One odd thing I’ve noticed is that each dream each night is completely unique. It seems to have no relationship to the others, either in terms of feeling, theme, location, characters or plot. And yet, there is only one person, me, who is dreaming them all, and all in the space of one night of my life, during which I presumably have one main outlook and feeling about myself and the world. This was a very unexpected discovery.
As well, when I thought back on as many dreams from the last few days as I could remember this morning, I noticed that all the people in them had distinct personalities, with distinct looks and characters as well, as if they were plucked right off a real street and popped into my dream whole. Even sometimes while I was dreaming I would be puzzling over one of them just as I would someone I met in real life, thinking what an interesting person. In the past, I've ignored their reality because I just assumed that what some psychologists said about dreams was the truth, that people in them represent different aspects of the dreamer's self. So, not understanding a character simply meant I didn’t understand what aspect of myself was being referred to. Well, that still may be true, just that the representations aren't simple symbols created from whole cloth as if they were chess pieces but instead are plucked straight from my memory base of real people and brought to life.
However, the more I think about that, the more I doubt that they represent parts of my psyche. Instead, they seem more likely to be parts of the drama of a dream, and it’s the whole of the drama which represents my ongoing feeling and outlook at the time.
One part of my general outlook now, and has been since I lost my shyness recently, is a newfound enjoyment of people, of the individuals they all are. I really like people, in all their uniqueness, all of them, the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, I think that interest is being represented in my dreams by making the individual characters in the drama fun to watch and think about. It uses these fascinating people as the building blocks for each dream. It's as if my dream mind were a story writer. Which would make sense too because stories are another thing I'm into consciously. As I have been most of my life.
Or is it the other way around; I'm into it consciously because my unconscious mind just naturally thinks in terms of stories? I don’t know the answer to that one. Although, If I think about it hard enough, maybe I’ll dream it up tonight.
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Stan Burfield Reading it over just now, a creative thought: From "The representations aren't simple symbols created from whole cloth as if they were chess pieces but instead are plucked straight from my memory base of real people and brought to life." In future, to make chess pieces more interesting, they will be little holograms of real people playing the parts of bishops, pawns, queens, etc, each powered by AI to respond to the player's fingers and to the other pieces around them and to their current positions in the game as real people in those positions might.
Like · Reply · 1 · 22 December 2016 at 16:55 · Edited
Sharon LaFrenz Do you ever write your dreams down Stan? It would be interesting to see if any of the various characters come to visit sporadically.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 17:19
Stan Burfield Occasionally, I do. Last night one of the people I know from the open mic was in one of the dreams. But very seldom are they people I know. Do you have full-fledged people in your dreams? And yes, it would be interesting to see if they show up in real life. "Like out of a dream."
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 17:50 · Edited
Sharon LaFrenz Stan Burfield The real people in my dreams are often loved ones I've lost.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 17:50
Stan Burfield Ah. That makes sense. In the dream, you feel they're still alive?
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 17:51
Stan Burfield And are you happy to see them? Or sad?
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 17:52
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Magnus Grendel Samson Coleman All dreams are at least in partial relation to some form of ultimate reality, outside (or inside) itself, within upon the dream state of being... All is symbol and allegory, or blatant vision, to another realm of experience, within our observable selves, as conscious trinity flux; ultra essence... Balls really.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:11 · Edited
Stan Burfield ha ha ie. if we haven't experienced it to some degree, we're not going to dream about it?
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:12
Stan Burfield Unless, as you say, it's blatant vision.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:12
Magnus Grendel Samson Coleman The most potent dreams go beyond mere conception, I think.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:12
Stan Burfield beyond conception?
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:13
Stan Burfield You mean into vision?
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:13
Magnus Grendel Samson Coleman Dreams have a natural tendency to extend out beyond any natural typical experience... As there isn't such a thing.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:14
Stan Burfield Well, at very least they put natural things together in unnatural ways, quite often.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:15
Magnus Grendel Samson Coleman We all have a third eye that pecieves, that it concieves all... Way back in the deep dark subconscious of data as grey matter... Suspended by the silver thread of reality. (All that glistens)
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:17
Stan Burfield Definitely my subconscious is seeing and recording in great detail everything at least that interests me in the real world, because it can bring them up with such depth.
Like · Reply · 22 December 2016 at 18:20
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Paul Branton happy ho ho
Like · Reply · 23 December 2016 at 10:58
Paul Branton shorten up this piece and read it at the open mic
Like · Reply · 23 December 2016 at 11:00
Paul Branton 7 or so lines
Like · Reply · 23 December 2016 at 11:00
Stan Burfield ha ha. Now that's an idea!
Like · Reply · 23 December 2016 at 13:19
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Erin Kelly Yeah, 7 lines!
I haven't solved my dreams,
the elements are like chess pieces
that haven't really
learned how to move, an awkward knight
bobbing and posturing, not convinced a threat is
believable or even intended.
We'll wait to see what develops on the board.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · 24 December 2016 at 04:47