The Dreaming Sleeper

What Your Sleep Personality Says About Your Waking Life

How personality, sleep and health are intertwined.
By Maia Szalavitz for MSN Health & Fitness

The Dreaming Sleeper

Can you vividly recall your dreams each morning? Your sleep style indicates that you are likely highly creative in your waking life.
"People with an intensely high level of dream recall have something called 'thin borders,'" says James Pagel, M.D., director of the Sleepworks Laboratory in Colorado Springs, Colo. "That means that for them, everything is in shades of gray, there's not whole lot of black or white. They’re not purely Democrats or Republicans; they are not quite asleep or awake; and they define much of their lives in that way."
Such people tend to be odd and quirky—and although most are perfectly normal, they are at higher risk than others for schizophrenia.

*I ran across this article this morning and this was the part that related to me. I feel that the description of "shades of gray" is exactly me. I don't have a favorite color, or strongly dislike another. I tend to sit in the middle in a lot of arguments...I see both sides. And I remember at least some part of a dream nearly every morning. Makes for some interesting stories...

Blast from the Past

I've been having a lot of weird dreams lately. They often involve people from my past. Its odd. They are people I haven't seen or even thought about in YEARS. Suddenly, they are popping up in my dreams. The other night I was at my childhood friend's house, even they weren't there. Um, I haven't been at that house in 15+ years, as he became too cool for me in 9th grade. Last night, I was hanging out with a bunch of the band nerds from high school (I was one too, so I don't say that in a judgmental way). We were our current ages and hanging out at the dunes on Lake Michigan. Very odd. I can't share details because its weird and awkward....HA!
I think it has to do with the fact that my 10 year reunion is coming up! Its not so much that I'm nervous/scared/excited about it, more that it has brought to mind people that I haven't thought about much in the last few years.
Its odd how our mind works.

Reoccuring

I keep having the variations of the same dream.

For some reason, I am taking classes at my high school, Abraham Lincoln High School. The school generally looks like its supposed to and even the hallways are pretty accurate.

Sometimes I am 16(ish) again, but often times I am my real age. The odd thing though, is for various reason, I am not attending classes. For like days at a time. And I realize that if I go back to class, the teacher will be mad at me and I will be lost in the content, but then if I don't go back, I won't be able to pass the class. Its very nerve-racking.

Emily said its probably because its fall and the start of school, but I've been having these dreams for months.

Last night's dream had a new variation. I still wasn't going to class and I knew I needed to in order to graduate. Then it occurred to me that I had gone and gotten two college degrees without my high school diploma. How was that possible? I must be doing it backwards! Then I thought, no, I'm pretty sure I did get my diploma already. So why was I back at school?

I think my self was trying to tell itself not to fret, this was just a silly dream.

I'm thinking that my mind is trying to work something out and so therefore there is some strange meaning behind the high school dream....I'm just not sure what it is yet. Until then, I'll just close my eyes and let my subconscious do what it needs to do.