The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:48am on Sunday, 10th November, 2024:
Anecdote
Recently, I've been remembering a lot of dreams.
Normally, I don't remember dreams at all unless: 1) the dream wakes me up; 2) waking up gives me the dream; or 3) I decide to have a dream before I go to bed. For the past fortnight or so, though, I've been having dreams that I didn't ask for and that weren't trying to wake me up.
I've been having them since the umbilical hernia operation I underwent, in fact.
The dreams aren't very good — they're typically just short fragments — and I'm fully aware that I'm having them (I'm a lucid dreamer), but it's worrying that they don't fit the normal-for-me parameters. I realise that most people probably dream like this every night, and that I myself also probably do; it's just that I don't usually remember the dreams. I've been remembering them of late, though.
Naturally, I wanted to know what was going on with them, mainly so I could stop them. Having to deal with nonsense in the middle of the night isn't fun.
There was no apparent relationship between the dreams. They were all on different topics, when they had a topic at all rather than just a theme. I won't go into details, because other people's dreams are always boring, but they covered a wide range. Some were about contemporary issues, some about memories, some were weird imaginings, some about things I'd been thinking about while awake. Some didn't even have pictures, they were just feelings.
I tried asking around in the dreams to find out what caused them, but they didn't last long enough to give meaningul answers. When I extended them, they became merely about being extended.
I set up a mental process (another weird thing I can do) to search for any rogue such processes that might have been set up while I was under general anaesthetic, but it drew a blank. Those processes never last longer than a fortnight anyway before I forget about them, so it was a long shot. Still, worth a try.
The dreams didn't use language, which I knew was important evidence. My inner voice is such that only "I" get to use language, and nothing else in my head does except at the level of tokens (words as inter-connected symbols). They do use language when I set them up, because I set them up, but these weren't using language so I knew I wasn't responsible for them. They can use language when I use it, too, but that puts me in control of them; I learned nothing from them that way.
The eventual cause turned out to be the fact that I didn't notice when the general anaesthetic kicked in at my operation. Normally, I notice when I've gone to sleep (which may seem unusual, given that I'm asleep, but it's how it appears to me), but for the operation I didn't. I think there must be some kind of housekeeping that goes on at the falling-asleep point normally, but for the anaesthetic this didn't happen because I didn't notice I was falling asleep. As a result, I hypothesised, the usual sleep-initialisation events didn't occur. It did occur when drifting off to sleep on subsequent evenings, though, so why was I still getting the after-effects two weeks later of not having performed it but once? Was I doomed to have these annoying dreams every night in perpetuity now?
I figured that maybe the what-to-do-when-falling-asleep routine was a toggle: switch dreams off when go to sleep, switch dreams on when wake up. By not noticing I'd gone to sleep that one time, this meant I switched dreams off when I woke up. The overall effect was to reverse the order: switch dreams on when go to sleep, switch dreams off when awake. That would mean I wouldn't have been able to dream while awake for the past two weeks, but because my imagination is under conscious control while I'm awake I would be unlikely to discern any difference (and indeed didn't).
Anyway, if this theory was correct, I ought to be able to reboot the system by deciding to have a dream. When said dream finished, it would reset the remember-unbidden-dreams toggle and matters would return to normal.
I therefore had a decision to make: remember annoying dreams or never decide to have bespoke ones. From what I can gather, most people remember a good many dreams but have difficulty arranging for bespoke ones. Having lived this existence myself for the past two weeks, though, I can't say I was in favour of it. Therefore, two nights ago I gave myself a deliberate dream (set in the universe of the Arabian Nights, if you're interested) to reset the toggle.
It worked. I had no annoying dreams last night. Phew!
The ability to access slightly more of my subconscious than most people seem able to is on the whole not a lot of use, but I do want to protect it because it can at times come in very, very handy. Also, I'm used to it. I'm glad to be back to (my) normal.
I didn't enjoy remembering my bizarre night-time subconscious expressions, so am impressed by the fortitude of those for whom it is their default.
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Copyright © 2024 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).