For those who remember dreams

[Phishfan]

Do you find things such as noise work their way into your dreams? Most recently my alarm clock went off this morning and I worked a truck backing up into my dream. I usually do not sleep with the TV on, but the last few times I did it found its way in as well. One time it was a news commentary channel and I was dreaming I was one of the panelists. When I woke up I realized the TV was covering the exact same thing as my dream. I have also fallen into a war movie where I became one of the characters.

Does this happen to anyone else?

[Brian Fein]

Yeah, I think this is somewhat common.  I guess its your brain recognizing your surroundings.  The alarm clock one happens to me all the time.  Typically its at the best damn part of the dream, too, and no amount of trying will get me to be able to see how the story ends.

[Dave Gray]

Absolutely.  Alarm clock is very common for me, and it will work its way into whatever story I'm concocting.

[Sunstroke]

I sleep with either the TV on, or occasionally some language tapes. I think most of the external sounds work their way into our dreams. After all, we don't turn off our ears when we sleep, we simply aren't conscious to pay attention to what they're hearing.

[YoFuggedaboutit]

The alarm clock one has happened to me too.  I vividly remember one night back when I was in high school, I had a dream I was talking to one of my football coaches.  As I was walking away from him, he started singing Boyz II Men "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" and I woke up to that song playing on my alarm clock radio.

[Spider-Dan]

A few years ago, I picked up a very interesting alarm clock.



The alarm on that clock is a small metal hammer that strikes the aluminum bar a single time.  If you set the clock for, say, 7 AM, it'll chime once at 7:00, then again at 7:04, 7:06, 7:07, and in progressively smaller increments until (after 10 minutes) it's chiming once every 10 seconds.

The great thing about it is that if I'm in a particularly engaging dream, it won't wake me up until I get to a dull point.  For example, once I had a dream in which I was driving on a racetrack, and the chimes entered my dream as lap timers.  After I finished the race, I woke up.

It's pretty good for avoiding the issue of being woken up out of a really good dream.

[bsmooth]

Due to tinitus in my ears, the doctors have told me to sleep with either the radio or tv on to block out the ringing, so am always getting feedback into my dreams.

[Lee]

I use my iPhone's alarm clock to wake me up.  Unfortunately, there's no way that damn atrocious alarm sound can work its way into any of my dreams, unless I'm dreaming about Def Con 1...