From: miket@hermes.tcs.com (Michael Turner nmscore Assoc.)
Subject: Re: Some Comments/Questions
Organization: Teknekron Communications Inc.
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 00:20:53 GMT

In article <42871@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> mcovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Maiko Covington) writes:
>
>Hello. I just started reading this group and thought I'd make a few
>comments/questions.
>....
>(3) Languages in dreams.... I am bilingual (Japanese and English)
>and I dream in both languages, often mixed together. In my dreams,
>there will be people who I know in real life only speak English,
>speaking Japanese (or the other way round). If there are other
>bilingual dreamers out there... does this happen with your dreams
>too, or do you tend to stick to one language for one dream? Do people
>speak the 'correct' language in your dreams?

I am not bilingual, but I have studied Japanese a little.  I once
spoke Japanese in a dream, because I was talking to someone who
was Japanese.  I was surprised, upon waking, that I could do this,
and considered it a real step forward.  (Now I'm not so sure....)

Other true bilinguals I've known have reported the same confusion
that you have.  One woman I know met the man who is now her husband
at a time when she was quite interested in her dreams.  She spoke
almost no French, and he no English, so for awhile, the only time
she could understand him was when he spoke English in her dreams.
As they both began to learn the other's language, there was some
alternation.

I believe there is a theory that second languages (and subsequent
ones) are neurally localized differently from first languages.
Maybe dream personalities just hook into whichever random speech centers
they can regardless of which language they are bound to in real life.
It's even possible that conversing with them in *their* native language
makes the speech centers in your brain that are associated with that
language less available to them, increasing the chance that they will
resort to others, to your surprise.

How often has a single-language personality spoken another language
when he/she was the first to speak, as opposed to when they were
responding to something you said in their language?  Did the
conversation tend to alternate between languages, or just stay with
one?

>(4) Reading in dreams.... I have found that often I will be reading
>signs, etc. in my dreams. I have noticed that I see mostly signs
>written in Chinese characters in my dreams as opposed to things
>written in English. I had seen somewhere that people who can read
>Chinese characters often will dream of reading more than those who
>don't simply because characters are a 'sight reading' sort of
>pattern recognition as opposed to phonics. Anyone else heard of
>this? Unfortunately I never seem to remember to look at the signs
>twice to see if they change. ^_^

I think it might have more to do with the number of different characters
and patterns.  There is a model of dreaming called "activation-synthesis",
based on the observation that the brain is internally generating random
stimuli ("activation"), which it unconsciously interprets and assembles
("synthesis") into more reasonable percepts based on patterns learned
in waking life.  With a much larger number of characters, it's more
likely that some random stimulus will be interpreted as a character,
and hence you will have more reading dreams.  If most of the characters
you know are Chinese, then maybe you will see more of them dreaming 
Just a theory, of course, but it seems to cover a lot of cases.

There is also recent research linking REM sleep with learning.  Since
students in China and Japan have to spend a lot of their study time
learning characters, and since dreams apparently help consolidate
learned skills, maybe there will be a tendency to recall previous
consolidation-dreams with characters in them.

>(6) The lucid dreaming threads are quite fascinating. I have only
>had a few lucid dreams which seemed to occur spontaneously (I can't
>think "I want to have a lucid dream" and then have one). I do recall
>several dreams per night, and like to write them down in a notebook.
>I find them to be a good source of plots and characters for writing.

If you are having them spontaneously, then deciding that you want to
have more of them should increase the number you have.  Unfortunately,
it can then become something to be frustrated about, instead of just an
interesting thing once in awhile.  It depends on how good you are at it.

>	Maiko Covington            mcovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu