I am 25 and I have always had problems with dreams since childhood. I have struggled to fall asleep and when I do I ussually have very vivid dreams which easily devolve into unpleasant ones if not nightmares outright. I have spent a good amount of my life relying on Melatonin to fall asleep and for about 10 years I used to be on fluoxetine which had a side effect in increasing vividness further, meaning there was a point in my life where it felt like dreaming was another job with how long it felt. I am no longer on stuff like fluoxetine but my recall is still very absurd and sleep is always an obstacle for me. There are times where I know I can fall asleep and physically would like to, but mentally I am scared about the anticapation of falling sleep and the inevetible dreams.So I am now at a point where I am considering if there is way where I want to dream instead of wanting to avoid it outright and whether taking the plunge into enhancing dreams will help. Throwing myself into the deep end if you will. It's not like I can minimize it as without rem sleep I will be fucked mentally. Is there stuff I can take or things I can do to achieve next level dreaming or is there no point if I already have vivid recall as it is? Will only make things worse for me mentally? I can see myself living my life the way it is forever but at the same time if I can over come this personal obstacle I think my quality of life would be better.
>>34083066>>10 yrs of melatonin>>fluoxetineSeek evaluation from a Sleep Study Center.From my pov though, Sounds play a big role in perception of dreams. i've fallen asleep listening to ambience soundtracks (gong wash, binaural audio, etc), and those are fine. I have a lot of fun with gentle music with lyrics. Occasional overlaps between events in the dreams will sync up with elements of the lyrics. It's fun to wake up from one of those naps, restart the song (or go back a few tracks!), and basically reexperience the dreams youve just had, a second time, just fully awake. It can give u back some control and might give some piece of mind. Try experimenting with it maybe who knows what u will find
>>34083212Thanks anon. I'm still on Melatonin to be fair but I no longer take the Fluoxetine (was placed on it at the age of 11 and came off it around the age of 20-21). Used to be on 8mg but now I am at a stage where 4mg of Melatonin is enough to get me to fall asleep. I have heard Melatonin offsets REM cycles which leads to restless early sleep but a later and far more intense REM phase during the night due to intial suppression which could be why my recall is the way it is.I know what you mean about music though. I had one rough night staying over at my friends trying to fall asleep and I ended going to sleep with headphones while listening to game essay stuff and whatever game was being talked about took place in my dreams. It was a pretty surreal but oddly pleasant experience, but I wrote it off as just one of those weird one off things. However I might try experimenting with that and see if I can recreate that experience and make things easier.
>>34083066write them down
>>34085519On one hand, I think it would be cool to have a record as I can document things such as the city that comes and goes in my dreams. It used to re-ocur so often I could remember the layout and its variations down to the city market and spire that for some reason always ending up colapsing, or the current trend of the bus or train transit system that I always get tangled up and stressed about because I have missed a timeslot. I also get a lot of dreams of an eastern european country side and industrial estates that are active warzones if I am not trying to survive in a knock off halo or mass effect space installation against horrors beyond my comprehension. Yet all of it is intwined in someway or overlaps.But on the otherhand I would also have to write stuff down like last nights dream:>Dear diary>Last night I dreamt that my mother was talking to transgender person>From what I remember of the conversation it was regarding the visiblity of transgender people and the normalisation that should come of it>The transgender person was a male to female and was talking a lot about how people come across transgender people without realizing it>As the conversation progressed I jumped in out of passive aggressive disgust>I never outright antagonize the person, but I downplayed the extent of how trans people passed at all>As we went back on forth on the topic I listed to every detail how you can ID a transperson and how even the ones that can pass for some people are still clockable by voice>When I was 2 thirds into the argument, I realize that I was using words like "trans-women" a lot and that I was concious of how the transgender person thought of my views>Suddenly thoughts crept into my mind questioning whether I was being passive aggressive and down playing the sucesses of trans culture, or actively advertising to the transperson that I am into transgender people with how much I know about them>At the end of it, I was hoping that person was into it>fml
>>34085568Dreamscape is the place your brain goes in order to have a conversation with itself about your own beliefs and opinions and worries etc. You should (mostly) be able to figure out what connections your dreams have to your day-to-day life. Your dreams are a reflection of you.
>>34087842I don't like that implication but it makes sense. Anxiety has been a historic issue with me so processing that would result in issues with dreams. Does that mean "lucid" dreams are not really thing? If dreaming is integral to processing insecurities or day to day experiences wouldn't lucidity get in the way of that? From the sense you are hyjacking the processing your brain is undergoing in REM.
