Dreams

[nix]

I remembered a bit of my dream last night, first time in a very long timei can recall having one.

It was only a brief memory i have now though, me and a group of faceless friends (dont think they were actually faceless i just cant recall who was who).. Anyway we were walking a country side path going somewhere but we were ambushed by a lone predator, he had his cloaking device up for the majority of the dream and he didnt actually kill anybody (pussy) he just randomly appeared and quickly vanished. So we were just randomly shooting into the tree's/cliffs every so often in paranoia in hopes to clip him, but no joy.

I have no recollection as to where we were going or even how i came into the possession of a fully loaded sub machine gun and side arm in the back arse of nowhere..

Anyway, the dream was interupted by me ma stirring me and giving me a cup of tea, so we never made it to destination unknown

And i haven't even watched predator in months, whats up with that?

hehe anyway I never usually remember them and im also sure i just dont dream much, possibly for the reasons mentioned above by the Toad.

[RagnaToad]

we were ambushed by a lone predator, he had his cloaking device up.

At first I didn't know what you were talking about.

I was like "A dinosaur with a cloak on?", but then I realised what kind of 'predator' you meant...

[nix]

Yes! Now you understand

http://www.abebooks.com/blog/wp-cont...2/predator.jpg

[Govinda]

I have a really strange dream sometimes. It always happens the same way, and always scares the shit out of me. It starts off in some kind of basement (from TV or something, I've never set foot in a basement through lack of availability) with a wooden staircase. So I go over and start trying to walk up said staircase. The trouble is that, for some insane reason, my legs back in the real world start moving too. Of course, there are no stairs in my bed. In my mind I can see the stairs, but my (real world) feet can't find them. I start kicking like mental with my real feet, trying to get up dream stairs. I've injured my beau a good few times doing this. It's such a horrible feeling; I can see stairs, but I can't get up them because they are not there. I never seem to learn.

Sleep paralysis is also a horrific thing. Ever had that? It's so scary. I wake up sometimes and I can't move, at all. I can look around, but my body feels like it's composed of pins and needles and jelly. I am fully awake, but my body's not caught on yet. The last time it happened I was convinced I was having a stroke. I try to shout, or make noise, and all that comes out is a series of bizarre mouth-breather cat noises. My boyfriend found me once, fresh from an impromptu couch nap, in this state. He just looked at me and asked me stuff, while I'm giving it the 'Heeeeeelp mmmmeeee' whisper-screech. He then asked if I was having a seizure and started laughing. He's caring like that.

It's dreams/experiences like these that really get me thinking about the connection between my subconscious brain and my nervous system. I accept that dreams are just random spouts of info, meaningless really, even if sometimes they could be seen as foresight. A friend of mine was staying over once, and in this house all that seperates the couch from the bed is a sheet; he awoke to what, for all intents and purposes, sounded like me having sex. I was not having sex. In the morning he started to make fun of me about it: 'Dreaming about Johnny, were we? Eh?' I wasn't dreaming about Mr. Depp, or anything like it. I remembered my dream from that night too. It was about me fighting with a bank who wanted to give me 13% APR on a mortgage, and I was convinced that it was 1.3% APR with the decimal point moved by mistake. I'll need to watch myself when I'm applying for a real-life mortgage; apparently my subconscious thinking about it turns the rest of me on.

The subconscious mind has so much untapped power. I just wish there was a way, apart from meditation and what have you, to get at that power and be able to control it, not have it manifest itself as mortgage-related sex noises and a nonexistant-but-****-you-I'm-walking-up-them-anyway set of stairs. There's a part of my brain that can make me do things I don't want to do, or can shut my body down so that I can't use it even when my conscious mind is fully awake. It's scary, and it's cool.

But as for bog-standard dreams, I tend to think of them as a psychological outlet. Your brain can't stop mulling over information, letting it out of your system. If you don't have anyone to talk to, you start talking to yourself, simply to let information go somewhere (this I learned in college). I think dreams are a subconscious version of that. It's just your brain letting go of scraps of information interpreted in its own phenomenal way. Except for when it starts making your body do stuff without your permission. That's when things get cool.

Alpha, I would like to thank you for your recon effort into the cheese-nightmare myth. That's a lot of cheese to have to eat before getting results. My mother is convinced that anything bigger than a cheese slice three hours before sleep will result in mind-twisting nightmares. I can now tell her that a little Dairylea for supper is ok.

[Alpha]

Alpha, I would like to thank you for your recon effort into the cheese-nightmare myth. That's a lot of cheese to have to eat before getting results. My mother is convinced that anything bigger than a cheese slice three hours before sleep will result in mind-twisting nightmares. I can now tell her that a little Dairylea for supper is ok.

No problem, but really I don't recommend it if you want to sleep well, or have good digestion, or save money.

The opposite happens to me!!! Those things happen to me when I'm almost awake, and my brain is starting to link up with my body again. If you know what I mean. For me, it's mostly running toward something or trying to fight someone in my dream. My brain is starting to control my muscles again, because I'm almost awake again. In my dream I'm trying to punch someone in the face, but my brain is sensing that my muscles aren't actually moving. So for some reason, the brain passes on that message and drops it into my dream, making it so that I can't seem to use my arms any other way but in slow-motion. Really frustrating.

It's kind of the opposite, but also kind of the same. Cause I believe my arms/legs are actually moving a little bit, since my brain is starting to control my muscles again. But they don't move like I want them to, in my dream.

Ugh, I hate this. I'm a chronic sleep talker, to the extent that me not saying things in my sleep is the exception. Sleep talking is just like moving your limbs in your dream, especially considering your tounge is just a peice of muscle. It happens mostly when I have only been sleeping for a short time, and very often I wake up while speaking, but continue talking because I still think it's real. My sounds range from coherent sentences such as "No Batman! Stop!" to "Marx is wrong, the proles will never rise!" to moans and murmurs. I always seem to be getting attacked; I dunno if that's a manifestation of some inferiority complex hidden away . When I don't wake up, my brother always tells me what I said (big family: we share a room, well, for the next month before he moves out). Sometimes my speech coincides with weird movements as described by Govinda and Rags. In my dreams, I always - consciously - try to get in control. If I want to turn left, for example. my dream usually takes me right. This infuriates me, and I start thrashing in my sleep. I got woken up by a teacher on a school camp once, because they thought I was having a fit.

[RagnaToad]

The trouble is that, for some insane reason, my legs back in the real world start moving too. Of course, there are no stairs in my bed. In my mind I can see the stairs, but my (real world) feet can't find them. I start kicking like mental with my real feet, trying to get up dream stairs.

The opposite happens to me!!! Those things happen to me when I'm almost awake, and my brain is starting to link up with my body again. If you know what I mean. For me, it's mostly running toward something or trying to fight someone in my dream. My brain is starting to control my muscles again, because I'm almost awake again. In my dream I'm trying to punch someone in the face, but my brain is sensing that my muscles aren't actually moving. So for some reason, the brain passes on that message and drops it into my dream, making it so that I can't seem to use my arms any other way but in slow-motion. Really frustrating.

It's kind of the opposite, but also kind of the same. Cause I believe my arms/legs are actually moving a little bit, since my brain is starting to control my muscles again. But they don't move like I want them to, in my dream.

Yes! Now you understand

http://www.abebooks.com/blog/wp-cont...2/predator.jpg

Actually, that's the alien, not the predator. And that movie sucks big time. I laughed during most of the scenes.

[nix]

Ummm its clearly a Predator, and yes the new movies are shit.

And people for the love of god please use the correct terms, its Conscious and Unconscious. Not Subconscious

[Govinda]

Ummm its clearly a Predator, and yes the new movies are shit.

And people for the love of god please use the correct terms, its Conscious and Unconscious. Not Subconscious

When I learned about them they were two terms. The subconscious is closer to the surface though, easier to reach. Freudians prefer subconscious, Jungians unconscious.

[RagnaToad]

Ummm its clearly a Predator, and yes the new movies are shit.

And people for the love of god please use the correct terms, its Conscious and Unconscious. Not Subconscious

Actually, you're right. The dinosaurs are the aliens and the human-like creatures are the Predators? That doesn't make any sense. And was that the kind of predator you were referring to earlier? I thought you meant predator like in those American shows 'To catch a predator'.

And Unconscious and subconscious is something different, if I recall correctly.

(EDIT: After doing some quick research, I found out that some philosopher dude once introduced the term 'Unconscious mind', which shows a lot of similarities with Freud's Subconscious. I'll read into it later...)

Being unconscious is just being not-conscious. The subconscious however is the part of our mind that we cannot access (or not directly) and contains information, thoughts, fears, memories that we're not aware of ourselves.

We might not always be able to recall a memory that would cause a current phobia, for isntance. But there's a good chance you're subconscious has 'saved' that memory and used it in its own way.

So subconscious stuff is stuff we're not really in control of.
Unconscious is more just an adjective to indicate that we're not fully awake.

[nix]

Actually, you're right. The dinosaurs are the aliens and the human-like creatures are the Predators? That doesn't make any sense. And was that the kind of predator you were referring to earlier? I thought you meant predator like in those American shows 'To catch a predator'.

Are you taking the piss?

When I learned about them they were two terms. The subconscious is closer to the surface though, easier to reach. Freudians prefer subconscious, Jungians unconscious.

No, Infact Freud hated the term subconscious as to deem it a sub to consciousness is to say its lesser. Which it isnt, id quote from my notes but its 2:30am and its dark so ill quote from... ugh... wiki

The term subconscious is used in many different contexts and has no single or precise definition. This greatly limits its significance as a meaning-bearing concept, and in consequence the word tends to be avoided in academic and scientific settings.

And..

Though lay persons commonly assume 'subconscious' to be a psychoanalytic term, this is not in fact the case. Sigmund Freud had explicitly condemned the word as long ago as 1915:

"We shall also be right in rejecting the term 'subconsciousness' as incorrect and misleading".

In later publications his objections were made clear:
"If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically -- to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness -- or qualitatively -- to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious."

Thus, as Charles Rycroft has explained, 'subconscious' is a term "never used in psychoanalytic writings".

And, in Peter Gay's words, use of 'subconscious' where 'unconscious' is meant is "a common and telling mistake" indeed, "when [the term] is employed to say something 'Freudian', it is proof that the writer has not read his Freud"


In regards to Jung, I'm pretty sure he refers to it as Unconscious also, i dont know for sure though as his stuff doesnt interest me enough, its all spirits and hocus pocus with him, but eh i may delve in someday