Getting my dreams back (but not in a Hallmark card kind of way)

I used to have incredibly detailed dreams and excellent recall of them. I'd wake up and say something like, "I was walking through a forest, but not a regular forest--it looked like a cross between the redwood forest in that SUV commercial and that part of El Yunque in Puerto Rico just to the left of the door of the Visitor's Center. Anyway, I was walking through the forest and a woman appeared from behind a tree--I think it was a gingko tree, but the leaves looked almost more like willow leaves. The woman was wearing a flight attendant's uniform from the 60s....." You can see how that would be simultaneously entertaining and yet annoying to dream in such detail.

I haven't had dreams like that since my older son was born. Probably from the sleep deprivation and just being focused on other people's concerns all day long.

And I'm still not getting enough sleep and am still focusing a lot on what other people need. But somehow, my dreams have come back in the last week. I had one a few days ago about a crocheted purse (there was way more to the dream than that, but I've been haunted by wanting to figure out how to make this purse), and one last night about my boss doing a combo of stand-up comedy and rock climbing.

I wonder if this means I'm coming out of the little-kid mommy tunnel.

Any thoughts about this? Is it happening to anyone else?

Comments

[sheSaid]

Still sleep deprived... but woo hoo! if you are finally through the wringer and can get back to your dreams :)

[Joceline]

Hah! I was just telling my husband about a dream I had that sounds a lot like yours detail-wise. The Boy turned six months old yesterday and celebrated by going to bed at 7:30, waking to eat at 12:30, 5:30, and finally waking for the day at 7:30. This is big, people. I was thinking that my detailed dream (that I remember!) was potentially related to getting a longer stretch of sleep for once! Maybe there is something to your theory!

[rudyinparis]

Moxie, what an interesting post. Your dreams sound fascinating. I wonder what that means--what type of personality can have dreams so vivid. Not me. My only vivid dream experience is from when I was pregnant with Eldest, people would show up in my dreams that I would have thought were completely gone from my consciousness--e.g., the guy that sat behind me in 10th grade geometry, etc.

What I lost was my ability to dance. I used to love dancing before I had kids, and although I wasn't great at it or anything, I enjoyed it and would dance without self-consciousness. But ever since they arrived--I have no rhythm. I feel really awkward dancing. It's lame!

[Mommy-O]

This is interesting because I have been dreaming a lot lately so I guess I must be sleeping well. Cool. I had a dream last night that a friend of mine was giving me advice on what clothes to wear which seems silly but I think it has to do with my body image and the fact that I keep putting off buying new clothes for myself because I keep waiting to be my desired weight/size.

rudyinparis, I am so sorry about the dancing because it is such a great way to express yourself. In a previous life (before DH and kids) I shared an apartment with a single mom with a 5 year old son. Every day she would come home after picking her son up from school, put on music (that I'm too sexy for my shirt song was a favorite) really loud and they/we would dance around the living room and be absolutely silly. What a great way to end the day.

[shirky]

Check out slowwave.com ... if you don't read it already!

[Melissa]

Yep, used to have very detailed dreams to the point where my husband could barely tolerate my descriptions. Haven't had them since end of pregnancy and still haven't returned due to cosleeping with a still-thrice-nursing 20 month old.

Good to know they come back, I love them!

[giddy]

I have always been a vivid dreamer, and before having kids I noticed that the vividness of my dreams (or perhaps just my ability to recall them) fluctuated on a monthly basis, with more vivid dreaming at a certain point during my cycle (now that I am thinking about it I can't pinpoint exactly when during the cycle--but I think it was closer to my period). I suspect that it's not that the dreaming itself changes, and more that the sleep cycle changes so that by the time you wake up, the dream phase of sleep was longer ago (or hadn't happened yet, or whatever). To remember your dream, you have to wake up during the relevant phase. (Dreams occur during REM sleep, don't they? I can't recall.) In any event, I would surmise that changes in dream patterns after having kids could also be related to hormonal changes in addition to sleep deprivation.

My kids are 8 and 3, and I manage to sleep very consistently these days. I don't remember everything all the time, but I do have vivid dreams again.

I also have noticed that I am more likely to recall my dreams if I have set an alarm and take a shower immediately upon getting up, because that "shower time" is meditative time, whereas if I get up and start taking care of my kids, etc. I'm not thinking about what I dreamt. Also, hitting snooze a few times tends to dull my memories of what I might have been dreaming, although I DO sometimes fall right back into the dream upon the snooze. I am much less likely to remember my dream if I allow myself to sleep until I wake up naturally. I think by then my brain is thinking about needing to pee, or whatever, and no longer in the right kind of sleep phase.

Glad you are back into having those kinds of dreams. I have always loved it!

[paola]

No dreams here either. Not due to lack of sleep as I get a good 6 in a row plus another hour most nights. I think it is due to sheer exhaustion. I really conk out and fall into the deepest sleep immediately, and a lot quicker than I have ever done. I must dream at some point, but if I'm not awoken right in the middle or the end I simply don't remember any of it.

[caramama]

Did you know that people who take melatonin supplements report having very vivid dreams? I tend to have very vivid dreams and (as a person who has Seasonal Affective Disorder) an overabundence of melatonin in my system (especially in the winter, as sunlight supresses melatonin). Let me tell you, vivid dreams really suck when you are having bad dreams/nightmares every night.

I'm glad you are getting more sleep and have your vivid dreams back.

Me, I got my feet on the ground, and I don't go to sleep to dream...

[Julie]

Yay moxie....this is a good sign of many good things in store for you in 2008. I think that if your brain has the time and energy to dream, you are entering into a new phase.....one where you are doing things for yourself to make *you* happy (maybe symbolized by the crochet purse). You are nearing the end of this phase.....in one piece and stronger for having been through it. Congratulations.

[m]

I've been at varying levels of sleep-deprivation since March '06, when my first son was born. I now have two, but my dreams have remained very vivid and epic. I'm not sure why.

[Katie B.]

Hmm. I get pretty vivid nightmares during times of extreme stress; not sure how being a mom will change that. I do know that for the last couple of weeks I've been having pretty vivid dreams - not necessarily happy, but not nightmares, either. I am seldom a very vivid dreamer otherwise; at nearly 33 weeks, I'm chalking it up to pregnancy, honestly, although few of these dreams have much if anything directly to do with babies, birthing, or any of that.

Glad to hear you're sleeping better, Moxie!

[hedra]

I dream like that, too. And used to remember them in detail, sometimes 12-16 dreams per night, every blessed night. And stopped having quite so many, with clear recall, after each child was born.

I do find that the better I sleep, the more they come back.

So I vote with the 'you're coming out of it!' :)

[meggiemoo]

This is me, exactly. I generally remember 1-2 very vivid dreams a night (my husband's favorite was when I dreamt I was a man...that was interesting!). For the year after my DS was born, I didn't remember any dreams, and I really mourned losing that part of myself.

The remembering came back when he was around 18 months, and I was so happy. I knew it meant I was over the sleep deprivation hump. I really felt like my creative self was back in some way!

[chaosgirl]

My vote is for coming out of it too. My guess. Moxie, is that you're getting better quality sleep with a few more REM cycles and you're waking up during them.

Since my son started sleeping through the night and I was actually getting good sleep I started to remember my dreams again. But they're not as interesting as they used to be.

I had the most vivid dreams of my life while pregnant -- second trimester, mostly. And they were always erotic and incredibly detailed. I've talked to a couple of women who said they experienced the same thing. Some said they recalled having orgasms in their dreams! Have other women experienced something similar?

[stacy]

@chaosgirl:

Yup! It only happened to me once, but WOW. I had this crazy erotic dream during the second trimester while I was napping in the middle of the day - I woke myself up with all my own moaning and shouting. Really. Damn, that dream was fantastic. Though it also stands out as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, because there was a landscaping crew right outside my bedroom window...and the window was open...God only knows what they thought of my performance.

As for Moxie's post, I'm also a former-very-vivid-dreamer. They've come back in bits and spurts since my toddler has started sleeping through the night, but nothing like they were before. Guess I'm still in the tunnel :)

[Robin]

I've been thinking about this too. The other night I watched Atonement and that night I had the most intense, vivid dream. I haven't dreamt like that since before I had my son almost 11 months ago. My theory is that I really haven't allowed myself much in the way of rich visual imagery since I became a mama. I rarely watch films anymore, which was a huge passion of mine before. Usually if I'm watching anything I'm watching crap tv with little or no visual interest. I think when I watched Atonement I was really tuned into the costumes and the colors and art direction, which must have stimulated my subconscious somehow. I'm thinking if I can watch one visually arresting film per week maybe I can get back some semblance of a dream life!

[Melba]

I'm jealous of all you vivid dreamers. I rarely remember dreams. Like maybe once a month I'll remember a dream and I'll only remember it for about 5 minutes when I first wake up. If I don't tell anyone about it, it's gone. And when I do remember dreams they're rarely vivid memories, more like just feelings and general stuff.

But I think if you had vivid dreams pre-kids and you're starting to have them again, take it as a good sign of getting a piece of your old self back!

[paola]

@chaosgirl

Me too with the orgasms. I remember once having one when I wasn't even having an erotic dream or having sex thoughts. God knows what that means (well it probably meant that I was sexually repressed, which I was during my last pregnancy)

[paola]

upps, sexY thoughts

[Cate]

Yes, Moxie, this has been happening to me too. Since about the beginning of this year, when my son was 20 months and finally night-weaned, I have begun to dream again as I did pre-kiddo. Still not up to the same amount, but have had some funny ones in the past week: in one, i dreamt that the Bachelor (London version) was my new boss! ha, ha. In another, less pleasant, I awoke standing next to my bed because I thought there was a snake in the bed. I started to wake up my husband, then realized it had been a dream.

[pnuts mama]

i am a vivid dreamer as well- my dreams are so weird, i have recurring dreams (over periods of YEARS- like, i'll have the feeling of deja vu during the dream), dreams that aren't recurring but are more like chapters of the same story, i'll dream that i am somewhere (like someone's house) but it won't look anything like the actual house, etc. etc. i've had tons of dreams where people die- horrible! and when i was 14 i dreamt that a great aunt came and said goodbye to me and when i woke up my dad told me she had died the night before. SO WEIRD!! my biomom used to have crazy dreams too- dreamed she would die, who we would go live with (we did) etc.

i've been fascinated with dream interpretation for years- for a while i never told anyone about my dreams cause it seemed like hocus pocus stuff to me, but when i was in grad school i had a lecture in a psych class that was all about dream interpretation and what symbolic images are that appear in your dreams. it's really interesting to me. i totally believe that you are working out your subconscious when you dream- and that we can learn so much from what we dream about.

i used to wake up and jot down notes about my dream, remember them throughout the day, and go to bed thinking about them to see if i could continue them. now it's all i can do to remember to wake up long enough to pee 400 times a night.

@ the sexy dream ladies- yep, me too.
@cate- snake in the bed (or on the ground where i am standing in my dream) is my #1 nightmare. then the folks i love dying (abandonment issues, party of one?) my #2 nightmare.

[Julie]

My recurring nightmare......my teeth are falling out one-by-one. And not in some horrible way but just.....hey! what's that rolling around in my mouth? Oh! it's my back molar. Oops, there goes another one!....that kind of way. Worrying about having no teeth and - horror of horrors - HOW AM I GOING TO EAT?????

I also have a vivid flying dream - I'm an arm-flapper. I flap my arms and can physically feel myself lift off and go higher/lower depending on my flapping. My husband is of the superhero kind of flying - like a jet with arms out in front. I like my kind better - very peaceful (not to mention realistic).

Another thing to note about vivid dreams....anti-depressants/anxiety meds impact the vividness of dreams.....VERY vivid, VERY real, and sometimes VERY weird. Good times.

[meggiemoo]

@Julie...ooh, the teeth falling out is my most common recurring nightmare. It's horrible!

What makes it worse is that a few years ago, my husband accidently knocked one of my teeth when we were tossing a medicine ball back and forth at the gym, and I actually woke up to a cracked tooth. It was like my nightmare came true!

I've read that dreaming about losing teeth represents insecurity or fear of change.

[Michelle]

I had two orgasm dreams when I was pregnant with my son...but none with my daughter. Bummer.

I am still very much in the Little Kid Mommy Tunnel...Oldest just turned 2 and youngest is 9 months.

I do dream but not nearly as frequently or as vividly as I did before I had kids...and I hardly ever remember them anymore.

Sometimes I will think of something and have to really think hard about whether it really happened or whether I dreamed it. Just adds to the fogginess of my current state of mind!

[Lisa F.]

ahh, intense dreams, I've had them come back in fits & spurts but rarely have time to work w/them now(I did a lot of dream work before, analyzing them, journaling about them.)

it seemed the more I worked on them, or worked at remembering them, the easier it became & the more I recalled. got a LOT of psychological/family of origin work out of them.

And I've only had a very few flying dreams but WOW!

[sue]

I've always had very vivid dreams that I remember for a looong time (I can remember some from when I was three. they were scary). That didn't stop during pregnancy, and sleep deprivation has only made them weirder. Still vivid and memorable, though.

@the sexy pregnancy dream ladies - oh yeah. Not so much with the first, but ALL THE TIME with the second. I have friends who chat about their pregnancy-induced sex dreams, and I'm always too embarrassed to chime in because the only man I have sex dreams about is my husband, and they always dream about hunky movie stars. So boring and embarrassing, but I guess it bodes well for the marriage :-)

[lydia]

I have the opposite situation, sort of. I've developed wicked insomnia since having kids - they both sleep fairly decently now but I'm still traumatized from years of being woken up over and over again.

But it astounds me how I'll sometimes have these "REM catchup" dreams, where I'll dream elaborate multi-scene showstoppers with a full cast of characters and musical numbers...and then I wake up and look at the clock and only 20 minutes have passed.

My guess is your return to good dreams is just as you say. Coming out of a tunnel.

[andrea]

@ Julie, I'm an arm-flapper/flyer too. And I just realised upon reading your comment that it has been SO LONG since I had one of those dreams. (Ten-month-old twins. Sleep deprivation, anyone?) I was so convinced within those dreams that I really could fly. I hope I get back to having those occasionally when I start getting more sleep.

[pnuts mama]

@ sue- ME TOO! always sexy dreams where my husband is the main event- never a stranger or even just a good looking guy i may have met, etc.
i too think it bodes well for my marriage/state of attraction to this guy i've loved for what seems like forever, but still, once in a while it would be nice to have a sexy stranger dream, right?

***
did you all have crazy terrifying dreams when your first born was first born? i used to have CRAZY nightmares that something was going to happen to pnut when she was a newborn- thank GOD those subsided. yeesh.

[Caroline]

Yep, flying - but I'm more of a swooper than a flapper.

Yep, teeth falling out.

And a theme of screwing things up is weird ways - wondering in my dream why I moved twelve cars into the street cleaning zone, and how I'm going to get them all out in time.

But my whole life they've been few and far between, and rarely super-vivid, until many, many years ago when my husband (boyfriend then) and I were on the nicotine patch. Holy crap. We used it at night exactly once. Both invented small mammals that night, I kid you not. So vivid, so trippy.

But now I'm actually dreaming a bit more, with an 8 week old in the bed and the not-so-fab sleep involved. Hmmm.

[lucy]

If my 6 month old and I go back to sleep after the 6am brekkie feed I have the most intense dreams. At the moment they all seem to center around my Mother In Law ...so perhaps more nightmare than dream....My subconscious is obviously figuring something out there.
Interesting Stacy, your experience after watching Atonement. I found that movie very provocative. I watched it on the Netflix , while my DH was out...I was stirred up to say the least. It made for some steamy moments on the couch when he got home. James Mcavoy, you are my marital aid. Is that wrong?

[lucy]

If my 6 month old and I go back to sleep after the 6am brekkie feed I have the most intense dreams. At the moment they all seem to center around my Mother In Law ...so perhaps more nightmare than dream....My subconscious is obviously figuring something out there.
Interesting Stacy, your experience after watching Atonement. I found that movie very provocative. I watched it on the Netflix , while my DH was out...I was stirred up to say the least. It made for some steamy moments on the couch when he got home. James Mcavoy, you are my marital aid. Is that wrong?

[Jezer]

My son is 27 months old, and I started dreaming again like before just last week. He's never been a great sleeper, and lately he's been waking only once per night (we still co-sleep). So, yes, I am totally on the same page with you.

[hedra]

I've always done the dream interp thing too... and learned that there's some 'standard' symbols (by culture usually) and some that become very individual. And a lot have some kind of pun involved for me. I used to dream of terriers when I was dating a guy named Terry, for example.

The teeth falling out I found had a range of interpretations, but loosely is that feeling of not being able to get a tight hold on life, not being able to get one's teeth into something. Related to insecurity, but in a 'losing control of the essentials' kind of way. I had that one OVER AND OVER with pregnancy and early motherhood, any time my life was changing a lot and I didn't feel like I had a grip on making it go the way I wanted to, etc. And often not traumatic loss, just falling out as noted by others - whoops, lost another molar, huh! Being in the back seat or passenger seat of the car while driving is also related - either nobody is driving my life, or I'm driving but not in 'the driver's seat'.

Frankly, I'm glad I don't dream so much during early momdom, since I know most of it would likely be the tooth-falling-out, car-driven-by-nobody, types. :)

Oh, and I LOVE the flying dreams - hop and glide was my most common, I'd just decide to take a big step, and I'd just glide along and gently put my foot down for the next step, yards and yards later. I realized in one dream that this was directly tied to that 'flying the kid' thing where two adults are walking with a kid between them, holding their hands, and they lift and 'fly' the kid along as they walk. It was kind of neat that I could somewhat recreate that sensation for my kids, in real life!

[Hermes Leather Bag]

I'm interested in such offer,The sound quality in these podcasts is really poor. I feel bad about complaining about something that is free, but I think it is important.