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I used to dream a lot as a kid. Somewhere along the way that basically stopped happening. It’s come back somewhat in mid life but not with the intensity and s

I used to dream a lot as a kid. Somewhere along the way that basically stopped happening. It’s come back somewhat in mid life but not with the intensity and sticking power that dreams in youth had.

avereveard 4y ago
Try studying a subject in real depth for six month, that caused me resume dreaming
- Llamamoe 4y ago
  This is sort of what I've been dreading myself, that my loss of dreams has been the consequence of a monotone, miserable life.
  - avereveard 4y ago
    I have no way nor intention to judge your life. I think it's more about knowledge pressure than monotonous life. you can be havein an exciting life and never exercise your thinking muscles, and a miserable life while learning new things every day, and all variation in between. as a matter of fact, the six month where I had to learn thousand pages per week were some of the most miserable I had in the last two years because job kept me away from my newborn, it did a number on my health, and I'm barely returning to normal right now.
  - detourdog 4y ago
    I definitely associate hard thinking with a tighter connection to my subconscious.
coldtea 4y ago
Dreaming also depends on sleep quality and REM cycles. Bad sleep, caffeine, etc, can all reduce or eliminate dreaming...
- technocratius 4y ago
  Alcohol and marijuana particularly inhibit REM sleep and dreaming
  - hungryforcodes 4y ago
    Can't quite believe that...references?
    - coldtea 4y ago
      This is like saying you can't believe gravity exists and need references. I mean, haven't checked about weed as I don't use it, but about alcohol it's one of the most well know facts about it, and there are tons of studies, and mentions in every major work about sleep quality, academic or layman level... https://sleep.me/post/alcohol-and-sleep https://sleep.me/post/alcohol-and-sleep https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/alcohol-and-sleep https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/alcohol-and-sleep https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821259/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821259/ https://thesleepdoctor.com/alcohol-and-sleep/ https://thesleepdoctor.com/alcohol-and-sleep/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073429/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073429/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25499829/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25499829/ Limit alcohol, because alcohol is not a sleep aid, contrary to popular belief. While it might help induce sleep, “alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM [rapid-eye-movement] sleep,” Walker says: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316 https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501...
- tgv 4y ago
  And, unfortunately, the article doesn't mention any of it. The obvious prediction is: people who don't dream, don't generalize. But the author slyly slinks away from that by saying that "it is likely that adult humans already have well-fitted perceptual models", leaving a bunch of predictions that don't really address the hypothesis, but will be claimed as support when they turn out true anyway. Basically, it's a very badly reviewed article.
jadbox 4y ago
I have a wild pet theory that drinking caffeine consistently prevents people from dreaming. Antidoteally, people that I meet that avoid regular caffeine seem to report having dreams on a regular basis. Conversely, the people I know that drink a lot of caffeine seem to say that they never remember their dreams. I've also noted today many people who take cannabis regularly also do not dream often.
- bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
  I think it is somewhat scientific at this point that cannabis prevents dreams (or at least the memory of them upon waking). And going off weed can lead to much more vivid dreams until one is once again acclimated to being weed-free.
  - arcanemachiner 4y ago
    I wonder if there's some sort of neurological catch-up that's being played while this occurs.
- rubicon33 4y ago
  Not sure if you will read this but wanted to let you know that I found your theory intriguing and decided to cut caffeine to test. First day light headache. Second day onward totally fine. Dreams are back!! Not kidding at all. Over the last few days I’ve had much more vivid and sticking dreams. Some of them bad, but dreams nonetheless! Thanks for putting forth this theory. I will be reducing my caffeine intake permanently. I beleive dreaming is a healthy part of being alive, and I’ve been missing it.
- quenix 4y ago
  Let me then be the first in your contradictory sample. I drink caffeine more than ever and have consistently been experiencing a higher number of vivid dreams in the past year or so.
  - messe 4y ago
    Same here. I also find I have more vivid dreams if I'm dehydrated or hungover, do you find the same? (And to add another factor, do you drink alcohol?)
swalling 4y ago
Apparently young children have more REM sleep (the stage when dreams and nightmares happen) than adults. Babies actually spend half their time in REM sleep (https://www.sleepfoundation.org/baby-sleep/baby-sleep-cycle https://www.sleepfoundation.org/baby-sleep/baby-sleep-cycle) before they develop adult sleep cycles, which makes me wonder what a newborn baby dreams about.
- drekipus 4y ago
  Boobies. Lots and lots of boobies. And toys probably.
  - KMag 4y ago
    I hope so, but my son definitely seemed to have several nightmares, waking visibly frightened and crying before he was 9 months old. I don't know what kind of nightmares he'd have, as I don't think I ever saw him frightened when awake, and he only cried when he was hungry. (Such an easy baby to take care of, though I needed to manually check his diaper. If he was crying, he was definitely hungry. Apparently many babies cry if they've wet their diaper.) His nightmare were presumably hunger and/or abandonment. My son also seems to share my abnormal reaction to pain... beyond a fairly tolerable threshold, I go numb. I know I've injured myself somewhat seriously if I feel quickly rising pain followed by numbness. When my tooth got knocked loose, it went numb. The three times I've sprained ankles (once in the woods, 3 days form the nearest hill with cell phone coverage), my ankles have gone numb. The time the cartilage in my nose tore from the bone, it also went numb. Ditto for the time I burned my finger while arc welding (though, I think that time I killed the dentrite back to my spine and it had to grow back out). My son takes a tough fall and other parents look at me like they expect my son is going to cry, and my son just gets up and keeps playing. So, I don't think his nightmare were about pain, either.
    - somenameforme 4y ago
      He just spent his entire life in a nice cozy temperature controlled pool with a constant IV of nutrients. Now he's been thrust into this dry liquidless, cold, world with intermittent nutrition. Kinda sucks if you think about it.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
Everyone has dreams. You must just not remember them.
Sharlin 4y ago
From the inside it’s impossible to distinguish "not having dreams" from "not remembering one’s dreams". From the outside it’s almost certainly the latter. REM almost certainly equals dreaming, and the lack of REM is a rare condition and pretty bad news.
spiffytech 4y ago
I noticed I have a lot more dreams since I replaced my bed with one that gives me better sleep.
gabythenerd 4y ago
I usually dream when I have slept really well for a few days. At least for me when my mind is tired I fall into dreamless sleep in a few seconds, instead of several minutes with a soft transition to dreaming.
sys32768 4y ago
When I started intermittent fasting and stopped eating after ~2 PM, my dreams became more vivid and felt longer.
ace2358 4y ago
My pet theory: just because you don’t ‘remember’ you dreams doesn’t mean you didn’t have them. This would result in wildly in accurate correlations (lack of coffee = more dreams, weed smokers = don’t dream). There are always counter examples to any correlation you can come up with which can’t be ignored. I’ve personally decided my conscience mind doesn’t need to bother myself with what my meatware is doing while I sleep. People tell me I don’t dream because I don’t remember them. I think that’s false. Sometimes I remember that I dreamed for a few seconds after a wake up, then it fades. I’ve rolled with it and intentionally forget my dreams. Not my (conscience kinda) business. When I wake it my turn to go get food and water so we can come back to sleep 18 hours later.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > People tell me I don’t dream because I don’t remember them. I think that’s false. Sometimes I remember that I dreamed for a few seconds after a wake up, then it fades. I have confirmed this with experiments - I have woken up in the night, written down my dream and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I couldn't remmeber a thing and the notes seemed like they were written by someone else. There was no 'yeah, i can sort of remmember it" - memory was totally blank. The experiment is fairly repeatable - not every night, but couple times a week.
- tracerbulletx 4y ago
  I thought this was common knowledge. If you google "does everyone dream" you will see about a million articles that say some variation of "we all dream every night but don't remember most of them". It's so common it's like one of those aphorisms or old wives tales you just hear everywhere.
superb-owl 4y ago
I wrote a bit about how to re-engage with your dreams here: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/active-dreaming-methods-habits-and https://superbowl.substack.com/p/active-dreaming-methods-hab... There are a bunch of different methods for stimulating dreams.

I used to dream a lot as a kid. Somewhere along the way that basically stopped happening. It’s come back somewhat in mid life but not with the intensity and sticking power that dreams in youth had.

avereveard 4y ago

Try studying a subject in real depth for six month, that caused me resume dreaming

Llamamoe 4y ago
This is sort of what I've been dreading myself, that my loss of dreams has been the consequence of a monotone, miserable life.
- avereveard 4y ago
  I have no way nor intention to judge your life. I think it's more about knowledge pressure than monotonous life. you can be havein an exciting life and never exercise your thinking muscles, and a miserable life while learning new things every day, and all variation in between. as a matter of fact, the six month where I had to learn thousand pages per week were some of the most miserable I had in the last two years because job kept me away from my newborn, it did a number on my health, and I'm barely returning to normal right now.
- detourdog 4y ago
  I definitely associate hard thinking with a tighter connection to my subconscious.

coldtea 4y ago

Dreaming also depends on sleep quality and REM cycles. Bad sleep, caffeine, etc, can all reduce or eliminate dreaming...

technocratius 4y ago
Alcohol and marijuana particularly inhibit REM sleep and dreaming
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  Can't quite believe that...references?
  - coldtea 4y ago
    This is like saying you can't believe gravity exists and need references. I mean, haven't checked about weed as I don't use it, but about alcohol it's one of the most well know facts about it, and there are tons of studies, and mentions in every major work about sleep quality, academic or layman level... https://sleep.me/post/alcohol-and-sleep https://sleep.me/post/alcohol-and-sleep https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/alcohol-and-sleep https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/alcohol-and-sleep https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821259/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5821259/ https://thesleepdoctor.com/alcohol-and-sleep/ https://thesleepdoctor.com/alcohol-and-sleep/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073429/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29073429/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25499829/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25499829/ Limit alcohol, because alcohol is not a sleep aid, contrary to popular belief. While it might help induce sleep, “alcohol is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM [rapid-eye-movement] sleep,” Walker says: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316 https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501...
tgv 4y ago
And, unfortunately, the article doesn't mention any of it. The obvious prediction is: people who don't dream, don't generalize. But the author slyly slinks away from that by saying that "it is likely that adult humans already have well-fitted perceptual models", leaving a bunch of predictions that don't really address the hypothesis, but will be claimed as support when they turn out true anyway. Basically, it's a very badly reviewed article.

jadbox 4y ago

I have a wild pet theory that drinking caffeine consistently prevents people from dreaming. Antidoteally, people that I meet that avoid regular caffeine seem to report having dreams on a regular basis. Conversely, the people I know that drink a lot of caffeine seem to say that they never remember their dreams. I've also noted today many people who take cannabis regularly also do not dream often.

bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
I think it is somewhat scientific at this point that cannabis prevents dreams (or at least the memory of them upon waking). And going off weed can lead to much more vivid dreams until one is once again acclimated to being weed-free.
- arcanemachiner 4y ago
  I wonder if there's some sort of neurological catch-up that's being played while this occurs.
rubicon33 4y ago
Not sure if you will read this but wanted to let you know that I found your theory intriguing and decided to cut caffeine to test. First day light headache. Second day onward totally fine. Dreams are back!! Not kidding at all. Over the last few days I’ve had much more vivid and sticking dreams. Some of them bad, but dreams nonetheless! Thanks for putting forth this theory. I will be reducing my caffeine intake permanently. I beleive dreaming is a healthy part of being alive, and I’ve been missing it.
quenix 4y ago
Let me then be the first in your contradictory sample. I drink caffeine more than ever and have consistently been experiencing a higher number of vivid dreams in the past year or so.
- messe 4y ago
  Same here. I also find I have more vivid dreams if I'm dehydrated or hungover, do you find the same? (And to add another factor, do you drink alcohol?)

swalling 4y ago

Apparently young children have more REM sleep (the stage when dreams and nightmares happen) than adults. Babies actually spend half their time in REM sleep (https://www.sleepfoundation.org/baby-sleep/baby-sleep-cycle https://www.sleepfoundation.org/baby-sleep/baby-sleep-cycle) before they develop adult sleep cycles, which makes me wonder what a newborn baby dreams about.

drekipus 4y ago
Boobies. Lots and lots of boobies. And toys probably.
- KMag 4y ago
  I hope so, but my son definitely seemed to have several nightmares, waking visibly frightened and crying before he was 9 months old. I don't know what kind of nightmares he'd have, as I don't think I ever saw him frightened when awake, and he only cried when he was hungry. (Such an easy baby to take care of, though I needed to manually check his diaper. If he was crying, he was definitely hungry. Apparently many babies cry if they've wet their diaper.) His nightmare were presumably hunger and/or abandonment. My son also seems to share my abnormal reaction to pain... beyond a fairly tolerable threshold, I go numb. I know I've injured myself somewhat seriously if I feel quickly rising pain followed by numbness. When my tooth got knocked loose, it went numb. The three times I've sprained ankles (once in the woods, 3 days form the nearest hill with cell phone coverage), my ankles have gone numb. The time the cartilage in my nose tore from the bone, it also went numb. Ditto for the time I burned my finger while arc welding (though, I think that time I killed the dentrite back to my spine and it had to grow back out). My son takes a tough fall and other parents look at me like they expect my son is going to cry, and my son just gets up and keeps playing. So, I don't think his nightmare were about pain, either.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    He just spent his entire life in a nice cozy temperature controlled pool with a constant IV of nutrients. Now he's been thrust into this dry liquidless, cold, world with intermittent nutrition. Kinda sucks if you think about it.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago

Everyone has dreams. You must just not remember them.

Sharlin 4y ago

From the inside it’s impossible to distinguish "not having dreams" from "not remembering one’s dreams". From the outside it’s almost certainly the latter. REM almost certainly equals dreaming, and the lack of REM is a rare condition and pretty bad news.

spiffytech 4y ago

I noticed I have a lot more dreams since I replaced my bed with one that gives me better sleep.

gabythenerd 4y ago

I usually dream when I have slept really well for a few days. At least for me when my mind is tired I fall into dreamless sleep in a few seconds, instead of several minutes with a soft transition to dreaming.

sys32768 4y ago

When I started intermittent fasting and stopped eating after ~2 PM, my dreams became more vivid and felt longer.

ace2358 4y ago

My pet theory: just because you don’t ‘remember’ you dreams doesn’t mean you didn’t have them. This would result in wildly in accurate correlations (lack of coffee = more dreams, weed smokers = don’t dream). There are always counter examples to any correlation you can come up with which can’t be ignored. I’ve personally decided my conscience mind doesn’t need to bother myself with what my meatware is doing while I sleep. People tell me I don’t dream because I don’t remember them. I think that’s false. Sometimes I remember that I dreamed for a few seconds after a wake up, then it fades. I’ve rolled with it and intentionally forget my dreams. Not my (conscience kinda) business. When I wake it my turn to go get food and water so we can come back to sleep 18 hours later.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> People tell me I don’t dream because I don’t remember them. I think that’s false. Sometimes I remember that I dreamed for a few seconds after a wake up, then it fades. I have confirmed this with experiments - I have woken up in the night, written down my dream and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I couldn't remmeber a thing and the notes seemed like they were written by someone else. There was no 'yeah, i can sort of remmember it" - memory was totally blank. The experiment is fairly repeatable - not every night, but couple times a week.
tracerbulletx 4y ago
I thought this was common knowledge. If you google "does everyone dream" you will see about a million articles that say some variation of "we all dream every night but don't remember most of them". It's so common it's like one of those aphorisms or old wives tales you just hear everywhere.

superb-owl 4y ago

I wrote a bit about how to re-engage with your dreams here: https://superbowl.substack.com/p/active-dreaming-methods-habits-and https://superbowl.substack.com/p/active-dreaming-methods-hab... There are a bunch of different methods for stimulating dreams.