Ask Lemmy

Every night.

You almost certainly do too, but the part of our brain that commits things to long term memory is inactive when sleeping. When people recall their dreams, it's at best just the ones that occurred right before waking up. Maybe you're a heavy sleeper and tend to sleep through that window.

From how I understand it, you dream every night as your body enters REM sleep, but you often don't remember dreams. You can try and train yourself to better recall your dreams and in doing so you may find that you "dream more often".

I'd say I have weeks where I remember my dreams, sometimes multiple, every night, and other times where I'll go a week or more without recalling any. It varies on a lot of things. In particular, I'll find if I stop smoking weed for about 4 or more days, I'll start remembering dreams vividly and frequently, but that'll lessen over 2 weeks.

I dream in a fashion that I "experience" the dream and remember it later, but only around the changing of the seasons. For instance, in Central America where I live, were transitioning into the rainy season soon. I've been dreaming so vividly for the pas two weeks, and only started feeling rested two nights ago.

In a week or so, that will taper back to rarely remembering ant dreams, and not surface again until October or November when our dry season starts again. (Disclaimer: we haven't had a rainy season with rain the past two Yeats, but we still call it the rainy season)

When I lived in New England, it was the same, but four times a year, and most pronounced in the fall-to-winter and spring-to-summer transitions.

That's not to say I never dream outside of those times, but rarely remember, and not consecutively. Last night I had one dream from 3am to 7am. I woke up once and used the bathroom and easily returned to the same dream, albeit subdued.

I dream most nights, though the dreams themselves very rarely make it into my long term memory and are forgotten within minutes of waking up.

As far as I know, everyone dreams every night...it's part of the sleeping process...but you usually forget it ASAP so it seems like you didn't dream.

As for dreams I remember...less often as I get older, I find. Although I do get a few vivid dreams when using magnesium supplements, but I also acclimate to those quickly. And if I'm woken prematurely, sometimes a dream sticks around a bit more than it otherwise would.

I usually have three or four dreams a night. I often wake up thinking I should write them down as plots for short stories. I've sketched out a handful of the really far out ones (like when Colin Farrell popped out of a statue in front of a frat house to warn me that Bill Gates was chasing me).

Every night.

I've heard hella people say you don't have dreams if you smoke weed, but it's never stopped me. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Every Night

Multiple times a night. Typically I know I'm dreaming and can choose to wake up or alter the dream if I like, but I have some "uncontrolled" dreams as well.

I dream every night and my dreams are usually both very vivid and also very surreal. The last dream I had involved getting lost in a restaurant that was a non-Euclidean space

Almost every night now.

I used to never dream but I would go to bed with the TV on. I wanted to switch to falling asleep to music. At some point I realized I would have nightmares whenever I slept without either. It was like my brain couldn't handle the lack of external stimuli.

But I wanted to dream more, so I started going to bed without it more and more often. Eventually those nightmares turned to dreams as I pushed through it. It was fantastical. Almost like hearing music for the first time after being deaf. It was a whole new world and I can't get enough.

Yeah I dream, but mostly when I'm sleeping.

I dream every night. I even dream frequently while taking naps, sometimes as short as 15-20 minutes.

Many dreams I forget shortly upon waking. As in, I can't remember what it was about by the time I get out of bed. But, I do actually remember the dream for a few seconds, so I know it happened. The majority of my dreams I can recall for the rest of the morning or even day. If something noteworthy happened, I can remember the dream for days, weeks, or years. I really depends on how impactful/meaningful the dream was.

I have not used sleep journals or anything of that nature to help me remember dreams. I have always been like this. I also have had sleep paralysis and sporadic insomnia for about as long as I can remember - not severe or frequent enough to need treatment.

I have a dream landscape? It's like all the places I've ever been have blended together to create a new world. And in a dream I know I can get from the fancy section (where there's the wierd Victorian house that is like a coop I used to live in, and sometimes there's a special room I can access by crawling up a specific wall) to the bar/shopping district by walking/going south, while by going west I can get to the beach that's an amalgam of several Texas and Mexican beaches along with a strong dose of Egypt. There's an epic resort there I often end up at, sometimes as a guest, other times worrying the whole time how I'm going to pay for it. There's also a subway system that leads to a New York/Paris/other massive cities I've been to with bad ass museums. I think that's to the northeast...

Anyone else have this? Love to hear about it.

I can't. I lost the ability around age 7-8 and have never had problem sleeping sense. I do have a small 1-2 nightmares every 7-8 months though. They did a sleep and psyc study on me and found that I just sleep heavy and my brain relaxes and i go i to deep sleep for most of the duration instead of processing information. It is also the reason I can fall asleep on "impulse" and also why studying before sleep works well for me since my information retains where it left off. It is my one super power if I was to say I had one.

When I wake up I notice that I was dreaming once or twice per week. It's always weird dreams. Weird as in:

• aliens spitting on trees
• tomato fighting in the library, killing and burying the old librarian, to resurrect a god
• using a rolled newspaper as a magic wand, triggered by the word "photon"
• a vulture digging gold nuggets from my liver, a la Prometheus
• a pig praying (stupid dream bilingual pun)
• my cats preparing popcorn (I don't even like popcorn)

Do you use an alarm clock? The best way to remember your dreams is to be startled out of them and immediately thinking about them. If you wake up without an alarm clock and then start thinking about what you have to do later in the day it's gonna be harder to remember them

I dream every night and it is always some kind of a crazy bizarre acid trip that may morph into a nightmare on occasion if I had a bad day or something is weighing on my mind. I've had this all my life and sometimes when I don't dream (which is extremely rare for me) it feels weird waking up.

But that's the regular stuff, the insane stuff is that I have dreams that reoccur and evolve for decades, and it's like getting a new season of a show that you watched two years ago, but with new characters and plot lines.

I used to, usually several different dreams a night - sometimes flowing seamlesly from one to other.

I probably still dream just as much, but remember fuck all. I get up knowing I dreamed something but that's it. Incredibly frustrating.

Nope, not anymore. As a kid yes I remember, but for maybe 10-15 years now, nope, super rare. Or I guess I dream but have no clue and don't remember.

I wouldn't say I don't dream, but for reasons relating to birth, I dream in any substantial way very, very infrequently, and if I do, it's momentum for something else. I only ever remember dreaming in three topics: school, browsing, and talking to people I miss, with an infrequency of once a few times of year each. What few dreams one could say I have I care so little about that I often do everything I can to make sure I won't dream. I just don't want to be teased by having happy dreams that then say "psyche" and remind me of the state of being I'm in.

I really haven't had dreams in years. I used to dream regularly in high school, and would regularly experience dream deja vu irl.

I thought maybe it was due to my appreciation of cannabis, but I only had one dream during my last T break and it was early in the time period. No other dreams over the course of multiple weeks, so idk.

I dream pretty much every night, and sometimes wish I wouldn't remember them since they're often much better than reality lol.

I dream all the time, and always have. There are often common themes, eg., searching for my wife, yet she's never actually appeared in my dreams (that I recall.)

My departed parents often appear (moreso my dad, recently), and 2 days ago, a recently-departed SIL appeared, though 'visually', it wasn't her.

I'm not sure of whether there's a significance to any of this. It is what it is.

Every night. Lucid only once or twice a year though . Dreaming is part of normal sleep cycle but if you wake naturally you don't wake up in the middle of a dream. I often wake some when my husband first gets up and will notice I am dreaming then.

I love sleeping and dreaming. A majority of the dreams feel like my brain defragmenting or something, just a mix of thoughts and memories from the day getting mixed into stories, but some are so wonderful.

If you aren’t dreaming make sure you aren’t drinking caffeine past 5pm or whatever your midday time is.

I almost never remember my dreams, probably only a few times a year. If I do, about half the time they're nightmares.

Yes, every night AFAIK, but I sleep very deeply and seldom remember them beyond a matter of seconds. If I've had caffeine late, I do tend to remember them more.

I dream frequently. Usually very vivid. Rarely it's nightmarish. I wish I remembered them better. I don't really feel the need to write down what I recall when I first wake up.

I think the most amazing invention in human history would be some type of EEG head gear that could literally record the dreams like a DVR. That would be wild!

I also generally don't dream, or at least exceedingly rarely do I dream.

I know other people who dream will have like full on stories. A handful of times a year maybe when I can actually recall something its usually blurry flashes or a vague sense of a scenario and that's all I can recall.

When I was a child I used to dream every single night, and then one day it just stopped. My current lack of ability to dream kind of bothers me because I feel like it will be kind of cool to slip into a fantasy world every night. On the bright side it's probably been decades since I've had a nightmare so at least there's that.

A lot of other are saying in this thread if you don't dream it's due to THC consumption, but I don't take any form of THC so that's not really the issue for me.

I don’t remember my dreams most nights. I also have a terrible memory so it doesn’t surprise me. I go to sleep blissfully and wake up realizing time has past but not remembering anything I dreamt. Sounds awful but I don’t typically like the dreams I do have (usually brought on by me being too hot while asleep).

Rarely. I find I dream more when I have anxiety (and they are typically unpleasant dreams, though not always), and I try to reduce anxiety in my life by being proactive and prepared for things.

Last night, i dreamed that a bank of printers at work was humming Fog Hat - slow ride

https://youtu.be/DfwsXn5n8HU?si=z2kBGDcWmD61AIOg

I dream. Sometimes during the day, sometimes during the night.

I remember none of them.

I dream often, usually I am able to remember them if I want to but never really bother unless it sticks out as a great story. It tends to happen when I'm about to wake up and while I'm in that mid sleep twilight zone. (Think of trying to back to sleep after an alarm, that kinda sleep)

I would also like to mention that my sleep in incredibly messed up. I have a sleep condition that causes me to wake multiple times an hour so my rest is awful and I'm eternally exhausted.

I dream a lot, but how vivid they are and how much I remember them varies. Sometimes they're very visual, weird or interesting, but often they're vague and hard to recall. I find that if I'm not getting enough sleep I don't dream as much, but then if I'm on holiday and catching up on sleep I dream pretty hard.

I pretty much only dream when I can go back to bed after waking up. Not the most common occurance, but it happens

I've found that I dream a lot, I just forget quickly, which can feel like not dreaming. For a while I kept a very light dream journal, just writing down whatever small thing I remember, even if it's just a feeling or something super vague. Don't worry if you don't remember anything initially — just being in the mindset was enough to boost my recall. Key is to do it right after waking up, while you're almost still half asleep. Write on paper with a pen, not your phone — it's too distracting.

During that period I remembered multiple dreams each night in full, and the memories were incredibly vivid, sometimes almost lucid. It was honestly crazy — some of those dreams had elaborate storylines, often super interesting scenery, and sometimes even almost video game-like "mechanics". I can only recommend keeping a dream journal... you learn a lot about yourself.

I dream every night.

I just remember a dream when I wake up every 5+ years.