Hear You In My Dreams?

I dream a lot. I think I've mentioned that before. I believe it's because I wake up several times a night. And unlike most people who sleep through the night and therefore may only remember one dream, I often remember more than one dream a night. So whether I really dream more often or whether I remember more dreams because I wake up several times a night, the net is the same. I dream a lot.

The really interesting part is what feeds my dreams. If I have a bad day, I will often dream that I am stuck in something. When I worked for a polling firm, I would have Alice in Wonderland dreams about being stuck in the cell of Word table. That is, literally stuck inside the cell of a Word document, trapped by the gridlines. Other times, I have been stuck in caves, rooms, houses - the usual things.

If I see a scary movie, I will often "recreate" what happened in the movie in my dreams - which is why I don't watch scary movies. Same with scary books. Suspenseful books work much the same. When read right before I go to sleep, suspenseful books will make my dreams be full of some event that is delayed and delayed, leading to anxiety.

But the other thing that happens - which I find really fascinating - is when the music that is playing around me works its way into my dreams. I often nap on the weekends in my living room on the couch with the stereo playing. Usually for about an hour. It's interesting to me how often the music that's playing works its way into what is happening in my dream. Sometimes I'm in a singing contest. Sometimes I'm jamming with some musicians. Sometimes I'm just trying to prove my singing chops. But often as I'm waking up, the last song I heard in my dream or was trying to sing in my dream is the same song that's playing on the stereo.

I also wake up to music. My "alarm" plays for about an hour, at the end of which I get up. During that hour, I usually fall back asleep at least once or twice. The other morning, I must have dreamed during one of those times because in my dream, I was at a concert. And when I woke up, the song that was playing at the concert was the song playing on my alarm.

I've heard that your ears don't register noise when you're asleep. Something about the nerves getting "turned off". Well, either that's not true or, when you dream, you're not really asleep. Otherwise, how could I hear what's playing on the stereo or alarm and make up a dream to match?