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| Night & Sleep (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
This post has nothing to do with the Bob Seger song "Night Moves" but the title came to mind as I was pondering the topic of today's post. In the comments you can tell me if your experience has been anything like my experience in dreaming.
Typically as I go through the cycles of waking and sleeping throughout the night, the dreams that I will have seem to generally have a certain mood to them. If my dreams start out dark or frightening, they will continue like this throughout the night. Likewise if the dream mood is positive or happy then all the dreams will be of a similar vein.
These dreams may not always be part of the same dream story or having a sense of continuing the narrative from one dream to the next though sometimes they will. In other words if I am awakened by something about the dream or some external stimulus, when I return to sleep the next dream phase will usually be very similar to the previous one.
For example, a few nights ago I had a rather frightening dream that caused me to wake up and continue to lie awake for a number of minutes. I don't recall precisely the nature of the dream but it had something to do with gory images and the sense that someone was in my house. When I finally went back to sleep my next dream was not exactly the same though it had some elements of the previous segment. This continued throughout the night and up to my morning awakening. Each dream was essentially a scary dream though successively in each problems seemed to get resolved until my final dream on awakening was relatively tame.
On examining the possible influences of my dreams I can immediately cite a similar dream topic by fellow blogger Stephen T McCarthy that I had read prior to going to sleep that night. He had a dream about intruders and since this has been something I have dreamed of in the past his story registered in my mind to the point where I obviously subconsciously carried it into my sleep. Also I had seen something on television that day that likewise influenced my dreams. These dream prompts along with whatever might have been troubling me that day contributed to a fitful night of dreaming. Most of the fitful nature of the night was due to something that had been troubling me while the prompts merely provided the dream story to accompany my mood. That mood remained consistent throughout the night.
Most nights my dreams are not frightening but either disorienting or relatively pleasant. On those nights I also notice that the night mood remains consistent until I awaken in the morning. After each awakening throughout the night when I return to the dream, the mood as well as the general idea of the dream setting will be approximately the same from one dream to the next.
These separate dreams are not necessarily continuations of any dream story lines, but only a consistency in the general feel of the dream. The characters and settings of each dream might be different, but the night mood seems to remain the same.
Does your mood of the day or the time immediately prior to sleep seem to affect how you will feel throughout your entire night of dreaming? Do you often dream in chapters or in a sort of continuation serial type story throughout the night? Have you ever had a dream where the story continued from one night to the next?
I've never had a continual night after night story dream. I can't even get back into a dream if I wake up. Lately I've been under a lot of stress with a bunch of family stuff that's all hit the fan at the same time. So my dreams have been troubling. Or they will start out fine but then end not very well at all. And yes, a bad/sad dream can affect my entire day.
ReplyDeleteI don't usually wake more than once while sleeping. But when I have woken more often I had experienced that picking up where you left off feeling in my dreams. I seem to go through spells where I can't remember any dream and then I'll go through a phase of having one stand out.
ReplyDeleteI often work in my dreams. I guess that's a carry over from my day especially if I have something unsolved or unresolved. I have never had a continued night after night story dream....I want one.
ReplyDeleteNight Moves - one of my best songs.
ReplyDeleteThe second or third dream very often appears to have no connection to the preceding one but when I look at my recording of it in the light of day, I think I see a thread, so there does seem to be consistency 'of sorts'. As always, the unconscious prods and pokes ...
Thanks Arlee - as I write, no doubt you're in dream land... hope they're sweet.
I usually remember one dream and it seems that dream is mixture of 2-3 scenes going on. I never get back into a dream after I wake up.
ReplyDelete