An Entry in the Miranda Psychology Encyclopedia

It's weird how dreams can be at different levels of intensity. In my Psychology classes, I learned that you dream during a certain cycle of sleep [when your REM cycle is strong or something?], but you go through different cycles and that's why you have different dreams. I've also heard that you are constantly dreaming at night, but simply don't remember them all. Some people don't remember any. I think I remember Andrew recalling about three dreams, and we've been seeing each other for over eight months. How's that for a ratio?

Is it a genetic trait or some kind of brainwave that makes a person more able to remember dreams? I remember my dreams all of the time! For example, four nights ago, Beavis and Butthead Do America played on the living room screen. I fell asleep, of course, but while my mind processed the fact that I was falling asleep, it thought that a dream I started having was, in fact, reality. I had these dreams about a month ago [shortly after I started working at BigFoot] where I would wake up and think I was literally making someone a coffee drink. I'm not sure if I was stirring the air with my finger or anything, but it was so incredibly real.

The "dream" I had that night was that Andrew was making the dogs a Snickers espresso shake. Apparently this is okay in my book, except it is necessary for the peanut butter to be sugar free instead of sugar-riddled. With a slight error of ingredient, he put the sugar-riddled flavour into the blender and I woke up yelling at Andrew asking, "Why isn't it SUGAR FREE?!"

Like I was saying, there are different intensity levels of dreaming and it's strange to experience different ones. In the Miranda Psychology Encyclopedia, the chapter on Dream Intensity Levels is as follows:

1.) The Non-Dream. These dreams are what Andrew [and many other people] experience on a nightly basis. It is a feeling of deep relaxation where the mind is completely blank. This doesn't happen very often to me because I am completely random, possibly have an acute case of ADD, and am always curious about anything and everything. Irrelevant as these facts may be, the Non-Dream is a filler. You wake up the next morning, a few hours later, or whenever you decided to sleep, and you can't remember actually experiencing sleep. It is more of a subconscious time warp than anything.

2.) The Semi-Dream. There is a theory that if you keep a journal ["diary," "log," whatever word you choose] next to your bed [or wherever you decide to sleep] and you reach for it the second you wake up and write down whatever details--big or small--you can remember, the better your dream memory will be. Some people have a horrible dream memory and some people just experience these Semi-Dreams every once in a while, but it goes a little something like this: you wake up in the morning and think, "That was the strangest dream!" You roll out of bed and into your brown fuzzy slippers and matching brown fuzzy robe, let the dogs outside, make a stop in the bathroom for contacts ["All the better to see you with, my dear!"], get dressed and ready for the day with well done hair and make-up. If there is time, you have breakfast. If not, you let the dogs back in and are out the door and off to wherever you are going [for example: work at a coffee stand]. After all this, you recall that you had the strangest dream last night, but can't remember any of the details. You try and try and try but can't seem to recollect any of it. Dropping it as if there was no dream actually dreamt, you go along with your work day as normal. A customer pulls up and asks for a Sugar Free Peppermint Mocha. *GASP!* Something familiar in this situation. You think to yourself, "What could it be... ...oh yes! I had a dream about a sugar free drink." These Semi-Dreams come back only after something triggers an unusual detail. Most often, the dreams are lacking in description but are only a summary of what you actually dreamt.

3.) Basic Dreams. Everyone knows what this is. You wake up and remember everything. You tell all your friends that you dreamt you were naked in church or you found a bag of cash on the ground. Recalling what happened in these dreams brings back the feeling you felt when having them. You think about your dream and you feel embarrassed and confused as to why you were naked, or you feel excited about the cash and then disappointed when you awoke without. No in-depth description needed for these dreams.

4.) Reality Dreams. An example of this would be me waking up and yelling at Andrew for making the drinks wrong, or waking up thinking I was actually making someone a drink. These dreams have such a concentrated intensity that they jump from the sleep-world into the real-world; they are so emotionally powerful that they have no limits as to what they can make you believe is actually happening. The dreams where you wake up in a sweat, panting, and possibly screaming for help as you run away from someone [and of course end up being the snail of all runners] are also Reality Dreams. I also consider Fever Dreams to be in this category. When I was younger and was either sick or had a fever, I would have the same couple dreams over and over. They were basic [I'm an ant in a bird's nest trying to bring a piece of dirt into the middle of the nest, or I'm a tiny sliver of a white line in a grey-slab world and there is a massive black hair cluster after me--both dreams being absolutely silent with the only noises being scratching of people/things moving] but they were so intense that I would wake up in a sweat and hide under my blankets until morning or until someone came in to check on me.

5.) Lucid Dreams. These are my personal favourite. The theory about increasing your dream memory by writing them down as often as you can also states that it can increase your chances of experiencing a lucid dream. Have you ever literally pinched yourself in your dream and realized you were dreaming? ...Or you think, "How did I get here? This doesn't make sense..." and you think back to exactly how you got there and you can't remember so you know that you are dreaming? When you are in a dream and know you're dreaming and you don't wake up right away, you are lucid dreaming. You can literally do whatever you want to in this dream. I have flown, had telekinesis [and used it for hilarious stuff], beat people up that piss me off in real life, and said and did things that I would never do in real life. It's hard to understand what it is until you experience one for yourself. It is quite literally a parallel universe where there are endless possibilities and no limits to what you can do.

[How many times did I say "literally"? NOTE: I put the quotation marks on the inside of the question mark because what was quoted was not part of a question. It drives me INSANE when people put the quotes on the inside for no reason other than the fact that it "looks better." Because most of the time, it doesn't. At least when you've had a few English classes and can easily double check punctuation problems online: Quotation Marks Punctuation Rules].

My main points are: there are a bunch of different dreams with different intensities, I've experienced them all, and they are quite amazing. If you haven't experienced them all, start writing down your dreams right when you wake up so that you possibly can.