Sleep, sleep
Dec. 19th, 2008 07:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteYuuko from xxxHolic's got it right-- humans are the most fascinating creatures in the universe! The human brain is just downright weird.
I believe that every human has a very small, very specific range of time in which, if they get X hours of sleep, they will awaken fully rested. "Studies show" this, and "surveys say" that, but I think it does vary from person to person, no matter what a required minimum or average amount of sleep is.
For me, it's definitely not four hours. Of course, my sleep schedule's gone to high heaven lately-- as is wont to do on an official "winter break," with no more schoolwork to worry about. It also doesn't help that the best things on Spike TV tend to be on from 12am-4am.
Anyway, I have a dentist's appointment at 8:45am (!), which is why I'm up so early, why I set the alarm for "annoy," and so on.
To go back to sleeping and related subjects, I think that dreams are a particularly interesting facet of the human brain. Sure, other creatures "dream," but we assign MEANING to them... sometimes. I think dreams can fall into a few categories:
(1) Brain sorting through life events - not necessarily events that are real (you could have seen them on TV, imagined them while reading a book, etc.), events that happened to you (vicarious living FTW!), or events that happened recently. These dreams have distinct elements that you can recognize, even if it's something general like a particular city that you can recognize or a person you know. Often even if you have a LOT of life events, they'll be a big mish-mash of all the ones I mentioned above. That might make it harder to recognize everything. But I'd say this is just "brain process" and not necessarily anything indicative-- no "hidden messages" necessarily, any more than emptying out your trash at the end of a week reveals secrets about you.
...but it can! Especially if you stress about a particular scenario. Your brain can step in and convert that stress into images-- and then you get recurring dream types, like flying, falling, being chased, etc. Even if your dream seems as though it has no connection with whatever you may have been thinking about before you went to bed or whatever occupied your thoughts/feelings the most as of late, there's a chance that a clear-minded breakdown of the dream's elements will reveal insight.
(2) Brain doing the sorting for you - Like the above, except your brain presents things to you in a clear format. You understand your dream because your brain's broken it down for you. This is usually more one "dream source" than another-- you either dream entirely about a situation based off something you saw in a movie/on TV/read in a book/etc., or you dream entirely about something that actually happened (whether to you or not). Usually the elements won't mix unless there's a damn good reason.
I'd say fantasies fall into this category. Usually fantasies involve a certain amount of one's personal "reality" --their own appearance, daily activities, and whatnot, but after a certain point, the fantasy elements dominate. You recognize the dream as a fantasy, as something that can make you happy, because it's got all these unrealistic elements and just that one tiny thing that isn't "unrealistic" necessarily-- you.
(3) Brain generating bizarre - Because it's the brain, even if it's yours, it's not yours to control. That's why you can dream and not necessarily KNOW you are dreaming, and therefore you can lack the awareness to wake yourself up from a nightmare. This has elements of the other two types I mentioned above (like realistic things you recognize, or fantasy things that could never happen), but it's mainly a matter of your brain spewing out who the hell knows what because it can.
I would say that the dream I had this morning was of this third type.
I dreamed I was making some sort of delivery. I think whatever I was delivering was in a white box in a bag, but it wasn't a gift that I was giving to anyone else.
I was walking in a neighborhood that seemed to resemble the stretch of Stockton St. here in San Francisco, heading up toward Chinatown. It's not an area I'm in usually, not one I've been in since I've been back in S.F., and not one you'd commonly see on TV, or associate with something you'd seen on TV.
A young black man-- maybe 19 years old; for some reason my brain supplied that number and now no other one seems right-- started following me. At first, I didn't think anything of it: he was dressed normally enough (t-shirt and baggy jeans), and he has a pleasant smile-- I guess in the way Freddy Kreuger has a nice smile. But as I walked faster, so did he, and that's when I got worried.
Still having a ways to go, I stepped into a liquor store to get a drink. New habit of mine-- drinking AriZona green tea in the big 23 oz. cans. I like the classing Ginseng + Honey flavor best, but the pomegranate, Georgia peach, and a few other flavors are okay. I'll pass on the Red Apple one, though. Too sweet.
The black kid was standing at the register, and for a split second, we made eye contact despite all my efforts to avoid it (after the first time and his smile gave me the heebie-jeebies). I started to duck my head, thinking "forget about it" for the tea, and suddenly the kid pulls a gun out of the front of his pants and is robbing the liquor store. I get the hell out of there --package still in hand-- and start walk-running without looking back. I'm afraid if I look back, he'll be close behind me, wanting to kill me because I saw his face clearly.
I ran to the left (I was on the left side of the street, going against traffic) and ducked into a doorway of a very plain gray building. Turns out it was the store half of a dance studio or something-- there were lots of glittery, little girls' dance outfits there, all hung up on racks, and some on the floor. I made my way through all of this, sure that the guy might still be chasing me. I wasn't sure if I needed to hide or just keep running-- make my delivery already.
I remember getting upstairs and seeing the dance studio part-- big open space with just mirrored walls and bars attached to them-- and then I woke up.
...WTF, Self? (Side note: I sincerely hope that my tendency to have specific dreams --about how a person looks and such-- doesn't make me come off as racist or anything. I'm just retelling my dream as I remember it, because it may end up being important or significant after all.)
I believe that every human has a very small, very specific range of time in which, if they get X hours of sleep, they will awaken fully rested. "Studies show" this, and "surveys say" that, but I think it does vary from person to person, no matter what a required minimum or average amount of sleep is.
For me, it's definitely not four hours. Of course, my sleep schedule's gone to high heaven lately-- as is wont to do on an official "winter break," with no more schoolwork to worry about. It also doesn't help that the best things on Spike TV tend to be on from 12am-4am.
Anyway, I have a dentist's appointment at 8:45am (!), which is why I'm up so early, why I set the alarm for "annoy," and so on.
To go back to sleeping and related subjects, I think that dreams are a particularly interesting facet of the human brain. Sure, other creatures "dream," but we assign MEANING to them... sometimes. I think dreams can fall into a few categories:
(1) Brain sorting through life events - not necessarily events that are real (you could have seen them on TV, imagined them while reading a book, etc.), events that happened to you (vicarious living FTW!), or events that happened recently. These dreams have distinct elements that you can recognize, even if it's something general like a particular city that you can recognize or a person you know. Often even if you have a LOT of life events, they'll be a big mish-mash of all the ones I mentioned above. That might make it harder to recognize everything. But I'd say this is just "brain process" and not necessarily anything indicative-- no "hidden messages" necessarily, any more than emptying out your trash at the end of a week reveals secrets about you.
...but it can! Especially if you stress about a particular scenario. Your brain can step in and convert that stress into images-- and then you get recurring dream types, like flying, falling, being chased, etc. Even if your dream seems as though it has no connection with whatever you may have been thinking about before you went to bed or whatever occupied your thoughts/feelings the most as of late, there's a chance that a clear-minded breakdown of the dream's elements will reveal insight.
(2) Brain doing the sorting for you - Like the above, except your brain presents things to you in a clear format. You understand your dream because your brain's broken it down for you. This is usually more one "dream source" than another-- you either dream entirely about a situation based off something you saw in a movie/on TV/read in a book/etc., or you dream entirely about something that actually happened (whether to you or not). Usually the elements won't mix unless there's a damn good reason.
I'd say fantasies fall into this category. Usually fantasies involve a certain amount of one's personal "reality" --their own appearance, daily activities, and whatnot, but after a certain point, the fantasy elements dominate. You recognize the dream as a fantasy, as something that can make you happy, because it's got all these unrealistic elements and just that one tiny thing that isn't "unrealistic" necessarily-- you.
(3) Brain generating bizarre - Because it's the brain, even if it's yours, it's not yours to control. That's why you can dream and not necessarily KNOW you are dreaming, and therefore you can lack the awareness to wake yourself up from a nightmare. This has elements of the other two types I mentioned above (like realistic things you recognize, or fantasy things that could never happen), but it's mainly a matter of your brain spewing out who the hell knows what because it can.
I would say that the dream I had this morning was of this third type.
I dreamed I was making some sort of delivery. I think whatever I was delivering was in a white box in a bag, but it wasn't a gift that I was giving to anyone else.
I was walking in a neighborhood that seemed to resemble the stretch of Stockton St. here in San Francisco, heading up toward Chinatown. It's not an area I'm in usually, not one I've been in since I've been back in S.F., and not one you'd commonly see on TV, or associate with something you'd seen on TV.
A young black man-- maybe 19 years old; for some reason my brain supplied that number and now no other one seems right-- started following me. At first, I didn't think anything of it: he was dressed normally enough (t-shirt and baggy jeans), and he has a pleasant smile-- I guess in the way Freddy Kreuger has a nice smile. But as I walked faster, so did he, and that's when I got worried.
Still having a ways to go, I stepped into a liquor store to get a drink. New habit of mine-- drinking AriZona green tea in the big 23 oz. cans. I like the classing Ginseng + Honey flavor best, but the pomegranate, Georgia peach, and a few other flavors are okay. I'll pass on the Red Apple one, though. Too sweet.
The black kid was standing at the register, and for a split second, we made eye contact despite all my efforts to avoid it (after the first time and his smile gave me the heebie-jeebies). I started to duck my head, thinking "forget about it" for the tea, and suddenly the kid pulls a gun out of the front of his pants and is robbing the liquor store. I get the hell out of there --package still in hand-- and start walk-running without looking back. I'm afraid if I look back, he'll be close behind me, wanting to kill me because I saw his face clearly.
I ran to the left (I was on the left side of the street, going against traffic) and ducked into a doorway of a very plain gray building. Turns out it was the store half of a dance studio or something-- there were lots of glittery, little girls' dance outfits there, all hung up on racks, and some on the floor. I made my way through all of this, sure that the guy might still be chasing me. I wasn't sure if I needed to hide or just keep running-- make my delivery already.
I remember getting upstairs and seeing the dance studio part-- big open space with just mirrored walls and bars attached to them-- and then I woke up.
...WTF, Self? (Side note: I sincerely hope that my tendency to have specific dreams --about how a person looks and such-- doesn't make me come off as racist or anything. I'm just retelling my dream as I remember it, because it may end up being important or significant after all.)
