I am amused by people who say they have no dreams. When even animals dream, how can people not? An evil thought comes about subjecting such people to dream deprivation, if only to advance scientific understanding.
I dream both in color as well as in black and white. As with most people, I have recurrent dream topics – school/college journal submission/examination, flying, fast trains, accidents/disaster, etc. But most of my dreams are pretty straightforward and predictable. A college friend of mine had dreams with distorted metaphysics. Once he lived in a world where consciousness and physical bodies were randomly exchanged and he spent dreaming that his body was searching for his consciousness and vice versa.
I have often dreamt of my blogger friends. I once received Krish Ashok at Chennai when he was about to arrive from abroad. After he came, we had some interesting experiences negotiating with rickshaw drivers in Chennai. In another one, Ashok and I were at a conference-cum-exhibition, and we were discussing the latest software web trends. I and Nita have once received a group of tourists from China, and we were their tour guides in the Mumbai-Pune region. I remember being amazed by how Nita was impressing them with statistic after statistic, fact after fact, about Indians. More recently, I was explaining to my wife how Rambodoc is going to monetize his SixPackDoc blog by adding ads and selling services. See? Straightforward and predictable. 
Nita had once commented, ‘Born to fly – these words seem to be entrenched in your heart’, and that shows. I have come very close to fulfilling this dream when I para-glided in the Himalayas. In my dreams, I don’t need no paraglider! An interesting observation in my numerous flying dreams is that if I hesitate and doubt my ability to fly, I can’t take off. It is only when I do so with full conviction, that I am able to successfully take off. I have flew several times over several areas of Mumbai, Pune, San Diego, and San Francisco.
As dreams are connected with long-term memory, my ‘home’ in my dreams is still the place I grew up in Mumbai, even though I left it 12 years back. Dream incorporation is also pretty common with me, where doorbells or ringtones become assimilated in the dream sequence. I’m a déjà vu addict - I always try to predict what’s going to happen next, but I fail every time. I used to talk a lot in my sleep when young, and there is only one reported incident when I went sleepwalking!
A couple of unusual dreams come to mind. One was a nightmare. During an examination, my fountain pen began to leak. And surprisingly, it began to leak in red (I always wrote in black)! Aghast, I got up and the red trail began following me all around. I ran out of the classroom, outside on the roads, where I realized that the trail of red was not ink but blood. Gasping for water, I reached for my water bottle, only to find it contained blood. Panicked, I decided to rush home, managed to reach VT station in Mumbai (it will always remain VT for me), where there were many other people all drenched in blood to varying degree.
In an other recent dream, I was telling my wife that I thought that I was not really myself. Me, as I am today, was just a concoction, an illusion, role-playing a script written by someone else, Matrix-style. And being aware of this made me feel very lighter, since there was nothing I needed to take seriously in life. I was waiting for the day when the director says “Cut”, and I snap back to my real, original, self.
But the best part of my dreaming is that I am fortunate to be a lucid dreamer. Though not as successfully as in my younger days, I am still able to do it sometimes. Controlling your dream script is a fantasy come true. Now don’t ask me what I write in that script!
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“More recently, I was explaining to my wife how Rambodoc is going to monetize his SixPackDoc blog by adding ads and selling services. See?“
No, I don’t. This was a dream, or your hypothesis?
If I think in terms of monetising my blog, it wouldn’t be with Google ads. There would be far better ways. But, no, I am not thinking of such things.
As for my dreams, most of these days, I am lifting weights. I actually grabbed someone by a limb and lifted. Awoke to a scream.
In this case I’m afraid the dream involving was not very prescient, because I don’t negotiate with auto drivers. I pay them whatever they ask for
Shefaly:
I did add “NO” after that. Monetising would mean selling books, internet based training, diet ‘secrets’, ‘magical tips’ to burn fat ‘like a blowtorch’, etc, in a fitness blog. People do it and making six figure dollar incomes, too.
There was something about this write up that gripped me from the beginning to the end, it read so well! And you sure do have some drama in your dreams, I have very few dreams like that. My dreams seem to be about mundane things mostly but I used to dream about flying almost everyday when I was a teen, but these kind of dreams have got rarer. I too am a lucid dreamer but again now it’s like once a month, and earlier it was almost every day. The dream I used to get in the morning I could control! It was nice because I could eat that ice-cream I wanted, or not miss the bus!
And if something unpleasant happened then I could re-wind and start dreaming it again, deliberately! I do that at times.
feels nice to meet someone who dreams as vividly and enjoys ‘the show’.. but my one grouse with dreams is that i get so indulgent in my dreams that often i wake up late, just because a particular dream was too good to miss out half way, and in semi-conscious, semi-dead state you just wish the images from this strange world do not cease.. has that ever happened with you?
Mahendra,
I always dream a lot and even claim to remember them after I am awake. I can usually recall details like number of screws on the hinge, because these are the things I notice in real life too.
Flying dreams are very common, that’s where I get my inspirational quote from (and R. Kelly stole it). A beautiful one was when I was flying in the solar system. (similar to shown in Taare-Zameen-Par)
cheers, Priyank
I have spent the occasional night trying to solve the technical problem that i am working on at that time. (in my dream, that is)
By doing this i can follow the outsourcing model of ‘working with the sun’. I outsource my work to myself!
Different matter altogether that i haven’t really solved any problem this way. But at least i try!
I don’t get dreams at all. Or I don’t remember them. One thing I like about my life is — Sleep. I can sleep at any time, anywhere and usually it is a deep sleep with no disturbances (Like dreams, alarms etc). I think it is a gift to sleep like that and I cherish it so much! On the other hand, I dream when I am awake. Double bliss
Destination Infinity
I think dreams are generally influenced by ones day to day life
and what people think about!
I would dream a lot when i was a kid.. most influenced by my dads storys and cinema and people around me
ive always been a restless sleeper , and the dreams were a plenty — from traveling with the absent minded prof on his car to being luke skywaker to swimming with sharks –jaws to nightmares from the house of wax and evil dead . these days i seldom dream and if i do they are more mundane.
I dream very very rarely these days, in my sleep, I tend to dream more while am awake, more like a vision inside the head thats so real that sometimes at a Mall or public place, for a nano second I get lost, “What? Where is this place?” People stare and I stare back, perplexed. I enjoy it AFTERWARDS, when I realize what happened. No, I do not drink or take drugs at all
does this happen because am growing old and weakening and losing brain cells?
day dream doesn’t connote dream, probably it implies willing suspension and the other unwilling submission to subconscious, mine woud fall under the latter although it happens in a waking state, the pathology (is it the word I shd use?) similar to night dreams that occur while a person sleeps.
Doc:
“There would be far better ways.”
Let me not be the Cassandra of those monetisation dreams, er, plans. Few if any bloggers, including celebrities on the web, make any money from their blogs. Indeed in the whole social media game, nobody has yet figured how these things make money or will make money. So I shall look forward to your money-printing operation with great intellectual curiosity.
No hypothesis, doc, just a dream.
I see that like they walk the talk, you’re dreaming your blogging!
Oh, but don’t forget, I was there too!
Thank you, Nita. If you like my writing, I cannot be more pleased!
My dreams are on average pretty dramatic I think. I wonder if introverts have more drama in their dreams.
Lucid dreaming is so much fun, isn’t it?
Gauri, welcome to my blog!
No, this doesn’t happen with me nowadays. In college days, yes. But not after I started working…
No. of screws on the hinge?! Wow! I think you had once written about one dream…
I too have many of those flying in outer space dreams. Once, I had taken my mom out to space!
We visited the Moon and there were roller-coasters and several other amusement parks on the Moon…
Hey, that’s cool! Outsourcing our work to ourself via dreams! Ha ha ha…too good.
Interesting. My father and my wife have blissful sleep — anytime, anywhere. This unquiet mind never sleeps easily. You are surely gifted!
You are right indeed regarding what people usually dream about.
Why the mundane dreams now? You seem to have had a rich dream past! Hope you get back to those exciting dreams and share them with us!
Not at all. That’s why there’s a term “day-dreaming” to describe this!
Interesting distinction. Not sure what to say! Perhaps you should talk to someone more knowledgeable if it is becoming a problem?