Friday Five: Dreams

Haven't done a Friday Five in a long time, and thought this one was rather interesting.

1. What did you dream about last night?
2. Do you record your dreams in your blog or a journal?
3. Do you think dreams are messages our bodies are trying to tell us? If so, are you real big on trying to interpret all the details?
4. Do you remember your first nightmare?
5. Have you ever had a recurring dream? If you did, what was it and what do you think it meant?

1. Not last night, but the night before: This dream was so vivid that I thought it was really taking place. I dreamt that Joe and Tabitha were still at our place, and we were talking (just as we had actually been doing a few hours earlier) and next thing I know, we're having an animated conversation about... code reviews. (Don't say a word, Joe :-P) Ever had one of those days where your mind was so absorbed with work that it carried on into dreams later? *shudder*

2. I used to. I thought maybe I could find a pattern or some meaning or something. And most of the time, I really only jotted them down because they made for some "interesting" memories. But it turns out that it's really only interesting for the first few hours after waking up (especially those dreams that evoke emotional reactions), maybe a few days if you write it down. After that, when I went back and re-read them, I found them little more than a hodgepodge of weird scenes. So I stopped doing that.

3. I think sometimes they are. Sometimes they're obviously side effects of having your mind concentrate on something in particular for a long stretch of time (like the code review dream :-P). Sometimes they just embody wishful thinking. And yeah, once in a while maybe you might uncover hidden meaning in your dreams, but I don't think that happens often enough to warrant spending much time trying to interpret them.

4. I don't really have nightmares. I've had dreams where I felt very sad or very angry or very happy, but never ones where I was anything beyond mildly frightened. The worst have been dreams where I'm being chased or attacked, and I turn around to attack the attacker back with something powerful, like a big knife or gun or baseball bat, but fail: either I miss, or can't stab/hit hard enough. Or else the attacker is just super-resilient and still crawls along the floor despite my having pumped a dozen bullets into him ;-P Still, those are probably the "worst" dreams I've ever had, and even they seemed so surreal they evoked more frustration ("How come I can't beat him down!?") than fear.

5. Quite a few, in fact: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=28049135&blogID=419651721

How about you?