Does anyone else remember dreams from when they were kids right before falling asleep?
Right before I fall asleep, I'll remember some random details of a dream I had when I was 5-10 years old. It changes each night, but never is a newer dream.
No, but every once in a while I'll visit a place in a dream which isn't real, but which I'm pretty sure I've seen in an old dream. That's kind of the same.
I also sometimes recognise places and situations from previous dreams, or at least I dream that I recognise them..
It's like those dreams that feels like a hours/days/years even if you only had a 5 minute nap. It's impossible to know if time actually passed or if you just dreamt a memory of a long time passing.
A few times I have been certain that the place in the dream was the same as I have dreamt of before, but other times I am equally convinced that I've never actually dreamt about it before, even if it felt so in the dream.
My usual dream location I've returned to so often that I know where places are in relation to each other. It is a patchwork of my home area but with nearby areas that I can't remember ever having seen IRL. Almost all my dreams, since I was a kid, takes place in this personal dream realm.
It has expanded with new places as I've grown though. Latest addition is a cruise ship, with extremely many decks, and a single one-person elevator. I had a room at 58th floor of 85 floors(!) in my dream a few weeks ago. And I had some trouble getting the elevator to the right floor, of course. I always have trouble getting places in dreams.
Another strange quality is that sometimes events of a dream triggers my memory of an older and often forgotten dream. Not as old as OPs, but usually weeks or months back.
Same! I've been wondering what this could mean. A couple of nights ago I was at one of such places and thought "here it is! this is the place I dream of sometimes!" I was pretty disappointed when I woke up
No but when really high I will hallucinate dreams I think I had when younger. Since the brain is all chemicals there is no way to prove if I had those dreams as a child as I never wrote them down. But they are some of the most trippy dreams.
Man, I don't even have to wait until I'm falling asleep.
I don't always remember a dream after I wake, but I'm what might be called "hyper-phatastic". You hear about people that can't visualize, and often don't have visual dreams at all. I'm the opposite. When I read books, I see what is being described, if there's enough to go from. My dreams are extremely vivid, and the more vivid they are, the clearer I remember them.
And I remember a ton from childhood. The one with tornadoes, the super-hero one that was recurring, the fire dream, the ones about other worlds, the ones about family. I could write down a hundred descriptions like that about childhood dreams I can still see in my head, even while awake. It's a little fucking crazy sometimes.
I have had a few dreams that were so bad I get PTSD flashbacks when something reminds me of them. That's not exaggeration, it's not a misnomer, I've discussed it with a therapist and a psychiatrist in conjunction with my other PTSD triggers.
But, luckily, it's usually the good dreams that get triggered instead :)
However, I do have some difficulty differentiating between memories and dreams that I recall from my early childhood.
Here are three examples of memories I have from a very young age. One is confirmed real by my parents. One as far as I can tell is physically impossible so must be a dream. And the third I have no clue if it is real or a dream.
Shortly before my 3rd birthday, we moved. I remember getting bored while the moving truck was at our house so I rode my tricycle to the next door neighbors and hung out with the old lady and her dog until my mom realized I was missing and yelled at me for wandering off without telling her. (This one really happened)
We were at the mall to meet my dad for lunch at the food court. As we got onto the escalator, I remembered I was able to fly and flew through the mall (it was similar to swimming but in air instead of water). (Obviously this had to have been a dream but it feels just as real of a memory as the first one).
As long as I can remember, when we drove anywhere as a family, my spot was behind the driver's seat and my sister's spot was behind the passenger seat. I have a vivid memory/dream of it being reversed but my sister saying we should switch spots. My mom said ok and we switched to the standard positions. Nobody remembers this so it may have been a dream (and I would've been extremely young if it was real).
My first dreams and memories is from around 3 year old too. And yes, I too can only guess if it was real or dreams from context. Maybe a mix?
One cool thing is that I recently got one memory confirmed from a photograph I've never seen until now. 34-ish years later. Damn impressive what brains choose to remember sometimes.
I get that. I also get continuations of older dreams sometimes. What I find most interesting though is that 99% of my dreams take place in the exact same location.
It's my home town, but instead of having large grocery stores and such with massive parking lots, those are replaced by plazas linked together in slightly odd ways with all kinds of interesting stores.
My dreams, since I was little, usually start with me taking a walk around this alternate version of my home town, and often visiting a restaurant which in every dream is located in the same place: at the end of a plaza which you have to pass through another plaza to get to.
I need to stay awake some time during the night to feed the baby or support my wife doing it. I always fight against the sleep and that is when the pre-sleep dreams are really getting weird. What is happening a lot is that I read something and half way the sentence I fall half asleep and at that point, my mind completes the sentence(s) with the weirdest things.