How do you dream?

[occb]

Only androids dream of electric sheep...

*snortle* You took the words out of my mouth

[TempusFugit]

1) do you dream in colour or black and white or sepia?

Mostly colour but sometimes, black and white. Quite surreal!

2) are you a spectator (you watch yourself do things) or are you viewing as yourself (seen through your eyes)?

I mostly dream as viewing things as me

3) do you ever know that your dreaming (lucid dreaming)?

Yes, quite a lot! More so in the last couple of years. I can also smell and feel things too when I dream like this. In one lucid dream, it was more a waking nightmare. I was aware that I was dreaming and was praying that I would wake up (it was terrifying) and when I finally did 'come to' - my husband was petrified as I was screaming and crying. He still talks about it (to my shame )

4) types of dreams that annoy you. (ie: dreaming you got up for work, came home went to bed, then actually woke up and thought you already did what you dreamed)

Being followed, nightmares (various) and reliving moments from my past that were horrible (mainly school related things or ex-husband).

5) this one is just out of curiosity and Cinnabar mentioned it in the AURA poll, do you ever dream you are having a seizure? of any sort?

Yes.. I have :S Quite disorientating and disturbing. I often end up having a bad day as well. Most probably connected in some way.

[Cinnabar]

I'm 99% I have Simple Partials in my sleep. (Blush) Afterwards I wake to disover I've lost bladder control. My neurologist explained that this is a form of release sometimes after having had a seizure. Nothing like changing sheets in the middle of the night all foggy which is probably caused by post-ictal state.

[LuminaryLucy]

Since epilepsy has come into my life or the drugs for it my dreams have changed.

I definately dream in colour.

I see everything through my eyes.

The dreams are extremely lucid even more so than when i am awake - almost the opposite to when i am having a seizure - if that makes sense.

These dreams annoy me because i wake up before i am ready to. It is like being pulled away from something i am holding. The next night it is a different dream.

My cousin does not dream since she took anti-epileptic drugs whereas i am completely opposite - we thought that weird.

[Nakamova]

When I first started on lamictal my dreams were vivid, but after a few months they faded, and now are hard to recall in the mornings unfortunately.

[Billyboyboo]

I dream vividly, it differs, in colour though.
Sometimes I don't remember my dreams, other times I do.

-Billy

[Cinnabar]

I once had a lucid dream where I was walking in a white gown late at night in a very poor, dangerous area of town (which was my town in the dream). I was anxious to get to my door and be safe inside my apartment. When I got to my door I realized I had no key and had an anxiety attack. Then I knew I was dreaming, knowing I could do "anything" in the dream. So, I passed through my door like a ghost. Safe inside. Sometimes lucid dreaming can come in very handy!

Something I find interesting. A few times I've dreamt I'm in the 1800's and the dreams are in sepia. The color of photographs taken back then.

[Pipsee]

I can't really answer from an epilepsy point of view but I dream every night an a myriad of the options you had in the first post!!

sometimes in black and white, sometimes in colour, sometimes it's different - can't describe it...

anyway I have had two dreams that have scared me - once I was dehydrated before sleeping and I felt like I was outside of my body looking at myself and I touched my arm and I felt it -- then I went for a walk and saw a girl in my parents room with ink dripping out of her body - It was horribly real.

another time I had a dream about an old friend of mine and his father - in the dream his dad was looking for him everywhere and two days after the dream I had a phone call from his step mum asking if I could find him because his father was dying and wanted to say goodbye!! I had dreamed it would happen and told everyone about the dream without knowing that his father was even sick - I hadn't seen any of them for 5 years!!

I found him and got him to contact his dad and then his dad died.

I'm actually NOT a spiritual person at all! I don't believe in ghosts, or anything! So it was extra weird!

[CleptaK]

Nice post, Rae!

1) I dream in colour - I've never had a black and white, or sepia, dream
2) I'm always doing something in my dream, I can't recall being a spectator either (I wonder what that means?)
3) I often know I'm dreaming and 5) I regularly dream that I'm having a fit so it's reassuring to know that I'm dreaming the seizures rather than having one!
4) Annoying in the way that they're scary. I'm superstitious and quite a scaredy-cat and this works its way into dreams...

I wake up having a fit about once a week, so perhaps they're related?

When I was on epilim, I didn't dream at all. I found that really disconcerting as I am used to having vivid dreams. Since starting neurofeedback, my dreams are more pleasant - prior to the therapy I was having lots of nightmares. I regularly dream of music, too and it's music I haven't heard, either! Isn't that how Paul McCartney wrote a lot of the Beatle's melodies, though dreaming them?

Have a great day, CleptaK

[Chatter-box]

I must have Christmas on the brain! Last night I partly woke up in the middle of the night, only to find myself in the middle of a very vivid dream. I was out with a group of friends and we were all sitting around singing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" over and over with lots of energy. We never got to singing anything else, just "Grandma". I guess I finally got back to sleep though it would be hard to tell since I just kept on singing that song. I finally really woke up and then I was really singing it outloud. It was after lunch before I could get that darn song out of my mind. Wasn't there a recent thread on ear worms? Or was that "deer" worms? "Grandma got run over by a reindeer, walking home from our house Christmas eve. You can say there's no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa, we believe". Oh, no! Here it goes again!!

[KelVarQ]

I have pretty vivid dreams, but nothing like when I was on Lamictal. I find my vivid dreams to be more of nightmares than pleasant dreams.

It's funny you should bring this up because just the other night I had a dream that everyone in my dream was seizing but me. I was in a house with a few strangers and I was watching them seize and yelling, "That's a seizure!" Then one of the guys was banging his sister's head against a wall and I was flipping out and screaming, "It's no wonder why she has seizures!" and I tried to stop it but she ran out the door and he followed and all I can think about was getting me and my 2 year old daughter out of this strange house with all these strangers and I already knew the cops were on their way because I heard the sirens.

Dreaming is amazing! On Lamictal I had a dream that I was a turtle : ) and I was trying to get out of the water but everytime I put my limbs out the fish would just bite them. This was during my RTL recovery and I was having tons of side effects from meds so I translated the dream into the fish = side effects and the meaning was: Be PATIENT (as a turtle could just sit at the bottom of the ocean and wait) and eventually the waters will calm and I'll be able to simply walk out of the water (aka walk out of the recovery). So, perhaps I'm really a turtle and I'm dreaming that I'm human? haha

[gigi]

Electric sheep?!? I love reading these threads they make me giggle. My daughter is giving birth next month to my second grandchild, and he is a boy. I dreamed last night I delivered him and not the doctor! Oh yes and in color, he had tiny blond peach fuzz on his head, and pink skin. I do not remember my daughter doing anything (like pushing!) she just smiled!
My darker dreams have subsided from 7 years ago, when the medical community tried to kill me then saved my life. The tube down my throat bit made me ripe for nightmares. I seem to be an observer in most my dreams, not remembering if I see myself. I do still dream about my grandfather, a large gentle man who died in 1977. Not a lot of audio in my dreams, pictures of soothing things, or disturbing. I dreamed about my ex husband (nightmare!) a few nights ago. My husband and I had he and his wife over for dinner (NOT).

[kimberlymeg]

My dreams are always in color and I surprisingly seem to remember them quite well. If I want to badly enough I can change something that happens while I'm sleeping. I have nightmares occasionally that people have witnessed but I never remember them. A few days ago, after babysitting nonstop, I had a dream that I had a baby, WEIRD!

[Rae1889]

Yes, I used to be able to change my dreams at will, but since the medication I can't do that anymore. Its kinda scary cuz I know I am dreaming but I can't change the creepy stuff. Like running is always slow-motion feeling. and I hate that.

[Meetz1064]

asked each of my family members this question the other day, out of curiosity, and got the strangest looks....eyerolls, of course, and then:

"In bright vivid, color of course! What else?" Never black and white or sepia...

ALL of them remember their dreams, they ALL hear talking, and talk during them, ALL participate during the dreams--not as observers, except once in a blue moon--and they ALL sit up like a bullet out of a shotgun to end the dream.

How very bizarre is my family?

I think I might hide now. They all thought I was off my rocker for asking.

[CallMeSam]

Ever since I was put on Lamictal I've had very VERY weird and nonsensical dreams. Mostly in color, but with blured edges.
I seem to watch through my own eyes most of the time. When I'm dreaming I don't think I realise I'm dreaming till something strange happens...Like a talking schoolbus jumping out of my fridge yelling in french...
The dreams that annoy me most are those in which nothing make sense at all, yet they still send my heart racing.
I've never dreamed I was having a seizure I don't think, but I have dreamed I was in the hospital.
Dunno if this is what you're looking for but...

[Cinnabar]

Funny. Since taking Lamictal I don't recall my dreams very much. No matter how horrifying they had been I always got into analyizing them. My thing.

I once had a dream that I was in a large dusty attic. One one side of the attic there were poorly painted works of modern art. On the other side were Impressionistic paintings done by the masters. Vividly colorful. In the middle of the attic was a full length mirror dividing the paintings. I looked at myslef to discover that I had two heads. One was ugly and frowning, the other was beautiful and smiling, seeming to represent the diverse paintings. There were other aspects of the dream I don't remember now but at the time when I woke, I wrote the whole dream down on three pages of legal paper with annotations.

[flinnigan]

I have an amazing dream life. Always remember many of them. Last night our own Robin was in my dream. I think we were trying to help someone with nutrition. Then on a side bar I showed her my diet journal and asked her to analyze it. Aren't dreams funny.

[Meetz1064]

I wonder what RobinN's going to think of that? But I think it's cool.....I wonder what the hidden meaning is though........where did that dream dictionary go??

[flinnigan]

Maybe its the guilt over eating all that chocolate before bed last night but probably because I'm going to be volunteering for the Epilepsy foundation this year and I've been thinking about some kids in my own area that need help. I know I went the pharmaceutical and surgical way for myself but I don't think I could put my child through all that and of course getting my family to clean up their act for the New Year may have prompted it also.