So, I am now keeping this dream journal, like I said I wanted to begin doing on here:

http://www.43things.com/person/puddlesplasher

I added that to my list a long time ago, way back when I first created the list, which was actually just about 1 year ago exactly.

I don't really know why I wanted to keep a dream journal. I don't know if dreams have much meaning, I'm no Freudian, but I do think dreams have a function. I think that they are a way for our minds to deal with the strong emotions we have experienced throughout the day, be it positive or negative. During sleep, our body is repairing and all sorts of chemical reactions are going on, our brain is sorting out what stays in our STM, compared to what is moving to our LTM, within those memories and emotions that have happened throughout the day, there is a way they are fitting into our preexisting schemas and so forth...so yeah, our brain is just sorting things out.

Often I focus on the moods I experience in my dreams. In most of my dreams I'm experiencing anxiety, and a sense of not knowing what to do, or there is information withheld from me, or something that I am not understanding the whole thing. Not recently, but throughout high school, most of the dreams I remembered upon waking involved people, but in a negative sense, often I felt feelings of anxiety and shame and inferiority. Or often there were things like I needed to confront someone but couldn't and felt anger, but didn't express it. For example, a dream that I remember, for some reason, involved me going to the lunchroom and I saw my hat on another person's head, and then they set it down on their lunch table, and the person looked really approachable and nice, but I felt anger and like it was unfair and instead of going and saying "hey that's my hat, did you find it somewhere," i just didn't confront them.

For a while during my senior year, towards the end, and during the summer...I often had dreams involving driving a car, and often the steering would stop working, or the brakes didn't work, probably representing a feeling of loss of control and anxiety, which makes perfect sense and the metaphor of the car, it all makes sense to me, and I see the meaning in it and how it parallels what was happening in my life at that time.

I think there is an importance within the dreams you remember vividly, and those that you don't. The one's that stick with you and the one's that don't. I mean, there's a lot I can see and understand and be like "hey! that relates to my life!" in the hat dream and the car dreams. Emotions, cognitions, etc, etc, being illustrated through a simple situation.

I had a very odd dream quite a few years ago that I still remember vividly.... well I was in a space-station / laboratory type thing for lack of a better explaination, and there were lots of hallways, it wasn't scary though, it was spacious, then I got to this dome/circle room, it was shiny metal, the roof was a glass dome. along the circumference of the inside of the room there was a walkway/sidewalk about 50 feet up. I was on the ground level though. There was a, well it wasn't a human, it looked human though, but it wasn't...it's just one of those things you know since it's your own dream. And it came down to the ground level, it like jumped and drifted down or something weird, and we embraced. I don't know why this dream sticks out to me so much. I hugged some non human thing that looked human....I don't know. In the dream there was a sense of warmth and the non-human thing needed me.


A dream I had when I was about 8 or 9, which I remember well, and is really weird to me...is this:

I was on a beach, it was bright and sunny and warm and the water was extremely pristine and clear, and I drowned a puppy in the water. And felt shame and guilt at the same time that I was doing it. This dream confuses me for a few reasons, 1. I have never wanted to hurt any living creature, 2. I love puppies, I loved them then, I loved them now. I love all animals, dogs are my favorite though I think.


So, now, I begin.

Throughout these I think I am going to bold certain words so that if I plan to go back and compare/contrast it will be easier to pick things out.

I think I am going to develop a format, this time is going to be a bit different because I'm adding more than one dream to an entry. But I'm going to put it as like

"Main mood/emotion(s):
Main imagery/symbol:

Hey! I just noticed I could make them tags and that would be easier too!

Then begin explaining the dream

Thursday Night's Dream:
Main mood/emotion: Anxiety, disgust, fear
Main imagery: Insects, creepy-crawly

I don't recall all of the things that happened, but in my dream there were bugs, they looked like a hybrid between earwigs and roly-poly bugs and lady bugs. They were brownish, and gross, and they were crawling all over my genital area, and I was trying to wash them off but they wouldn't go away. And that's really all I remember. I've had dreams like this before, and one of my weird little phobias in my actual waking life is insects crawling into bodily orifices, not only in the genital area, but everywhere.

Friday Night's Dream:
Main/strongest mood/emotions: Confusion at the end of the dream
Main setting/imagery: A modernized downtown area, stuffed animals, social situation

I had a bunch of dreams, but can only remember one of them now since I've waited a while since I've woke up to post this.

Well, the only part I remember of one of them is I was walking in a downtown type area, among windows, I guess you could consider it "window shopping" but none of the stuff was anything to purchase. It was things that were on display, not purchasable. Like there were lots of huge stuffed animals, there was one that was completely of dinosaurs, everything was really colorful and bright, and cheery, and then there was a window that lacked glass, and there were people sitting there, they were more drab and dull looking, and the person I was walking with went up and blew in their face and they didn't move, and at first I didn't understand, then I noticed a sign hanging that said something about you could blow twice in their face without them twitching or blinking, and the one person, she was sitting on a stool, and her shoulders were extremely hunched and she had bad posture and that was the main thing I noticed about her.


The person who I was with who blew in their face, he then took his hand and wiped her cheek, but in the dream I was confused as to what he wiped off, because it wasn't spit, I mean, I didn't see it in the dream, but I just know it wasn't spit, bcause it' s a dream, adn you just know things. And sometimes you know that things aren't certain things but you don't know what they are.