So I've kind of figured out how it is that I can force myself to have very vivid dreams in the past year and why it was happening to me so much whereas when I talk to other people, including a great many people right here on this platform, that they do not dream or at least do not remember it.
According to information that I have read, people that regularly drink alcohol are more likely to dream because of a negative impact that alcohol has on the quality of sleep that you end up getting. Something about alcohol inhibiting the ability to obtain the really good REM sleep but excels at putting you in the state just below it that is less beneficial. That level below REM is apparently where a great deal of dreaming takes place.
In the past year I have curbed my drinking a LOT after close to 30 years of borderline alcoholic-style drinking on a regular basis. I have noticed on the days that I do not drink - which is most of them these days - that I do not dream but on Thursday nights, the nights after our bowling parties, that I dream very vividly. So it seems as though there is a great deal of credibility to this claim about booze leading to vivid dreaming.
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So last night after about 8 hours of continual drinking but at a reasonable pace of only 1-2 drinks per hour. I did my usual food that is mostly pretty bad for you along with non alcoholic drinks and some movies / video games with a bunch of water to try to minimize the "damage" and then ended up having incredibly vivid dreams that I remember most of. There were two elements that are frequently in my dreams though and I will discuss them now.
People abusing their non-existent authority
There's a pretty funny movie called Observe and Report that stars Seth Rogan that did poorly but has a wonderful representation of how shopping mall security dream of being actual police officers and therefore abuse their "power" as often as they can.
I have had a problem with this type of security and authority all of my life. My earliest memory of this was when I was a teenager and accidentally passed on a fake $2 bill that was a promotional item from a car lot. I kept it because it was so silly and looked just like real money. I was at a Dairy Queen in a mall and I pulled the fake $2 bill back as soon as I saw it in the clerk's hand. I even said "sorry, that's not real money" and paid for my Chipwich with some singles that I had. Well this early-stage Karen pointed me out to a mall cop who went into Delta-force mode to track me down, and then strong arm me until real police turned up. What did they think was going on there? That I, a 16 year old kid, was running some sort of huge counterfeit $2 bill organization?
I will save that for another post because I have a lot of feeling about this. In the dream I was in some sort of Wal-Mart sort of environment where it was quite difficult to figure out what was the entrance and what was the exit. A ton of people were going the wrong way and activating these shoplifting sensors and the security was going ape-shit on them. I had paid for my whatever it was that I bought and intentionally made sure the mall cops saw me pay, then I intentionally walked the wrong way through the sensors that didn't go off and gave them the finger.
According to the "experts" dreaming about authority figures can mean the following.
- You may be subconsciously seeking wisdom or reassurance regarding a difficult decision or moral dilemma.
- These scenarios frequently indicate feelings of guilt, fear of judgment, or anxiety about consequences for your actions
- Witnessing police activity often points to a longing for justice or stability in chaotic areas of your life, whereas direct involvement reflects personal accountability.
Notice how they often use the words "may" and "often" in their descriptions of the interpretation because I think that even the people with the PhD's that do this sort of work realize that there is no real meaning behind this stuff for the most part and that their jobs are BS. This is the horoscope of the medical world. Just prescribe some pills and say you have no idea, because that is what the truth is.
lets move on to the next, more disturbing recurring dream element that I have
Things growing out of my skin
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You probably find this image disturbing, and you should because it is gross. In my dreams I don't have worms coming out of my skin but it almost like some sort of tube or "root" that i can see the top of and when I pull on it is easily comes out of my skin often leaving a rather large hollowed out area where the object once was. The things I pull out are never alive, thank goodness, and I am not stressed out about these things being in my arms (it's almost always my arms or hands) and in the dream this is just something that happens to me often. Last night I was pouring some sort of antiseptic into the areas and I can't recall ever doing that before. Last night there was only two of them, about the width of a coin that left rather large holes in my palm after they were removed.
Of course the experts have figured this one out as well because apparently/thankfully, this is a quite common dream element as well.
- Pulling worms out of your skin can indicate removing harmful influences, distancing yourself from people who drain your energy, or overcoming internal stress and worries.
- This dream may indicate a process of renewal—letting go of what is spiritually unhealthy and seeking a clean and restored life.
- negative karma, impurities, or unresolved issues. Pulling them out may represent cleansing, karmic release, and spiritual purification.
A bunch of relative nonsense again, at least this time the person who compiled the list was up front about how most of these interpretations are based on religious texts and how the people from thousands of years ago saw this sort of dream as a message from God. Fair enough.
I don't have any deeply rooted psychological issues that I am aware of. I don't wander around depressed and am probably one of the more happy people in most of the places that I go. I have a pretty fantastic life so I don't think my dreams are actually telling me anything. Perhaps I just don't like authority being abused (this is VERY true) and have a fear or something impaling me. I don't think everything needs to be so complicated and these psychologists make up these grand reasons for dreams in order to justify their rather silly income levels and the fact that they went to school for a very long time to study almost entirely subjective information.
If you have had any dreams recently lets discuss them. I know that most of you are going to say that you don't dream, which probably isn't true. But if you do ever party with excessive booze, take note of whether or not you are more likely to dream during those times, just like I do.