Dream Problems

My dreams are different from other's. Far different.

When I talk to other people, they talk about how realistic their dreams are. In terms of all their senses, it's as if they're awake. For me, this is not the case. It's hard to explain what it's like when I dream. In a way, all of my senses are stumped while I dream. Everything is a blur, but not in the way everything is blurred for a person who has bad eye-sight. It's as if my vision is fading away, and nearly gone. Not just messed up, but hardly there. I can't really see people or things, I just know who or what they are. I don't really hear anything, I just sense sound. Kinda like the words are teleported from their brain to mine. There's no sense of touch or taste, either.

I'm always incredibly disoriented, too. All of my actions are clumsy and uncontrollable. To top it all off, I hardly remember any of my dreams. Maybe 1 dream a week at max - but even then, I only remember like 30 seconds from it. The only dreams I ever remember at all are dreams that occur right before I'm woken up, usually around 9 or 10 in the morning.

I'm wondering this because I wanted to try Lucid Dreaming. From time to time, I realize I'm in a dream. Unfortunately, I almost always wake up when this happens. If I don't, my dream just fades out.

Is there any way I can change this? Is this a "sign" of anything? (please no B.S. like "oh it's a sign that you have a lack of trust in your siblings")

TL;DR - My senses in my dreams are incredibly stumped, and I hardly remember any of my dreams. Any thoughts or solutions on this?

Do you have a consistent sleep schedule and how many hours do you sleep? Not having a consistent sleep schedule and not getting enough sleep can affect recall.

Also, start a dream journal. Dream journals are great for increasing recall. Even if you don't remember anything or only have a small memory, write down something like "no recall" or "I was dancing". If you wake up during the night, jot down some notes and keywords about the dream. This will help you recall the dream to journal once you've gotten up for the day.

I'm not really sure why you're disoriented or having stunted senses, maybe this will be fixed with improved recall. Or maybe some daytime awareness training could help.

I don't think consistent sleep is the issue. In general, I sleep pretty well. Either way, it has been this way my whole life. I was thinking about starting a dream journal. I don't know how this would help with my lack of sense, but it's worth a shot. And what's "daytime awareness training"?

I've been thinking about causes. I've only talked to one person who knows a lot about dreams, and they told me that a lack of senses in dreams is an indication of unintelligence, or an inability to cognitively reason. This cannot be it. I've taken IQ tests - real tests given by professionals, mind you - and I scored in the 99th percentile.

Here are a list of possibilities (some very far fetched):
1. I sleep facing down.
2. I play a lot of video games, quite often right before I go to sleep.
3. In general, it takes me a very long time to fall asleep. Unless it's like 3 A.M., it takes me, at a minimum, 30 minutes to fall asleep. It's not rare for it to take hours.
4. I'm not a very "creative" or "artsy" person.
5. I have high anxiety.

It's weird. I've never talked to anyone who experiences the same thing.

I can't lucid dream if I can't dream properly - let alone remember dreaming.

I've never heard the argument that senses in dreams are affected by your intelligence - please share that with us when you can.

Sleeping positions generally do not affect the dream - however, they can have an effect on a WILD attempt. Don't worry about how you sleep.

This may be the main cause here - playing games just before bed. It is actually best to lay off games and electronics about an hour before bed - this does help sleep. I do have to ask, however - do you PC game? If so, you can download a program called F.lux - this program gives your computer more red light, which stimulates the brain into making melatonin.

The rest of the things you've listed I can't see affecting the dream, nor affecting the chances of making it lucid.

A dream journal is your best friend, and most powerful tool. Start it ASAP - it will, I guarantee, help you on the road to lucid dreams. The point of the dream journal is to both assist in dream recall and also help identify possible dream signs - things that can help you become lucid. Seriously, just do it - you'll benefit from it. Get into as much detail as you can - this helped me to enhance my own senses as I dreamed (Whenever I'd dream, my vision was always odd - it's cleared up now).

Mantras may help you out as well - tell yourself that when you dream, you will have clear senses. This should help out in some way.

EDIT:
Daytime Awareness, as mentioned above, is where you just take a minute out of your day, and really observe your environment. Engage your senses in the environment - what can you hear? Smell? Taste? Doing this is supposed to help you reinforce the use of senses in dreams, as well as possibly clear them up.

That's all I can offer - best of luck, and I hope I helped out in some way!

I friended you because I'm very interested in you Frank.

"Friended" means that every thing you post on dv will pop-up on my profile (front page). Please open a dv dream journal here and put anything you remember. ... please Frank.

I have always said that there are many species of dreamer just as there are many species of animal, (sky birds, aquatic fish, land elephants and underground rabbits and blind moles).

One famous member here dreams so different as to never be an embodied "me" in his drrams.

I know another famous and powerful lucid dreamer who is often totally blind in his dreams. He strove and strove to device technics for himself (and others) who suffered dream-blindness. Later he began surrendering a bit and noticed an unexplainable "volumetric" sense.

If this sounds crazy then I apologize ahead of time...

But

Alians who evolved in a galaxy far far away may be totally blind and deaf. There ancient ancestors may never evolved the senses for seeing or hearing. They may have survival senses quite alian and unimaginable to us.

One such alian and unimaginable survival-sense could be that blind , famous, lucid dreamer's "volumetric" sense.