Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Ultima on 21/07/2004 21:54:33
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Walking home from work today triggered a memory off... but it was of a dream I had had. The memory was as vivid as when I had first had the dream, the smell, muscle sensation, vision, thoughts, everything was there... it was kind of disconcerting and I had to force myself not to think about it.
When this happened was I merely remembering the dream or going off on a day dream?
I’m a bit scared by this since I’ve read that remembering dreams can lead to mental illness, and I remember most of my dreams, but never like this before and not all of a sudden. Someone tell me they’ve had the same experience and that everything’s ok [:D]. please…
wOw the world spins?
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....all I can say Matt to support you is that I remember my dreams too...and as long as I keep on taking the tablets the doctors think I'll be ok !!!!!!!!![;)][;)]...NO...SERIOUSLY MATT....I do remember my dreams and I find it very hard to believe that remembering them is indicative of a mental illness, sounds like total and complete bullsh_it to me!!...and I can remember dreams from many years ago..and YES I've had the same experience when something during the course of a day has triggered the memory of a dream with all the symptoms that you have had too....DO NOT WORRY....You are fine.......if there is any truth in the remembering dream = mental illness thing then I would have to think that you would have to be remembering dreams all day every day for a long long time etc etc.....and that the memories would have to be causing you serious distress......but don't get into a state cos you just read it somewhere alkright ?..You're Ok Mate...don't fret it !!
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Well, apparently, dreams are a way of clearing useless information out of your short term and useful infomation into your long term memory. If you remember your dreams, then i suppose lots of useless stuff is also being stored in your long term memory instead of being forgotten.
Not that it really matters much, as humans on average use only 10% of their cranial capacity, so you are in no danger of overfilling your brain.
I usually wake up in the morning remembering a dream (provided i am woken by the alarm clock). But unless i write these memories down, they are forgotten very quickly! Can you still remember your dreams after a few days?
But then again, you may be going crazy (or in a few decades time, like Neil!). [:p]
"I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it."
-Edgar Allan Poe
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well what can i say now my seniours have already told the reasons.
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I regularly remember my dreams BUT i also need some sort of stimuli to trigger off the memory of it. When i do have dreams, they often include tidal waves or water. Repititions also occur with people in my dreams such as my girlfriend. I wouldn't worry about it at all, in fact i find remembering dreams quite interesting as some things that happen are really weird. I was shot in a dream once.
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well it is said that viewing water in dreams is a sign and prediction of a better future exodus.
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i often remember dreams as well and have found that there seem to be many types.
there are the ones that are triggered by an event in real life, like the alarm going off. these are really cool, usually there is a whole story to the dream, you are in a house, a fire starts, you panic, someone starts juggling and a dog rings for the briggade, they come bell ringing and you wake to the alarm ringing. these are interesting in that they can feel like you have been dreaming for hours and have had a whole adventure but actually they happen in the space of seconds. when they have taken pictures of the brain during this period of time they found that whole sections of the brain associated with memory, logic reasoning and panic response are lighted up at once in a huge surge of energy.
then there are the dreams that are sorting and storing as qpan says. these dreams are usually not very emotional and often longer in duration. they believe that they take up to about 10 minutes in real life but again often feel much longer. there is often a sense of disassociation with them, like you are watching but not actually involved.
finally there are the dreams that seem to be used to deal with trauma. often nightmares. there are some therapists who use the dreams to help deal with the trauma, especially if the repeated nightmares are interfering with real life. quite often these are triggered by an event, such as a car accident or violence, and until the trauma is resolved often they will haunt the person for a long time. one of the ways the therapist works with these dreams is to let the person know that they create and control these dreams. that everything within them is made by the person dreaming and that they can stop it or change it as they want as soon as they realise they are dreaming.
this type of therapy works very well with children, possibly because their minds are more open? you can talk to a child and tell them that they have a magical wand that they can take to bed with them. this magic wand only works when they are asleep and it can come into their dreams with them and can change whatever they would like. remember harry potter and the wraith like things that frightened you with your own fears and were controled with laughter.?
i read a thesis once based on work with a woman who had been raped and was experiencing repeated nightmares of the rape scene. the nightmare varied in detail but always she was not in control of what was happening to her. sometimes she was watching someone else being raped, sometimes it was her, but she could never move, cry out or prevent what was happening even when she knew what was coming. the dreams became so frightening and so frequent that she was unable to sleep or to function during the day. one of the first things that the therapist said to her was that she controled the dream. the most incredible thought is that you are an architect. all of the buildings that you dream of, all of the landscapes you see, all of the amazing things you make. they are all from your imagination and they are made so easily and so effortlessly when we are asleep. that night the woman went home and she had the dream again. she was still frightened, still scared, but this time she was able to cry out. this was the first step and the frequency of the nightmares dropped. with the therapy and over time she was able to act more and more in her nightmare and subsequently she was able to act and get through what had happened to her.
back to ultima's dream, if your memory of it was very strong then it is possible that it had a lot of signifigance to you and you should think about how you felt in it and what was happening. also think about what triggered the memory of the dream, perhaps a smell or even a thought, this can be important as well. there are some elements of dreams that seem to have universal signifigance. houses and homes seem to represent your personality, your space in your head or your 'spiritual/personal' home. water usually represents emotions and usually though not always people (even ones you know) represent an aspect of yourself. dreams seem to be very self centered [;)].
sorry, [:I] dreams are a pet subject of mine and i have done a lot of reading and study of the act of dreaming and interpretations of dreams. if anybody out there has a dream that they are curious about, bring it on!
and i promise not to write too much next time. sorry, i just get carried away......
yes, but.........
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I have a dream I'll throw out here. It has recurred many times in my life, though usually not every night. I almost never remember the dream but everyone else does.
I dream that the wall is about to fall. I get up in the bed and start pushing on the wall to hold it up and shout for everyone to "get out of the way! The wall is falling!". Needless to say, everyone else remembers the dream quite well. Usually someone gets me settled down and I don't remember a thing, but sometimes I have a very vague memory of a wall and being very frightened.
As far as I know I've never had any experience with a wall falling or trapping me or anyone else.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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O...K...? well...... the wall represents your womb link to your mother and you are eternally frightened that the aliens will come and take you again.[:D].
no, seriously. let me see if i have got this right, this is a dream that you mostly dont remember and you are not emotionally involved in it (i.e. you only remember feeling frightened, you are not still frightened when you remember it). if this is the case then i can put forward two suggestions and it is possibly a combination of both. however because of this i do not think it is a dream that would warrant 'interpretation', i.e that it has deep psychological meaning. this dream does not leave you feeling the dream very strongly, you remember the sensations and your emotional responses very vividly.
the first suggestion is that it is a stress dream, that it possibly started in your childhood, you dont have to have seen a wall collapsing, maybe you heard about it (remember the football stadium incident?) or maybe you were feverish and your balance was affected so that you thought the wall was collapsing. you probably will not remember the initial incident as it was so minor. however the dream response that you had to it has become a habbit. now, when you are feeling stressed in your everyday life, like your world is collapsing around you, this dream comes back as a stress response.
the second suggestion is more about what triggers it rather than where the original images came from. when you sleep and you move from deep sleep to rem sleep (dreaming sleep) your body becomes partially paralised. there are two disorders associated with this. narcolepsy, where they believe your body drops into rem mode whilst you are awake, and another one (cant remeber the name of it)where you dont become paralised during rem and you act out your dreams. sleepwalking or talking is a very small version of this (incidentally there has been a case in america where a man got off a murder charge by saying that he had been asleep ! only in america!).
however your dream may be triggered by the fear of the feeling when you drop into rem. a lot of people will remember the falling dream, just as they are dropping off to sleep they will fall and wake up with a start. i trip over something in my dream and it wakes me up. this is thought to be a panic response to the feeling of the paralasis kicking in at the begining of rem. but when you have been cycling through deep sleep for three hours or so and then you go into rem the panic can be a lot more intense and can trigger a stronger reaction. your mind will try to find a way of explaining the panic and will produce a dream , in your case the wall is colapsing, and your body will kick out of the paralasis that it is dropping into to respond to the dream.
so, i promised i would not write so much this time and have failed. does anyone else have any other ideas or interpretations?
yes, but.........
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Interesting..... The dream is definitely stress related because it only occurs when I'm under a lot of stress.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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wow, that sounds like a freaky dream tweener :P
I had a dream that was really weird. I can't remember all of it, it was a huge story, but I can only remember one scene. Somehow I am in an attic, a pretty messy dusty attic, and the black cat gives me a present, I think it's a heavy gold pocketwatch. It has pictures of people moving in the face and a face on the reverse side and strange symbols on it and it has the feeling of being a very ancient and mysterious object. The cat tells me if I look at it too much something bad will happen but he doesn't specify what. As I look at it the faces grow dimmer and dimmer and like an image going from lesser to lesser resolution. I shake it and try to get the images to come back but they are lost forever then the cat suddenly springs on me with teeth bared and eyes glowing and I get a shock like when you think you've stepped in a hole in a dream. Then the rest of the story happens. When I woke up and remembered the dream I was sure that I'd dreamed it before. Saying it in words doesn't put the kind of feelings it had in it though so it probably sounds really dumb :-P
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Yours sounds pretty freaky too Quantum. It's really strange how the feelings and emotions play in dreams also. Dreams are not just images like a movie - they have wonderful colors and smells and feelings and emotions that really give them lots of dimention that just cannot be described in words.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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did you know that most people dream in black and white and just remember colours in the same way that you remember the colours of lucy's dresses in 'i love lucy' if you used to watch it in black and white when you were a child (gosh, that's showing my age). therefor if you dream with very strong colours you should take note of the colours because they are supposedly important.
quantum, that is such a cool dream and it is not dumb at all. Freud would have a field day. in classic interpretation the attic would represent the place that you store old things from your past (obvious yeah!)and the cat would represent a teacher. a teacher is the part of yourself that shows you connections that are more than just pure logic, like intuition or that spooky 'knowing' feeling that you sometimes get about things.
the cat being black, (sounds like a book!)would be interpreted as meaning that you are unsure as to the motivations of the teacher. in other words you dont know if it is a 'good' or 'bad' part of yourself and you are not sure if you trust it.
the cat gives you a watch and tells you that if you look at it too much something bad will happen. the watch would be a memory, something that may not be in the surface of your mind yet but is sitting just bellow the subconscious surface. have you been feeling slightly disturbed lately but not sure why? are there questions about your past that are bugging you? something like that. but when you look at the watch, the memory it starts to fade and the cat jumps on you scaring you.
it depends on your feelings throughout the dream but this could be that when you look at things from your past, especially the scary things that you are to frightened to look at, they get more distant, they fade, and the thing that actually hurts you is not the memory or the event but the way that you deal with it now.
the cat is part of you, a part that wants you to see this thing from the past but is also frightened of it. part of you thinks that this memory should hurt you, but it is not the memory but you and your reactions to it that determine whether you are hurt by it. in other words, do not be afraid to look and to see, just be aware that your feelings about it may not be acurate, like when you feel guilt or responsibility but it was not your fault and you were not in controll.
clear as mud! [:D] this is just one interpretation, it may not be accurate, i dont know you and only you will know what the dream really means. a lot of it will depend on your feelings throughout the dream.
yes, but.........
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Wow, that is so cool jai!
I had that dream ages ago, like in feburary or january ... I just remember it because I woke up thinking what a weird and cool dream. I promptly forgot it though. I think I only remember the attic scene possibly because the jolt made me wake up for a minute.
I recommend to everyone to write down your dreams when you wake up. It could be very interesting! You could even turn them into wacky short stories if you like writing but have no ideas.
I have two or three dreams that used to happen often when I was younger: there was one where I was on a flying carpet and there were bats chasing me through dark places, one where we were in a house and you had to collect all the money on the ground before it faded away, and if you were collecting money from a room where it had started fading for a long time your money in your sack would disappear too. The house was old and victorian, a heavy green colour, with lace curtains and brocade etc. There were lots of people scurrying around looking for treasure ... it had the feeling a bit of being a game show but more serious. Then there was one that's happened a few times with variations where I can fly, with a few others, and we have to escape from people who want to lock us up in a big hall with the other flying children, we end up getting captured after a long battle to escape them but I think we figure out how to escape together with the other captured children out of an old window behind one of the many crates that the bad people must have forgotten was there.
Everyone else if you have dreams you remember post them here; it's so interesting to hear other people's dreams!
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when i was a little girl i would have a recurring dream that used to make me cry every time. it was a bit gruesome and sad. my family and i would be coming home late evening just as the light was turning blue grey. we had been away on a long trip somewhere. they would all go inside and i would follow them in a few minutes later. there were strange men in the house and they took my family. it would then cut to the bath area (i lived in a tin shed in real life and the bath area was outside, we lived in the bush so no neighbours, there was a log that we stood on with a tree next to it and shower connected to a branch on the tree. at the end of the log was another log, placed perpendicular to it, like a T, and on this we used to keep two baby baths for collecting the used water so that we could water the plants with it) The men had cut the arms and legs of my mum and dad and little brother and placed them in the babybaths and they were moving them around in a sort of ritualistic way at the end of the T like it was an alter and they were preparing for something. i knew that i was next, there was no blood but the bodies of my family were blue. i was not frightened (i had been earlier when we went into the house and the men were first there) but i was just very very sad. the men had no faces, all i could see of them were their legs and arms moving things around.[xx(]
i was eight when i first had this dream and it came back quite regularly for about 3 years. it only stopped when my mother told me her worst nightmare as a child and after i heard that i never had another nightmare, not that i remember anyway. weird huh?. her nightmare was simple but scared the living daylights out of me. it was just two images that would repeat constantly one after the other, inkblots on paper then desert landscape, inkblots then landscape and so on. even weirder!
by the way, flying dreams are supposed to be really good, if you dream that you are flying then it means that you are achieving the things that you need in your life, you are flying in life and getting where you need.
yes, but.........
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Wow quantum I used to have a dream very similar to the flying one you describe here. I recall my flying action was very strange, I had to pedal my legs like i was riding a bike. Strange about the similarity though.
One dream that used to occur frequently when i was young was that i'd be asleep and wake up to find all these (20 or 30) black panthers around my bed which would all leap onto the bed and start attacking me. The last bit I would usually view from the other side of the room though as if it wasn't me under the writhing mass of bodies. Oddly enough after having this dream for what seemed like years it stopped one night after my brother came and saved me.
Tim
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Your brother saved you in your dream ... ? I bet the dream interpretists will have fun there :)
In my flying dream you sort of had to push off the ground with your feet then to continue flying, do a sort of breaststroke with your arms :P Then you sort of glided where you wanted to go by sort of propulsing. I only remember clearly two actual places in the dream, the big dark warehouse and a starry hill where we were trying to get away from them, and some roman ruins in the distance.
What happens in your flying dream?? Can you remember the story at all? :)
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so cool, i used to fly in my dreams as well, that breast stroke thing. i remember having trouble with the electrical and telegraph wires. they kept getting in the way.
yes, but.........
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I thought the interpreters would have a field day with it as well and was interested in what they'd say but so far nothing.
I only have vague memories of the locations of the flying dream, one was my primary school but when I read what you said about escaping through the window behind the crate it brought back memories I'd completely forgotten. I know it was a dark warehouse kind of place and it was night outside but don't recall if there was a hill or roman ruins.
I remember sometimes in the dream I would have trouble contolling the height of how far I was flying but would get it under control. Otherwise there isn't a lot I can remember.
Tim
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Sorry to cut short, but I think many people always remember their dreams when getting up( but maybe not all the story). (and I'm is 1 of them! :) )
Anyway, I think the importance is not the dreams, but the feeling after wake up, are you fine and eager to begin a new day? That's the most important!!!
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WOW look at all the replies, really interesting... Sorry I haven’t been back for a while but my net connection at home is intermittent.
Figure i may as well step through one of my most memorable dreams, mainly because it is the most bizarre i've ever had.
Im watching a man walk/jog along a corridor; he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Its dark and most of the colour is browned out. He then bursts out through a set of double doors. I am now the man (who i don't recognise). I look up and the sky is a blinding bright blue with a few cartoon like fluffy clouds. All around me is some sort of quad with little square ponds and patches of pure green turf. There are lots of people walking around quietly in couples, doing various things (like stroking the water of the ponds etc.) There seems to be some sort of complex of glass buildings all around enclosed by willow trees. Then i follow a zigzag pavement past people on a bench. They offer me a weird looking fruit, I bite into it. The flesh is soft but dry at the same time. Then i look back and the bench is gone and so are most of the people. Then it feels as if my teeth are melting and my gums burn. I begin to run. Stopping at a corner where there is a bin, i go to spit as if to get rid of a bit of tooth but out comes broken blue egg shells surrounded by a yellowy liquid. (This is where it gets a bit odd) In my dream i am now looking at the man but am his internal dialogue he is remembering that he drank turpentine that has made his teeth melt. (Although that’s not what happened to me, i ate some fruit... and can turpentine do that??? but that’s what was in the dream). The man then turns to a very scruffy looking tramp (all the other people were wearing black and white robes as if institutionalised) and hands him the fruit which the tramp drinks (don’t know how but in the dream i know he drank it). Everything now goes all solarized greyscale and the tramp is some woman who is disgusted and afraid of the man/me who has blood running from his mouth which is red and the only colour... the man then keeps running along these paths zigzagging to the geometric patterns of the paths. All the people are now the tramp woman and they are all reacting the same way.... and then that’s the end of the dream..
Ok so that was long winded and as other people said it’s hard to get the emotions across (but imagine the emotion of dumb fear at spitting all your teeth out)
wOw the world spins?
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Matt, seems to me like you are beginning to feel discontented with the path of your life. What you thought would bear fruit for you has burned you instead. Your lifeblood is leaking, the color in your life is oozing out your mouth. What are you saying/doing in life that is contrary to what you really want? Have you ever sat down and really identified what it is you want?
I'm guessing that you are a young adult who is realizing that your world is not the way you thought it would be.
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Nah, but thats the thing im happy at the moment and this dream doesnt reflect my personality at all :S it is an old dream so perhaps i didn't like secondary school as much as university :D.... But yeh the whole blood thing is scary.
wOw the world spins?
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Wow quantum I used to have a dream very similar to the flying one you describe here. I recall my flying action was very strange, I had to pedal my legs like i was riding a bike. Strange about the similarity though.
I never fly in my dream, but in my dream I do occasionally leap high, as if walking in water but with far lesser density (imagine the Nintendo game Moon Mario). It feels like instead of flying, I slightly control gravity around me.
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I sometimes have a dream of coming down a flooded tunnel I believe this is a recollection of being born.
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Neural memory is different from computer memory. Neural memory is defined based on specific chemical potentials assigned to memory. Computer memory is defined by a human convention, based on a binary system of on-off semi-conductor switches.
For example, the recall of a neural memory of a car accident, can bring on stress, due to the emotional tagging. This memory recall generates more brain energy, than a memory of patting fuzzy bunnies. Computer memory of these two events are not much different in terms of computer energy level. A computer will not use more electrical power recalling the accident over the bunnies. However, the brain will use more power.
Dreams are sort of a way for the brain to redistribute its stored memory energy, to coincide with an optimized internal neutral set point. If the brain potential is too high, such as due to memory based repressions by the conscious mind, there will be a redistribution of the potential, via memory, with the result being a dream. From this dream output, one can infer the original potential and the source of potential, if one is aware of the internal set point; reverse engineering the source of the dream. This is done in dream analysis.
As an analogy of the brain energy flow, say we had a stream that flows down the mountain. It has carved a path over eons. This os the natural brain. One day we place a dam in the stream. This will build up potential with a pool of water forming behind the dam. Eventually, the water in the pool will get high enough to where a potential forms to find a way around or over the dam. It will overflow or detour the dam and meander down a new path, until hooks back up with the original stream. The intensity of the dream and its content is based on the potential cause by the dam and the meandering path through our memory needed to remove the potential.
In the olden days of the American Indians, the chief of a tribe would have special dreams that would become part of the tribes cultural identity. Since the chief are in charge of the group, the impact of group's behavior and its results, would impact the collective via formed habits, attitudes, and results. If this is off center, it can cause a collective repression or damming of the natural flow, for the entire tribe. Since the chief carries the responsibility weight of the tribe, he may have a dream that lowers the potential. This dream is not just for him, but also for his group. Since old habits can be hard to break, the dream of the chief may not solve the problem, in one sitting. However, it may serve as a conscious template; from the gods, to help identify the problem, as well as a possible solution to get his collective tribe back on the path back to nature.
In my experience, dreams are in layers. The most conscious layering of dreams are connected to the personal unconscious; personal memories and habits that form dams. This is due to willpower and choice. The next layer has to do with the cultural superego. This is connected to group think, which may not be optimized in terms of brain energy. Group behavior may create a need to feel part of the group, to remove one source of stress; collective censor, but this can create a personal problem. The last layer is connected to the collective unconscious, which is natural human propensity common to all humans. These type of dreams deal with the longest term cultural perturbations, that can extend over generations and even longer. Humans are no longer natural, and the brain remembers this, based on our DNA from the days of natural humans. It would be very difficult to remain natural in culture, since you would be odd and group pressure will force you to repress.
The title of this topic is, are dreams linked to mental illness. This concern would have the affect of maintaining the damming repressions, by making the natural brain solution, appear suspect. For example, if you look at the anti-Trump movement, there is a lot of anger and fear. The members are mad all the time while other are afraid of all types of scenarios. This is high potential memory damming caused by group think. It is deeper than the personal unconscious since it involves group dynamics; peer pressure and security. If you assume dreams are connected to mental illness there is no antidote to this mental poison, since the propaganda aims one layer below the personal unconscious, which is two layers below conscious. The opposite is actually true.
The result would be different if the group disagreement was based on logic, data and reason, since, like Mr Spock, this uses lower potential; rational calmness. But the propaganda induction induces the highest potential memory dams. This is not healthy for a human to sustain, day after day. However, the shackles of choice are connected to group dynamics which has it own sweet spot. The ideal culture works well fro the both the group and individual.