How often do you dream. Do you believe dreams have significance? Do you believe there is a correlation with how much you dream and intelligence, creativity, or self transformation? Has the use of psychs effected your dreams, and if so in what way?

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I often stay in bed later than usual to continue an intriguing dream. I don't think dreams have much utility elsewhere for me, but then neither does anything that I do for fun. I enjoy them without pressuring them to be meaningful. Maybe all of life should be lived that way.


I find that dreams are more intense and memorable when I'm extremely tired. Perhaps because, when I finally lay down, I'm already in dreamland before I have time to properly fall asleep. I've found that sleeping on uncomfortable surfaces also makes dreams more memorable. I feel that I don't have good personal data about how drugs affect dreams.

I think dreams are nonsense wrapped in pretty distractions. The wave you surf between wake and sleep, especially during siestas or power naps is far more interesting to me.

Honestly that depends on how much cannabis I smoke, moar often than not my recall is pretty foggy, of course sometimes important things sneak through despite the haze and when one turns their focus to dream recall it improves dramatically.

Absolutely! I thinks dreaming is the most interesting if not important part of how we spend every day.

I'd say that taking the time to learn how to work within our dreamtime can transform the ways we engage our intelligence and creativity in our waking lives.

Of course psychedelics have transformed my dream life. They've opened up new possibility spectrums and mental landscapes within the imaginatrix (totally jacked that term from uni). And don't forget the oneirogens - the dreaming medicines, which are some of the most underrated and least understood of the psychoactive plant medicines, and IMO the ones most deserving of further research and exploration.

I think I'm in sphorange's camp. The "in between" state, especially for me before sleep enhanced with cannabis is deeply visionary and the only time I'm at all successful with dream lucidity if that counts as such. Sometimes I'll force myself to stay awake by being in a somewhat uncomfortable position and eventually I can stay in the hypnagogic ( hypnopompic?) state for a while, and then after doing that a few times I can start to be more lucid in it. And it's very psychedelic, lol.


I think control over the dream state is not a sign of higher faculty so much as the result of effort. Make of that what you will. I've known folks that seem to have some natural proclivity for it though,

I barely remember dreams, just snippets, and usually right before waking. But they say marijuana inhibits dream memory. Only had a few in my lifetime I would consider significant, but boy were they powerful! Just day to day dreaming is pretty mundane- cool as hell, but ordinary nonetheless.

I find I re call my dreams not as often as most,

when I was a child I used to wake up screaming all hours of the night due to night terrors, i dont remember them and I think this is why I do not re call so many dreams nowadays.

after smoking haramlas my dreams are more vivid and i always remember them but i do occasionally remember my dreams.

I meditate often and feel psychedelic effects from meditation, sometimes out of body and sometimes akin to a low dose of DMT.

Dreams post-lsd sometimes contain a lot of forces of nature and i've had lucid dreams for 3-6 hours straight. little ketamine seems to help, it's strong though,in me it kind of enforces sleep paralysis/similar states of consciousness along wit ha little electric jerks in the body. they seem to go hand-in-hand. I don't normally dream as much.

With mushrooms haven't noticed this so much if any. dmt n'either.

My dreams are really weird.

I had a nap today, and I dreamt that I was the main dude from Apocalypto. I was running through a city with a tiger by my side. Then I stumbled upon Charlie Murphy murdering a guy with his bare fists. That was the entire dream.

I dream every night, usually with more frequency as early morning approaches (multiple dreams back to back, some of which are continuations of the dream before).


Insofar as everyday waking reality has significance. On equal footing.


Not necessarily. Now, if by correlation you mean between what comes about in your dreams and how you go about dragging that out into everyday waking reality, then I would say there's something there as far as creativity and self transformation goes (intelligence though is a tricky one), being that id think that it would take a special person to fully capture their dreams or significant portions and work them into some form in everyday waking reality. (i.e. - paintings, stories, other forms of art or self expression)



Wackier, more visceral, tactility through the roof, often feeling much more real than waking reality. The amount of pscyhedelic scenarios has went through the roof, also many scenarios of full boundary dissolution to where I would end up in this sort of dream-limbo, or just altogether wake back up. Also, much more meaning seems to be infused in each and every moment of my dreams, every action or scenario just spilling with this inalienable purpose; that's something that probably stands out the most to me.

I can recall a couple dreams that clearly have left impressions with me and my life.

- One was in the setting of my back yard at home home, looking out from the back deck a huge swath of deciduous treeline. It was an extremely beautiful, sunny, blue sky day. Within the time of several seconds it went from sunny blue sky to nighttime. In the seconds after this I had gotten a very unshakable feeling, like there was some form of intelligence watching me and playing a game with the dream (hence the day to night shift). Shortly after I looked to the treeline through the trees and I saw something solid and moving through. Sure enough it was the prototypical nuts and bolts UFO; two of them. They came hovering forth, over past the tree line into plain view. They just sat there and hovered. The air started to become palpable, thick, dense. I had the inclination to get in my car and drive away; I was pretty frightened at that moment. As I was driving down the back country roads I was constantly keeping a view out my side window to watch these two ufos vibrate with such intensity that they would completely warp the dream world, changing the sky multiple colors a second - red, blue, yellow, purple, etc, changing so fast that they blended together in a sort of technicolor fashion. They only altered the sky when they chose to do this; nothing else other than the sky. These moments felt impossibly real; such richness and lucidity. Hard to recall the rest, but that's the gist of it.

Another that I won't get into but that I remember very clearly - I was in the nevada desert riding with several others in a self-enclosed gyroscopic ferris wheel flying through the mountains/canyons, with the ferris wheel conductor intermittently cutting through the reality of the dream until it was unrecognizable, full dissolution into something beyond the dream, then cutting back to the dream.

I have to disagree with the idea that people dream as much as the other, in psychology the current theory on Dreams is that they are based on neurones randomly firing signals through our brain, which then, in our sleep we create a storyline to replicate the information being received. If we look at dreams, they tend to be a reflection of our subconscious mind, whatever our thought patterns/responses to experiences are, will then be reflected in the dream. For example, I've been thinking about surfing, i went surfing, oh wow, I'm surfing in my dream, what a coincidence?
So dreams can be used as a process of transformation as they're a reflection of our subconscious thoughts/feelings, sometimes they're random, because your thoughts are random, other times, their story follows that of a dialogue you've been processing in your mind, reflecting those inner thoughts and feelings.

In Eastern philosophy, some say that those whom are awake, do not dream, as they are totally conscious. They enter a state of samahdi when going to sleep. It is said the Buddha slept in the same position all night, in a constant state of awareness. Im not sure how correct this is, but when I was doing Vipassana Meditation in a 10 day course, i found my awareness to be so intense, that i was hardly sleeping, just in a constant contemplative state, and when i did drift off, i was in such a deep sleep that there were no dreams.

You may notice those whom are more creative, have more "far out" dreams. IN terms of psychedelic use, i've found more common occurrences with lucid dreaming, as well as sleep paralysis. I have also had experiences of taking psychedelics in a dream, in which case tripping has been extremely intense in those moments, smoking DMT, taking acid, you trip a lot harder in a dream as the foundations of reality are already fairly unstable. Ive also noticed through the continuation of a meditation practice that I've become more aware in my dreams, which makes them feel more vivid.

Often

Yes

Yes and no

Yes, they are often extremely bizarre

Q: How often do you dream?

A: Probably every night. I say probably because I sometimes can't remember.

Q: Do you believe dreams have significance?

A: Sometimes, as they can highlight your current state of mind, but the actual events occurring don't seem to matter that much to me, just the feeling.

Q: Do you believe there is a correlation with how much you dream and intelligence, creativity, or self transformation?

A: I'll say it's possible, but I think it depends on the individual.

Q: Has the use of psychs effected your dreams, and if so in what way?

A: Absolutely. In my honeymoon period of self discovery (or whatever) my dreams were super intense and memorable. I sometimes dream about taking psychedelics and tripping. In this world I even fell asleep on mushrooms, and I had a trip/dream combo, which was incredible! It was probably my own ultimate mushroom experience.

Q: Has the use of psychs effected your dreams, and if so in what way?

Having tried 2C-B for the first time at the weekend, I must say I'm a bit confused what was dreaming and what was waking. It seemed to come in waves so that when I concentrated with eyes open, things were almost normal, just a softening of focus and change of colors. But as I closed my eyes and another wave hit me, the imagery was so full on and bizarre that I couldn't really tell (when I came back to normal again) if I'd actually fallen asleep for a few minutes and what I'd experienced was a dream. Each dream sequence seemed to last about 20-30 minutes but by the clock only 2-3 minutes had passed.

It's a substance that definitely confuses the boundary between waking imagination and dreaming.

i do dream; i probably dream more than i remember.

if i awaken from an especially vivid dream, i grab my iPhone and dictate what i can remember. the act of doing that seems to "imprint" the dream more and i can remember it much longer. i can then discuss it. if i don't dictate or write it down, it is often lost within a couple of hours.

i don't think dreams are just useless fantasy; i think they give an insight into the subconscious. much can be revealed; especially when working with someone else, for it's really hard to interpret one's own dreams.

i also feel it would be lofty or arrogant to somehow conclude that dreams have some correlation to intelligence. perhaps, one's intelligence and insight enable a greater understanding and assimilation of what was in the dream.

ever since i've quit cannabis, i remember my dreams much more frequently. in my own practice, i have tried to only explore medicines that create and enable more clarity...i do not enjoy the foggy/cloudy states any longer.

i also find that post-psychedelic exploration, dreams are much more vivid and speak to me much clearer about what's going on my subconscious. i might add, i rarely have "bad" dreams post psychedelics, but often a bit crazier and much more "WTF" was that about!

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
Carl Gustav Jung

I don't think this has been established as a fact.



I am specifically wondering about the correlation with the amount one dreams, or at least can recall them, and their creative, intellectual, or self transforming abilities. Disregarding completely the content of dreams and just looking at frequency.




Actually one of the reasons bring these questions. I am halfway through Jungs "Psychology and Alchemy". So far what I am gathering is that he proposes that dreams are a way for the sub-conscience to communicate with the consciences.

In it he is using one particular subject and 400 dreams of his as an example. The subject had these 400 dreams over the course of a few years if a recall correctly. Many of the dreams are rather detailed, and even at that Jung mentions that he has left out many of the details he considered not important in order to keep the book somewhat manageable.

Also since meeting my GF and talking with her about her dreams I have found out that she dreams very often and very detailed, long, and complex dreams with many characters both from real life and fictional.

I rarely dream, or recall them, and when I do they are usually short, vague and details are usually unclear or hard to recall.
Since my first psychedelic experience last year I have had a few dreams that felt especially real and had qualities not unlike psychedelic trips. Even so, I still probably only had a handful of dreams that I could recall in the last year, and with those I can really only remember the details of one. And there isn't much for details as it was more of a sensation then anything, the dream was almost all black.

If dreams truly are the sub-consciences trying to communicate with the conscious, I am slightly concerned about what my lack of dreaming may say about me.

Thank you everyone for your the time to answer. It helps to have some insight on how others view dreams. It seems that there are many views of their significance and even what they are.

When I was a child suffering from OCD, my dreams were one space where I didn't have intrusive, and consequently, I cherished my time dreaming because it was a chance to be conscious without the horror of the disorder for a while.

For the OP: I dream every night, and remember them upon waking, but usually I loose it within a few hours, unless I meditate in the morning, which seems to improve the dream recall and cement the memory in my waking consciousness.

Psychs haven't really changed my dream experience, except that sometimes now I dream that I'm tripping.

Question: do folks have a full range of sensory inputs in dreams? I never experience smells in my dream, or sounds, just taste, touch, and vision. The tastes are often very strange.

Blessings
~ND