designing a session to improve dream recall

[completeandtotalidiot]

It took me a while to take this standard suggestion seriously: I set my alarm to wake me 3-4 hours after I expected to fall asleep, and once awake made myself jot down whatever I immediately remember dreaming. I have an inexpensive audio alarm that also can turn on a light, so waking, and remembering what I was waking for, was easy. Remembering not only the dream content but it's clear, transcendent significance, was easy. Understanding one word I wrote the following morning was impossible and yet another exercise in self-humiliation.

Seinfeld says our "late-night guy" and "early morning guy" are two different people, and the late-night guy is always screwing over the early-morning guy. "I'll just keep watching this fascinating show about the history of modern toenail clippers until the next commercial, and then I'll go to sleep." "I'll just have two more cayenne chili-dogs and herring and then I'll go to sleep." "I'll just finish this gallon of discount scotch and then I'll fall asleep. Early-morning guy won't mind..."

Early-morning guy HATES late-night guy, and waking up at 3:00 am actually wakes both guys, and both guys hate stupid little experiments that interfere with sleep, so I ultimately quit doing this. If I had dreamt and recorded an epic poem or a cure for cancer, I certainly couldn't make it out from the nonsensical chicken-scratch in my journal.

Here's a completely unscientific and uninformed thought: my understanding is that the portion of consciousness that experiences dreams can't distinguish between reality and not-quite-reality, which is the basis for hypnosis: if you phrase self-talk in the positive and the present (eg, "I am the supreme ruler of all things and all people") while near this less-discriminating level of consciousness, the rest of you will (eventually) believe it. I've been thinking about this strange "immediate dream erasure" mechanism recently and upon naturally waking I've been far more interested in trying to observe this than the content of the dream itself, and this is the conclusion I've drawn so far: the mechanism is there to ensure that whatever "reality" we've experienced in a dream CAN'T cross over into our waking life, out of a recognition that while dreaming, for us, the dream is in fact real.

If so, isolating and modifying that mechanism shouldn't be too tough. The only real trick would be to convince OTHERS that I am in fact the supreme ruler of all things and all people. I think I'm going to start by printing it up on a t-shirt. Maybe buy a special hat.

[CraigT]

Every now and then there's a truly classic post, and I think this might be the one for this week!

Great thoughts!

If you're interested in lucid dreaming, there's quite a few other threads on the subject here, and I've been having some quite remarkable successes lately, both with inducing them and in remembering enough in the morning to be useful.

Keep up the good work - and I'll have one of your T-shirts too - or would that defeat the purpose

Cheers,
Craig

[Marisa]

Hey Complete,

I agree with Craig - this post had me in stitches. You should consider a career in stand up comedy!

You did mention something that I thought I'd comment on ...

Here's a completely unscientific and uninformed thought: my understanding is that the portion of consciousness that experiences dreams can't distinguish between reality and not-quite-reality, which is the basis for hypnosis

The unconscious mind (never mind in just dreams) can not distinguish reality from fantasy. Distinguishing reality from illusion (or delusions) is the work of the conscious mind. The unconscious mind will take whatever information the conscious mind accepts as truth. What happens then, is that the u/c mind will search through the vaults of memories, experience, knowledge to reinforce that which is "believed" to be true. As you've likely seen in abundance - this process is by no means always right as many people believe all kinds of untrue, construed realities.

The trick lies in recognizing the unhelpful beliefs and learning how to change them on an unconscious level. It becomes a matter of realizing that what you believe may not actually be real. Many people think that because they believe something, it actually is true. This is not the case.

Anyway, this alone could become a conversation.

Dreams are a whole different realm. In some cases they are simply mind-poop, while in other cases they may indicate where someone has a problem or is working through a problem. I don't see lucid dreaming as a good way to reprogram the mind. I see it more useful for entertainment purposes.

if you phrase self-talk in the positive and the present (eg, "I am the supreme ruler of all things and all people") while near this less-discriminating level of consciousness, the rest of you will (eventually) believe it.

Not necessarily. Your u/c would need to find evidence to back this up in order for it to become a real belief. Mind you, for some, it's not that difficult to step into the realm of delusia. We can all think of examples where these things have occurred. For example, the person may be able to delude themselves into believing that they are descendent's of an alien race, (Scientologists) or that you are a prophet or messiah of some sort (cult leaders) or that they have been chosen by some ancient spirit to give a message to the world (channelers).

I've been thinking about this strange "immediate dream erasure" mechanism recently and upon naturally waking I've been far more interested in trying to observe this than the content of the dream itself, and this is the conclusion I've drawn so far: the mechanism is there to ensure that whatever "reality" we've experienced in a dream CAN'T cross over into our waking life, out of a recognition that while dreaming, for us, the dream is in fact real.

It has more to do with the state of consciousness we are in. If you wake up while you are in the middle of a dream, you will remember it. If the dream stage passes and you go into the next stage of sleep and then awaken, you will not remember the dream. It all has to do with how things are stored in our long term memory. When we wake up in the middle of a dream or just as it's ending, that memory is in our short-term memory ... if we think about the dream and analyze it at that point, that process encodes it further into our memory. If the dream has significant emotional impact, such as some nightmares, we will likely remember it because emotional experiences real or perceived tend to be remembered most easily.

If so, isolating and modifying that mechanism shouldn't be too tough. The only real trick would be to convince OTHERS that I am in fact the supreme ruler of all things and all people. I think I'm going to start by printing it up on a t-shirt. Maybe buy a special hat.

Many have done this ... religious leaders, political leaders, cult leaders, con artists, movie stars, psychics, shaman ... . You too could be perceived by others as a supreme leader ... so don't lost that dream. lol

M.

[completeandtotalidiot]

1) please don't pick on scientologists. They frighten me and the last thing I need is to come home and find some jumping up and down on my couch.

As you've probably guessed, I'm using my real name here, so I'm pretty easy to find.

2) my biggest, fattest theory is almost relevant: I believe what we consider our "mind" develops around the beginning of (pre-verbal) communication, and to some degree, for a lucky few, it evolves from there. I believe in degrees of sub- and pre-consciousness. But I also believe we have some kind of hard-disk recorder, on since birth, recording information and making simple connections. If it sees consistent cycles of ones and ones and fives it will deduce 1+1=5. And I believe this "machine" is what is truly at the wheel, that makes all the really big decisions in our lives, like finding and falling hopelessly, deeply in love with the worst possible companion available to us. And I believe there is no direct communication between this "machine" and the various levels of the mind, whatever they may be.

Stop it with the couch jumping, I'm still talking here.

The stripper with the abusive, greasy, felonious boyfriends, the secretary who only dates married men, every relationship I've ever even considered: bad relationships, especially the perfectly bad ones that are almost impossible to separate, are an easy example, but a very, painfully long one to dissect here; what's simpler is this: a friend was recently in a car accident in which her sister was killed. This friend has had a medical condition since birth which has required lots of special attention and a reasonable degree of sacrifice from everyone in the family. Her sister was the golden child.

Her shrink is at least smart enough to know she will believe her sister's death was her fault (they were t-boned at night by a drunk driver, in a horrific intersection under the best of circumstances, and the speed of the other vehicle upon impact strongly suggests he ignored every stop sign on his journey.) Add their places in the family dynamic and it's a bed all made up and comfy for her "fault" to move in. What her shrink doesn't seem to be recognizing, and I am embarrassingly at a loss to figure out a solution to, is that after all the cognitive therapy, after all the levels of this belief are uncovered, challenged and appropriately dismissed, thanks to this internal hard drive, her "knowlege" of her guilt will still remain.

Statistically, it takes the secretary 46 married "I know, I know, but THIS guy's different, he's REALLY gonna leave his wife" men before they see a pattern, but even then the following guy will be different, because he's really gonna leave his wife. I don't believe, or at least don't want to believe, a childhood of being told you're worthless or the root of all evil destines you to a lifetime of recreating the family dynamic (and jumping on every ready-made similarity) and failing to correct or right it, but all I've seen -- the best I've seen have been methods of dealing with faulty beliefs about oneself, not this deeper, quasi-disconnected (maybe because it remains pre-verbal?) faulty "KNOWLEGE" of one's own worthlessness. The best I've managed so far is to, and to try to help others to, be a little vigilant and triangulate its manifestation from pretty certain clues (excitement about a job interview when one was told they normally only hire people who are actually qualified for the position is a pretty big clue that you're going to fail, daily, much to your bosses delight, but at least you know he won't fire you and thus ruin his fun.)

I think it was Craig who said he believes the neurosciences are rife with opportunity for amateurs to make some pretty significant discoveries. Not quite counting any of the above as significant nor a discovery, I will say that Psych and the related Helping Professions' only hope is from amateurs, because the professional cure for it 'hurting when you do this' is to 'stop doing that,' ("...and it looks like our time is up. That'll be $200. Cash") and I believe it's not quite that simple. For starters, because I think our model of the mind is STILL horribly, naively incomplete.

I ran all this by a PhD friend, by the way, pointing all the time to the hard disk recorder somewhere around the spleen; her only considered reaction was to confirm that I did know that all of this actually happens in the head, not the spleen.

I should have cut myself open and pulled out the bloody hard disk unit to show her just how wrong she is.

Anyways... continue with the couch jumping now.

[completeandtotalidiot]

oooff... forgot one thing: M, what I've been noticing every morning is a) a general feeling about the significance of a dream, followed by and somewhat intermingled with b) some general characteristic of the dream (place, time, her measurements...,) and as specifics begin popping up they get erased from the beginning at a slightly faster pace until I'm remembering a very disappointing and lonely blackboard.

Picture the good guy frantically downloading the incriminating information as the bad guy is erasing it from a remote location. Except less exciting and high-brow.

There is a theory I like to revisit every once in a while that originated in the study of story structure: life is chaotic, dreams are chaotic; French films portray chaos and meaninglessness; American films portray meaningful, purposeful lives; all of our self-talk and dream recollection is in story structure, and one Disney release can buy and sell the entirety of the French film market and still have money left over for popcorn because far more people want to see, and believe in, the American "fantasy" of a meaningful cause-and-effect life rather than sit through the drudgery of the life we can see for free every day we show up at the office. AND, no pretentious subtitles at work, either.

I don't pretend to know whether life is fundamentaly meaningful or meaningless, but I do believe we try to impose meaning on chaos, so it wouldn't surprise me if our dreams actually bear no resemblance whatsoever to our recall of them, that they're actually Andy Warhol movies but a little less coherent.

Or, maybe I'm just jealous of and pissed off at people who have more interesting dreams than me.

[completeandtotalidiot]

And finally,... I swear... re: stand up comedy: what if you finally discovered your true calling, your predestined divinely ordained purpose in life, and you really, really suck at it? I think I was born to do stand up (insecure, petty, catty, no qualms about ripping off 98% of my material) except for the fact that I'm not particularly funny...

[Marisa]

Hey C,

And finally,... I swear... re: stand up comedy: what if you finally discovered your true calling, your predestined divinely ordained purpose in life, and you really, really suck at it? I think I was born to do stand up (insecure, petty, catty, no qualms about ripping off 98% of my material) except for the fact that I'm not particularly funny...

I beg to differ. I think you are a hoot! Maybe you could write comedy if you don't feel confident enough to get on stage.

[Marisa]

Hi CATI (The acronym for "CompleteAndTotalIdiot")

1) please don't pick on scientologists. They frighten me and the last thing I need is to come home and find some jumping up and down on my couch.

There's bigger Bogey men out there than scientologists. They are just wacky religious people.

As you've probably guessed, I'm using my real name here, so I'm pretty easy to find.

Um somehow I doubt your real name is "completeandtotalidiot". You may have registered with your real name but the only name the public can see is "CATI". No one can access your personal information except the Administrator of the forum and he's not connected to the Scientologsts, Moonies or Knights Templar ... just some devious girl with a raven.

2) my biggest, fattest theory is almost relevant: I believe what we consider our "mind" develops around the beginning of (pre-verbal) communication, and to some degree, for a lucky few, it evolves from there.

What do you mean by "mind"? I'm not up on my developmental psychology but what I do know is that babies, though capable of some thought - it's very simplistic. The more complex forms of thought evolve gradually as the brain develops.

I believe in degrees of sub- and pre-consciousness.

Subconscious, unconscious, higher conscious are terms for the same thing. Essentially, the unconscious is everything that your conscious mind is not aware of.

The question is - how would you distinguish the levels and for what purpose?

But I also believe we have some kind of hard-disk recorder, on since birth, recording information and making simple connections.

That would be your brain, wouldn't it? Recording information (your memory) and making simple connections (neural pathways).

One thing though about our memory and processing of what our senses perceive - it doesn't work like a camcorder and is not as accurate as we think it is.

If it sees consistent cycles of ones and ones and fives it will deduce 1+1=5.

That's your conscious mind.

And I believe this "machine" is what is truly at the wheel, that makes all the really big decisions in our lives, like finding and falling hopelessly, deeply in love with the worst possible companion available to us.

That would imply that we do not have control over decisions and that is incorrect because we do. Some people do not realize it and so it appears that things just happen. How we make decisions is a bit of a complex process. If you look at the attached chart, it'll give you a bit of an idea of how we form conclusions.

And I believe there is no direct communication between this "machine" and the various levels of the mind, whatever they may be.

Different areas of the brain are involved in the processing of information and unless there is damage to one of those areas, they are all connected and do work together.

Stop it with the couch jumping, I'm still talking here.

How did you know Tom Cruise was visiting?

The stripper with the abusive, greasy, felonious boyfriends, the secretary who only dates married men, every relationship I've ever even considered: bad relationships, especially the perfectly bad ones that are almost impossible to separate,

People make bad decisions for a variety of reasons.

What her shrink doesn't seem to be recognizing, and I am embarrassingly at a loss to figure out a solution to, is that after all the cognitive therapy, after all the levels of this belief are uncovered, challenged and appropriately dismissed, thanks to this internal hard drive, her "knowledge" of her guilt will still remain.

This is something NLP could fix. Her guilt is linked to something and a good NLP Practitioner should be able to disconnect that link and it wouldn't take years of therapy either.

There is a reason that she is hanging on to the guilt - and that too can be dealt with fairly easily.

Statistically, it takes the secretary 46 married "I know, I know, but THIS guy's different, he's REALLY gonna leave his wife" men before they see a pattern, but even then the following guy will be different, because he's really gonna leave his wife.

That has to do with a belief and it is also tied to self worth. These things can be changed.

I don't believe, or at least don't want to believe, a childhood of being told you're worthless or the root of all evil destines you to a lifetime of recreating the family dynamic (and jumping on every ready-made similarity) and failing to correct or right it, but all I've seen -- the best I've seen have been methods of dealing with faulty beliefs about oneself, not this deeper, quasi-disconnected (maybe because it remains pre-verbal?) faulty "KNOWLEDGE" of one's own worthlessness.

Being told something repetitively can create a belief which can affect future thoughts and behavior. This too can be changed through NLP. Essentially being told something over and over again is a form of hypnosis. The person becomes programmed to believe what they are told, especially if it comes from an authority figure or someone who is important to them.

The best I've managed so far is to, and to try to help others to, be a little vigilant and triangulate its manifestation from pretty certain clues (excitement about a job interview when one was told they normally only hire people who are actually qualified for the position is a pretty big clue that you're going to fail, daily, much to your bosses delight, but at least you know he won't fire you and thus ruin his fun.)

You are on to something there because the more we become aware of what we are thinking, the more we are able to change what we are thinking and therefore change our outcomes. Words are very powerful and what we say to ourselves (our thoughts are self talk) does make a big difference.

I will say that Psych and the related Helping Professions' only hope is from amateurs, because the professional cure for it 'hurting when you do this' is to 'stop doing that,' ("...and it looks like our time is up. That'll be $200. Cash") and I believe it's not quite that simple. For starters, because I think our model of the mind is STILL horribly, naively incomplete.

In order for someone to change, they have to really want to change. Many people who see counselors want to change but they don't want it bad enough to do what it takes to change. Many people resist change even though their lives are not working for them. Many people fear change because they are more comfortable with what they know, even if it sucks, than the unknown future. As soon as one becomes totally put off with their current situation, they will change and it happens quickly.

Change happens within seconds, it's what leads up to the person making the decision to change that can take a long time.

I ran all this by a PhD friend, by the way, pointing all the time to the hard disk recorder somewhere around the spleen; her only considered reaction was to confirm that I did know that all of this actually happens in the head, not the spleen.

Just think, if they remove the spleen then the person would not be able to function. Yes, it does all happen in the melon.

I should have cut myself open and pulled out the bloody hard disk unit to show her just how wrong she is.

No hard disk, black box or microchip hidden in the body ... unless you are an alien. Maybe you are Master of the Universe ... or Data from Star Trek?

M.

M.

[Marisa]

I don't pretend to know whether life is fundamentaly meaningful or meaningless, but I do believe we try to impose meaning on chaos, so it wouldn't surprise me if our dreams actually bear no resemblance whatsoever to our recall of them, that they're actually Andy Warhol movies but a little less coherent.

Or, maybe I'm just jealous of and pissed off at people who have more interesting dreams than me.

Life is what you make it. It can be meaningful or meaningless ... it's up to you.

With an imagination like yours, I'm sure you have some really good dreams ...you just don't remember them ... yet.

M.