Are you dreaming in Chinese?

I have been dreaming of Chinese women most of my life. Now I try to understand what they are saying... Nĭ zŏu ba.

Could anyone be any more precise by what they mean by dreaming 'in' a language?

horray!! i just woke up a few minutes ago and realized that I had my first dreams about speaking Chinese last night!!! Believe it or not, Cassie was in it showing me around some type of market/office building in China...she was acting as my translator because nobody could understand my Chinese...ha ha! It was strange because i could speak it perfectly but no one understood me...glad she was there...but at one point i got lost and all the chinese were staring at me...that was a little scary!

then i had another dream about trying to count and for some reason i just couldnt...i was trying to count 100, 200, 300 but i kept getting the characters mixed up...

so i geuss you could say i was having nightmares but they were my first chinese dreams, just wanted to share them...

哈哈！！

-亚当

I can't believe this...I have never had such dreams! I must be a long way from a breakthrough. I sometimes daydream about a conversation that I might have had or a speech I should have made, or I kind of practise in my head what I want to say to a native speaker, but when I come face to face it doesn't quite come out the way I'd planned. Often my best Mandarin is when it just comes out spontaneously and I feel really grand after that.

I had my first dream (that I can remember) in Chinese recently.  I spoke perfect, fluent, Chinese with a group of native speakers.  I remember they were nodding their heads in understandment and agreement when I spoke and I nodded my head in understandment when they spoke.  The sad thing is... after I woke up, I have no idea what we were talking about, and I don't remember an actual single word that was said.  But it was a great feeling to communicate that way!

Hi, I have dreams of speaking chinese all the time.  I have even spoke chinese aloud in my sleep.  Almost conversation like from what I have been told.  It's all part of the learning process for your brain I guess.  I think it's actually pretty cool. 

You know those dreams that end with you waking up screaming the house down?

I had a dream about getting confused between similar Chinese words during a conversation with someone, completely changed the meaning, and by the time we worked out what had happened and what was really meant, it was so funny that I woke up laughing out loud. The laughter reignited when I realised that although I'd remembered what the dream was about, I couldn't remember the text or the punchline.

To have such a boyfriend, or to speak such English? And is the boyfriend really necessary? ha ha.

hehe ,i'm opposite to you ,i always dream that i can speak perfect English and i have a boyfriend who also can speak perfect English. we conmunicate each other with English that so perfect haha.but when i wake up, i feel so sad haha.dream just a dream,i don't know which day it can come true.hehe

Wow, light 487, this could be a breakthrough!

So I had my first Cinese dream 2 days ago. It wasn't really a dream.. just when I was half asleep in the morning and I was snoozing lightly. All that happened was that I could see all this Hanzi on a page or sign or something.. I couldn't read any of it though so I have no idea what it said or was related to.

Also.. another interesting thing happened to me this morning when I went to order my coffee from the usual place. When I travel on the train to work I listen to ChinesePOD on my mp3 player. The Korean girl who was serving me today asked me if I wanted "Sugar" in my coffee.. but I heard "shu4 ge".. and it took me a few moments to realise that she was speaking English and was asking me how many sugars I wanted.. lol.. I had to switch from Chinese to English.. now that's a first..

Usually when I dream something that I couldn't have figured out while awake, it turns out that my brilliant achievement is truly just a dream. If I manage to remember it until I'm awake, I realize that it was nonsense all along and only seemed correct because my dreaming mind is seriously logic impaired. Sometimes dreaming illogic helps me work around a mental block, but more often than not I wake up laughing at myself.

"I can't believe I never realized before that I can fly! It's so simple, all I have to do is use my wings! I should call mom and let her know. She would like to fly too!"

When I say date, I mean have pizza with Jenny, Eileen, John, Amber and Dave hehe. I sat next to Jenny though. ;)

Been on a real date with Jenny so I don't need to dream about that. ;)

You're right, even if it only gives you a better night's sleep, it's definitely worth $10. Your experiment sounds pretty interesting. I think I'll buy the mp3 and give it a try.

Bazza, that doesn't count....because she is MY girlfriend!

Bazza.... since when did Gong Li replace Jenny? tsk tsk.

Does dreaming of going on a date with Gong Li count? ;)

@calkins -- Well, the only thing that I have *really* noticed with it is that I feel more rested after a night's sleep. I don't know if that is the basic idea of it, you feel more rested so therefore you have more "mental energy" to devote to your learning.

Last night I did something new, because of this discussion! The subliminal track is 1 hour long, so I made a playlist that had the subliminal track, then I put a chinesepod lesson, then the subliminal and I filled up 9 hours switching them off.

I really have no idea if it's working or not, but I am keeping an open mind. And like I said, it was only $10, so if it really isn't working I am not that upset about it!

Nice thread! I had a dream once that I was practicing a speech in Chinese for my class. What was a bit weird though was that I was standing a supermarket saying it.

But i guess it's a sign of progress once you start dreaming in another language.

I really doubt that subliminal thing would be very helpful. I had a look at some of the other things the seller is selling the product for. A lot of them are pretty ridiculous- like curing serious mental illnesses, changing parts of the body, improved sports performance even the ability to cast better magic spells.

Sorry for the typo: What I meant to write was: Instead of crowding my sleeping mind with fresh language input, I prefer to just allow it/ my subconscious/ my subliminal whatsit to do what it does so well every night. Of course, that could be because I am a bit wary of the power of subliminal suggestion, which can be very powerful indeed. I think there are psychologists -- eg. Zhang Jie (sp.?) -- who argue that the conscious part of the mind goes into suspension during REM sleep, in order to permit the subconscious to process previously-acquired input without interruption. Hope this doesn't label me as a loony forever on this BB!

Hi calkins. Your question was not addressed to me, but hope that wei1xiao4, our kind host, will not mind if I share my personal perspectives on sleep and learning.

Well, I happen to be an individual who seems to learn languages best by having a good night's sleep. My personal experience is that most of the time, a language point (eg. conjugation) which I've "learned" in an intellectual and analytical way will get internalized -- digested, somehow -- in my sleep. For me, "the morning after" is when it "clicks" for me. My impression is that for me as an individual, newly-acquired information is processed and internalized during sleep.

I have tried falling asleep to language tapes before, but had to stop because I am prone to something called "lucid dreaming". Instead of

For me, as an individual, I seem to find the best balance when I don't allow additional sensory input to intrude into the mysterious things that my brain is doing as I sleep. But that's just me...

Dawnoctopus, I thought you were half-kidding when you said you listen to a subliminal Mandarin learning mp3. Then I did a search on it.

I usually have a pretty open mind, but this has really piqued my interest (and doubts)....mainly because it's just sounds (oceans, birds, or whatever) with no words, only subliminal messages "beneath" the sounds. The subliminal messages then remove learning blocks and help you to learn and speak Mandarin better and more quickly.

One description said that "you may or may not hear voices during parts of the session." But that it may just be your brain playing tricks on you. I don't know anything about subliminal technology, but maybe it's just a placebo. Maybe not, but I'm curious.

My simple question is...do you think it's working for you?

@wei1xiao4 - Yes! There really is, I got it on Ebay for about $10. I don't know if it works or not, but it's a really soothing water sound you are supposed to listen to when you sleep.

you know....I'm so happy you mentioned it because I've been having chinese dreams here and there for months. Actually, sometimes I say things in my chinese dream that I don't quite understand and have to think about my words for a while until it makes sense. At first I also wondered if I was talking fake chinese, but I don't think I am. I spend a whole lot of time listening to mandarin so I wouldn't be surprised if some of it is just stuck in my brain even though I don't really understand all of it.

dawnoctopus, is there really a subliminal download? I want one!

Wei1Xiao4,

I have had those same dreams, where someone is talking in Chinese and I am so frustrated that I can't really understand what they are saying. But then I have to wonder, maybe my mind had them talking fake-Chinese as how could they saw something in Chinese I don't know? Or maybe that part of my brain was going a mile minute where my "self" in the dream was still very very sleepy.... dunno.

But currently I am also still recovering from dreams about having to churn out 3000 word papers on Chinese government, economics, etc. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping were my only friends for 3 weeks... they over stayed their welcome. Still dream I never handed in my papers... yuck.

Now I'm finally back to listening to ChinesePod after never getting around to it for two months... hope I can dream of Jenny speaking Chinese rather than Mao... ha ha.

@calkins While going to sleep I listen to my " Subliminal Learn Mandarin " mp3... I feel like my whole life is dedicated to learning Chinese! Too bad I don't have a better memory :(

I want to dream in Chinese! I don't think my vocab level is good enough, but I think I'll try what you do Dawnoctopus....listen to lessons while going to sleep.

but i have few dreams, i don't know why!

YES! I think it has something to do with me listening to lessons right before bed :)

I occasionally have multilingual dreams, but mostly because of my environment. I am a German native speaker who lives in a Cantonese speaking city, talks English at work, and Mandarin at home. Even though I don't speak Cantonese (apart from some absolute basics), some of my dreams contain lots of it. And for some reason I can always understand and perfectly speak Cantonese in my dreams, but once I wake up I find that, well, it was just a dream.

i want to dreaming in english,but i know for a beginning english learner,it's too hard. and i think that alainl002 is right, so ,Keep it up.!

hu hu.. may be they were laughing at you?

Mwuhuhuhuhahahahahaaaaa...!.. hrmm may be not.. :)

Since I returned from China, my dreams have been Chinglish... kinda like my Chinese in China. :( And I often dream that I am back in China. Some are good dreams others are not.

The last day in China, I fell, bruising my ribs. So last night, I did not sleep well as I could not get comfortable. It is hard to tell what is jet lag, what is do to my ribs and what is just simply do to me. But I will t ell you that I do get some interesting dreams that I remember ... most of the time, because I do sleep well, I forget most of my dreams. Can you imagine a situation where you go back in time to see native 熊猫 in grove of 竹 only to have someone yelling 虎! 虎! at you and you think they are wondering who you are?

Wei1xiao4 ,

I don't know about dreaming in Chinese (more like dreaming about speaking Chinese...) but when I was learning English, I came to a point when I started to think and dream is English. This all happened rather quickly once I had accumulated a "critical mass" of vocabulary to formulate and express thoughts.

hopefully, if you are dreaming in Chinese, it is a sign that you are breaking through.

Keep it up.

Yeah, I'm kind of hoping the same thing!

I've had dreams where I'm speaking Chinese but I could not tell you what I was saying - it sounded good though. It felt more like an outer body experience where I was watching myself speak pretty good Chinese only I could not understand what I was saying.

I, too, hope that it is some sign of progress. That is, some part of my brain is getting all of this - it's just not letting me know it yet!

I'm not dreaming in Chinese yet but every other second (literally) or my spare time is devoted to thinking in Chinese. :)

I just bought "another" Chinese learning book to add to my ever-growing pile: Chiense Phrases for Dummies.. I usually steer clear of the "for Dummies" series.. but as I was flicking through the pages I found that it had a lot of great grammar stuff in plain English.. also it has a bunch of stuff on numbers, which is my current focus... so yeh.. for $13.95 AUD.. it's a steal! :)

duibuqi.. I know it isn't a proper answer to the question. :)

does bad dreams about Chinese exams count?