Still current, and I'm sure a common one, forgetting music or lyrics completely for something I have performed more times than I can count :).

I used to have this reoccuring dream before gigs when I used to be the lead vocalist...we would be all set up, ready to go in front of a packed house and the band would kick off and I'd open my mouth and no words would come out.

The band would stop playing, total silence, all eyes would be on me and my brother who was lead guitarist would look across and say to me "come on man, get your shT together !..."

The band would start over again and the same thing would happen again...over and over and over and no matter how many times I tried, no words would come out of my mouth.

I don't know if it was my subconscious reminding me how much I hated the sound of my own voice, or reminding me of my fear of forgetting the lyrics, or a combination of both.

I hated that dream...it haunted me for ages, mainly in the lead up to gigs. Bloody made me paranoid come the day of the gig and I'd always think about it before we'd go on stage.

I also once had a crazy dream I had to play drums at a gig with my feet for some reason...that dream still makes me laugh to this day.

Showed up at the gig without any gear, didn't recognize the Bass I was handed but it was a nightmare in itself.

Wasn't a dream...was an actual nightmare...it happened!

180 miles from home. Drummer going crazy after setting up drums and stands...can't find his cymbals case.

It was right where he left it...at his house.

No...we didn't play, and they didn't pay.

Kapt.Krunch

I had many dreams and nightmares about gigs over the years. Wrong gear, wrong drum placement or location, but surprisingly, they were all happening before a show and not in front of an audience or after..

I think dreams are their to make us realise where out limits are. They are often related to stuff we lived or thought in the days but they sometimes come from deep subconsious worries or fabulations.

When I was about 25, I was very intrigued about dreams and wanted to know more about mine.
I kept a pen and papers beside my bed and immediatly start to write when I woke up. At first I had 1 dream to write but after a few weeks I could wake up with 3 in mind.

I have no problem believing it when they say we only use 10% of our brain..

What I find fascinating is that a dream is only a thought that passes for a fleeting second in our mind during our deepest sleep stage.

Some of the dreams I have had seemed to go for ages. I think our minds may hold on to the fleeting thought, playing it out like a movie.

I worked for years with one of the big three global bedding brands where I learned a great deal in the area of sleep science.

Dreaming takes place when we enter the deepest of the 5 levels of sleep, known as REM sleep, where Rapid Eye Movement takes place and our eyeballs start bouncing around in their sockets like pinballs.

REM sleep is where the most electrical activity takes place in our brain during sleep. Neurotransmitters release chemicals such as dopamine, seratonin and histamine in the brain to act on different neurons which have an effect like electrical fireworks going off in our brain.

The alerting areas in our brain start sending arousal signals to our cerebral cortex, the area of the brain responsible for the learning, awareness, conciousness, sensory awareness, our sense of individuality, thinking and organising information such as memory processing.
Its as if our brains are suddenly awoken with as much activity taking place in the brain as when we are awake, although our body is in a state of unconcious paralysis and our body shuts down.
The brain cycles through alpha (8 to 12 hz), beta (12 to 38 hz) and gamma (38-42hz) waves during these deeper sleep cycles.

REM is the final, deepest and most beneficial of the 5 levels of sleep we cycle through, we enter and exit each each of the 5 stages from 8 to 10 times a night, spending no more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time in each of the 5 levels. During REM sleep our brain processes our thoughts and experiences we encountered during the day, similar to how a computer backs up files to a hard drive, assigning those thoughts and experiences to memory.
Poor or broken sleep patterns deprive the brain of entering that 5th stage or REM sleep, having a negative impact on cognitive function, our short term memory, the bodies ability to heal and has a negative impact on functions like reaction time and mental alertness during the day.

REM sleep is where our bodies do the most repair at night, a sense of muscular paralysis takes place, our blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature all drop during the preceeding levels leading into the REM stage.

Increased histamine levels in the brain assists us entering the sleep process. Darkness triggers the brain to start releasing melotonin...leading to a feeling of drowsyness in the evening.

Dawn light triggers the brain to stop releasing melatonin, and start releasing seratonin, which triggers alertness. Its the brains way of preventing itself wanting to hit the snooze button internally and fall back to sleep...the timing of these chemical releases governed by our bodies circadian rhythm 24 hour cycle.

The science of sleep is a most fascinating subject.

Here is a question I will pose to you all...do each you dream in color, or black and white?

There are nights when after watching an old black and white movie my dreams are in black and white...very bizarre.

back when was working 7 days a week, 14 + hours a day at running the studio, i would go home to sleep and dream i was at the studio .... usually at the old MCI mixing. i would wake up exhausted.

DonnyThompson, post: 439757, member: 46114 wrote: I'm not talking about actual gigs that go south of the suck line... I'm talking about bad dreams that are gig related...

Over the years I've had my fair share - they usually involve me being really late, or forced to set up in a bad location (one dream I had I was forced to set up my drum kit on the side of a hill), and others I've had include showing up to a gig and having forgotten my gear, no power available, showing up at the wrong venue and being hundreds of miles away from where I need to be, continually breaking strings on my guitar during a performance, another is continually being shocked with "the blue flash" by a hot mic.

That's hilariously disturbing Donny. I'm chuckling but also feeling some pain.

Fascinating response Sean,

Sean G, post: 439784, member: 49362 wrote: Here is a question I will pose to you all...do each you dream in color, or black and white?

I don't recall.

Mine are usually the song I'm working on, going on and on in my head like I never slept. But its usually an excited to get back to it again.

I find it occurs after watching old B & W movies...the only thing I can put it down to is the brain must be processing those thoughts, memories and experiences of watching the movie, leading to dreaming about them.

Kurt Foster, post: 439793, member: 7836 wrote: back when was working 7 days a week, 14 + hours a day at running the studio, i would go home to sleep and dream i was at the studio .... usually at the old MCI mixing. i would wake up exhausted.

I remember the week I first got my DAW program I was mixing well into the night and later on dreaming I was mixing in my sleep.

A subconcious for of engineering maybe?

I rehearse in my sleep. Beats real rehearsing because you're in control. I can see my fingers going up and down and I hear the song clear as a bell!

LOL Great thread! I keep having a recurring dream of being asked to fill in playing guitar for a show in 2 or 3 hours or something like that, and doing songs that I haven't learned. In my dream I keep asking for a tape to learn the songs and they never give me anything. I wind up having to just trying to wing it live. And I keep asking myself why did I agree to do this?