2024: R… A to Z of my DNA and Me: Remembering Dreams… Likely or Unlikely

This is my 9th year of writing in the annual April A to Z… and I changed my topic a few times until settling on DNA. I’m also writing again in my 3rd year of 52 Weeks 52 Ancestors this year… so April is going to be quite tricky for me… two designated posts a week the month. In as I was going to write a few DNA posts on the 52 weeks challenge, but then decided I could spread out my writing to keep all the DNA information in one grouping on the April A to Z. I hope you find it interesting how the DNA is tested for unusual topics like bitter sensitivity or hangryness… it’s been interesting to see if I feel Ancestry has hit the mark… or missed it. If you’ve never heard of the annual A to Z, then head over HERE for more info. It’s quite interesting to write on a specific topic for the month… meeting and making new friends as they visit… and visiting their blogs. It’s always a fun learning curve.

Remembering Dreams

Have you ever woken… to remember a dream vividly? That’s called dream recall. While the human brain is wired to dream, some people seem to recall dreams better than others. WHY? There are various factors that contribute to someone’s ability to remember dreams, and it’s an active area of study for sleep scientists. The AncestryDNA^® Traits tell you if people with DNA like yours tend to recall their dreams more than the average person… unfortunately my DNA tells me that I’m unlikely to remember dreams… more influenced by my paternal side.

Researchers have found… or suggested… that the seven most common dreams involve being attacked or chased, being late, loved ones dying, falling, flying, school, and sex. Have most of your dreams fallen into these categories? I don’t believe I’ve ever dreamed of dying, falling or flying or sex. Hmm, I’m wondering if men have more dreams of sex than women?

I agree with Ancestry’s analogy of my DNA… for the most part of “unlikely to remember dreams“… as I don’t remember nearly as many as my husband. It’s so frustrating when you wake up and have that quick glimpse of a dream… and then, in the blink of an eye, it’s gone… never to return! I’ve had some haunting dreams of looking for my father… and no matter where I go or who I call, I just can’t find him. It’s such a frustrating dream in how I was so desperate to see him… and couldn’t find him. I so wish someone could tell me what that dream meant… but in my heart I feel like I know. I feel I never had the chance to say goodbye to him before he died… never having that last hug and feel his arms around me. He did call me two days before he died… a call out of the blue on a Friday night… and after hanging up, I felt it was odd how he’d called me that night and told me he loved me.

Recently I had another dream about my father… but in this dream I saw him and gave him a big hug… maybe that has ended my other dreams of when I couldn’t find him. Maybe in the back of my mind… I wanted and needed that last hug… and now maybe no more dreams will occur. There has to be a meaning when you have the same recurring dream… and probably with the last dream of seeing him… it may have ended those dreams. But what caused me to have that final dream… that wonder swirls in my head!

Hubby often has recurring dreams… and some the same from boyhood; he dreams every night as he often wakes me… especially when he’s fighting with them… or laughing at someone. I do laugh when I hear him laugh in his dreams!

My mother’s DNA suggests that she was likely to remember dreams… and in our nightly conversations, she told me several; I’ve written them in Conversations with Mama.

My mother often talked about a recurring dream she had of her brother, who died in WWII. In the dream, she was driving by a house that she recognized in her dream, and there was her brother in the driveway, but when she turned around to go back, he was gone. One day while she was out driving, she swore that she saw that very house… and it was so eerie. She really wanted to stop and knock on the door… just to see if her brother answered the door.

A few of mama’s dreams… “I dreamed about your father the other night and Mama Bryan (my grandmother) was there. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and I just happened to run up on him. I haven’t dreamed about him in I don’t know when. Before I had you, I dreamed about a pregnancy test and that it was positive. I woke up, remembered it, and decided to take the test… and I was pregnant with you! I often dream about my mama and daddy and the farm. Maybe my father is trying to tell me something. The one thing he always told me was, “take care of the land and it will take care of you.” I did take care of it until I sold it, and it still continues to take care of me.”

Daddy never talked about having any dreams that I know of or remember… so I’d say Ancestry was wrong again on him remembering his dreams… but who knows maybe he did, and just never talked about them. If you’re listening daddy… tell me in my dreams! I definitely want that dream… and just maybe tonight at bedtime, I’ll think on this… and just maybe… I’ll dream.

Mama’s dream of daddy made me remember an often-remembered dream of being in Georgia, but I can never find or see him… he was still living in the trailer. I was trying to find his phone number, and having a hard time finding it, then I find it and call, and he isn’t there. I then tried to find him in Perry at the Moss Oaks Lounge, but I didn’t see his car. Sometimes in the dream I finally get him on the phone and cry and ask why he won’t come see me and beg him to come. I remembered this after Mama telling me she dreamed about him.

My daughter’s DNA suggests that she does “not” remember her dreams… while my son’s DNA suggests that he remembers his dreams. She says she doesn’t remember any dreams… but that doesn’t truly mean she doesn’t have them. People often say how they don’t remember their dreams… but when they begin thinking…suddenly they come back to them.

In asking my son about dreams… “Yes, I have dreams about flying, work… being late for work, my last place of work in Connecticut, and of family who have passed away. Our twins sometimes have nightmares… waking up the entire house.

Like other things, his mention of dreaming of work reminded me of dreams I’ve had of work since retiring. I dreamed I took the bus to work (never did that) and after arriving, I realized I’d left my “needed” work materials, plus… for some odd reason, I had Nancy Drew books with me, and I was more upset over leaving them. I’ve had several dreams of being back at work and couldn’t remember how to log in my computer… and how I wasn’t finishing my daily work in printing new sale tags and hanging them… and worrying as to how was I going to finish all my work. In waking… what a relief in knowing I didn’t have to go to work.

Hubby’s DNA suggests that he remembers dreams… and I strongly agree with that. I usually write down his dreams… as they are so outlandish… such as…

While watching All My Children tonight, a girl was telling someone about a recurring dream she’d been having, and hubby said… “I’ve had the same dream before and it’s even the same one I had when I was a young boy. I dream about being in the bathtub and when I let the water out, I start to dissolve and swirl around and go down the drain. I’ve even had it a couple of times since we’ve been married. Probably from watching too many Sci-Fi movies and cartoons. I always liked the older black and white cartoon about the mouse who draws a cartoon with pen and ink and then he jumps into the cartoon and when it’s over, all the ink flows back into the bottle. I watched a lot of cartoons when I was young.”

Waking up the other morning, hubby said. “What a nightmare I had last night, and it was a nightmare so real like I’ve never had before. I had many nightmares after graduating from high school… dreaming about being back in school and that was a nightmare in itself to me. This dream last night had me with a bunch of young guys and I was headed over to Iraq. It was very real to me! I believe that being in the service is as close to communism as you can get – as you belong to Uncle Sam, and you go nowhere or do anything without them knowing. Sometimes it can be scary. When I went to Thailand, I went all alone, there was no one else from my base that went. I arrived in a foreign country… at a base I’d never been before… and knew absolutely no one. When they send you somewhere and you’re green, it’s even worse because you really know nothing.”

Hubby told me of another dream this morning. “What a dream last night… I was riding by Voss’s Pond, and from the car I saw a huge turtle floating in the water. I went down to see it up close because I couldn’t believe the size of it. It wasn’t a snapping turtle, like I’d seen there as a kid. Maybe I dreamed about the turtle from riding by Voss’s Pond the other day and remembered the many turtles I saw there as a kid. I even remember seeing a man spear one once and took home to make turtle soup. The man just threw it over his shoulder and walked away carrying it.”

Last night was Halloween (10/31/09), the very night I first met my husband at The Sand Piper club in Warner Robins, GA. As we were going to bed, he finds and begins watching Night of the Living Dead. Not something I’d choose to watch before going to sleep. In the middle of the night, he wakes me up kicking and punching me. I woke him and he said… “What a nightmare dream I was having, but I’ll tell you in the morning… In the morning… “I guess it wasn’t a good idea to be watching that type of movie before going to bed, as I dreamed, I was in that house from the movie and those ghouls were trying to come in. When you woke me up, I had jammed one of their arms in the door and was kicking and punching them. It was so real!”

Hubby woke this morning and told me immediately what a nightmare he had last night. “I dreamed that we were back living at my parent’s house and my father was still alive. When I went downstairs to their cellar, I found that someone from Armstrong Rubber had left their things in the cellar… now my parent’s cellar was cluttered. I dreamed that because our cellar is cluttered. Then I dreamed we had no screens on the windows at my father’s house either… and that was because I had just been at Aunt Catherine’s house the day before and noticed she had no screens. She told me she takes them off during the winter, so the windows and the screens stay clean. Then the 3rd part of my dream was that I had connected all the hoses from my father’s house, and I dragged them into New Haven. When I was near the University of New Haven they started to come apart and I was thinking “what are you doing?” Then I guess I woke up. Maybe I dreamed about all the hoses because I seem to have many multiples of things in my cluttered cellar!”

Another dream (March 2010): “I finally fell back asleep this morning after waking up at 4 a.m. and dreamed I had a baby duck. I was in a pet store when I saw this tiny duck sitting on a branch… he looked just like a tiny Donald Duck… I always hated that duck. I thought he was so cute, and I tried to steal him out of the store. Don’t know what brought that dream on.”

Hubby told me this morning. “What a dream I had last night. I dreamed I had the red Volkswagen up at Electric Boat (work) and I lost it. I looked and looked and couldn’t find it. Then I looked for my cell phone to call you, and I had the wrong cell phone and had nobody’s phone number to call. I then woke up and went back to sleep and was still in the same dream. I had come home and then went back up there later to look for the car again, but I still couldn’t find it. I don’t know what triggered that dream.”

Me: “I dreamed last night that I had gotten a last-minute flight to Georgia and had forgotten most of my stuff, but I called my son as he was coming the next day… very strange; after telling hubby, he said… “I had a really weird dream last night and it’s the same dream I’ve had before. I was in a large hotel down in Painters Park in West Haven. It was really big, kind of like the hotel in The Shining. I was inside and couldn’t find my way out, no matter how hard I tried. The people and kids inside were very friendly, but weird; many people lived there. One person told me to go through a door and you’ll find your way out… it took me into a bathroom where a woman was taking a tub bath. Probably the bath part was from the story I read last night in Andy Rooney’s book about baths. There were rooms that had doors, but you couldn’t walk through them, you had to crawl through. Some kids walked around even smoking in there… it was all really weird people. I never did find my way out. I’ve had this same dream before and it really makes you feel strange when you wake up… it’s so weird is probably why I never told you about it before.” (I mentioned Painter Park to him yesterday as we rode by)

And the following morning … “My last night dreams were worse than the night before and the most real and scariest of all my dreams I’ve ever had. We were living here, in our home, and I had walked out to my car… we had the Cordova. I remember looking at it strangely as it looked so different. It had one door off and four flat tires. As I stood there this boy came by on a bicycle and laughed, telling me he did it. Someone told me he lived in the house next to the guy across the street, so you and I got in our other car and pulled up in front of their house and I started blowing the horn while you were calling the police. All of a sudden, all these freaks came running out of the house… most of them looking very weird… but the one yelling at me looked like a woman. Another one that looked like a woman had this big bushy hair all over her or his chest… it was really strange looking. Even other neighbors came out with all the yelling they did. You kept trying to call the police, but they never answered their phone. Then we found out why he did it to my car… it was because I took the pink flamingos out of our front yard and put them in the shed! (Hubby had just taken them out of the yard the day before and had them on the table in the back yard, ready to go into the shed… see how things trigger your dreams)

I could go on and on with his dreams… but I won’t bore you!

Does Everyone Dream?

They say that drifting in and out of sleep can actually enhance the odds of remembering your dream. Yes, I have woken up and went right back to the same dream. Most of our dreams occur in the morning… hmm maybe there’s truth in that as it’s usually morning when I wake, remembering what I just dreamed. Besides genetics… they say environmental affects you in whether you’ll remember that dream or not… is your partner kicking you, well yes, hubby does… did you consume too much alcohol…. I think the alcohol would keep me sleeping… medications, well some say that certain type of pills encourages dreams… or the frequency of waking. It’s all said to play a part.

I often wake up in the morning or during the night… and for just a fleeting moment, I’m grasping at remembering my dream… but it floats away no matter how hard I try. It’s so frustration!

As far as science has been able to conclude, nearly everyone dreams… although some say they don’t. Most spend on average about two hours a night dreaming… Wow I could write a novel… if I could remember them! Dreams come usually during our REM sleep… the stage of sleep when breathing quickens and there’s rapid eye movement under your closed eyelids…. usually about 90 minutes after falling asleep. During this first sleep stage, your brain activity increases, and your arms and legs are temporarily paralyzed… not sure hubby dreams in REM as he’s moving all over and kicking and punching me. Often, I grab his fists… trying to calm him without waking him. Maybe I should just wake him, so he stops fighting the vampires, werewolves and ghouls. He’s always fighting someone or something… while I’ve never had those type dreams. I’ll probably be attacked by a vampire tonight… LOL, actually I’m surprised I haven’t as we watch the old soap opera Dark Shadows daily… and it’s filled with vampires, werewolves and witches… and so far, that’s one dream he hasn’t had. Have you ever watched that soap opera?

As for those who say they don’t dream… well research shows they do! A sleep study can tell if someone is dreaming from dreamlike behaviors, such as arguing, fighting, or speaking when in REM sleep. Have you noticed that people don’t speak like normal in their dreams… they speak softer or suddenly loud words and often it’s kind of mumbled. At least that’s how hubby is. Sometimes he laughs… and that’s so odd sounding to hear a person laughing in their sleep… like what’s so funny! If only I could see what he’s seeing! Often when people awake from a REM cycle, they don’t even recall the dream… bummer! On the other end of the spectrum, some people have lucid dreams… which means that they’re actually aware they’re dreaming… while dreaming. We both have said that… like you’re half-awake but still dreaming… and you know you’re dreaming… so strange.

Nightmares!

I remember a couple of nightmares that left me feeling really afraid. One was a few months after we married… hubby was in Thailand, and I was living with his parents. He was sent there just after we married. I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat and very rattled, as I thought planes were flying over and dropping bombs on us. It took a few minutes before I got my thoughts about me. I probably had just read a letter from him about the bombings over there… and it weighed on my mind.

My other nightmare dream was after we moved into a two-family house in the next town over. I was really nervous being away from where we had lived… and living in this area and knowing no one. There were French doors in the living room that opened into the front hallway… and they made me nervous as hubby worked nights and I was there alone. One night I dreamed so vividly that someone was turning the handle on those doors… and I was seeing those doorknobs turn in my dream. As I grabbed the doorhandle to pull shut and lock, I could feel someone pulling on the other side. I think I woke up that night in a sweat again… heart racing… and frozen in the bed. Finally, I woke completely, but I felt scared to go into the living room to check those doors… and it took a while before I did. Hubby arrived home to find all the lights on in the house!

My only nightmare about school, was that I was back in school and couldn’t remember where my locker or even my classrooms were… I searched up and down the halls and was so frustrated and scared and felt very stupid… like what’s wrong with me… and for some reason I think I was dressed in my nightgown. I’ve had dreams of being in my nightgown or half-dressed and be locked out of my house or had gone to work half dressed. I think I need to be psychoanalyzed! I am curious what they would say about those dreams!

They say dreaming about being naked is hardly unusual… not sure I agree on that, but the “Dream Dictionary for Dummies” suggests that if you dream of public nudity, it could indicate that you, feel like a phony, or inside you’re afraid to reveal imperfections or shortcomings you may have, or think you have. OK, so who’s going to confess you’ve dreamed of being naked?

Granddaughter Ella feels her dreams are unusually super weird, especially the one where she was in a maze… with croissants that people had to find; that dream left her puzzled, but she remembers the bread tasting horrible. While many of her dreams are “weird” to her, she does have normal ones, and in 6th grade she began writing down her dreams in a journal… and now that she’s remembered that she plans to find her journal and continue writing; she wondered why she stopped, but I’m sure more things interested her at age 13… like boys!

Ella messaged me a dream that her sister Nina remembered from a long time ago… a dream of how all her Barbie’s came alive and we’re being very creepy. Another Barbie dream was that she dreamed she had gotten a Barbie Dream House and when she woke, it felt so real. Leave it to Nina to dream Barbie… as she eats and sleeps Barbie! She’s a Barbie girl!!!

Ella… “I dreamed that same type Barbie dream at our old house in Connecticut… and I also dreamed I had gotten a phone before I actually did. I woke up and asked mom “where’s my phone“… to hear “you don’t have a phone.” Bummer!

Dreams are imaginary scenarios which play out in our minds as we sleep. Most of these dreams depict a series of scenes where we are often the main character… feeling sensations and emotions… leaving us either feeling excited, terrified or with good emotions.

According to Sigman Freud’s theory on our dreams… they represent our unconscious minds desire, our thoughts, our wishes, and our motivations. If we so, choose to believe him… in how we are driven by our repressed wishes and wants from childhood… or situations in our life at present. Now if we dissect this theory… one of my repressed wants from childhood would be to find my long-lost Nancy Drew books. Actually, I’d love to just have the dream of finding them… as I know it will never happen. I can only assume my mother packed them up and gave to our housekeeper for her daughters. No matter how hard I try, I just have no memory of them disappearing from my room… and I’d be happy, at this point, to just have a photo of them on my bookshelf. Why, Why, Why did I not take more photographs. I have a long list of wanted dreams… but this post would never end if I began writing them all down.

When you sleep, some parts of the brain become dormant, and your emotions take over. Through the dreaming process, you continue to explore your thoughts about the day… achievements, mistakes, hopes, or anything that deeply affects you. Sadly, we forget over 95% of our dreams… and to remember the other 5%, depends on how you wake up.

Researchers have found two genes to be more common of those who report having nightmares… one is related to our sleep duration, while the other is related to a protein found in the brain and bladder. I don’t remember having to go to the bathroom after a nightmare… I just wake to go to the bathroom. It’s also said that the more bathroom breaks, might make you remember your dreams more.

The two genes that impacts our sleep in the REM stages of sleep are Chrm 1 and Chrm 3… hey what happened to Chrm 2? How often do you remember your dreams?

What Else Does Science Say About Remembering Dreams?

Scientists have high-tech scanning machines that can detect when the brain is most active… and when brain activity is highly noted… you’re dreaming. But the brain is also active when we are just resting… and our brain wanders to things. Letting your mind wander helps you remember long-term memories of events… so take those rests and let your mind wander!

It’s also said that “light sleepers” are better dream recallers… well that fits hubby perfectly… as he’s a light sleeper. It’s almost impossible to sneak out of bed without being asked where I’m going. But I’ve found that if he’s in a really deep sleep, which is usually when he’s just fallen back to sleep after waking… I can sneak out of bed. On the other hand, I hear nothing… I go dead to sleep, and he’s said that he sometimes nudges me just to make sure I’m breathing… as he can’t hear me. Ha… I do the same thing to him! In the winter, we keep our house cooler at night, and he often tries to cover my arm up when he finds it ice cold… and no sooner than he covers me… I pull it back out. I guess the cold wasn’t bothering me… just worrying him. What a sweetie!

Do you wake often from dreams… they say you only need about two minutes of wakefulness to remember a dream… then poof it’s gone! Keep that dream journal handy!

Interesting Findings About Remembering Dreams

In my “dream” research, it’s said that women’s poor sleep patterns mean they wake up more often than men… and they remember their dreams more than men. I don’t agree with that as hubby remembers almost all his dreams… me not so much… and I don’t wake up like he does! He’ll tell you, if he can sleep two or three hours at a time… that’s good for him! But I do find that on nights that I sleep straight through till morning… I wake up tired… go figure that one! I feel better in the morning when I’ve woken up at least once.

Your personality traits may also be related to more dream recall… so it seems that if you’re more creative with deep thoughts… you are more likely to have a better dream memory. That would mean just the opposite for people who focus only on more practical matter… leaving them with poorer dream recall. Well, I feel I’m creative… but I don’t have the dream recall I’d like to have.

Knock on wood… neither of us had Covid… but when it hit the U.S. in 2020 many reported having strange and vivid dreams… and said to more likely remember them. One survey found that 87% of Americans began having those unusual dreams when the pandemic hit. Maybe because more people worked from home… and in not having to go to work, they slept longer or napped more. The more you sleep, the more likely that you are to dream.

Do you dream… Do you remember them? What’s your most vivid dream or nightmare?

Thanks for Stopping in…. Jeanne

To read more 2024: A to Z of DNA and more, click HERE.

© 2024, copyright Jeanne Bryan Insalaco; all rights reserved

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Previous Years A to Z April Challenges…

2016: A to Z Southern Foods and Memories… they said write what you know… and being a girl born in the South… well this was what I knew.
2017: A to Z Conversations with Mama… it was a somewhat easy one for me to write as I’d journaled our conversations for years… I researched favorite topics to write.
2018: A to Z All About Nancy Drew… this one has been my favorite topic so far, and I don’t know if I’ll ever come up with another one to equal it
2019: A to Z Italian Famiglia Foods and Memories… I felt it was time to finally write the favorites of my husbands family foods.
2020: A to Z Family Stories… writing the stories of my husband’s family.
2021: A to Z of Mama in Photos... blogging on my mother through photos and memories      2022: A to Z Time Travels… Time Traveling through my blog… and more.          2023: A to Z The Best of our Journals… blogging on journals of hubby and I.