Chapter 4

Dream Detail

So much for quantity, but what about quality? One person may recall a dream of walking along a road looking for a bus stop. Period. Another person may recall a similar dream but have far greater recall of the details: the texture and colour of the road, the name of the street, what was displayed in the shop windows and the call of a distant eagle riding a jacaranda scented breeze. The second dreamer clearly recalls more of the quality I have termed ‘dream detail’. Science may be sure that we all spend a similar quantity of time dreaming, but do we all experience the same degree of detail? Is detailed dreaming recall simply a matter of good memory, or is it the hallmark of an advanced dreamer: a dream master?

Measure Your Dream Detail Score

To get a measurement of your dream detail, return to the questionnaire and count the ticks you entered in Sections L-T inclusive. This is your dream detail score. You probably dream of many symbols, actions and other details not included in this survey, but that is not the point. The commonly dreamed scenarios represented here give a snapshot view of the amount of detail likely to be present in your dreams, no matter what else your nightly drama may unfold.

The survey’s average dream detail score was 46.2. How did your score compare?

The questionnaire asked you to mark with an ‘A’ your most frequently dreamed symbols in each section. Compare your answers with the most common dream details experienced by Ms Survey Dreamer below. (See Chapter 2 for a description of the conglomerate Ms Survey Dreamer. The following percentages are derived from the most frequently ticked symbols, not only from those marked ‘A’.)

Ms Survey Dreamer’s water dreams commonly find her by the edge of the sea (55%). When travelling around she generally takes a car (73.8%), which she drives herself (58.1%) and usually reaches her destination (41.9%). Left to her own devices she walks (83.8%) or flies (55%), either at a normal speed (77.5%) or fast and easy (46.9%). The most prominent person in her dreams is herself (95%), followed by her close relatives (83.3%). When she dreams of houses, they are dream houses, unknown to her in waking life (60.6%). Inside these houses she most often finds herself in the bedroom (41.3%) or the lounge (33.1%). When outdoors, she is commonly found at the coast (56.3%), in foreign countries (42.5%) or in city streets (41.9%). In the birth, marriage and death stakes she spends most dream time in sexual scenes (56.9%) or kissing someone (48.1%). Means of communication outside normal speech comes in the form of words (51.3%), but she doesn’t visit educational places in her dreams (49.4%). In the main, she either takes an active part in her dreams (91.9%) or she stands back and watches the action (67.5%).

The range of dream detail gathered over this survey is presented in percentage form throughout Part Two of this book.

Top of the list for dream detail score were five people who scored over 90, compared to the survey average of 46.2. The Profile of a High Detail Dreamer (below) shows what else these dreamers have in common.

Profile of a High Detail Dreamer
(Meet the top five for dream detail recall)

THEY:

Exercise frequently
Meditate regularly
Are non-smokers
Are stressed from time to time
Read or research areas of personal interest
Are not engaged in formal study
Have attended a workshop or lecture series recently
Believe in life after death
Believe in reincarnation
Have dreamed of being out of the body
Have lucid dreams
Change the course of their lucid dreams, but not frequently
Have psychic dreams
Experience sound and touch as well as sight in their dreams
Have made decisions based on their dreams
Have nightmares, but rarely recurring
Scored over 90 for dream detail
Wake up naturally
Lie in bed before getting up
Think about their dreams before getting up
Have frequent deja vu

Influence of Diet and Lifestyle

Although meat eaters remembered a higher number of dreams, vegetarians scored higher than average on dream detail. Dreamers who specifically mentioned ‘Chinese herbs’ as a regular dietary supplement had better quality dreams too.

Stress, either high or low, did not show an effect on dream detail score.

People who take part in some kind of meditative exercise, no matter which discipline, tend to be blessed with better dream detail recall than those who do not. Dreamers who meditate or practise yoga regularly experienced enhanced memory of dream detail. These disciplines tend to be focussed activities. Perhaps this trained focus during the fully conscious state aids conscious recall or observation of detail in their dreams.

While the general survey results showed no effect of regular exercise on dream detail, all five dreamers from the top dream detail profile exercised at least four times per week. It is tempting to suggest that frequent exercise boosts your chances of becoming a master of high quality dream recall.

No effect of either of these drugs was noted. As mentioned in the previous chapter on dream frequency, this survey looked at possible long-term effects, not binges! Heavy drinkers represented too small a group to evaluate also.

People who don’t watch television, according to this survey, remember more detail from their dreams.

The most detailed dreams were experienced by those dreamers who described their religion with words such as New Age, love, universe, oneness or open. The spiritualists came next, with the Catholics scoring third highest.

Below average dream detail was shown by Anglicans and those who claimed ‘no religion’. The other numerous religions represented on the survey had too few members to look for meaningful statistics.

So, what gives the New Agers, the spiritualists and the Catholics such detailed experiences in their dreams, or, at least, great recall of detail? Does the diversity of their dream experience reflect the importance their spirituality places on dreaming? Do Catholics dream more because their religion is steeped in symbolism, or because their religion is strict and has caused stress in their lives? Or have these people taken on these particular religious or spiritual outlooks simply because their more intensely detailed dream experiences have provided them with a glimpse of an alternate spiritual reality?

Do the dreamer’s waking life religious beliefs determine the religious nature of their dreams, or do their dreams inspire their waking ideas?

Question 6 in Section J of the questionnaire asked ‘Where do you believe your dreams come from?" Don’t knows, or blank spaces answered for a frustrated 17.5%. While 21.3% of people wrote the single word ‘subconscious’, most offered a short list of possible sources. In most cases this did not appear to be a random ‘chances are’ selection, but rather a more carefully weighed conclusion that dreams result from a number of sources, which perhaps should not be considered in isolation from each other.

The most detailed dreams were recalled by those who included ‘shared thoughts and events’ as one of the sources of their dreams. The next biggest dream source belief associated with a high dream detail score was ‘the collective unconscious’, followed by ‘a glimpse of the future’, then ‘spirit or deceased people’ and finally, but still high on the list, ‘higher consciousness’.

As a group, these beliefs generally summarise as a higher state of awareness of consciousness during sleep, which allows us to access the collective unconscious (a pool made up of everyone’s thoughts, knowledge and all events, past, present but also, in this picture, future), through which we can overlap or interact with others, living, dead or yet to be, and bring back knowledge from any dimension of time. Since these beliefs are associated with high dream detail scores, study of these philosophies combined with an open-minded approach may increase your own dream experience.

At the other end of the scale, below the average dream detail score, are those who quote ‘daytime experiences’ as the source of their dreams, followed by ‘the subconscious’ and also ‘the astral plane’. Apart from the astral plane category, these beliefs appear more grounded and conventional. Is this because the dreams, upon which the beliefs are based, are less detailed, perhaps even less persuasive, than the dream experiences which motivated the first group to seek a wider, more spiritual basis for their understanding of dreaming? Or, once again, should we peer in from another angle, and wonder how much dream detail is related to our philosophical or spiritual expectations?

People on the survey who scored high in dream detail also reported more frequent deja vu sensations as well as more frequent psychic dreams.

Dreamers who lie in, drop off to sleep again and then plan the day ahead (are these people accustomed to paying attention to detail in their waking lives too?) before getting up win when it comes to a high dream detail recall. There was also a tendency among those who scored high in this area to experience difficulty waking up. Time spent in limbo between the two worlds appears to be ideal for bringing the dream experiences back into waking memory.

Sense Awareness in Dreams

How many senses do you experience in your dreams? Sensory awareness in dreams is another form of dream detail. Compare your answers to Section G on the questionnaire with the survey findings:

Ms Survey Dreamer mostly dreams in colour (89.4%), with an intensity similar to waking life (65%). She doesn’t dream in black and white (53.1%) and doesn’t recall experiencing dreams without visuals (85%). She hears sound (67.5%) and feels touch (58.1%), but doesn’t notice smell (68.1%) or taste (rarely mentioned).

Of the survey dreamers who experienced the five basic senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) only six also had dreams in a colour more intense and more vivid than that seen in waking life. These six became the ‘strong senses group’ from which I compiled the Profile of a Strong Senses Dreamer (below). The profile shows what else these people had in common.

Profile of a Strong Senses Dreamer
(Meet the top six for strong sense recall)

This illustration summarises the similarities between the six survey respondents who report dream experience of at least five basic senses and dream colour that is intense and vivid. Each of the points on the list is true for at least five of these six dreamers.

THEY:

Mediate regularly
Do not drink alcohol
Are non-smokers
Eat sugar often
Take time out for relaxation
Also read for relaxation
Believe in life after death
Believe in reincarnation
Dream in intense colour
Dream sounds
Dream smells
Feel touch in their dreams
Dream tastes
Have no dreams without visuals
Also dream in black and white
Have lucid dreams
Visit educational places in their dreams
Wake up naturally
Understand less than half of their dreams
Think about their dreams before getting up
Experience deja vu

Vision: Colour and Intensity

Of the survey respondents, 35% reported dreaming in intense, vivid colour from time to time. Although many people found it hard to comment about colour until they ‘slept on it’ and checked through a dream first, only five people decided they only dreamed in black and white alone (7.4% remained unsure). Results showed that 45% of survey respondents had experienced some black and white dreams in the last two years. A few reported sepia coloured dreams, and both the black and white and the sepia dreams often related to a flashback dream segment, using that well-known cinematic technique of reverting to monochrome to indicate the past. Occasionally black and white came up in dreams which were associated with depression, as did greyish or brownish scenes.

It was interesting to discover, when I prepared the Profile of a Strong Senses Dreamer that the top six strong sense dreamers also experienced dreams in black and white. It seems that for these intensely sensual dreamers, black and white shading is an additional descriptive tool rather than a default because the dreamer hadn’t found the paint-box!

We generally accept that our dreams are visual, so it was interesting to note that 14.4% reported experience of non-visual dreams. They quoted dreams composed of voices, other sounds, forces, smells, emotions, feelings of speed, sensations of presences or the presentation of knowledge, with no accompanying pictures. Footsteps, laughing, feelings of expansion, music, being pushed, instructed or reassured were also experienced. Dreaming is strongly correlated with rapid movement of the eyes which can be observed by others even through our closed eyelids (REM sleep: see Chapter 23). Scientists have carried out experiments whereby they wake sleeping subjects and ask them to describe what they were watching in their dreams. It turns out that the observed eye movements did correlate with what the people were watching in their dreams. So, do our dreamers who recall some non-visual dreams show little or no eye movement during these types of dreams, or are they, in fact, a different kind of dream taking place in ‘non REM’ periods?

In my own experience, I often wake up with knowledge of several distinct dreams but also with a feeling that there has been a long, drawn out contemplation of an issue, or a background idea, equation, debate or feeling. I can usually summarise what I have learned from that background information, although the details are often beyond the grasp of words.

These concepts frequently involve formulae or visual metaphors which I fully comprehend while asleep, but which defy intellectual understanding on waking. Certainly other researchers in dreams have put forward the idea that non REM sleep is accompanied by some sort of mundane thinking process which is not easily recalled, but these personal experiences are certainly far from mundane.

Asked which touch sensations were felt in their dreams, 20.6% mentioned temperature, both hot and cold. Feeling (or being felt by!) other people was offered by 13.1%, with a further 10% specifying sexual touch. Others mentioned the texture of skin, blood, clothes, doors, walls, in fact the whole range of waking life touch feelings.

Pain was mentioned by a few, associated with having teeth pulled out, for example. Of the many dreams of deaths and accidents that have been described to me, very few are associated with pain. Often the dreamer notes the absence of pain with amazement, and this painlessness becomes the focus of the dream. This perhaps underlines the symbolic nature of many death dreams, where death is presented not as painful, but as an ending: death of the old ready for birth of the new. Other dream pains can be extremely severe, as I know from dreams of having my ankles bitten, or being injected with a hyperdermic syringe. Once I had to wake myself up because a pig had locked its sharp teeth into my buttocks and I couldn’t shake him off. That pain was excruciating!

Did Lesley tune into her daughter’s pain or was her daughter verbally complaining as she knocked on the door, so that the notion of pain was incorporated into her mother’s dream? Either way the mother experienced the eye pain as she would in waking life.

How much sensation in dreams originates from the body, or from what is happening around you as you sleep, and how much is just good, realistic dream detail or symbolism?

Symbolism apart, external sensations most definitely invade our dreams:

When it comes to sexual sensations in dreams, how much is physical (such as hormonal levels, or unfulfilled sex drive) and how much is symbolic?

The symbolism of dream sex is discussed in Part Two, but orgasm as a real physical sensation was regularly reported by both sexes on the dream survey. ‘Wet dreams’, it seems, are no longer exclusive male territory.

It is taken for granted that we usually hear speech in our dreams, but other sounds commonly reported included: music, animals, water, cars, bangs and explosions, wind, guns, bells and laughter.

Of course, external noises creep into our dreams too:

Our perception of sound in a dream can be so intense that we are left wondering about its source:

My personal experience of this dates back some fifteen years, and there is a very definite sense of the external, but inexplicable. In one case I awoke as a ‘cold finger’ touched my forehead. I lay alertly awake behind tight-shut eyes, but that finger was still there. A few hours of rigid sleeplessness later, the sun came up and I bravely went about investigating the situation. There was no way I could have touched anything, not even a wall or bed head. It remained a mystery for many years (my understanding can now at least partially encompass the event), although I did note, as I awoke in the morning, that it was my parents’ wedding anniversary: also the anniversary of my baptism as a baby. Things that go bump in the night are discussed later in this book.

Among the dream smells, survey dreamers reported perfume, the ocean, trees, petrol, food, blood, excrement, animals, people, childhood memory smells, dirt, puss, rotting meat, farms and salt. The most commonly mentioned smell was flowers, followed by perfume. Smell perception can be symbolic and, like our other dream senses, can also enter our dream consciousness from our external world.

Telepathy most certainly occurs between sleepers as well as between a sleeper and someone who is awake, and this is adequately covered in other parts of this book. Kate’s description of the sense of telepathy operating within the dream was a common experience:

Many commonly experience an awareness of another presence as in Lucy’s case:

Emotions and feelings in dreams are covered elsewhere in this book, but I was surprised by the number of people on the survey who responded to the question ‘Are you aware of any other sense coming into your dreams?’ by writing ‘strong emotions and feelings’. These were not the kind of ‘senses’ I was referring to, but I mention them here, in passing, for those readers who would have been left wondering, ‘What about emotions?’

As will be seen later, with our conscious, more rational self turned down low while we sleep, our inconscious, more emotional, feeling-orientated self can really let rip. To feel our emotions so intensely in our dreams, without the need to check ourselves for fear of judgement by others, is to begin to know who we truly are. Monitoring the emotional content of our dreams is also one of the major keys to their interpretation.