 |
| Hypno fade (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The topic of dream memory has undoubtedly been broached on the pages of this blog at least a few times. Honestly I don't remember clearly if I've talked about dream memory in some capacity. This brings me to the thought of types of memory.
We either remember something or we don't unless we're thinking about shades of intensity in memory. Don't we have various kinds or levels of memory? The deeply ingrained memory for example--these are the vital data such as address, phone number, age, or social security number.
Then we have the historical memory--what we did today or some other time, things people told us, feelings we felt at points in time. Or there is relational memory--this pertains to sense of where we are and how we will get to the next place, facial or name recognition, or even bits of schedule data so we can organize our time.
Waking life can compartmentalized into many different memory situations.
But what about dream life? Are there different levels of importance to the data presented in a dream? Why do we remember some dreams easily, others with great difficulty, and still others are forgotten or never come to memory in our waking mind?
Recently I've been having very limited recall of my dreams. Also I don't write down or at least mentally ponder my dreams when I do remember something from sleep. The result in this is that my dreams are essentially forgotten to my conscious mind. Perhaps this is as it should be.
Normally I close my posts with some questions for you to answer, but since I've already asked a lot of questions in this post I'll just ask for your thoughts on the answers to those questions or what theories you may have regarding dream memory.
I seem to remember better if it involves a friend or something really super cool. Like the other night I dreamt that I found an awesome arrowhead at my parents' property. I found 2 when I was a little kid and have always hoped that more would turn up. In my dream I was on the other side of the driveway and picked up what I thought was a partially buried rock and it turned out to be a partially clear quartz arrowhead with pretty opaque striations in it. When I woke up, it made me wanna show up at my mom's house with a backhoe and large sieve. lol
ReplyDeleteI remember dreams only if I talk about them or tell my husband. If not, they drift away.
ReplyDeleteA few years back I was in the habit of recording any dreams I had in my journal, and that of course helped me to remember them. These days that habit has become sporadic, and so I find I don't remember my dreams like I used to.
ReplyDeleteIt's so interesting I think, the whole dream thing...and different types of memory. I think that dream life does have these various shades of intensity of memory, just like waking life...like, sometimes I'll remember the big, flashy part of a dream immediately, and then an hour or so later, I'll remember some little detail that was in the dream.
And sometimes, like you say, the dream never makes itself known to my conscious mind. I'll wake up with the sense that something was going on in my mind while I slept....but what?!
Lately I've been tempted to post a few of my more ridiculous dreams...I've rediscovered them as I'm going through my old journals.
JoJo-- Those dreams where something that exciting to us though somewhat strange--like your arrowhead dream--must come from some inner desire that has crossed our minds at some point in the past. I used to have those dreams of finding something cool a lot more when I was a kid or young adult. Now I'm mostly in a long vague quest in my dreams.
ReplyDeleteSusan -- Most of my dreams drift away for that same reason.
Eva-- You should experiment with the dream posts. I think dreams are wonder to use for writing exercise. I think I'll springboard off of your comment into a post next week about what makes dreams more memorable.
Lee