November 15th

This past week has been very stressful for me, which has led me to have a lot more dreams. Everything has an upside, right?

I got a new sleep app that lets me see how much of the night I'm in deep sleep, light sleep, and awake. It's called, "Sleep Better". I recommend it. You put it under your pillow while you're sleeping, and it senses any kind of vibrations you give off by moving or breathing. It also has a feature where you can record your dreams. I've been using it quite often. Recording your dreams regularly can help you to remember them better each night, and also may help achieve lucid dreaming.

I recently watched a documentary by Nova titled, "Why do we Dream?"
I learned that there are different parts of our brains that are activated during different parts of the night. During REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, the amygdala is highly active. Since this is the part of the brain that deals with bad and stressful situations, this is when most people have nightmares. During NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, we also dream. Although, since different parts of the brain are active then, it leads us to have different kinds of dreams than in REM sleep. This is when most people experience strange, weird, and unexplainable dreams.

So, we all know that there is almost nothing more peaceful than a sleeping baby. But what goes on inside that precious bundle of cuteness' head while it's sound asleep? This question has always intrigued me because of the fact that babies know no language and have very little life experience. Yet, they spend more than half of their time asleep and, in fact, in REM sleep.
Neuroscientists believe that dreaming serves a completely different purpose for babies than it does for adults. It's commonly thought that dreaming helps babies form pathways in their brain to things like language, imagination, and many cognitive skills. Once they enter early childhood, children develop the head space and imagination to think up thrilling adventures and incredible things to dream about. Our dreams develop more as we get older, and so does our imagination. Although, nowadays, many people's imaginations seemed to have gotten lost in the midst of technology and pop culture.
So why is it that many of us had distinct, vivid dreams as a child that we remember to this day? It is thought that self-awareness plays a large roll in having structured dreams with an actual plot to them. Once established, we let ourselves enter into our own dreams. From then on, dreaming becomes a tool for the brain to process emotion, events, and understand the world. Children's dreams are often vibrant and full of meaning, which may just be the brain learning how to use its tools.

"For often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream."
            - Aristotle

November 8th

As the great Dumbledore once said, "For when we dream, we enter a world that is entirely our own." A world where anything is possible. Tonight, I'm going to be talking a little bit about Lucid Dreaming.

Lucid means for something to be expressed clearly, and is easy to understand. In a Lucid Dream, you have the ability to think clearly and have total control of everything that happens. Although quite difficult to master, it is a worthwhile skill to have. It may be a way to consciously escape from reality, or maybe even a mechanism for testing out different reactions to situations you may encounter in your waking life. Whichever purpose you use lucid dreaming for, it's pretty cool none the less. 

You can start practicing by recording the dreams you remember each morning. By doing this, it helps  your conscious mind get in contact with those weird subconscious thoughts you have while dreaming. The next step would be to continually ask yourself if you're dreaming or not, while you're awake. This way, it's always in the back of your mind. Though it's a tedious process, the results are quite worthwhile. 

I've heard an abundance of positive results with the "Wake Back to Bed" method. In this method, you set your alarm for a certain time during the night. When you awake, stay awake for an hour, constantly thinking about lucidity. Once you go back to bed, your brain might just allow your two sides to clash. 

I've only achieved lucid dreaming several times in my life, both by accident. Once I dreamed that I was spider man and I robbed a bank. The other time, I stole a lot of macaroni and cheese. I have been keeping dream journals and trying to get myself to lucid dream, but it seems a lot easier than it is. 

I encourage you all to try it :)  

Thanks for reading, more soon.

November 2nd

This past week, I was talking to my therapist about how I'm writing a blog about dreams. She proceeded to tell me about two ladies she knows who live in different parts of the U.S. who belong to something called a "dream group". She offered to contact them for me, and said that they would be very interested to help me interpret some of my dreams over the phone. Now, this struck me as sort of strange because these people know literally nothing about me, so it might be a little tough to interpret my own personal dreams. But they think they can. I guess I'll give it a shot though because: why not? So stay tuned for that I suppose.

On a different note, I'm going to talk a little bit about a reoccurring dream I used to have when I was little. I have tried to interpret it over the years, and I think I may have finally found a way to make sense of it all.
It always started off when I would fall asleep in my mom's bed with her. My thoughts would all go away for a little while when I shut my eyes, but it wasn't long before they returned. My body was paralyzed and my mind was the opposite. Looking down my basement stairs, I saw a green-faced devilish creature smiling at me. Before I could see its entire body, I started running; immediately associating this creature with morbidity. The next thing I remember is being in a forest, still running. The green-faced Thing chasing me. I tried to scream, but there was something wrong. No sound would come out of my helpless body.
At this point, something strange would occur. Trying to scream in my dream made me try to scream in reality, and I would wake up with my mom shaking me. "Stella, what are you doing?" She was confused, as anyone would be if they heard their child making a muffled, not-quite-screaming type of noise when they're sound asleep.
This dream would occur several times a month for several years. I remember it so vividly.

My Interpretation:
At the time in my life when this would happen, my home life was shifting. My grandmother's death, my parents' divorce, and let's not forget the struggle of growing up as a young girl in a world full of bullies. The green-faced Thing representing my hardships and burdens chasing after me. My not being able to scream, represented my bottled-up feelings not able to be expressed. I remember as a child never being able to show my emotions properly. It's just strange to me that that showed in a  vivid nightmare.
It took me several years for the meaning of that dream to register, and it's the only one I've had that really sticks out to me. It's common for children to have nightmares and dreams in general that represent their lives, but it was just such a perfect depiction of my feelings.

October 25th~

Titling this entry "October 25th" strangely reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Donnie Darko, where each day of October farther counts down the days until the world's end. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly suggest it. You can watch it here. Interesting enough, the movie is somewhat about dreaming... Or sleep.. Kinda. But it's also quite hilarious and relatable, or at least I find it to be. 

On a different note, 

I read this interesting article the other day about the history of dreaming titled, "The Oldest Language Known to Man." (or, you know, people in general..) It explores the common belief between many cultures that dreaming is a form of communication, in most cases with some type of "creator." This didn't surprise me due to the fact that many ancient cultures believed heavily in some type of God, and had no other explanation for this nighttime phenomena. 

Dreaming has been along as long as humans have, and there are many ancient archives expressing the curiosity of what, how, and why dreaming occurs. The Greeks thought that dreams were a way to be telepathic and to communicate with the dead. That is, until Aristotle, one seriously clever dude, suggested that dreams came from within one's self. Two thousand some years later, some old Austrian guy determined that dreams were ultimately about the dreamer them self and called them,"The royal road to self-knowledge."

Any who, you can all read the article for yourself. 

I have always thought it's interesting how much impact religion has on the world's view of, well, everything. In a way, it allows people to make excuses for concepts that are too big to comprehend or seem unreal. 

I haven't found much specifically on the history of interpreting dreams quite yet. This topic intrigues me and I would really like to know more about it. I will delve deeper into it and have something posted soon. 

Keep it real~

October 18th~

Last night I had a series of very vivid dreams, the first I've had in quite a while. The first one took place in a town in Northern Washington called Port Angeles, a place in which I have countless childhood memories. I was traveling down a narrow highway surrounded by ocean. It was very quiet, all I could hear was the sound of my heart pounding in my chest. After walking for what seemed like hours, a green sign appeared out of nowhere, supported by nothing but air. It read, "Welcome to Los Angeles." Strange. Maybe a malfunction of my own brain, seeing as the town was called Port Angeles.  The sign quickly disappeared as I started moving much quicker. Continuing to speed up, I shut my eyes. While I continue to wonder if the subconscious situation meant anything at all or if it was just some weird series of events my brain put together from random memories. Who knows.

The next dream is a lot funnier. Bare with me. 

I got on a yellow school bus and walked to the back, where I found both Snoop Dogg and ASAP Rocky. I decided to park myself between the two rappers, greeting them with a friendly head nod and, "Sup?". "Hey baby," Snoop replied. I guess I must have just chilled with them the entire bus ride, wherever we were going. Once we departed the bus, ASAP and I went out for a lovely dinner. Afterwards, a chrome G-Wagon escorted us to his mansion. After that it becomes a blur, until I went home and told my sister the entire story and she didn't believe me in the slightest. One thing I did remember though, was that ASAP had a lovely circle bed with upwards of 50 pillows. Typical, right? Anywho, I don't think that dream meant close to anything. Just for fun. 

It's hard for me to interpret dreams like that because they just seem so hilarious and pointless.
Here's a link to a dream interpretation website: http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/ . Sometimes they make sense and sometimes they don't. I remember having a dream about a chicken a while back, and when I looked up the meaning of dreams about chickens, it seemed quite spot on. 

That's all for now~ I'll write again as soon as I have something interesting to say. 

October 11th, 2014

dream

drēm/

noun

1. 1.

   a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.

This is really much more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm looking for something to start, break the ice or something. I guess I'll just say a little about myself before anything.

My name is Stella, I'm sixteen years old and a student at Portland Community College. I dropped out of WIlson High School Sophomore year and decided to start the Gateway to College program, where I would earn high school and college credits at the same time. I made this choice because I love to learn, and that was something that was not honored in my high school setting. It was never about learning, but more so about not getting in trouble with various school authority figures. I also wanted a slightly more independent approach at learning, which I believe has done a lot for me so far. 

On my free time, I enjoy doing a number of activities. While some days I enjoy laying in bed for hours on end not talking to anyone, I also really love to get out there and experience what the world has to offer. My main hobby for the past few years has been photography, which I fell in love with when I inherited a 35mm film camera from a dear friend. When I went to high school, I would almost never be seen outside of the dark room. I also enjoy painting and doing a number of different kinds of art. My dream to travel the world seems just out of reach, but hopefully I will someday get there. Until then, traveling to various parts of Portland with the people I enjoy being around will do. I have two sisters and two cats who I love dearly. My favorite food is Pho, which is really quite unlucky because of the copious amounts of MSG used in most Vietnamese restaurants. I love water & the rain, which I guess is good because I live in the Pacific Northwest!

Alright then, Now that I've said a little about myself, I guess I'll just cut to the chase. This blog is going to be mainly about dreams. I will record my dreams and how they relate to my life, and I may include other's dreams as well. Ever since I was little I've been a big dreamer, with lots going on in my head while I sleep. They intrigue me, and I'm taking my Writing class as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about them. I plan on recording each dream that sticks out to me, and see where it takes me. I've always wanted to train myself to lucid dream as well, which may be a possible outcome of this blog. Aight.

Hi there! Here's a link to a survey, it would be awesome if you could check it out.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9CN883G