[Gallagher]

So, I don't always remember my dreams, but I sleep lightly enough that it's not uncommon for me to wake up remembering dreams 2 or 3 times a night. And something I've noticed is that whenever I do remember my dreams, I also wake up hearing the sound of shoes shuffling on carpet. Usually right behind me.

So I'm like ??? wtf dude ??? can u not ??? lmao

weird sleep things, amirite?

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Ja. I've heard that dreams you remember are the ones that were happening close to when you woke up but I'm never sure. What gets me is when I have multi-parters, where I fall back asleep after waking and the same dream continues, or if I have a dream that I know is a continuation of one I had before. It's annoying when I wake up in the actual morning and then realize that I can't get back to sleep because a specific dream or something is really cool.

The more creative I've been, the more elaborate and specific my dreams get, to the point where I'm narrating them, or judging. "No, no no that's wrong. restart! Do it this way!"

I will get moments where if I'm tired or half asleep or maybe just lightly dozing, then I'll get "room interference" in a dream I'm having, like either my conscious thought has escaped and is running amok because I fell more asleep, or I'm waking up slightly and external noises are sneaking in.

I don't know about the shoes thing. I can't think of anything specific like that for myself. Usually, when I'm waking up from a dream things are quiet, like there is nothing specific that woke me up.

[Kaderin Triste]

Man, dreams can be really weird.
I don't often remember mine unless they are really bizarre or really scare me.

That whole shoe shuffling thing is freaky. I would probably be super on edge about that. XD

[CactuarJoe]

I've noticed I never really get nightmares anymore, even though I watch tons of horror movies. I know it's weird to miss them but they always made super interesting stories, when i could remember them. Like the one where my Dad ate my sister's left arm on a hot dog bun.

[Moonshadow]

I'm going to get weird here...but here goes:

When we sleep we astral travel, our dreams can be just that or they can be memories of our travels, throught different dimensions or time. Those footsteps??? well I hear them too, it is usually my grandmother that crossed over, sometimes I walk and I can hear someone walking behind me. Nothing to fear, just that you are aware of different planes surround you. :)

(Told you I was going to get weird)

[Gallagher]

honestly, moonshadow? i've been told i'm likely a natural dream walker before. all of my regular dreams, i'm never me, i'm spectating on other events or in the form of someone else. and the only times i am myself is in nightmares. nightmares, of course, being the only dreams where i can control what i do, too.

so like, idk. i'm not entirely sure i believe that stuff? but i don't NOT believe so much that i think you're being weird.

[CactuarJoe]

It's never happened to me but my girlfriend says that she has been able to astral project. She's been able to travel and look in on her other partner who lives all the way up in New England, to the point of saying exactly what cars were in the driveway and in what order. So that was something to hear, before that I was pretty iffy on the whole idea of it being real. It's different hearing it from someone you trust and know wouldn't make up a weird story just to seem interesting.

[Potironette]

Creepy @_@

I don't like sleeping so usually I just wake right up, but when I'm really tired I'll dream about whatever's going on in the room. My parents like to talk really loudly in the morning so it blends right into my dreams.

I don't really get nightmares. Usually I'm too emotionally detached from my dreams for that. The one time I actually got scared into a dream was when I realized in my dream that something was wrong (*cough* not real life *cough*) and got lucid before waking up. Unfortunately getting lucid that one time led to waking up to sleep paralysis for a few months.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Both sides of my family have stories of supernatural or weird events so it seems to be a thing, usually with ghosts or other visitors, though I'm not sure how much I believe in it as much as I just don't dismiss it outright.

When I dream I tend to find myself in a role, sometimes as narrator or story teller, other times as a "player" for lack of a better word, and gender swap on occasion. It more now than when I was a kid. I sort of chalked it up to dream practice, if that's a thing. I had a dream where I could jump stupid high, and I was just doing it in the backyard of my old house. Now it's an escape mechanism in nasty dreams if I wanted to avoid something. I can fly too, it would seem, but it takes effort.

I assume that my dreams are influences by habit. Since I write and create characters and such, that might be why I find myself trying to work with a story in a dream. I've also read that people who game a lot, (2 hours or more a day) which I do, are more likely to have some manner of agency in their dreams. They are less likely to wake up from a nightmare and are more likely to confront it. It was a neat thought.

[Den]

I get vivid dreams and nightmares. And sometimes, stuff in my environment or how I'm laying in bed will seep into the dream-state. I have to have either long pants, or socks on at night, or wrap my feet in my sheet so they don't touch, because they'll stick together and I'll dream that I'm hobbled and can't run and can barely walk.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I almost never respond to these threads, but I can share my messed up sleep issues here, I suppose.

So, I can't sleep at all without sleeping pills, and even then, I have to stay awake until I'm on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, after which I collapse into a coma-like sleep for 10-12 hours, waking up feeling like no time has even passed. Suffice it to say, if I dream, I have no experience of it in my memory, but it usually feels like I might as well have been dead I'm so deeply asleep.

In the 20-30 minutes where I'm losing consciousness, though, that's when it gets bad. What happens first, while I still retain my rational faculties, is the involuntary conjuring of just dozens upon dozens of ways my life could be horribly altered, how I could die, how my parents could die, just horrifically traumatic exercises of the imagination that I can't control.

But at some point, the grip of my conscious mind will subside as sleep begins to claim me, except that same hyperactive thought process is still running, and my brain just starts spitting out insane streams of thought, ideas and sentences that make no coherent sense, random images and disconnected false memories, like the lights are on in my brain but no one's home, and frankly it's a really awful feeling. It's like I can feel sanity slipping away and there's nothing I can do until I'm just dead asleep, and then I wake up and I'm fine.

I don't believe there's any meaning in dreams, I think we're all a species of helpless, pathetic animals with a desperate drive for self-importance with brains that force patterns onto anything they can, but god damn it I'd take narcissistic fantasies over this evocation of hell in my mind any day.

[Quiet Man Cometh]

The subject matter certainly isn't pleasant, but I don't think the though-hopping is all that unusual. When I get my moments of insomnia, it's usually when my brain just starts flipping through things as though someone is channel surfing on a TV, but I'm not usually directing it.

It's like once I'm tired enough my synapses escape and begin running on their own. "You aren't watching me anymore. I'm free!" *cue random firing.*

Sucks, because it's like having a TV on in the room that you can't turn off and I'm not the type that falls asleep watching shows.

[Coda]

"Having a TV on in the room" is a good description of what goes on in my head on a daily basis, thanks to ADHD. *sweatdrop* And because of the way stimulants affect me, I actually fall asleep easier if I have a moderate amount of caffeine in my system when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Suze, do you have non-24? Your description sounds like you probably do as a side effect.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I'd never actually heard of that, Coda, so I'm not totally sure, but from the description it doesn't quite feel that way, since I basically have a window (pills at 3:30 am, pass out by 5:00 am) that's the only time I can actually get to sleep, and if I try any other time, I'm just going to be awake until it rolls around again.

[Coda]

Okay, it sounds like you don't, then. I guess I had assumed you still stayed awake for 16-18 hours since you described that you have to stay up until you're completely exhausted, and then slept for 10-12 hours, for a 26-30 hour cycle. But now it sounds more like you can only stay awake for 12-14 hours before crashing out, presumedly because you're not getting the full benefits of the sleep you do get.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

That does sound accurate. Also, while I'll naturally sleep for that long, I unfortunately share a house with 5 dachshunds and even the deep slumbers I fall into aren't proof against their rage at the mailperson, thus I rarely actually get as much sleep as my body seems to want.