From: creubank@is.crl.sony.co.jp (Curtis Eubanks)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: Some Comments/Questions
Date: 28 Dec 92 04:08:43 GMT
Reply-To: creubank@is.crl.sony.co.jp (Curtis Eubanks)
Organization: Sony Corporation, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan.
X-Bytes: 4576

In article <42871@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> mcovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Maiko Covington) writes:

 |(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 have the same experience.  My girlfriend is Taiwanese and we usually
communicate in Chinese or Japanese.  She can speak some English, but
not fluent by any stretch of the imagination.  I had a dream once
where she was speaking to me in completely fluent English.  (Bikkuri
shita! Mou!)

I have also had dreams where my college Chinese teachers came back (to
haunt me?).  I was speaking to them in Chinese, but whenever I
didn't know a word, I said the word in Japanese instead and they
would then start conversing with me in Japanese.  

In other dreams I sometimes talk to Westerners in Japanese instead of
English.  Sometimes they understand, sometimes not.  I'm not sure why
I speak to them in Japanese.  During normal waking hours I often
make up long dialogues in Japanese in my head.  Maybe that has
something to do with it.

 |(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 don't know--- Even before I could read Chinese characters I would
read *a lot* in English in my dreams.  Some dreams would just consist
of a reading session.  Quite enjoyable for me.  If I didn't reread any
passages, I might not even figure out I was dreaming.  Rereading a
passage or sentence nearly always resulted in different words on the
page.

About Chinese characters---sometimes in my dreams I will see some
pretty complicated characters that don't really exist (at least I
don't think they do) in real life.  I wish I could remember them
better---usually I can't only remember a few radicals (character
components) of them after I wake up.  Pretty interesting though.

 |(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.
 |
 |	  Maiko Covington            mcovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu

I used to be able to lucid dream at will.  Recently I have been trying
to revive this ability with not so much luck.  I went 100% lucid last
night, but after about 5-10 seconds I woke up.  I've been under a lot
of stress at work lately, so that probably has something to do with
it.  I'll try to join everyone on the S.S.Dreamer during the New
Years' Vacation.  How successful has the experiment been so far?


The night before last during the course of a normal dream I found I
couldn't breathe.  Some dream character was talking to me (or perhaps
threatening me), but I had to ignore him since I was dying.
I started getting scared and going crazy running all around.  I
hypothesized this caused a release of adrenaline (I couldn't get to
sleep for quite a while afterwards).  When I woke up, I discovered

    1.  my nose was completely stopped up (it was cold!)
    2.  I had not been breathing through my mouth because the
	(insert-appropriate-anatomical-term-for-the-thingie-that-
         blocks-your-throat) was down.  The same thing causes snoring
	 I suppose.

I believe the term for this is "sleep apnea."  I wonder what would
have happened if I had not woken up...

				-Curtis Eubanks
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Curtis Eubanks                   creubank@is.crl.sony.co.jp

Sony Information Systems and Telecommunications Research Laboratories
                       Information Systems Division
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