Topic: Critter's Random DVD Watchings

[Antares]

I've had a recurring one for years now. It involves a creature similar to a cross between Godzilla and the beast from Cloverfield. It always takes place in my old hometown and always in broad daylight. This creature is off in the distance, and I can see it from my old bedroom window as it slowly and menacingly comes closer to my house. I tried to hide somewhere in the house, but I can hear it getting closer and louder. Suddenly, just as it seems to be just outside of my house, I wake up and my hearts racing at almost a cardiac inducing level. I honestly fear that some night when I'm in my 80's, I'm going to have this nightmare again, and not wake up due to the massive heart attack it's going to give me.

[Critter]

It's interesting that your nightmare involves a creature like that Antares. That is the one thing that has never scared me, Godzilla, the Cloverfield monster, the dinosaurs in Jurrasic Park. With me I can never be scared of a monsters like that, it's always the humans that get me. I find myself watching a film like Cloverfield and feeling sorry for the monster whenever he is shot at.

I haven't had a reacurring dream since I was little, but I remember one that I had for months very clearly. It had the character from a film called Flight of the Navigator in it. He wasn't even a scary character, he was in fact the protagonist of the film, yet for some reason he was always in my dream. I would always wake up in the dream and go outside in the middle of the night and he would be there. I also recall times of driving in a car at night, and looking behind me and see him following the car. Just walking slowly behind it, but keeping up of course.

[Antares]

I've also been of the mind that thinks that in our subconscious dream state, we can view events from the future. I have always felt this way, and one event in my late adolescent years, drove it home for me.

One very warm July night, I was having a nightmare about a car chase. The car is careening down a road, tires squealing as the speed increases. Suddenly, the car swerves off the road and hits a tree. At that moment, I sprung up in bed, sweating profusely and my heart racing just like the car in the dream. I looked around my room and noticed the time on the clock, it was 2:15 AM. About a minute goes by, and I'm starting to settle down a bit, when all of a sudden, outside my open window, I hear a car's tire screeching and a loud crashing thud. Now being so close to the event in my dream, it scared the Hell out of me, and I froze for about another minute. Finally, I got out of bed and looked out the window in time to see the car just pulling away, sounding as if some decent damage was done to it. I went downstairs and went into my parents liquor cabinet and grabbed a shot of something to settle me down after that.

The next day, I went outside and down the road to look at the tree. It had a good 3 foot high gouge taken out of it.

Cue Twilight Zone music. 

[Critter]

That is very eerie indeed, I have never had anything even like that happen to me, my dreams are always extremly nonsensical and don't seem to ever connect to anything that is actally happening in my life. I'm actually a horrible one for dreams, I just don't remember them. I remeber very few dreams, but when I do I remember them in vivid detail. In fact I only really clearly remember three of my dreams from the last 4 or so years, but wow, do I remember those ones clearly. I can still to this day view all of them in blu-ray, dolby surround sound qaulity. One was horrific and I wish I could forget it, but the other two were amazingly exciting. It makes me think about what sort of wonders I may be missing out on since I just don't have any recollection of most of my dreams.

[Antares]

My wife tends to think that I put too much stock into my analysis of the dreams I remember. But I've noticed over the last decade or so, that my dreams have moved away from the nonsensical, to a more structured form.

One thing I've also started to believe in, due to some instances in dreams I've had, is the existence of layered universes. I have had countless dreams in the last few years where I'm in some neighborhood familiar to me, but the buildings are all different. The time frame is always around the mid-forties to mid-sixties. At times, in the dream, I will start to leave that neighborhood, on a road that exists in the location I'm living in now or in my youth, yet everything is totally different, as if another town, with buildings and people was placed directly onto the same framework of landscape. Everything I'm feeling in the dream tells me that it is a specific city or town that I'm familiar with, but nothing is the same as it should be.

And the truly strange thing about it is that, in successive dreams at later dates, I will revisit these altered landscapes as if they are now common place. I will be proceeding down the road, and in the dream I think to myself, OK, in a few moments I'll pass that general store with the large old porch or I'll be crossing that bridge that spans the bay. But the towns in my real life aren't there, they been supplanted by alternate buildings and landscapes.

[Critter]

I read once that the human brain is incapable of creating a brand new person in it's dreams. Apparently everyone in our dreams is someone we have seen before, we may not know the person, but at least have seen them. So say, you are being chased by an axe murderer in a nightmare, the face of that murderer could be anyone from a friend, to someone that served you in a shop, or even that you just passed in a street, it will never be a creation of the brain itself but more a subconscious memory of someone.

I found that very interesting, but perhaps it is the same with places as well as people? When I think about the places I have been in my dreams, like you, they are very familiar to me. They don't look like what they do in real life, but they have a similar basic structure and layout to what it is. For example, I once had a dream in the court that I lived in, the structure basically the same, except the road running through the court had turned into a river in my dream, and on the other side of the river were hundreds of zombie-like beings. I wasn't scared in this dream by the way, it wasn't something I would consider a nightmare, I was oddly calm and relaxed while I stood on my front lawn and watched the Zombies 10 metres away, for some reason I just knew they couldn't cross the river.

It makes you wonder what our brain really can create in dreams? It can obviously create scenarios and situations (often quite odd or scary ones) but as for the actual physical details... who knows.

I hope some of that made sense, I tend to ramble on a bit.

[Antares]

I read once that the human brain is incapable of creating a brand new person in it's dreams. Apparently everyone in our dreams is someone we have seen before, we may not know the person, but at least have seen them. So say, you are being chased by an axe murderer in a nightmare, the face of that murderer could be anyone from a friend, to someone that served you in a shop, or even that you just passed in a street, it will never be a creation of the brain itself but more a subconscious memory of someone.

Well, than this might unnerve you a bit. As I mentioned earlier I always analyze the dreams that I can recall. One thing I've noticed is that when I meet someone whom I'm familiar with, and always someone who is alive at that moment, that after I wake up and retrace the events in the dream, after thinking about it and concentrating on their face in the dream, I realize that it wasn't that person at all. The face I saw in the dream was the face of another person, who has long since died. My mind in the dream tells me it's the living person, but the face is that of the deceased person. This has happened many, many times in my dreams.

[Critter]

That is interesting. I never really get close enough to recognise who the people in my dreams actually are. I just trust in my mind that I have seen them somewhere before, but I don't actually recognise them. It's interesting that when you first wake up that you feel that person is a familiar, alive face, yet when you think about it further you realise the person is actually dead. That whole 'just woke up' out a dream stage can be very confusing, where for a few moments you aren't sure if it actually happened or not.

Speaking of which, have you ever had dreams while you were fully awake or, hallucinations I suppose. Last year I was sick with Pneumonia for two weeks (most of which I spent in bed or in hospital). From this time period I vividly remember one thing, and that was dreaming things while I was wide awake. My Mum said I was probably having hallucinations from the very high fever but it was amazing.

It's sort of hard to explain, but I recall being awake, and laying in my room in my bed, and being fully aware that I was awake in my bed. Yet at the same time I would be having some crazy dream off in some faraway place. I could see the room and my dream at the same time, I know they were both happening at the same time, yet in my pneumonia induced state... this all seemed perfectly normal.

[Antares]

I can't say I've had that experience, but something similar has happened three times in the last ten years. And always during a daytime nap.

The first time:

I was dreaming about the cemetery I used to cross almost every day in my adolescent youth to get to my friends house. In the dream, I was riding a small go-cart around the roads in the cemetery. I'm approaching the main gate which was made of a high stone wall. As I'm approaching it, in the dream I realized that I was actually dreaming it, because I no longer lived in that state. So as the dream is continuing I say to myself in the dream, if you know that this is a dream, try and control the way the dream progresses. As I get to the stone gate and turn towards my friends house, I say to myself , start to fly. Suddenly, I can see the ground under my feet start to drift away as I start to ascend into the atmosphere. I can see my friends house as I pass over it as if I'm in a balloon drifting by. I turn to the opposite side of the road and see another friend's house. Suddenly, the dream starts to fade away and everything starts to brighten. In the dream I tell myself, don't wake up, don't wake up. But it was to late, the next thing I'm in my bed, in my room, looking at the ceiling. In all the part where I was controlling the dream seemed to last about 15 seconds.

The second time:

A little over a year goes by and once again I'm taking a daytime nap, and almost the same exact scenario takes place. This time I'm just a little closer to his house when I realize I'm dreaming it. Once again, I tell myself to fly. This time I glide above the ground at tree top level for what seems about 30 seconds. And again, I can start to feel myself waking up, but I fight the urge to open my eyes. For the first time, I can feel myself in the dream fighting my minds urge to awaken.

The third time:

About 2 1/2 years goes by, and again I'm catnapping when I start to have this dream where I'm entering this building that was adjacent to the little league field I used to play on. As I'm walking into it, I notice my father coming down the stairs from the second floor. Now my father had died about six years earlier and he never attended any of my little league games, so I knew that something was wrong with this picture. Once again, in the dream, I told myself to fly away from the building, but this time to look upwards instead of downwards. As I'm leaving the building and the ground, I can see my outstretched arms before me, kind of like Superman, and just in the distance a flock of birds. Just as I'm approaching the birds, small wisps of what looks like white smoke start extending from my fingertips. As I pull my hands closer to my face, to look at the thin plumes, I can sense my mind trying to wake me up. The sky and the birds disappear, and I can sense myself lying in my bed with my hands slightly extended above my head. The dream hasn't ended, because all of a sudden, I woke up and my hands were at my side.

[Critter]

 

Being aware that you are in a dream is something I have not heard of before. Usually the dream state seems completely real and you don't understand it was a dream until you have woken up. In fact this is really boggling me, the more I think about it I don't think I have ever heard of someone knowing that they are in a dream while the dream is happening (except maybe in films). I really hope that happens to me one day, as long as it isn't a scary dream that is, the thought of knowing you are in a dream amazes me. Even when I was awake and dreaming at the same time like I described in my last post I wasn't aware that I was dreaming, I just knew that all of this stuff was happening and I didn't question it.

[Antares]

The sad thing is that it hasn't happened since. The last time was over 5 years ago. I'm hoping it happens again. It's like exploring uncharted parts of your brain's capacity.

[Kathy]

I may dream but I do not ever remember them. But, I do have strange visions (I call them "tingles") while I'm awake. When I get one I know exactly what is going to happen and it does.

For example, I took my family to the Bill's "greatest comeback ever" game. Everyone wanted to leave but I knew we were going to comeback and win. I kept saying that I had the tingle and they still didn't believe me...until it started to happen.

Or another time I was following a semi carrying a huge load of round metal tubes. As we were coming to the next intersection, I told my mom I had the tingles and said what was going to happen. The truck stopped at the red light. I blocked both lanes with my car and stopped several hundred feet away. The rolls of metal tubes broke away and fell off the truck and scattered all over the road.

I have had things like this happen to me hundreds of times. When I get the sensation, I know what I feel is going to occur. I have no control over it and can't predict when I will get them. But, I trust them and always believe them when I do.

[Critter]

That's pretty neat Kathy, it almost sounds like a comic-book super power. In fact it's much cooler than a lot of the powers that some of those characters have. Think of what your superhero name could be... 'The Tingler' 

[Kathy]

That's pretty neat Kathy, it almost sounds like a comic-book super power. In fact it's much cooler than a lot of the powers that some of those characters have. Think of what your superhero name could be... 'The Tingler' 

The Tingler...sounds like a sex toy! 

My father used to get them too - he was the one that first called them tingles.

[Critter]

 

So this is a thing passed down through the generations, even cooler. And yes that does sound like a sex toy, hmmm, we may have to work on the superhero name or some people could get a bit confused