The Stuff of Dreams

48 Replies

At the end of a busy day there is nothing more comforting than to curl up under the covers, head resting gently on a pillow. The muscles relax, the body settles, sleep is nudging at your brain cells… Soon… Soon… Sleep. “To sleep: perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub . . .”

Excessive amounts of time and money have been spent trying to explain why and how we actually dream. Sometimes a difficult problem can be solved while we sleep. Sometimes we live in a fantasy. Sometimes we get the knickers scared off us!  And sometimes we either do not dream or we simply cannot remember them. There are times our dreams leave us unsettled, irritated for reasons we do not understand. Have our dreams touched a nerve that we are not aware of? Through our dreams have we touched another? What does our mind do when we are sleeping, when our bodies have no control?

They say that we are at our most restful sleep when we reach REM: Rapid Eye-Movement. We may appear to be comatose but our eyes are moving constantly hence the name. When we are sleeping the deepest is that when our minds are active? When our eyes are closed what does our brain see? What does our mind extrapolate? These are questions I am not sure I want answered.

I love to dream. I think of it as a very inexpensive quick vacation. In University I took a psychology course where they encouraged us to write down our dreams. For years I kept a note pad and a pen near my bed and as soon as I woke up, I wrote down impressions or ideas, thoughts that had come to me in the night and I had been able to retain.  Some were nonsensical but others… Within a few hours the memory of those thoughts had evaporated. When I looked back at my notes, I was often surprised. But I occasionally found solutions to problems I had been cogitating for days. That intrigues me. Does our mind have the ability to work without direction? Are our brains and our minds actually two different entities that work together but have the ability to work separately? There is a scary short story in that… Yes, I have gotten many of my story ideas in the middle of the night, not always when I’m awake.

I find going to sleep is like going into a movie theatre not know what movie I am going to see. I don’t even know what kind of movie it is. I find that exhilarating! Sleep well tonight, you never know who you might meet.  Maybe  I’ll see you there . . .

48 thoughts on “The Stuff of Dreams”

  1. Mark Lanesbury

    I have a post up on my top menu bar called The Dreaming. It begins with how i do meditation but then goes into what you speak dear lady. It is indeed an amazing thing when you fine tune that ‘contact’ and what can come through. I found that the last hour before you wake in the morning seems to be that sweet spot, probably that deep rem sleep you speak of. No wonder you give great posts, I should have known 😂 🤣 ❤️ 🙏🏽 🦋

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  3. Darlene

    Dreams are incredible. Mine are often very lively and full of adventure. My favourite one was when my dad visited me in a dream. It really was like he was there with me. I also woke up feeling he was happy and at peace.

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  5. Murphy’s Law

    I love dreaming, even when I can’t specifically remember the dream. Sometimes, when Mother Nature so rudely wakes me up during the night,
    I can’t wait to fall asleep again so I can get back to my dream! 😴

    Pam, it’s unlikely we’ll meet in life, so I would love to meet you in a dream, many times. Oh, the things we would discuss and laugh about! What fun. We wouldn’t want to wake up.
    Ginger

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      1. Murphy’s Law

        Rude is right! And it’s disorienting to say the least. How would Mother Nature like us banging on her door in the middle of the night? Sheesh! 🤗
        Ginger

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      1. Murphy’s Law

        Yesss! Mark should definitely be there with us! “Dream chocolate” ….my mouth is watering. Mark would know exactly where to find it. And dream chocolate won’t melt on our fingers! 🤪
        Ginger

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  6. K.L. Hale

    Thank you for sharing about dreams! I’ve had a few in which my reality played out parts. Some scary (a trip to Grandfather’s Mountain in N.C. and my son falling~it didn’t happen of course, but the scene was “set” and I was overprotective probably to a fault. I dreamt my youngest fell from the top of a bunk bed at church camp~he did. He was a tiny guy who loved adventure and I KNEW he had fallen. Last Thursday, I dreamt something happened to him. He called me after a surgery he had to have to say he is being deployed~in NINE days}. If anything, my dreams have been my connecting pieces to the things closest in my life. As a twin, we have even shared some really fascinating dreams, …the stuff of dreams is such a miracle. I struggle with sleep a few times each week. I use the Abide meditation app, I played one that said it was an Army tip on how to fall asleep in two minutes~I wasn’t awake when it ended and that was the night I dreamt of my youngest. I love the mysteries of life! 💛❤️

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  8. joylennick

    I enjoyed reading that, Pamela. I’m sure if I met you in a dream, it would be much more interesting than some of mine… Many are just weird, although now and again , in half-dreams, I get the odd idea for an article or an insert for a short story, The one which takes some beating is having a Viking chief knock the door (hordes behind him!) saying they had come for tea and I wondered if I had enough cups or mugs… Takes Hygge to a new level! xx

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  9. Don Ostertag

    Nice post. I dream a lot about working in a strange theater and having problems putting up the scenery. There are old stagehand that I worked with helping or hindering. But I only dream about the hands that are dead. Never any that are still alive.

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    1. quiall Post author

      I am sure a psychiatrist would have a heyday with your dreams! I just think you’d like to remember the good times with friends long gone. It’s a wonderful way to share.

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  11. pensitivity101

    Dreams, like my sleep pattern at the moment, are erratic. When I do dream, it can be anything from past relationships, my parents, or dogs I have owned, loved and lost. If I’m worried or stressed, I dream of toilets, and I have the occasional nightmare which can wake me up afraid and tearful.
    I am good at self analysis of my dreams though, and this helps get things back into perspective.

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  14. bikerchick57

    I stopped dreaming for awhile when I was at the end of my marriage, going through a divorce and taking care of the parents. I have to believe it was the stress of all that which didn’t give me restful sleep. I dream now, but it’s very occasional and as always, the dreams tend to be weirdly laughable…like the post office police car chasing me over a hill. Not sure if I was speeding or committed a crime! :-p

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  16. Linda Pearce Griffin

    I loved this post! I have had wild, crazy dreams all my life. Sometimes they were horrible nightmares – as a child I often woke my parents screaming from a nightmare. I still have them sometimes. Mostly my dreams are lively, vivid and full of people. Sometimes I’m having a crazy, wonderful time or its just crazy or sometimes just wonderful. Sometimes I’m trying to solve a problem, get somewhere, find something………and sometimes people and things morph and turn into other people or things. For a couple of years I kept a dream journal. Mostly they seemed nonsensical but sometimes reading through the journal much later things seemed more clear and actually made sense. Like you, I mostly love dreaming. Its like a free movie every night. I wish I could remember every one of my dreams. But sometimes they just fade away all too quickly in the morning light. Its interesting that sometimes when you try to write down your dream or verbalize it in any way it seems to crumble into nothingness – when it made complete and total sense while I was dreaming it. Oh! Dreams!!!! I have often wondered about them and this has definitely inspired me. Thank you! I will be looking for you in my dreams. Keep your eyes open for me in yours – there’s just no telling what might happen. Sweet Dreams, Pamela.

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    1. quiall Post author

      What a lovely response Linda! I do vaguely recall dreams, nightmares as a child but as an adult my dreams are pretty well always upbeat. I like the me that is in my dreams. I am thinner and more energetic and just plain cuter! Wouldn’t it be wild if we could meet up in the dreamworld. I wonder if…

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  17. rangewriter

    Oh a deep subject! I hate it when I know I’m dreaming like crazy and as soon as I wake up the dream evaporates. All I’m left with is a vague notion, maybe I remember who was in the dream or how I felt, but the narrative is gone. Then there are the dreams that seem so vivid I can’t possible forget them. But I do. And then I’m angry at myself for not being wise enough to write the details down as soon as I awoke. But I also have a friend who used to have terribly vivid and gory dreams. I think she had some issues to work out. Now, 40 years later, she’s happily married and hopefully no longer having gory dreams. But I’m a little afraid to ask her.

    I love the concept of crawling into bed and drifting off to a movie house.

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  18. Dale

    I don’t know how he did it, but my husband almost always found solutions to design issues for work in his sleep. Me? I just want to fall asleep and stay there!

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