I’m on main thoroughfare of a town. The buildings are usually two to five stories high, and above them I can see a greyish blue sky. I start to run hard and then kick up, jump, and I start to fly. Not into the sky, clouds-rush-by-me-flying. Just, a big long leap that leaves me hovering about two stories above the existing buildings. I glide for a while with my body outstretched (not quite superwoman, yet not without purpose) and then I descend carefully. My feet meet the ground, and I start running again. I leap. I do it all over again.

I sometimes feel like this dream lasts for hours. And there have been variations in real cities. But usually it’s a fake one with that dusty sky.

I love that dream.

i dreamed the one time when i was little i woke up (yes i woke up in my dream),i my mom was putting in a viedo for me and my sister. when i was walking down the hall and passed in front of the stairs i trapdoor opened and i fell in. i screamed for my mom but she did not hear me. the next day when i woke up i walked down the hall and there was a outline of a square in the carpet right where the trapdoor was in my sleep.

i also had a dream where i woke up( yes i wake up a lot in my dreams) and i saw my dad in the kitchen, i also saw snakes everywhere. my dad was talking on “phone” which was a snake with its mouth open right by his ear. i walked outside and there was snakes everywhere.

i have also had an animated (cartoon) dream.

my dreams are usually very strange. i’m usually somebody else in them, and i’m also like a third-person camera view as well. now that i think about it, all my dreams are like i’m watching them on tv. except the one from last night. anyway, i treasure my most vivid dreams because, when my life is busy and boring, it’s a crazy adventure that i can remember until the next one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieXs14WDwZE

It’s such a shame because I’m really fond of sleep.

I sleep-talk often, usually every night. Although I usually only mumble, I was known to have said, “I better go turn off the coffee machine upstairs.” I don’t drink coffee, or even know how to use a coffee machine. the subconscious can throw some weird things out there.

i know this is technically dream recounting, but this is a quick summary. about three days before mr.rogers (yes, the guy from the children’s show) died, i had a dream i was in a store and they announced over the loudspeaker that he had died. but this dream had been three days ago. as in before he died.

sadly, my dreams are usually not that cool. that particular one just scared me. and i agree completely with whoever talked about unrelalistic dreams in books. they make too much sense! i have to admit to writing dream scenes though, but they were more prophecies, which i feel are different than true dreams.

i find in i almost never dream about people i know or go to school with, except when i’m on vacation and not around them.

sometimes i’m a completely different person in my dream and i don’t even realize it until my alarm clock goes off. it’s so real because i have memories of a former life. and i don’t understand why people wake up before they die. if i die in my dream, i die. and when i finish dying, a new dream will start.

when i wake up, i’m just as tired, as if i’ve been running all night. it’s pretty hard to fall asleep when i usually have two nightmares a week and about three dreams a night. most of my dreams are just scary, not mightmare material though.

As for sleep. As a child I was diagnosed with Dyslexia and in college ADD got tacked on top. I have also been a life long insomniac. A couple years ago, I started to Lunesta for the insomnia. Interestingly enough, the ADD symptoms subsided. I am still Dyslexic, but even that seems more manageable with a good night sleep.

I, too, find most people’s dreams pretty boring. I usually don’t even try to tell my dreams to others because they are crazy and jump around in time/space too much. my role in dreams also changes a lot. at one point, i’ll be a specific person and then a minute later, i’ll just be an observer.

i would tell people about my more interesting dreams, but i just don’t want people to find out exactly how crazy I really am.

It has a little too much of a coherent plot, but “Alice in Wonderland” does better than any other story I know at capturing dream logic.

I just finished a great book: “The History of Last Night’s Dream” by Rodger Kamenetz. Fascinating.

My dreams can be very vivid but as soon as I try to nail them down in words by describing them they turn to ashes in my hands and sound dull even to me. So I don’t bother.

If I have spent a longish period in my own bed I tend not to remember dreams, but if I am travelling or staying elsewhere I am (presumably) sufficiently unsettled to wake up at times that help me remember them.

has anyone ever read a really convincing account of a dream in a (fiction) book? I don’t think I have. Dreams in novels all read like mini-novels, all smoothed out and made logical.

Anyway, a few mornings ago when she was sleeping with us, she woke up from what looked like a sound sleep, sat bolt upright, and proclaimed “Zucchini is yummy!”

also, you have to be careful which dreams you share with others, because friends can end up blaming you for things your subconscious has brought out from the depths.

i agree that you have to know how to tell a dream. the problem is dreams don’t usually have the simple beginning-middle-end, or some variation thereof, alignment. which can make relating one difficult.

lastly, the time between going to sleep and actually sleeping and the time between sleeping and waking are usually the most helpful for me because I either end up controlling my dreams (which is nice when I’m running away from something scary and I can just make it disappear) or I end up with a really great idea on how to approach something (not unlike the chemistry problem example, or your plot point example, or—for me—a way to have a difficult conversation or express a difficult feeling.)