I just realized something interesting. Frequently I remember fragments of dreams spontaneously. I’ll be triggered by life, and suddenly an elaborate dream I had just magically appears in my mind. If anyone is near me, I’ll say; “I had dream about that”. I have written previously that my brain doesn’t know when I had the dream. It could have been just 40 minutes ago as I was asleep, or it could have been a year ago, and just remembered by the event that triggered the memory.
If we take the thought that our recall of a memory isn’t on any timeline, then it follows that we have had many dreams we don’t remember. They are recalled in timing with a trigger, which to our brains seems relevant. When I woke up this morning, I was not thinking about that dream. It only came into being while I was reading Facebook posts. After reading one post, I remembered a dream I had, and to me – it seemed like some sort of magically premonition. Life was following my dream. It seemed wild that such an obscure dream would happen the night before I saw a related post online. It would seem almost like fortelling the future, when more literally it was remembering the past.
In my 60 years, I must have dreamed thousands of scenarios. It would be cool to think most of them are relatable to pretty much any aspect of life, but if my life triggered a relevant dream from my past every time, I can see how I would start to be creeped out by my magical dreams.
that was a fun thought experiment. Now I’m late for my morning chores.
