can be lovely. Must learn to think more, it's expected at my age.

May your ballots behave as you would have them do. Many happy returns.