Do we dream about our romantic partners, our family members, our friends, our enemies, our frenemies… or do we dream of strangers?
Judging by the dreams which I recall (and that’s well over half), rather than romantic entanglements or spending time with friends, I’m more likely to replay variations of travel – wandering airports and parking garages, hiking urban neighborhoods in cities where I’ve lived, or those I’ve only imagined.
Is this unusual? Must we call the psychoanalysts for a consult?
To my surprise, this article on Huff Post Women reports that our romantic partners appear in some 20 percent of our dreams.
Dream a Little (Sexy) Dream
Personally, I’m more likely to indulge in a waking reverie of the man in my life than I am to dream about him. Then again, my 20% might fall into the 50% of sleeping adventures that I don’t recall.
Generally, the characters that populate my nights are strangers or occasionally, celebrities. There are also stories, and they entertain me. There are symbols I try to decipher, and others that elude interpretation.
Yet I am one of the fortunate ones to experience lucid dreaming, which merges conscious awareness of dreaming with the dream itself, with results that are fascinating and instructive.
Surely I’m not the only one to remember so many of my dreams! (And do tell, if you’ve mastered the art of the lucid dream – and used it to your advantage.)
Why Do We Dream?
In case you’re curious, according to “Why Do People Dream” at Love To Know, scientists can’t agree on the reasons we dream though the following are generally accepted facts:
… everyone dreams, even those that don’t remember dreaming. Babies in particular dream more, spending almost 70 percent of their sleep dreaming…
Most people dream each night for a total of about two hours, but most dreams are not remembered…
… dreams are a response to the things that happen to you during your wakeful hours, including the sensations you have, the activities you partake in and even the thoughts you have… as well as what your mind absorbed during your day.
Given that I work predominantly from a home office, I’m certainly not racking up the mileage in my waking life. Might nocturnal wanderings mean I should become an airline executive, a TSA agent, a shipping magnate? (In my dreams?) Do I miss my days of travel more than I thought?
Is my subconscious wishful thinking – a desire to be on the go again – more ardent than any romantic inclination?
Shuttling?
I don’t recall shuttling across raging rivers; more likely the Northeast Corridor back in the days of frequent (and easier) junkets by air. Yet I am on the move in my dreams, and by all manner of vehicles – planes, trains, and automobiles, so to speak – though rare is the canoe, the yacht, or the ocean liner.
But Hello Dreamboat! Last night was the exception.
In fact, my sleeping stirrings conjured a seafaring scenario in which I was perched on a fishing vessel in a harbor, with four other fishing boats nearby. A woman stood at the helm of each (no one I recognized), and we were all accompanied by a man servant – all very Downton Abbey. Each of the men wore footman garb and was 20-something.
What were we up to? Playing catch – with fish! We were scooping them out of nets with our bare hands – disc-like creatures – roundish, flattish, and silver in color. We were tossing them to each other like a grand game of fishy frisbee, flinging them from bow to bow and all of us, laughing.
As I woke, I found myself standing along a sandy street in front of a primrose-covered cottage. Out strides David Carradine in a towel (no more than 30 years old), and apparently in a hurry. He breezed by me as though I weren’t there, and I had the impression he was out of coffee.
My immediate desire as I sat up in bed?
Exactly. I went straight to the kitchen for a cup of Joe.
Dreams Past, Present, Future?
Should I be concerned that I don’t dream of the man I’m seeing?
Well I’m not. We’re happy together; that’s all I need to know.
Should I feel guilty when a former gentlemen friend makes an appearance? Well I don’t. I enjoy the hello, and am pleased to wake up to my relationship reality.
I am appreciative when I’m visited by those I’ve loved, and in particular, those who are no longer with us. And I put enormous stock in my dreams – and consider them carefully. I may not recall many romantic encounters, but the tidbits and tales I retain reflect life lessons, allow me to solve problems, or better still – to keep asking questions.
I also know my dreams to provide little more than pleasurable amusement – plucking details from my day or evening, and stirring the imagination’s pot.
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I have the same two dreams at least once a month.
1) Back from holday vacation and cannot remember locker combination
2) Have the lead role in the play and right before the curtain comes back, cannot remember any of my lines.
Anxiety, anyone?
I hear you, Kitch… (Take two klonopin and call me in the morning?) 😉
I had recurring nightmares involving water – for years – involving my children and my mother.
Awful.
They seem to have subsided now.
Mostly my dreams are a mishmash of things happening around me, things or people I’m stressed about, and I recall amazing details. Why? And why aren’t more of them good dreams? Happy dreams?
Maybe I”m having them but don’t remember those.
Recurring dreams (and nightmares) are a fascinating topic, Barbara. A whole other matter. Any ideas as to why water and your mother?
In any event, I’m glad they’ve subsided.
Intriguing question about the good/happy dreams that might recur.
I have always had an active dream life and can remember dreams in vivid detail – that is when I am getting enough sleep. Most dreams involve strangers in places that are so familiar to me but not in reality. (have I been there before in my dreams?) Also, many take place in my childhood home.
Sometimes my dreams are full of symbols and answers to problems. Others are just mishmash. I have had recurring dreams that add a little more to them each time I dream them. One of those was a push to leave a job I hated. Once I left the job, i stopped having the dream.
Several nights ago I had a dream my home was robbed, but the robbers had not taken anything valuable to me and had left an angry note about how little there was to steal!
I have had lucid dreams. A notable one is where I ran around tilling everyone in my dream (strangers) that they were only characters in my dream. But no one paid any attention to me.
My husband’s men’s book group read the lucid dreaming book. The group member who suggested it was thrilled to have found a way to have sex with any woman he wanted – in his dreams. (That was his only motivation and his lucid dreaming’s only purpose).
I sometimes want to see and talk to people near and dear to me who have passed on and I vision them as I fall asleep and they appear in my dreams. It is pretty magical, this dreaming life.
It seems in my life there are “big” dreams and then there are “little” dreams. The big dreams are archetypal. I awake in the morning having spent my time with animals and eagles and amazing technicolor landscapes, absolutely awed by what has showed up without some ecstasy-type herbal. Then….the little dreams feel more like a night of vacuum cleaner “suck ups” helping rid my mind of what really is the small stuff of the day.. all in all, dreams are quite mysterious and often prophetic for me. I like that it is all very much a mystery, this dreaming thing!
I wish I were as lucky to recall my dreams as often as you get to! I’d say a recurring theme in the dreams I do remember are those that take place in the home I lived in during middle and high school. Often, I’m there, on some kind of search for someone or something I urgently need to find. Of course, I can’t remember who or what those are now …
Some of my wildest dreams were when I was pregnant, CT. Have you noticed any changes? (I keep paper / laptop / journal close by… makes writing them down so much easier.)
I pay a lot of attention to my dreams, especially the recurring ones. I had a recurring nightmare for months until I decided to move to Japan; the dreams were telling me I needed to make that life change.
What has been interesting is listening to my son’s dreams. He doesn’t remember many at all, but the ones he’s chosen to tell me have involved water, including one in which he saw a swimming pool explode and he managed to escape with my help. This took place when he was 7 and was overrun by activities we had scheduled. That period will haunt me forever, because of the stress we had put him through.
I rarely dream and when I do I fail to remember much. Like Cecilia, I do pay attention to my daughter’s dreams. They possess much variety, ranging from sad to happy. She has not experienced any recurring dreams that she talks about. But when she does, I know to pay attention.