Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Dream On

Do you remember your dreams? What do you dream about? Have you ever had your dreams analyzed?

There are five distinct stages of sleep. Stage One and Stage Two are a light sleep. Stages Three and Four are considered your deep sleep and Stage Five is REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. In Stages Three and Four, your body produces growth hormones, which help with tissue repair and healing. There is little dreaming in these two stages. Most of your dreaming will occur during REM sleep. These five stages repeat over and over again during the night, approximately a ninety-minute cycle. In order to function properly, it states that we should have eight to nine hours of sleep per night. If this is the case, does that mean that we can have five to six different dreams a night?

When I was younger I always had a similar element to my dreams. In each dream, I would be attacked or chased by a black bear. Why? I have no idea. I've seen bears before, from a good distance that is ;o) I've never encountered a mother bear with cubs or any bear for that matter. During my late twenties, those dreams stopped and I've never dreamt about black bears again. The Curious Dreamer states that having a bear as a dream symbol means "Power, or a power imbalance. To dream a bear is attacking symbolizes aggression and/or protectiveness." Huh.

In the past ten years I've had another dream that plagues me. I'm trying to contact DH by phone but I keep making dialing mistakes. Here's what The Curious Dreamer has to say about that one "You're feeling frustrated in communicating something. You're isolated or cut off from others. You feel the need to reach out or ask for help. Your subconscious mind is imagining a worse-case scenario based on a fear of needing help and not being able to get it." I'd say the last statement could be spot on.

Some of my dreams become so real that I have to orient myself in the morning to make sure that what I experienced was actually a dream. They are not always bad dreams but the ones that are have introduced a new twist to my sleep...I wake up screaming. Yup! It nearly gives DH a heart attack :o) Sometimes the screams are hoarse and caught in my throat but other times they are piercing (from what I have been told). There are times when I vaguely remember doing it but I can never remember why I was that terrified. I'm the perfect guest for a sleep over ;o)

Just for fun, take a look at The Curious Dreamer and find out what your dreams mean. It may or may not be accurate but it's good fun :o)

5 comments:

Leeland said...

Well, let's shake hands, Cathey. I'm just the same with nightmares. And the more nightmares I have (meaning everynight), the worse I feel. It exhausts me and puts me in a very bad condition...
I'll check the link now...
Take care!
Lili

Shannon said...

Well, one good thing about not getting past Stage 3 sleep is that I don't have night terrors anymore :)

As for the black bear... in my case I was being tormented by the McDonald Land characters every night. I was terrified of Grimace and the Burglar, of all creatures. Imagine how terrified I would have been of Barney if I were a child today ? LOL

My aunt the author has been writing a book on dreams for the past decade. It is scary and fascinating all at the same time.

Jamie said...

I have only recently started sleeping well again and have a few times had my recurring nightmare. Mine is about espionage and everyone I love is involved. It's such an intense dream and so scary. I never get to the end!

Lori said...

I sleep and don't normally remember, unless it's a funny dream, and I LOVE waking up laughing (very rare).

However...I do have dreams that I remember on occasion...they tend to repeat exactly, and here's the scary part...they happen sooner or later. That's all I have to say about that.

Mary Ann said...

Very interesting, but, I never remember my dreams. I wonder if that means something??