A "first-time" type of dream

[bgrimm]

May 12th-13th Night:

I had the dream last night so its kinda hazy. I somehow manage to get to my mom's house. My mom lives 7 hours away from me. I've never seen her house so I'm wondering if the house I saw in my dream may somewhat resemble the house she is living in currently. My two sisters live with her. And in my dream "my dad" (in the dream) was not my dad in real life...which really confused me. So the house is located in one of those neighborhoods with a golf course right next to it. I'm in the house and I'm at the end of the house and I'm in the living room. I look at the corner and there's the corner crease and about 2 feet from the crease starts a window. So it's like two adjoining walls that are, for the most part, 2 large windows. I'm staring at this, and I suddenly have memories of living in the house and being in that room. It was the most bizarre thing. I've never had a dream where I have a memory of the place where I'm dreaming of. And then later in the dream there was a christmas tree and the branches were on fire...but it wasn't "on fire" the fire on each branch was like a type of decoration (it was pretty cool lol) but then somehow a branch caught on fire...and apparently the xmas tree was plastic, so part of a branch melted--and then I pretty much woke up.

Oh, and my "father" in the dream was a salesman...idk how thats relevant...but...it was part of my dream... And that's never happened either...usually my actual father will be in the dream...not some random guy who I've never seen before.

I usually remember all of my dreams and most of them are really weird and awesome, like they're a bit surreal but have a realistic nature to them, but I've never had a dream where I have a memory in my head about the place where I'm at in my dream... Has this happened to anybody else??

Gracias.

-Brian

[CFTraveler]

Yep. There's a thread about just that somewhere around here. I'll post a link if I find it.

[Fish]

I've had a lot of dreams like that. Always wondered about it myself. Totally relating to a complete stranger like you've known them for life, and places I've never been and taken them as a places that I know very well, odd.

[bgrimm]

CF,

If you find it that would be great!

Fish,

Yeah, it was really weird...even while I was having the dream, I was thinking to myself how bizarre the guy was. Like I was kind of weirded out by him...he was an odd character.

[Fish]

Fish,

Yeah, it was really weird...even while I was having the dream, I was thinking to myself how bizarre the guy was. Like I was kind of weirded out by him...he was an odd character.

The imposter effect! I know all too well. Kindof like your conscious and subconscious are in total disagreement. Strange stuff, never could figure those dreams!

[CFTraveler]

I couldn't find it at all so I'll just comment:
I find that there are a few things that happen to people who do awareness training, either for LD, OBE or even meditation- and it's a few things that most of us have experienced from time to time. Some may look familiar, some may not (yet). I have my own idea of why it is and it's not exactly very scientific. But it's what I'm starting to think about reality, at least until I find something else that makes sense to me.

Some of these are:
*Going to an area in a dream, remembering having been there, in a previous dream (occasion) and recognizing how the place has changed. This can also happen in projection, and can be more dramatic than in dreamstate. I think it's because in dreamstate your subconscious mind is in charge and it has a different idea of what's 'real' and expected.
*Going to an area or seeing someone, and recognizing them and having distinct memories of having met them before. Upon waking usually the memory will become muddled, but the event itself will be remembered.
*Having a whole and distinct life in dreamstate, having it in installments, like a soap opera. You go back to the dream and time had passed, and you remember what happened before. I have had this (I've actually have had all of the above experiences, but not to conclusion). It's like living a parallel life but at a different 'time/scale'.

The 'remembering a person' is something that scientists have 'explained away'- the idea that whatever we dream about we embellish and 'decide it exists' because the subconscious mind doesn't understand 'I don't know'. I don't really buy this but it is the 'approved explanation.'
The australian aborigines have another explanation that I like a lot more and that I agree with- That when we dream (and project) we simply 'go' to another reality that never breaks. Even when we're awake we're in 'dreamtime' and shamans (if that is even the right way to describe it) maintain their dreamstate consciousness all the time, even awake, and that way they can glean information from the material world just by 'tuning into' dreamtime at any time. Beats telephones!

Now, my explanation to why we only remember while asleep, and forget upon waking:
It is fairly well known that our brains are at a different frequency when dreaming than awake- Alpha, Beta, Theta, Delta, etc.
So it is my considered opinion that we store memories at the frequency (or it's harmonic) in which it's experienced. So if you're awake and meet someone, you are storing it at the freq. of your thought at the time. Where is another story, but I have an opinion about that too.
So when you are dreaming, (or are in dreamtime) experience that dreamstate matrix that you access while in delta(?) and you store it in delta. So when you wake up and shift to alpha, the memories you stored are in a frequency that is no longer accessible for you. You have to go to sleep (or meditate yourself to conscious theta->delta) to retrieve these memories.
However, when you're sleeping and storing in delta, let's say you wake (or your conscious mind wakes.) Your brain hasn't quite shifted back yet, you're slowly moving from one to another (still in REM but awake, something which is pretty common in the early am.) you start to now store it in alpha or whatever that in-between frequency is. And if you keep a dream diary, and write it down right then, and soon after make a conscious effort to remember, you have a better chance to remember most of it- because now you're storing it in a conscious way.

So what my thought is, is that when you 'suddenly remember' something in a dream that you didn't know about, or recognize someone, or recognize a place that seems to have changed (or not) these memories are real- you were there before, you did meet this person before, you did do the thing you didn't remember doing before- but you stored the memory in a place that your conscious mind had no access to, so the knowledge of having been there, having done that, is really very sketchy.

The more you do this kind of mental work, the more these experiences will happen to you.
Obviously, this is my own interpretation of all this stuff, but it makes sense to me.

I hope I didn't break your eyes with this 'wall o' text'.

[Fish]

That's interesting. It's like picking up on an old dream where you left off. I do that quite a bit too.

[bgrimm]

Hmm. I understand what you're saying but I didn't have a "memory" of another dream. It was...all in the same dream. Like I have never been there before. Unless what yo'u're trying to say is that I have been there before and have forgotten and remember during this last dream. In which case, I agree with what you're saying.

It does, actually, make a lot of sense. lol

There have been MANY MANY times where I will have a dream and right after that dream, I'll have the exact same dream again. But because I already had that dream once, I can try different things to avoid what will happen because I already know what's going to happen. So say I'm dreaming and I'm running up in a park and someone is chasing me and I have to choose between two paths. So I choose the left path. I somehow manage to have the dream over, but because I know the left path didn't work out, I'll choose the right path this time. It's like that. And it's happened a lot of times to me. Very weird.

Many weird things have been happening to me lately. This morning something else happened! I had gone to be at 2 in the morning and my alarm was set for 5:45 a.m. So it goes off. I jump up and go to my alarm. There's a type of desk lamp right next to my alarm. I saw the clock but I went to the lamp and saw the lamp as the alarm. I went to turn it off by pulling out a cord from the lamp. What I was really doing was pulling at cords at the back of my speaker thinking that the cord was connected to the "alarm clock" (lamp) and when I pulled it out nothing happened. I'm freaking out because the alarm seemed to be extra loud and high-pitched and then I realize that the real alarm clock was right next to the one that I had made up. The funny thing was that my eyes were open but I saw the "lamp" as an actual alarm clock with a cord in it. I even pulled a cord out. And when I pulled it out I hit my hand against the wall really hard and I think that's what woke me up completely. And when I came to actual reality, I couldn't figure out what cord I pulled. And I saw that it was the cord from the back of my stereo which is located right underneath my desk lamp and alarm clock.

This is now 2 occasions where I woke up and was actually moving around but seeing part dream/ part reality. Very confusing and aggravating. I thought I had woken up the entire house with that alarm clock! lol

[Fish]

Unless what yo'u're trying to say is that I have been there before and have forgotten and remember during this last dream. In which case, I agree with what you're saying.

It does, actually, make a lot of sense. lol

Yes that's what I mean. Sorry, I'm not very good at explaining things understandably sometimes!

There have been MANY MANY times where I will have a dream and right after that dream, I'll have the exact same dream again. But because I already had that dream once, I can try different things to avoid what will happen because I already know what's going to happen. So say I'm dreaming and I'm running up in a park and someone is chasing me and I have to choose between two paths. So I choose the left path. I somehow manage to have the dream over, but because I know the left path didn't work out, I'll choose the right path this time. It's like that. And it's happened a lot of times to me. Very weird.

Cool.. I'll have to try that when that happens to me next time! What happened when you chose 'second chance' paths when you restarted the dream?

Many weird things have been happening to me lately. This morning something else happened! I had gone to be at 2 in the morning and my alarm was set for 5:45 a.m. So it goes off. I jump up and go to my alarm. There's a type of desk lamp right next to my alarm. I saw the clock but I went to the lamp and saw the lamp as the alarm. I went to turn it off by pulling out a cord from the lamp. What I was really doing was pulling at cords at the back of my speaker thinking that the cord was connected to the "alarm clock" (lamp) and when I pulled it out nothing happened. I'm freaking out because the alarm seemed to be extra loud and high-pitched and then I realize that the real alarm clock was right next to the one that I had made up. The funny thing was that my eyes were open but I saw the "lamp" as an actual alarm clock with a cord in it. I even pulled a cord out. And when I pulled it out I hit my hand against the wall really hard and I think that's what woke me up completely. And when I came to actual reality, I couldn't figure out what cord I pulled. And I saw that it was the cord from the back of my stereo which is located right underneath my desk lamp and alarm clock.

This is now 2 occasions where I woke up and was actually moving around but seeing part dream/ part reality. Very confusing and aggravating. I thought I had woken up the entire house with that alarm clock! lol

That's nuts lol sounds like something I would do!

This past week there has been a strong Neptunian influence. Maybe that has something to do with your split reality thing going on.. I think that when there are strong astrological influences going on it effects how we dream.