[seeker1950]

I just realized the other night that I have a whole series of dreams about my participation in art fairs, finding my display area, the manual labor of lifting and setting up the art displays, staying thru the show, then the taking down of my displays, saying goodbye to the neighboring artists/craftsmen, just like the actual shows I've done. I post about this here, because I just remembered these places in my dreams and thought they were real!!! Like they were actual shows, and then I had to sort out what was real vs. dream!

[medkev13]

So there's a scientific correlation that's been found (if someone can find the studies that back this that'd be great...I can't remember where I saw it at) between dreams, memory, and recollection. The connection goes like this:

Your subconscious takes the events of your life and stores the important (or unresolved) ones as memories. Your dreams are the background effort to resolves the unresolved things...
Dreams that work toward internalizing events <- Waking world activity -> memories

Your subconscious, however, still has to handle the dream events as an experience, so when things get internalized and stored as memories, this weird thing happens where dreams are treated as real life events.

There is no concrete proof regarding why this happens, but the logic follows that:
Your subconscious filters "real life" events from "fictional events" based on personal involvement (if it happened to you or if you have the capability to confirm the results of the event in the real world). This is why we can remember reading a book, but not have memories as if we lived the book's story.

Dreams, while not physically real in the waking world, do still effect us directly. For this reason, memories of dreams are stored as real life events - because the experience directly involves the dreamer, instead of being something the dreamer experienced by proxy like in the case of any storytelling media.

-- Dreams may not be 'real', but their significance to the dreamer makes them just as valid as real world memories, if not moreso... --

[PsychNitrous]

I used to have the same experience when I worked 3rd shift at McDonald's. I'd get off work at 6am, go home, get in bed, and dream about still being at work. It was exhausting, almost like working a 16 hour shift!

[unaluna]

I have versions of cities (like NYC, detroit, others) in my dreams that i keep returning to; strange elevators; apartments; hotels, work areas and company cafeterias! I take the bus, drive a lot, walk a lot in nyc.

[seeker1950]

Thanks, all. It is just very confusing and interesting to me that I had these dreams that seems so real as memories, then I had to sort out whether they were real. I mean, truly, they were so real, I've had to go back and sort it out...they weren't real. Good memories, though!

[medkev13]

I actually had a mild case of PTSD thanks to this effect, actually.

My family had been dealing with Child Protective Services (long story) some years ago. One night I had dreamed that they came back knocking at the door and I told them "I've had enough, I can't take anymore. Just take the kids if you're going to." And they did, and I (still dreaming) went back to my recliner and went back to sleep. ((Note here :: I was sleeping in our recliner, in the living room, right next to the door at the time.)) I woke up in a full blown panic attack. Woke up thinking it had actually happened. The kids were still accounted for, but that dream hing in my mind for a full year. I couldn't help but feel like they -had- shown up and that maybe I had said everything I did in a state of sleep-walking/talking (I've done weirder).

Only when we requested to see the case files, after it was closed, did we learn that it never happened at all.