It’s so weird to wake up feeling heartbreak for someone created in a dream.
My brain sure did have fun flooding itself with oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine last night. Fuck you brain.
My first crush was a girl from another country I met on a short exchange. Nothing happened but the feelings were mutual. It was easy to romanticize and make her into something she wasn’t. It took me years to get over the regret even after seeing the same scenario work out horribly for the other half of my exchange where he did the program for a year chasing after a girl to be dumped within a week of arriving. Eventually I turned regret into a lesson against inaction, but it took a long time before I finished mourning the imaginary path my life could have taken.
Yeah, and they can be really intense too. A couple times it took the form of somebody I know IRL. I wake up and it’s like damn, did I miss something? Other times it took the form of a stranger and it’s like my brain needed something to get me through the day so it flooded me with love and good feelings. The love aspect remains even if the dream wasn’t memorable. Every time I have a dream like that I like to think it means something somewhere in the universe loves me.
I like to think it means something somewhere in the universe loves me.
I love this thought, and am stealing it
Yes, but she really worked hard to make me think she did exist.
But it was all an act.
I know I’ve had a few dream intimate relationships, but they were more statements of fact as a setting in a broader context.
Related though: Friends and I, in our teens, were playing the ‘pass out game’. On my turn, after friend puts me under, I not only saw but felt in a rapid presentation these slices of memory of an entire lifetime unfolding. It was an entire life.
I saw these vignettes in 3rd person but felt them, too. I went to college, got married to a beautiful woman, we loved each other, had a family, worked, and grew old with them. It ended when my friend lost his grip on me as I started going down and I knocked my head on the floor which brought me to.
So… 2 and a half seconds maybe? But in that space it was an entire lifetime. It was so… real.
Probably the most bizarre thing was I felt and thought about these slices, especially the older ones, with the kind consideration you could only know having experienced them. In no way, it seemed, could a teenager who had no life experience know that sense of tired love, and pride and contentment, the sense of history, you share with your wife and your adult kids as you watch your grandkids running around and playing after dinner at a family reunion. How does the brain concoct an emotional reaction to a completely imaginary situation based on conjecture alone that ended up being so accurate?
In the first few seconds after I came to I was struck with a profound feeling of loss. I lost my family. I lost my life. And all those milestones along the way. But also a sense of gratitude for the experience. I also felt a kind of exhaustion, like you’d feel when you come home from a long trip.
It was intense. Sometimes I wish my infrequent dreams had that kind of concreteness and coherence, but also kinda a glad they don’t.
What year did you graduate? '06 here and my high school went through a similar phase when I was a sophomore.
Remember putting a friend under during chem class in front of the door window to the seniors taking Calc. I always wonder what sort of damage we were doing given how much some people did it.
Kids are always looking for extra sensory experiences. This was in the 90s. So ten years later, the trend was still around. As I was writing this the question hit ‘wait, how does that even work?’ We did the hyperventilating/bearhug trick. Like how does that make someone lose consciousness? (It’s actually pretty interesting, I discovered). The wikipedia article is written in a way as to suggest this is still an ongoing trend concerning parents. Thrill seeking is eternal. 😄
Have you tried DMT?
I have.
Did you find it similar at all? I dunno, your story reminded me of one or two times I’ve done DMT (though the details seem to fade pretty quick like a dream)
Yeah a little bit. What was unusual about this, in contrast to the chaotic kaleidoscope of hallucinogens or even the surreality of dreaming, was just how clear and coherent and structured it was. Maybe that’s why it stuck so permanently in the memory.
I’ve had that happen a few times, but I chalk it up to being intensely lonely and not feeling worthy of a relationship. I usually have terrible nightmares, but I think the dreams where I fall in love with someone are worse, because at least the nightmares are based on events I’ve lived through
I’ve never wanted to have children IRL, and so I don’t have any. But sometimes I dream about having a daughter, and it feels… right, for the lack of a better word. I wake up knowing it was a dream, but I still feel a bit of loss every time I wake up from that kind of dream. Similar to when I dream about someone I’ve lost.
Weird that I’ve also had the daughter dream. I really did love her, and she was about 3 in my dream.
My dreams been about me being killed, I never had suicidal thoughts.
Love dreams might be better for a change.No, but i never remember my dreams. That generally makes me sad but it may be a good thing after all.
I totally have. We had amazing adventures, fell in love, a big wedding… and then I fucking woke up. I wrote it down so I’d always have a record even if it never really happened
Oh yeah I remember all 3 occurences, that mostly happened around my 20s, i guess I was yearning
Oh, yes. Quite a few times. I’ve forgotten the details, but not the feeling. Love, and the first kiss.
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