The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks • Hacker News Board

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#11

Post by redka » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 12:06 AM UTC

bfrydl wrote: post #3

voldacar wrote: post #2

This was a really enjoyable read - thank you for posting. I've always had difficulty remembering my dreams after waking, so I'm almost jealous of the amount of detail and realism he was able to retain, but then again, I guess 3 weeks of nothing but dreaming would do that

If you want to remember your dreams you can train yourself to do so. Keep a journal on your nightstand. The moment you wake up, write down all the details you can remember. After doing this for a while, you will remember more and more and the memories won't fade so easily. You can also cheat a bit in my experience by waking up maybe 45-90 mins before you normally would, then going back to sleep. The dreams you have i…

You can also - and this has worked very well for me - do a little affirmation in your head before you fall asleep. Just say to yourself a few times: "I'm going to remember (all) my dreams". This is super easy and very effective. After a few days/weeks I was able to remember several dreams that I had that night. The cheating you mentioned also works very well and you can actually do it a few times with each nap being 10-20 minutes.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#12

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 12:14 AM UTC

agentofoblivion wrote: post #7

I get it, I’m cynical. But am I the only one that wonders how much of this is true, and how much “poetic license”?

[deleted]

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#13

Post by whalabi » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #9

agentofoblivion wrote: post #7

I get it, I’m cynical. But am I the only one that wonders how much of this is true, and how much “poetic license”?

It might be hard to believe if you have fairly normal dreams. I can easily believe it. My dreams are much stranger than that. The last vivid dream I had was of Anubis looking men emerging from eggs laid out in a grid. They clapped their hands chanting 'wolf men, wolf men, wolf men' while I had to fight their normal looking wolf pets.

Any ideas what might be causing your.. imaginative dreams?

Cheese before bed? Art-house movies? Art-house substances?

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#14

Post by ianai » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

whalabi wrote: post #13

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be hard to believe if you have fairly normal dreams. I can easily believe it. My dreams are much stranger than that. The last vivid dream I had was of Anubis looking men emerging from eggs laid out in a grid. They clapped their hands chanting 'wolf men, wolf men, wolf men' while I had to fight their normal looking wolf pets.

Any ideas what might be causing your.. imaginative dreams? Cheese before bed? Art-house movies? Art-house substances?

I’ve had some great dreams with taking b12 right before bed. Or waking up then going back to sleep + b12.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#15

Post by PinkMilkshake » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

whalabi wrote: post #13

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be hard to believe if you have fairly normal dreams. I can easily believe it. My dreams are much stranger than that. The last vivid dream I had was of Anubis looking men emerging from eggs laid out in a grid. They clapped their hands chanting 'wolf men, wolf men, wolf men' while I had to fight their normal looking wolf pets.

Any ideas what might be causing your.. imaginative dreams? Cheese before bed? Art-house movies? Art-house substances?

No cheese before bed (I didn't know that was a thing) and I like watching strange films but it's not something I do often. I haven't used any interesting substances in a long time, just ranitidine for reflux.

Honestly, I don't know. I don't remember them not being like that. I still have some normal dreams, even the common ones like teeth falling out. But a large portion of my dreams have always been nonsense.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#16

Post by echelon » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 2:50 AM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #2

This was a really enjoyable read - thank you for posting. I've always had difficulty remembering my dreams after waking, so I'm almost jealous of the amount of detail and realism he was able to retain, but then again, I guess 3 weeks of nothing but dreaming would do that

I'm always curious about expository writing like this. I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting or the information is summarized, I'd rather pay money than be forced to read it. (I noped out of this article pretty quickly.)

What makes reading articles in this style interesting? It takes a lot of time, so there's definitely an opportunity cost.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#17

Post by joecool1029 » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 4:05 AM UTC

ianai wrote: post #14

whalabi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any ideas what might be causing your.. imaginative dreams? Cheese before bed? Art-house movies? Art-house substances?

I’ve had some great dreams with taking b12 right before bed. Or waking up then going back to sleep + b12.

You sure it was b12? b6 is known to increase dream 'weirdness'. I ran a not so scientific trial 15 or so years ago with around 30 individuals where we kept dream logs and took various dosages of b6. Small amounts do have varying effects on people.

I really do not recommend high dosages over 50mg, peripheral neuropathy is not fun to have.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#18

Post by joecool1029 » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #16

voldacar wrote: post #2

This was a really enjoyable read - thank you for posting. I've always had difficulty remembering my dreams after waking, so I'm almost jealous of the amount of detail and realism he was able to retain, but then again, I guess 3 weeks of nothing but dreaming would do that

I'm always curious about expository writing like this. I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting or the information is summarized, I'd rather pay money than be forced to read it. (I noped out of this article pretty quickly.) What makes reading articles in this style interesting? It takes a lot of time, so there's definitely an opportunity cost.

>I have pretty bad ADHD, so unless the topic is interesting

.... to you

>What makes reading articles in this style interesting?

People who are interested in the topic find detailed articles on that topic interesting.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#19

Post by ianai » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

joecool1029 wrote: post #17

ianai wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had some great dreams with taking b12 right before bed. Or waking up then going back to sleep + b12.

You sure it was b12? b6 is known to increase dream 'weirdness'. I ran a not so scientific trial 15 or so years ago with around 30 individuals where we kept dream logs and took various dosages of b6. Small amounts do have varying effects on people. I really do not recommend high dosages over 50mg, peripheral neuropathy is not fun to have.

Yes, it’s the best b12 I could find.

Re: The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

#20

Post by joecool1029 » Thu, Mar 28, 2019, 4:26 AM UTC

voldacar wrote: post #2

This was a really enjoyable read - thank you for posting. I've always had difficulty remembering my dreams after waking, so I'm almost jealous of the amount of detail and realism he was able to retain, but then again, I guess 3 weeks of nothing but dreaming would do that

Everyone is different.

When I was young, I was a natural lucid dreamer and had substantial recall. I wrote tons of my dreams down. There wasn't a time I thought this was unusual until many years later in school after my recall declined.

When I reached high school, a teacher had explained the concept of lucid dreaming to a class that seemed skeptical. There was one other student aside from me that experienced them.

In response to discovering this 'oddity', I ended up joining a community to log my experiences and discuss them... there's a large variability in the kinds of dreams and the ability to induce them. I ended up meeting my last gf on that community and she never had a lucid (her dreams were mostly fragments of the prior day's events)

Mine weren't like that. Sometimes I would just fly around in environments that were similar to what I experienced in life. I would often just test to see what I could do (move objects with my mind, that sound of crap).

Oftentimes, I would just live out daily events as either a different person or myself in another time and place. A hallmark of my logs was the amount of time I experienced in each dream, when I was very young I would experience what would feel like a week in a night. There were times it felt even longer, one time in kindergarten I lived out a portion of gradeschool and woke up crying because I realized the friends I made there wouldn't be in the real world.

Today, I am an infrequent dreamer and not active in that community anymore. I can occasionally induce a short lucid dream if I have a quiet morning to myself and set an alarm to wake up a bit early. I find my recall goes up when I am teaching myself things. The recall is not related to the material I'm learning.

So yeah, there's some variability in dreaming.