A Critique of Sleeping and Dreams.
Interestingly enough, dreaming, lucid dreaming and sleeping have their scientific possibilities. I can observe my dream worlds as if I was walking
through a garden as a botanist. In my dreams I can create imagery, or somehow the imagery forms on its own. I can examine that imagery, albeit through
a foggy lens, in the hopes of making some sort of sense of it when I awake. For a while now, I have been recording all memories of my dreams as soon
as I’ve awoken. These are my observations on sleeping and dreaming.
Observations
1.
Sometimes, I don’t remember anything from the hours during which I slept. I cannot say for certain whether I dreamt or not during those times.
I
can fall asleep and seemingly wake instantaneously several hours later.
2.
If when I fall asleep one way, and I awake in a different position, I do not remember when, why or how I moved.
3.
One thing I’ve found while dreaming is I cannot for the life of me disconnect the objects in my dreams from my experience and memory. Everything has
its roots in what I’ve sensed and experienced throughout my lifetime. If I see a horse, it is a culmination of many horses, or maybe it resembles my
favourite horse, the one that holds the most esteem in my memory. I can dream of a beautiful place, even a paradise, but that place always shares
qualities of places I’ve seen or experienced. It is known that a man who has been blind from birth dreams without any form, for he has never
witnessed any form to dream of.
My dreams are somehow connected to my sensual experience and the memory I have of it.
4.
I’ve dreamt I was trapped in quicksand, only to awake and find myself tangled in blankets. I’ve heard voices and had conversations with people in
dreams only to awake to hear people chattering in the street. I’ve smelt coffee and toast, I’ve heard bells and dogs and I’ve seen my worlds
brighten as the lights get suddenly turned on. The senses do not stop. I am paradoxically conscious of my surroundings while remaining
‘unconscious’ at the same time. This is why I awake at movement in the bedroom or at the sound of my alarm—my senses are still fully functional.
My body is still conscious.
5.
Dreaming will affect the body—any man can attest to this. Dreaming can cause movement in the eyes, in the muscles, in the voice, in overall bodily
arousal, even to the extent of walking to another room. I have had complete coital experiences while asleep (maybe too much info).
My actions
within my dreams manifest physically, causing bodily movement, arousal, stimulation, vocalizations, pulse and breathing fluctuations, but my memory of
that physical manifestation always evades me.
6.
Despite the apparent connectedness between objects in the awake and the dream world, there is an extreme deficiency of any sort of physical or natural
law. Objects morph in form, men fly through the clouds, animals talk, and the dead live again. If lucid, I can almost play like God (although the
result is very fragmented and un-sensual, and not as vivid or spectacular as real life in my opinion). There is no grip on reality in dreams.
In Summary
My body isn’t disconnected from the brain during sleep, as actions in a dream can cause reaction in the body. My senses do not fully sleep, as sense
datum can penetrate a dream. Objects in the dream world resemble fragments of objects from my past experiences. When I wake from sleep, whether I have
dreamt or not, I don’t remember the state of my body in the hours during which I slept.
Questions
Many question arise in myself from my observations. What is missing here? Why is the dreamworld so detached from reality despite the abundance of real
imagery? Why is there never any context in the dream world? Why do I hardly remember anything on awakening?
What is it in me that actually sleeps?
edit on 16-10-2012 by NiNjABackflip because: (no reason given)