April 11, 2011

Sleep without dream? Can't be! Prove it!


Kinds of dream
After examining for years (part-time), these are kinds of dream.
  1. Normal dream Well this is the normal dream, the most frequently appearing dream, both bad and good dreams. Usually the things you think before sleeping is the one that appears. - I'm sure everyone had this kind of dreams...
  2. Falling Dream! ANNOY Just slept for 1-2 minutes, suddenly there comes a TERRIFYING thing and surprising! Makes us wake up very suddenly with a body reflex motions! Feel very BAD but in a moment it becomes normal lah! Just go back to sleep (sometimes a following "earthquake" happens). - Nearly everybody had this, although it's not very common
  3. Dreaming without sleeping AWFUL This is quite hard to explain, but have you ever been not sleeping, but cannot forget a thing, how ever you force you mind to forget it. It can be diappear eventually, but you need to go outside the room and do something else (which is very hard to do because our mind is full of the thing mentioned). The result is nearly all the night you cannot sleep. How you know that: when you wake up, the eyes are easy to open but both eyes are tired (in case of normal: the eyes are fresh again but hard to open). - rare
  4. Dream-in-a-dream! VERY AWFUL The AWFUL thing is, VERY HARD TO WAKE UP and TIRED. This is how it happens: Let's say that you have a dream[1] of going to a vacation to some place. Then, after you are satisfied enjoying the place of vacation, you sleep. Inside that sleep, you have another dream[2]! Then when you become conscious, actually you are conscious from that dream[2], and you will still have the previous dream[1]. And it will goes on and on. Your mind will think that you want to wake up, but that thought has been fulfilled by the wake up from dream[2] and you wake up to go to dream[1]. So it is AWFUL. - very rare

    Background of writing down mission
    Well, only until around July 2006 that I wanted to try to prove, whether everytime I sleep I dream. ("Is it correct that every person that says that he didn't have a dream, actually he only forgets what the dream was instead of not having any dream?" So, starting today, every night I make a plead to memorize my dream when I woke up on the morning. The methods applied before it succedded:
    Set an alarm at 5 am, but when I wake up immediately I sleep again. Well after I sleep the second time, somehow, usually the dream is more surprising, clearer, and can be better remembered. So just when waking up, don't immediately get up from your bed, but remember your dream. Until "Oh yeah, my dream was ..." then you can get up from your bed.
    Still unclear, and sometimes I'm not sure whether I had a dream just now? So I prepared a mobile phone near my bed, I set the alarm at 7.40 am, and when the alarm rings, as soon as possible I take the phone, send an sms containing the contents of the dream to adhi, and then I sleep again if I still want to sleep.
    After one week passes, I found out that every day I had a dream! Although before that I didn't think that I had a dream every day... maybe only once every a few days. 



    Writing down mission
    2 months has passed, I has been forgetting things about dreams, I wake up as usual and I don't memorize dreams anymore.
    Nonetheless one day, 15 Sep 2006, suddenly I wanted to seriously write down my dreams. With the reason of having my windows open every night (so at the morning sunlight penerates the window and my room becomes quite bright for writing), so I prepared a pencil and a notebook 50 cm from the place I sleep. When I wake up immediately I write my dream.
    Although it's not so long -- also with a writing that's almost unreadable because I am still half-conscious -- I succeeded to prove that I dream everyday in 30 days of sleeping every night! The note was ftom 16 Sep 2006 to 15 Oct 2006. And the interesting thing is, that in one day I can have several dreams - usually 2. And the most number of dreams is 7.
    Unfortunately, there is one day, 7 October, where I didn't remember what the dream was, but I knew that I had a dream. Also before that, in one time I remember that I had a dream, but forgot what was the dream, but fortunately some tens of minutes later after waking up suddenly I remember what the dream was. And coincidencely, on 17 Oct 2006 -- which is not in the interval of noting down of dreams -- I remembered that I had a super big and long dream, but I forgot what that was. 

    Reason of forgetting
    I found out that, from those 3 events of "forgot the contents of the dream but remember having a dream", all three were caused by a same thing: waking up, trying to remember the dream and becoming ready to write down, but before my body is really ready to move to write it down, I fell asleep again (for several tens of minutes), and when I wake up I have already forgotten what the dream was.
    An advice for those wanting to try to write down their dreams (for the reasons below): don't be lazy to write down your dream as soon as possible after you wake up!

    Some notable dreams
    These are pieces of dreams that I experienced during that 30 days:
    A don't-know-what dream: Together with people striving something that looks like squares. Something that has been gathered can be split and bordered.
    A very near-real dream: Trying to participate in topcoder development. But when I reach the phase of making testcases I realize that it is very boring so I cancel my participation.
    A very not quality dream: Setting my computer's clock to match another clock
    A dream that like old-days: Writing a diary on my rubber eraser (I write a lot over a rubber eraser with a ballpoint. But eventually the writing fades and become eroded. So I decided not to write my diary on a rubber eraser anymore.
    A flying dream (wow!): Flying (without using anything). But that time is at night and almost everything are black (so being able to fly is no use)
    Another don't-know-what dream: Looking passing through cars, looking at the last 2 digits of the plate number, if it matches some pattern it is considered as our ally, else our enemy. My OCBC bank account is blocked because there are too many internet transfers. I chatted with the staff which turned out to be an Indonesian but still the account is blocked.
    A playing dream: In a hall, one of the wall is made from glass. Made a hole in that wall this size but no larger than . On the floor there are USB sticks scattered. Well, when the USB sticks are thrown, the red part must stick to the hole, but the yellow part may not enter that hole because it will be thrown out of the hall.

    Conclusions
    So.. what do you think? ...
    "Come on.. come on.. you too, try to note down your dreams!"
    For what?
  5. You will realize... that your dreams, which you may not pay attention to them very much, is usually turn out to be very interesting!
  6. After a month noting down your dreams, read your notes, you will not believe that you had such fascinating dreams.
  7. The longer you note down, the dreams will become more weird, superb, interesting, unexpected, and imaginative!
  8. And if you want a final target: "Lucid Dream", that has been discussed quite often. Control your dreams, be conscious that you are dreaming, get a new inspiration, do things that can't be done in real world, use your brain during sleep time for amazing things! Look at this wikipedia entry for more information!
OK, now we reach the end of the article. How about your experience with dreams? Is there any dream that you never forget of? Is there methods to get dreams? Any ideas or suggestions to get dreams? Or any response to this article that are very welcomed with open arms ^^ Please write at the comment form below!

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