I have started this thread as a serious attempt to gain more understanding of dreams. Did you ever stay up at night when you were younger and realize if there wasn't much light it looked like your were looking through a TV with static? Or when you would see things your parents said weren't there? Or even now, when your dreams may show you things that have yet to happen? The nightmares that seems so real you don't want to move for fear there really was an insane person with a knife standing on the other side of your bed? Have you ever been dozing off, only half-asleep, and realize you were dreaming while completely aware of what was happening around you? These are qeustions I would like to discuss and get answers to.
Hmmmmm.... This thread could be interesting, so I think I'll respond in hopes of sparking more discussion, even though I have not had any of the dream experiences posted by the thread starter.
I have started this thread as a serious attempt to gain more understanding of dreams. Did you ever stay up at night when you were younger and realize if there wasn't much light it looked like your were looking through a TV with static?
No.
Or when you would see things your parents said weren't there?
Nope.
Or even now, when your dreams may show you things that have yet to happen?
No.
The nightmares that seems so real you don't want to move for fear there really was an insane person with a knife standing on the other side of your bed?
No.
Have you ever been dozing off, only half-asleep, and realize you were dreaming while completely aware of what was happening around you? These are qeustions I would like to discuss and get answers to.
No. But I have had plenty of dreams where I knew I was dreaming.
The only odd things about my dreams is that I tend to have a "dreamscape" that is geographically and architecturally different from reality, most of the time. For example when I dream I am in my house, it is different from my real house. It is mostly the same, but contains a different room layout and sometimes has extra rooms that I discover while exploring through it, opening doors. When I dream about the college I used to attend, the layout is similar but the buildings and campus are different and both are much larger. When I dream I am in the college town, it too is different. This consistency lasts from dream to dream, even months apart.
Have you ever tried to do that on perpose? I had the same dream three times in a row when I tried the 'waking dreams' on purpose.
The only odd things about my dreams is that I tend to have a "dreamscape" that is geographically and architecturally different from reality, most of the time.
Of the dreams I remember, this is how I identify I am in a dream. There is the abstract concept that something is one thing, however, it does not match with reality. Once I identify I am in a dream, I often take a more conscious control of my own dreams.
The nightmares that seems so real you don't want to move for fear there really was an insane person with a knife standing on the other side of your bed?
I do not have a lot of nightmares anymore. As I mentioned previously, I am often able to consciously control my dreams. When faced with something scary within a dream I give myself powers to overcome it (sometimes literally like being Superman and flying around or super strength) or acknowledge the object of fear can not hurt me. For example, being surrounded by scorpions, I convinced myself they could not harm me and let them crawl all over me.
A recent nightmare I did have involved loosing my daughter. I do not think I realized I was in a dream. When I woke up, I realized I was anxious about something. I often interpret my dreams more by the emotions I feel in them than the literal objects or people involved. However, I believe my daughter was a literal part of my anxiety. I do not think I fear loosing her so much as I fear not being the best father I can be.
Insecurity is a re-occurring theme in my nightmares.
Wow. I really did not mean to share quite that much with a bunch of strangers.
I have had one, truly "prophetic" dream. I use prophetic in quotes, because it wasn't really foretelling the future... Well you will understand in a moment.
A friend wrote a computer game, graphically based. The premise was two wizards dueling. Each wizard was surrounded by orbs that represented energies - air, fire, life, death, power, and such.
Each wizard had a turn with set amount of time, 30 seconds I think, to spin around and click on the orbs to enter a "spell formula." If it matched an actual formula, it activated a spell.
Either way, it was the other wizards turn. (Due to inadequate connectivity at the time, the program was hot-seat turn based.) If the previous wizard activated a spell, the current wizard had a chance to counter the incoming spell, and either way had a chance to activate his/her own spell.
I offered to play test this game. Part of it's design philosophy was that spell formulas weren't detailed in any way. The fun was to be discovering these formula.
So in order to play test it, I started guessing at formula and did alright. Then I started to go through all possible combinations systematically.
After spending a good 12 hours or so, I went to sleep. While sleeping I dreamt of a high level spell formula. I was a few hours away from coming across this formula in sequence.
When I woke up, the first thing I did was check the formula. And it worked. Oddly enough it summoned a Fire Giant.
It seems most prophetic dreams do not show anything of much importance.
The few I've had included my brother changing a tire and overhearing a conversation. Nothing serious, but it still freaked when I realized what was happening. Then other things started to work, but that needs another thread.
My problem with "prophetic" dreams is that they stand out. You really remember them, amidst all the hundreds, even thousands of mundane dreams you'll have. It's much easier to make a seemingly-prophetic prediction about the future when you make thousands of predictions that don't quite pan out.
True, but if half my dreams came true I wouldn't be typing this right now, for I would have been eaten by wolves in my youth.
The thing with myself though, is that I don't know which dreams are prophetic until they happen.
True, but if half my dreams came true I wouldn't be typing this right now, for I would have been eaten by wolves in my youth.
Funny. I was the wolf in one of mine. I even woke up my wife when I snarled at some threat. Usually I just wake her up with my snoring.
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Did you ever stay up at night when you were younger and realize if there wasn't much light it looked like your were looking through a TV with static?
There are times, when I'm particularly tired, that the world looks pixelated, like the video card in my brain has a crappy resolution or something. The images we see are compiled from many discrete cones and rods in the back of the eye, so it makes sense that there would be some 'pixelation' that our brain sort of smoothes out for us, and when the brain is tired, perhaps it's not so efficient at that.
Or when you would see things your parents said weren't there?
Everyone's brain is a pattern-recognition engine (some more efficient than others, and some *too* efficient, leading to all sorts of conspiratorial nonsense, as the individual sees patterns in unconnected things, and sets about to 'prove' what he's intuited).
It's why we see a face in the moon, or canals in the surface of Mars, or images in clouds. And sometimes, a pattern of light and shadows looks like a person, because our brain is looking for meaning in something that is meaningless. I suspect that times of mental stress make us even more likely to misapprehend things (explaining why people are more likely to see 'ghosts' after a funeral, for instance), and our mind gets used to certain things. A shadow in grandpas favorite chair is translated for a second to look like grandpa, even if he's been gone for a month now. Every other time we've looked at that chair, the shadow in it *has* been grandpa, so it's completely understandable that our brain would 'fill in the blank' with what is supposed to be there, grandpa.
Or even now, when your dreams may show you things that have yet to happen?
Not so much. I've had many lucid dreams, and usually I choose to fly and enjoy the sensation of being far above the earth, when this occurs. (In waking life, I'm terrified of heights, go figure!) But I've also always been interested in the paranormal, and long ago checked to see if things I saw in my dreams were the same as they were in life, to see if I was actually astrally projecting, and not just 'sleep-flying.' I would select roads to fly over (since I would often be flying at night) and keep note of exit signs, overpasses, etc. and then go driving the next day and note that there were signs not in my dream, overpasses that did not exist, etc. The dreams were just that, dreams, with made up places. C'est la vie. Astral projection may exist, but I sure ain't doin' it!
I'm a big fan of psychic powers, but I'm not convinced that they exist, and serve only as a smokescreen that is obscuring some of the truly impressive things that any single one of us is capable of with boring old empathy and insight.
The nightmares that seems so real you don't want to move for fear there really was an insane person with a knife standing on the other side of your bed?
I've never had a nightmare, as long as I can remember. My worst dreams are frustrating (trying to finish something, and it just never finishes, like the hellish tasks of Sisyphus, or the years I worked at the Post Office...). I've been shot and stabbed in more exciting dreams, but such things never seem to hurt my dream self, who continues doing whatever he's doing, unphased.
Have you ever been dozing off, only half-asleep, and realize you were dreaming while completely aware of what was happening around you?
Pretty much my entire scholastic and work life. I'm a daydreamer, but apparently a high-functioning one. More times than I can count, I've been in some far away place, only to notice that the classroom has gotten deathly quiet, and I focus my eyes to notice the professor looking expectant and the rest of the students looking anywhere but at the professor. I somehow rewind in my brain, find out what question was asked, provide the answer, and, occasionally, to my vast amusement, am praised for paying attention, but I'm usually already headed back to my happy place by that point...
So yeah, I never knew about his music until long after the fact, but it seems that Ronnie James Dio was singing about me half the time.
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For example when I dream I am in my house, it is different from my real house. It is mostly the same, but contains a different room layout and sometimes has extra rooms that I discover while exploring through it, opening doors.
I'll often walk through a doorway in a dream and be in a completely different house, halfway around the country.
Many dreams when I was younger involved a secret room full of neat stuff that only I could find. (I didn't exactly have a lot of toys as a kid, so it was probably wish fulfillment. There were years when I'd work an odd job after school, and between me and mom, we'd bring in $6000 for the year, so toys were not really at the top of the list.) Then I got older, and the last dream of that sort I had, the secret room still existed, but I couldn't fit into it anymore. Freaky, that I'd give myself a secret place full of wonderful things and then 'outgrow it' so textually!
Funny. This made me recall falling asleep during a film in Earth Sciences in high school. I woke at the end of the film and the teacher asked me a question immediately. I knew the answer somehow.
Or when you would see things your parents said weren't there?Spoiler:Everyone's brain is a pattern-recognition engine (some more efficient than others, and some *too* efficient, leading to all sorts of conspiratorial nonsense, as the individual sees patterns in unconnected things, and sets about to 'prove' what he's intuited).It's why we see a face in the moon, or canals in the surface of Mars, or images in clouds. And sometimes, a pattern of light and shadows looks like a person, because our brain is looking for meaning in something that is meaningless. I suspect that times of mental stress make us even more likely to misapprehend things (explaining why people are more likely to see 'ghosts' after a funeral, for instance), and our mind gets used to certain things. A shadow in grandpas favorite chair is translated for a second to look like grandpa, even if he's been gone for a month now. Every other time we've looked at that chair, the shadow in it *has* been grandpa, so it's completely understandable that our brain would 'fill in the blank' with what is supposed to be there, grandpa.
It seems I had a great fear of wolves when I was younger, though I would still ask my mom to read 'The Three Little Pigs'. The one image/ghost/whatever I can clearly remember is an artic fox that appeared in my room one night. I slept peacefully that night.
Not to turn this into a religous discussion or anything, but has anyone asked their deity(or whatever you worship) a question and recieved an answer in your dream(s)?
Or when you would see things your parents said weren't there?** spoiler omitted **
It seems I had a great fear of wolves when I was younger, though I would still ask my mom to read 'The Three Little Pigs'. The one image/ghost/whatever I can clearly remember is an artic fox that appeared in my room one night. I slept peacefully that night.
I used to see skeletons. Awake or in dreams.
I recently had a dream where I saved a kid from his burning house.
When I tried to find the kid a place to stay, no one would take him in for even a little while. I turn to see the kid smiling at me and holding a stuffed animal and I get the feeling he thinks everything was going to be alright. I'll admit it, when I woke up I learned I'd been crying.
