I am not versed on the terms, so I am not going to make any claims. However, I thought I would share my experiences, and hopefully get some insight.
The first dream I remember having, was when I was three years old. It was a long drawn out quest to kill a snake, which was rather cartoonish. I would look in the closet, and under the bed, but I would never find it until it was too late. Usually the snake ended up in a box where I kept my Matchbox cars.
Then the dream would shift, and I would be at a restaurant with my parents. They were drinking tea, or coke, with cigarettes in them. And they would then offer me ice cream with cigarrettes in them. I usually woke up after that, suffice to say this dream is the reason why I never started smoking heh.
–Flash forward to the present–
There are two different types of dreams I normally have, Free dreams (which are rare), and the dreams that I control (which are very common). This has pretty much been the case since I was five, when I decided in a dream that I couldn’t be killed because it was a dream, and routed a room of zombies.
I call the first set of dreams “free” because I don’t have to do anything for them. I don’t recognize that they are dreams - my subconcious plays out the story and I end up totally swept up in them. I don’t know why, but in my life these dreams are more relaxing.
Then we move to the other set of dreams, the ones that I control fully. I am going to break these down into categories based on rareity, and delve into their types:
Common (twice a night usually, or the whole night with one dream): These are dreams that sometime during the beginning, or very close to it, I recognize for what they are. My dream world at this point gets more loose, for lack of a better term. And in the end I organize most of the world to how I like it. Usually, because of my love of Tolkien, I end up walking the white shores of Valinor, or in the forests of lorien just relaxing. Sometimes my ego breaks out, and I end up being a Diety, or some nigh unstoppable power, that wrecks almost everything.
Sometimes I will slip in and out of conciousness, and return right back to the dream where I left it off.
Uncommon (once every other day): These are dreams where I am only partially in control of. In these dreams I find it difficult, very difficult to do things like change the weather, fly, or alter the storyline the way I want it. It is even more difficult to keep lights on for some reason I don’t understand.
On the flip side things turn bad very easily, and I have to watch what I think a lot of times. If I start letting myself get creeped out, and I start visualizing terrors, they happen. I’ve been jolted out of one of these dreams because pain being inflicted (no, no marks or anything silly like that appeared). I don’t normally allow myself to feel pain.
Rare (once every other week, roughly): These are the dreams that utterly creep me out. There are two main ones:
A) I am lying on my bed, paralyzed, and there is a white mist floating above me. Usually the mist forms into a woman, and it is a very warm feeling. Its like being reunited with a former lover, very odd, and very creepy. But then it can get worse, sometimes it is a dark mist, and some very terryfying things can form. I don’t always see it, but I always feel it, usually to the right of my neck.
B) I am lying on the bed, paralyzed. I am between conciousness and dreaming, meaning if I know fully well that if I do one thing wrong I will jump out of sleep or back out of the dream. I can feel my body, as before, I can see everything around me.
I can’t move though at first. It is like trying to force something up that isn’t there. Eventually though I move - kinda. I slowly pull up, but there are two of me now. One lying on the bed, and one standing up, slowly moving about (this is first person of course, and if I look back I can see myself). It is a very real, and very odd dream, and I can’t place its purpose. Essentially what I end up doing, is moving through walls, and visiting people around my neighborhood. Disturbingly detailed.
Anyways, that is pretty much my life. The reason why I normally prefer the “free” dreams, somedays, is because the other dreams can be…I guess, spiritually exhausting? Or Mentally exhausted, some days it just makes me feel so old. There are some side affects to controlling my dreams, one being I always wake up when I need to without a need of an alarm. The other, being I pretty much remember way too much detail about my dreams - to the point where I remember more dreams than personal real life experiences.
Anyways, your insight would be helpfull.
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