[NF] NFs Dreaming and the Subconscious

[Qlip]

I find that all of my dreams have some sort of meaning to them. I also have noticed that it's T's who tend to mostly characterize dreams as absolute meaningless nonsense.

You can argue that because I lead with Ne that I can find patterns in anything, meaningless or not. But there is much more to it than that. I am very in tune with my internal map of symbols, and intuiting meaning from my dreams seems nearly as direct as listening to myself think. They help me solve problems and get the lowdown on what's going on in my depths.

When I have dreams in an odd mental state, like when fevered, my dreams lack that versimilitude that normal dreaming has. It's not that the imagery is too bizarre to relate to, it just doesn't ring as connected to anything. And when I have imagery appear to me in a hypnagogic state, that reads to me as utter nonsense, with very little meaningful connection to my subconscious at all. Occasionally I have dreams that seems to invade my consciousness from an external source.

What kind of relationships do you NFs have with your dreams?

 

[AgentF]

i may as well never wake up, my dreams are so fantastic.

i often resent waking from them, even the bizarre, Dali-esque ones...they always teach me something or give me curious things to ponder throughout the day. i also have serial adventures in my dreams. epiphanies. questions posed. it can emulate artistic inspiration. also, they help me solve business or personal problems.

i find dream interpretation to be very valuable, and try to scribble thoughts down when i wake from a particularly exciting dream. one of the things i like most about relationships is mutual dream interpretation: seeing how our dreams unfold, learning from joint analysis with a trusted partner...

and when my dreams are horrible they are Kubrick Lynch Hitchcock Arrested Development stylee.

 

[INTP]

im not an NF, but ill comment anyways. like jung said, dreams offer an comment to your conscious attitude. many times dreams dont feel important enough to analyze, and often i dont remember enough about them to analyze them properly anyways. but when the dream feels to have a special importance, i try to analyze it as much as i possibly can(and write it down on my phone, so that i dont forget it) and usually find the thing that the dream wanted to comment on and often find it helpful.

 

[Eckhart]

I barely dream / don't remember my dreams usually at all. It is very rare that I remember a dream. I also never really tried hard to analyze one.

Damn, not even my dream life sounds interesting!

 

[Joehobo]

You sure its a lot T's or just the ones who have that skeptical view?

I don't see why people find it as meaningless, its a very real experience which has been the subject of interpretation which goes pretty far back into history. If I have recurring dreams or feel like something was disturbing or significant. Any that move me in a particular way I'll interpret it, and it always correlates to something important relating to my own life. However with that being said, that is not to say that all dreams hold significance, and if they do they may not be very important, it varies with each experience.

I find the more lucid dreams are less important, the ones which I have less control over are. (If I can remember those long enough after waking up.)

 

[Qlip]

You sure its a lot T's or just the ones who have that skeptical view?

I'll have to revise my thinking with you and [MENTION=7595]INTP[/MENTION] responding.

[MENTION=12102]agentfurrina[/MENTION] Your mention of partner dreamwork reminds me of my collaborative attempts as a preteen with my best friend to try and invade each other's dreams ala Dreamscape. The results were debatable. I think I may give it another go, I haven't talked to him for years.

 

[King sns]

I dream for what feels like all night... some of them are just repeats of a regular day. but in the end, they end up being pretty imaginative and wild... I could write a children's novel based on my dreams. But a lot of the time I need a ridiculous amount of sleep to get all the dreams and other sleep phases in. At least 10 hours lately. Sometimes up to 15. A lot of them don't have any inherent meaning but are a blast. I don't remember what it was last night.... Some really nice dessert with very fudgey brownies that were like over this little swan pond in the middle of the dessert. So then me and all my coworkers dove into the dessert and started floating in the swan pond that looked like a fairy tale. Pale pink sky... We floated down a raft eating brownies with birds chirping through the dawn. It was pleasant. Most of my dreams are like that and often times they are lucid so I can control what I'm doing. But often I can't control the scenery which is even better. Always a surprise around the corner. One time I asked the sparkling magical sand what my best quality was and it shimmered and sparkled with the word "charisma" and then I jumped off to fly over the forest. One time I had a creepy dream where I was flying through a deep enchanted building which looked like some quantum physics. Everything changing shape and form and colors. It was lucid and I ran into my dead grandmother who I miss dearly. Since nothing was how it appeared to be and I was lucid I asked her if her spirit had entered my dream to talk to me. And then she turned into an oxygen mask. And then I went onto the beach which was changing around (more sparkling sand) etc. And asked a coworker what the meaning of the dream was. She said. "violence." And I said. "what do you mean?" She said violence surrounds our lives whether we see it or not. Violent people permeating the world's beliefs including my own where I couldn't understand it but it was in my subconscious on a very deep level. Dreams of ships and water and houses flying over my head. Dreams of deep inner space. Trying to spin but not knowing where I was, (upside down, right side up) in the blackness. Or floating through colorful galaxies while hoping that I don't accidentally bump into a black hole. The list goes on and on.

 

[WALMART]

I have dreams and am very capale of drawing personal meaning from them.

The other night I dreamt i owned a small, humble space station/home orbiting a moon. The physics were shockingly realistic (i had to use airlocks to retrieve a package), and the whole concept was just really really sexy.

 

[Santosha]

Dreams have always acted as an additional channel for me to understand what is beyond my surface, subcon. The knowledge I can occasionally draw is so profoundly helpful that for a longtime I was shocked that others don't put much stock in them. When I was 13 I began to struggle with academia for the first time and it was extremely stressful. Up until this point I was just quick with concepts.. had never experienced a conceptual difficulty until I got into proofs with geometry. Unlike many of my friends who had learned how to study and struggle and push themselves beyond their mental scope.. I had never developed any skills to cope with the not-understanding, the fear, and alot of ego that is attached to being quick without effort. This extremely stressful state caused me to dream about proofs one night before a test. Hammering away my brain seemed to pull all the info I did understand and combine it with info I didn't think I even had.Total aha moment upon waking. But the real nectar wasn't that proofs suddenly made sense, It was realizing the rather large deviation between the two, this treasure trove of a subcon that I would later come to tap on many, many times.

As far as dreams themselves go, I don't know if mine are really so different from other peoples, I have no reference. Others have told me dreams that I would never conjur up and I have done the same. But I have come to understand what dreams hold value, and the general feel or relationship to the dream over the object. Many of mine have a survivalist theme.. they start as a knowing that something is about to happen and trying to get others to see or understand these signs- cooperating and strategizing for optimal survival. Broken buildings and bridges, floods running through main areas, debree from buildings and statues.. and somehow I always know that I will be okay..it is how many people I can bring with me that determines if it moves into positive or negative direction. Honestly, this could be e6 related... Occasionally I have dreams of being able to fly or move underwater without breathing.. and these are a real treat that I hold onto.. a generous gift from the universe.

 

[Santosha]

.

 

[CuriousFeeling]

I find my subconscious and dreams alerts me to problems or emotions in the conscious world. It's not only just the symbols that pop up in them, but also how I am feeling that is an indication of such. I cross-reference my dreams to understand how I am feeling as well as my thoughts. I research the symbols that pop up, even though I typically have an idea what they mean already, I still want to verify the meaning behind it. The spooky thing is, I've had a couple prophetic dreams where the event that happens in them happens in real life.

I've even had music come to me in dreams, and it's signified important pieces for me in the waking world. It's like the music becomes a channel for my subconscious as well as the dreams themselves.

I think of dreams as something quite useful for me to understand my innermost thoughts and emotions, though.

 

[unityemissions]

I've had crazy vivid dreams and wicked experiences all throughout life. Under the influence mostly as a teen, through meditation as an adult, or during peak experiences, and as a kid by sensory deprivation and long nights.

I still have an epic dream that feels like a month packed in about once a season. Every once in a while if I get really stressed, then mostly pass out within a minute but remain conscious, I'll have a wicked OOBE. Those are fun, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's really some form of epilepsy and not so good for the mind in the long run.

The real question I have for NF's is, "How much conscious awareness/control of the environment do you have?"

The ones I bother to put time into once I wake up are either vivid/complex, or I could control the environment on top of it. The first has a meaning/purpose/goal. The latter is just for play.

 

[Werewolfen]

I've had vivid dreams where I could remember certain smells in my dreams. I've had a few flying dreams. A lot of the dreams I've had in the dreams I'm living in the house I lived in when I was a kid but the house is in a different area and the people are strangers but sometimes it's people I know. Sometimes I'm an observer and sometimes a participant.

In many of my dreams I'm trying to figure out things. The last crazy dream I had was weird, I live in Colorado and I have a few relatives that live in south Georgia, in my dream I was riding in the back of an RV with a strange elderly couple who I was riding with from Colorado to Georgia and we made the trip in the RV in just under 6 hours and I kept asking the old man driving "how the hell did we make a 1500+ mile trip on the interstate in an RV in less than 6 hours ?" and the old man just kept saying he was a fast driver and I just kept trying to make sense of it until I woke up. I've had plenty of strange dreams.

 

[Wolfie]

The spooky thing is, I've had a couple prophetic dreams where the event that happens in them happens in real life.

This has happened to me a couple times over the years and it's very strange. I can't rationalize it of course.

When I was 5, sleeping in my mothers bed, I had a dream of blue and red neon spiders floating all around me. I woke up and cried. My mom turned on the lights to find a black widow on the wall near me.

That was the earliest I remember that happening.

My dreams are usually deeply emotional and the feelings that I wake with can permeate my whole day.

 

[SubtleFighter]

I think I probably dream less than most people. At least I don't remember them as much. But I find about half of them meaningful in some way. Sometimes I use them as ideas for stories. Sometimes when I wake up it's clear that it was an allegory for something I've been thinking about or experiencing. Other times I'll think that it was meaningful but have no idea how, until I start journaling about it or telling it to someone, and then I'll suddenly start getting emotional about a certain part, and it'll suddenly hit me how whatever that part is is connected to something in my real life. Sometimes I don't know how I really feel about something in my real life until this happens.

Also, I've never had recurring dreams, but I've had a couple dreams where it was storylines that kept continuing night after night.

 

[Joehobo]

I'll have to revise my thinking with you and [MENTION=7595]INTP[/MENTION] responding.

Sorry, didn't mean to be nitpicking! I just know T's which have explored the idea is all, one in particular being a lucid dreamer.

 

[purple tuesday]

I love my dreams because they are always so vivid and crazy. I usually don't realize how crazy they they are until i tell them to my friends, who stare at me like i suddenly grew two heads! I have been able to find meaning in a few of my dreams, but the rest are so random i can't see any connections between them and the real world. Sometimes, only during naps, there is a specific dreamworld that i go to. It's the same place every time. It's so constant that i can map it out. I even know about the places in my dreamworld that i haven't been to yet. I think there is a connection between those places and specific life events that haven't happened yet, like getting married.

 

[unityemissions]

Oh, I forgot to mention that flying in my dreams is usually the first step in having a fully lucid dream. It's a way for me to assess if I'm dreaming or not. I get a hunch that I'm dreaming, then decide to take control and do a weird spin movement while I ascend into the air. From that point, I can do whatever: shoot outside the atmosphere and travel the cosmos, interact with aliens, rape women, gun down whoever, or simply observe the crazy scenery I'm semi-consciously creating.

Those are the "for fun" dreams. The one's where I'm aware, super vivid, yet choose not to manipulate are the ones that I'm on some sort of mission, in the past, present, or future, and will continue to have the same "dream" until I conquer it. Then I must apply the lesson learned in the real life. It's a new intuitive marker to live my life by and assess situations.

 

[kyuuei]

Im a pretty stereotypical ENFP in this regard. Someone told me once to follow my dreams.. I haven't stopped since. I take it pretty literally. I am very close to them--and they guide me from time to time.. On a deeper level though. I don't do the whole "OMG my dream says I cheat on my husband with my best friend--I need to avoid my best friend at all costs!" craziness.

 

[RaptorWizard]

Dreams are only useful when we give them outward phsyical expression.