Thread: How selective have you become?

How selective has everyone become now in what they expose themselves to?

Now that I'm actively remembering and recording my dreams, I've become pickier than I was before in everything I absorb. For example I used to love the horror and thriller genre, but I've started to shy away from it. In general I've been weeding out material I don't care to have in my head. I guess I never considered that I process that junk subconsciously and I never particularly wanted it to show up in my dreams.

I can understand people adding material to be used in the dream world, but does anyone else filter things out?

A couple months ago or so, David Lynch's film Eraserhead was on the TV for some reason. My husband was watching it and I couldn't help but stand transfixed for a while, while that nasty baby appeared and then the Lady in the Radiator sang her song. (If you've never seen it, you should probably scar your psyche with this stuff at least once. Lynch is the only filmmaker with any undestanding of dream logic.) Sure, I loved that movie in high school, but it's the last thing I would ever want to encounter in my own dreams. I was planning an LD attempt that night, and hoped the film wouldn't influence me.

Inevitably, when I fell asleep that night I promptly found myself in an Eraserhead-like setting. Something horrible was trying to get through the door into the room I was in. I was vaguely lucid. At first I tried to lock the door but it wasn't working. Something kept trying to push the door open. Then I was like, "Screw this, this is not my dream!" I had thought it over and felt no moral obligation to deal with some other guy's messed up visions. If it were my own monsters I would have tried to love them, but I realized I couldn't love the characters or creatures from Eraserhead. Sorry, Lynch, that's your dream space, not mine! You deal with it. So I turned my back on it, flying up through the ceiling and into the sky until it all fell away.

I haven't really thought of this so its interesting getting this perspective! At least for me, daily life doesn't manifest hugely in my dreams unless its some big issue I am facing. Not related to dreaming but I do tend to avoid TV and certain mainstream news. Although I am selective in what I watch so whatever show or series I am into will work its way into my dreams. I'll either be watching a scene or be a active participant with what is going on.

Although I tend to shy away from gruesome movies or clips since I don't want to find myself non-lucid in a Saw situation, just in case. So in that sense I filter out gruesome content or certain horror movies just because I don't want to be subjected to that in a dream lol, even though I am not afraid to watch them.