Quirky Little Things

Since you ask, I call BS on TST. TST really appealed to me when it came out in 2000 but evidence has been building against it ever since. See what I wrote about the most recent paper deflating the theory.

BTW, in line with your albino snake scenario, when I first wrote about TST I said, "If I'm ever put in a situation where I need to rescue Bjork from a giant robotic turducken, I will be ALL SET."

I have that same dream that I am forced to go back to highschool. When I get there I can never remember my schedule and there is always a class that I forget to attend and must show up for mid-semester only to be chastized by the teacher and called irresponsible.

I think we do likely dream about real life threats to gain some sort of resolve. I also dream over and over again that someone is breaking into my childhood home. 911 puts me on hold and I decide I have to escape. I go out the window of the spare bedroom and scale the roof, sliding down the porch post and taking off through the back yard to a neighbor's house. The threat and escape are always the same, yet I haven't lived in my parent's home for 10 years and I'm not sure how the dream is teaching me to escape from real life threats. I do, however, wake up feeling somehow accomplished. Perhaps these type of dreams help us build confidence in our abilities or as in the highschool dream, help us accept and acknowledge our accomplishments.

I'm looking forward to the imposter phenomenon post.

I used to have recurrent dreams where I had been chased by someone I didn't know and everytime I was close to knowing the person, I'd wake up, it's frustrating. I knew that the dreams showed something about me, but I didn't know what it was. Now, it rarely happens.

How about the recurrent dreams where the person who had continuous fight in my real life, kept making amends in my dreams? Are these dreams applicable to TST?

I agree with Keely, I'm looking forward to a disscussion on "imposter phenomenon". I experience it from time to time.

The other recurrent dream theme I've heard others talk about is the "teeth falling out" dream. Clearly, massive tooth loss would pose some fitness problems if it happened, but it's hard to see how anything but modern oral hygiene can prevent it... so I'm not sure why we should be particularly primed to dream about it, if it's really about rehearsal.

Are you sure the giant albino snake denied wasn't one of your angsty bacchanalian dreams? [rimshot]

Really though, you don't mention why you didn't get through high school easily. Nobody cares about how well they tested, aside perhaps from class-rank as a status symbol, but were there things you might have missed learning, or fear you did? Clearly if you've earned a PhD you've gotten by just fine in subsequent schooling, but that may have been narrow. I've also had similar recurring dreams (mine were usually about not getting to opening the book until the week before finals and feeling helpless in face of the task) and I do wish I had been able to take some other classes in high school, on subjects not "in my major". As I've gotten to reading on those subjects later in life, these dreams have subsided. Coincidence, perhaps.

I had a dream the other night that a starship was landing nearby and suddenly lost its anti-gravity engine and came crashing to the ground, erupting in a great fireball and spilling out some kind of dangerous superfluid everywhere (usually it's just an airplane, I'm upgrading). I reacted slowly - too interested in watching the fuel and worrying about the accident - and while I survived, I got a heck of a nasty space-fuel burn on my foot and leg. I'm often overly curious and sometimes spend too much time analyzing rather than acting, which has cost me in life more than once. I think this dream will help me react a bit faster, especially since it was rather vivid and memorable. Does that prove TST? No, but why can't that be a little part of the dream's usefulness?

I look forward to the impostor phenomenon, and can believe it. I often tell people in my line of work, "oh, you JUST need to do X,Y and Z; It's easy.". They look at me in disbelief and say, "yeah, Bill, easy for YOU maybe." But it is - I get paid decent money to do easy work. Yet people find value in that.

Oh, I know exactly what the giant white snake was about (hint: it's not the band, and it's quite the opposite of Bacchanal, unfortunately). At least, exegetically it's pretty clear to me; but if it's a true symbol in the Freudian sense, it's puzzling to me why my mind would go through all that trouble of disguising it this way for defensive purposes, when it's so patently obvious to me anyway. And the only thing I recall about my high school education is becoming infatuated with Camus after reading The Stranger in 9th grade Lit. Well, that and the gleeful, adolescent terror we caused our poor semi-retired and very submissive French teacher. Otherwise I was too busy reconnoitering the social landscape, and I can still go into all kinds of detail about the many trifles, spats, and scandals between the years of 1989-1993 in Westerville, Ohio, if you're so inclined to hear. What I didn't realise at the time was how much of an education in psychology I was getting then. But, it's true, advanced algebra wasn't my cup of tea in 1993, nor I'd imagine it would be today.

I saw the front wheel on an old tricycle the other
day . solid front wheel ..and it brought
back memories and feelings.

I wonder if memories from all our youth are sorted
in the brain...Indexed..connected..weighted

the high school dream may be the part of your
brain that is high school age. (always will be).
gray matter .. neural paths..dendrite growth
That sort of thing. Formed during its own time.

Things that happen now ..may stimulate these areas.
Maby ...noticable in sleep.

The mind seems to be lots of smaller specalized
units. They trade memories..(evidence from brain
damage).

I remenber some of thse dreams in earlier experiences

Motorcycle that keeps missing one part
Cannot find my school locker
Car accident
torn pants

Things that are stressfull (escape) may be stored
with the most...neural definition.They may need
duplicating in the brain .

Paired experiences..triggers..

People do well with short-term experiences..all
our sensory system is short term ..and differential.

Thanks for letting me add two cents

I'm not sure what to think about this theory- on the one hand, I had a lot of dreams as a kid in which I was either being chased by police or busting out of jail (I've never been arrested for anything), or generally being chased by people with guns (with Matrix-like scenes and everything). I spent a lot of nights running for my life in middle school. Maybe it was because my mother was a tyrant and my brain was trying to help me make better responses that would allow me to esape her wrath faster. Or maybe it was because I had (and still sort of do) a general problem with authority. I still don't know.

But ever since my junior year of high school, the dreams I remember now consist of me searching for something vital- on awakening, I don't know what I am searching for but I seem to know in my dreams. And I'm always skulking around places I shouldn't. Sometimes I end up being chased, sometimes I don't. Sometimes they're pleasant, other times they aren't. Could searching for something that is vital but difficult to find or difficult to get to be a an indirectly threatening situation? If it is vital but you cannot reach it (often, I do not reach what I'm looking for), will that not negatively impact your survival potential? I don't know. I am not so sure that my dreams are not simply my mind's way of playing and compensating for days when I have not gotten the amount of mental stimulation I need..

I have the same recurring dream about finding myself back in school and i always wake up having to convince myself that I graduated. I have a diploma and that my mom even attended the ceremony. yet somehow that dream always leaves me doubting and asking myself... What grade did I get in this course? What about this one? Did I really pass?!?!

Looking forward to that Impostor Phenomenon post to understand it more.

Thanks.

My coworkers and myself discovered a common dream that most of us share in late August early September. You see, we are all elementary school teachers. Our dream is a classroom out of control and students with no regard for our authority over them. We try every "teacher trick" we know but nothing quiets the room or brings the classroom to order. I have been teaching for 15 years and still have this nightmare. We talked about it together, and I do believe that it made us more diligent in making a discipline plan, and more aware of the power of our position.

I have 2 types of recurring dreams, ok, 3, but we'll leave the 3rd kind out for this. One is where I've forgotten to do something and now it is costing me. Usualy, I have already forgotten it and only come to realize it in the dream. The other one is theater, usually a play I have just finished performing in has one more show that I didn't know about and for some reason, cannot find my costume and end up going on stage in the nude. Now perhaps on some unconscious level they do help me be prepared for things in the future, but the dreams occur after the fact, either after I've messed up or after the play has finished. Along the lines of the smoker, perhaps it has more to do with the horrible feelings associated with such things that will prevent me from being unprepared in the future, rather than the problem solving techniques I gain from the dream itself. I seem to never come across any solutions within the dream, though a few do tend to come to mind after I wake.

...my most typical bad dream involves one or the other being stolen, while I cruise around in the non-purloined one frantically searching for its missing sibling. I then wake up and suppress the urge to look out the window at the driveway. I suppose if those are the most frightening dreams I ever have, I'm lucky.

An interesting thing that tends to support the threat stimulation theory

A fact that supports the threat simulation theory is that children's tend to portray threats that would have been experiencd by our prehistoric ancestors in a very concrete way. For example, children are more likely to dream about being chased by big wild animals like lions than to dream about cats and dogs, even though they are more likely to come into contact with cats and dogs than with lions in wakiing life.

It isn't until we become adults that these threats become translated into more realistic, modern experiences - like having an argument with a colleague or being unprepared for an exam - in our drams.