Dreaming in a foreign language

Have you ever dreamed in a foreign language? This is my personal experience with dreams and I am curious about yours.

My dream experience

I often dream in the Polish language as I have lived here for a while.  My Polish is good but not perfect. When I dream at a subconscious level I am pretty pleased with myself when I am speaking Polish (although I am not aware it is a dream). Why? Because the native speakers in my dreams always understand what I say perfectly. Further, I understand them perfectly. In my dreams (both literally and figuratively), I am like a native speaker in this foreign language. Both in speaking and comprehension and I never need a dictionary.

However, when I recant a dream dialogue to my wife who is a native speaker she laughs. This is because the native speakers in my dreams were making the same grammatical mistakes that I make when I am awake. I wonder why. It takes the wind out of my sail a little as in my dream world I am equipment and people are charmed by my linguistic skills.

A dream is really a dialogue with yourself. Therefore, there is perfect comprehension of the spoken word.

Some people believe that you can tap into the collective unconsciousness and access information and even language information. For me that is a little more speculative. However, this much can be said. If you are dreaming in a foreign language then you are doing well.

Can dreams help you learn a language?

• To remember dreams keep a dream journal by your bed. When you wake up write down all your dreams even in sketch form. When I did this, I could remember several a night in detail and often stream of conciousness one leads into the other.
• As you are drifting to sleep try to suggest to yourself to dream in your foreign language.
• Read up on lucid dreaming and try to use this in language learning.
• During the day start thinking in your foreign language, even change your inner dialogue or create dialogues in your mind in a foreign language.
• The purpose of dreams or day dreams in a foreign language is not a grammar drill, school or exercises, so it does not matter if you are making mistakes. The idea is to get more of your brain online linguistically.
• You are smarter than you think. Intelligence and ability is really teaching the brain to access more of the raw material which is latent and waiting for you to develop.

Let me know your thoughts about day dreams, dreams, lucid or deep or even fantasies in foreign language and your experiences. When does your imagination take you linguistically. Do you think imagination is a connection with a deeper reality? I think conscious cognitive thought is like an iceberg, only about ten percent of the mind is conscious and seen on the surface. The other 90% is something that is largely untapped for its potential.

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