Special Interests and Dreams

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I'd like to know if anyone here is able to have the majority of their dreams revolve around their special interests in the waking world. My son is really into Thomas the Tank Engine and pretty much describes his dreams involving some story line or another.

Is this possible? I don't know at this point if he is telling me this just because he is expected to give an answer when asked what he dreamed about last night.

It is very possible. Dreams are the brains way of filtering through the days events, and your thoughts and feelings. It likes to do this in a way you understand a lot. I fell asleep today and had a very extensive dream about the food I had been planning to eat when I woke up. I had been obsessing over it, and my mind decide to make that my dream.

It's absolutely possible. I have experienced this.

I have many dreams that involove finding really amazing specimines of the things I collect at thrift stores or in strange scenarios.
It is really annoying to wak up to find they were just dreams.

For the first time ever, my son told me about a dream that he had about a week ago. The dream? Thomas the Tank Engine! He told anyone who would listen, and he's since repeated that he's had a Thomas dream a few more times. So, yeah I think it's possible that your son is really dreaming of Thomas, especially if he is like my son, and spends quite a lot of his day arranging his trains so he can reenact specific episodes.

I have dreams about my special interests, too. I think it's only natural that I would when my thoughts are focused on these subjects most of my waking day.

I'd be in complete bliss if my special interest appeared every night in dreams. It also sounds like our kids should get together for a play date.

totally possible, and, not I think really all that unusual. I know NT people who have dreams about their intense interests. Aspies don't hold a monopoly on obsessive interests or even just interests that people really get into. There have been times when I had series of very closely related or even repeating dreams as well.

I also have dreams about non-obsession interests. Like I once dreamt I was both Clark Kent and then Lex Luthor from the early seasons of Smallville and I was never more than a casual fan of that show. And I'm a girl.

In dreams anything is possible - even pain. So I wouldn't think he's making it up, but you could still tell him its ok if he doesn't remember his dreams, that you don't always remember yours, just to make sure he understands that it's ok to not know what he dreamt. That's probably the real issue, to make sure he understands that not dreaming is acceptable and that he doesn't have to share his dreams with everyone if he doesn't wish to.

Not the majority of them, but I do have dreams about my special interest (passenger ships).

I am also pleased that if he dreams often about his special interest, that it is a source of comfort from stress in the waking world.

There have been a handful of times when some of the Hellsing characters have shown up in my dreams.

Just the other day I had a dream about going on a safari and passing by a huge pride of lions

Wow, I do that alot too. I'll dream I go to this thrift store and it's full of rare my little ponies, barbies, or old coins. It's so annoying to wake up and realize you didn't really find that stuff.

Cats appear in my dreams frequently.

The dreams I’ve experienced tend to be focussed on the physical surroundings. People are there, but they do often seem to be incidental and in the background as I navigate through the “dream world”. I feel very much alone even if surrounded by other people. Often, the people are just a generic crowd or “chorus” in the background.

The people I usually have to interact with a lot are those that act as “gate-keepers” to things I want or have to do. These people are either quietly cooperative or very hostile, sometimes even both. These people include: ticket sellers, passport/security control, rollercoaster ride mechanics, life-guards, confectionary sales people, teachers, amusement arcade employees, lab technicians, cabin crew, cruise boat crew or railway operators. Even then, some of the time someone else steps in to talk to these people on my behalf or these people somehow can anticipate my every whim. Or I'm conveniently "the ruler" of my dream existence and they take my word as law anyway. Either that or I see them talking to someone else, but not me.

I am still interested and afraid of the same things in my sleeping life as I am in my waking life. If anything, dreams are an exaggeration of things someone’s afraid of or is intensely interested in. Because my way of perceiving the world is the only way I really know, I guess the dream world mirrors the real world (as I perceive it) but in a more intense and fluid way.

Many dreams seem to me like a barrage of sensations coming from the surrounding environment. I have clear images of architecture, machinery, scenery and vehicles in my mind. These images are often accompanied by a lot of bright colours, noise, taste and sensations of movement/falling.

Dreams tend to either focus on what people desire (their intense interests) or what they’re afraid of. I often dream about confectionary, food, money, animals, computer games, interests and days out/holidays: because these are what I want. Conversely, I have nightmares about drowning, not being able to escape, being chased, infectious disease, aeroplane crashes, hostile customer service people/people in authority and having the things I want destroyed, because I’m afraid of these scenarios.

I can’t help wondering if more sociable people have nightmares about losing friends or having friends moving to different cliques, or rumours being spread. This kind of thing wouldn’t really bother me. Oftentimes I have actually and thankfully been oblivious to any teasing that was going on, so it didn’t really upset me. Perhaps I’m more flexible when it comes to friendships (probably because I’ve had to be).

Perhaps actively social people have dreams more frequently about who’d they’d like to be friends with, social activities and who knows whom. I very occasionally have dreams like this, but only after I’ve had to be very socially active. I notice that I dream more about other people/friends if I frequently have to interact with them/

Perhaps their dreams focus less on the background scenery and task objectives, but more on interpersonal relationships?

Perhaps people dream about what they focus on.
As life circumstances change, dream content probably changes too as the brain mulls over new issues.

mine kind of do if I gtpublished I really want to own a bakery and sell my food, I love the smell of fresh baked bread it is so sintilating

I often dream of my special interests. The special interest dreams always happen when I'm having a day where I'm really, really obsessive about the special interest in question. This is not surprising, neurologically speaking, though. Since dream content depends on which synapses fire during REM sleep, if a cell assembly about a special interest has been activated the whole day before, it is very likely that those synapses will also be activated during REM sleep. At any rate, the special interest dreams are very fun and enjoyable.
-OddDuckNash99-