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Do dreams know they’re going to be interrupted?

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posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 12:14 AM
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Or more precisely, does the dreamer know when a dream is about to be interrupted—does the dreamer know when a dream is going to end on an unconscious level? Is it decided beforehand when the best place to terminate a dream may be?—to leave the dreamer begging for more, to leave the dreamer pondering its meanings.

I had a dream earlier this morning that got me thinking about this question, and it was also one of the first thoughts I had (that kept nagging at me the rest of the day.) From what I can remember, much of the dream consisted of me just standing around a frozen yogurt shop looking at the crummy tables and benches and stuff. Real exciting!

But then the dream took a much more interesting turn, and intense things started happening. I had an important phone call, and in the conversation I laid out a plan for a major life decision that’s been weighing heavily on my mind this year. Just as it seemed vital information started seeping through, the dream terminated at the behest of my alarm clock. Why wasn’t I interrupted when just inspecting the cleanliness of the frozen yogurt shop?

Why does it always seem like when I’m on the cusp of some ground-breaking personal epiphany, the dream is prematurely ended?—whether by alarm clock, or just natural awakening, it always seems I miss the best parts. The bus always seems to be taking off, leaving me to chase after it! (if you’ll allow the metaphor.)

When thinking about this question earlier, I wanted to investigate two things: 1) how dreams can have a psychologically-healing effect, and 2) evidence that dreams can be prophetic or predictive.

Unfortunately, I just cycled through a hodgepodge of loose theories and admissions that there isn’t much evidence in the way of concrete answers.

Most of us have had at least one or two dreams that appeared entirely prophetic or predictive and subsequently appeared to “come true.” Even a broken watch can match this level of accuracy, right?

It would suggest an intelligence and a plan on the part of the subconsciousness of the dreamer, but it would also seem to maximize the psychological benefit. It seems to know just when to end the dream leaving the awoken person with many questions and lingering feelings. It seems to give us a push towards finding an answer about ourselves. It forces us to search within.

It’s like watching a movie and being cut off during the climactic ending, where we can only speculate about the ending. We examine all possible outcomes because we can't actually see the ending (which may limit our choices and possibilities.)

It could just be that we only remember the intense moments of a dream upon being startled awake. If I had woken up during the yogurt shop scene, maybe I wouldn’t have remembered the dream at all.

Anyway, from someone who believes that dreams may be predictive about future events, and also have a psychological healing component to them, I guess I’m just wondering if it could use these two aspects to keep teasing us with important information. Maybe like a carrot dangled in front of a mule, it’s just a way to keep us pushing forward for answers.


edit on 27-6-2014 by NarcolepticBuddha because: (no reason given)



posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 05:38 AM
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Just read it your topic and bit further but i must ansfer fast now so i read rest later, other night just couple days ago i saw a dream where i was with my old chilhood friend driving bikes and then dont remember what happend next but i woke up my cellphone ringing and he was calling me. Perhaps just coincidences but its interesting to me becouse i havnt seen him in long time and in my dreams i think i havnt seen him once before.



posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 06:05 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

The answer is yes. Your mind is aware of everything all the time.



posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 09:21 AM
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Profound dreams should be written down and told as stories so as to perpetuate through everyones' conscious. They show a glimpse into our inner, truer realms. Indeed to awaken our purpose in the real world.



posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 09:35 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

I had this happen so much as a kid, I trained my brain to go back to sleep immediately and pick up where it left off. It does this automatically now, so if I don't want to go back into a particular dream, I have to issue orders not to. You must be able to lucid dream to use this technique, but even that isn't difficult to master, although it can take a while and be frustrating. Just train yourself to remember, while in a dream, that you are in control. Believe in the supremacy of your will, that what you want to have happen will happen. Keep at this until your dream life is under as much control as your real life.

Good luck.



posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 08:02 PM
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When I was in high school, I had a dream one night where I was at a friend's house and we were planning to walk over to another friend's house to hang out. (Boring, I know.) But then my friend turned to me and said "We don't have time to walk over there, you'll wake up before we get there anyway so we should just stay here." I woke up shortly after that. I always thought it was strange.

I think there have been other times where I knew I was going to wake up before I did, but I can't remember anything specific right now.



posted on Jun, 27 2014 @ 08:11 PM
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originally posted by: invisiblemanda
But then my friend turned to me and said "We don't have time to walk over there, you'll wake up before we get there anyway so we should just stay here." I woke up shortly after that.


Very intriguing! Thanks for sharing this. Maybe my strange idea and question wasn't so strange after all.



posted on Jun, 29 2014 @ 10:21 AM
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Well humans actually have 7-9 dreams per night (believe it or not!), and within 10 minutes of waking up, you forget 90% of them. What I'm trying to say is that maybe it didn't end, you just forgot the rest. Another thing I have personally have been pondering on recently is that it is possible that the mind does not want you to remember. What if all dreams have a nightmare to go with them? It could be that your mind locked away the rest, as to not force you to see it, especially if you are going to a good time in your life, a time with no stress. As if the mind is protecting you as to not ruin your mood. When you are stressed out about something or are just not in a good mood, the mind sort of skips over this little feature and the nightmare leaks through. That's basically when you get them. Hope this helped.



posted on Aug, 30 2014 @ 04:07 AM
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Bump ...

So - narcoleptics dream ?

Premature dream endings ... ?

( Just trying to get a handle mate ... )

Do you reach REM - just to blink back ?



With respect ...



posted on Aug, 30 2014 @ 05:18 AM
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A very interesting topic, dreams...

I've had many dreams that were "interrupted" leaving me want to fall back asleep and pick up the dream where I left off...it left me feeling a wanting or desire to return just as you describe. It leaves that dream feeling like a deep mystery that I must solve or have an answer to. Perhaps it is suppose to make us ponder it by leaving us hanging, just like a cliff hanger in a movie.

Just last night I woke from a dream where I was hanging out with one of the best friends I grew up with. We (sis and I) were at her house and it was late at night after a party. We were eating a bowl of cereal (which is weird because I hardly ever eat cereal) before we all decided to crash. It was about 3 am. As we sat there eating the phone rang from the other room and her mom answered it. She called to her daughter to come take the call. Upon returning from the phone call our friend was acting differently and began to reveal to us that her real name was different than whom we knew her as all our life. She began to tell us why and that is when I woke up. It left me wanting to know what in the heck she was going to reveal.

I'm starting to have more vivid dreams again. Its been a while. Before, during and right after my pregnancy I had very vivid dreams all the time where I could describe details such as you have done in your post. Then the dreams just went away and I could rarely ever remember a dream or the details which I often wondered why. I like to remember my dreams. I do believe we dream about things we are working through. Our fears, anxieties, desires, angers, accomplishments... all of it.

Dreams are a wonderful type of coping mechanism gift we have been given and they are so mysterious and intriguing.

My sister has been having very vivid dreams so for her birthday I bought her a dream interpretation book. Now I don't want to get all psychological PHD'ish on her dreams, but I do believe that she will realize what each dream means to her on her own but I thought the book would be a fun tool too.

I love Dreams !
leolady



posted on Aug, 30 2014 @ 06:40 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

How do you keep an idiot waiting? I'll tell you later. Our sleeping mind seems to be treated like the idiot by the projectionist of our more intelligent sub-consciousness. Like any good cinema, cliff-hangers, mysteries and suspense are great ingredients.

I've ridden the same train of thought many times and have had dreams that affected me deeply enough to change my view of *me* and/or the world at large. There've been dreams that epitomised contentment so profoundly that the rest of the day was depressing and I yearned to return there. Places, people, events and even futures have been played across my sleeping eyelids. Like you, I've had a few aspects that came to pass in the day and that's something elusively fascinating too.

The question of time is a tricky one as it's way past subjective and there's no way we can ever measure it in dreams. Would we want to? Likewise, because a memorable dream is entwined and bedded down in our own perceptions of reality, it's hard to measure whether that precognitive moment happened in last night's dream or if we imagined it did - Escher-like in its ability to be self-thwarting and multi-dimensional.

I get the sense that our consciousness, although pinned to now, might also (at times) have some darkling awareness of near-future circumstances. If so, our dream-states might also represent the purest, unbridled chance we have to be aware of a level of reality that isn't typically accessible.

To know the future is to stop it dead - think about that.

Those minor, predictive moments might serve no purpose at all. They might be figments of imagination too or symptoms of brain damage or illness. However, if they are real, perhaps they are like white-noise or static events bleeding through from a channel our subconscious accesses and our earth-bound minds can't.



posted on Sep, 23 2014 @ 02:54 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

Basically, when you wake up, you are "looking back" on the dream that you just had. What you remember is only pieces here and there, and often your memories are distorted - it is usually just about 15-30 seconds of memory - just like after a night out on the town trying to remember what happened after waking up the next morning.

So in other words, the dream didn't end abruptly, it is just the 30 second window of "dream recall" that happens just before waking up.

The actual dream that you had, basically, would have been much longer, however, you cannot remember it completely.

Here is what to do:

When you have a moment by yourself, take what you recall about your dream, and then imagine an ending to the story yourself, usually, it is exactly what did happen during the dream when you were asleep.

Doing this as an exercise will bridge the connections to your subconsciousness, and you will learn how to make your own stories, like making a movie in your mind.
edit on 23-9-2014 by SystemResistor because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 23 2014 @ 03:59 AM
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Some of my dreams end with a timing that seems climatic but some just end bruptly no conclusion no excitement or meaning. Dreams can stop before finished but they do seem to end at a certain point if you stay asleep deep enough long enough.



posted on Sep, 23 2014 @ 09:55 AM
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I had a memorable dream once-i was in a place that looked like a library,talking with a darkhaired man(i remember that on waking,i thought he strongly resembled that guy from the old Psycho movie,Anthony Perkins) We were disagreeing strongly about a matter that just can Not remember, what the issue was about,but it was of great importance,and urgency.
Strange thing was,in the dream i somehow Knew i was going to awaken any second-and it was as if he knew it also.Our discussion had become frantic with urgency by then,we both seemed to know we had mere seconds to wrap this up.His last words to me were "It HAS to be done in this way,this is the only way!!" and i was absolutely in disagreement-then i was awake.I woke from that dream in a very depressed frame of mind,a heavy feeling which lingered for weeks.I am a sufferer of chronic depression,for which i take no meds,incidentally,but up till that dream i had been going through a reasonably ok period-my instant heavy depressive phase afterwards was a Direct result of that dream.And indeed a very bitter and difficult time followed shortly after,in my life,another period in which i came very very close to dying.a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha


edit on 23-9-2014 by Raxoxane because: typo



posted on Sep, 24 2014 @ 04:59 AM
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Wow I'm surprised this thread keeps getting responses!

I'll add another one I had recently. In a dream, I was talking with some old friends I haven't seen in over 10 years. We were just hanging out and relaxing like old times, playing video games, watching TV. I was a bit of a nerd in our group, usually the butt-end of jokes and teasing, you know?

And I said something stupid and annoying. And a friend said something like, "NB, just shut up for once!" So I felt really hurt in the dream, really upset and feelings hurt etc. But I kind of just have to take it--I can't really leave or storm out of the room or anything.

So I think to myself, "Alright, fine. I'll just sit here quiet until I fall asleep." I lied down and slowly, slowly got drowsy. My eyelids got heavier and was trying to keep them open watching TV.

And as soon as I fell asleep in the dream, I woke up here
Like, I felt the complete transition, seamlessly, falling asleep in one place and waking up in another. It was really strange like I could feel each step in the process, each change in consciousness from awake, drowsy, drifting asleep, quiet and subtle, slowly waking up somewhere else. I've never quite had a dream/ awakening like this, but it felt totally natural, like I knew it would happen, like I knew I was leaving one place to enter another..very intuitive-like.

I hope that made sense



edit on 24-9-2014 by NarcolepticBuddha because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 24 2014 @ 07:30 AM
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I'd never had a dream-within-a-dream until recently. You know how in movies and whatnot, the person 'wakes up' in the dream, only to realize that they are still dreaming? I always thought that was odd. I always wondered: How can you not know your still asleep? Until it happened. Makes me think that there are layers of consciousness, not just one or two, but many. I wonder how your mind finds dreams? Sometimes dreams come from within, but I am sure that others can not only influence your dreams, but cause you to have specific ones as well. Little in the way of answers, mostly just shared experiences, but that's what life's all about, if you ask me.



posted on Sep, 24 2014 @ 07:37 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha
very thought provoking, why do they end at the best part?
bump

edit on 073030p://bWednesday2014 by Stormdancer777 because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 24 2014 @ 08:07 AM
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a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

Ever dream while you are awake, not daydreaming,

BTW your friend in the dream was you.



edit on 083030p://bWednesday2014 by Stormdancer777 because: (no reason given)

edit on 083030p://bWednesday2014 by Stormdancer777 because: (no reason given)



posted on Sep, 25 2014 @ 06:17 AM
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originally posted by: Stormdancer777
a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha
BTW your friend in the dream was you.

Bleh I hope not! Not even going into details, but it's a troubling interpretation



Ever dream while you are awake, not daydreaming,

I have, a few times, started to dream and/ or see images, shapes, symbols etc. while in the alpha state of drowsiness.

I am especially fascinated with the compartmentalization of the mind in these states (or in meditative states as well.) One part of the mind is dreaming and carrying on and totally immersed in it, and there's another part that's like, "Well, this is a dream...It makes no sense!"



edit on 25-9-2014 by NarcolepticBuddha because: (no reason given)




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