From: rfritz@zeus.calpoly.edu (Ryan E. Fritz)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: Some Comments/Questions
Keywords: Bilingual dreams, lucid dreams, friends dying
Date: 5 Jan 93 03:13:35 GMT
Organization: Psychotic Computer Geeks, Inc.

In alt.dreams, mcovingt@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Maiko Covington) spewed:
>
>(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?

Although I would not consider myself truly bilingual, I do speak Spanish.  I
do relatively good at understanding the language, however, I often struggle
in real life to find the correct words to use.  It seems, though, that in my
dreams, I have no problem speaking spanish.  It all just flows out, and from
what I remember, it is correct and says what I want to say.  Kind of
interesting.  I don't really know why it is this way.

>(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.

I started keeping a "dream log" about the middle of November.  I kept it by
my bed, along with a note that said "REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS!".  I used to
hardly ever recall dreams, but more and more I am remembering them.  Lately
I can recall an average of a dream every other night (and even surprised
myself one morning when I remember two dreams!).  Just before Christmas, I
had my first lucid dream, which was fantastic.  It just happened, though.  I
try reality checks thoughout the day, but just can't get myself to do them
while I'm dreaming... but in this dream I was flying around with a Pepsi can
in my hand.  For some reason I knew that as long as I had this can I could
fly.  I had a friend of mine grabbing on to me, and we flew around above the
city.  It suddenly hit me, and I looked at my friend and told her that I was
having a cool dream.  I remember getting really excited just over the fact
that I realized I was dreaming... however, I really didn't have control
over where we went.  At one point in the dream we were on about the 10th
floor of a building, and some big scary guy was running toward us.  I still
had the can in my hand, so I somehow knew I could fly.  I opened up a
window and jumped out, fell for a few feet, and then started floating again.
At one point I wanted to cross this little bay.  I floated up about 15 feet
above the water, and started to cross it.  I got about half way across,
and then thought to myself "Wait, you're not allowed to float over water."
(I don't know why I thought this - I just did.)  Just as that thought came
to mind, my friend and I fell into the water.  The Pepsi can flew out of my
hand so then I was positive I would not be able to fly again.  Fortunately
I found that I was able to breathe under the water - but unfortunately, my
friend could not.  She shrunk into a worm-like thing and died.  :-(  I then
woke up.  I was so happy about flying in my dream and at least realizing I
was dreaming at the time, that I just began writing away in my dream log.  I
had overlooked the death of my friend until I came to that part while
writing.

Up until this dream, most of my dreams had just been bizarre thoughts and
memories that were scrambled.  This dream, though, was different in that
a lot of it seemed like it was generated (as opposed to being memories).
There weren't too many places in the dream that I could recognize or that
looked the least bit familiar.  The part about my friend dying scares me.
Does this mean that perhaps deep down I'd like her dead?  Why else would my
mind generate such a thought?  Or are dreams usually just random thoughts
and it has nothing to do with what I really feel?

-- 
Ryan E. Fritz
rfritz@zeus.calpoly.edu