Are sleep dreams as indicators to social-skills?

[MROSS]

It might be helpful to keep dream journals and/or post experiences of social situations in dreams on 'AutismForums."

It's said we reasses our strengths in order to reassess our weaknesses.

If writing about social experiences in sleep dreams is a strength - then such writing may eventually help "break the ice" in those challenging social situations (weaknesses).

Any dreams of social situations involving active participation?

Here is a dream I had several years ago:

I was just leaving a meeting with a group of two or three people in what (from the outside) appeared like a transparent house-- surrounded by a setting of infinite blank-white-space.

I was walking-down what appeared to be transparent steps.

After walking down the stairs, and onto a sidewalk, I had overheard one of the group members mocking my (seemingly ordinary) mannerisms - complete with the mocking of what I had said in verbatim.

Nonetheless, I felt that uneasy feeling of whether this mocking was all in fun? Or was meant to be mean-spirited? Did these people intend for me to hear their (pretty bad) mocking of my mannerisms?

I ignored these comments, and kept walking-away (with a stiff upper-lip). Did they notice my disregard for their utter foolishness?

I woke-up after this dream, and felt that sixth-sense that such people are best avoided. Glad this was just a dream.

To pardon the expression, "these were the most unlikely people who would advocate....... transparency!"

 

[Shamar]

It might be helpful to keep dream journals and/or post experiences of social situations in dreams on 'AutismForums."

It's said we reasses our strengths in order to reassess our weaknesses.

If writing about social experiences in sleep dreams is a strength - then such writing may eventually help "break the ice" in those challenging social situations (weaknesses).

Any dreams of social situations involving active participation?

Here is a dream I had several years ago:

I was just leaving a meeting with a group of two or three people in what (from the outside) appeared like a transparent house-- surrounded by a setting of infinite blank-white-space.

I was walking-down what appeared to be transparent steps.

After walking down the stairs, and onto a sidewalk, I had overheard one of the group members mocking my (seemingly ordinary) mannerisms - complete with the mocking of what I had said in verbatim.

Nonetheless, I felt that uneasy feeling of whether this mocking was all in fun? Or was meant to be mean-spirited? Did these people intend for me to hear their (pretty bad) mocking of my mannerisms?

I ignored these comments, and kept walking-away (with a stiff upper-lip). Did they notice my disregard for their utter foolishness?

I woke-up after this dream, and felt that sixth-sense that such people are best avoided. Glad this was just a dream.

To pardon the expression, "these were the most unlikely people who would advocate....... transparency!"

I have dreams, but I don't remember EVER having a dream about a social situation or crowds (I don't know if you are aware of my feelings on these areas).

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

I have dreams all the time where I can walk, or I am more social than I really am. Or I can fly. etc. I wouldn't worry so much.

 

[MROSS]

Thank-you for the first two very diverse responses.

Personally, social-themed dreams are rare - hence the need to post descriptions of dreams experienced several years ago. Can active participation (in this discusison-thread) yield important insights in the near future?

 

[Judge]

Social skills? Not that I have ever experienced.

The dreams that I do occasionally recall most often have a common theme of fear of failure.

Often manifested by having to reach a destination that I fail or have great difficulty reaching. Or showing up for an exam without knowing a thing.

 

[MROSS]

Social skills? Not that I have ever experienced.

The dreams that I do occasionally recall most often have a common theme of fear of failure.

Often manifested by having to reach a destination that I fail or have great difficulty reaching. Or showing up for an exam without knowing a thing.

It's been found (by experts who study dreams) that alot of dreams are not remembered.

As mentioned in previous post, my memories of social dreams (with active participation) are rare - yet recall of social-themed dreams happen.

Most of my social themed dreams tend to lean on the nagative side of neutral - that is where people (or even one person) feel that I must quietly be reminded of personal shortcomings.

I've found that many dreams can be discussed in a few short paragraphs.

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Here is one example of a long ago dream:

I was with a group of four people relaxing in a park by a lake. I was quietly absoring "the vibe" to a group where I seemed to "fit-in" - so far so good. The "joker" of the group made a funny comment about......being in a park by a lake...and commenting on a boat on the lake. I don't know his exact words.

I proceeded to mock the joker in this group (unknown words I mentioned). A group faux pas, as I was immediatey told, "[my first name] does your sense of humor hurt your social life?"

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Mocking, and "making sport of others" are the common threads to the above mentioned dream where I was the insitgator of mocking, and the dream in the original post in this disc. thread where I was the person being mocked.

I don't know which dream came first - yet, both dreams offer important insights.

 

[MROSS]

I've had to reassess dream journal entries (and memoreis form before I kept a journal) from long ago in order to best chime-in to this disc. thread.

One plausible insight: In a few dreams involving active social interaction, I was misconstrued (for unknown reasons) by one, or a couple of people - hence whatever friendships I had, abrubtly ended.

In order to resolve what ever raised "red-flags" - I had attempted to basically ask, "what happened?" I felt speechless, and considered that the means to resolve situations would result in further being misconstrued.

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Additional dream insights from recent dreams: I'm dining with (trusting) people who personally seem familiar - yet I cannot pinpoint their indentities.

 

[MROSS]

In short, writing about social-themed dreams (regardless of how insignificant these dreams may appear to be) can add grist to the unconscious mind - to eventually yield those important dreams worth posting in this disc. thread.

I feel that being experienced in writing about important dream experiences (albeit mostly non-social dreams), as well as posting on non-dream related topics here on 'AutismForums' might just be that "icebreaker of sorts."

As the holiday season is winding-down (minus any social, holiday-themed dreams), I personally feel that I will soon experience an important social-themed dream...despite my main experiences of being a largely private person.

As a new-year's goal, maybe before, or after the clock strikes midnight New Year's Day, I feel that (sooner rather than later) I will experience that important social-themed dream I'll promptly post here in this disc. thread.

Anybody sense that this post might act as a positive "self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts" -- to yield a dynamic disc. thread?

 

[MROSS]

MODERATE LENGTH READ:

I hesitated to discuss this dream I had long ago - that is this dream experience invovled some best forgotten social situations. Yet, I choose to discuss this dream... as this long-ago dream illustrated important social-skill insights. The dream:

I, and two other close acquaintences have been invited to a historical house that doubled as a musem housing a wide array of historical artifacts from the late 1800s to the 1960s years. We have just received our tickets. This museum seemed like a well known museum - the type of place that people would put on their intineraries if they were travelling through the area.

In the dream, this museum was within a one-hour drive from where I, and my acquaintences lived. At this time, I was in the market to purchase another car. My acquaintences owned a European made sedan (maker unknown)....the same car that I was considering.

To my surprise, and hesitation, they invited me to test-drive their car on the way to the museum. Throught the drive, I was asked "how does the car feel?" "How does the car handle?" Ease of driving, features, etc. I expressed that I was impressed with this car. I was surprised that I didn't have to adjust the seat to accomodate my seating preferences - maybe the seating automatically adjusted itself based on driver preferences.

We arrived at the museum. I had admired the building, a century-old building that had been maintained within a region that appeared to be largely built-up. The only view from inside the building lobby was a rather ordinary looking parking-lot.

After walking through the entrance, I had noted another section of the museum that was off-limits to the public. As I was the person in my group of three who was knowledgeable about this museum, I had mentioned to my group that it might be possible to get permission to tour through the part of the museum off-limits to the public - which had the rarely seen by public exhibits. I had mentioned, "I can arrange to get us into the off-limits part of the museum."

Here's where things got dicey: I assumed enthusiam with my group, and walked upstairs to the museums office, and presented our tickets to the desk clerk. After about half a minute, The clerk gave us permission to tour the off-limits part of the museum. I then noticed my group of two people were not present.

Here's were things are getting diceir. I had looked out of the window viewing the parking-lot, and sensed (rather surprisingly) that my group of two were walking in the parking-lot. As I had hurriedly left the office, going downstairs, and out to the parking-lot, and trying to catch-up with my group shouting, "we have permisison to tour the off-limits part of the museum!"

This dicey situation yielding a hard truth; my group of two had disappeared. I'm walking towards the car, holding tickets while "half-heartedly" saying, "we have permission to tour.... the off-limits part of the museummmmm........."

Apparently, someone had appeared "out of the blue" and asked, are you looking for [describing the people I was with, and their car]? I answered, "yes!" Then they mentioned with indifference, "Oh, they left!"

I did the right thing, and woke-up. I mused, "I'll be the one driving small groups of people in my car, and hanging-on to the keys throughout entire outings!!" (yes, I can imagine what some people who are reading this are thinking... Control issues? Abondonment issues? Too determined to prove that arts and culture are icebreakers?) Any further interpretations to this dream?

As I was writing the above, it "hit me" why my relationship with my acquaintences may have "fallen-through" - I might have come-off as snobbish regarding my enthusiasm about this exhibit. This was completely surprising. Back at the time I had this dream, I felt that friends treat arts, and culture as experiences for everybody - not just experiences open to the wealthy.

I have been politely reminded, "about not casting pearls to swine." Go figure!

 

[MROSS]

Personally, a recurring theme with dreams involves interacting with familair people - whose names, and faces are unknown.

Sleep dreams can offer those seemingly mundane/small insights which can often be overlooked.

It might be helpful to reassess the 10 posts (as of this wirting) in this discussion-thread in-order to better understand the context/purpose of this disc. thread.