Most dreams are self-centered.

the Stuff Dreams are made of...
1

When I say self-centered, I don’t mean selfish, simply centered on oneself. At this moment I’m reading through my old (physical) dream journal and there’s a dream I wrote down where there’s lots of interactions between dream characters where I could join in on a conversation if I wanted to. All sorts of things are happening around me in this dream. I find this so amazing. I’ve forgotten how cool it is when there’s that dynamic in a dream, where the dream has no “self-center” where you can really be captivated by this dream world you are in, explore it, and kinda just be “that other guy.”

This is amazing. We say that the dream world is created by our subconscious. We say that what happens in the dreamworld is more or less what we would most expect. But dreams like the ones I’m describing truly break the rules. I have one dream I wrote down that is very long, and takes place over days. I might write this one in my online DJ. Basically, I start off in a small apartment building. NOTHING was going on, just your everyday people drinking some tea, eating some toast, as normal as normal can be. All of a sudden people are running down the stairs from the above apartments. :eh: A woman bursts through our apartment door and yells “RUN!!!” She also grabs me by the arm and im flying down the stairs, literally. We get outside and she lets go of my hand. I’m still confused. :confused: Not a damn clue what’s about to happen next. A giant monster bigger than the apartment obliterates the building as it crashes through. :eek: THEN I RUN LIKE HELL!!

I just wasn’t expecting that in my wildest imagination.

Moved from Lucid Adventures, since it seems to be about dreams in general.

2

I know what you mean. That’s why I always think that whole “what you expect will happen” rule isn’t complete. There’s something else to it. So many times I’ve I’ve expected something and the opposite happens! Or even things That seemed completely far from my mind…

3

There are several layers of thoughts going on at any moment, you most of the time you can be aware of only a numer of them. So there’s quite more than a single thing to “what’s going on in my mind”. :tongue:

Well Argigoth, in a way dreams are always about you. THat dream was about you running :tongue: but even if there’s dreams of someone who’s doing something while you sit in the background, it’s still dreams about you observing the scene, not about them.
Dreams could not exist without you observing and participating in them, not to mention they’re you essentially :razz: What I mean is, when I try to find a meaning to a dream, I always relate it to myself first, and what I was doing, and whatnot. To be honest, nothing could pass in a dream this way as anything else than related to the dreamer :tongue: but still.

4

You are right, when a tree falls in the dreamworld and you’re not there to observe it, it wouldn’t make a sound, or fall for that matter. :smile: I guess what I’m trying to say in my first post is that we (or maybe just me), being a less experienced dreamer, forget to try to have dreams that have a dynamic of character interaction where things are happening all around you. There may be a discussion you are overhearing between a group of dream character and you may decide to join the conversation or help the troubled dream character in the corner of the room. This creates forks in the story path where you can decide which fork to take. In my experience, dreams do not usually have these forks, but are just linear events one after the next. When the dream does have these forks, I feel a great sense of captivation, desiring not to control the dream, but simply be a part of it and explore. I have a feeling that this is what expert lucid dreamers enjoy all the time.