The mind-boggling possibility of recording dreams may soon be a reality predicts "How It's Made," a British monthly science magazine.
The nanotechnology/brain scanning techniques are now such that translating neural impulses from brain neurons and retinal images to recording and screen instrumentation is almost a done deal (Nightmares anyone? Wet dreams for replay?).
Question: Are the dreams of gay and lesbian persons significantly different from those of straights because of variations in respective brain hemispheres? How about trans persons? Recording dreams would likely provide answers.
I once kept a dream journal. I recorded over 50 dreams for six months, which is pretty good considering that dreams are like exotic butterflies — occasionally darksome moths — unless netted quickly they flutter back into your mental twilight zone. Vanishing forever in seconds.
(Everyone dreams. Cats, dogs, parrots, pretty-boy Pence. Dodo the Donald. Dreams occur every 90 minutes as evidenced by rapid eye movements or REMs. Up-and-down fluttering behind the eyelids. The secret to keeping a dream journal is to remind yourself at bedtime that you will remember your dreams when awakening, and have pen and paper nearby to jot down vivid and fresh details — X-rated and otherwise (if you have sleepover company, use dictation).
You may not get back to sleep, but you've got something to show for time spent in your brain's unique answer to Disneyland.
I reread my dream journal recently, after having neglected it for years. It was fascinating, embarrassing shock theater. And, to be expected of an eccentric artist like myself, wacky. No wonder Freudian shrinks find their couch company such fun.
Here's a sample. Dated July 19, 2015. Feel free to free-associate (your couch or mine). "I'm riding in a cab with two other passengers wearing blond wigs, none of whom speak English. We are in a foreign country at night. I get off at the stop light. The cab driver rolls down the window, "You left your beaded bag, Monsignor!" I wake up (no tip, I'm sure).
Modesty precludes further dream journal entries — one including an erotic encounter with two movie stars, an acrobat, three outfielders and a drag queen piano tuner.
Although dreams can be crazy, they keep us from going temporarily insane. If you go without sleep for more than 48 hours — say at a weekend circuit party — you can expect to experience hallucinations or psychosis without taking drugs.
The world's Guinness Record for going without zzzzs is 264 hours and 11 minutes, held by a straight but really bent DJ, who never fully recovered from nonstop lack of REMs.
Of all the sweet dreams I've had, none compares to a lucid dream. It's a real mind trip, and, for the 60 seconds or so that it lasts, it's life (and sometimes love) in the fifth dimension. No question about it: the mind has a mind of its own.
Lucid Dreams, like dreaming in color, are said by psychologists to be indices of reasonably high intelligence (smile).
You can fly, touch your "solid" surroundings and ask questions of dream people (like being awake, you may not get intelligent answers). You can have a sexual fling (I encountered one dream partner who, when refusing to fling, was told he had no choice but to be flung. It was my dream. Get with it. He did. It was mind-blowing, though we haven't spoken since).
It's a fact. More lesbians dream of U-Hauls than do gay men. More gay men dream of basket weaving. Neither dream of elephants in their respective bedroom. Log Cabin Republicans, the exception.
And, as Freud might have said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. A cucumber, just a cucumber."
