Do you have any recurring dreams to relate? Have you ever had a dream that foretold the future, either good or bad? Have you ever solved any problems or had an innovative idea in a dream?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 28, 2001

Answers

The "finding money" dream is common, I believe. I had it often when I was younger. It usually took the form where I discovered coins in the ground and I would be frantically scraping away dirt to reveal more and more coins.

At the time, I took the dream literally to mean that I was finding money. In retrospect, I think it was symbolic--in my dream I was finding the treasure that was eluding me in life. Love, a passionate career, a reason-to-be? I don't know.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 28, 2001.

I have had this recurring dream the last month that Lars was going to start a thread about recurring dreams. Strange, huh?

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), January 28, 2001.

FS--

You may not realize it but your syndrome is very dangerous. Jung found that people who have recurring dreams about other people's possible behavior are twice as likely as the ceneral population to go bonkers.

The Giant's pathetic Super Bowl performance can only add to your stress. May you find comfort in your time of crisis.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 28, 2001.

Please dont think any 'less' of me.

Here goes...

I've had 3 dreams now that my bearded dragon got real big and tried to eat me.

This is the truth.

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), January 29, 2001.

I still have variations of the "student's dream". You know, where you find yourself taking a final exam for a class that you never attended.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 29, 2001.

Lars, I've never had the "found money" dream but most regularing have the "student dream".

I really try to incorporate my dreams into my every day conscienceness, especially when I dream about my deceased father. I believe that dreams are the doorway through to another level.

Yes I have dreamt a few things, minor things, which have happened a day or two later. The ones that really bother me are the ones with strangers; I don't seem to recognize people in my dream. Then of course, sometimes I know the person but they look totally different, maybe past lives???

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), January 30, 2001.

I'm somewhere I've never been before. Each time it's a different place. I'm surrounded by strangers who need me to do something for them, help them with some major problem, before I can go home. All I want is to go home, but I have to do whatever these people need first. Sometimes it's mundane like building a dog house for some kids. Sometimes it's more serious like finding a lost person. All I keep telling them is that I really need to go home. I keep telling them to handle it themselves, but they beg for help, so I help very reluctantly. I don't ever have ruby red slippers in my dreams...I'm always waiting for the bus to come and take me home.

-- h (b@r.f), January 30, 2001.

I'm lost in a maze. One dead-end after another. I go faster and faster. I panic. There is a smell of cheese nearby. I cannot find the cheese. I cannot find the exit to my snuggy nest. I have to go potty. Big creatures in white scrutinize me, take pictures of me, take notes on me.

I awake sweating. It was all a dream. I am out of the maze. I am safe and snuggy. The big creatures are there but they feed me. They are gentle. My wash my whiskers. I meet a lovely female. We screw. We eat cheese. Life is good.

-- (Ratko@dream.lab), January 30, 2001.

LOL Ratko

Wednesday January 24 6:42 PM ET Study: Rats Dream About Mazes

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON (AP) - Rats apparently can't escape the rat race, even when they're sound asleep.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have entered the dreams of rats and found them busily working their way through the same lab mazes they negotiate during the day.

It is evidence not just that animals dream - most pet owners know that already - but that they have complex dreams, replaying events much the way humans do, researchers said. And they may use their dreams to learn or memorize.

The findings, announced Wednesday, could eventually help researchers understand how the human mind works in the murky world of the subconscious.

``It's really opening a new door into the study of dreams,'' said Matt Wilson, associate professor at MIT's Center for Learning and Memory and leader of the study, published in Friday's issue of the journal Neuron.

But Robert Stickgold, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said there is no way to prove MIT researchers were seeing rats dream.

``If the rat would tell us, `Yes, I was dreaming about running around the track,' then we'd have it nailed down,'' Stickgold.

The rats in the MIT study were hooked up to a device that measured the pattern of neurons firing in the hippocampus, an area of the brain known to be involved in memory.

The scientists had the rats perform specific tasks in a maze that produced very distinctive patterns of brain activity. When they repeatedly saw almost exactly the same patterns reproduced during sleep, they concluded the rats were dreaming about running through the maze.

The correlation was so great that scientists said they could place where in the maze the rat was dreaming it was.

The discovery of similarities between human and animal dreams could enable scientists to use the rats to learn more about the human mind, Wilson said. Scientists could manipulate the rats' experiences in a way that is not permissible with people.

For instance, some scientists believe people solve problems in their dreams. The theory could be tested on rats, he said.

Scientists also believe that dreams help form and reinforce long-term memories. The MIT findings may bolster that theory.

Wilson's research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), January 30, 2001.