Do you Have Dreams? and Do you remember dreams?

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A commenter asked this question on my blog in response to a discussion on Aspergers and Sleep Disorders.
http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com/2008/08/aspergers-and-sleep-disorders.html

I don't remember a lot of dreams (though I often seem to have Deja Vu)...

I can remember a couple of dreams from my childhood and I know that I dream as an adult at least sometimes but I don't usually remember them - or at least not for long in my waking hours.

I'm wondering if aspies;
a. Dream less than NTs
b. Don't recall dreams as well as NT's (possibly due to our short term memory problems).

Anyway, I'd appreciate any comments you might have.

Numbah 4.

I know this:

1) I dream in color. No recollection of any black and white dreams.

2) I find I tend to have a mish-mash of dreams that have to do with real-life things I have experienced recently for the most part.

3) I don't recall ever really having nightmares, so to speak of.

4) I usually dream in first-person pov, though occassionally I do dream in third person pov from what I can recall.

5) I tend to daydream a lot even when I'm awake.

I wouldn't make too many general assumptions: aspies have this, not that.... everyone runs the whole gamut. Heaps of NT's don't recall their dreams either.

I'm aspie. I have crazy vivid dreams - usually lucid - I'm aware I'm inside the dream, dreaming. Always have had hyperactive mind/imagination. For a while I spent some time developing it in conjunction with meditating, but have been slack recently. I have sleeping problems too, but it only seems to make my dreams more lucid.

Sometimes I remember my dreams, sometimes I don't. Lately I have been remembering them more than usual.
I have first person pov dreams too.

Usually it's #3, I wake up remembering bits and pieces of a dream then forget them. Sometimes I'll remember parts of a dream for a few days. And rarer I'll remember the whole dream, I've got a few types(Not exactly the same, very similar) of dreams with some prevalence.

Everybody dreams, and most people do on a nightly basis. It's just that some people have a better time recalling them than others. Color is said to be the first thing thing to fade away when waking up/recalling dreams.

I usually have a vague recollection that my dreams are longer, but I only ever recall the 'tail' of the dream that seems to take up the last few minutes of it. Many of my dreams have to do with water, especially aquariums. Recently, I have had a good deal of them that included people I went to high school with and co-workers. A lot of my dreams take place in city streets or at my aunt's house in the woods where we vacation every year. It isn't rare for me to realize that it's a dream while I'm still in it, but it never seems to 'click' with me, because I never try to control the dream in a lucid way. I myself do not have many nightmares. The few that I do are usually about UFOs or aliens. Isn't it odd how dreams 'bind' us? I recently had a dream about being at a party and not being comfortable to socialize with anyone. You'd think that I'd be a little more sociable in it and escape my real-life tendencies but I suppose we cannot separate ourselves from our personalities.

When I'm falling asleep or waking up, it feels as if my thoughts are racing at breakneck speed. I usually can't discern much of it because my thoughts zoom by before I can really take them in and think about them. It seems as if my thought processes are more intricate and creative at this time. I wish I could find a way to tap into it, because I've come up with some really interesting things during these periods which would really help my writing. I've noticed that if I'm sleep-deprived, I get the same effect. My thoughts jump around quickly and odd thoughts pop into my head in an unconscious manner. I don't 'think' or dwell on what's going through my head- I'll have rapid associations and it'll just go on and on like beads on a string. Anyone else experience this?

This is almost me exactly, except for #5...and also my dreams are generally a whole lot more surreal than real life...but I can often tell where certain elements in my dreams came from.
I have kept pretty vivd dream journals for years. Usually when I have dreams, I will write them down as quickly as possible before they evaporate...and then I will mull them over for a long time afterwards.

Does anybody experience dream deja vu? It happens to me very often, I'll be doing whatever in the dream world, and all of a sudden think "hey, hang on a minute...haven't i been here before, done this before, said this before to this person, in another dream?"

I also have lots of dreams where I'll be having so much fun and be thinking, oh no, I don't want the dream to end, I wish it weren't just a dream...lol.

I keep a dream diary too, on and off.

Sometimes remember them, sometimes not at all. Sometimes remember more than one.

Usually only remember the tail ends, but occasionally much more. The memories last between a few minutes, hours, several days and even years.

In colour and including speech.

Not sure exactly what triggers/promotes remembering them; sometimes it's diet that makes the difference, other times it's physical exercise, or when and for how long I sleep, or if something very new/different has been happening in my life, if I have been being creative or not, etc.

Humans normally dream once every 75-90 minutes apparently; once have achieved deep/relaxed sleep. But we generally remember only a fraction of them, ( although it is possible to learn/train to remember them; conscious dreaming, and this may have formed the basis of a lot of ancient shamanic wisdom/stories, etc ).

Dreaming occurs when the brain is "busy"/offline while transferring short-term memory to long-term memory. As the day's data is transferred/copied into longterm memory it is as if lots of files get opened briefly, as if all the related/connected "files" are "disturbed"/revised/reviewed as new data is "entered".

It's why "sleeping on it" sometimes works, if you had crucial new data/a new question on short-term memory, because sometimes the sort of data it needs to link with is buried so deep in longterm memory that the new data has to enter longterm too before the brain can make the connection. And then it is like a penny dropping.

Have there been any studies of difference between AS and NT dream patterns/types etc?

My totally NT co-parent never remembers them. My 9 year old AS/PDD son very rarely.
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Last edited by ouinon on 02 Dec 2008, 3:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

It would happen to me but not in a dream. I'll be awake and think 'I've done this before or perhaps I dreamed it.'

I hate it when you have a happy dream only to wake up and know that it never happened.

Yeah, I have to say that this doesn't seem to effected by A.S. I can remember dreams vividly for quite a while (maybe not 2 hours, but still...) even to the point that as a small child I had trouble filtering them out from regular memories (I was a really dumb kid).

I didn't answer the poll because none of the answers fit. I usually don't remember dreams, but occasionally I do. My assumption is I always dream, but usually don't remember. But I don't ever have the sensation of knowing I dreamed, but not remembering it. Either I remember it, or I don't. Usually I have no sense that I've dreamt. I'll eventually forget my dreams unless I write them down. How long that takes depends on what I dreamed.

I dream long, elaborate dreams- in color. They are very detailed and I remember every detail of them. Some of them span years- it amazes me. I confuse them with real life sometimes

I used to keep a dream journal but I stopped, but still now I remember my dreams.

I also had a few lucid dreams before

I have remembered my dreams almost every night for my entire life. In fact one of my earliest memories was a dream that I had when I was 3 or 4 where my siblings died (my mom killed them in the dream... very odd for a 3 year old I know) and came back as living skeletons that wanted to play hide and seek with me.

I also remember a dream when I was about 6 or 7 where I opened my bedroom door and my hallway had become a giant fiery pit. I remember them both vividly because they scared the crap out of me, though not literally

For a while I had a hard time deciphering the difference between real memories and past dreams. I thought for the longest time that a monster growling at me in the swimming pool was a dream until my mom told the story of me hearing the drain, thinking it was a monster, and coming crying to her. Likewise I thought the dream I had about flying in an airplane with my family that had a couch in it was real until I talked about it one time and found out that I had never flied in such an airplane.

I can't recall this minute what I dreamt about last night (probably could if asked earlier in the day). Night before that though I had a dream that a friend of mine decided to break into someone else's house and I had to help the owner fix their windows afterwards.

Last edited by Kirska on 02 Dec 2008, 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.