Friday, January 30, 2009

Dreams

Every morning Son #4 tells me about the dreams he had the night before. I used to be the same way. I dreamed. And when I woke up I related my dreams to my mother and friends the same way some people relate anecdotes. I loved my dreams. I felt enriched by them--even the mundane or bizarre or scary ones. I looked forward to having them each night as I rolled into bed.

And then! I stopped dreaming. Or at least I stopped remembering my dreams. And I have missed them mightily. I feel connected to the part of me that writes when I remember my dreams, and I would love to have access to them again.

Any suggestions on how to retrieve dreams?

4 comments:

SWILUA said...

pain helps. because then you wake up a lot and you have more dreams to remember. (the REM cycle is the last one before the waking cycle.)
So you could break your arm.

practice helps, too. and is probably less painful than the arm breaking thing.

my four year old comes and tells me his dreams every morning. it's adorable.

Lisa B. said...

I had this happen to me at one time, and it was because I wasn't getting enough sleep and/or my sleep was too interrupted (believe it or not, it was my kids' paper routes, which I hated mightily and to this day still rejoice that they are over). I also think it is helpful to tell yourself you are going to remember your dreams--but maybe you've already tried this. Can you lay in bed in the morning without leaping up? Sometimes this helps me to hold onto the emotional tenor of the dream, which helps me to recover a detail or two, which helps me to recover the mood or the narrative.

Good luck with that! Writers definitely need their dreams.

Louise Plummer said...

Set your alarm clock for three in the morning. Have pen and paper ready. It works.

Ashley Harward said...

I had no solution to your problem. So I'm glad others did. :)

My dreams go in spurts- where I remember them so vividly for a couple of weeks; and then nothing for another couple of weeks.

Good Luck!