Conference hydra::dejavu

    
    Welcome Edgar,
    
    I would think that the situatin is more that you do not remember
    your dreams, rather than that you do not dream.  Here is an
    exercise you might try, if you so choose.  Before going to sleep,
    tell yourself that you will wake up and remember your dreams.
    Do this for a length of time, and you might be surprised at what
    occurs.
    
    Peace to you,
    Carole

    Hi Edgar,
    
    I was recently told that the reason someone might be having 
    trouble remember their dreams is that they are processing so much
    information, doing so much self-work and healing in dreamtime, 
    that it would be too difficult (painful) for them to remember it
    consciously.  FWIW
    
    Carole's suggestion is a good one for helping you to remember your
    dreams.  Be sure to keep a paper and pen handy so that you can 
    write them down immediately, otherwise they might slip away too
    quickly.
    
    Ro
    
    
    

RE:2

Yes could you explain?, "Your are processing to much data, doing to
much self work ect."

Edgar

    I'd suggest instead of pad and pen, a tape recorder if your
    serious about working with your dreams. Most of us can talk
    faster than we can write, and sometimes the flow of consciousness
    when detailing dreams needs to just, f l o w... and stopping to
    write and having to let your mind slow down for the physical
    actions of your hands and fingers, well you can loose some of
    those important details in the meantime. IMHO its easier to 
    wag your tongue than wiggle your fingers in the early morning.
    
    You can always go back and transcribe your tape into hardcopy
    if ya wanna.
    
    8-0  <-- yawn!!!
    -Arthur
                

    
    Edgar,
    
    I don't really dream much either.  I've always wondered about this,
    however the other day I was reading something where some people bypass
    the dream state and go into a much deeper state.  Wish I could remember
    what the source was, because it felt like it described my situation. 
    Perhaps it applies to you as well.  During waking hours I try to remain
    open to messages/proddings from my subconscious/HS, so this may serve
    to cut down on my need to receive messages through dreams.  I don't
    know - anybody else have any ideas?
    
    I do dream some of the time, and occasionally I'll remember, but 
    it's very rare.  A good friend, and prior DEJAVUer recommended the book
    "Active Imagination" by Barbara Hannah, which I'll be picking up in the
    near future (when my book budget allows (;^).  It might be worth a
    read.  I believe my friend said that she was connect with Jungian
    psychology.
    
    Cindy
               

    re: 2
    
>   I was recently told that the reason someone might be having 
>    trouble remember their dreams is that they are processing so much
>    information, doing so much self-work and healing in dreamtime, 
>    that it would be too difficult (painful) for them to remember it
>    consciously.  FWIW
 
    That is interesting.  I too quit "consciously" dreaming around ten
    years ago when I started a more concentrated study of religious ideas. 
    Now, occasionally I have a dream that I can remember, it usually is one
    that I've had many times even from youth.
    
    I have this one dream where I'm on a greyhound bus, and it stops a
    small town, I get out to go to a restaurant, and somehow end up missing
    the bus, and am now stuck in this small town.  I'm black, every one is
    white, except of this one middle aged black woman who makes these
    tremendously huge stuffed animals.  And she actually has couple of huge
    toy poodles, I mean the must be two stories tall.  Any way I end up
    running from some folks don't like me being there, and wind up in her
    factory yard, hiding behind some huge stuffed animals on huge
    shelves...and then just as they are about to spot me with their
    headlights here she comes over the hill, down the road apiece, with her
    huge dogs, and they take off...she has some sort of power...I never get
    that far into her though, I'm always so amazed at the huge size of her
    stuffed animals and her real dogs just scare me and astound me...I'm
    sort of scared to let her find me...so I usually wake up.
    
    The dream has so much symbolism though, I'm still working on that one.
    
    Anyway, I also noticed my ability to visualize, "creative
    visualization", is also gone.  I really have to work at visualizing
    anything, something I use to do fairly easily...
    
    I wonder if these are related...no dreams-no visualization?
    
    Playtoe

    Hi again Edgar,
    
    Geesh, I knew I should have written this down when it was explained
    to me!  Apparently, our astral bodies (or our etheric bodies) are 
    busy during our dream state working through problems in our life or
    some also believe that the astral body travels to other planes during
    dream times to accomplish a task or even do some humanitarian work.
    
    There are several books on dreams available that can explain this
    better than I.  I think if you do a search through DEJAVU, you might
    find other helpful information on the subject.
    
    Ro
    

I really try hard, to remember if a dreamed. But I just go to sleep,
and get up the during the night or next day and I can't remeber If I
ever had or not have a dream. I will try repeating to my self,"that I
will remember my dreams" and see if this helps.

Edgar

    Don't try too hard.  It will just come to you.
    
    mary

If you're serious enough about this to disrupt your
sleep, you might try this. Buy a kitchen timer and set
it for an interval lets say 75 minutes and keep waking 
yourself up every 75 minutes during the night with 
your notebook alongside the bed.

Try to choose the interval to be something different
to 90 minutes which is the rough period of sleep states
in most (all?) humans. In this way you will wake yourself
up occasionally in the middle of REM sleep when most
people seem to report dreaming.

Your *intention* to remember is very important. 

Also try reading stuff by Patricia Garfield or
Stephen Leberge.

Good luck, John D.

    Why don't you dream? Studies  show that practically everbody dreams,
    but a significant number don't remember them. In fact, every normal
    mammal dreams. If you don't, you probably have brain damage. ;^)
    	It is safe to assume that it is a problem of remembering. One way
    to think of it is that your a little like one of those multiple
    personality types, only you've got this personality that operates only
     at night. He doesn't seem to know you and you don't know him, but he's
    there anyway.
    	Sleep occurs in cycles of about 90 minutes. The body slides down
    into deep sleep then returns toward waking. At the end of the cycle a
    period of dream sleep occurs. As the night progresses, the deep sleep
    portion becomes shorter and the dream portion becomes longer. If you
    rise earlier, you shorten the amount of dream sleep that you get,
    forcing the body to try to make up for it. If you could detect using
    monitoring equipment when you enter dream sleep, and wake up instead,
    very quickly you would build up a tremendous debt of REM(dream) sleep.
    Every time you closed your eyes you would slip into a dream. 
    	This suggests that a machine could be built to detect dreaming and
    either alert you to the fact or awaken you. Actually Steven Laberge had
    such a device built for research. His sounded unnecessarily
    complicated, though.
    	Actually, this is what happens when an alcoholic goes into DT's.
    The alcohol consumption has so depressed his REM sleep that he slips
    into a dream without realizing it. He thinks his bugs are real.
    	People who remember dreams well usually have higher levels of
    anxiety. Cultures that deal with dreams as significant tend to be
    hunter-gatherer ones with high levels of risk. Perhaps if you took up
    more dangerous pastimes and jobs you would have more memorable dreams!
    	YOu didn't mention whether you had much awareness of other types of
    imagery. Do you visualize well? People tend to fall into one of two
    categories. They image poorly and forget that they have(and forget they
    dreamed) or they image vividly and get caught up in the image and
    forget they are dreaming. The second category may remember dreams
    better, but may have just as much trouble remembering that they are
    dreaming while they are dreaming ie having a lucid dream under their
    "control".
    	Vitamin B6 tends to make dream imagery more vivid. Unfortunately,
    it may just cause you to awaken instead of having a vivid dream. B6
    functions by increasing the formation of the dopamine neurotransmitter.
    Tryptophan and L-dopa can accomplish the same things. Tryptophan was
    taken off the market because of contamination and L-dopa is available
    by prescription only. Actually vigorous exercise causes release of
    large amounts of dopamine. Studies have reported that exercise
    increases the vividness of the imagination. The important factor is
    intensity rather than duration, so weightlifting rates above jogging or
    walking.
    	Wish fulfillment seems ot be a factor in dreams so, try to become
    more aware of what you really want. One book I read suggested the
    following approach. Write a number of sentences each day using the
    following format. "I wish to be more aware of X when I'm dreaming about
    Y.
     I've been struggling with dreamings for twenty years. Occasionally,
    I've been able to slightly increase my awareness but usually I slip
    back into a state where I don't remember much. Naturally, I was very
    intrigued when I read the add I reproduced below.
    
    	THE LUCID DREAM MACHINE
    Have dreams like you've never had before with THE LUCID DREAM MACHINE! 
    By applying safe electric micro-pulses to specific body locations in a
    precise pattern, it's been discovered that most anyone can have dreams
    of the most vivid kind! Test subjects  that normally had vague or very
    few dreams began to have dramatic dreams full of colorful sights,
    sounds, smells, and tastes! Upon waking, the dreams were readily
    remembered. Full plans and instructions.
    CODE: LCDDRM  $9.00
                      
    NOW! THE LUCID DREAM MACHINE UNIT is available to you fully assembled,
    ready to go, with instructions! 
    CODE: DRMCHN   $149.00   WAS   $159.95
    
    This was in a small catalog of wierdness from an outfit called
    Hyperview out of Coeur'D'Alene Idaho. I sent my $9.00 but didn't hear
    from them. I think thhey either ran amuck with the post office or the
    electronic ouija boards they were making also. The guy had an unlisted
    phone number, but recently I checked and even thats gone. So...... I
    guess I'll have to start from scratch. There is at least some
    plausibility to the idea. Afterall, there used to be something called
    electro-sleep induction. It worked, but I can't remember what the draw
    backs were.
    The questions are;
    
    What points on the body? over the chakras? On the muscles? head?
    What durations of pulses?
    What sequence?
    What if any delay between pulses?
    How fast do we repeat the sequence?
    How much voltage?
    
    I can invision a simple series of 555 timers driving each other in
    sequence with a variable pulse applied through a transformer, similar
    to a TENS unit.
    
    Any ideas?
    
    The ever wierd,
    
    john

    re: .12
    
    Super note, and most interesting.
    
    An amateurish, practical suggestion for .0: take afternoon
    naps, preferably with kids in the house.  Not kidding - I
    remember many times more dreams from child-awakened naps than
    I do from alarm-awakened sleep.
    
    Children or not, there just seems to be something about 
    remembering your nappy-time dreams...
    
    Joel
    

    
    Re.11
    
    Regarding Vitamin B-6 - the recommended limit per day, unless under
    medical supervision, is 50mg.  Yes, the side effects are indeed nasty
    - potential nerve damage is one of them.  It is not a water-soluable
    vitamin as previously thought.
      
    Cindy

>    Why don't you dream? Studies  show that practically everbody dreams,
>    but a significant number don't remember them. In fact, every normal
>    mammal dreams. If you don't, you probably have brain damage. ;^)

In fact, this is an unwarranted assumption. What studies show
are that:

	- all mammals have periods of REM sleep.

	- humans report having been in a dream more often
	  if they are woken during REM sleep.

John D.

    I think Joel's idea is a great one ;-) 
    
    Take an afternoon nap and if you have no kids, turn on a radio or
    television, something guaranteed to disturb you at regular intervals.
    (They normally turn up the volume when the ads come on.) You need to
    catch the dream quickly as your conscious mind could be very quick in
    clearing your "dream theatre". 
    
    There is a lower incidence of certain types of stress related deseases
    where the population are inclined to taking afternoon siesta's. I
    wonder if dreaming has anything to do with it!
    
    Mexico, here I come!
    
    Brian

    
    RE: .13 and .17  Joel and Brian
    
    Yes, I agree.  I have had some of my most powerful dreams during
    afternoon naps!
    
    Carole

    The most Sacred Right I hold: the right to take an afternoon
    nap on the weekend.  The most Sacred Right held by my
    children: the right to wake daddy up.
    
    But I *do* get a few nice dreams here and there...
    
    Joel
    

    re .16   Jeez.... What do you want, bibliography? Its been years since I
    read all that stuff. Does the piedbellied flying tree shrew dream? Who
    knows? MOst mammals that have been checked show REM sleep patterns. 
    	If youo put 100 people in a sleep lab and wire them up 100 will
    have REM sleep patterns. ONce in a while someone will have a lesion
    (read stroke) that has destroyed the appropriate areas in the brain and
    will never dream. Otherwise physiologically, dreaming occurs.
    
    Interestingly enough, there are people who pass into REM sleep during
     ordinary waking activities. They are called narcoleptics.
    
    Various neurotransmitters are involved in turning the dream state off
    and on, but thats not where dopamine is involved. The effects are not
    confined to dreaming. 
    	As for the toxicity of vitamin B6, the figures I've seen in print
    seem to indicate that much higher doses are required to cause nerve
    damage. I seem to remember several hundred milligrams per day for
    several months being required to produce nerve damage. I've met people
    who took doses in that range for carpal-tunnel syndrome without ill
    effects. I have taken as much as 700 mg for short periods without
    noticeable ill effects. Whats caution to one person may not be to
    another.
    
    
    john
    john

    
    Re.20
    
    John,
    
    >What's caution to one may not be caution to another.
    
    However, I'm making sure that at least the 50mg caution is put forth, 
    so that all can make their own informed choice on this one.
    
    I've read the 50mg recommended daily limit in many, many publications. 
    
    Cindy

Re: .20, John

Hey come on lighten up. Nobody was criticising your note. Okay? :-)

>    will never dream. Otherwise physiologically, dreaming occurs.
    
You didn't read what I wrote. Dreaming is a description of an
internal experience. At the moment *completely* private.
It doesn't *physiologically* occur.
*Physioloically* what happens is REM and some other stages
characterised by different EEG patterns. (So there's no
way of knowing [at the moment] whether other mammals dream
or not - only that they have the same chemistry and physiology
and by inference experience the same states as we do [to a
certain, unknowable extent]).

It's true that most sleepers report dreaming when woken during
REM sleep. However, they also report dreams (much less frequently)
in other stages of sleep. The connection between REM and reported dreaming
is strong but it is not 100%. Furthermore you could imagine
other explanations for the connection - for example that something
interferes with ones memory of dreams when woken from other
stages of sleep.

And if I may add this: I only enter this in a sharing way
and not in the slightest way antagonistically.

John D.

re 1477.12  

John,
I was recommended a book lately on lucid dreaming.  Its based on
research using THE DREAM MACHINE (which is also the name of the book).
I havn't had time to read it yet, but you may like to check
it out for yourself.  I'v heard that it contains a contact address
to order the plans to build the dream machine or to buy one.  I'v
flicked through it but havn't found any info on this.  There is an
address for the author however;

Dr Keith Hearne
Hearne Research Organization
PO Box 180
Hull
North Humberside
HU1 2EW

I plan to read this in the next two weeks, so if I come across order
details I'll post it here.

Regards,
Dave

Ps Published by Aquarian Press, 1990
   Usual disclaimers apply.

   

re: .21 (B-6)

I think you can buy it 100 mg tablets, Cindy, so if the limit is 50 mg
that hasn't filtered down to the companies selling it.  I still have the
vague recollection that 200 mg a day is the "too much" limit, which is
why i said 150.  Somebody in HOLISTIC could probably quote the MDs who
came out with the neuropathy warning...
								paul

    Re.24
    
    Hi Paul,
    
    About two years ago I found tablets in 500mg.  The problem is that the
    vitamin companies aren't regulated, so they can put out whatever they 
    want to.  It was either 60 Minutes or 20/20 that did a special on this 
    several years ago.  At that time I also recall they mentioned the 200mg 
    limit, and since then it went to 50mg.  The cases they reported on were
    ingesting something like 500mg per day for several months. 
    
    Somewhere in this conference is a very lengthy posting from a
    Nutrition Action Newsletter that I first entered in MEDICAL about 3 
    years ago on B-6 and carpal tunnel syndrome along with other things 
    like PMS, etc.  (Quickly racing downstairs to my magazine stacks...),
    packrat that I am...the issue is October 1986, and the title is "B-6 -
    Vitamin or Drug".  The first study was done in 1983, where 7 adults
    taking 2K-6Kmg daily for 2-40 months developed unstable gait, numbness
    in their feet, (etc.).  Since that time, doctors at the Hahnemann
    Medical College in Phila. have seen similiar symptoms in people taking
    only 500mg/day.  One of the patients in this set stated that they only
    took 200 mg, but one doctor stated that he is not convinced that this
    level is dangerous.  He does state that he was advising patients at
    that time not to exceed 100mg, however.  Regarding labeling (still from 
    Oct.1986), the FDA should require a warning on the labels of supplements 
    containing more than 100mg per tablet.  
    
    AH - now I remember!  My *neurologist* was my original source for the
    50mg limit (in fact he had it down to 10mg).  We had this conversation
    just after the television broadcast aired, so it must have been 5 years
    ago now.  He had very unkind comments re: the companies that sold B-6
    in anything greater than 50mg tablets (VERY unkind).
    
    Cindy
                                              

    One thing about dreaming is that anything that upsets the equilibrium
    tends to increase dreaming. Steady state activities tend to not create
    any extra need for dreaming orenergy directed into it.
    
    Hopefully, this will end the discussion about vitamin B6. Go ahead and
    take 500 mg about an hour before bed time. Go out and take a jog or
    something. Come back and take a long relaxing shower to wind down. Go
    to bed with a note book by your bed. DON'T REPEAT THE EXPERIMENT UNTIL
    THE AVERAGE DAILY DOSE IS CONSIDERABLY LESS THAN 50 MG PER DAY.
    
    I 	dug a book out of my library titled CONTROL YOUR DREAMS. The
    authors are Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Bosveld. Publisher is Harper and
    Row.
    	The book is about lucid dreaming which is a related topic. After
    all if you don't remember your dreams you can't have lucid ones. 
    In a chapter titled The Right Stuff, they have a little test for the
    psychological and physiological dharacteristics of lucid dreamers. Some
    of the questions require pictures, so can't be included.
    
    1. How many dreams do you recall in an average week? ( correlates with
     high recall naturally)
    
    2.Interest in meditation.
    	a. no experience, no interest
    	b. no experience, moderate interest
    	c. no experience, very interested
    	d. some experience, not currently regular, no interest
    	e. some experience, not currently regular, moderate interest
    	f. some experience, not currently regular, very interested
    	g.currently regular
    (lucid dreaming correlates with regular meditation)
    
    3.Your sex(women are much more likely to have lucid dreams or for that
    matter recall ordinary ones)
    
    4. was about finding hidden objects in complex drawings.
    
    5.On a scale of 1 to 5  indicate which of the conditions apply to you.
    	a. history of ear problems
    	b. a major physical handicap that impairs movement
    	c. a vision problem not correctable by glasses
    	d. a history of motion sickness
    (there appears to be a correlation between vestibular health and
    ability to dream lucidly)
    
    6. Indicate the ease with which could perform in each of the following
    activities.
    	a. standing on one foot
    	b. standing on a board that is balance on a ball
    	c. standing toe to toe on a wire 1 foot above the ground
    
    7. Indicate the frequency with which you have had out-of body
    experiences( that is you concsiousness, mind or cnter of awareness was
    in a different place than your physical body.
    
    8. Vividness of imagery on scale of 1 to 5
    (auditory)  a. the crackle of a forest creek
    		b. the barking of a dog
    		c. the cry of a baby
    		d.the breaking of glass
    
    (kinesthetic)
                a. touching your shoulder
    		b. skipping on a sidewalk
    		c. writing with a pen
    		d.rolling over in bed
    (correlate with vivid auditory and kinexthetic imagery)
    
    9. True or False
    	a. I can be greatly moved by eloquent or poetic language
    	b. Sometimes I experience things as if they are doubly real
    	c. When I listen to music I get so caught up in it that I don't
    	   notice anything else.
    	d. While acting in a play, I think I could really feel the emotions
    	   of the character and "become" her or him for the time being,
     	   forgetting both myself and the audience.
        e. I often have "physical memories"; for example, after I've been
    	   swimming, I may still feel as if I'm in the water.
    
    
    10. (tested two-dimensional rotation skills)
    11. (tested three-dimensional rotation skills)
    12. What grades in math and english did you make?
    	(female lucid dreamers scored higher on verbal and mathematical
    intelligence, but this didn't apply to males)
    13.  (creative picture compositions using provided shapes, title your
    picture)
    14.How interested would you be in trying the following activities?
    (scale of 1 to 5)
    	a. a famous eastern teacher is offering individualized training.
    	b. a parapsychologist has devised has devised a new technique to
    	   develope telepathic powers
    	c. a master hypnotist has offered a personalized program in
    hypnosis designed to explore your unconscious..
    (high correlation with internal risk taking)
    
    15.Rate the extent to which each of the following items is
    characteristic of you. (scale of 1 to 5)
    
    	a. I'm always trying to figure myself out.
    	b. I reflect about myself a lot.
    	c. I'm generally attentive to my inner feelings
    	d. I sometimes have the feeling that I'm off somewhere watching
    	   myself.
    	e. I'm aware of the way my mind works when I work through a
   	   problem.
    
    16. Check all the adjectives that describe how you generally feel.
        calm, tense, rested, anxious, worried, relaxed, stressed, peaceful
    
    "Lucid dreamers tend to be somewhat more androgynous than other people.
    They exhibit holistic personalities, blending female and male
    characteristics more completely than others. They are often strong in
    aspects their lives in which others of their sex are weak. Male lucid
    dreamers, for instance, tend to be more open about their feelings than
    nonlucid males. Female lucid dreamers are more field-independent and
    tend to take more risks than do women who don't lucid dream. Within
    this androgyny, though, there remain a few differences between men and
    women. Females who lucid dream and/or meditate are not generally
    anxious; male lucid dreamers who are not meditators often are."
    
    I was thinking some more about risk taking. Many men who are attract to
    high risk behaviour have low natrual levels of arrousal. The race cars,
    sky dive, etc to raise their level of arrousal. Perhaps they are much
    less capable of internal risks.
    
    I hope that this sheds some light of why somes people don't recall
    their dreams or don't recall them vividly enough to remember them.
    
    john

    I'm not sure anyone will take this seriously yet, but in time it may
    catch on.  The contents of the dream is not as important as what it
    does to a person when they wake up.  
    
    For example, have you ever woken up feeling apprehensive, full of fear, 
    concern, with a frown on your face?   Perhaps, just perhaps, it may have 
    resulted from your chemical changes during the dream state.  In other
    words, dreams may possibly be responsible for our attitude at the start
    of each day.  
    
    What I'm saying is, that the contents of the dream may be forgottenm,
    but the feeling it leaves you with, is definitely  felt.  Perhaps
    this is why subconsciously, many of us turn on the radio and listen to
    some soft relaxing music the minute we get up.
    
    al   
    

    (since I've finally returned and caught up on this note)
    
    Re: Vitamins and dreaming - although I was not told it affected
    dreaming, I found that when I took 20-50 mg of B-2 before betime (was
    recommended by a homeopathic doctor to help me sleep more restfully),
    that not only was the sleep more restful, I remembered my dreams
    (actually, I use the knowledge of whether I remember dreams as a gauge
    of how well rested or stressed I am).
    
    Re: emotions upon awakening - I have awakened from dreams (remembering
    the dream) so full of sorrow or fear that it prevents me from falling
    asleep again (when fear, closing my eyes restores the image of whatever
    it was in the dream I was afraid of).
    
    Beth

There are alos folks who have done a lot of work with meditation that
feel that if you really process all your stuff in the day, the you
need a lot less sleep and you don't dream (or not as much)...  I
noticed that a lot of my dreams pretty directly reflect unresolved
conflicts or stuff I worried about in the day...

john (just passing thru)