Monday, July 12, 2010

Random Monday

Poor, poor blog. I've been neglecting it so much as of late. I've had this longing, however, to post something . . . anything and to read up on my fellow bloggers places. I finished one summer semester last Thursday and begin a new one tonight! I've also devoured 4 books (does anyone else love audio books? So convenient!) and have been writing a little here and there. As much as I love lazy summer days (not really lazy once you grow into an adult, eh?) I'm excited for the fall. By far, it's my favorite season, and my kid starts kindergarten and maybe, just maybe I'll find time between classes to finish my WIP The In-Between.

Now on to the randomness. How do your dreams inspire you? I know of a lot of writers that get their work or ideas from dreams. Whether from dreams deep in REM sleep or dreams from daydreaming, I'm not sure. For me, usually nothing useful comes from my REM dreams. Daydreaming, however, is another story all together. Especially if I can control where it begins and then let my subconscious take over. Do either of these work for you?

Random Dream Facts:
  • You cannot snore and dream at the same time.
  • By the time we die, most of us will have spent a quarter of a century asleep, of which six years or more will have been spent dreaming—and almost all of those dreams are forgotten upon waking. (If this would include daydreaming, I'll probably double that average....for me...)
  • About 80% of neonatal and newborn sleep time is REM sleep, suggesting a tremendous amount of time dreaming.
  • According to Plato, dreams originate in the organs of the belly. Plato describes the liver in particular as the biological seat of dreams.
  • Aside from those who experience certain kinds of injury, it’s a biological fact that everyone dreams. However, not everyone remembers his or her dreams.
  • Dreams of losing teeth or having teeth extracted can signify many things, including fears of helplessness or of some sort of loss in one’s life. Women experience more teeth dreams than men. (So THAT'S why I kept having those weird dreams during my mom's divorce...)
  • William Shakespeare (1564-1616), like his Greek playwright predecessors, used dreams in his dramas to help advance plot and develop characters. For example, dreams in Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard the III, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear offer key psychological and symbolic insights into the motives and internal landscapes of important characters.
  • People who are born blind report no visual imagery in dreams, but they experience a heightened sense of taste, touch, and smell. Those who become sightless between the ages of five and seven may have visual images in their dreams, while those who lose their vision after age seven continue to “see” in their dreams, though images tend to fade as they grow older.
  • (And for anyone dreaming about Edward...) Vampires are important fixtures in folklore, and their appearance in dreams can represent our general fears and anxieties or can embody anxieties about our sexuality.
Random dream facts found at Random Facts.

9 comments:

  1. Welcome back. I was wondering where you'd gotten to. And as for school starting in the fall, Monster Baby will be in Kindergarten also and I can't wait.

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  2. Great post! Now I know why my hubby doesn't remember many of his dreams... he snores too much :)

    I dream rather vividly every night -and I often remember them. Unfortunately most of them are scary.

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  3. Dreams are FASCINATING. I have a dream dictionary really close to my bed so I can look up dream snippets the moment they happen. Er, well, not the MOMENT they happen, but you understand.

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  4. Thanks Piedmont! Jemi, mine are more absurd than scary. And Sara, I use to have a dream dictionary. I don't know what I ever did with it but wish I still had it!

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  5. I think that dreams are super interesting. I find it interesting that Plato thought that dreams came from the belly. Maybe he had restless sleep after super spicy meals and thus remembered more of his dreams :-P

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  6. Freud would have a field day with my dreams. Always driving something, whether it be a car, bike, boat, plane, spaceship...yep that too. Always Dr. Suess type roads. Always endless roads and houses that open into other houses, and giant communal bathrooms with wide open rows of toilets! Always lots and lots of people and most times tornadoes.

    Every night.

    Oh and a bridge that I'm terrified of that shows up in all kinds of places.

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  7. Hah, Lauren! Sharla, very strange indeed...very Alice in Wonderlandish!

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  8. Great post! Those facts are fascinating :D Does this mean we'll forget nearly six years of our life? That sounds like...fodder for an awesome novel, bwuahaha.

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