# Sleep and Dreams > General Dream Discussion >  >  How absurd are your dreams?

## DreiHundert

I ask this question because, going around reading other people's dream journals and their reports of dreams, I have found that on average dreams are much more absurd than mine are. Not to say my dreams aren't absurd at all -- they sometimes can be, but the the absurdity in my dreams is often "Situational" absurdity.

So, in other words, the biggest absurdity in my dream is the situation of the dream itself, and less often are they individual events and persons within the dream. For instance -- I am not very likely to dream of a "Purple Koala fighting a Komodo Dragon" -- Usually, what I dream of is a tangible event -- something that could happen in real life -- but it's ABSURD that it would happen to me. However, beyond the absurdity of the dream's situation, there are few more absurdities. A lot of the things that happen make logical sense and aren't that big of a deal. Other people report dreams that are so absurd that it's a wonder they didn't know they were dreaming. 

As a few examples of situational absurdity dreams that were otherwise realistic:
-I was fighting a war in an urban area.
-I was attending high school (even after graduating)
-I was in a foreign country, trying to find my way home
-I was involved in an emergency situation, such as a fire, disaster, or car accident

Sometimes I have dreams that are more absurd than that:
-Dreamed I visited a colony of "Tree Elves" or something of the like
-Dreamed I lived in a hive of humans underground, living somewhat like hornets or bees

And again, not to say my dreams are totally realistic. They are riddled with inconsistencies and unrealistic ideas - but what I find so odd about my own dreams is that they seem to *attempt* to make sense themselves. A lot of what happens is highly realistic, and rarely does something "absurd", or "So unrealistic it's mindblowing" happen.

Some things I would define as absurd:
1. Pink Dinosaur fights off Superman as you watch from your basement window
2. You're drinking motor oil and you ask your doctor to put some more motor oil in it because this shit tastes like motor oil
3. You're swimming in an ocean of imaginary creatures and get eaten by a giant jellyfish

Things I would define as "unrealistic, but not absurd"
1. You're swimming in an ocean, full of *fish*
2. You're in the prehistoric times, watching dinosaurs fight
3. You're drinking motor oil, and then realize it and freak out because you just drank motor oil

So I guess, unrealistic things happen all the time, but I feel like there's a constant sense of trying to make things make sense. I'm always trying to make sense of things. My questions to you guys are: How absurd are your dreams? Do you understand the idea I'm trying to express(which is hard to put in words)? Do you also have situationally absurd but realistic dreams? 

Here's a good question on this topic:
Are there ANY ties between your reality and your dream world? Technically your dream world has no obligation to be anything CLOSE to the tangible universe. It doesnt have to follow the laws of physics, or be on this earth, or even involve humans. But for most of us, to some extent, our dreams *REPRESENT* the real world. Do your dreams follow that trend or?

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## dutchraptor

My dreams are mixed, between situational absurdity, everyday reality and down right absurdity. I'd say 90% of my dreams would fall in the first two. As an example:
I had a dream that I had to carry a tree of life across a desert to reverse the apocalypse. We were walking through a war zone in Bolivia when a woman smashed the tree and revealed the crystal of life inside. 
The dream was absurd in it's setting and storyline, but nothing ever crossed the storyline. We were giving the universe in the beginning and we adhered to it, it all makes sense if you consider the background story.

However I do have dreams that seem to jump out of place:
I once had a dream that an old star wars toy was a portal and required charcoal strips to activate, the dream then switched to the intro to a japanese movie with nicholas cage and then it started raining huge logs. 

I think people just happen to right down these eccentricities more than the normal bits. Usually when I log my dreams I can summarize ten minutes of events into something like "we roamed the country helping people"
but another sequence of extremely unusual events might take 20 lines to describe due to it's absurdity.





> Are there ANY ties between your reality and your dream world? Technically your dream world has no obligation to be anything CLOSE to the tangible universe. It doesn't have to follow the laws of physics, or be on this earth, or even involve humans. But for most of us, to some extent, our dreams *REPRESENT* the real world. Do your dreams follow that trend or?



My dreams follow whatever schema is the freshest in my mind. If I was playing skyrim or minecraft my dreams are usually resembling those worlds, or when I watch a movie I sometimes find myself in that movie in my dream. 
Most dreams focus particularly on parts of your day which stood out to you, and since we spend a lot of time aware in reality it seems obvious why most our dreams would situated there.

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## Ekyu

For me there is always an element of real life involved, but my dreams tend to be quite absurd nonetheless. It also really depends where you draw the line between absurd and "kinda real life". Last night i had a dream where me and a guy runned away from this castle, and the guy behind me got tortured to death right before my eyes (the movie saw had nothing on this), I personally see this already as absurd, even if it had some elements of real life. 

_"So I guess, unrealistic things happen all the time, but I feel like there's a constant sense of trying to make things make sense."_ I think that's something we all do. Our brains are just programmed to be this way, no matter how absurd it is. _"You're drinking motor oil, and then realize it and freak out because you just drank motor oil"._ I think this is unrealistic and absurd. It really depends where you draw the line. Not sure if this is what you're looking for since i just woke up, but i hope this answers you're question a little bit.

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