Dreams

Your brain “wakes up” more than 100 times each night. That’s normal — and maybe good

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It might be good for your memory.

It’s common for humans to bemoan a night of fragmented sleep and prize one that’s completely uninterrupted, but a study conducted on mice — which share basic sleep mechanisms with us — suggests that brief, repeated “wake-ups” during sleep are completely normal, and may actually augur well for one’s memory. The research was published in Nature Neuroscience.

Sleepy head

Sleep is a complex neurological process characterized by shifting brain patterns, fluids flushing in and out of the skull, and a drop in body temperature, all with the apparent aim of restoring the brain as its waking functions are disabled.

In this process, the hormone norepinephrine appears to play a significant role, even though it’s released at lower levels during sleep compared to when we’re awake. Observing the brains of mice as the critters slept, scientists from the University of Copenhagen watched norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline) levels rise and fall in a steady, oscillatory pattern, and noticed that this rhythm coincided with frequent, fleeting spurts of arousal in the brain.

“We have learned that noradrenaline causes you to wake up more than 100 times a night,” co-first author Celia Kjærby, an assistant professor from the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, said in a statement.

“Neurologically, you do wake up, because your brain activity during these very brief moments is the same as when you are awake. But the moment is so brief that the sleeper will not notice,” PhD student Mie Andersen, the other co-first author of the study, added.

Furthermore, the researchers noticed that when norepinephrine’s oscillation had a greater amplitude — meaning a larger disparity between peak levels of the hormone and the lowest levels — it led to more complete awakenings but also increased the frequency of sleep spindles, brain wave patterns experienced during sleep associated with learning and memory processing.

“You could say that the short awakenings reset the brain so that it is ready to store memory when you dive back into sleep,” Maiken Nedergaard, a Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the University of Copenhagen, speculated.

Indeed, when the researchers artificially reduced the amplitude of norepinephrine’s oscillation in mice’s sleeping brains, either through genetic engineering or pharmaceuticals, they found that the mice performed worse on memory tests compared to unaltered controls.

Of mice and men

Though mice studies rarely translate perfectly to humans, the researchers think that theirs should as similar biological sleep mechanisms are observed among mammals. Creating a technique in humans to fine-tune norepinephrine oscillations as we sleep “might provide a powerful therapeutic tool in promoting the memory-enhancing segments of sleep,” the researchers write.

Another takeaway from the study is that we shouldn’t expect our sleep to be seamless. Brief wake-ups, whether noticed or unnoticed, seem to be quite normal and are generally not a cause for concern unless triggered by a disorder such as sleep apnea.

“Of course, it is not good to be sleepless for extended periods, but our study suggests that short-term awakenings are a natural part of sleep phases related to memory. It may even mean that you have slept really well,” first author Kjærby stated.

Dreams can spill over into the real world, influence productivity at work

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 Dreams often fade away after waking up, but a sizable portion of people can still recall their dreams as they begin their workday. Now, researchers from the University of Notre Dame have found that when someone remembers a dream from the night before, many can’t help but draw connections between their dreams and their waking lives. Those connections, real or not, then end up altering how they think, feel, and act at work.

The team at UND, including lead author Casher Belinda, assistant professor of management at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and Michael Christian from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explain that earlier research reveals roughly 40 percent of the working population recalls their dreams on an average morning.

“Similar to epiphany, we found that connecting the dots between dreams and reality gives rise to awe — an emotion that sparks a tendency to think about ourselves and our experiences in the grand scheme of things,” Prof. Belinda says in a university release. “This makes subsequent work stressors seem less daunting, bolstering resilience and productivity throughout the workday.”

“People experience awe when they undergo something vast — something that challenges their understanding or way of thinking about things,” the study author continues. “These experiences can come in different forms, whether physical, such as when witnessing aurora borealis, or conceptual, such as when grasping the implications of a grand theory. Awe often borders on the extremes or upper bounds of other emotions, for example, when people experience profound gratitude or admiration. Dreams are conceptually vast experiences that have a striking capacity to elicit feelings of awe.”

Man daydreaming at work desk, happy
A man working from home (© fizkes – stock.adobe.com)

Researchers conducted a total of three studies encompassing roughly 5,000 morning-of reports of dream recall among full-time employees. They released a morning-of field study, a single-day morning-to-afternoon study, and a two-week experience sampling study.

These projects discovered that the relationships persisted even after researchers accounted for how much or how well people slept. This suggests that the psychological consequences of recalling and finding meaning in a dream could sometimes offset or mitigate the physiological consequences of poor sleep.

On the surface, dreams may sound like the opposite of a very real workday, but researchers explain that many people are dreaming vividly mere minutes or hours before beginning their professional day. This research shows that when we remember our dreams – which to our sleeping minds are very real – they can influence and set the stage for the rest of our day.

“We arrive at work shortly after interacting with deceased loved ones, narrowly escaping or failing to escape traumatic events and performing acts of immeasurable ability,” Prof. Belinda explains. “Regardless of our personal beliefs about dreams, these experiences bleed into and affect our waking lives — including how productive we are at work.”

Woman sitting at a desk overwhelmed with paperwork
(Photo by Yan Krukau from Pexels)

For example, let’s say you remember an awe-inspiring or meaningful dream one morning. Later that same day in the afternoon, your boss tells you to conduct 10 more interviews than you were expecting. Despite the extra work, your recent dream may help you put everything into perspective. Study authors say dreams may help workers realize there’s a bigger world out there and they are just part of it or recognize the interconnected nature of everything.

“Harnessing the benefits of awe may prove invaluable to organizations,” Prof. Belinda adds. “And one of our primary goals was to understand how to do so.”

Of course, researchers stress that everyone’s number one priority should be to get a good night’s sleep. While it’s true that dreams occur during all stages of sleep, Prof. Belinda explains that the most vivid dreams occur during REM sleep. That phase of sleep tends to take place late in a given sleep cycle. So, study authors recommend getting as much sufficient, high-quality sleep as you can to get the most out of your dreams.

They also suggest the use of sleep-tracking devices that indicate when and how much time is spent in REM sleep for anyone looking improve their sleep schedules and perhaps experience more awe-inspiring dreams.

“Also, keep a dream journal to allow meaningful dreams to stick with you,” Prof. Belinda comments. “Recording dreams gives them repeated opportunities to elicit beneficial emotions and make connections between dreams.”

Meanwhile, the research team has a suggestion for managers and employees as well: Promote the “awe experience” at work as much as possible. Besides just dreams, other elicitors of awe include nature, art, music and exposure to senior leaders. These experiences can help increase productivity at work.

The study is published in the Academy of Management Journal.

The study of dreams: Scientists uncover new communication channels with dreamers

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In his sci-fi film Inception (2010), Christophe Nolan imagined his protagonist slipping into other people’s dreams and even shaping their contents. But what if this story wasn’t so far away from real life?

Our research suggests that it is possible to interact with volunteers while they are asleep, and even to converse with them at certain key moments.

The scientific study of dreams

While we sometimes wake up with vivid memories from our nocturnal adventures, at others the impression of a dreamless night prevails.

Research shows we remember on average one to three dreams per week. However, not everyone is equal when it comes to recalling dreams. People who say they never dream make up around 2.7 to 6.5% of the population. Often, these people used to recall their dreams when they were children. The proportion of people who say they have never dreamt in their entire life is very low: 0.38%.

Whether people remember their dreams depends on many factors such as gender (women remember their dreams more frequently than men), one’s interest in dreams, as well as the way dreams are collected (some might find it handy to keep track of them with a “dream journal” or a recorder, for example).

The private and fleeting nature of dreams makes it tricky for scientists to capture them. Today, however, thanks to knowledge acquired in the field of neuroscience, it is possible to classify a person’s state of alertness by analyzing their brain activity, muscle tone and eye movements. Scientists can thus determine whether a person is asleep, and what stage of sleep they are in: sleep onset, light slow wave sleep, deep slow wave sleep or Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep.

What this physiological data does not do is tell us whether a sleeper is dreaming (dreams can occur in all stages of sleep), let alone what they’re dreaming about. Researchers don’t have access to the dream experience as it happens. They are therefore forced to rely on the dreamer’s account upon waking, with no guarantee that this account is faithful to what happened in the sleeper’s head.

Man sleeping, dreaming
What one dreams about remains a well-kept secret. (Credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels)

To achieve this, it would be ideal to be able to communicate with sleepers. Impossible? Not for everyone – that’s where lucid dreamers come in.

Lucid dreaming

Most of us only realize we’ve been dreaming upon waking. Lucid dreamers, on the other hand, have the unique ability to remain aware of the dreaming process during REM sleep, a stage of sleep during which brain activity is closer to that of the waking phase.

Even more surprisingly, lucid dreamers can sometimes exercise partial control over their dream’s narrative. They are then able to fly away, make people appear or disappear, change the weather or transform themselves into animals. In short, the possibilities are endless.

Such lucid dreams can occur spontaneously or be engineered by specific training. The existence of lucid dreaming has been known since ancient times, but for a long time it was considered esoteric and unworthy of scientific exploration.

Such views have changed thanks to a clever experiment set up by psychologist Keith Hearne and psychophysiologist Stephen Laberge in the 1980s. These two researchers set out to prove that lucid dreamers were indeed asleep when they realized they were dreaming. Departing from the observation that REM sleep is characterized by rapid eye movements while one’s eyes are shut (hence the name ‘Rapid Eye Movement sleep’), they asked themselves the following question: would it be possible to use this property to ask the sleeper to send a “telegram” from their dream to the world around them?

In 1981, Keith Hearne and Stephen Laberge asked dreamers to send “telegrams” to the outside world. More than 30 years later, scientists continue to blaze trails to communicate with the sleeping mind. (Credit: Johannes Plenio/Unsplash, CC BY)

Hearne and Laberge recruited lucid dreamers to try to find out. They agreed with them before they fell asleep on the telegram to be sent: the participants would have to make specific eye movements, such as moving their gaze from left to right three times, as soon as they became aware that they were dreaming. And while they were objectively in REM sleep, the lucid dreamers did just that.

The new communication code allowed researchers from then on to detect dreaming stages in real time. The work paved the way for many research projects in which lucid dreamers act as undercover agents in the dream world, carrying out missions (such as holding one’s breath in a dream) and signaling them to the experimenters using the eye code.

It is now possible to combine such experiments with brain imaging techniques to study the brain regions involved in lucid dreaming. This represents a huge step forward in the quest for a better understanding of dreams and how they are formed.

In 2021, almost 40 years after the pioneering work of Hearne and Laberge, our study in collaboration with academics from around the world has taken us even further.

From fiction to reality: talking to the dreamer

We already knew that lucid dreamers were capable of sending information from their dreams. But can they also receive it? In other words, is it possible to talk to a lucid dreamer? To find out, we exposed a lucid dreamer to tactile stimuli while he was asleep. We also asked him closed questions such as “Do you like chocolate?”.

He was able to respond by smiling to indicate “Yes” and by frowning to indicate “No”. Lucid dreamers were also presented with simple mathematical equations verbally. They were able to provide appropriate answers while remaining asleep.

Of course, lucid dreamers didn’t always respond, far from it. But the fact that they sometimes did (18% of cases in our study) opened a communication channel between experimenters and dreamers.

However, lucid dreaming remains a rare phenomenon and even lucid dreamers are not lucid all the time or throughout REM sleep. Was the communication portal we had opened limited to “lucid” REM sleep alone? To find out, we undertook further work.

Expanding the communication portal

To find out whether we could communicate in the same way with any sleeper, whatever their stage of sleep, we conducted experiments with non-lucid dreaming volunteers without sleeping disorders, as well as with people suffering from narcolepsy. This disease, which causes involuntary sleep, sleep paralysis and an early onset of the REM phase, is associated with an increased propensity for lucid dreaming.

In our latest experiment, we presented participants with existing words (e.g. “pizza”) and others that we made up (e.g. “ditza”) across all sleep stages. We asked them to smile or frown to signal whether the word had been made up or not. Unsurprisingly, people with narcolepsy were able to respond when they were lucid in REM sleep, confirming our results from 2021.

More surprisingly, both groups of participants were also able to respond to our verbal stimuli in most stages of sleep, even in the absence of lucid dreaming. The volunteers were able to respond intermittently, as if windows of connection with the outside world were opening temporarily at certain precise moments.

We were even able to determine the composition of brain activity conducive to these moments of openness to the outside world. By analyzing it before the stimuli were presented, we were able to predict whether the sleepers would respond or not.

Why do such windows of connection with the outside world exist? We can put forward the hypothesis that the brain developed in a context where a minimum of cognitive processing was necessary during sleep. We can imagine, for example, that our ancestors had to remain attentive to external stimuli while they were asleep, in case a predator approached. Similarly, we know that a mother’s brain reacts preferentially to her baby’s cries during sleep.

Our results suggest that it is now possible to “talk” to any sleeper, whatever stage of sleep they are in. By refining the brain markers that predict the moments of connection with the outside world, it should be possible to further optimize communication protocols in the future.

This breakthrough paves the way for real-time dialogue with sleepers, offering researchers the chance to explore the mysteries of dreams as they happen. But if the line between science fiction and reality is getting thinner, rest assured: neuroscientists are still a long way from being able to decipher your wildest fantasies.

Treatment Recommendations for People Who Act Out Their Dreams While Asleep

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Summary: REM sleep behavior disorder, or parasomnia, affects more than 80 million people worldwide. The disorder causes sufferers to experience nightmare-like violent dreams. Sufferers act on their dreams while sleeping, often resulting in violent or dangerous sleep behaviors and injuries. Researchers propose new guidelines, including medical and pharmacological recommendations, to help curb symptoms of parasomnia and promote healthier sleep.

Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine

A new clinical practice guideline developed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine provides recommendations for the management of REM sleep behavior disorder in adults.  

The guideline, available online as an accepted paper in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, updates the AASM’s previous guidance published in 2010. Several clinical trials conducted in the last decade have contributed new evidence to the published literature, providing additional support for the recommendations.  

“REM sleep behavior disorder is common, affecting more than 80 million people worldwide,” said lead author Dr. Michael Howell, chair of the AASM task force and a professor and division head of sleep medicine in the department of neurology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

“This clinical practice guideline provides clinicians with insight on how best to prevent sleep-related injury and how to provide patients with a risk assessment for neurological disease. The task force assembled by the AASM diligently reviewed thousands of clinical studies to provide an up-to-date guideline for clinicians managing REM sleep behavior disorder.” 

REM sleep behavior disorder is classified as a parasomnia, a group of sleep disorders involving undesirable physical events or experiences that happen while falling asleep, sleeping, or waking from sleep. REM sleep is characterized by rapid eye movements and dream activity, and it normally involves skeletal paralysis.

This paralysis — or muscle atonia — is lost in REM sleep behavior disorder, causing individuals to act out their dreams with potentially injurious behaviors. These dreams tend to be unpleasant, action-filled, or violent, with the dreamer being confronted, attacked, or chased by unfamiliar people or animals.

The symptoms of REM sleep behavior disorder are often ignored for years, usually until an injury occurs to the dreamer or the bed partner. REM sleep behavior disorder often occurs due to an underlying neurological disorder, such as dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson’s disease, multiple system atrophy, narcolepsy, or stroke. 

The guideline provides recommendations for specific medications, such as clonazepam and immediate-release melatonin, that clinicians should consider when treating REM sleep behavior disorder in adults.

All of the recommendations are conditional, requiring the clinician to use clinical knowledge and experience, and to strongly consider the patient’s values and preferences, to determine the best course of action.

Treatment options also depend on whether the case of REM sleep behavior disorder is isolated, secondary to another medical condition, or drug induced.  

Mechanic-Turned-Doctor: It’s Never Too Late to Follow Your Dreams

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After 25 years in auto repair, Carl Allamby, MD, just became an attending at Cleveland Clinic

Auto doctor Carl Allamby became a medical doctor in his 40s.

When Carl Allamby, MD, was growing up in East Cleveland, he thought his dream of becoming a doctor was unrealistic.

His family didn’t have the money for the extensive education it would require, so after high school, Allamby focused on something he was good at — fixing cars.

At only 19 years old, he opened his own auto body shop, and dedicated his life to that work for some 25 years.

But around the 20-year mark, he realized he wanted a change. He thought pursuing a business degree would be the way to go, so he enrolled in a program at Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio.

He had to take a prerequisite class in biology and postponed it as long as he could. But the first day in that class, his old passion for medicine came rushing back to him.

“After my first hour in there, I felt that something in medicine was going to be the new me,” Allamby told MedPage Today in a phone interview.

Earlier this month, at age 51, Allamby started his first big job in medicine, as an attending physician in emergency medicine at Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights.

Allamby’s story has received national attention for its lessons in hard work, perseverance, and never giving up on dreams.

Changing Course

Allamby said as a young child, he wanted to be a doctor, but he knew that the environment he grew up in would make that difficult.

East Cleveland, a suburb of Cleveland, was and still is a poor city, he said, and his family struggled financially. On top of that, he said, “The schools that we went to just weren’t made for putting out lawyers or other professionals.”

After graduating high school, he went straight to work. At 16, he’d taken a job at an auto parts store, where he learned he was good at fixing cars. On his own time after work, he would fix customers’ cars in the store’s parking lot.

By the time he was 19, he had enough customers, and with the help of a $500-limit Sears credit card, he started his own auto body shop.

“It grew really well, beyond what I had dreamed,” Allamby said of the business. It eventually grew to two locations, but the challenges of running a small business were many: long hours, managing employees, and putting all profits back into the business.

By 2006, he was ready for a change, so he enrolled at Ursuline College in pursuit of a business degree, running his shop during the day and going to school at night.

He put off that fateful biology class for a few years, but once he realized medicine would be his next big move, he started taking pre-med courses at Cuyahoga Community College, or Tri-C, in 2010.

When a professor there commented on his aptitude and work ethic, “at that point it made it real for me, that I could go after becoming a physician.”

His next step: enrolling in medical school. Northeast Ohio Medical University had a program where he took two more years of pre-med classes through Cleveland State University before starting medical school full-time in 2015.

But that meant he could no longer run the business. He’d given his employees a long heads-up about his plans, but none of them were interested in running the business. So he decided to take it to auction.

“I liquidated my whole life that I had worked at for 25 years — in about 10 hours,” he said.

It wasn’t a decision he’d arrived at hastily. He’d been discussing his plans with his wife, Kim, for years, writing down his goals, dividing them down into smaller steps, and writing contingency plans in case they didn’t happen.

“It’s going to be hard to achieve anything that’s grandiose without having a roadmap to get there,” Allamby said. “Nobody would drive from Cleveland to California without a map. … It all comes down to proper planning and preparation.”

In 2019, he started his residency in emergency medicine at Cleveland Clinic Akron, and he got his first job as an attending at Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest Hospital earlier this month.

It’s hard work, he noted, but extremely gratifying: “You leave the hospital, and you feel you’ve really helped. That you’ve put something better into society by helping those who are in need.”

In Need of Repair

Working in emergency medicine has many parallels to working in auto repair, he said.

Most of his auto customers would need something fixed quickly, and would be stressed about it. “A lot of what I do is calming down the patient first, letting them know that we’re going to address their problems. Because all of that plays into coming up with a diagnostic solution, or at least a pathway that leads you to the answer.”

He still feels customer service is a big part of what he does as a doctor. He likes to emphasize shared decision making, and considers it a key part of his approach in medicine. That means listening closely to the patient, and making them feel supported.

“I’m there to give them the best outcome that we both can agree upon,” he said. “You come up with a solution that may not be the one that you feel is 100% how you would do it, but one that the patient can agree with.”

His background has also given him particular insights into the systemic challenges within medicine. For instance, it took him “a lifetime of work … to afford to go to medical school,” he noted.

“That’s why it’s so hard for a person who grew up in an impoverished community,” he added. “I had to work 25 years, essentially, in order to afford my medical school.”

Even so, Allamby is still $300,000 in debt from all of the student loans he needed to take in order to finance his education.

“We need more scholarships for underrepresented individuals,” he said. There also needs to be “more of a pipeline” into medicine in underrepresented communities, “because we have a lot of bright minds who have a lot to give.”

Allamby is already mentoring several students who are in medical school or who are on their way there. He wants to start a program at his hospital where high school students can shadow doctors. And since earlier exposure is critical, he wants to start going to local elementary and middle schools to give talks to children about careers in medicine, “to just show up and let them know that you feel like they belong in that profession. It’s so important to have representation.”

Better representation ultimately means decreased healthcare costs, he noted. “The healthcare system needs to be representative of the area it serves, that’s how you get the best outcomes. … If people listen to my prescription for living a healthier lifestyle, that’s going to reduce the cost of their healthcare.”

“It behooves society to work towards greater equality in medicine in order to improve outcomes and eventually reduce costs,” he said. “That’s how I see it from my business perspective.”

When he’s not fixing things — cars, people, the system — Allamby spends time with his family, whose support has played an essential role in his journey through medicine.

His wife, Kim, is a physical therapist, his older son is a fireman and emergency medical technician, and his older daughter is a nursing assistant who is also in nursing school. He also has two younger daughters, and an 8-year-old granddaughter.

Kim ran their family while Allamby concentrated on medical school: “Her thoughtfulness and willing to sacrifice her time and energy toward my career and success … I just can’t say enough about her, and how much I appreciate her.”

That support allowed him to lean into chasing his dreams, which he advises others to do, no matter how out of reach they may seem.

“I knew that even if things didn’t work out [becoming a doctor], I would have been happy with whatever the end result would have been,” Allamby said. “Not all of us are going to be able to fulfill everything that we had in mind. But trying hard and working towards it is something you should always do. … As long as you give it your all, and do what you can with the hand you were dealt, you’ll never blame yourself for falling short of your dreams.”

Never Give Up on Yourself. Never Give Up on Your Dreams

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Never Give Up on Yourself. Never Give Up on Your Dreams

“When you are going through hell, keep on going. Never never never give up.” ~ Winston Churchill

As you walk through life, you will fall down many times. You will fail and you will make mistakes, but that’s okay. Keep in mind that life is a process of becoming.

You go through life to find yourself, to become yourself. Through every little thing you do, through every word you say and through every action you take, you are meant to discover more and more about yourself. About your inner journey, your life path, and about the purpose and meaning of your own life.

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We are all here for a reason. Each and every one of us has a purpose to fulfill. We all have a unique and precious contribution to make to this world. But also to every living being that inhabits this Earth.

The more we let go of our fears, excuses, and limitations, and the need to live our lives according to other people’s expectations, the easier it will be for us to contribute and to do the beautiful work that we came here to do. The easier it will be for us to make our dreams come true. And this powerful video is meant to remind us of that so that we can reclaim our power and make all our dreams come true.

Enjoy 🙂

Never Give Up on Yourself. Never Give Up on Your Dreams

P.S. Never allow your fears, doubts, excuses, and limitations to get in the way of the beautiful and meaningful life that you are meant to be living. Never give up on yourself. Never give up on your dreams.

Dreams, Timelines and Parallel Worlds

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ike many of you, I have had dreams in my life, including recurring ones, that were clearly significant. I can’t say I’m an adept interpreter but many of us try to consciously get whatever message we think there may be for us from dreams.

Let’s face it, virtually one third of our lives are spent in the sleeping state yet we know our full consciousness never shuts off. This dream world is a significant one to know about that could teach us many things. That observer inside each of us is getting it all and we need to pay attention and learn.

Several times I have had a strong sense that it’s a parallel existence I was experiencing where perhaps my life had split off and continued on in some different direction, perhaps due to some fundamental decision that I made somewhere along the timeline leading to the one I’m now living in this currently shared 3D existence.

And that can happen every minute of our lives. Quite the mindblowing thought.

The world in those altered dream state places is similar to other dreams but not like anything I’ve seen here. They have commonalities regarding my essential sense of self but they’re distinctly different from those dreams that seem a jumble of influences playing out in an almost random form.

I’m not talking about lucid dreams directly yet, but these have another element that you can sense very deeply and always have a rewarding message if we ponder on them.

Recurring Themes

Twice, including just a few days ago, I distinctly remember waking up to a dream that was not just very vivid, but different. Some of the characters in those dreams were seeming transplants from my current past life here and there and some I didn’t know. But the context of the dream made complete sense.

I’ve thought of most dreams as being an opportunity for my subconscious to process previous events in my life that still needed sorting out and reconciling in some way, or to convey a message to my conscience or subconscious for some reason, as they are often quite revelatory.

I really don’t know but they’re certainly worth noting and reviewing. (Hint: Keep a notepad and pen or some such by your bed. When dreams wake you this is especially important.)

I realized there are these recurring themes in my dreams that seem to revolve around major decisive timeline points, and that may be an indicator of a major split off that happened that was particularly profound. When these recurring themes appear perhaps it’s not us still wrestling with a particularly difficult or traumatic decision or time or event, but maybe they are snap shots and short glimpses into where that life went had it, or in fact did at some level, kept on going in that direction.

I don’t mean to be enigmatic here, but the more I thought about this the more clear it became that these recurring themes seem to revolve around these points in my timeline where major decisions and changes took place. Naturally these are significant changes on their own, but let’s examine it in the light of parallel worlds and timelines occurring concurrently with this one.

Let me use one example from my life, not the subject of this recent dream type I’m describing above, but a good one nonetheless.

Yes, that’s where it comes from, just like the judge’s gavel, our handshake and a whole bunch of other programmed crap…

Oh No! I Didn’t Get My Freemasonic Mortar Board Hat!

I left University after 4 years and pretty much just wandered into my mystical hippy-type searching years. I had a backpack of books and hit the road for California to “find the truth” and meet like-minded people I thought would be there.

Dreams Timelines and Parallel Worlds - Graduation

I didn’t “graduate” and thought nothing of it. I changed majors every semester and just wandered out after the fourth year of free food and rent thanks to my father who had hoped I would follow in his footsteps. I was totally restless and uncertain not of just what I wanted to do, but who the heck I was and what was I here on earth for. You know, the light stuff…ha. But as a result I didn’t qualify for the philosophy degree I was apparently shooting for, having changed majors every semester.

My authoritarian corporatist father with his high falutin’ doctorate degree was pissed and thereupon smothered me in silence, as was his way. I can understand from his paradigm – he paid for my schooling and I rejected the whole ball of wax. He remained silent about this until his death but I suffered guilt about this apparently because I had recurring dreams for years about this missing “degree” I supposedly should have gotten.

Thankfully this sorted out after my latest much more full conscious awakening and we’re friends now, having visited together in dreams for some time.

And yes, that blew my mind.

Was I sorting out buried guilt? Clearly at the least father, and mother, issues are a biggie for many people, they certainly were for me. Is that what is sorting out here? Am I replaying old fears repeatedly simply due to old programming and experiences? Or are some of these dreams parallel lives where I lived on in that academic environment having been a “good boy” and finished up?

Or could they be a mixture? Does our dream life evolve with our coming into greater conscious awareness?

I think that’s part of it, but I really don’t know.

I have to say, though, this new understanding of themes and timelines as a possible link to insights into the existence of parallel worlds has had an immediate wonderful effect of helping me detach from these very involved, personal and often intense dreams and observe them much more objectively.

I like that. It’s not bound up in emotion. And as I said, reconciliation happens in mysterious ways. But it does happen. And in way deeper aspects as we reconcile with our very nature of existence.

Parallel Worlds and Timelines

There is a lot written about this subject and the potential for infinite worlds, a literal multiverse of endless potential. Quite remarkable from our little earthly standpoint and our seeming 3 dimensional reality. Our mental understanding is so limited, while our consciousness not only already knows this boundless potential, but is connected to and experiences it continually.

Dreams Timelines and Parallel Worlds - Timelines

Ours is to let that arise within and without us and let it supersede our clod-bound minds, sense of self, and perception of our surroundings.

If we do subscribe to that parallel universe and timeline understanding, or even that conscious reparations are going on, then it is no wonder dreams may seem disjointed and nonsensical. Perhaps several parallel lives are peeking through and overlapping on occasion. I do know that sometimes for me it appears to be another reality construct that is not the continuation of this one, and that it appears more so as the vibrational times keep changing.

And that understanding resonates with me. But again, that may change.

Some people have amazing gifts regarding seeing and understanding this phenomenon. Physicists flatly say there are at least 11 dimensions right now floating around us without time being a factor. Others say there are at least 100 dimensions. Knowing the pace of modern science vs consciousness I think they’ll get to that infinite potential number pretty quick when they finally realize the multiverse cannot be put into their test tube bottles and labelled and filed away. I.e. the mind will never grasp it.

Never. It’s beyond mind, little men, let it go.

Any way you perceive it, this is definitely something to keep researching and following, looking for those hints and nudges to find out more about how we can continue to tap into this infinite potential.

Recurring Dreams

Besides these recurring themes, there’s only been one dream in my life that I kept having over and over. I’ve written about this before, but it happened between the ages of 5 and 7. It’s still as vivid to me now as it was then over 6 decades ago.

And I consider it quite significant, for me.

Again, there are parallel worlds and collectively our planet and its inhabitants are making decisions daily as to its course into the future. I don’t know what’s set or what isn’t, but I suppose it runs on possibilities with some outcomes more likely than others at any given time. I don’t pretend to know all the factors that influence us or all the mechanics, but I know it’s a hell of a lot more than what we’re taught or told or supposedly “allowed to know” by those engineering this current matrixand the control of its inhabitants.

Dreams Timelines and Parallel Worlds - Recurring

The Dream

The world was erupting. Volcanoes were going off everywhere. It was the end of the world and hot, with molten lava spreading everywhere.

I fled to a familiar spot where I used to play with my friends in someone’s driveway. It was also one of those “cut through the neighborhood” short cuts to get between streets.

I had to run because lava was coming closely towards me down a slight embankment, while distant fields of lave could be seen approaching from every direction. I was seeing two scenes at once. The neighborhood I was in and the place I had fled to, but I could see the landscape of the world was all having the same volcanic phenomenon. There was nowhere to run for anybody and you could only find temporary relief in safe spots until the eruptions and lava reached you.

I was in this driveway we used to play in as the lava approached. One side of the driveway had a huge hedge, way tall in front of some large trees next to where we’d plays games in front of the garage and goof around. As I looked around on this seemingly doomed scenario, suddenly a hole opened up in the hedge. It was about 2 feet wide and around chest high for my little body.

I ran over to it and dove in head first.

Shot Into Space

The next thing I knew this giant vacuum hose somehow immediately sent me flying into space. It was amazing. There I was with my arms outstretched floating perfectly silently into outer space. Earth was nowhere to be seen. I was out there! Just sailing in perfect stillness, marveling at the glorious view and experience.

And I woke up. I had this dream at least 5 or 6 times that I remember, maybe more.

Liberation Through Lucid Living - Consciousness Within the Dream

Every time the exact same dream. No variations. It was disturbing and yet really, really beautiful and peaceful at the same time. I’ve always been fascinated by volcanoes and major earth changes. The awesome power of nature just feels right when you appreciate it. It really puts us in our puny place in the grand scheme of things.

Was I accessing the escape hatch? The stargate-express to ultimate freedom?

Who knows. Maybe something like that will open up to us. Maybe it symbolizes the death experience and our consciousness just goes back to where it came from. The fascination for wormholesand stargates certainly attests to that archetype having a strong influence on us. The existence of such portals has been portrayed for millennia.

And back then, at 5 or 6 years old, there were no wormhole or stargate teachings going on in the 50’s, at least that I ever heard about at that young age. We did have Flash Gordon and his cardboard spaceship and those hokey dinosaur movies, and perhaps they were enough to stimulate our little imaginations. Or we were being shown something.

Today’s high tech entertainment leaves little for the imagination…they do all the imagining for their target audience and steer the poor unsuspecting kids into dark satanic netherworlds and gratuitous violence and end of the world scenarios. More social engineering at work. But still, they can’t fully suppress consciousness.

Going Deeper and the Dream State

The subjects of dreams, parallel dimensions and alternate timelines deserve serious attention. There’s so much to learn if we can process the fullness of our conscious and even currently unconscious experience. If our perspective doesn’t take everything into consideration we’re operating on partial understanding.

That’s the beauty of consciousness. It’s like having a built-in wormhole to everything if we can learn to access it fully. All possibility awaits us.

More profoundly, these types of dreams remind us that because we are on these different paths, our current environment is essentially of our own making by our power of choice. We are co-creators of this life here via our individual decisions, which implies that what we react to and how we react are extremely important to the overall milieu we live in.

Are the “bad guys” good for us, prodding us to learn to react consciously at some level? Certainly it’s “allowed” at some level. What is this seeming contest ultimately all about?

Is this existence really “it”? I surely don’t think so. It’s just another dream – a shared one but still a dream.

Dreams Timelines and Parallel Worlds - Consciousness

As I see it we are co-directing a group lucid dream, one we can interact with, and it’s only one of many possible ones. Are we destined to keep repeating these challenges on some level until we get the point?

Maybe life is a circular cycle until we get the point. Maybe at that point they’ll stop spinning their screw cap and catch the threads of truth and really drill down in the spiral to greater awakening.

Hmmm….

Conclusion

The subjects of dreams and parallel dimensions and alternate timelines deserve serious attention. There’s so much to learn if we can process the fullness of our conscious and even currently unconscious experience. If our perspective doesn’t take everything into consideration we’re operating on partial understanding.

That’s the beauty of consciousness. It’s like having a built-in wormhole to everything if we can learn to access it fully. All possibility awaits us.

As articulated above, these types of dreams remind us that because we are on these different potential paths, our current environment is essentially of our own making by our power of choice. We are co-creators of this life here.

Now that is not just extremely liberating, but an awesome responsibility. That’s where consciousness kicks in – or doesn’t.

Ultimately we just need to fully be who we already are as we continue on in our higher education, with a fearless love of truth and the compassion to care about our full physical and metaphyical environment.

Think on it.

Here’s to turning it all on!

Warp speed, anyone?

Much love, Zen

Why Some Remember Dreams, Others Don’t

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People who tend to remember their dreams also respond more strongly than others to hearing their name when they’re awake, new research suggests.
Everyone dreams during sleep, but not everyone recalls the mental escapade the next day, and scientists aren’t sure why some people remember more than others.
To find out, researchers used electroencephalography to record the electrical activity in the brains of 36 people while the participants listened to background tunes, and occasionally heard their own first name. The brain measurements were taken during wakefulness and sleep. Half of the participants were called high recallers, because they reported remembering their dreams almost every day, whereas the other half, low recallers, said they only remembered their dreams once or twice a month.

When asleep, both groups showed similar changes in brain activity in response to hearing their names, which were played quietly enough not to wake them.
However, when awake, high recallers showed a more sustained decrease in a brain wave called the alpha wave when they heard their names, compared with the low recallers.
“It was quite surprising to see a difference between the groups during wakefulness,” said study researcher Perrine Ruby, neuroscientist at Lyon Neuroscience Research Center in France.
The difference could reflect variations in the brains of high and low recallers that could have a role in how they dream, too, Ruby said. [7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams]
Who remembers their dreams
A well-established theory suggests that a decrease in the alpha wave is a sign that brain regions are being inhibited from responding to outside stimuli. Studies show that when people hear a sudden sound or open their eyes, and more brain regions become active, the alpha wave is reduced.
In the study, as predicted, both groups showed a decrease in the alpha wave when they heard their names while awake. But high recallers showed a more prolonged decrease, which may be a sign their brains became more widely activated when they heard their names.
In other words, high recallers may engage more brain regions when processing sounds while awake, compared with low recallers, the researchers said.

While people are asleep, the alpha wave behaves in the opposite way —it increases when a sudden sound is heard. Scientists aren’t certain why this happens, but one idea is that it protects the brain from being interrupted by sounds during sleep, Ruby said.
Indeed, the study participants showed an increase in the alpha wave in response to sounds during sleep, and there was no difference between the groups.
One possibility to explain the lack of difference, the researchers said, could be that perhaps high recallers had a larger increase in alpha waves, but it was so high that they woke up.
Time spent awake, during the night
The researchers saw that high recallers awoke more frequently during the night. They were awake, on average, for 30 minutes during the night, whereas low recallers were awake for 14 minutes. However, Ruby said “both figures are in the normal range, it’s not that there’s something wrong with either group.”
Altogether, the results suggest the brain of high recallers may be more reactive to stimuli such as sounds, which could make them wake up more easily. It is more likely a person would remember their dreams if they are awakened immediately after one, Ruby said.
However, waking up at night can account for only a part of the differences people show in remembering dreams. “There’s still much more to understand,” she said.

The Science of Dreams and Why We Have Nightmares.

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The agency charged to protect patients from dangerous drug side effects needs to be far more vigilant when it comes to medications that affect blood pressure.

Robert P. Blankfield, MD, MS, a clinical professor of family medicine, issues this call to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an editorial published recently in an online edition of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics; the print version of the article is expected to appear this autumn.

The editorial notes that several medications survived FDA scrutiny, only to be pulled from the market after reports of increased heart attacks and strokes related to use of the drugs. These include rofecoxib (Vioxx), valdecoxib (Bextra), and sibutramine (Meridia). What these drugs have in common is that they raise blood pressure. Other medications approved by the FDA, including some antidepressant medications as well as medications used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also raise blood pressure but remain on the market despite inadequate safety data.

At issue is the apparent disconnect between what patients and doctors might consider “clinically significant” risk and the standards that some FDA reviewers apply when evaluating the safety of new therapeutics. When it comes to medications that affect blood pressure, a few FDA reviewers only classify “clinically significant” blood pressure spikes as those that raise systolic blood pressure by 20 mm Hg (milliliters of mercury) or diastolic blood pressure by 10 to 15 mm Hg.

Increases in systolic blood pressure of more than 2 mm Hg or increases in diastolic blood pressure of more than 1 mm Hg raise the risk for heart attack by 10 percent and stroke by 7 percent in middle-aged adults, according to an epidemiological study published in Lancet in 2002. Younger individuals have less risk. For example, studies published in 2011 in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medications are safe when used by young adults. While different populations differ in terms of cardiovascular risk, Blankfield believes one point should draw broad agreement: unless one is a healthy, young adult, clinicians and patients should have adequate cardiovascular safety data before they make prescription decisions.

“It is unwise to allow medications that predictably increase risk to be marketed without adequate safety data,” said Blankfield, also a family physician at University Hospitals Berea Health Center. “Risk should be quantified, and the product label should accurately communicate the risk.”

Blankfield, who has published other editorials recommending that the FDA require safety data for drugs that raise blood pressure, advocates a three-step solution. First, the FDA needs to establish specific guidelines regarding what degree of blood pressure elevation constitutes a risk for different populations (i.e. young adults, middle aged adults, older adults, diabetics, hypertensives, etc.). Then the agency should require pharmaceutical companies to provide cardiovascular safety data on medications that increase blood pressure. Finally, the agency should require pharmaceutical companies to post relevant data and/or warnings on medication labels.

“This would allow physicians and patients to make informed decisions about medications,” he said. “Physicians and the general public may assume that if a drug is approved by the FDA, it is safe. Yet even modest elevations in blood pressure increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.”

Blankfield was moved to write this editorial now because of the public health importance of the issue.

How to Follow Your Dreams with Actions to Create Wealth.

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All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. ~Walt Disney

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The mantra around dreams is, well, dreamy. It’s full of idealization and the idea that having a dream alone is enough to soar to new heights. Dreams can certainly inspire, but for many of us there is something else that stands in the way of us achieving them. It’s fear.

Dreams can be scary 

Beyond all the idealization, dreams can be downright scary. We’re told to dream big but what often comes with this is the feeling that our dream is too big to ever take on.

We don’t feel brave enough, ready enough or good enough and these feelings literally kill our dreams in their tracks. Before they can ever grow, mature and blossom we stop them with our fears.

These fears are natural. From a scientific perspective they are there to protect us. In the age of cavemen these feelings might have done well in protecting us from a wild beast ready to attack. These days though, they generally do more harm than good.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~Mark Twain

Trapped by fear 

I’m happy to say that today I’m living my dream, but just a few years ago I was very much a member of the other camp.

I had a lot of dreams but my biggest by far was to live a creative life by starting my own fashion label. From where I was though, this dream felt too big.

I distinctly remember not feeling ready. I tried to overcome this feeling by doing what I could to prepare. I researched, planned and wrote lists upon lists to feel ready but for all my preparation years and months later I found myself no closer to my dream.

My feeling of not being ready was hard to shake because at the heart of it was fear.

I was scared that I would make mistakes, waste my hard earned savings or most paralysing of all, fail and end up back where I started.

You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. ~Mary Manin Morrissey

Taking the plunge

After waiting in fear for almost two years I came to a point where the pain of standing still was worse than the fear I felt to act, and with that I took the plunge.

I quit my full time office job to start my own fashion label, not because I was brave but because I came to the point where it was the only thing left to do. Standing still had become more painful than taking action.

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life. ~Wayne Dyer

My big realization

Once I took the plunge I realized that despite all my trepidation it was the best decision I ever could have made.

The last year for me has had its ups and downs but it has been one of the best years of my life because I am following my dream and living it every day.

I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve learnt. I’ve had low points, but I’ve come through them. And most of all, I’ve been scared but it hasn’t been nearly as scary as I had built it up to be.

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Take action on your dreams and transform your life

Dreams can feel scary because they’re big, new and unknown, but for all their scariness they are also full of potential and have the ability to transform your life.

Don’t wait until the pain of standing still is worse than the fear of following your dream to take action.

You have everything you need within you right now, so take action on that big dream. You are brave enough, ready enough and good enough just as you are.

Source: Purpose fairy