Dream modalities

[magid]

The fragment of dream I remember from last night was a phone call with someone I'm no longer in touch with. The strange part was realizing this morning that it wasn't a visual dream, but an aural one. I don't remember this ever happening before; I'm more sight-oriented*, so while there has been dream sound, it's never been primary. It made me think about Touching the Rock, where he describes how memories of sight fell away, wondering whether his dreams became more aural or more tactile. Would someone who loses hearing completely (rather than born deaf) have a similar loss of even the memory of sound?

* Not mostly in the picture-making sort of way. I know some people who make vivid pictures when reading narratives, for instance, but I tend towards vague images, more for a feeling of orientation (map-like), if at all. I'm more focused on the text (and can frequently say where on the page of a book a piece of information is, even if I can't remember the thing itself), though I don't remember ever having a text-based dream.

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

My dreams are also primarily visual, but I regularly have dreams where touch and sound play a secondary role. Taste figures into the mix sometimes but not often, and I can only remember one dream with smell.

[magid.livejournal.com]

You've had tastes in dreams? I envy that! Touch and smell would be pretty neat, too, but taste... My mind seems wholly in see/hear modes.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

It's a very strange sensation. I wake up from taste dreams wondering what neurons were firing to create the illusion of taste when I'm not eating anything.

I have had text-based scenes in dreams, too, though they tend to be a little fuzzy. One particular dream, I remember, involved a page from a math textbook. It was explaining some bizarre equation, but I couldn't see the whole thing because I was focusing on a fraction where the denominator was expressed in Hebrew letters.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Is it always foods you've tasted before?

I edit math books, and I don't have math-y dreams like that!
Jewish fractions...

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Mostly it has been foods I've tasted before, though I seem to remember one that involved chewing on lumber or some other non-food substance.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't usually hear in my dreams, though I do know what is being said. About a month ago, however, I had an emotional dream in which I actually heard the other person in the dream speak, one word, in his voice. The experience was . . . intense.

Me too with the book thing!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't hear a lot, but it's something that definitely has happened before.

That does sound like an intense dream. Sometimes I have a hard time when I dream about someone I know, when it feels like their actions, and I have to remember it's all my mind's creation, not something they've done (for good or ill).

[(Anonymous)]

The experience of that dream affected me for days.

I have to remember it's all my mind's creation

Well said. It can be difficult to do so.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yes, especially when "someone" has done something unpleasant (or, the absolute worst, had something happen to them; sometimes I have to call just to convince myself everything's fine).