[NT] How often do you (as an NT) dream?

[DigitalMethod]

How often do you other rationals dream? Dreams, or nightmares? I am wondering since I think I don't dream a lot (like 2 times a month) and was wondering if other NTs have similar frequencies or different ones? Just seeing if there is a certain pattern.

 

[Usehername]

How often do you other rationals dream? Dreams, or nightmares? I am wondering since I think I don't dream a lot (like 2 times a month) and was wondering if other NTs have similar frequencies or different ones? Just seeing if there is a certain pattern.

I'd bet money that it has nothing to do with your NTness and everything to do with your sleep cycle relative to when you wake up (meaning you do dream but are waking up in the light stages of sleep, not REM, so you don't remember dreaming). Set one alarm for a half hour before you actually need to get up, and set a 2nd alarm for when you actually need to get up. Do this for a week and see if you still aren't dreaming.
I'm quite certain that during that half hour, having disrupted your cycle, you'll remember dreaming. This is what I discovered after sleep research online (I used to "never" dream but really it was the part of the cycle I was waking).

 

[Firelie]

I'd say I dream about 10 times in a month. Usually I dream more if I eat too close to bedtime.

I haven't had anything resembling a nightmare since the age of 10, and even that wasn't particularly scary, just confusing (I dreamt that I rode my bike home, but couldn't find my home...I was a military kid, though, so it was only natural to dream about losing my home lol).

My dreams nowadays usually come in complicated story form, and I'm usually not in them. I don't know what to make of that.

 

[Haphazard]

It has little to do with being an NT and more with being stressed for me.

When stressed, I dream much more often. And I also wake up in the middle of the night, and try to go back to sleep and then wake up still earlier than usual. First dream is usually a nightmare, second dream might be better, but not necessarily. As Usehername said, has something to do with not finishing the sleep cycle -- though, I guess the sleep cycle is disturbed by stress.

I wonder if Ns have different sorts of dreams than Ss, though. Whenever my mother (ISFJ) talks about her dreams, they always have the same, relatively mundane themes. I've never repeated a dream ever and they're all very outlandish compared to what she dreams.

Some people claim that Ni is Nightmare fuel. I don't know if that's true, but if I'm any indication, then it may very well be.

Earlier this week I had a very strange experience in a dream. I had two bags. I put a laptop in one bag, and then opened up the other bag, and there was the laptop. I thought, 'that doesn't make any sense,' and all of the sudden there was a laptop in each bag. Now, if only that worked in real life... *sigh*

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

I'm certain that I dream every night, as almost everyone does. But remembering dreams is a different matter. I tend to remember dreams several nights in a row and then maybe not at all for a month. My dreams also frequently share the same subject matter several nights in a row, whether it be a nightmare, a sex dream, or some weird Fellini shit.

 

[spartan26]

It's rare that I don't dream.

 

[DigitalMethod]

I'm certain that I dream every night, as almost everyone does. But remembering dreams is a different matter. I tend to remember dreams several nights in a row and then maybe not at all for a month. My dreams also frequently share the same subject matter several nights in a row, whether it be a nightmare, a sex dream, or some weird Fellini shit.

Yeah, I'll have the same subject sorta thing too. Although it's really weird because there is 2-3 weeks between two given dreams and they often are the same story, part one and part two. Freaky. Other times though I will have one dream, and then have the same exact one maybe a month later.

I never thought that it might be because of my sleep cycle... although that seems to be the obvious answer now (I feel dumb heh). I usually sleep from about 2 AM to about noon so-so (it's summer!). However, I do wake up often, probably 3-4 times a night.

 

[Ishida]

The weird part about my dreams is rather the dreams I don't have..
But I dream once or twice every two weeks. It's kind of lame, but eh.

 

[Aerithria]

All the time. I have terrible sleeping habits though, so that's part of it. As for what they're about... Hard to describe. The locations vary, but I never know them, and the people are sometimes picked at random from my life, which is all very mundane, but the experiences within them can be quite fantastical. There seems to be a lot of insanity in them, at least. Crazy people and the like. Odd.

I wonder as well about a possible correlation between N/S types and dream content. I mean, I've never had the "naked in public" dream, but I have had the odd dream where I'm being hunted by a humanoid Tazmanian devil or am in places similar to that of some of the settings in American McGee's Alice. Then again I am weird, even for a Ni-dominant type.

 

[Tallulah]

I dream every night, and I love it, b/c it's kind of like a free movie in your head. I'm always amazed at the complicated situations my brain can come up with when it's allowed to just do its thing. I've written complete songs in my dreams, for instance. I love that.

I've noticed that if I have to wake up in the middle of a dream, I'll be tired for hours after I get up.

 

[Firelie]

I wonder as well about a possible correlation between N/S types and dream content. I mean, I've never had the "naked in public" dream

Yeah, I've never had one of those before either.

 

[Haphazard]

I've had a naked in public dream, but there wasn't the panic and scare that's associated with it. I was just kinda naked. You know, in public. It wasn't really a big deal to everyone walking around... even though I was the only one...

 

[Mort Belfry]

I know that I love having nightmares. It's so much fun.

But I rarely remember my dreams but have them all the time. They are usually set in real places that morph into strange far away lands that are for some reason completely recognisable.

Vampire dreams are the best though, do any other NTs have dreams about killing people? That's a regular motif in mine.

 

[Snowey1210]

I wonder if Ns have different sorts of dreams than Ss, though. Whenever my mother (ISFJ) talks about her dreams, they always have the same, relatively mundane themes. I've never repeated a dream ever and they're all very outlandish compared to what she dreams.

Some people claim that Ni is Nightmare fuel. I don't know if that's true, but if I'm any indication, then it may very well be.

That's interesting, I rarely (if ever) have nightmares but I do tend to have dreams that have reoccuring motifs. Water and wrecked cars seem to the current themes, I'm sure they're symbolic of turmoil or something like that. I've heard that dreams are used to solve problems or something so maybe that's it?

My dreams tend to express my less used tertiary (Fe) and inferior functions (Si) from what I gather, so maybe dreams deal with the less used facets of the personality?

 

[DigitalMethod]

Last night I completely slapped myself (mentally) to have a dream, I was thinking "Ok man, you better have a dream, and remember it, or your really stupid". And sure enough I completely remembered one I had. I also told myself, "ok you got to wake up earlier like 8 or something", so I think that had something to do with it, I slept from like 3 - now. That's only four hours of sleep, but I feel fine for some odd reason. It's probably because I woke up during deep REM that's why I remember my dream, and why I feel not very sleepy.

So anyway, my dream. Yeah I could go into a very complex and detailed explanation about it but I'd feel really crazy because it was really weird. The short version, is that I dreamed (first person) of myself and going to the doctor for some reason I didn't know in the dream. Anyway they ended up using a machine on me in which I completely made up in my dream. In the dream I figured out they were using the machine before I went to the actual doctor, and not even joking, I researched it in my dream. Not even kidding, I actually wikied it in my dream. I knew everything about this machine in my dream, it's like it was completely real. I woke up and checked to see if it was real (it isn't) because I was that fooled into thinking it existed. So, I went to the doctor and then the whole dream shifted from my point of view to the doctors point of view (first person) and he explained the entire machine to me. What was weird was that it shifted to the doctor's POV way before he met me and I saw from his POV in the dream the majority of his day. So he used the machine on me this time being from my POV in the dream, and it didn't hurt or anything, I felt better and the dream was over. When I woke up though I was amazed how my mind could completely make up this machine and all of it's complexity in just a dream. Too bad the machine idea sucked, if it was something good, I could be rich. I could completely draw it out and patent it I know it that well.

 

[colmena]

I remember about two dreams a week. They're usually not abstract, just unusual situations. But there has been a few weird ones.

I've lucidly dreamed quite a few times, but only had control about four times in my life. I've never consciously created worlds or anything, though, I just have control over my actions. Although it's hard not to wake up when you know you're dreaming.

I don't know if this is the same for everyone else, but nightmares have a completely different atmosphere for me. Like I know it's going to be a nightmare before anything has happened yet. I used to often wake myself up immediately after feeling that atmosphere, but now on the rare occasion I have a nightmare, I just let it play itself out.

 

[Sling]

Earlier this week I had a very strange experience in a dream. I had two bags. I put a laptop in one bag, and then opened up the other bag, and there was the laptop. I thought, 'that doesn't make any sense,' and all of the sudden there was a laptop in each bag. Now, if only that worked in real life... *sigh*

I wonder what would've happened if you put one bag inside the other...

 

[norepinephrine]

Vampire dreams are the best though, do any other NTs have dreams about killing people? That's a regular motif in mine.

Odd, that's what I though about when reading this thread. However, I don't know that I've ever dreamt the actual "killing another person" part. My dreams always find me after the fact, contemplating methods of getting rid of the body while not being discovered.

And then there's the very large, rundown house with a maze of small rooms containing different people I've known. The person I'm looking for is generally in the attic. Smoking pot and playing a guitar.

 

[Samuel De Mazarin]

I dream a lot... skin ripped off from portions of my face... wild chases into nothingness... strapping plastic bags onto my arms and using them as wings to fly... hundreds of scenes repeating endlessly... long and complicated romances with women who are composites of many I've known in the past... dandling a little girl, my daughter (I don't have a daughter in real life), on my knee and telling her nursery rhymes... one time I even dreamed I was a woman who became attracted to a man who looked exactly like myself! (talk about narcissism)

 

[Oberon]

I dream constantly. Sometimes in the wee hours of the morning I'll go a long time dreaming, then waking, then sleeping again and resuming the dream.