Are you dreaming in Chinese?

does bad dreams about Chinese exams count?

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!

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!

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

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.

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?

hu hu.. may be they were laughing at you? Mwuhuhuhuhahahahahaaaaa...!.. hrmm may be not.. :)

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.!

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.

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

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. :)

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.

@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 :(

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.

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

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.

@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.

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?

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...

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