I had a vivid dream that I was on a large boat, on the ocean; violent waves started to come upon the boat, thrashing the boat about.  Somehow the dream ended up with myself and Hayley Westenra trying to save our lives from the fierce ocean, by climbing a 2,500 ft rock wall, with myself on the left side and her on the right side of the rock wall; we're talking about a 2,500 ft man built rock wall with climbing holds, not one made by nature.  To make matters worse, the ocean level is rising at its own pace as we climb up the rock wall, so if we stop, we'll die.  Perhaps it was the unforgivable waves getting higher and higher and not the ocean level rising.

It was about an hour before dawn, so it was pretty dark, but there was still enough light to see properly.

I start off my climbing by moving with haste and Hayley climbs the wall with steadyness, rather than with haste.  As I'm a fair bit of distance on my way up the rock wall, ahead of Hayley, I actually lose my footing/hand gripping and fall, fortunetly I somehow managed to grab a hold onto 2 of the climbing holds on my way down, just 7 feet from the ocean water.  I started to climb back up again with haste; the ocean water was right below me and rising, but this time, I was much more aware of my footing/hand gripping.  Both Hayley and I, sweating profusely, with our muscles throbbing in sheer pain, managed to make it to the top of the rock wall; I don't remember who made it there first, however, I do remember that it was about the same time. 

Now that we were at the top, we realized that the rock wall was in the shape of a cut-in-half rectangular box, thus giving us a platform at the top to rest upon.  The platform to lie down on or rest upon was only on Hayley's side at the top of the rock wall, because there was some sort of rock-like object on my side of the platform in the way; this rock-like object reminded me of one of those drooping down layered rocks you'd find in a large cave with bats.  When we were at the top, Hayley noticed that there were two strong ropes on each side of the rock wall, which were impossible to get to unless... you get to the platform at the top of the rock wall.  I was trying to get to my side of the platform by getting to the rope on the left side of the rock wall, despite the object in the way on my side of the platform; perhaps there was a little bit of room for me on the far left side of the platform.  Because of the object, my attempts to get to the rusty coloured rope on the left side and to the left side of the platform were to no avail.  Of course, the whole time I was trying to get to a small space on my side of the platform, Hayley, in discombobulation, thought I was being ridiculous, and she invited me onto her what-now-seemed comfy side of the platform.  We lied down on the platform as dawn had broken through the sky and the clouds; colours of yellow, orange, and red were present in the sky.  We were relaxing on this platform, waiting for the shimmering dark blue ocean to die down and for help to arrive.

Whether the help arrived or not, I will never know, because my dream ended that very second.

That's quite an adventurous dream! An Ocean of Dreams. Were you going on an Odyssey?

Yep ....that's quite a dream Cody .........very vivid ........maybe sometime when you are sleeping you'll dream the conclusion ....we're all dying to know how it turns out .....

 Dreams often are adventurous.  This one I had on the night of 26th December 2007.  The date is important.  It was Christmas.

 It started with a horrible screeching noise.  The sort that sets your nerves on edge, fingernails on a blackboard.  The screeching gradually got louder.  And louder.  Then I saw flashing lights, and felt hands tugging at my clothes trying to pull me down.  And I knew they were trying to pull be down into hell.

I was losing the struggle.  So I said a prayer "Lord, get me out of this".

Instantly the screeching stopped, aand everything went black as if I had been struck blind.  And I heard the voce of an angel, singing to me.

"Know that love will shine through darkness

 One bright star to show the way"

And a star appeared, which I knew (somehow) was the Star of Bethlehem.

The angel's voice I recognised instantly.  It was Hayley. And the words of the song are quite like, but subtly different to some that she used to sing with Celtic Woman.

She went on to say that she would sing to me again, to listen to her songs.

Three months later she released HSJS1.  The first words of the firs song

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, 

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now I' m found,

Was blind, but now I see."

 A reference to the dream.  And the rest of that album seems to refer to lots of things that happened in my life in a lot of detail. I can identify with every single song on that album, it describes how I have felt at some point in my life.  WOW!

Then again, I heard her sing another song last November

"Love came down at Christmas

Love all lovely, love divine

Love came down at Christmas.

Star and angel gave the sign."

Is somebody somewhere trying to tell me something?

Martin

You all have the good, interesting dreams. Mine are always weird and mixed up, and I never like them.

But now this is severely off-topic!

reply to what MartinDn wrote...

I used to get sleep paralysis all the time; these black shadowy figures would be around me and it felt like they were trying to rip my heart out, and I actually felt a lot of pain, the pain you'd feel if someone was slowly stabbing you with a really big sword.... not being able to move made it that much worse.  Sometimes this happened a few nights in a row.

The dark figures I faced during my sleep paralysis', made not one sound; the only sound to come out was me struggling to open my mouth in order to scream from the pain, which I would eventually be able to do during all these sleep paralysis' after trying really hard, however, I was always able to move my eyes around, so my eyes were not paralyzed.

There was one time I screamed out 'Jesus' instead of a normal scream (no words), and that worked as well, but I think I only screamed out 'Jesus' because I went to church the day before the dream occured, and it sucked, because it took me much longer to awaken from the 'Jesus'' screams than the normal screams, because I had to scream out 'Jesus' like 4-5 times before I awoke.  I'm never going to use any word to try and awaken from these things again, I'll stick with normal screaming.

Anyways... I got extremely fed up with these sleep paralysis episodes and could not bare them anymore, so one day I sat down and tried to scientifically and logically figure out why I was having them.  I figured out that my actual physical body was being harmed and the dark figures and pain during REM were a way to wake me up as fast as possible from my sleep.  I figured out that my neck must have been in awkward positions during these sleep paralysis episodes making it harder for the neurotransmitters to travel to my brain, which perhaps has something to do with the lack of colour (not enough transmission to the brain for colour) and only the primal instinct of screaming/pain left over to wake myself up with.

My logical and scientifical way of thinking led me to buy a new and more comfortable pillow, and I haven't had a sleep paralysis episode since buying the pillow.

Lesson of the story.... make sure you have a good pillow and perhaps you'll have better dreams. (you and you'll... as in everyone)

 Some years ago after a neck injury and visits to the chiropractor who recommended a more rigid pillow,

I found for some time after getting the pillow I was having more vivid dreams, sometimes just weird, sometimes scary,

I gather from various sources,That dreams in general are forgotten unless you wake up during the dream,

It only seems to take a minute or so to have a dream that seems to go on for hours, Time is different in dreams,

The neck position / support does seem to have a lot to do with it, 

reply to what 'uchristianlove' wrote 

I don't know how this got so off topic...

Please don't make this some religious debate thing, I'm just trying to help people out that have sleep paralysis, by letting them know my story about it and how I fixed the problem and how I would get out of the sleep paralysis' as fast as possible.

I love a lot of things and I hate the way animals are killed for our food.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebTQXkMUqt0

Excellent discussion about dreams. I like the mystery of dreaming.

Does anyone else out there know about/ have lucid dreams? Lucid dreams are dreams where you are aware you are dreaming and can consciously control what happens. For instance - you could decide to go see a Hayley concert. I don't have them often but they're cool, and are often vivid.

As for eating meat being cruel... I beg to differ. Humans are adapted to digest both animal protein and plants, so I think it's natural. Whether or not you choose to eat meat is up to you of course. I like animals, but I still eat meat.

Yes, I have lucid dreams all the time.  But I can only control physical aspects of myself in the dream, for example: invincibility, flying, playing and writing music in my dreams, etc; I don't seem to be able to control the environment around me for some reason, but maybe one day I'll choose where I want to go in my dreams.

aquatiger1987:

Yes, I have lucid dreams all the time.  But I can only control physical aspects of myself in the dream, for example: invincibility, flying, playing and writing music in my dreams, etc; I don't seem to be able to control the environment around me for some reason, but maybe one day I'll choose where I want to go in my dreams.

Awesome. Yeah, high level control can sometimes be difficult. And sometimes I can only do things in the environment I'm in. Flying in lucid dreams is fun.

aquatiger1987:

"As for eating meat being cruel... I beg to differ" ... did you not watch the video from the youtube address I wrote down?

No sorry I didn't. But I have now. And yes, I agree, cruelty to animals is wrong. That was an interesting video. Maybe mass production of meat will always entail some degree of cruelty towards animals? But I think we should be removing the cruel processes from the meat industry, rather than cutting out meat from our diets (unless you want to). I guess avoiding meat may influence a change in the industry anyway...but how about buying the less cruel options such as free range eggs and free range pork? I know you probably wont agree with that because you don't agree with the killing of the animals.

An ironic thing that happened in New Zealand is that one of our comedic celebrities, Mike King, was the face behind NZ Pork (promoted it on TV) for years until he visited a slaughterhouse and saw how bad the conditions were for the pigs. Now he campaigns against the pork industry and doesn't eat it anymore. I'm not sure if he is vegetarian now.

I do agree with some points you've made, but I don't think I could ever be convinced to be a vegetarian. And it's not because I can't resist the taste of meat. I think meat is a necessary part of a human diet, but animals should be treated well and killed humanely.

I changed my mind about the whole vegetarian thing and you'll know why if you look at the last post I edited... I also edited the other vegetarian stuff I was talking about (including this post), because I disagree with it now.

Now I know certain animals have to eat meat to survive, otherwise they'll die... it's just the circle of life.  I only wish that they'd change the way the animals are killed and make it a lot faster and painless.

By cutting out all meat and eggs, you're making it very difficult for your body to get adequate protein, Omega-fatty acids, vitamin D (eggs). True, nuts and soy have protein, but soy also contains high amounts of estrogen. It's like taking birth control pills. Chicken is one of the best sources of selenium, which is one of the nutrients that has been to help prevent cancer.

I don't drink milk anymore, either, but I still eat cheese and yogurt.

Hayley does eat eggs, and meat occasionally. That "pescetarian" label is a little old. In a recent radio interview, they discussed this. The host said she "fell off the wagon" because she ate a hamburger at one of her stops on her tour. 

One more thing, God created natural instinct, so why couldn't He help with that? And I do find it offensive that you're discouraging everybody from praying just because of your experiences. I'm sure saying any word would make it harder, not just the name Jesus. Anytime I've tried talking in my dream, I feel like I can't breathe, and wake up. 

Now, I'm a little confused as to how we went from dreams to animal cruelty and meat, but anyway, I'm going to move it to the off-topic board.

 This thread is very strange.