Would you want to record your dreams?

[Fijiman]

Most of us have a dream or two every now and then as we sleep, and many of us (myself included) have dreams much more often then that. However, most of us tend to forget almost everything about most of our dreams within minutes of waking up. I personally hate it when I know I had a really cool or interesting dream but can't remember a damn thing about it. So my question to my fellow Escapists is that, if someone were to develop technology that would basically be like putting video camera to your brain and record your dreams as you sleep for viewing when you're awake, would you want to do it?

 

[Rowan93]

Yes, totally. I think you have about as much dream as you have REM sleep, which is like 2 hours every night, and most people miss, on average, about 2 hours of that.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I write my dreams down,
if you want to keep them, you have to do it immediately when you wake up.
I keep a journal and pen right next to my bed for this purpose. I've managed to save quite a few dreams that way.

I'm not sure if I'd want to record my dreams as there are some I'd rather forget,
also when I write my dreams down, my brain tends to fill in the gaps and put the pieces together, so it forms one giant, weird story.
I think if they were recorded and I could watch them back unchanged, they wouldn't be as exciting or make as much sense.
They'd just be a series of weird, disjointed scenes.

 

[Fijiman]

I write my dreams down,
if you want to keep them, you have to do it immediately when you wake up.
I keep a journal and pen right next to my bed for this purpose. I've managed to save quite a few dreams that way.

I'm not sure if I'd want to record my dreams as there are some I'd rather forget,
also when I write my dreams down, my brain tends to fill in the gaps and put the pieces together, so it forms one giant, weird story.
I think if they were recorded and I could watch them back unchanged, they wouldn't be as exciting or make as much sense.
They'd just be a series of weird, disjointed scenes.

I would try to write mine down if it weren't for the fact that I generally have already forgotten most of my dreams within seconds of waking up. Hell, most of the time I'm lucky if I can remember the last little bit for more than five minutes after waking up. As for the dreams we would rather forget, I imagine that there would be an option to delete the recording whenever you wanted.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I write my dreams down,
if you want to keep them, you have to do it immediately when you wake up.
I keep a journal and pen right next to my bed for this purpose. I've managed to save quite a few dreams that way.

I'm not sure if I'd want to record my dreams as there are some I'd rather forget,
also when I write my dreams down, my brain tends to fill in the gaps and put the pieces together, so it forms one giant, weird story.
I think if they were recorded and I could watch them back unchanged, they wouldn't be as exciting or make as much sense.
They'd just be a series of weird, disjointed scenes.

I would try to write mine down if it weren't for the fact that I generally have already forgotten most of my dreams within seconds of waking up. Hell, most of the time I'm lucky if I can remember the last little bit for more than five minutes after waking up. As for the dreams we would rather forget, I imagine that there would be an option to delete the recording whenever you wanted.

When I say immediately after you wake up, I do mean immediately, because yes, you do start loosing them within seconds.
There have been times when I've dragged my feet, deciding to take my morning shower first, and ended up completely loosing them.
I've found when I'm trying to write them down after I wake up, they become easier to recall. I'm not saying it works for everyone, but it works for me.

-------------
Also, if you have a nightmare, but you've forgotten it while you were asleep and your machine has recorded it,
you might not know you've had that nightmare and end up re-watching it.
(and so experience a horror that your brain has shut out from couscous memory).

Even with a delete feature, you'd have to watch the nightmare first to know it exists before you can delete it.

 

[piinyouri]

No.
It would be a series of post-apocalyptic scenes so real you wake up sweating and crying in the night.

 

[Fijiman]

When I say immediately after you wake up, I do mean immediately, because yes, you do start loosing them within seconds.
There have been times when I've dragged my feet, deciding to take my morning shower first, and ended up completely loosing them.
I've found when I'm trying to write them down after I wake up, they become easier to recall. I'm not saying it works for everyone, but it works for me.

-------------
Also, if you have a nightmare, but you've forgotten it while you were asleep and your machine has recorded it,
you might not know you've had that nightmare and end up re-watching it.
(and so experience a horror that your brain has shut out from couscous memory).

Even with a delete feature, you'd have to watch the nightmare first to know it exists before you can delete it.

Like I said, I generally forget them very quickly. I also tend to be pretty slow when I first wake up. Hell, it took me a minute or two to remember how to even talk this morning.

The recording of dreams isn't a perfect concept and re-watching nightmares you don't/don't want to remember having would probably be a problem, but this thread is mostly just about whether or not would would want to record your dreams so nit-picky technical shouldn't matter too much right now.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

The recording of dreams isn't a perfect concept and re-watching nightmares you don't/don't want to remember having would probably be a problem, but this thread is mostly just about whether or not would would want to record your dreams so nit-picky technical shouldn't matter too much right now.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue,
I'm just trying to have a deep, meaningful conversation about stuff neither one of us can ever hope to understand.

Also this idea would make a horror movie much more original than any of the junk in theaters right now.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I don't need to, I can remember my dreams pretty clearly. Actually I'd prefer a machine that can erase my ability to do this -_-

 

[Jarek Mace]

Morgan Freeman. Not sure why, he just seems right for the role.

 

[Phasmal]

My dreams make no sense.
So, I'd only want to record them to show other people how freaking weird they are.
I normally only remember bits of them, but even then they make no sense.
Best example of this: Had a dream where I had to take a bit of paper from one side of the room to the other and then back over and over again to appease a cartoon bunny ontop of a treadmill so that two giant inflatable lions wouldn't explode and create a universe with giant eyes instead of stars.

The only dreams I have that follow normal logic are my nightmares, so when things look okay in my dreams I get nervous.

 

[Fijiman]

My dreams make no sense.
So, I'd only want to record them to show other people how freaking weird they are.
I normally only remember bits of them, but even then they make no sense.
Best example of this: Had a dream where I had to take a bit of paper from one side of the room to the other and then back over and over again to appease a cartoon bunny ontop of a treadmill so that two giant inflatable lions wouldn't explode and create a universe with giant eyes instead of stars.

The only dreams I have that follow normal logic are my nightmares, so when things look okay in my dreams I get nervous.

I right there with you. A lot of my dreams, especially some of the more recent ones, have been pretty out there. Although I don't seem to have a lot of nightmares these days.

Also this idea would make a horror movie much more original than any of the junk in theaters right now.

That it probably would. It would be interesting to see how a movie based on such a concept would work out.

 

[shogunblade]

Yeah, I'd totally love to have the ability to record my dreams. It'd be better than the stuff that's....in....

Also this idea would make a horror movie much more original than any of the junk in theaters right now.

Ninjas. Damn.

Well, at least I could try to look harder into my dreams to interpret more meaning in them then I would prefer.

 

[Doclector]

Secretly, yes. My dreams are wierd, and I can't help but feel there are some I would never live down.

Especially as my dreams have become longer, with more of a narrative to them, just as things in life are getting complicated.If I could properly analyse them, it might help.

 

[2fish]

No all of my dreams are messed up. Last one I remember was that my teeth had fallen apart and mostly out. Since they shattered I had to use a mirror and pull the parts that were still attached. There was blood, pain, and rage in that dream. While some make no sense they all seem to focus on blood, pain, rage, anger, or fear.

I am usually aware that they are dreams and I am watching third person but I still feel everything that other me does.

 

[Maeta]

Really wouldn't want this. I remember them too much anyway... This week I have so far dreamed I got married to a girl who nearly got me killed and who previously broke my heart, and then wound up living in the Anvil lighthouse (Oblivion) with another girl who was at uni with me in a dream last night... These are the things I remember, and I honestly think that the others may be seriously fucked (these may not sound too messed up, but they are pretty weird, and freaky shit does happen that sorta defies everything else going on, like the bodies in the lighthouse from the Dark Brotherhood quests being there... that kinda stuff). Plus, the obscene levels of detail and the detail of the obscene would be something I wouldn't mind keeping a memory of but I don't want others seeing it... too much awkwardness if they ever found out what I'd do to them (err...).

Let's just say that I wrote a story from a series of thoughts between cashpoint and pub the other year, and couldn't quite figure out what to go on in the middle (basically, the initial premise was all I had from that journey, as well as the intro, and the very last line). I fell asleep, woke up, wrote down what I had dreamed, slept again, woke up the next day and put it into the story, fit the rest of it around and finished it up, gave the draft to one of my housemates, and then was informed that it was well written, interesting, and utterly fucked up.

 

[Scarim Coral]

While I remember my dreams but there are some dream I forget easily so yes. Also I keep some of the dreams "private" if you know what I mean.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I would want to do it once, just so I can know for sure exactly what happens in my dreams. If the dreams I record actually end up being something worth seeing more than once, I might do so again. If not, then I will continue to live my life not giving two shits about my dreams.

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

sure i'd love to record my dreams, after all i love fucked up fantasy movies

 

[Xenowolf]

I would if I wasn't the lay16 year old who can't be bothered to write anything just after waking up that I was. I've tried to so I could lucid dream (keeping dream journals is pretty much essential for that) but I've failed miserably. I do sometimes think about dreams for a while after I wake up sometimes, so I can remember more details though.