# Writing Dreams



## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

I tried the search function. No luck. I was wondering if anyone writes their dreams? I remember my dreams. Nearly always and for as long as I remember. But sharing dreams, people seem to feel the need to psycho-analyze me. I'd really rather not. It's just way too personal. 

Do you write or draw your dreams? Do you cop to it? Or pretend you just thought it up?


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## Dauntless (Nov 3, 2010)

http://personalitycafe.com/infj-forum-protectors/109348-infj-dream-interpretation-thread.html ?


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## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

That's the thing. I don't want dreams interpreted. I just think they're interesting on their on merit. Dreams are often like short stories in themselves.


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## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

I'll give an example. I had a nightmare about being in a boxcar with a bunch of people and the box being thrown overboard into the sea and drowning. I've expanded on the dream and made a mini story. I haven't edited it, sorry. Why can't we explore dreams without people wanting to poke around in our heads?






The baby has been screaming for the entire journey. I want to scream too. Panicked voices murmur, the level having risen and fallen in the time that has passed. Men, women and children, trapped in the black. We have figured out since our initial capture that we’re in a freight car. I smell ammonia mixed with pungent sweat and salty tears. It seems some of our frightened number have wet themselves. Some lament soft wails. Some whimper. Intermittent full bodied terrified cries echo unrestrained against the metal walls. Others are angry. Pounding the walls demanding to be let out. Either they’re going to sue the goons that put them in here or they’re going to kick their arse. I saw their big arse guns outside. It’s all talk. 

The train stops and we fall into silence. Only the smallest still makes noise. Time moves painfully slowly and I don’t know if I want to take a hammer to the passage of time or smash the fingers of the men holding us. 

The freight car lurches throwing everyone against one side of the car. Small, medium and large shriek. It feels as though the huge freight truck has been lifted and swung up into the air. I try to find purchase to brace myself. But like everyone else, I’m a rag doll. "_Abandon all hope_, ye who _enter here_." Why haven’t they talked to us or given us the basic necessities of life? Because we’re already dead to them. What would be the point. 

I want to vomit. 

Without warning, the metal box plunges through the air, dragging us down with it. We slam down on a buoyant surface. My head crashes against another head and we’re flailing limbs and wreathing bodies. Soft and hard. I hear a splash. The shrieking pauses as we reacquaint with the foreign surroundings. I smell the sea and my stomach drops. What would normally be the smell of home has become the smell my doom. 

Voices at the lower dipping end of the overturned box in unison scream about water, but I already know what is happening. They’ve thrown us into the sea. Hysteria meets critical levels and strangers climb over each other for higher ground. We’re in hell. I had once wondered what hell would be like. Now I know. At first I’m too numb to fight. Then I scrabble at the walls around me like I did at the beginning. Stinging cold water and sheer metal against the flesh of my fingers. I’m being trampled down with the smaller occupants where the water is already waist deep. A small child hangs onto me. I will my mind too retreat from the present. To be anywhere but here. But I can’t block the sounds of crying and fighting. Of our last moments. 

Metal groans against the pressure outside, I can sense it all pressing in on me. I can’t handle it. So I change topics and speak to the child beside me. “You know what I could do with right now?” I don’t wait for a response. “A vanilla sunday with a cherry on top. Extra whipped cream on top and chocolate sauce. I don’t suppose there are any places that sell those in this neck of the woods?” I’m kissing my arse goodbye as we’re hitting bottom. I’m swimming as the water rises to my neck. Numbing cold. I lose my grip on the child when those who can’t swim find those who can. My instincts respond defensively. I’m plunged head long underwater and reach up for a collar. With a firm grip, I rip her into position and start punching her in the face again and again. At first my goal is to get her to let go of me. But a few punches in and I’m venting my fear, horror and anger towards her. I taste blood and feel bones crunching. And I don’t stop punching until my lungs burn and I have to swim up for air. 

Emerging from the water, I can hear the range of responses to our impending deaths and other fights ongoing. My head touches the ceiling and I think I should have gone to Disney World. Anywhere that wouldn’t have landed me here. Water encloses over my head. At first I hold my breath. I push my body as far as I can until I have to exhale and breathe in. The first breath of cold water is a huge relief. It actually feels natural and normal. I relax and think this isn’t so bad. But a couple of breaths later, a searing pain strikes viciously. My body thrashes against it, my limbs heavy as they become unresponsive from the lack of oxygen reaching the muscles. I see white.


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## Austengirl753 (Jul 19, 2013)

wow. that's definitely a vivid and horrifying dream. I agree that dreams are like stories. i dont like to think too much about what they could mean, because everyone says something different and the truth is you'll never really know what it means. also sometimes dreams might just be dreams. I think its interesting how we dream these things we can't control whether it's horror or pure joy. I also have really vivid dreams sometimes...I dont remember all of them, and I the ones I want to remember I will write down.


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## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

I don't usually write them down. They stick with me.


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

I went to a gallery once where a guy was exhibiting his dream art. I also know another artist who paints her dreams sometimes (the paintings are actually very beautiful, but I can't help but analyze them a little since I know her and her life).

You seem to write your dreams out more seriously than me. I write my dreams as if I am jotting down notes, but yours sounds like a narrative (could be fictional, except that you already mentioned it's your dream).

I don't write my dreams down as fiction--but I do try to draw on them to write fiction sometimes. A story I began writing (and didn't finish) was taken from a dream I had. But the story was more than the dream--the dream was the impetus. 

I don't mind sharing my dreams, and I do in the "what did you dream last night" section of the board (as well as on the Association for the Study of Dreams board--though they have a rule against interpreting others dreams.) I don't mind it if someone interprets my dreams, but no one really has here. I also enjoy reading others dreams and sharing my own, and I don't usually feel like analyzing others dreams esp. because I don't know about the person's life. 

Jung didn't share his dreams with people because he was afraid of being analyzed (?I suppose?), but I don't see the danger (unless someone is going to kidnap me and use my dream interpretations to psychologically torture me or something). (LOL--can you imagine? Someone in a giant plucked-chicken costume forcing me to watch pornography after tying me to a chair....lol) 

But yeah--the "what did you dream about last night" thread is where people share their dreams and rarely do others try to interpret them.


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## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

I don't remember that many details from the dream. I've filled in the blanks. The waiting and listening I remember. The drop. Fighting in the water. Drowning. I dived off a cliff in my teens and swam down to the bottom of the sea. I didn't account enough time to get back up to the surface and started breathing water before reaching air. It felt almost like air until I started breathing air again and then it really hurt. Oops!

I prefer to be untouchable. As long as people don't really know what's going on in my head, they can't hurt me. I can do what I really want and the only opinions that can hurt are the people I actually care about. They can call me a slut, a bitch or anything else and it rolls painlessly off me. People analyzing my dreams is incredibly intrusive. It's like going through my lingerie drawer when I'm throwing a party. I invited them into my space, I didn't say they could rifle through my belongings.


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## smolio (Mar 7, 2013)

I used to journal my dreams about a good year ago since I was trying to teach myself how to lucid dream. After hours of extensive research on the self-taught process I found that the consensus was to write down your dreams first. 

Somehow I fell out of the habit after doing it for about 6 months. I hear the next step is to look for a common, recurring instance in your recorded notes, and the closest I got to that was my ex lol

I do wanna pick the habit back up again someday. I recall dreams far far less than I used to. Back when I did it, the more I journaled, the more dreams I realized I was having. I was recording my dreams just about every night!


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## rosegeranium (Apr 1, 2013)

If you write your dreams down you will probably start to lucid dream after a while. I know I did. I kept a journal by my bedside and would write them down as soon as I would wake up. I would be sure to be very detailed. Then later I would reread them and actually remember them, unlike usual where I forget them almost if not completely. Eventually I just started lucid dreaming, it was awesome!!!


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## monemi (Jun 24, 2013)

rosegeranium said:


> If you write your dreams down you will probably start to lucid dream after a while. I know I did. I kept a journal by my bedside and would write them down as soon as I would wake up. I would be sure to be very detailed. Then later I would reread them and actually remember them, unlike usual where I forget them almost if not completely. Eventually I just started lucid dreaming, it was awesome!!!


Do I want to lucid dream? Is that a good thing?


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## Vic (Dec 4, 2010)

I've written down several. Some folks read them.

As you noted, they're no different from short stories.


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## d e c a d e n t (Apr 21, 2013)

I used to write down my dreams, but as I've gotten older I'm kind of bad at remembering them. They can be a bit too scattered to make comprehensive stories, but if I can manage to make sense of them when I awake, they can be rather interesting. For me, anyway. When I try to explain them, other people might find them a little silly since they don't feel the emotions I did while dreaming. xP


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## Dan E (Jun 15, 2012)

I write most my dreams. I don't share these by default to be interpreted.


But I put them to good use by incorporating any strange dream events into my ongoing stories. I'm only creative when I dream, that way.


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## Thief Noctis (Jan 6, 2012)

I write up my dreams a lot. Most of the time it helps if, as soon as I wake up, I jot down keywords on facebook chat to a friend or something (one that won't think I've lost my mind) and then when I feel a bit more awake I can always recall the entire dream based on those keywords. Even when I was as young as 6 or 7 I was able to write about a whole A4 page worth of details from my dream.


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## aja0789 (Oct 26, 2013)

Nice


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## HellCat (Jan 17, 2013)

I keep a dream log when something pulls on my spirit.


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## Yadids (Jan 7, 2012)

There was a time I recorded my dreams so that I could (obviously) Lucid dream. After trying for 4 days I gave up. What did I do wrong?!


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## Yadids (Jan 7, 2012)

No but seriously can some Lucid dreamer give advice that actually works?
:I


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## geekofalltrades (Feb 8, 2012)

I have a notepad (my Goosebumps Fan Club 2000™ pad) that I sometimes scrawl dreams onto when I wake up, if I remember enough of them. A couple:

"Grandma & Grandpa's brown leather recliner picked up by a funnel cloud... with Uncle Scott?
Over to a hill with other familiar faces. Offered Blue Moon.
We hike down to a caldera, or what looks like one, through water that's getting colder.
Weird Ratchet & Clank battle, suddenly; someone dies and we bury them; I leave my socks on his grave because he gave me his once."

"Mom & I are in the Zone. We just fought a bizarre STALKER dude w/ psychic powers & then haggled with some lady over my GPA.
Two weird mutant beaver beasts jumped into our laps after we fed them pistachios, started reciting 'Hazy Shade of Winter' in monotone, radio fuzz voices. Then they gave us information."

Those beavers. They so cray.


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