Vivid Dreams

Post Reply New Topic

Our dream state is very much different then our awake state. You mentioned your dream last night of a person having a panic attack. Strange, It reminded me of a panic attack. Perhaps you experienced one of my dreams?

Actually this was not a dream but a real life occurrence. A little over 3 years ago, I was placed in a COVID ward of a hospital. I did not have COVID but rather I was about to have a heart attack. But when I entered the hospital, they decided to exercise extreme caution and they placed me in a massive COVID ward of a hospital. It took them several days to understand I did not have COVID. In the process they moved me into another area of the hospital with many sick patients. Around 3 A.M. I woke up to hear a man screaming in the next room. He was yelling for help. But no one was coming to his aid. I was totally strapped into my bed and couldn't move. So I thought "What to do?" Then it came to me. Get out of bed. So I pulled myself out of the bed wires and straps that held me down, and all the alarms in the hospital went off. Soon I was surrounded by nurses. They asked what was my problem? I said, NOT ME - HIM. He is having a panic attack.

Last night I had another Vivid Dream. I became alert just before I awoke and looked into the end of the dream. It was about The Thinker.



In my dream, I began to understand The Thinker. And more importantly What was the Thinker thinking about.
What was The Thinker thinking?

So to begin, who is the thinker? He is a person with Asperger's Syndrome. You can tell because all his mind, his entire being is focused on one thought. What was that thought? So I slipped into the mind of The Thinker and it was about controlling the weather.

Look around you. The world is in chaos. We are surrounded by tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, lightning storms. They cause chaos, death and destruction. To bring peace into the world, a sense of balance, one must begin by taking control of the land, sea and air. We exist in a world of chaos and The Thinker was figuring out how to control the elements of nature.

Round 4

So the Vivid Dream I had yesterday night (The Thinker) was rather different. It was a very long dream. It went on for miles and miles and miles and I just caught the last bit of the dream as I awoke.

I used my Fitbit to dig into the night of The Thinker. This is what it showed me"

I had 1 hour 9 minutes of REM sleep and 1 hour and 41 minutes of Deep NREM sleep.
I had around 45 minutes of Deep NREM sleep just before I awoke.
So this is very different then Rounds 1-3 which were REM dreams.

The dream of Round 4 was so huge, it felt like it went on for hours. It was very complex and viewed a wide range of thoughts, moving from one to the next to the next in quick succession. It was also preforming an analysis as it went through each segment.

So I broke apart the night.
I had 9 episodes of REM sleep. Each was very short lasting a few minutes.
I had 5 episodes of deep NREM sleep. The last episode was the longest.

The first REM spike began with a high spike in blood oxygen saturation. It went to the top of the charts.

So I thought it might be beneficial to analyze my sleep patterns for the past 2 weeks from the night of 29 March 2024 until the night of 12 April. I combined the total REM time with the total deep NREM sleep of each night.

29 March -- 2.08 hours
30 March -- 1.63 hours
1 April -- 2.33 hours
2 April -- 2.43 hours
3 April -- 2.13 hours
4 April -- 2.30 hours
5 April -- 3.53 hours
6 April -- 1.73 hours
7 April -- 1.93 hours
8 April -- 0.87 hours
9 April -- 2.40 hours
10 April -- 2.83 hours
11 April -- 3.07 hours
12 April -- 2.30 hours

So in analyzing the two vivid dreams during this 2 week period, one in REM sleep state on 3 April and the other in deep NREM sleep on 10 April, I do not see anything that stands out. I suspect this is due to my inability to peer into my brain while I am in deep asleep.

Most folks fail to remember most of their dreams at night. So how do you KNOW that you had "no rem sleep" on a given night? You could have had hours of Rapid Eye Movement (ie were dreaming) and just not remember it.

One of the actions of the brain during the night is to take all the information learned during the day (Short Term Memory), reduce the data and then store it into (Long Term Memory). Then the brain performs one final step before you awake. It deletes Short Term Memory. As a result, most people do not actually know what functions their brain is performing during their sleep cycle.

Several years ago, I discovered that I had the ability to disrupt this process. When I woke up in the late part of the night, I could force myself to remain awake when I went back to bed. Just before I fell back to sleep, I became aware of my sleep brain performing its nightly function. It moves very, very fast. So for the most part, I would just project a thought and this brain would spin off and explore the topic. It functions so extremely fast. But I was able to see it at work.

At this point I understand the process, this was my deep NREM sleep state working at the speed of light.

So to answer your question. It is very likely that I "had hours of Rapid Eye Movement (ie were dreaming) and just not remember it."

But the other point is that there are two different dream states: REM sleep and deep NREM sleep. Deep NREM sleep is so incredibly fast. This is like the difference between Aspies who are word thinkers and those that are picture thinkers. The picture thinkers move at incredible speeds.

Round 5

I experienced another Vivid Dream last night. I awoke at 4:50 in the morning and became aware I was having a vivid dream. It was an interesting dream.

In my vivid dream, I was in a hospital undergoing treatment. But there was something strange happening. The doctor who was treating me was different. He was not human. I am not sure what he was but he was treating all my conditions at once. For example, I have a vision problem since early childhood. My left eye is almost blind. But I wear glasses, very thick lens glasses. As a result, with my glasses on I can almost see normal. But still wearing my glasses, my left eye sees things from far away and right eye see things up close. Some how my brain picks which eye to use at any given moment.

But in this dream, I was being treated not from defects in my sensory system: eyes, taste, smell, hearing and touch. Not from the outside but rather from the inside. This doctor was fixing the damaged regions inside my brain.

So the nonhuman doctor was modifying my brain to repair all the internal broken problems that existed within my brain.

Several hours after awakening, I used my advanced FitBit watch to analyze my sleep cycle for the night.
I had 1 hour 32 minutes of Deep NREM sleep from 9 P.M. until 1 A.M.
I had 1 hour 52 minutes of REM sleep from 3 A.M. until 7 A.M. when I woke up in the morning.

So this dream occurred during REM sleep a little before 5 A.M.

Round 6

I had another vivid dream on Wednesday night but my FitBit failed to record it. I suspect it was a deep NREM dream.
--------------------------------
This was a very remarkable dream. The dream seemed to start when I began to develop a third layer of teeth. The first layer of teeth is called the Baby Teeth. But then as we grow up, these teeth fall out and we get a second layer Adult Teeth. But in my case, the second layer began to fall out, but what happened was crazy. I began to develop a third layer of teeth, indestructible forever teeth. This threw me into a panic. My whole body was changing and this was the first signs. I was becoming an immortal. But there was a problem. I had suffered a severe stroke. I was blind on the right side of each eye. Also my brain was damaged and I had something known as Aphasia. Actually I had one of the most severe forms of the disease. I had lost my ability to read and also my knowledge of words. So I made some progress but not enough to be normal again. Now I was becoming an immortal but a defective immortal.

Somehow I had accidentally stumbled onto the Fountain of Youth, but I didn't know what I did.

So my first problem was that I needed to hide this development from the rest of the world. There are people in this world who would do anything to know this knowledge. They would think nothing of killing me and dissecting my brain and body in order to know how this is done. They wanted to learn the science behind immortality.

The second problem was that I still had sustained extreme physical damage from my stroke, that I needed to learn how to fix.

Time was running out. And it was happening very quickly. I am 75 years old and my secret would become very obvious after I reached the age of a hundred. I need a new job, a new career. I need a self dependent job to remain hidden. I need to hide my real identity in order to stay alive.

But I still didn't know how this came about. It was a mystery. I need to learn this secret.

There would be people willing to do anything to learn this secret. I have a lot of work to do. This is urgent. No mistakes. I must not make any mistakes. The world is in chaos. I must fix chaos.
--------------------------------
This was such a vivid dream that it must be a deep NREM dream. It was so vivid and vibrant. It probably blew the ability of FitBit to record my nights experience.

Round 7

I experienced another Vivid Dream yesterday night.

I was locked inside a vast underground complex. It went on for miles and miles. It was well sealed and constructed. It had one entrance way, only one and one door with one key to lock it.



Inside was Scrooge McDuck. He was not a friendly comic book character. All the vast fortune contained in his underground fortress was stolen. He even had control of all hidden money like BitCoins. He was so captivated with his wealth. He was tossing his coins up and down in the air and counting every coin. He failed to see me enter his secret buried chamber. He didn't even notice when I took his key. I went back to the door and shut it and locked it and sealed us in. He was celebrating his stolen wealth. He was singing and throwing his money into the air. I was busy trying to figure out how to destroy it. I was going to burn it all into the ground. Not one cent was going to leave the room. It was the only way to unwrap this stolen wealth. It must be destroyed. But how? It must be totally and utterly destroyed. Otherwise our world will be destroyed. Many people will starve to death. The world will be penniless.

I used my FitBit to analyze my sleep cycle.
I had 55 minutes of deep NREM sleep and 1 hour and 27 minutes of REM sleep.
The timing of this dream was during the end of the sleep cycle. It was a REM dream.
I slid into REM sleep 9 times that night. Seven of those REM cycles were between 3 A.M. and 7 A.M. when I awoke.

That watch sounds interesting. Can it sound an alarm to wake you just after the end of a REM cycle? I read a long time ago that they used to do that in "dream laboratories" so the sleepers could remember their dreams better, having just woken from REM sleep, because people tend to forget their dreams if they carry on sleeping for long after the dream is over. But my information may be out of date. And disturbed sleep might not be very good for people.

I don't have many vivid dreams these days, sad to say. I usually struggle to remember them at all, though it's surprising how much I can recall once the first little bit comes back to me, as long as I try as soon as I wake up. I also have other dream-like things that vanish so fast that I can't remember anything except that something strange happened. Those "dreams" are more like weird bits of thinking that don't make sense when I wake up, and probably couldn't be expressed clearly in words or pictures.

The last vivid dream I remember was stunningly beautiful, with a quality of artwork that I wouldn't be able make up in waking life. I think it may be that the daytime, rational part of the brain tends to mask a lot of other kinds of activity including the more intuitive, artistic side.

Back in the 90s when I worked as a party deejay I fell asleep on the couch...dreamt that "had to wake up ...drive to the next town....go to Tower Records...and buy that latest CD of the "Three Tenors" (of opera) teaming up with the vocal group "Boyz-II-Men" in one big team to create a combined soul and opera extravanganza. Didnt rouse myself. Had a nice sleep. Woke up. And then I realized that there was/is still no album of the Three Tenors singing together with BoyzIIMen.

But it might be cool if there were one!

You discussed a lot of information here. I will try and unwrap it for you.

First. Our brains (daytime & night time) are very different. Our night time brain comes out during sleep and consists of two types REM and deep NREM sleep. These two sleep cycles are very different from each other. The deep NREM sleep brain is extremely fast. It is so fast that you will find it very difficult to communicate with it. It moves near light speed. The REM brain is much slower. It moves near the speed of our daytime brain. These night time brains are two separate brains.

Second. Our brains are designed to self destruct at the end of the sleep cycle. That is why we generally do not recall what happens during the night. They move all information from short term memory into long term memory and then erase all short term memory. Thus unless you work very hard, you will never see this process happening.

Third. It is possible to allow both sides "day and night" to communicate. But it takes a lot of effort. You have to stay awake near the end of your nightly sleep cycle. When you go back to bed around 5 A.M. force yourself to stay awake and then just wait and wait. Soon your other brain will come out. It will either be REM or deep NREM. You can communicate with it. The process is very similar to being a puppeteer.



A good puppeteer can bring both sides of his brain online at the same time. They become the two individuals performing. One is a daytime brain and the other a night time brain.

Thanks for the information. It seems to explain those strange dreamlike things I get that I can't so far remember or describe clearly - they may be happening during NREM sleep.

Sad to say, I daren't disrupt my sleep too much because these days when I'm underslept I feel ill the following day and get double vision. So if I do any experiments myself I'm going to need to confine them to being woken up just once after a phase of REM sleep in the hope of being able to remember the "ordinary" dream I've just had. That's why I'd like to know if the FitBit watch can wake me automatically at the right point.

I had a crazy idea (which I never tried) when I was a teenager. I thought I might be able to put a waterproof mask full of saline water over my eyes, somehow prop my eyelids open, fall asleep like that, and then have some device set up with a timer to project a colour slide picture into my eyes. I was hoping that it might make me dream about whatever the picture was. I'd just read G. T. Ladd's report of his experiment (published in 1892):

https://zenodo.org/records/1654931

He said that the visual content of dreams came from the brain trying to make sense of the eigenlight (dots of light visible on the retina when the environment is dark). So it was a somewhat eccentric idea, typical of me at the time. Do you notice something autistic going on here? Experimenting with a FitBit sounds a lot safer and far less crazy. It's a pity they're so expensive.

ToughDiamond You covered several different thoughts in your discussion.

You wrote, "Thanks for the information. It seems to explain those strange dreamlike things I get that I can't so far remember or describe clearly - they may be happening during NREM sleep."

What happens in your dream state generally stays in your dream state. The last phase of your dream state (REM or deep NREM) self destructs at the end of the night.

Then you wrote, "Sad to say, I daren't disrupt my sleep too much because these days when I'm underslept I feel ill the following day and get double vision. So if I do any experiments myself I'm going to need to confine them to being woken up just once after a phase of REM sleep in the hope of being able to remember the "ordinary" dream I've just had. That's why I'd like to know if the FitBit watch can wake me automatically at the right point."

That is one of the main problems with this type of research. As we get old, our bodies begin to deteriorate. It affects our brain. Many older people no longer can experience REM and deep NREM sleep. They go to bed and only experience light sleep at night. Any little thing can wake them. Our bodies are designed to heal the mind each night during the sleep cycle. But if we can no longer sleep properly, it takes a tool on the recovery process.

In order to use a FITBIT to perform a detailed analysis, one must have the right FitBit watch. Many FitBits do not provide this service. Also one needs a smartphone. The two communicate the results of each nights sleep with incredible details. I accessed the internet to provide some information about this:

----------------------------------------
If you use a Fitbit device with heart-rate tracking (except Fitbit Charge HR or Fitbit Surge) to track your sleep, you can see a record of the sleep stages you cycle through at night. This article answers frequently asked questions about sleep stages.

While you're asleep each night, your body typically goes through several sleep cycles that last on average 90 minutes. In each cycle you alternate between two types of sleep:

Light Sleep and Deep Sleep—With less brain activity than REM sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) includes the stages of light sleep and deep sleep. Periods of deep sleep are typically longer early in the night.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep—The stage associated with vivid dreams, REM sleep periods are typically longer as the night goes on.

During a sleep cycle, it's most common to go from light sleep to deep sleep, back to light sleep, and then into REM sleep. Then the cycle generally repeats, but sleep patterns vary naturally.

Sleep stages are traditionally measured in a lab using an electroencephalogram to detect brain activity along with other systems to monitor eye and muscle activity. While this method is the gold standard for measuring sleep stages (source), your device can estimate your sleep stages in a more comfortable, convenient way.

Fitbit estimates your sleep stages using a combination of your movement and heart-rate patterns. When you haven't moved for about an hour, your tracker or watch assumes that you're asleep. Additional data—such as the length of time your movements are indicative of sleep behavior (such as rolling over, etc.)—help confirm that you're asleep. While you're sleeping, your device tracks the beat-to-beat changes in your heart rate, known as heart rate variability (HRV), which fluctuate as you transition between light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep stages. When you sync your device in the morning, we use your movement and heart rate patterns to estimate your sleep cycles from the previous night.

Fitbit's sleep researchers and the National Sleep Foundation describe the following sleep stages. The names of the stages are what we've chosen to use in your Fitbit sleep log.
Light Sleep

Light sleep serves as the entry point into sleep each night as your body unwinds and slows down. This stage typically begins within minutes of falling asleep. During the early part of light sleep, you may drift between being awake and asleep. You may be somewhat alert and can be easily awoken. Breathing and heart rate typically decrease slightly during this stage.

Light sleep promotes mental and physical recovery.
Deep Sleep

Deep sleep typically occurs in the first few hours of sleep. When you wake up feeling refreshed in the morning, you're likely to have experienced solid periods of deep sleep during the previous night. During deep sleep, it becomes harder to be awakened since your body becomes less responsive to outside stimuli. Breathing becomes slower and muscles relax while heart rate usually becomes more regular. Adults may see a normal decrease in deep sleep as we get older, though sleep patterns vary among people.

Deep sleep promotes physical recovery and aspects of memory and learning. This stage has also been shown to support your immune system.
REM Sleep

The first phase of REM sleep typically occurs after you've had an initial stage of deep sleep. You generally stay in REM sleep for a longer period of time during sleep cycles occurring in the second half of the night. During this final stage of sleep, your brain becomes more active. Dreams mainly occur during REM sleep, and your eyes move quickly in different directions. Heart rate increases and breathing becomes more irregular. In principle, muscles below the neck are inactive to avoid acting out dreams.

REM sleep has been shown to play an important role in mood regulation, learning, and memory as your brain processes and consolidates information from the previous day so that it can be stored in your long-term memory.
----------------------------------------

You wrote, "these days when I'm underslept I feel ill the following day and get double vision." That is one of the main problems. If you do not get enough sleep, your brain cannot move the information from what occurred during the day and store it away. It moves the information from short term memory into long term memory. Unless this process is done, the brain becomes overloaded the next morning. You get headaches or even worse. After jamming together this "short term memory data" for several days, the brain gives a person very severe headaches and then the information is damaged and destroyed.

You then wrote, "I'd like to know if the FitBit watch can wake me automatically at the right point."
I don't think so. My watch does not wake me up. But during the night I will wake up for a moment or two, such as going to a potty break. When I return to bed, I force myself to remain awake. It only takes a few seconds, and the other brains come online and go back to work.

You discussed experimentation. That is how we learn. We test all our ideas. That is how Aspies learn.

I had another vivid dream. This one was a bit unusual because it was a combination of two nights dreams. It was a very complex dream. I was trying to correct a defect in human construction. Humans have a flaw that causes great damage and distress. Almost all the wars throughout the history of the human species can be attributed to this defect. So I was analyzing how to fix the flaw.

Two nights ago, I had:
40 minutes of deep NREM sleep and 121 minutes of REM sleep.
Last night I had:
72 minutes of deep NREM sleep and 40 minutes of REM sleep.

I figured out a solution but how to implement the fix goes beyond my capability.

Two Brains are Better Then One

Last night I woke up coughing. I had been a little sick for the past couple days. I needed to get well again. But how do I do this? So my REM brain knew just what to do. I needed to take something. But what was it called. My REM brain is not an expert on reading and writing. So it did the best it could. I took a piece of paper and wrote:
alcacelsor

My REM brain had spent almost a hour trying to figure out what this was and where to find it. I have it somewhere in the house but where? I could picture putting it into a glass of water. So I went back to sleep.

The next morning it took me less than a minute to understand that my REM brain was focused on taking
Alka Seltzer. I was able to find it easily and first thing in the morning I took it to get back to normal.