What triggers your dreams?
Last night I was thinking about someone very briefly. It's usually the (really) brief thoughts I have during the day (that quickly come and go) that end up becoming the subject of my dreams. They are normally things that I prefer not to focus on in my waking hours, or cannot for practical reasons.

Anyway, at that point, it's like the brain goes and files it off saying "This is potential dream material. I'll save this one for sleep. Moohahahahah"

I don't normally remember my dreams, but they are often triggered by these very brief passing thoughts during the day, or some new creative pursuits I've taken part in. It's like the dream part goes into overdrive when my waking hours are spent doing more creative, exciting stuff, or briefly wondering about things that the brain deems interesting.

What normally triggers your dreams?
Does the "brief thought" thing happen to anyone?

Usually anything that I have seen, thought of or spoken about becomes in some way part of my dreams.. Dreams are unconscious thoughs in your head... You may not even realize why are you are dreaming of what you are until you stop and breakdown the meanings in your dream...

For instance, I had a dream the other night about eating chicken in church and all my high school friends were around. It took a while, but i realized, I had spoke early of my High School reunion (that is next month) with my b est girlfriend earlier that day. We both went to a catholic High School.. I also had wanted to make chicken that night for dinner.. but decided against it.. This dream is pretty obvious, but the meanings are different if you look them up in a dream dictionary (if you believe in them). Sometimes i dream of things that make NO SENSE to me whatsoever..

A good website to visit is dreammoods.com... Just some food for thought!

Dreams are metaphors for what goes on in your subconscious mind - metaphors for how you feel about whatever at the time of your dream. At least I think so.

But they can also set the stage for the coming day - influence the mood you wake up in by drawing something up from your subconscious, for instance in the shape of a song you may not even have heard in ages, but there it is in your head. Or mybe you just wake up and feel angry or grouchy? Or maybe you wake up feeling happy because you had a funny, amusing dream.

They can also predict what your day will be like. Certainly I have awoken with knowledge of meeting certain people that I couldn't even perceive of how on earth I could possibly get to meet that day. But meet 'em, I did.

And they can predict events. Certainly I have awoken with the knowledge that today I would be called to conference with my employer - and called I was.

So how do you discern one type of dream from the other - what is just a reflection of your subconscious state of mind and what is prediction? Mostly, you just know the difference, but... sometimes it CAN be difficult to tell them apart.

That works in reverse for me. There are times when I wake up not remembering a dream at all. Then suddenly some random thing will trigger the dream that I didn't even remember having!