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Post the strange thoughts that go through your head while you're trying to fall asleep @ night.

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..as I drift off, I get a momentary glimpse of myself moving along in a toboggan or some kind of snow sled thru the woods going very fast..I can hear the wind and feel the freezing bite on my face..they look like pine trees. I get this fairly often. have no idea what's going on. I'am going somewhere in an hurry...😕
 
Random connections about the day. Stuff that happens. Mostly G-Rated. Random interactions with people, things I notice. That sort of thing.
 
Originally posted by: fanerman91
Random connections about the day. Stuff that happens. Mostly G-Rated. Random interactions with people, things I notice. That sort of thing.
Click to expand...

that sounds about right for me as well.
its like a dream only i'm visualizing it as a controlled thought as opposed to an actual dream that occurs naturally.
if nothing particular happened during that day I usually revert to a past situation and 'reenact' it the way i wish it had happened
 
For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expects me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. Account for every drop of used motor oil, and I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born...
 
usually i can't stop thinking how crappy my life is right now. if i fall asleep listening to music, then my thoughts don't get very far (they are prompted by the song, so i think about whatever for 3 minutes, then bam, next topic 🙂 )
 
Images. Disturbing, vivid, dreamlike images. They're generally precursors to the dreams of the night.

Last night, I was treated with an all-night-long front seat to the apocalypse. I was right there, watching as people were incinerated in an instant. I watched as hundreds of B-52's were torn from the sky by a nearby airburst and rained down upon a city. I watched from a mountaintop as Missile Command style tendrils (those are reality with ICBMs on reentry, BTW) streaked across the sky.

Etc. It wasn't cool.

Anyway, on to the theory part of this. I believe that there are 3 types of dream.
The random-firing type, which many neuroscientists swear is the "truth", which is the default state of the human mind, exercising the brain, testing pathways, etc. This can only occur when a healthy amount of sleep is being obtained and the body is otherwise healthy.

There is also the exact opposite; no dreams whatsoever. This is caused by extremely prolonged - over the course of years, sleep deprivation. The mind realizes that it's got to use every last bit of time it gets to rest everything up; so EVERYTHING shuts down, save some very peripheral emergency-response functions, and keeping the senses on low-power; to give you a cue as to when to wake up.

There is also the targetted dream. These are caused in response to trauma. When the mind cannot settle itself in waking because of surpression or other defense mechanisms, it will use it's down-time to attempt to reason an acceptable resolution. This could continue for months or years, depending on the emotional severity of the trauma. If ultimately, the brain fails to invent an acceptable resolution, it will further repress the trauma.
 
Some thoughts:

1. Is there anything sadder than dispassionately pulling you pud just so you can sleep?

2. Quieting the mind is the single most elusive state for the non Zen imbued westerner.

3. In the no-man's land twixt the fully wakened mind and the darkened dream state, twixt one's conscious and unconscious, lies genius and inspiration. Also madness and insomnia.

4. Could there perhaps be some correlation between persistant posting on ATOT and insomnia? What about madness?

5. Are those who fall asleep effortlessly, or whose twilight thoughts are solely of overpowered cars, computer or other shiny consumer items better adjusted psychologically or simply duller and more easily satisfied with a trinket?
 
Originally posted by: EyeMWing

There is also the exact opposite; no dreams whatsoever. This is caused by extremely prolonged - over the course of years, sleep deprivation. The mind realizes that it's got to use every last bit of time it gets to rest everything up; so EVERYTHING shuts down, save some very peripheral emergency-response functions, and keeping the senses on low-power; to give you a cue as to when to wake up.
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This more or less sums me up. I get around 4 hours of sleep a night and I can remember maybe 1-2 dreams every 6 months or so. OTOH, what gets me to sleep the easiest is.......rollercoasters. Yep, I think I am mental or something. The feeling of my stomach turning over as I plunge down the big coaster at Cedar Point (Which I have only seen on TV) usually gets me right off to sleep. Same thing on an airplane. If we hit some good turbulence, I can fall asleep practically standing up . Drives my wife crazy.


Peace

Lounatik
 
I vex about finding love, career, and happiness when I lay awake at night. Eventually I fall asleep thinking about trees.
 
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
There is also the exact opposite; no dreams whatsoever. This is caused by extremely prolonged - over the course of years, sleep deprivation. The mind realizes that it's got to use every last bit of time it gets to rest everything up; so EVERYTHING shuts down, save some very peripheral emergency-response functions, and keeping the senses on low-power; to give you a cue as to when to wake up.
Click to expand...
Uh, AFAIK, we all dream each and every night, you just don't remember. REM stage is part of the sleep cycle, people who are woken up w/o completing it (in controlled experiments) don't function properly.

 
Originally posted by: Perknose
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
There is also the exact opposite; no dreams whatsoever. This is caused by extremely prolonged - over the course of years, sleep deprivation. The mind realizes that it's got to use every last bit of time it gets to rest everything up; so EVERYTHING shuts down, save some very peripheral emergency-response functions, and keeping the senses on low-power; to give you a cue as to when to wake up.
Click to expand...
Uh, AFAIK, we all dream each and every night, you just don't remember. REM stage is part of the sleep cycle, people who are woken up w/o completing it (in controlled experiments) don't function properly.
Click to expand...

The physiology of sleep and psychology of sleep are different, semi-unrelated areas. The dreams that I'm referring to are theoretically used for the growth and mental sharpening of the mind, or to deal with trauma. The "absence" of these is rare; perhaps undocumented, but a state of total shutdown sure as hell explains why some people could sleep through nuclear war.

And you know what's totally awesome? My theory is just as credible as everyone else's, because we completely lack understanding of our own minds.
 
Artist: O-Zone
Album: DiscO-Zone
Title: Dragostea Din Tei

(x 4)
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haa

Alo, Salut, sunt eu, un haiduc,
Si te rog, iubirea mea, primeste fericirea.

Alo, alo, sunt eu Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.

Chorus (x 2):
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.

Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.

Te sun, sa-ti spun, ce simt acum,
Alo, iubirea mea, sunt eu, fericirea.

Alo, alo, sunt iarasi eu, Picasso,
Ti-am dat beep, si sunt voinic,
Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic.

Chorus (x 2):
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.

(x 4)
Ma-ia-hii
Ma-ia-huu
Ma-ia-hoo
Ma-ia-haa

Chorus (x 2):
Vrei sa pleci dar nu ma, nu ma iei,
Nu ma, nu ma iei, nu ma, nu ma, nu ma iei.
Chipul tau si dragostea din tei,
Mi-amintesc de ochii tai.



the bolded part gets stuck in my head
 
I put our existence in perspective.

I think about the Earth in space, the scale of distances involved, the timeframe involved, and how we're really microscopic specs that live for a very brief period of time. Then I think of going to work on Monday, driving my car, and how silly it seems when you put it into perspective, as if you watched a person's daily routine from the vantage point of space. We're really doing nothing to get off this rock, we're just wandering around thinking we're doing work, like ants on the side of a mountain.

Thinking about life like that makes me lose motivation, because I feel that nothing I do really matters. I could hit the lottery, or quit my job, or go to jail and it still won't mean jack squat to the universe.
 
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