Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Differing dreams

I wondered this evening if music ever appeared in dreams, and looked it up: apparently so, especially among musicians.

I wonder if this is something "trainable" or reflects a personality trait. I never dream of math or physics (or discover a benzene ring in my sleep), so what's in the dream isn't just a matter of what the interests of the day were.

Vision, always. Speech, usually--but not other noises as a rule. Touch--in only one category. Taste--never.

We've heard aplenty about the meaning of the contents of dreams. Does what kinds of senses are involved in a person's dreams tell us anything about him? (I'm not looking for stresses or pathologies here.)

1 comment:

Texan99 said...

It's getting harder and harder to remember my dreams as I age. When I can remember them, it's more feelings and situations than senses, I think: sometimes deceased loved ones are alive again, or my dogs are lost and I need to find them, things like that. Some visual, clearly, but I really couldn't say whether I dream in color or not. Like you, I'm sure there's speech, but I can't recall any other sounds off-hand. I do think there's sometimes music, perhaps being able to sing something I couldn't pull off in real life.