Yay, other people with "weird dreams" as my friends call it...
They only say so affectionately. ;)
I've had extremely vivid dreams since I was a little girl. I think the earliest one I remember clearly was from five or six. From then until about fourteen, I did have lucid dreams on and off (as in, I was aware I was dreaming, and I was aware I was aware I was dreaming), but they weren't all my dreams. I also didn't remember my dreams from most nights. Then I found a book about dreams that was mostly nonsense (lots of generalized meanings that can't apply across the board) but also had some tips about how to remember dreams once you wake up and how to notice you're there while you're in them (like the reality checks throughout the day).
I quickly took to those suggestions, and ever since then it is highly unusual for me to wake up with no dreams to report, and I'd say about one fourth of them are lucid. Well, they all hit lucidity at least at some point, but sometimes that point is just a spark that I blow out on purpose to go along with the ride -- in the last few years, I've come to feel that non-lucid dreams that I nonetheless remember well often help me figure out some psychological knots, and this year in particular has required a lot of just letting me dreams do to me what they will do to me. Knowing what non-lucid dream-me did is often more revealing than what lucid-me would do.
Anyway, for a long time I didn't talk to many people at all about my dreams, and even if I did then we didn't talk about the dreams much. But then I dated a woman for a while who had dream-like experiences as vivid and detailed as mine, and she and I could recount and discuss this stuff for hours upon hours on a regular basis. We'd discuss the internal logic, rules, unusual beauties unique to dream worlds etc etc. After that I started opening up a bit more to my friends about dreams, and I'm amused to notice that they've started remembering their own dreams better since they've become accustomed to thinking about them because of me. (One said, "Whenever I wake up remembering a dream, I get excited so I can tell you!")
As to hypnagogic states, strangely I think I only experienced the first true one when I was seventeen. Or maybe it was just the first one I noticed, since it happened while I was very, very close to full wakefulness. (I was riding in a crowded van with people, aware of light and movement and what they were saying -- just also happened to be exhausted with my eyes closed and seeing cool stuff on the backs of my eyelids!) One of my favorite things about the hypnagogic state is sharing it while I can, if I'm with somebody I love. I've been lucky to have relationships where people are interested to lie next to me while I describe what I'm seeing and hearing until I am finally fully asleep.
I am definitely more social about my dreaming than normal. I find that dreams are a way people can be drawn closer together, and I think it's a real shame that so many people view them as somehow less relevant or valid or worthwhile than even the most trivial waking thoughts.
Still, aside from that one woman (who I'm not with anymore anyway), I really have never been around numerous people with dream experiences even remotely similar to mine. (Hers weren't quite -- it's a long story -- so even she didn't really count.) I'm always puzzled when people refer to having "a really weird dream" and then what they describe sounds perfectly normal to me.
I suppose I'll wrap it up there, but I'm glad to be here!
