Not having bad dreams

[Dragon]

For years now, I've noticed I rarely feel any kind of fear, suffering or panic in my dreams. Occasionally, something that is supposed to be unpleasant will happen, but as far as I know it doesn't make me feel bad, let alone turn the dream into a nightmare.

 

It seems everywhere I go, I hear people talking about bad dreams. People really suffer from them. Some people even have their lives ruined by them. I feel very sorry for these people, but at the same time, I can't truly understand how it must feel.

 

I've just woken up from a dream about one of my old schools. In real life, I have very bad memories of this particular school, where I was frequently mistreated by teachers. However, in this dream, as far as I remember, I did not feel anything bad at all. I felt good things happen, but nothing made me scared or upset. There was nothing I wanted to end. This dream actually lasted for a long time, and focused very specifically on this school, yet nothing bad happened.

 

When I woke up, and I was back in real life, I started to think properly again. I remember thinking about the image of a corpse and feeling a slight panic, a slight revulsion. This was the first remotely bad feeling I had felt for hours. It was like the ability to feel negative emotion had been returned.

 

It's been the same every night for years. Like I said, sometimes things will happen that would be terrible in real life, but they don't feel like bad things in the dream. On one occasion a few months ago, I was mugged by an old woman. And still, nothing about it felt like a bad dream. I just was ambivalent to it.

 

So, either one of these is happening to me:

• I am unable to remember any bad feelings from my dreams, but they are happening.
  
• I am genuinely not suffering in any of my dreams.
  

What is going on here? Has anyone else noticed this happening to them?

 

 

Also, my heart goes out to anyone who suffers from nightmares. I know how destructive they are to some people.

 

edit: This post was accidentally submitted before it was finished.

[Guest Enter a new display name]

http://www.ulillillia.us/aboutme/dreams.shtml

[Guest underscore]

i'll bear with you, but in the mean time, i'll say that I have nothing but terrible, usually depressing dreams. part of why i really love cannabis, i'd rather have no dreams at all than nothing but shit ones.

[Guest A/D]

Maybe your dreams are teaching you how to avoid suffering in your daily life! Lucky bastard. See if you can feel what's there instead of the fear & sadness, and report back.

[Braintree]

I heard once that you should have at least one unpleasant dream a month. It's like your brain taking a shit....or having a period.

[spratters]

I can't say I've ever woken up from a dream where my feelings seems to have been altered by the dream. I do sometimes change my opinion, for better or worse, about people I know if they have been in my dreams. It all depends on what happens in the dream and how they are involved. It doesn't tend to last too long and I do go back to how I was before eventually but I've always found it fascinating that I do it.

[keltoi]

last night i died in a car crash.

[Guest disparaissant]

I often don't remember my dreams but occasionally wake with a sense of impending doom or dread or mind-numbing depression, presumably from dream-happenings. Actually, that happens far more often than I'd like.

[data]

i dreamt once that i stabbed and killed my brother and threw him off a balcony for some reason. that was one of the few times i can remember waking up feeling like shit though, most of the time i sort of enjoy the surreal nature of my nightmares.

[chim]

I used to have constant dreams of finding emaciated and destitute cats, that i took responsibility for and felt like i had forgotten about feeding. Sometimes they'd be angry at me, but mostly sad, and i'd feel terrible guilt about it.

 

worst dream i had recently was finding a little baby that had been cyborged, it's mind stuck in some sort of electronic device, like a speak n spell, without any ability to speak except through a robot emotionless voice, in disjointed and short expressions that could only imply unending torment. like something out of i have no mouth and i must scream. the thing, powerless as it was, demanded my attention and i could not put it away.

[jules]

for me, it seems when I have "bad dreams" I am usually not scared or anything in the actual dream. every once in a while I'll wake up screaming though or at a gas station in my neighbors car.

[data]

so people actually wake up screaming and/or all sweaty from nightmares? i thought that only happened in movies.

[jules]

no it has happened to me twice and one of them was a few weeks ago. it was weird. i had no idea what i was yelling about but i scared the living shit out of my wife, that's for sure.

[Cryptowen]

If you never have bad dreams it must mean you're actually having HELLA BAD dreams & repressing the memories. Like, if you have a dream where you're hanging out with Boards of Canada baking muffins, it was actually a dream about you being beaten, put in an oven for 20 minutes, & then eaten. And it wasn't actually Boards of Canada doing it. It was Jedward.

[murve33]

When I was younger I had scary dreams. Back then my fears were concrete. Fear of dinosaurs murdering my family, fear of vacuum cleaners murdering my family, fear of my family murdering me, fear of a bad guy doing bad things, fear of my parents dying, fear of a storm or something. The dreams were numerous, probably once/week or something like that. I also had good dreams of course.

 

At this point in my life, I don't fear anything "scary" like that. So now when I do have a nightmare, it isn't about something "scary", so to speak. I'll have a dream where I'm having a bad relationship problem with my girlfriend, or that something horrible happens to me financially. They're more about everyday things that are possible.

 

My dreams have always been realistic though, and get more realistic as I age. This is probably because I am realizing what is and isn't possible. When I was a kid, a T-Rex murdering my family was a legitimate fear. Now, it's such a silly impossible thing, there's no reason to fear it. Likewise I rarely have dreams where insane bullshit happens, because I know, in my mind, that it probably isn't going to happen and there's no need to fear it.

 

I've been having a lot of talks with my girlfriend, and another good friend of mine about dreams. And have been thinking about them lately. There are so many correlations between dreams, reality, and the subconscious. So interesting.

 

Edit: So, Rhombix, maybe you fear nothing?

[chassis]

I mostly have wet dreams.

 

Maybe I dont get enough pussy.

[luke viia]

Murveman - fuck that, I still dream about dinosaurs. Last time they showed up in my dreams they were eating the fuck out of downtown and I got trapped in a high-rise. Some pale chick with just enough meat on her bones came into the apartment I was in, having a dino-shoot-out from and the dream got wet pretty quick. I was probably getting about as much pussy as chassis when I had that dream.

[Guest Enter a new display name]

I mostly have wet dreams.

 

Maybe I dont get enough pussy.

[baph]

I often don't remember my dreams but occasionally wake with a sense of impending doom or dread or mind-numbing depression, presumably from dream-happenings. Actually, that happens far more often than I'd like.

 

Same here.

:worlds most depressed high five:

[Guest viscosity]

I rarely remember my dreams when I wake up.. if I do they are very fragmented and I usually only recall certain moments and imagery. recent one I had I was at home but everything was on lockdown, something was expected to happen, although I couldn't find out exactly what. We had very tall chain fences surrounding our house and neighbor's houses and this rope going across the yard with tires hanging off it. was very ominous I remember.. next moment I was at some party with a bunch of people. not sure what happened there but I do remember looking out the glass sliding door and a huge explosion that made the entire sky a reddish hue. very apocalyptic. after that I just remember driving to cross some dunes, but major flooding prevented us.. bunch of other stuff happened, but I really have a hard time remembering the details.. when I wake up, even if I know I had a dream, it quickly starts to fade and is forgotten not soon after. this particular dream was near hurricane Irene so that may have been where it derived from

[coax]

I've had my share of nightmares but the many times I've been told I woke the rest of the house with my screaming, I rarely remembered anything at all. I have several times woken up sitting on the floor in the darkness, far away from the bed.

The nightmares I remember were always claustrophobic. I usually woke up the moment I realized I was stuck inside a box or room with no doors or way of exiting, and I would feel a crazy panic before waking up.

 

Now my dreams are more random but I also feel I understand my own emotions and thoughts a lot better and I have become disillusioned by them in a way.

You don't necessarily have to have bad dreams. If you feel OK during the day and happy enough your brain might not have that much to go through in terms of anxiety and fear. I can relate a little to what you say about the ability to feel negative emotions returning, and especially lately when compared to my childhood I was afraid of everything. Now I rarely get scared of anything and I feel I have a good mental grasp of the world, so there's no mystery or unknown magic going on. Maybe you have something similar to this.

[chassis]

Anyone had a night terror before? They are different from bad dreams or nightmares. I had one when I was 13. The only thing I can remember was seeing a woman in Victorian style dress with a pram standing in front of my bed. She had a decomposed face. It was more traumatic for my mom because she said that she had never heard a scream like that in her life. I never had one again.

 

My bad dreams mirror average annoyances in life. There's rarely something far-fetched like dinosaurs eating people or me killing anyone. A good example recently is that I had finally made it to England. I was supposed to meet up with Kaen (I'd love to meet all of you, please don't take it personally that I was out to bust drywall) and I found him but it was constant confusion. I kept losing him in a party that we were at. I wound up in the bed of a trucklorry driving around the countryside and kept saying "Where is Kaen? Where am I?"

Ive woken up paralysed once or twice. Is that the same thing?

[baph]

Sleep paralysis is much more fun than night terrors.

[chassis]

It was kinda funny and weird.

[pcock]

i have this, my dreams always feel good, even if the actual content of the dream is pretty grim.

 

the other thing i was thinking about the other day, is it normal to see big billowing bulges of purply, greeny colours swimming around in the darkness when you close your eyes.

 

its happened to me for as long as i can remember, it only occured to me the other day that it might not be something that happens to everyone