In Rachel’s post, she describes one of her dreams. In her dream, she goes to this huge pool to play in an IM inner tube water polo game with a team consisting of about 70 people. Her team played with a water bottle as the ball and a napkin sized net as the goal. Throughout her dream she transforms from the captain of her team to a referee to an eye in the sky, which allows her a bird’s eye view of all the action. She is so descriptive and my description doesn’t do justice to her dream, so you should just read her post. Also, she writes about people in her life who make “cameos in my dreams”, which implies (to me) that she has dreams frequently.
This is all amazing to me because I rarely have dreams (I want to say that I have a dream once or twice every four months or so, but I can’t say for sure). Not only does Rachel have dreams, but she also remembers the tiniest details about the dream and is able to clearly recall what has occurred in her dream. From my memories of the few dreams I have experienced, as soon as I wake up from a dream, the dream starts rapidly fading from my memory, and after a while I even forget that I ever had a dream. So, I can’t say when the last time I had a dream was.
I have a couple guesses why I don’t have dreams. (These are my guesses and are not based on scientific knowledge. I’m sure I could search around and spend hours finding and reading articles to figure out why dreams occur, but I’m not going to)
One guess is that I sleep a consistent amount and on a regular schedule. Occasionally, it shifts around by one or two hours, but I get close to eight hours every single night (When I go to bed at 11, I wake up at 7, and when I go to bed at 12, I wake up at 8). I hear people talking about how they only sleep four to five hours, and I am shocked at how they can do that. I can’t function if I don’t have my eight hours. Even if I started drinking coffee (I’ve had coffee ice cream, but that’s as close as I’ve gotten to drinking coffee), I don’t think I could survive on four to five hours of sleep every night. Anyway, I probably don’t get tired enough because I am not sleep deprived, so I don’t get into a deep enough sleep to have dreams.
The other guess is that I don’t eat spicy food. I don’t need to have my food super flavorful to enjoy eating it, so I rarely eat food that is hot or spicy. I don’t know what the connection between food and dreams are, but I grew in a household where during breakfast someone would explain having a dream with the comment: “I guess I shouldn’t have eaten all that garlic last night.”
I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something important by not having dreams. All I know is that dreams are weird and, in my opinion, they don’t mean anything (unless you are on the island).
2 comments:
After reading your post, I just realized that your hypothesis as to why you do not have dreams might be true. The reason why I agree with your guess is that I have dreams all the time. Almost every night I believe and these dreams are so vivid to me. Some in particular I can still describe today. In fact, I used to keep a daily journal of my dreams so that I won't forgot them. This is because all of my dreams are really interesting and mostly all positive. I used to wake up every morning and quickly jot down as much details of my dreams as I can. However, with my busy school schedule, that activity is history. Back to your suggestion, I do not sleep on a regular schedule, sometimes I get four hours a night and other times, I get about ten hours. My schedule isn't fix and I cannot alter it to be a fixed schedule. It's because I have essays, midterms, and assignments all the time throughout my academic school year so it is impossible for me to sleep at a certain time each night. On top of that, I have to juggle errands and tasks outside of school so that leaves me with an unpredictable schedule. Another point is that I do very much love spicy food and food that are very flavorful (see my post about the dragon fruit). Therefore I find your hypothesis to be quite interesting. I've heard about irregular sleeping schedules to effect your dreams but never about eating particular foods. Overall, thanks for this post because I think once I am done with school next week, I will pick up my previous habit of recording each and every dream that I will have.
Aimee: You should start a dream blog!
Arlen: I like the curiosity with which you explore this subject, but I do wonder what other factors might be playing into your lack of dreams. Or, do you think that you might have dreams but just not remember them? Maybe you have an extremely wild dreaming life, but you just don't have access to this life in your waking hours. I am reminded of Richard Linklater's film "Waking Life," a great film about lucid dreaming, and also the film "The Island," which is not great, but in which dreams *do* play an important role. (In fact I thought this was the 'island' to which you were referring to in your last sentence—but I see it is "Lost," which I am not very familiar with and I'd almost like one more sentence that puts this reference into context.)
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