Dreaming in Foreign Languages

[smallwhite]

I was conjugating Turkish verbs in my dream. I'm glad the guy next door woke me up.

[Iversen]

I have just written in my personal log about a dream in Russian (though with just a minimum of speech, not long conversations). Quoting that passage here may make me guilty of duplication, but since it fits the theme of this thread so perfectly I'll do it and hope for forgiveness:

I woke up this morning after a dream where I saw a man working at a long table in a corridor. Suddenly he sees that the person working beside him is stone dead, and so are the others further away. He walks to the end of the corridor, and behind a screen he sees one more dead person sitting in an armchair, who is identified as Josef Stalin, and he decides to get out of there before security forces flood the place. He follows a route past (and sometimes between) long rows of fences made of wire mesh wrapped in clear plastic. Along the way there are workers putting up even more fences of this type, and he speak to some of them in Russian, sometimes arguing about whether he is allowed to walk through their workplace. Actually there isn't much speak in the dream, but whatever there is is in Russian.

At a certain point he finds a hole through the fence to the left and he steps through it, and then he finds himself in a bustling street. Across the street there is a large onion-shaped brick dome painted in a reddish colour, and this defines the scenery as Russian. And now for the first time I feel I get involved myself - I try to remember whether I actually have seen anything like during my trips to Russia, and I have to admit that I haven't (at this point the dream has clarly become lucid). The 'actor' followed from the air by my invisible self moves along the street to see what the town looks like, but soon after I wake up - at least being determined to remember the dream.

I generally don't have high thoughts about dream interpretation, but it is hard not to see this dream as an allegory over the theme of learning Russian.

[smallwhite]

I've been using lots of sentences from Tatoeba. This morning in my dream...

... I was talking on the phone with a businessman. He was speaking in English and I couldn't hear him clearly. Then after a long while of frustration, he finally knew to speak more slowly. I could hear him now.

His name was Tom.

[Dylan95]

I never remember my dreams vividly enough to remember words. Occasionally, I remember the gist of what happened, but I wouldn't be able to tell what language I dream in on my own. I do talk in my sleep on occasion though, and according to my roommates that's usually in Russian if at all comprehensible. I've been here for 7 months, and all of my interactions are in Russian, so it's not very surprising.

[RinPond]

I don't remember it all, but my SO informed me I was speaking in Chinese after I returned from a study abroad trip in college. It didn't last long, sadly.

[tastyonions]

Last night I dreamed that I was talking business with one of the executives at my work when he suddenly asked me "Falas português?" and continued the rest of the conversation in Portuguese.

As far as I know he doesn't speak anything other than English in real life.

[golyplot]

I rarely remember my dreams, but I do know that I've had dreams involving foreign languages at least a couple times.

I think dreams are just jumbled up mixes of your memories and experiences, so you're most likely to dream out something you've been doing a lot recently.

[WildGinger10]

I've heard stories from all of my German friends about the first time they dreamed in English.

I have encountered German in my dreams, but whether or not it's REAL German or "dream German" I don't know, and it's always been a foreign language that I can't understand. I know it's not a real "marker" for progress, but it feels like a rite of passage to dream in your target language so I am counting down the days.

My (Mexican) grandfather says that he always knows he's been back in Mexico too long when his dreams revert back into Spanish.