What do you call reliving a dream?

July 10, 2004 3:31 AM

I just had a dream. In the dream I had recollection of another dream I had (in the dream, I say! an actual other dream I had about a year ago!). Then when I woke up, over making the morning joe, I recalled not only the dream from last night, but the recollection of the dream from a year ago, and how the experience of recalling a dream within a dream felt. What the hell do you call that?
posted by pissfactory to science & nature (13 comments total)

i dunno, but i once had a nightmare about having a nightmare about having a nightmare. i was kinda freaked out by the time i really woke up.
posted by TheIrreverend at 7:13 AM on July 10, 2004

That would make sense since dreaming is a lot about sorting through memories.

I personally have such vivid dreams that sometimes I'll have to consciously stop and think about whether a memory of mine is something real or from a dream.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:44 AM on July 10, 2004

MetaDreaming.
posted by zadcat at 8:13 AM on July 10, 2004

I had this crazy dream last night that had me trying to kill "The Predator" (you know, from the movie) in a grocery store. I figured out (in my dream) that if I stayed in the frozen goods section he couldn't see me. then I set about doing all these booby traps, and woke up just as he was beheaded.

Best. Dream. Ever.
posted by Quartermass at 9:40 AM on July 10, 2004

You call it 'memory'.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:42 AM on July 10, 2004

ive experienced the same thing, knowing inside of a dream that i have had a dream before that took place in the same 'set', as it were. but i dont know of a term for it, sorry.
posted by rhapsodie at 10:08 AM on July 10, 2004

Ever dream that you were readiing Metafilter? And reading this comment, but you're actually asleep?
posted by inksyndicate at 10:19 AM on July 10, 2004

Metadreaming is probably as good a term as any (thanks, zadcat). It used to happen a lot more when I was in grad school, actually (probably not surprising, given all the postmodern/post-structural/post-toasties meta theory I was often reading) but it still happens from time to time.

I also have a few of the same dream "sets" as well, generally of childhood locales (i.e., the dream version of my hometown, which is always the same when I dream it but not really what it was in real life). For example, I dreamed the other night that I was walking through the dream version of the department store my mother and grandmother usually took me shopping at.
posted by scody at 10:20 AM on July 10, 2004

I have the experience you are talking about all the time, and it is unsettling to me, not because of the "metadreaming" quality, but because I am never sure whether the (sorry, Poe) dream within a dream I am having is the recollection of a discrete dream I am remembering from the past, or whether I am having two new dreams, but my brain is tricking me into thinking one of them is an older memory of a dream.

In general, when I am walking down the street and I suddenly remember a dream I've had, I have no concept of how long ago I had it, unless I have written it down or told somebody about it. It could be 10 years ago, or it could be from last night. Creepy as hell, because it leads me to wonder about whether our brains by themselves have an innate sense of time, or whether it's a sort of software function that only works when the rational mind is booted up.
posted by Hildago at 11:48 AM on July 10, 2004

I have metadreaming (dreaming that I'm dreaming a dream), set-piece dreams (dreams or dream locales I've previously dreamed), lucid dreaming (especially of the "rewind and do again" variety, because I didn't like the way it went the first time), and extended dreamstates that entered real life (causing me to become very, very startled when I suddenly realize that what I thought had happened was just a dream).

I love dreaming.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:45 PM on July 10, 2004

...I am never sure whether the (sorry, Poe) dream within a dream I am having is the recollection of a discrete dream I am remembering from the past, or whether I am having two new dreams, but my brain is tricking me into thinking one of them is an older memory of a dream.

As in your brain, unconscious mind or the dream police or pixies have constructed what seems like a memory of a dream within the dream then. I have had similar experiences upon waking from a dream and wondered just that.

Then again are memories of altered states of consciousness state-of-consciousness dependent ? Do we remember drunken things we did before when drunk again ? Many old acid heads I have known have claimed they could recall all sorts of details of trips past when they, for one reason or another, dropped acid again for the first time in years. If that is possible, then why should we not be able to remember dreams long ago dreamt while dreaming again ? It's a ponder, that is for sure.
posted by y2karl at 5:45 PM on July 10, 2004

Upon Googling--well, shucks: state dependent memory.
posted by y2karl at 5:48 PM on July 10, 2004

I sometimes invent wonderful, wonderful music as I 'm falling asleep.

I rather suspect it's quite atrocious music, and I'm only imagining/dreaming it to be great...
posted by five fresh fish at 9:10 AM on July 11, 2004