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Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

I'm kinda jealous. I couldn't be more different.

I can't remember the last time I had a dream. Months ago probably.

Random question but - do you consume any caffeine?

I, too, rarely have (or remember) dreams – once per month, maybe. But lack of dreams is not a problem for me. What I find annoying (and I'm really curious if you have similar experience) that I don't have feeling of passed time.

My sleep is like blink of an eye. It's night, I close my eyes, then I open them, and there is morning already. I's always the same, no matter how long I have slept, whether I am well rested or tired.

Since the time feels so compressed during my sleep, I can't help but feel that sleep is, kinda, a waste of time.

Usually I have 2-3 coffees per week. I drink a lot of various types of tea daily, though.

You dont even have slight hallucinations while falling to sleep, just like in the linked article? My first sign is I usually start hearing voices which I almost always know are not real.

I think I had them when I was kid, but not anymore.

And just to be clear, I didn't mean that I fall asleep as soon I close my eyes. It's just that there is no "transition" between being conscious and sleeping. And then, suddenly, I'm awake.

I have that idea that my mind suppresses the memories of dreaming and falling asleep, because when I was a kid I had two recurring nightmares that I dreamed of almost every night. Still, never did proper research on this topic.

edit: typo

So if you try to stay awake like Dali you will only skip time intervals without seeing anything? That's interesting. If I am too sleepy but still awake I even start hearing sounds and start seeing vivid images in my head with open eyes.

I'm with you, I fall asleep to blackness and it's instantly morning. When my kids were babies and we were getting up a lot in the night to feed and change diapers I actually had an uptick in awareness of my dreams, but otherwise it is extremely rare for me to be conscious of anything during the night.

Hmm.. I don't really have this problem. When I wake up, I definitely feel like time has passed, but I wonder if it's for different reasons than you're expecting.

For me, I usually will wake up once in the night, and fall back to sleep quickly. This adds to a sense of time. Also, waking up in the morning it's distinctly more cold, I feel distinctly more groggy, etc. I definitely get a sense that time has passed...

But if you're asking if I am ever aware that I'm sleeping and conscious of the minutes passing by? No, never. I fall asleep, time passes, I wake up (but, unlike you, I do feel like time passed...)

I’ve helped a half dozen people with this. One trick is to just keep a notepad by your bed and first, first, first thing try to write down what you remember from your dreams.

My suspicion is eventually the brain says “oh you care about this? Okay cool I’ll hold on to them for longer.”

Give it a couple of weeks you might be surprised.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give this a try.

I consume lotsa caffeine and still have weird, vivid dreams that I remember in the morning. I'd say in my case the caffeine doesn't inhibit any dream capability. I also have small fragments of lucid dreaming, but usually wake up quickly then (because of the excitement mostly).

Ditto on "lotsa". To the point caffeine no longer amps me up but rather just keeps the migraines at bay. Pondering my addiction many years in the past, I decided to try an experiment where I drank a few sips of coffee before going to sleep. It did, and still does, increase my lucidity & retention during/after sleep cycles. I have vivid dreams with self awareness pretty much most nights, and a experience a surprisingly large amount of content during power naps(15-45 minutes). This is still a drop in the bucket compared to my dreams when I was a teen & 20-something, however. I haven't been able to 'fly away' or soar like I did when younger, nowadays I merely wake-up when things start down a dark path(*Covid induced nightmares, were a rare exception; the 1st night terrors I've had in decades).

edit:grammar

I don't drink caffeine and I rarely dream, just to chime in. When I dream it's almost always because something is disturbing my sleep. An upset stomach is the most common cause of dreams to me.

Or quitting cannabis, in which case I have vivid and wild dreams for a couple weeks and then back to normal.

Hypersensitive to caffeine, so no coffee or pop if I don't mind the incoming insomnia. I may have a cup of weak earl grey every couple of days.

If you don’t mind mild side effects and you do want dreams, there’s always the Calea herb: https://www.healthline.com/health/calea-zacatechichi

I’m the same way. I pretty much never have dreams unless I take some supplement like melatonin or valerian and even then it’s hit or miss. While I’m awake I also can’t picture things clearly(without any meaningful details) in my mind. Maybe that’s related.

You likely have dreams, just don’t remember them.

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