[MBTI General] Dreams

[Jellyfish1234]

Purely out of interest, how do you experience dreams, generally (if you remember them)? Are they usually long episodes with a linear narrative or are they usually short snippets of random things? Do you see dreams in incredible vivid detail, able to recall colours and textures in detail when you wake up, or do you see vague shapes and figures? Are there any patterns in terms of the subject of them? Do you think how we experience dreams can correlate with typology, and how?

 

[CitizenErased]

Purely out of interest, how do you experience dreams, generally (if you remember them)? Are they usually long episodes with a linear narrative or are they usually short snippets of random things? Do you see dreams in incredible vivid detail, able to recall colours and textures in detail when you wake up, or do you see vague shapes and figures? Are there any patterns in terms of the subject of them? Do you think how we experience dreams can correlate with typology, and how?

I got used to writing my dreams, because they're crazy. They are one story that changes its surroundings all the time. Like, if I'm inside a house, when I turn (like when doing panoramic photos), the house vanishes and I'm in a zoo, and then I fall in a pond and when I stand up I'm in a restaurant, but to me it makes complete sense. The story and the characters stay throughout the dream. I realized this weird thing: when I dream, I generally dream myself as my eyes seeing (like me being me, able to see my hands and feet but not my face), but when people start gathering near the dream-me, I sort of unfold, and I start seeing me "in 3rd person". It's like I receive all the information the now-tangible me is experiencing, but I see myself acting, which is really weird.

Yes, my dreams are extremely vivid. i can feel with my five senses. I even cough (in the dream) if there's smoke. Colours, textures, sounds, smells, faces, the feeling of water around me if I'm swimming... everything like in real life but enhanced because I feel like I can take in ALL details whereas in real life I refrain from most of them (because I don't find them interesting. Obviously my subconscious knows what I like )

About patterns... yes, I have some personal recurrent nightmares that come when I'm too overwhelmed by dealing with too many people or doubting about someone's friendship. I also dream with water and birds a lot, and a couple of times I've fallen into a box of cereal (haven't found the explanation for that yet). My dreams tend to be too saturated in colour and textures, lots of details. I don't have minimalist dreams. Those tend to be nightmares. The more colours and textures, objects, lights, sounds (even if creepy situations), the more joyful the dream is. When there's not much detail, I know it's going to be a nightmare, I somehow know it.

Most of the times, I'm aware of things happening in the dream (I don't know I'm in a dream, but I get to think what my choices are an what option to pursue inside the dream). That is the only thing I can connect to me being INTP, that even in dreams I try to rationalize what's happening and find the best solution. I believe dreams have to do with experiences and how we react/not react to them, but that may have to do more with a past personal experience than the personality type per se.

 

[Pionart]

I got used to writing my dreams, because they're crazy. They are one story that changes its surroundings all the time. Like, if I'm inside a house, when I turn (like when doing panoramic photos), the house vanishes and I'm in a zoo, and then I fall in a pond and when I stand up I'm in a restaurant, but to me it makes complete sense. The story and the characters stay throughout the dream. I realized this weird thing: when I dream, I generally dream myself as my eyes seeing (like me being me, able to see my hands and feet but not my face), but when people start gathering near the dream-me, I sort of unfold, and I start seeing me "in 3rd person". It's like I receive all the information the now-tangible me is experiencing, but I see myself acting, which is really weird.

Yes, my dreams are extremely vivid. i can feel with my five senses. I even cough (in the dream) if there's smoke. Colours, textures, sounds, smells, faces, the feeling of water around me if I'm swimming... everything like in real life but enhanced because I feel like I can take in ALL details whereas in real life I refrain from most of them (because I don't find them interesting. Obviously my subconscious knows what I like )

About patterns... yes, I have some personal recurrent nightmares that come when I'm too overwhelmed by dealing with too many people or doubting about someone's friendship. I also dream with water and birds a lot, and a couple of times I've fallen into a box of cereal (haven't found the explanation for that yet). My dreams tend to be too saturated in colour and textures, lots of details. I don't have minimalist dreams. Those tend to be nightmares. The more colours and textures, objects, lights, sounds (even if creepy situations), the more joyful the dream is. When there's not much detail, I know it's going to be a nightmare, I somehow know it.

Most of the times, I'm aware of things happening in the dream (I don't know I'm in a dream, but I get to think what my choices are an what option to pursue inside the dream). That is the only thing I can connect to me being INTP, that even in dreams I try to rationalize what's happening and find the best solution. I believe dreams have to do with experiences and how we react/not react to them, but that may have to do more with a past personal experience than the personality type per se.

Here's some things I got from that:

- often people refrain from a thing to go in search of something better
- cereal has a lot of associations, for example "cereal" sounds like "serial", often in a box of cereal is a "prize", cereal is just a food so what makes a person a person, things like that
- often the motive for overcomplication is a desire for simplicity
- our dreams contain those things which we left out of our life that day
- dreams are essentially an alternate reality

I speculate: if we could do all the things in life we wanted to do, then there would be little to no need for sleep. We could be awake all the time.

Our daily life would take on all of those qualities that we like in a dream, and even our nightmares would be enjoyable. If we accept the nightmares and find peace in them too, this would help us to dream in our waking lives.

 

[Verona]

My dreams are very vivid and complex. When I try to describe them to people they make very little sense but when I am experiencing them I understand the meaning of all of the strange things happening. A lot of times if I am crying in my dream I will also be crying in real life in my sleep.

 

[Jellyfish1234]

I realized this weird thing: when I dream, I generally dream myself as my eyes seeing (like me being me, able to see my hands and feet but not my face), but when people start gathering near the dream-me, I sort of unfold, and I start seeing me "in 3rd person". It's like I receive all the information the now-tangible me is experiencing, but I see myself acting, which is really weird.

I sometimes experience something like this, but it's like I'm in first and third person at the same time.

Most of my dreams are long episodes with linear narrative, usually about me being chased or stressed. Zombie apocalypses, being chased by people trying to hunt me down, being late for something and going on a big adventure to get to the desired location are all major themes in my dreams, or at least in the ones I remember.

In my dreams, I experience them very vividly, but for me vividly is very dream-like anyway. I don't notice details when I'm awake and it's the same when I'm dreaming; when I see figures, I see a very blurred version of that person but I know who it is, which I guess reflects how I see people when awake too. But because of how vivid the dreams are, nightmares can be pretty horrifying.

I also used to have recurring dreams a lot when I was a child. One of them was where I was trapped in a bowl of soup with a massive clown trying to eat me and another was where my parents were tapping my on the back and laughing and I would be screaming, but I'd see myself from a distance and from an angle so that half the door-frame blocked my sight of the event. I also used to dream about my brother drowning me in the swimming baths.

I had a really weird experience the other week where I had a dream where I went to the bathroom, went back in my room and the lights were off. I try to turn the light off and the bulb lights up but no light it emits from it, like the light is being snuffed or something. I keep flicking the switch and suddenly I feel really terrified and try to walk to my bed but I feel like I'm being dragged back and then I wake up in a hot sweat, feeling like I was captured. It freaked me out because I remember that I used to have this same dream a lot as a child but I forgot about it until now, so I wonder why it's back. Or maybe I didn't have it before and it got stored in my long term memory by accident or something, I don't know.

Like you I also used to keep a diary of my dreams [MENTION=26997]CitizenErased[/MENTION]. I remember one dream based off of the film Spirited Away - the people on my street had turned into creatures like the ones on that film and I had this massive adventure trying to stay alive haha. I also used to keep a diary of daydreams because I get a lot of intense daydreams, too.

 

[Jellyfish1234]

Here's an example of one of my dreams I recorded quite recently. Apologies the caps lock, I guess I got pretty excited recording it haha. But this is what I mean by 'long narrative dreams', but in this one time is manipulated quite oddly, which I don't think is always the case in my dreams.

--

I woke up and I was in a zombie apocalypse and I explored for a bit and found this building with traps and stuff and vehicles outside and a group of survivors inside. Then SUDDENLY I was back at the start of the apocalypse and I was with my family and we met this group of people and we were near these set of vehicles with a group of survivors hanging round saying they were going to take their people to this building and I was like "oh my gosh guys it's the same vehicles outside that building in the future! These guys make it! They survive! Let's join them!" So my family and friends we met agree but then we went to this festival thing where people were riding pigs and stuff and we split up and then the vehicles started to leave and I was like "OH MY GOSH WHERE IS EVERYONE? SHOULD I GO ON THE TRAIN OR NOT? ARE THEY ON IT OR ARE THEY STILL AT THE FESTIVAL?" so I decided not to go on and looked round the festival for everyone. I found my Father and one of the people we met and we went looking for my dog and we explored this swimming pool leisure centre thing and I lost the others but I found this balcony over the pool with pets on and I asked this woman who was sat on a chair "have u seen my dog?" and described him and she said "no" so I went back outside and I GOT CAPTURED AND TAKEN INTO SOMEONES CAR and they started driving away and then through the window of the car I saw my Father with my dog in his arms and I was banging on the window but he didn't see and then I smiled and cried and the driver/my capturer was like "why are you smiling?" and I was like "...they're okay" and he reversed the car, opened the door and shot them both dead and drove on. Then FLASH FORWARD YEARS and I'm living with this capture in his mansion as his servant and he thinks I trust him and he trusts me and eventually all his workers leave the house and its just me, him and this magician woman and they're in this room doing a magic trick on him and hes tied to a chair and so I go in the room and the woman goes for some reason (I think I might have shot her, I can't remember) and I go in with a gun and a saw and cut his TOES OFF AND MAKE HIM EAT THEM AND CUT HIS EARS OFF, CUT HIS EYES OUT, THEN one of his workers arrives home and comes in the room and I pretend someone else has done this crime and I'm hugging my capture crying and pretending I love him and so the worker leaves the room, I grab my gun from the other side of the room and then he comes back and I shoot him dead, them more workers are coming in the front door so I run out the back and hop over fences and escape. THEN flashforward and I'm back at the pool with the woman and I'm holding a forum optimistic rating in my hand (a forum I regular has the option to give posts ratings, one of them is a rainbow called 'Optimistic') and I'm like "I've done all the tasks." and I remember having to explore the world hunting different items and nearly dying and getting eaten by zombies and stuff and shes like "Okay, good" and she opens this little case and a leaf is in it and she puts her hands on it and it glows and floats on the air and I'm like "Oh my gosh you were telling the truth, you're not a liar or a scam!" and shes like "Okay you have 30 seconds to ask for one wish and it will come true", and I wish that "my family are reunited and the zombie apocalypse doesn't happen and we rewind time to just before the first outbreak this year, so like a couple months back, and nobody remembers what happened but me" and then I change my mind and I'm like "WAIT NO I WANT EVERYONE TO REMEMBER" and then I wake up in my bed and my brother is singing a song and I'm like "What the hell? Why is he singing? If my wish came true and everyone remembers what happened why is he happy?" and then I flashback and remember that when I asked that everyone remember the apocalypse the woman was like "too late, 30 seconds are up. Would you like to discard this wish and complete all the tasks again or would you like to just be the only one who remembers?" and I was like "fine I'll be the only one". THEN years later I'm at a councillor meeting because I need therapy because I remember people getting torn up and stuff and nobody else does remembers the apocalypse and I'm like "all this is confidential right? You cant send me to an asylum based on what I say here?" and hes like "Nope" so I tell him EVERYTHING and then hes like "OH MY GOSH... I BELIEVE YOU. I HAVE HAD THE SAME EXPERIENCE WITH THE WOMAN AT THE POOL WITH THE LEAF. MY COUSIN WAS FRIENDS WITH HER AND WHEN MY WIFE DIED ON A PLANE I SAW HER AND DID THE TASKS, ALMOST DIED DOING THEM, BUT WON AND WISHED FOR MY WIFE NOT TO DIE ON THE PLANE. BUT OVER TIME I CONVINCED MYSELF IT WAS JUST A DREAM TO COPE." AND I WAS LIKE "OH MY GOSH" AND THEN HE DESCRIBED THE LEAF AND THE FACT THAT THE WOMAN WAS ON A BALCONY ON THE POOL AND I WAS LIKE "OH MY GOSH WHAT THE HELL I DIDN'T EVEN TELL YOU THAT, YOU'RE TELLING THE TRUTH". AND THEN I'M LIKE "OH MY GOSH, I JUST THOUGHT, THE GUY WHO CAPTURED ME, HE'S STILL OUT THERE. I KNOW WHERE HE LIVES." AND I TRY TO REMEMBER THE ADDRESS AND I CAN MAKE OUT ONE OF THE WORDS BUT NOT THE OTHER AND THEN I REMEMBER THERE'S LIKE A WOOD CHOPPING FACTORY THING NEXT TO IT DOWN THE HILL (The one from GTA V) AND I REMEMBER PART OF THE NAME OF THAT AND THEN WE USE GOOGLE, FIND HIS ADDRESS AND I'M LIKE "YES THAT'S IT. THAT'S WHERE HE IS. I'M GOING TO FIND HIM. I'M GOING TO STOP HIM FROM DOING ANY MORE HARM." AND THE COUNCILLOR IS LIKE "BUT HOW DO YOU KNOW HES STILL A BAD GUY? SURELY AN APOCALYPSE CHANGES PEOPLE? DIDN'T YOU SEE PEOPLE BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY?" AND I WAS LIKE "I'M NOT RISKING THAT." AND I WAS ABOUT TO GO FIND HIM AND then I woke up.

--

I sent it to my friend and he was like, "THE COUNCILLOR IS THE GUY WHO CAPTURED YOU" and we began making up theories haha.

 

[Flâneuse]

For the past year or so, I've had significant trouble recalling my dreams, and when I do remember them many of the details have been lost. I can only vaguely summarize what happened and remember a few of the visuals. Most of them are short and simple and are centered on a particular action or visual, but in the past I had some dreams that were longer, more complex, but also cohesive narratives, and some that were like rambling series of events that didn't connect in a logical way at all. I've found that the more action-oriented a dream is, the less sensory detail I notice, while dreams that are focused on a particular visual without much action (like one where I'm trapped in a luxurious mansion with guillotine blades in front of the windows and doors) seem crisper with more vivid colors. When I actually had interesting dreams, I used to dream about either the apocalypse itself, or living in a hellish, crapsack society where apocalypse seems imminent. I also had a lot of dreams that featured opaque water, crocodilians, and/or huge imaginary sea creatures like spiky-tailed sting rays the size of whales and sea-salamanders three times the size of anacondas. Many of my dreams dealt with unforeseen dangers surfacing (literally), and my fear of being preyed on.

Unfortunately, my recent dreams I can recall have mostly been mundane and boring; I keep having this dream that I'm forced to go back to high school, and a few times I've dreamed I'm at the store buying milk or something, but when I have one that's unusual, seemingly symbolic, or especially amusing I write it down and read into it.

 

[CitizenErased]

[MENTION=22833]Legion[/MENTION]

Well, my dreams are in Spanish, and "cereal" sounds... well, not like "serial", so I doubt it has to do with that, and here we don't have cereal boxes with prizes inside. In my dreams, swimming in cereal as a tiny person, surrounded by "cornflake" waves is like a crunchy symphony because the box makes the souund resonate more.

Then, I hate simplicity. Even in spaces, I dislike minimal decoration. I like big spaces in the middle surrounded by lots of things. I'm kind of a hoarder (not the sick hoarders that store ear wax, I just have tons of I-may-need-this-someday), so almost empty houses, for example, makes me dislike the owner. In other cases, I like snarled, tangled, complex images, situations, scenarios. I'm the opposite of HSP.

Finally, sleeping is not the same as dreaming. Even if we could do all the things we wanted to in real life (which would be "dreams" as "hopes", not as "almost incomprehensible movies from our subconscious", so it actually makes no sense), we'd still need sleep for our body to work properly.

[MENTION=28184]Jellyfish1234[/MENTION]

I'm never chased in my dreams, though when I am, I crack their skulls open and run away, somehow I never feel attacked by people in my dreams. Nightmares are about landscapes or situations in which nothing is moving. Stillness makes me panic. For example, I once dreamt I was in a church, staring at a crucified Jesus, and the silence and humidity of the air, the brownish atmosphere, the dead guy in the cross, who looked like he was going to open his eyes in any moment, made me feel some kind of uneasiness I can't even explain, which is weird, because I like visiting churches. Another nightmare I remember is one in which I was in a forest, and leaves were falling from trees, swirling slowly down to the ground, and the hill I was in seemed to be spinning slowly. There were rays of sunlight making its way through the leaves of the trees, but they were subtle, dispersed, kind of when light comes through the window and you can see dust particles and coloured sweater fluffs floating around. The dream was so peaceful and joyful, but all of a sudden everything became still, and the leaves fell all at the same time to the floor making a bulky sound, and I woke up really worried. My dreams are difficult to interpret, haha

Oh, whenever there's a bathroom in a dream, there's trouble. I don't know why that is.

Ah, I daydream all the time, even while I'm reading books (I have daydreams about completely different things and I somehow manage to understand both stories). I don't keep a diary of daydreams because I turn them into novels (which is basically the same, only that I enhance the rational decisions the characters have to make).

 

[Lillita]

While I don't recall dreams anywhere near as often as I used to, back when I did they varied some between linear and snippets. Didn't notice sensory detail as much but they leaned toward realistic detail visually at least. Definitely had a handful of prevalent themes:
1. My mother disappearing or dying.
2. Large empty house, cathedral/theater, other buildings sometimes with an unknown presence following me.
3. Demons
4. Being chased by a monster of some sort
5. Normal society with a unpredictable violent element.
6. Being locked away in a society that had abandoned any morals/principles/integrity.
7. Spiders
8. Losing all of my teeth/Pulling all of my teeth out.
No idea if dreams may correlate to type in any way.

 

[Pionart]

[MENTION=22833]Legion[/MENTION]

Well, my dreams are in Spanish, and "cereal" sounds... well, not like "serial", so I doubt it has to do with that, and here we don't have cereal boxes with prizes inside. In my dreams, swimming in cereal as a tiny person, surrounded by "cornflake" waves is like a crunchy symphony because the box makes the souund resonate more.

Then, I hate simplicity. Even in spaces, I dislike minimal decoration. I like big spaces in the middle surrounded by lots of things. I'm kind of a hoarder (not the sick hoarders that store ear wax, I just have tons of I-may-need-this-someday), so almost empty houses, for example, makes me dislike the owner. In other cases, I like snarled, tangled, complex images, situations, scenarios. I'm the opposite of HSP.

Finally, sleeping is not the same as dreaming. Even if we could do all the things we wanted to in real life (which would be "dreams" as "hopes", not as "almost incomprehensible movies from our subconscious", so it actually makes no sense), we'd still need sleep for our body to work properly.

Yeah, that works. That was probably just my own subconscious speaking.

Still though, it would be cool to further investigate how dreams work. Psychology is a very incomplete science. I tend to feel that researchers are being dishonest with the lack of coherent models that we have, however I could very well be mistaken.

All I know is that dreams feel really cool to have, and seem to at times contain profoundly significant imagery.

 

[CitizenErased]

Yeah, that works. That was probably just my own subconscious speaking.

Still though, it would be cool to further investigate how dreams work. Psychology is a very incomplete science. I tend to feel that researchers are being dishonest with the lack of coherent models that we have, however I could very well be mistaken.

All I know is that dreams feel really cool to have, and seem to at times contain profoundly significant imagery.

Yeah, dreams have a very unique (and convoluted, sometimes indecipherable) way of showing our doubts, worries and the things we feel relieved from. I believe the problem lies in that the subconscious uses a language of its own, in which each symbol is attached to a personal meaning, and it represents something that only the person in question may be able to find out. I like those websites with meanings for objects in dreams, but I fail to see how an object can mean the same to everybody in the world. Even if in advertising or company logos (for example) a dove means "peace", to me it's a hideous animal, and I doubt it means "peace" to me or my subconscious (you know, as if we were two different entities).

I think dreams have clues about feelings I'm not able to process consciously, and being able to decode what they mean could help a lot in self-development.

 

[Myths Of Zephyr]

About patterns... yes, I have some personal recurrent nightmares that come when I'm too overwhelmed by dealing with too many people or doubting about someone's friendship. I also dream with water and birds a lot, and a couple of times I've fallen into a box of cereal (haven't found the explanation for that yet).

Well Legion said cereal sounds like serial... So, maybe you're into a new tv show? Thought I'd take a shot.

 

[Norrsken]

Purely out of interest, how do you experience dreams, generally (if you remember them)?

They can be vivid. Not because of the details. But the emotions I feel when I see them.

Are they usually long episodes with a linear narrative or are they usually short snippets of random things?

Both.

Do you see dreams in incredible vivid detail, able to recall colours and textures in detail when you wake up, or do you see vague shapes and figures?

They're vivid in that I know what I'm looking at in the dream when I'm experiencing it, but I can't remember it fully when I awaken. They're usually vague in general.

Are there any patterns in terms of the subject of them?

I'm always lost and finding something or somebody in the dreams, and I never succeeded.

Do you think how we experience dreams can correlate with typology, and how?

This is a really good question and, I wish I knew the answer to. Perhaps the other type experts can weigh in better than I can!

 

[Frosty]

I dont know. This might be confusing maybe.

Its like a song I guess- you eventually just catch the beat- fall into it- and then, after a while, you become so adept that you are able to spin whatever it is you are playing- without ever destroying the song, and make it your own.

It just makes sense within itself. Naturally following. And its kind of interesting how it kind of, to varying extents- while the situation of the dream might not always be... Real.

I always- I always always always- feel things during dreams. Heightened sometimes because I mean- dreams can be whatever they want to be- can heighten things to whatever extent. So whats a pinprick here is a severed arm in a dream.

Can be moral dillemmas. Emotional events/emotional reactions. Ect.

But I feel dreams- I feel my emotions in dreams... Very keenly.

Weird thing- guilt is frequent.

Hm.

And yes. They are in color. I never really knew or cared- its never been something I noticed... But I had a dream the other day where the color of something was a central focus so yeah.

I also am on an antipsych- so that probably helps my dreams to be... Bigger... More elaborate- more absorbing- than they would be otherwise.