The Dreams of a Man Asleep for Three Weeks

For some people a fever is enough. Somewhere in the region of 39C I start having what I can best describe "emotional hallucinations" or "hallucinations of the mind's eye." There is nothing sensory (auditory, visual, physical) in the classical sense, but I know that something is there and it is terrifying (even though I have always been aware that it's a hallucination).

I had an unknown parasite, distantly related to Malaria, for two weeks as a child. This was just enough to push me into delirium. I "hallucinated" a black hole in my room, not one the size of my room, but real stellar proportions and gravity. I also hallucinated a radio chasing me around. I never saw, heard or felt either of them, I just knew that they were there, and were not there.

I've had wildly vivid dreams ever since. They are blandly authentic. Some of them would probably make great movies. Every night I hope I have one of those dreams, but they are becoming less and less frequent.

>Delirium in intensive care units is extremely common

The first time after 48 hours the auditory hallucinations started, but I thought it was music traveling through the HVAC from the wing of the hospital that was being remodeled so I said nothing of it. The second time after 48 hours the auditory hallucinations came again and the nurses had uncomfortable looks on their faces when I explained it to them. Basically it was constant hip-hop, metal, or psychedelic music, droning constantly.

>extremely stressful situations, abnormal biochemistry, and powerful pharmaceuticals.

The constant clicks and beeps of the IV machine, the little lights that never turn off, and all the other interruptions of a hospital stay make for a very stressful situation. The last time that I was in the hospital for it a couple years ago (and surely hope it is the last time, for my daughter's sake) they had implemented alarms on the beds for those under heavy pain medications that went off anytime you attempted to get out of bed, leading to the feeling of being imprisoned.

By the end of each time that I was in the hospital it was constant auditory and intermittent visual hallucinations, and it was horrible. Typing all of this has brought all the vividness back (and the feelings of being trapped in a nonsensical world), which makes me think maybe I as well should write about my experiences.

There is obviously more risk to unexpected hallucination, but always some risk if it happens. I still think it's a really interesting risk minimisation proposition.

You can also cheat a bit in my experience by waking up maybe 45-90 mins before you normally would, then going back to sleep. The dreams you have in this period should be more vivid and easier to remember.

What makes reading articles in this style interesting? It takes a lot of time, so there's definitely an opportunity cost.

When I was young, I was a natural lucid dreamer and had substantial recall. I wrote tons of my dreams down. There wasn't a time I thought this was unusual until many years later in school after my recall declined.

When I reached high school, a teacher had explained the concept of lucid dreaming to a class that seemed skeptical. There was one other student aside from me that experienced them.

In response to discovering this 'oddity', I ended up joining a community to log my experiences and discuss them... there's a large variability in the kinds of dreams and the ability to induce them. I ended up meeting my last gf on that community and she never had a lucid (her dreams were mostly fragments of the prior day's events)

Mine weren't like that. Sometimes I would just fly around in environments that were similar to what I experienced in life. I would often just test to see what I could do (move objects with my mind, that sound of crap).

Oftentimes, I would just live out daily events as either a different person or myself in another time and place. A hallmark of my logs was the amount of time I experienced in each dream, when I was very young I would experience what would feel like a week in a night. There were times it felt even longer, one time in kindergarten I lived out a portion of gradeschool and woke up crying because I realized the friends I made there wouldn't be in the real world.

Today, I am an infrequent dreamer and not active in that community anymore. I can occasionally induce a short lucid dream if I have a quiet morning to myself and set an alarm to wake up a bit early. I find my recall goes up when I am teaching myself things. The recall is not related to the material I'm learning.

So yeah, there's some variability in dreaming.

I've dabbled in sleep deprivation in the past and after four days it's as if I'm dreaming while my eyes are open, simultaneously sleeping on some level while still functioning in the world. It was as if totally random and crazy movies were playing in my head and my consciousness would uncontrollably alternate between them for minutes at a time, only occasionally giving attention to the one in front of my eyes.