Dreaming all the time

I tend to dream in “place-feelings”. I have a strong spatial sense of the place I am in during a dream, and I associate the place with some unique (usually personal & nostalgic) feeling. Sometimes, they are real places, other times, they are built out of fragments of places I’ve been to, seen, or imagined. Rather than a whole vista I could envision, place-feelings tend to have a collection of associated features or emotional contexts to them.

Some examples of place-feelings I can recall are:

• A cool, comfortable evergreen forest with a gazebo or chapel in it
• A garden with a white brick wall next to it, in bright sunlight
• A wide open plain with tall trees or walls surrounding it on all sides at a distance

On days when I feel really good and well-rested, I can sense a place-feeling flickering around the edges of my conscious thoughts. The specific place-feeling I sense tends to change gradually over a few weeks or months, usually with some intervening time where I don’t sense it at all. These impressions arise most often while I am outside and moving around. This has lead me to think that whatever makes me feel these places in dreams continues to go on while I’m awake, but is usually unaccessible.

The phenomenon squares pretty well with what I understand about the unconscious mind. Roughly speaking, the conscious mind fades away during sleep, but the unconscious remains active, and some of its activity can then be remembered by the conscious mind upon waking. Then, during the day, the unconscious carries on in the same way, but is usually not detectable. It’s like dreams are the stars, and conscious thought is the sun. These waking dreams are like catching a lucky glimpse of an especially bright star during daylight.

I’m curious whether there is a way to further cultivate dream awareness during my waking hours. Currently, I just enjoy it when it happens, and try to take good care of myself.

What do you think? Are dreams (or something similar) going on all the time for everyone? Have you ever noticed elements from your dreams arise during waking hours? Let me know your thoughts at my Ctrl-C email: gome ​@ ​ctrl-c.club.