How to Recount Your Dreams

We often wake up from a dream with a powerful urge to tell those around us about what happened. But our listeners are also liable to feel restless and bored during our narration of the dream. The issue takes us to the heart of the challenges of communication. FURTHER READING “It’s been a dramatic night: you were in a hotel at a crossroads; the tide was coming in; someone threw a pencil at you; you were in the back of a big car with your grandmother, on the way to sit an exam; you had to climb over a wall but kept being tickled by a giant squirrel. Then you woke up. It felt immensely important, but when you go downstairs and try to tell your companions about the extraordinary things that travelled through your sleeping brain, the results are sobering. You keep saying that it felt ‘exciting’, ‘so weird’ and ‘absolutely amazing’, but – strangely – your attempts to get others to experience the particularities of your night are met by some dispiritingly blank stares. Half-way through the narration, someone pipes up to say the cereal is running low. Another person mentions it might rain later. Then the doorbell rings…” You can read more on this and other subjects here: https://goo.gl/CMK4a5 MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ X: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Steve West http://www.lazychief.com/ #TheSchoolOfLife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices