DREAMING... what does it all mean, or doesn't mean... Let's talk about it.

Hello boys’ n girls, it’s me your friendly neighborhood author Brandon McCalla and you are once again right up on my BLOG ave, on a cyber corner in the middle of my Literary Hood. Peeps, I’m working on an erotic short story for an upcoming anthology and I’m incorporating the science of mysticism and the magic of dreams within my story.

We aint here in BLOG Ville to describe my story in synopsis or provide the whole damn story for you to read or a snippet for that matter. Though I’ve done so in the past we are not nestled within the present and you are within my presence, though not physically in spirit and I’m here to talk about dreams. Now I’m pretty sure all of us know exactly what a dream is but just in case a very small handful of you don’t I’m gonna break down what a dream is.

Dreams are thoughts, visions, and other sensations that occupy the mind in sleep. Dreams occur during that part of sleep when there are rapid eye movements (REMs). We have 3 to 5 periods of REM sleep per night. They usually come at intervals of 1-2 hours and are quite variable in length. An episode of REM sleep may be brief and last but 5 minutes. Or it may be much longer and go for over an hour.

About 20% of sleep is REM sleep. If you sleep 7-8 hours a night, perhaps an hour and a half of that time, 90 minutes, is REM sleep.

REM sleep is characterized by a number of other features besides REM, including rapid, low-voltage brain waves on the electroencephalographic (EEG) recording, irregular breathing and irregular heart rate and-- what may be most evident to someone else—involuntary muscle jerks.

Non-REM or NREM sleep is a dreamless sleep. During NREM, the brain waves on the EEG are typically slow and of high voltage, the breathing and heart rate are both slow and regular, the blood pressure is low, and the sleeper is relatively still. NREM sleep is divided into 4 stages of increasing depth.

About 80% of sleep is NREM sleep. If you sleep 7-8 hours a night, all but maybe an hour and a half is spent in dreamless NREM sleep.

Dreams are penetrable; meaning it has been found experimentally that one can communicate with a person who is dreaming. Wow!

The content of dreams is sometimes the topic of psychoanalysis. While this method of therapy is less common that it once was some doctors still look at dreams as a diagnostic clue to medical disorders. For example, children with bipolar disorders have been found to frequently have a particular type of nightmares, and especially lucid dreams are a side-effect of certain medications. These clues indicate that chemicals in the brain, as well as life events and our own preoccupations, influence our dreams.

Dreaming is not uniquely human. Cats and dogs dream, judging from the physiologic features. So apparently do many other animals. Wow again!

The word “dream’ is traditionally tracked back to an Anglo-Saxon word that meant joy, gladness, or mirth. However, “dream” more likely came from another word (from Sanskrit) meaning deception. Thus, when we dream, is it a joy or a deception?

Now you know what dreams are and I’m pretty sure you have had quite a few and can recall a handful or many. Here is the assignment Literary Hoodie… I want you to tell me about a recent dream or your views on the definition of dreams or the aspect of dreaming. Feel free to touch on this subject in any way, shape or form you see fit. You know how we do on this BLOG and I will answer you guys with what little knowledge and information I have on the subject. And I will even do a bit of research for you if your comments are interesting enough, creating a separate BLOG to discuss the issue if you so move me.

Here are a few things I’ve put in bold lettering that I’ve acquired and find interesting. Feel free to roll with anyone or series of these or give me something from you own mind (for a fucking change)…

A dream can warn us of potential danger.
Frequently things that trouble us crystallize in a dream.
Everyone who sleeps- dreams- including animals.
When you take a nap- you are ten times more likely to remember your dreams.
One average, we sleep for a third of each day. Take your age and divide it by 1/3 and you will know how many years you have been asleep. For example- if you are 30 years old- you have slept for 10 years.

And let’s not forget about those wet dreams, those sexual subliminal situations during REM. I’m gonna dedicate a completely different BLOG on that shit. But for now let us start here…

UNO