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snoozefestaudioHaving finished three books by Peter Wohlleben, and a fourth by Suzanne Simard, all about trees, today, I moved on to a new subject and started, When Brains Dream by Antonio Zadra & Robert Stickgold.
Zadra & Stickgold are sleep researchers working out of the psychology departments of University of Montreal, and Harvard, respectively. And the book was first published in January of 2021.
--<>--
While it was fun reading about bugs and trees over the summer, in my efforts to learn a bit more about my yard... the place where the recordings happen... Snoozefest is not just about crickets in the grass and katydids in the trees.
It's also about sleep.
An ideal Snoozefest playlist runs for eight hours, and is meant, not only to help one fall asleep, but sleep well through the night... which would include dreaming.
And I think sleep and dreaming are quite suitable subjects to study over the winter... or at least, the transition into winter... as nature itself goes to sleep, and the dreamlike, dark & snowy landscape of winter settles in.
------------{=0=}------------
My whole life, I've tended to have pretty vivid dreams, that I remember well.
To remember the dreams, I do have to think about them in bed after waking, and remind myself to think about them again throughout the day. If I ever have to just jump out of bed and start a busy day, then I won't remember them.
But, for fourteen years, I had an hour commute to work, where I could ruminate over them, and after two years of no job, these days I'm up about three hours before I have to leave... so... that rumination period with the coffee remains a standard practice.
But I can recall a few dreams going back to my teens and twenties... and I think, as long as you can successfully memorize the details on that first day... you can recall a dream the rest of your life... at least as well as you recall anything else.
--<>--
In fact, the best method I've ever found for falling asleep, is to think about the previous night's dream, as soon as the lights are off, and you're back in that sleep position.
Not because you can ever re-enter last night's dream, because you can't. But trying to re-enter it, puts your mind back into that weird state that it needs to be, when it's asleep.
It's a way of handing off my waking worries, to the stupid craziness of the dream world... knowing that it's always better to get a good night's sleep, than worry about waking life, all night long.
So that's encouraged me to memorize the dreams I wake up with.
------------{=0=}------------
One thing I've never been able to do with real success, is lucid dreaming.
However, because I think about dreams so much, I have gotten better over the years at suspecting when, whatever I'm experiencing, is a dream!
And sometimes I remember to do the tests... you know... like looking for a sign or a clock to read... or just questioning the believability of a situation.
But in those cases... either the dream convinces me I'm wrong, and this is all real, or... I prove I'm right, and instantly wake up!
--<>--
But that battle continues to evolve, because just this morning, in my dream, I was at a meeting with a bunch of people who were upset with me. It was like a generic work meeting, and we were all seated around a table in a room with the door closed.
They were like, We've got reason to believe you've been breaking the rules, and you need to answer for that. Do you have anything to say?
And, suspecting it was a dream, I said something like, I don't have to sit here for this. I have the power to disappear from this room!
They were like, No!.. this is real!...
And I opened my actual eyelids and caught a blury glimpse of my bedroom.
Now, just awake enough to know I was safely in my bed, I turned over and went back to sleep... picturing them in that meeting room, confused and astounded that I'd actually just vanished!
That's the first time I've ever... voluntarily awoken from a dream I realized was a dream. So... I guess that's a tiny step forward in lucid dreaming?
But then again, I wouldn't have been able to open my eyelids like that, if I was under the full musclular paralysis of a deep REM sleep... so, I must've been fairly close to waking the whole time.
------------{=0=}------------
I've experienced the flip side of that, many times... where my physical body IS fully paralyzed, because I'm VERY asleep... but I think that I've woken up!
I'd call it a recurring dream type, because it's happened so often, but it did happen a lot more when I was younger.
It always starts the same... I wake up, in the bed and bedroom I know I went to sleep in a few hours ago, and everything seems totally normal, but it's very dark.
I then sit up to turn on the lamp on my nightstand and... it doesn't turn on.
The bulb must've burned out.
I get out of bed and find my way to the wall switch... but that light doesn't turn on either!
Is the power out?
And then, as I leave my bedroom to investigate, I'm confronted by spooky voices and visions in the house, that can't possibly be real... so I realize that I'm NOT awake!
And 50% of the time... this leads to a SECOND false awakening!
About 10% of the time... it leads to a THIRD, nested, false awakening!
But the one telltale sign is always, that the lights won't turn on when I twist or flip the switches.
And over the years, when this happens, I know almost instantly I'm still dreaming... or, if I am actually awake, I change the bulb and move on with my business.
------------{=0=}------------
Another recurring dream I have, is much more specific.
I'm with my first girlfriend Jenny, and we're both in our thirties. We're either talking about getting back together... actively living together... or reminiscing about that time we lived together for a few years.
Always, when I wake up from this dream, I am CONVINCED beyond any doubt, that Jenny and I did live together in the 2000s, when we were in our thirties!
The dream may have been just a dream but, we DID live together for a good five years, in the 2000s, because I can remember all of it! Years of memories, of everyday life, and activities together, and conversations.
And it often takes until I'm fully on my feet and making my coffee, before I start to realize... Wait! No! Goddammit, that NEVER happened!
In reality, I was twenty-two the last time I ever saw her! She was only twenty, and that was in 1992! She married another guy and moved to Utah, in 1993... never to be seen or heard from again!
But the sheer CERTAINTY I wake up with, from these dreams, that we really did live together for five years, in the early 2000s... has caused me to wonder if we didn't actually DO that, in some parallel universe... and the dream wasn't just my mind accidentally tuning into the mind of my self from that other timeline!
------------{=0=}------------
However, I think it's more likely that a different theory is true... that the brain simply has chemicals powerful enough to overwhelm... itself... with absolute certainty about the reality of totally false things!
I think the brain may have a whole arsenal of chemicals that are able to overwhelm... itself... into thinking anything, or feeling any kind of way!
For example, how the hell is it... that the dreaming brain can surprise itself?
How can I be shocked and surprised by events in my dream that I didn't see coming?
If I'm the one who's dreaming it up... how can I not be aware of what I'm doing to myself... to the point of even being able to terrify myself?
--<>--
I feel like there is a clear separation between me... the conscious and waking person who is responsible for dealing with reality... paying my bills and feeding myself... taking care of real problems, and the needs of real people or pets, or vehicles, or posessions, so that I can survive daily life...
And... Dream Guy!
Call him what you want... dream guy, dream agent, subconscious, unconscious, a demon, or just the left half of my brain... I feel like there is another guy, living with me in this body... who runs the dreams... and he's kind of an asshole!
--<>--
There are some intriguing theories that the two halves of your brain are actually two separate brains, and we are all... two people living in one body!
One of them handles all the reality stuff while we're awake... and can read and tell time, and think logically and solve problems.
And the other one is just a helpless prisoner, forced to watch everything unfold in reality, with no power to speak, or act... who also has zero ability to read, tell time, do math, or think logically.
--<>--
I thought this was an interesting theory, but no more interesting than any other theory about dreams... until after I quit my job at the hospital, after 14 years... very suddenly, and with no plan in place for the future.
After the first week, I began having EXTREMELY VIVID dreams about being back at work! I was SURE I was back in the hospital, going about my normal routines.
And these dreams persisted, every single night, for MONTHS!
And, I thought to myself... Hrmmm... Dream Guy seems to be VERY CONCERNED about why I'm not back at the hospital like normal!
In other words, Dream Guy might not understand certain things about the real world, and even think most of it is silly... but he WAS aware, that me, being in that building to earn money was critical to OUR survival!
And now... he was alarmed about the fact that WE weren't going there anymore. Why are we not in the building? You need to go back to the building!
And I thought, I see how it is, Dream Guy!... You watch me all day, and laugh, because I have to do all the work and figure out all the problems, while you enjoy the food and the shelter, and don't have to do anything but fuck with me at night! But NOW you're worried, arent'cha? Well fuck you!
------------{=0=}------------
Because, you know how Dream Guy is!.. it's like, You're backstage with some friends and a bunch of strangers. It's opening night! You have to go on for your big scene! But you've NEVER EVEN READ THE SCRIPT AND NEVER AGREED TO BE IN THIS PLAY!
Or... You're in a very public place, involved in something with other people but... YOU FORGOT TO PUT ON YOUR PANTS OR UNDERWEAR! YOU'RE NAKED FROM THE WAIST DOWN AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT AND YOU HAVE NO CAR AND NO WAY TO GET HOME!
Like... Dream Guy can be, a total asshole, AT YOUR EXPENSE, using his arsenal of brain chemicals to torture you, and make you believe it's all real, and there's no escape!
--<>--
On the flip side, maybe you're having a really wonderful dream! But as soon as you think, HEY!.. I Love this! Dream Guy is like, Nope! Just a dream! Wake up! Hahahah!
--<>--
That's why I was so happy to find out that Dream Guy was actually worried about me not going back to work.
Finally, I could be like, Oh?.. is this upsetting you?.. Sorry!... it's reality and we WILL starve, unless I can figure things out with logic and physical effort, dick-face! Better hope I do!... cuz I know you're ass isn't gonna be any help!
------------{=0=}------------
They say dreams can help you with problems, but... only conceptual problems.
Way back when I was a web designer in the early 2000s, I was trying to write a javascript that would open up a floating I-frame, and have it appear to grow & expand out from the center, to whatever proportions it needed to be.
This was my weird answer to a drop down menu... because back then, the more innovative the visuals, the cooler the website would be!
You'd mouse over some menu links on the main page, and... I wanted the sub menus to just appear in the center of the screen, in an animation that had them grow out of a single point.
I knew what the final dimensions of each individual submenu should be, and they were different for each one, but I couldn't figure out one universal script that could grow any menu to it's unique dimensions.
But that night, I dreampt of watching those menus shrink in reverse, from full size, down to a single point!
And in the morning I wrote a universal script that just grabbed the height and width variables from the menu in question... then ran a loop to shrink both down to a point... then ran that established loop backward, but displayed it, this time!
And it worked like a charm!
--<>--
Dream Guy didn't have to know anything about Javascript!
All he had to do was present the bright idea to look at the animation in reverse, and hope that helped... which it did!
--<>--
Most problem solving in dreams has to do with looking at things from a different perspective... unless it's a more left brain problem to begin with, like a musical phrase, or some kind of vision of something.
Again, like with the hospital, my Dream Guy isn't very cooperative, until he understands that money is on the line. Which is funny, because he doesn't understand money... but he does know I need to make it, if WE'RE to survive.
------------{=0=}------------
If Dream Guy, is... kind of an asshole room mate, living rent free in my skull... then I would say the third, being, I'm stuck with for life, is my body itself... which is just a stupid, and very lazy, and complaining animal!
But that is a whole other subject, waaay beyond the scope of this entry.
------------{=0=}------------
For the time being, my new focus will be on dreams, and the brain, and the magical mysteries of consciousness.
I have a lot more examples of recurring features in my dreams, and about dreams in general, so this is only the first entry in this fall and winter's theme about dreams and the mystical realm of consciousness, unconsciousness, and soforth.
But hopefully my investigations and speculations will inform me how better to construct the perfect sleep playlist... including such things as winter wind chimes, and... if possible... distant train horns on clear winter nights.
It's a whole new season, in the northern hemisphere... and I've still only begun that 2022 playlist, so... let's see how things develop!
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
Zadra & Stickgold are sleep researchers working out of the psychology departments of University of Montreal, and Harvard, respectively. And the book was first published in January of 2021.
While it was fun reading about bugs and trees over the summer, in my efforts to learn a bit more about my yard... the place where the recordings happen... Snoozefest is not just about crickets in the grass and katydids in the trees.
It's also about sleep.
An ideal Snoozefest playlist runs for eight hours, and is meant, not only to help one fall asleep, but sleep well through the night... which would include dreaming.
And I think sleep and dreaming are quite suitable subjects to study over the winter... or at least, the transition into winter... as nature itself goes to sleep, and the dreamlike, dark & snowy landscape of winter settles in.
My whole life, I've tended to have pretty vivid dreams, that I remember well.
To remember the dreams, I do have to think about them in bed after waking, and remind myself to think about them again throughout the day. If I ever have to just jump out of bed and start a busy day, then I won't remember them.
But, for fourteen years, I had an hour commute to work, where I could ruminate over them, and after two years of no job, these days I'm up about three hours before I have to leave... so... that rumination period with the coffee remains a standard practice.
But I can recall a few dreams going back to my teens and twenties... and I think, as long as you can successfully memorize the details on that first day... you can recall a dream the rest of your life... at least as well as you recall anything else.
In fact, the best method I've ever found for falling asleep, is to think about the previous night's dream, as soon as the lights are off, and you're back in that sleep position.
Not because you can ever re-enter last night's dream, because you can't. But trying to re-enter it, puts your mind back into that weird state that it needs to be, when it's asleep.
It's a way of handing off my waking worries, to the stupid craziness of the dream world... knowing that it's always better to get a good night's sleep, than worry about waking life, all night long.
So that's encouraged me to memorize the dreams I wake up with.
One thing I've never been able to do with real success, is lucid dreaming.
However, because I think about dreams so much, I have gotten better over the years at suspecting when, whatever I'm experiencing, is a dream!
And sometimes I remember to do the tests... you know... like looking for a sign or a clock to read... or just questioning the believability of a situation.
But in those cases... either the dream convinces me I'm wrong, and this is all real, or... I prove I'm right, and instantly wake up!
But that battle continues to evolve, because just this morning, in my dream, I was at a meeting with a bunch of people who were upset with me. It was like a generic work meeting, and we were all seated around a table in a room with the door closed.
They were like, We've got reason to believe you've been breaking the rules, and you need to answer for that. Do you have anything to say?
And, suspecting it was a dream, I said something like, I don't have to sit here for this. I have the power to disappear from this room!
They were like, No!.. this is real!...
And I opened my actual eyelids and caught a blury glimpse of my bedroom.
Now, just awake enough to know I was safely in my bed, I turned over and went back to sleep... picturing them in that meeting room, confused and astounded that I'd actually just vanished!
That's the first time I've ever... voluntarily awoken from a dream I realized was a dream. So... I guess that's a tiny step forward in lucid dreaming?
But then again, I wouldn't have been able to open my eyelids like that, if I was under the full musclular paralysis of a deep REM sleep... so, I must've been fairly close to waking the whole time.
I've experienced the flip side of that, many times... where my physical body IS fully paralyzed, because I'm VERY asleep... but I think that I've woken up!
I'd call it a recurring dream type, because it's happened so often, but it did happen a lot more when I was younger.
It always starts the same... I wake up, in the bed and bedroom I know I went to sleep in a few hours ago, and everything seems totally normal, but it's very dark.
I then sit up to turn on the lamp on my nightstand and... it doesn't turn on.
The bulb must've burned out.
I get out of bed and find my way to the wall switch... but that light doesn't turn on either!
Is the power out?
And then, as I leave my bedroom to investigate, I'm confronted by spooky voices and visions in the house, that can't possibly be real... so I realize that I'm NOT awake!
And 50% of the time... this leads to a SECOND false awakening!
About 10% of the time... it leads to a THIRD, nested, false awakening!
But the one telltale sign is always, that the lights won't turn on when I twist or flip the switches.
And over the years, when this happens, I know almost instantly I'm still dreaming... or, if I am actually awake, I change the bulb and move on with my business.
Another recurring dream I have, is much more specific.
I'm with my first girlfriend Jenny, and we're both in our thirties. We're either talking about getting back together... actively living together... or reminiscing about that time we lived together for a few years.
Always, when I wake up from this dream, I am CONVINCED beyond any doubt, that Jenny and I did live together in the 2000s, when we were in our thirties!
The dream may have been just a dream but, we DID live together for a good five years, in the 2000s, because I can remember all of it! Years of memories, of everyday life, and activities together, and conversations.
And it often takes until I'm fully on my feet and making my coffee, before I start to realize... Wait! No! Goddammit, that NEVER happened!
In reality, I was twenty-two the last time I ever saw her! She was only twenty, and that was in 1992! She married another guy and moved to Utah, in 1993... never to be seen or heard from again!
But the sheer CERTAINTY I wake up with, from these dreams, that we really did live together for five years, in the early 2000s... has caused me to wonder if we didn't actually DO that, in some parallel universe... and the dream wasn't just my mind accidentally tuning into the mind of my self from that other timeline!
However, I think it's more likely that a different theory is true... that the brain simply has chemicals powerful enough to overwhelm... itself... with absolute certainty about the reality of totally false things!
I think the brain may have a whole arsenal of chemicals that are able to overwhelm... itself... into thinking anything, or feeling any kind of way!
For example, how the hell is it... that the dreaming brain can surprise itself?
How can I be shocked and surprised by events in my dream that I didn't see coming?
If I'm the one who's dreaming it up... how can I not be aware of what I'm doing to myself... to the point of even being able to terrify myself?
I feel like there is a clear separation between me... the conscious and waking person who is responsible for dealing with reality... paying my bills and feeding myself... taking care of real problems, and the needs of real people or pets, or vehicles, or posessions, so that I can survive daily life...
And... Dream Guy!
Call him what you want... dream guy, dream agent, subconscious, unconscious, a demon, or just the left half of my brain... I feel like there is another guy, living with me in this body... who runs the dreams... and he's kind of an asshole!
There are some intriguing theories that the two halves of your brain are actually two separate brains, and we are all... two people living in one body!
One of them handles all the reality stuff while we're awake... and can read and tell time, and think logically and solve problems.
And the other one is just a helpless prisoner, forced to watch everything unfold in reality, with no power to speak, or act... who also has zero ability to read, tell time, do math, or think logically.
I thought this was an interesting theory, but no more interesting than any other theory about dreams... until after I quit my job at the hospital, after 14 years... very suddenly, and with no plan in place for the future.
After the first week, I began having EXTREMELY VIVID dreams about being back at work! I was SURE I was back in the hospital, going about my normal routines.
And these dreams persisted, every single night, for MONTHS!
And, I thought to myself... Hrmmm... Dream Guy seems to be VERY CONCERNED about why I'm not back at the hospital like normal!
In other words, Dream Guy might not understand certain things about the real world, and even think most of it is silly... but he WAS aware, that me, being in that building to earn money was critical to OUR survival!
And now... he was alarmed about the fact that WE weren't going there anymore. Why are we not in the building? You need to go back to the building!
And I thought, I see how it is, Dream Guy!... You watch me all day, and laugh, because I have to do all the work and figure out all the problems, while you enjoy the food and the shelter, and don't have to do anything but fuck with me at night! But NOW you're worried, arent'cha? Well fuck you!
Because, you know how Dream Guy is!.. it's like, You're backstage with some friends and a bunch of strangers. It's opening night! You have to go on for your big scene! But you've NEVER EVEN READ THE SCRIPT AND NEVER AGREED TO BE IN THIS PLAY!
Or... You're in a very public place, involved in something with other people but... YOU FORGOT TO PUT ON YOUR PANTS OR UNDERWEAR! YOU'RE NAKED FROM THE WAIST DOWN AND EVERYBODY KNOWS IT AND YOU HAVE NO CAR AND NO WAY TO GET HOME!
Like... Dream Guy can be, a total asshole, AT YOUR EXPENSE, using his arsenal of brain chemicals to torture you, and make you believe it's all real, and there's no escape!
On the flip side, maybe you're having a really wonderful dream! But as soon as you think, HEY!.. I Love this! Dream Guy is like, Nope! Just a dream! Wake up! Hahahah!
That's why I was so happy to find out that Dream Guy was actually worried about me not going back to work.
Finally, I could be like, Oh?.. is this upsetting you?.. Sorry!... it's reality and we WILL starve, unless I can figure things out with logic and physical effort, dick-face! Better hope I do!... cuz I know you're ass isn't gonna be any help!
They say dreams can help you with problems, but... only conceptual problems.
Way back when I was a web designer in the early 2000s, I was trying to write a javascript that would open up a floating I-frame, and have it appear to grow & expand out from the center, to whatever proportions it needed to be.
This was my weird answer to a drop down menu... because back then, the more innovative the visuals, the cooler the website would be!
You'd mouse over some menu links on the main page, and... I wanted the sub menus to just appear in the center of the screen, in an animation that had them grow out of a single point.
I knew what the final dimensions of each individual submenu should be, and they were different for each one, but I couldn't figure out one universal script that could grow any menu to it's unique dimensions.
But that night, I dreampt of watching those menus shrink in reverse, from full size, down to a single point!
And in the morning I wrote a universal script that just grabbed the height and width variables from the menu in question... then ran a loop to shrink both down to a point... then ran that established loop backward, but displayed it, this time!
And it worked like a charm!
Dream Guy didn't have to know anything about Javascript!
All he had to do was present the bright idea to look at the animation in reverse, and hope that helped... which it did!
Most problem solving in dreams has to do with looking at things from a different perspective... unless it's a more left brain problem to begin with, like a musical phrase, or some kind of vision of something.
Again, like with the hospital, my Dream Guy isn't very cooperative, until he understands that money is on the line. Which is funny, because he doesn't understand money... but he does know I need to make it, if WE'RE to survive.
If Dream Guy, is... kind of an asshole room mate, living rent free in my skull... then I would say the third, being, I'm stuck with for life, is my body itself... which is just a stupid, and very lazy, and complaining animal!
But that is a whole other subject, waaay beyond the scope of this entry.
For the time being, my new focus will be on dreams, and the brain, and the magical mysteries of consciousness.
I have a lot more examples of recurring features in my dreams, and about dreams in general, so this is only the first entry in this fall and winter's theme about dreams and the mystical realm of consciousness, unconsciousness, and soforth.
But hopefully my investigations and speculations will inform me how better to construct the perfect sleep playlist... including such things as winter wind chimes, and... if possible... distant train horns on clear winter nights.
It's a whole new season, in the northern hemisphere... and I've still only begun that 2022 playlist, so... let's see how things develop!
°¦}
