Now available in the Sleep and Dream Database are hundreds of new dream reports gathered as part of a demographic survey of 2252 American adults, conducted via online questionnaires administered by Harris Interactive. I designed the survey to focus on three types of dreams that people often report with special frequency and/or intensity: Work dreams, lucid dreams, and visitation dreams. I’ve just begun reading through the narratives, and they’re fascinating–I invite anyone who’s curious to take a look at the dreams for yourself, and let me know what patterns you see. (Update: I’m having some server issues, if you can’t access the site I’m sorry, please try again later and I should have it fixed.)
The work dreams are answers to the question, “Have you ever dreamed about your job or a situation at work?” I’ve created a sample word search for the female work dreams and male work dreams, including all reports of five or more words. For the most part these do not seem to be happy dreams.
The lucid dreams are answers to the question, “Have you ever dreamed that you were aware of being within a dream?” I’ve created a sample word search for the female lucid dreams and male lucid dreams, including all reports of five or more words. At a minimum, these dreams testify to the frequency of lucid dreaming experiences among the general American public.
The visitation dreams are answers to the question, “Have you ever dreamed about someone who is dead appearing as if they were still alive?” I’ve created a sample word search for the female visitation dreams and male visitation dreams, including all reports of five or more words. These kinds of dreams have played a big role in cross-cultural religious history, and I’m interested to study their occurrence among present-day Americans.
The survey also included questions about dream recall, nights of insomnia per week, and several other questions about demographic background (age, race, education, income, political ideology, religious worship, etc.). These data, too, are available for you to study however you wish (although you may find it a little tricky–I’m still working on bugs in the SDDb system). I’ll write soon about my initial findings with these demographic variables as they relate to patterns of sleep and dreaming.
My husband of 44 yrs. died nine months ago. He was an agnostic and a total skeptic about an after life. Before he passed, I asked him to let me know in some way if there is something else beyond death. I have received three visitation dreams from him. The first one was July 3, at 6:15 am, the second was Sept. 22, at 6:15 am, and the third was on Sept.. 24, at 7 am. They were very vivid and involved, touch, sound, feeling of pressure on the bed and talking with him. I asked him if there was something beyond death, and he said yes, but it was very confusing and complicated.. I asked him if he was ok, and he said yes. He was very ill with cancer for two years, but he appears as a young healthy vision of who he was. I have kept a journal of the specifics of each dream so that I can remember the details. The dreams are very comforting. and I welcome them. I talk to my husband and ask him to come and visit me. The second visit came as a result of a direct request the night before he appeared. I have always been receptive to the paranormal, but I am not a true believer in visitation dreams.
My husband of 44 yrs. died nine months ago. He was an agnostic and a total skeptic about an after life. Before he passed, I asked him to let me know in some way if there is something else beyond death. I have received three visitation dreams from him. The first one was July 3, at 6:15 am, the second was Sept. 22, at 6:15 am, and the third was on Sept.. 24, at 7 am. They were very vivid and involved, touch, sound, feeling of pressure on the bed and talking with him. I asked him if there was something beyond death, and he said yes, but it was very confusing and complicated.. I asked him if he was ok, and he said yes. He was very ill with cancer for two years, but he appears as a young healthy vision of who he was. I have kept a journal of the specifics of each dream so that I can remember the details. The dreams are very comforting. and I welcome them. I talk to my husband and ask him to come and visit me. The second visit came as a result of a direct request the night before he appeared. I have always been receptive to the paranormal, but I am NOW a true believer in visitation dreams.
I can almost always control my dreams in the morning… I can’t control normal dreams during the night when I’m tired… but after I wake up in the morning or in the afternoon if I’m not too tired, I can close my eyes and think about what I was dreaming about or what I want to dresam about and purposely enter or re-enter the dream and control almost everything in the dream. I can delete people like on a computer or add things or just switch to something entirely different…if i want to fly.. i fly…or go fishing… I just go fishing… whatever I choose at the time i can do. Sometimes I feel my eyes moving really fast… and at the time I know I’m dreaming and my eyes are moving fast and I know I’m in my bed and everything else you’d know about when you’re awake… it’s basically like being awake and asleep at the same time and fully conscious of both…slowly the real life consciousness can fall away in to dreaming without consciousness. I can’t control everything because sometimes I try to wake up and it takes me a while to make myself wake up… but when I do, i think “finally.. I woke myself up… that took a while” and I remember the dream clearly and the time I spent trying to wake up..I’ve always been interested in dreams and I wonder what percentage of people can do that? I love it and it makes me look forward to dreaming which is excellent… but it would be nice to know if it is a unique ability.