Dreams are my reality

January 9, 2010 7:26 PM

Researchers at UCSC have collected and analyzed over 20,000 dreams. Their database includes dreams of people from all walks of life and is available online. Meanwhile, Sawlogs.net offers some easy-to-grasp statistics of its user-generated dream database. Previously.
posted by wet-raspberry (14 comments total)

Why is this a pie-chart? Surely some people are both "famous" and "male" or "a family member" and a "familiar person". Also, I dream a lot. How do you get in on adding your dreams?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:47 PM on January 9, 2010

Oops...I stupidly forgot the link to the pie chart.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:47 PM on January 9, 2010

Related?
posted by Doohickie at 7:50 PM on January 9, 2010

Sawlogs.net is down.
posted by twoleftfeet at 7:55 PM on January 9, 2010

Oh, Santa Cruz, you lovely, silly, totally stoned all the time place, how I miss you.
posted by clockzero at 8:00 PM on January 9, 2010 [3 favorites]

Doohickie: "Related?"

I liked that; "I can't control the kittens. Too many whiskers! Too many whiskers!"  Did you find that on neatyo.com?
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:10 PM on January 9, 2010

While we wait for the server to regain consciousness, here are the numbers from one of the graphs that loaded just before its big sleep:

Time During Dreams
This chart represents the time of day dreams recorded at Sawlogs took place (the time in the dream)

Morning - 17%
Afternoon - 41%
Evening - 20%
Night - 22%

Which makes some horse sense to me; we spend more hours awake in daylight than in dark, and I'd bet we're generally more active in the afternoon than the morning.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:19 PM on January 9, 2010

Was it one of those dreams where you're standing on top a pyramid in sun-god robes, with thousands of naked people screaming and throwing little pickles at you?

Why am I the only one that has that dream?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:33 PM on January 9, 2010 [3 favorites]

Another one loaded.

Social Interactions in Dreams
This chart represents the ubiquity of different social interactions in all dreams recorded at Sawlogs.

Aggressive - 35%
Friendly - 54%
Sexual - 11%

"X% of social interactions described in your dreams are interaction type."
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:40 PM on January 9, 2010

Sawlogs.net has woken up.
posted by twoleftfeet at 8:58 PM on January 9, 2010

Related?

Unrelated?
posted by hattifattener at 10:03 PM on January 9, 2010

I remember asking a psychiatrist friend what was the hardest/most difficult part of his job. He responded, half-jokingly, it was when his patients asked him what their dreams meant. He said, in essence, there is no power on earth that can extract any meaning from a person's dreams. Yes we dream, yes those dreams can be intense/mysterious/haunting or whatever, but there is no science or system to extract their meaning. They are just dreams, that's all.
posted by vac2003 at 1:01 AM on January 10, 2010

Anyone else wake up this morning and read one of the books of Gaiman's Sandman series for a while before getting out of bed? No?
posted by limeonaire at 9:14 AM on January 10, 2010

Being ill sucks, but one nice perk is the dreams. A couple of days ago while ill and after a long week of teaching myself web programming I had what must be the nerdiest feverish sex dream ever. I dreamt of a couple having sex and thought: "how does his penis know which HTTP method to use when it comes time to post the form?" ("Posting the form" of course is now my new favorite euphemism for "ejaculation".) For a brief moment, right before waking up, I was convinced I had developed a new form of birth control and I would travel the world teaching people who didn't want children to always remember to use a GET instead of a POST.
posted by BaxterG4 at 9:33 AM on January 10, 2010 [6 favorites]