Thursday, March 27, 2014
I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night
Some readers might remember the 1966 psychedelic tune by the Electric Prunes called "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night). This title could very well describe the way my dream life has been of late. My sleep life has been filled with dreams of late--so many dreams that it's been difficult to keep up with them. I'll have an extremely vivid dream about one thing or another and think to myself upon awakening, "I need to remember this dream".
Since the dream memories have been so strong in many cases, I think that I will remember the dreams until I write them down. Unfortunately I've been lax in writing these dreams down and of course as typically will happen I forget them.
There have been a few mornings when I've even recounted the dreams of the previous night to my wife. This action should have been sufficient to remember at least some of those dreams, but there are none that I can now recall.
Part of the problem has probably been the abundance of the dreams. There are so many that they all melt together into some collective subconscious repository of dream memory and would be very difficult to now sort out. Other than a few trace memories concerning the nature of some of the content, the dreams themselves have been forgotten.
It's a case of too much dreaming and not enough recording the dream memory.
Do you ever have times when you dream more than you normally would? How does an abundance of sleep dreams affect your waking life? What is your best method of retaining dream memory?
Next post will be on Tuesday April 1st when this blog begins the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. During the month I will be posting about some of my favorite films that evoke the feeling of dreams or are about dreaming. I hope you'll join me!
Thursday, March 20, 2014
#atozchallenge Theme Reveal
I was tempted to let this blog sleep and dream during April, but I've decided to sign up my dream blog for another year of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. A Faraway View has been entered into the Challenge for the past two years so I figure why let it miss the 2014 Challenge.
My theme will be simple and one related to a subject that I enjoy--The Movies. During the April Challenge I will be looking at some of my favorite films that seem dream-like or have to do with dreaming. You may be familiar with some of these films and some may be new to you. I hope you will visit these posts to let me know your own thoughts about the films I've chosen or add some of your own that fit under the letter of the day.
Posts will be very short with only a brief synopsis or reasons why I've chosen the film. I will include an image such as the poster or a scene from the film. If you love the movies like I do and are fascinated by dreams then this will be a month of two-fers for twenty-six days.
For more information about the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge or to sign up go to the A to Z Blog.
To find the complete list of other blogs revealing their themes for April go to A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal Blogfest. Since I'm posting a day early for this many of the links may not lead to a theme reveal post until after you've read this. The Theme Reveal officially starts on Friday March 21st.
Are you participating in this year's Blogging from A to Z Challenge? Do you like movies that are dream-like? Do you think dream sequences in films are usually portrayed well?
Thursday, March 13, 2014
The Adverse Affect of Blogging on Dreams
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| Example of dark circles (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Since I began blogging in September of 2009, more than once have I awoken in the midst of a night's sleep with a concern about blogging. Before I learned how to pre-schedule blog posts I would just write a post and then publish it. This lead to posts appearing randomly at various times of day. Then I read somewhere that posts should appear on a regular time schedule. I just had to figure out what time would be best.
This concern about posting times began to cause me to wake up at odd hours at times. Usually I would try to have a post completed so I could publish it as soon as I woke up. Sometimes I would forget and remember during the night. It was probably in dreams that I was reminded about preparing my post to publish in the morning. Sometimes my sleep, hence my dreams was disrupted.
The discovery of scheduling the posts to appear automatically at designated times was a boon and a blessing to my sleep time--for the most part that is. Blogging and internet in general still frequently affects my sleep and dreams in an adverse way.
This phenomena is comparable to dreaming about work, school, or anything that might involve a major part of our lives. These days I spend so much of my time on the internet and doing things related to my blogs that these activities preoccupy much of my thinking both consciously and subconsciously. I won't make any mental health judgments about this. It's just the way things are in my life now.
Occasionally I have awoken from a dream about blogging--usually not a troubling dream, but one that causes me to dwell upon my blogging. The dream may be related to an idea for a post. There are times when I have gotten up in the middle of the night to compose a post or at least lay out a considerable amount of notes so the idea would not be forgotten. Naturally this takes away time from sleep and dreams.
At other times I might dream about other bloggers. This is usually not adverse I would suppose, but these dreams can create a peculiar sense of involvement with people I don't actually know. Can such fantasies play a negative role in my perception of waking life?
Then, as I have mentioned in other blog posts, my dreams sometimes delude me into thinking something is wrong with my blog, my computer, or some aspect of my internet life. Sometimes I wake up confused from dreams such as these and it may take a while for me to understand that I was only dreaming.
Probably my major concern is that blogging draws me away from sleep and dreams and I may have a compulsion to go online instead of sleeping when I should be at a state of rest. This can result in sleep deprivation. I often feel tired and think this may be a reason why. Being tired, I will typically take an afternoon nap during which any dreams that I have are usually not what I would call "quality dreams" in that they don't seem long enough, they lack story and have minimal coherency insomuch that a dream can be considered to be "coherent".
There is no good solution to this that I can think of. And in fairness to my internet involvement, my sleeping habits do seem to be getting better of late. Then again, maybe I'm just adapting to having the internet influence in my life. This may just be another plight of modern existence.
Is your sleep and dream life affected by your activity on line? Do you think the internet can be a danger to the mind? What are some ways that modern technology intrudes on your ability to sleep well and dream healthily?
Thursday, March 6, 2014
"It Must Have Been Something I Ate"
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| Pizza Toscana in box (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
We've all heard the expression "It must have been something I ate". You've probably used it yourself. For me it's usually an expression that connotes unpleasant feelings. Most often it's my explanation for a bad feeling in my digestive system. But I suppose it might also apply as a reason for having some of the dreams we have.
If I've eaten too much, not enough, or something that has an effect on my mind or body, I might be kept awake by the discomfort of a bad feeling in my stomach. Caffeine or certain stimulating foods might cause me to feel jittery and keep me awake. If I eat something like fruit or drink a lot of liquids I might need to get up with some frequency to go to the bathroom.
In the latter case I will often have dreams about looking for a bathroom, finally awakening to actually get up and go. If I haven't eaten enough and am hungry, I will probably dream about food. The feelings in my body can understandably influence my dreams. But I wonder if specific foods influence dreams in some way?
I can't remember any instances where I can say a particular food influenced my dreams. I would surmise that any spicy food or highly flavorful food could very well affect my dream life. Perhaps candy, desserts, or any sugar laden or sweet foods influence dreams. I would not be surprised if meats, pizza, or certain ethnic foods would cause an increase of dream activity. Honestly, I cannot say that this is the case since I don't recall an example from my own life.
Maybe you can provide some examples that you have experienced.
Can you pinpoint any specific foods that have caused you to have more unusual dreams than normal? What foods would you expect to have the most affect on dreaming? Do you ever purposely eat or drink anything in order to have increased dream activity?
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