Dreams

[VolkerP]

Weird dream last night. I attended a ceremonious opening of a new "science center" at a university in Florida. Nigel was there, since he wasn't attending TESLIVE (I was sure of that in my dream!) and was one of the speakers. Later I identified myself as TMC member, and we had a little chat, but not so much as he was rather busy, of course.

Don't know what to make of it, or of Nigel wearing a white shirt with red plaid. No, we haven't met ever.

 

[austinEV]

Ok, so I had a Model S dream... The phone app had 3 new features:

1) Drive to me. I didn't test this because I did #2 first:
2) Follow me. In this mode, the car creeps along behind you as you walk on foot, so you are always close to your car i guess? The problem is that the car made no attempt at street pathing or anything that would make a shred of sense, so you had to make sure that it wouldn't drive over anything bad. I got the distinct impression it just made a straightline to you so I didn't test #1.
3) Follow me in compact form. So, the car compresses transformer-like into a small cylinder on wheels, basically R2-D2 and follows you closely so you don't have to worry about parking, and your car is always close by! It kept hitting the back of my feet which wasn't great. Then I had it switch back to car mode and as it did so I realized I had a lot of concerns about the amount of flexing involved in the process and that it may not be a good idea to do it very often...

Pretty great ideas though huh?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

3) Follow me in compact form. So, the car compresses transformer-like into a small cylinder on wheels, basically R2-D2 and follows you closely so you don't have to worry about parking, and your car is always close by! It kept hitting the back of my feet which wasn't great. Then I had it switch back to car mode and as it did so I realized I had a lot of concerns about the amount of flexing involved in the process and that it may not be a good idea to do it very often...

Future first world problems...

 

[Johan]

Ok, so I had a Model S dream... The phone app had 3 new features:

1) Drive to me. I didn't test this because I did #2 first:
2) Follow me. In this mode, the car creeps along behind you as you walk on foot, so you are always close to your car i guess? The problem is that the car made no attempt at street pathing or anything that would make a shred of sense, so you had to make sure that it wouldn't drive over anything bad. I got the distinct impression it just made a straightline to you so I didn't test #1.
3) Follow me in compact form. So, the car compresses transformer-like into a small cylinder on wheels, basically R2-D2 and follows you closely so you don't have to worry about parking, and your car is always close by! It kept hitting the back of my feet which wasn't great. Then I had it switch back to car mode and as it did so I realized I had a lot of concerns about the amount of flexing involved in the process and that it may not be a good idea to do it very often...

Pretty great ideas though huh?

Wonderful dream! Aluminum doesn't bend well over and over. Also very cool is that I expect #1 within 15 years.

 

[austinEV]

Wonderful dream! Aluminum doesn't bend well over and over. Also very cool is that I expect #1 within 15 years.

Right, that one is on the real radar I am sure.

The funny thing is that the dream was about me being upset about poorly implemented new features. If the dream had gone longer I probably would have dreamed about complaining about it on TMC...

Wait, I sort of did that anyway. Crap, am I awake?

 

[StephenM]

Haha! The Model S is definitely on your brain for such a vivid dream to come to you.

 

[Canuck]

I've had a few dreams about my car since getting it. In one of them, I drove back from my cabin, 300 km away, and the battery was still full. It caused me concern to leave it parked with a full battery, so I had to drive it around the block trying to get it off the maximum charge. If I Freudian analyze my dream, it's probably because I was concerned about making it to my cabin on one charge before getting the car, which has proven to be no problem, so my dreams are now making fun of my worries.

My dreams are also laughable compared to be worried about launching multi-million dollar satellites into space where so much can go wrong:

“As we get closer to a rocket launch my sleep is worse,” Musk told CNN’s Rachel Crane in an interview conducted Aug. 21 at SpaceX. “I did have for a while these sort of horrible nightmares of rockets failing before launch because in the very beginning our rockets did not succeed.”

The 43-year-old native of South Africa said he’s had dark dreams his whole life.

“I don’t know why,” he said “I’ve always had those from when I was a kid.”

He believes his “really vivid” dreams “correlate to stress in the real world.”

Elon Musk cancels SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, admits to | WTVR.com

 

[Rheazombi]

Mr. Zombi (my SO) just had a pretty amusing dream.

Took place in Los Angeles. He, his parents, uncle, and I were all driving to attend the final Model X reveal (!). He was worried we wouldn't get there in time. Was supposed to take place at a weird hotel floating on the water near the docks. The room where everyone was gathering in looked like Flynn's house from TRON. Everyone had assigned seating. From our vantage point he couldn't see Elon but there were screens all around the room showing everything. People were being handed bags of swag and fancy complementary ground coffee in foil bags (??). Finally they revealed the Model X and it looked pretty much the same as the one at the NAIAS (When he woke up he told me he was bummed out he wasn't able to be more imaginative, lol). During the reveal, he kept wanting them to talk about the falcon doors but they never did. Instead they talked about the headrests and how they had some new special features (lol). Everyone in attendance was very impressed by the whole thing. His mom said "I wish we needed an SUV".

(I've had many Model S dreams myself lately, usually involving driving in the snow. I'll start writing them down from now on!)

 

[Auzie]

Glad to see this thread, the opportunities to talk about dreams are quite rare.

This is a long post as it is difficult to be clear and coherent about dreams. Language for describing dream phenomena does not exist, so I have to elaborate. Please skip if this is too long.

The first part of the post outlines briefly some of my views on dreams just to set the stage to describe a specific dream in the second part of the post. I have devoted considerable time and effort to come to understandings that I describe. All these understandings relate to me only, it might be different for different people.

I had many ordinary dreams, flying dreams, lucid dreams, fantastic dreams, and some nightmares that were actually warnings and preparations for coming tragedies. I have learned to act on such warnings. Actually I try to act on all my dreams. I had to learn to understand them first.

After contemplating my dreams for some years, I feel that I decoded the language of my dreams to a significant extent. They speak in metaphors that I increasingly understand. It is quite similar to learning a different language. Everything is gibberish initially. Slowly, gradually, word by word, or dream by dream, understanding becomes easier until it is complete and effortless.

Quite often, my dreams make fun of me and exaggerate to make a point. I get precognitive dreams sometimes. I get many warnings in dreams, often repetitive if ignored. The hardest ones to understand are the unpleasant ones that highlight my blind spots. I often only get to understand them after some time had passed, retrospectively. If I get rats or monsters in my dreams, I find it worthwhile paying a lot of attention and thinking hard about such dreams, trying to decode them.

Body state (health) and disagreeable or late food intake may produce unpleasant dreams. If a person goes to sleep immediately after loading themselves with food or drinks, the contents of the full stomach spill out when body is in a horizontal position as the one way valve just above the stomach may fall under the level of stomach contents. The valve, which consists of a muscle ring, thus comes under considerable pressure and may leak stomach contents into the esophagus. Apart from bad dreams, such repetitive condition might lead to a weakening of the muscles and reflux disease. Harsh stomach acids can also damage the lining of the esophagus. If you get a dream of being burned alive, well, maybe you are doing it to yourself by eating too much just before sleep.

This is one of the most fantastic dreams that I ever had. I am not sure if that was a dream, but it happened in sleep, at waking up.

I have to start talking about false awakening dreams to try to explain this particular dream. In false awakening dream, there is a sensation of waking up from sleep and going through the day. That sensation feels real. Only on a later final wake up there is a realization that the previous wake-up was actually in a dream. A dream felt like a wake-up reality. I used to have these dreams quite often as a child, sometimes a sequence of false awakenings one after the other until the final wake up. Such dreams made me confused about reality. Perhaps my reality is just another dream that I will soon wake up from.

In my fantastic dream, there was a sensation of waking up not from one dream, but from a flood of countless dreams, one immediately after the other and/or at the same time. The ocean of awareness opened to me.

The realization was like a flash, no time required for all the dreams to be remembered, relived and to realize that they were dreams.

On waking up, I remembered (or re-lived) one dream. On that remembering, something opened up and I remembered or re-lived further countless dreams and realized that they were dreams. It was like the opening of one door followed by opening of countless other doors, each door leading to a different dream, and all these doors opened for me and I could choose which door to go through and experience that particular dream behind that door, or I could choose many doors simultaneously. Of course, there were no doors but I have no word to describe such openings so I use word door.

There are no words to describe that state of wakefulness and still remembering all these dreams and living through them all at once on waking up. My awareness could move in any direction or all directions or wake up. Full choice full control full awareness. In that sense it was similar to lucid dream but my lucid dreams are more focused and ecstatic, this dream was more about the awareness/availability of full memory and about the realization of being in so many dreams.

My main take away from this dream and some similar ones seems to be that they dispel fear. I am not talking about everyday fears, from everyday life. These ordinary fears are still present and are tackled by ordinary dreams. Deep inner existential fear seem to be absent because of such fantastic dreams. There are some other takeaways, but this post is too long already.

In case someone might be wondering, I do not take any drugs or prescription medications.

 

[Takumi]

I totally understand where you're coming from, Auzie.

My dreams used to be like that when I was younger. I think up to my teen years. I don't know when my dreams started to become "false reality" dreams. It seems that's what I mostly dream about now or if I do dream other types, I don't quite remember when I wake up.

 

[Canuck]

Interesting post, Auzie. I can related to some of it. I used to have a lot of flying dreams -- they were great. No plane or anything -- just me flying all over. I haven't had any of those in over a decade though, unfortunately. Now I occasionally have dreams when I know in the dream that it's a dream and I am dreaming. It's really strange. Sometimes I have arguments with my wife in my dreams over really stupid stuff (but with a connection to reality -- except to an extreme) and when I wake up I tell her about it and then we have an argument about the reason I was arguing with her in my dream (like she put away something I needed and then I can't find it), then we laugh about it. My dream is telling me about how stupid my arguments are with my wife, but instead of listening to it, I argue with my wife about it. I'm a slow learner.

 

[bonnie]

Interesting post, Auzie. I can related to some of it. I used to have a lot of flying dreams -- they were great. No plane or anything -- just me flying all over. I haven't had any of those in over a decade though, unfortunately. Now I occasionally have dreams when I know in the dream that it's a dream and I am dreaming. It's really strange. Sometimes I have arguments with my wife in my dreams over really stupid stuff (but with a connection to reality -- except to an extreme) and when I wake up I tell her about it and then we have an argument about the reason I was arguing with her in my dream (like she put away something I needed and then I can't find it), then we laugh about it. My dream is telling me about how stupid my arguments are with my wife, but instead of listening to it, I argue with my wife about it. I'm a slow learner.

Lucid dreaming. Next step is changing the direction of the dream from within the dream.

 

[tga]

I pretty much never remember my dreams (maybe < once/month); I wish I could. "They" say everyone dreams; if you think you don't it's just that you aren't remembering them.

 

[Auzie]

Interesting post, Auzie. I can related to some of it. I used to have a lot of flying dreams -- they were great. No plane or anything -- just me flying all over. I haven't had any of those in over a decade though, unfortunately. Now I occasionally have dreams when I know in the dream that it's a dream and I am dreaming. It's really strange. Sometimes I have arguments with my wife in my dreams over really stupid stuff (but with a connection to reality -- except to an extreme) and when I wake up I tell her about it and then we have an argument about the reason I was arguing with her in my dream (like she put away something I needed and then I can't find it), then we laugh about it. My dream is telling me about how stupid my arguments are with my wife, but instead of listening to it, I argue with my wife about it. I'm a slow learner.

I would not describe my flying or floating dreams as great, as I float in most of my dreams. Floating is never the main feature of my dream story, nor does it contribute in any way to the story. It is a strong physical sensation of flying that is so real and stays with me in the waking life.

In a dream, it is like something kicks in, I realize that it is simply ridiculous to walk, no need, so I just take off. Other dream characters usually behave as in waking life, they either walk or are stationery, I have troubles recalling other flying characters. Then the dream story unfolds, whatever the particular story is.

The floating bit is quite peculiar. I seem to lack full control of a direction, speed and altitude. If I fly too fast, often I fly through other people as I lack control to navigate around them. Now as I type this it occurs to me that such lack of control at higher speeds and collisions could be just another metaphor, but back to flying.

While floating, I can feel some physical stickiness that creates a drag on speed and especially altitude. When I was a child, that stickiness was not there, I could go much faster and higher, the only drag force then was fear. Now with fear absent, this stickiness is grounding me.

One of the most interesting flying dreams I had was with a large car, Toyota Land Cruiser, I used to have one for few years. I had a strong dislike of that car, my ex liked it and bought it. So there I am in a dream, driving this huge car that feels like driving a truck. Then I just decide that driving these tons of metal is ridiculous and decide to take off with it. The car takes off and I fly it like a plane. That taking off and flying felt good. Another metaphor hits me here as I type.

Regarding slow learning, we all choose the pace that we enjoy most, faster is not necessarily better than slower, and it is quite difficult to measure something so elusive and undefined as dreams lectures. The fact that you and your wife laugh together is a positive undeniable measure that you are most likely at the very good place, no need for fast learning lectures from dreams:biggrin:

 

[Auzie]

I pretty much never remember my dreams (maybe < once/month); I wish I could. "They" say everyone dreams; if you think you don't it's just that you aren't remembering them.

Few tips that might help remembering, I hope

No food, no drinks, no coffee after 3pm. Small sips of water if thirsty. Unfortunately this needs to be a habit, one off is unlikely to work
Control and arrange your sleep environment to work for you
Before falling asleep, contemplate the issue you wish to dream about
Accept and be ready to disturb your sleep and wake up anytime during the night to catch a dream
Upon waking up, do not wake up fully, replay the dream backwards without moving, try to go back into the dream. This is the most tricky step, it involves taking control of consciousness shift from one state to the other. In order to be able to navigate through such subtle and elusive process, attempts at navigation must be even more subtle. Easy does it and practice makes perfect.
It helps a lot if you can have a lifestyle in which you wake up naturally, not with an alarm clock

There were times when I could catch five dreams in one night. That interferes with my sleep. I wake up with alarm clock, so I eased off on catching dreams

The best way to sum it up is to repeat 'learning a different language' metaphor - it takes time, effort, attention, it is slow, incremental process but anyone can do it whoever is willing to put time and effort into it. I find dream dictionaries useless, as my dream metaphors are understandable by myself only. The symbolism seems to be highly personalised.

The rewards are similar to getting to understand a new language - the whole new world opens up for understanding.

The final and the biggest reward seems to be that once the personalised dream language is decoded, that opens the door to understanding one's life much better. The code used in person's dreams is the same as the code in waking life. Coder seems to be the same.

 

[juju]

Had my first Model S dream last night. Well, more like a nightmare.

The car started acting up really badly while driving: headlights turned off and wouldn’t come back on, then the dash started flashing (think autopilot warning but faster) and some error message saying “Battery has been overcharged. Permanent damage.” The car’s range then began to drop significantly. I decided to stop the car. I was in a sketchy part of town so I didn’t want to leave it there. I somehow managed to begin to disassemble the car, then a homeless lady tried to steal my bumper.

I woke up and looked out my window to see her sleeping peacefully in the driveway. Went back to sleep