Sleep position seems to influence my dreams.

I have begun to notice lately that I can control my dreams to a small extent just by changing the position I sleep in as I toss and turn through the night. When I lay on my right side, my dreams are mostly pleasant, positive, unexciting, mellow, etc. Things tend to make logical sense. When I switch to my left side, things get more intense. My dreams start to take on a scary element or situations will become horrifying, violent, much more emotional in a way. The 'story' of the dream will continue, same people, subjects, topics and imagery but the story changes. When I switch back to my right side after being on the left, I am suddenly allowed to stop and rest from the horror, violence, etc. Either I have solved the current problem, or I am able to stop and rest for a moment.

I never would have thought sleep position could affect your dreams if I hadn't seemed to experience it myself. I did aquick google search and came up with many other people asking similar questions on websites like ask.google, or answers.yahoo, wiki.answers, and other question type boards. It seems many other people are able to experience this low level of dream control, but there arent any serious answers as to why it seems to happen.

This is all purely speculation, but the general consensus is that whole right brain being math, logic, etc and the left brain being art, music, emotion. It is possible that increased blood flow to each part of the brain helps to influence the mood of the dream. If I had to choose a logical explanation I suppose I would go with this as well although left brain vs right brain is not that cut and dry. In a normal brain the whole brain works in concert whether you are doing math problems or listening to music. Just specific areas light up with increased activity compared to the rest.

This is nothing like lucid dreaming, or dream control. It is more like those old goosebumbs books where you choose your own fate. At the bottom of each page you had two options. When I wake up in the middle of the night I can choose if my dream is boring and needs to be spiced up I lay left. If the situation is getting out of control and is becoming far too bizarre I lay right.

Has anyone else noticed this? Would anyone be willing to do a small experiment, and take notice of the content and quality of your dreams depending on which side you choose to sleep on, then report your findings back here? It seems to be a nifty little trick, and possibly a stepping stone towards true lucid dreaming. I look forward to hearing all your experiences!

You lucky bugger.
i can't even remember my dreams.

Here's my made-in-2-seconds theory.
When you sleep turned to the left side, your heart has lesser freedom because of theadded weight of the right side. So, it does work slower. Your brain, not likeing the lesser amount of oxygen starts dreaming about worse things in hope of waking you up.

reply to post by IntegratedInstigator


This happens to me only the opposite to you ......Right for nightmares and Left for OK....

Maybe I realy am wired up wrong .

i have noticed something similar, and i thought up a possible reason.

i think it has to do with blood flow and gravity. during REM sleep, blood flow to the brain is doubled, yet blood is very susceptible to gravity. (hold one of your hands up for a bit, and it will start to tingle, feel cold, and go numb because the blood drains out). blood should pool more on the bottom-most side, leading to more activity in those areas.

i noticed that i experience more hypnagogic imagery (those colors/shapes/sparks) when i lay down on my back, and visual processing is in the back of the brain where the blood should pool.

so shouldn't good/bad dreams be constant on one side or the other between people? no, i'm guessing not. since dreams draw heavily from your memories, and memory locations in the cerebral cortex should vary from person to person.

its just a rough theory.

Spose you are in good company. The prophet muhammad in one of his sayings, stated that good dreams happen when sleeping right-side, and bad dreams when sleeping on the left side, and to tell others of your good dreams as they are from god, and discard the bad ones as they are from others.
I have noticed this too, every time i get a bad dream happening and i decide to leave it by waking up, i am on my left side.

same for me also. I noticed this years ago. If I sleep on my right side = spiritual type dreams and left side = personal/life dreams. If I lie on stomach or back I tend to have more lucid or OBEs.

I was going to start a new thread about this phenomenon after I began to notice changes in my dreams when I lie in different positions, but found this. Forgive me for thread necromancy, but I think it is better than thread redundancy.

Ever since I was small I have only been able to fall asleep on my left or right side, but recently I have found that laying on my back more comfortable, and have also noticed changes in my dreams.

I have not taken notice of the content of my dreams while laying on my left or right side, but I am realizing that I have more vivid, even lucid dreams when I sleep on my back. It is to the point that I begin to realize that i am dreaming, and can control some things that happen. I can also remember events more clearly when I awake.

Recently, I had a dream that I was in a warehouse complex with other people who were running around. I could sense a feeling of urgency, and saw a few cases with weapons inside of them that I have never seen before. I knew they were important, and had to be hidden away. There was also a short, dark haired woman with mischievous eyes that I felt an affinity toward. Soon, our complex was raided by federal agents looking for the weapon prototypes, and arresting / shooting people. The girl and I split up but before doing so, she told me her name was Mikael Hathaway or Hikael Hathaway. Either way, I wrote her a note saying 'Find me.' and before we were captured, she looked into my eyes and said 'I will.' A week later, I meet a girl that looks very similar to her.

I am uncertain if this is truly relevant, but I was very surprised when it happened.

So, I am glad to share my experience with you and learn that others are experiencing the same happenings.

Continue to practice, until you are able to fully control your dreams and fly away to true freedom before you face this world again.

Peace to everyone.

reply to post by Kevinquisitor


Dont worry about thread necromancy, because im about to bring this thread back from hell, haha. Ever since reading the replies I have been trying to sleep on my back and stomach more, just in case gravity is pooling blood to the lowest part of my head. I have found that while on my stomach my head is still turned left or right, I just cant sleep with my face in the pillow to pool blood in my frontal cortex.

In the past several months of trying to fall asleep while staring at the ceiling though, there was one time where I was dreaming and I began to realize I was dreaming while still in the dream. I woke up excited that I knew I was dreaming, only to be disappointed that I had awoken. It was really that quick, my dream had a story-line, kinda like a movie, and before you could snap your fingers I had realized I was dreaming and had also woken up. Its almost like I woke up realizing I was dreaming, so Im not sure it even counts as the first step towards lucid dreaming.

Anyways, thank you all for your replies. At least I know Im not a lunatic believing I can control the content of my dreams based on which side I lie down

Yeah me to The positions before I sleep influence my dreams j/k I guess certain positions might help more profound sleep or the opposite... The brain being at different state of consciousness will likely experience different distinctive patterns of dreams in accordance to the sleep depth you are in.

nevermind....

I remember when I was a little kid I would have very intense nightmares and would wake up crying. My mom would tell me to lay on my back to stop the nightmares. And it would ....at least from what I remember lol. reply to: IntegratedInstigator