Dreams???

[Lightwarrior]

I have dreams, they say that you don't remember your dreams unless you wake up right after or in the middle of. I have always been able to change the direction a dream is going unless I take vicodin... and then I have really dark dreams that I can't change. So...problem solved I don't take vicodin.

[Al]

I can't take MTX, but I can tell you that the pred can have a large effect. While I had no memorable dreams in the hospital (probably because any kind of sleeping was impossible, as they come around regularly to check vitals, draw lodd, or simply to ask, "are you resting comfortably, sir?"), they started in earnest when I got home. Immense, complex, long-form dreams that often carried the narrative arc through as many as four sequential dreams. (I would wake up, write down the story, fall asleep, wake up to right down the sequel, etc.) Many of them were dreams within dreams, and they were always extremely vivid. These were the first dreams I had ever remembered that engaged all sensory modalities, including proprioception. A couple even came with a soundtrack (the most memorable was a Johnny Cash guitar/voice tune, the refrain of which I can hear in my head to this day; ironically, I knew that I was in a dream, and thought I needed to get out, but I couldn't do it, until Johnny Cash and the smell of new-cut timber saved me!). A Jungian would have a field day with these puppies. Though the dreams have become much less memorable sense the pred dose came down, their vividness has diminished only a little. By the way, my liver tests have always been boring, even after I started AZA.

Dreams are interesting phenomena. My own conjecture is that they have everything to do with a built-in module that we all have: a narration generator. But that is another long tangent....

[me2]

Al, you have a juke box in your dream room? Nice.
WG uses up lots of Johnny Cash. ha
I've had a wiff of my own pine box- that was a wake up.

I have been with working with a Jungian analyst for several months now and he has told me he has written me up as a case study in a book that is almost done. He is going to let me peruse it before submitting it. I use my dreams to help guide my treatment- try submitting THAT to an insurance company. I don't know what he tells them but I'm still approved to go.
It has been an interesting journey of seeing what my dream land thinks of my earthly situation and the dialogue that resulted.
So its official now , I'm crazy enough to be written up.

Seriously though , my dreams have at times been very helpful and especially in pivotal times.

[Al]

Al, you have a juke box in your dream room? Nice.
WG uses up lots of Johnny Cash. ha I've had a wiff of my own pine box- that was a wake up....So its official now , I'm crazy enough to be written up.

Nice going, Kirk! You surely deserve to be a case study.

Ah, yes--smelling the ol' pine box, hangin' with the hangman, dancing with Styxian stars....We know those things. When you are on a first name basis and bending elbows with the ferryman, you tend to see things a little differently, yes? And this will show up in dreams every so often, I think.

My Johnny Cash song, by the way, was not one he ever sang, but one that came de novo out of my dream world. I still remember the the D and A chord ostinato. And, while I am familiar with the pine scent (both literally and metaphorically), the aroma of that dream was all red cedar and Doug fir....

Al

[annekat]

Sheesh, you Pacific Northwesters are really something. I wish I (also a PNWer, of course), could remember my dreams as well as you can, Al. I know they are equally vivid, with phenomena such as that song that would normally take hours to compose. But I don't write them down and am afraid if I tried, the memory would be fading as I write. Maybe should give it a shot, though. And Kirk, very cool! Another Olympia/Shelton brush with fame. Please let us know the name of the book when it comes out.

Anne

[me2]

Hi Anne,
Well, dream work isn't for everybody but it can be done by anybody who wants to. You might find the memory becoming more clear as you write also.I have had it go both ways. The work is equally usefull no matter which direction things seem to be heading at the time. I'll let you know the name of the book if I don't come out looking like some kind of kook- he has to stretch the truth a bit and make me look a little normal. I'm not even sure what the book is about - we talk about other things.
I upload my content and its up to him as to what he wants to make of it. Surely,it will be interesting and look at all the
un-billable hours of attention my dreams will be getting. ha

Cedar and Doug fir are two of the best scents out there Al. I've lived with them all my life. Seems more optimistic than my pine box too. Hey can you play that Johnny Cash song? How about giving some hints with the cords and I'll try and see what happens on my mountain dulcimer- just happens I can do A and D chords.

"I hear the train a comin' , its comin' down the track
Its Wegners with a boxcar full of 'I don't want it back'

[annekat]

"I hear the train a comin' , its comin' down the track
Its Wegners with a boxcar full of 'I don't want it back'

LOL. I can hear Johnny Cash singing that as I sit here. Maybe there is a good impersonator among us?

As for Doug Fir and Western Red Cedar, YES! I can't smell anything right now, but faint whiffs of things can drift through my conscience, and I think it's possible I can smell in dreams!

Anne

[Dryhill]

We all dream three or four times a night, assuming not interrupted as Al experianced in hospital. The dream we normally remember is the last one just as we come out of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. As eating just before going to sleep seems to influence dreams it is no wonder that the meds we are on shouild do the same.

The best time to wake up is soon after a period of REM sleep as that is our lightest sleep pattern and one wakes feeling more refreshed than say waking when entering, or in REM sleep. There are electronic gizmos available to help work out when it is the best time to wake up - I understand that there is even an alarm clock that can be set to wake you in the morning when you enter the light sleep pattern.

Al, I love Johnny Cash music and think it would be awsome to have that in my dreams ............ oh no on second thoughts that could be a problem! I have the habit of talking in my sleep and often wake myself up, if I had Johnny Cash music in my sleep I would probably be woken up by my very, very poor attempts to sing along with the great man.

Jim

[Al]

LOL. I can hear Johnny Cash singing that as I sit here. Maybe there is a good impersonator among us?

As for Doug Fir and Western Red Cedar, YES! I can't smell anything right now, but faint whiffs of things can drift through my conscience, and I think it's possible I can smell in dreams!

Anne

Kirk and Anne: Yes, it is amazing what the smell of WRC and Doug Fir can do for everything that ails you--psychically, at least. In my Johnny Cash dream, it left me feeling empowered, where the rest of the very long dream up to that point was one where I controlled nothing, and nothing was cooperating. Funnily enough, I can still, er, visualize (smelluize?) the scent even now, months later. Johnny, or a very good sound-alike, had been singing low level in the background as the train I was on (how did you know?!) pulled out of the city into the forest. Tthe song itself I could not decipher; presumably my brain couldn't make up words fast enough. But the chords were a simple V-I-V-I-V-II-IV-V7-I, Now, at this point in the dream, it was music (refrain) up, V-I-IV-V-I chords, and the words were, "You've got a long, long way to go. Oh, yes, a long long way to go." Repeat, and I woke up. Memorable indeed. So, Kirk, the chords would have been D, A, and G(7). Knock yourself out!

Al

PS I, too, would be fascinated with the write-up when it comes out, whether or not (or maybe especially if) you are certifiable. Dreams are fascinating business, even though I am not a Freudian. I do know a few Jung types, however, who seem to fit in better with a modern sense of neurophysics.

[Al]

Jim, I like Johnny Cash, though I wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan. I think that, for purposes of my dream, my narrative generator picked him because of two covers I had worked with not long before: Bird on a wire, from the Weggie favorite Leonard Cohen (I used it as part of a presentation to some ornithologists--such is my twisted humor), and Waiting for a Train, originally sung by Jimmie Rogers. I think my brain had Johnny sing the particular tune in my dream, just because it was so simple to make up on the fly, which dreams have to do. Much easy than compose on such notice a Mahler-like symphony, say, or a Bach-like Fugue, don't you think?

Al