Dreams?

[Hate Is Art]

What are they?

They seem like the most bizzare and strange thing when you really get down to it, strange visions in your head when you sleep?

So what causes dreams?

[monkeydust]

I'm not really an expert, but what causes dreams seems to be a need for mind stimulation during a time when nothing conscious is going on. You could say that your mind gets bored. Similar things happen - hallucinations and so on - to people who are awake but have experienced sensory deprivation.

The content of your dreams is supposedly determined by your unconcious mind. In a way, their function might be to "sort out" all that stuff back there that's accumulated in the day.

I don't pretend to be really too sure on this issue.

[Noah]

Hey,

Dreams are in Focus 2. Focus 2 is a form of attention when you're relaxed and sleeping you don't have no control over it, it's your subconcious, sometimes very random things. When you remember your dreams it means you were asleep but you still had a little focus and so therefore recorded what you dreamt. If you can work on that focus you can have a lucid dream but let's not make things complicated :P

[Hate Is Art]

I dunno if anyone has any decent links to an essays on dreams?

I've been having some pretty strange dreams recently and it's been freaking me out. Like really weird. I would go into it, but none of you would understand or probably be that interested.

Can you train yourself not to dream? Or Control your dreams?

[monkeydust]

It's probably a little longer than an essay, but there's one of Oxford's Very Short Introductions on the subject of dreams. Just amazon search "dreams a very short introduction" and you should find it - they're about £7 each and 100 pages long.

You can't really control your dreams or make yourself not dream, as far as I know. The only influences upon them will be (1) what you do in the day, what's on your mind, and (2) whatever you've taken - something as simple as alcohol can affect the vividity of your dreams.

[Hate Is Art]

Thats what I was wondering. Recently I've been doing a lot more mind-altering drugs and I was thinking maybe that altered what my dreams were like. Bit weird really. I never used to be much of a dreamer but now I find myself having some amazingly beautiful weird and scary dreams. With really strange people from my past turning up in them.

Might look into that dream book soon, waiting for pay day to roll around though.

[monkeydust]

It could definitely have something to do with the drugs. It depends, of course, on what, and how much, you're doing. There's at least two reasons why drugs could cause your dreams to change: in the first place, they might simply alter your brain chemistry, in a way that's not necessarily going to affect your conscious thinking but might manifest in dreams; secondly, certain drugs, especially acid (if you're doing that) have a function of breaking down the boundaries between the unconscious and conscious mind, in such a way that could alter the kind of dreams you're having.

But it's weird. And it might have nothing to do with the drugs whatever. I've had periods in my life where I've not really had dreams, and others where I've had vivid and bizzare dreams, seemingly for no reason. I expect it could be potentially down to life changes, or something so simple as brain chemistry fluctuating as your brain physically develops (it won't stop till you're about 21 or so).

[Des]

some info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams

[Mujer Libre]

I've also heard, like monkeydust said, that dreams are a way for our subconscious to sort out things that have happened to us and may be unresolved. There must be an evolutionary explanation, just not sure what it is.
I know that for me, things that I've been thinking about often reappear in dreams, just very fragmented and in really weird situations.

I have a philosophy tutor who is a "dream collector." (He's rather eccentric) I think he's using them in his thesis or something...

[Fidelbrand]

1. Caused by perceptions formed during daytime.
2. Warnings and depictions of the future (?)
3. Show what you concerned the most.
4. and radiowaves (try to sleep with your cell phone or computer ON, and having it placed close to you when you sleep.)

[monkeydust]

I'd expand on no.4 to include almost ANYthing that's nearby you when your sleep and makes a sound. Listen to a particular story on the radio, and that might feature in your dream. People speaking nearby might influence it too. Almost anything that makes a sound.

[Comrade Chi]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2005, 12:08 AM

You can't really control your dreams or make yourself not dream, as far as I know.
Actually, I've been looking into a practive called Lucid Dreaming, which is actually very interesting. I haven't done much practicing yet, but I have been able, the last few nights, to realise that I was having a dream. I wake up as soon as I realise it, so it's kind of frustrating, but maybe there is some legitimacy to this and it will take more practice.

Here's a helpfull link. www.dreamviews.com

[violencia.Proletariat]

^^ i sometimes realise im in a dream as ill be doing someting ive never done before in the dream and ask myself what am i doing? but i wake up soon after that.

[Rasta Sapian]

dreams are very interesting in a subconscious type of way or reality. They can easily be forgotten and disregarded once you awake in the morning.

Deams may occur to be quite random and even supernatural at times. With a blend of farmiliar people and places combined with random people sometimes very distant in your conscious reality. Supernatural concequences and abilities may also be conscrewed into your subconscious thoughts, which appear to be quite real.

I beleive that once you are in a deep (lucid) dream your mind is storing relavent information into your memory that it wishes to use down the road for creative thoughts or for relivant ideas and plans. Reality and make beleive thoughts are often randomly joined together during the drifting and sifting of your subconscious mind, this may explain the wierd dreams you speak of.

As far as evolution goes I also beleive that dreaming in the subconscious state can give rise to a deeper connection for mankind and give rise to a more telepathic connection of the minds....... and can even forshadow future relations and scenario's, which may also inturn trigger the effect known as "de jah vu"

for more research on dreaming you may want to watch these films:

fight club, 12 monkeys, gattaca, matrix, butterfly effect, ect.

sweet dreams yall

[katie mccready]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20 2005, 12:03 PM
I'd expand on no.4 to include almost ANYthing that's nearby you when your sleep and makes a sound. Listen to a particular story on the radio, and that might feature in your dream. People speaking nearby might influence it too. Almost anything that makes a sound.
you cant realise your in a dream until you wake up. when your consciousness takes over. if you realise your in a dream youve allready had the dream and your awake.

[our_mutual_friend]

I LOVE dreams
I literally soar through them
Ive dreamt about killing people before and all kinds of strange things, but i LOVE them.
I believe most dreams are stray thoughts and memories
Others are like a personal novel and its all for you (unless you share it)
I mean, Ive had fantastic story ideas from my own dreams (even if I never acted on them)
I try to embrace my dreams as they are a fascinating side of me that only appers when Im off my guard.

Ever tried a dream dictionary? Very good. And even if its a load of rubbish at least it makes you smile afterwards! :D

[bcbm]

Originally posted by katie mccready+Nov 19 2005, 11:00 AM--> (katie mccready @ Nov 19 2005, 11:00 AM)
[email protected] 20 2005, 12:03 PM
I'd expand on no.4 to include almost ANYthing that's nearby you when your sleep and makes a sound. Listen to a particular story on the radio, and that might feature in your dream. People speaking nearby might influence it too. Almost anything that makes a sound.
you cant realise your in a dream until you wake up. when your consciousness takes over. if you realise your in a dream youve allready had the dream and your awake. [/b]
What about lucid dreaming?

[Janus]

Dreams are vivid visual and auditory expereiences that occur mainly during the rapid eye movement sleep stage. People typically have 4 or 5 dreams a night. Sometimes dreams seem to be difficult to distinguish from reality because the state of brain arousal during REM is close to the amount that occurs when you're awake. There are many different theories for the content of dreams such as Freud's unconscious motive theory. Some neurophysiologists believe that dreams are the results of random outbursts of nerve cell activity. Others believe that one reprocesses info. during this period in order to better remember it because protein synthesis occurs at a faster rate during this period. Therefore, one spends more time in REM sleep after learning dificult material and disruption of REM sleep can lead disrupt memory encoding for that information. However, there are some points that are universally agreed on. Dreams that occur most recently center on recent events as well and dreams are also modified by presleep activities. Furthermore, it is agreed that dreaming is a stress relieval valve and sleep deprivation will cause cognitive impairment. In conclusion, dreams reflect the personality, interests, concerns, emotions, and experiences of the dreamer.

[tebvie]

that's pretty interesting. How do you explain dreams though that you know have no connection to anything that happened to you through out the day or just don't make sense?

[Arca]

My dreams are very vague, if I have them at all. I hate dreams, which is good because I haven't had one in years (ones that I experience, i.e. see/hear).
My computer is permanently on -

[[email protected] ~]$ uptime
20:35:02 up 6 days, 22:47, 4 users, load average: 0.45, 0.44, 0.61
(little low because I had some trouble with X) and I usually hear all kinds of sound from it. My mum was rattling something in the room next to me long after I'd fallen asleep and it never affected me. It's great.

I like my sleep undisturbed.

[Janus]

[QUOTE]How do you explain dreams though that you know have no connection to anything that happened to you through out the day or just don't make sense?

This ties in with Freud's theory of dreams. Although your dream doesn't seem to make sense, it actually reflects your motives-motives of which you may not be unconsciously aware. In other words, your hidden, unconscious thoughts were expressed indirectly through your dreams. For example, someone who isn't consciously aware of hostile feelings toward someone else may dream about murdering her. However, in the dream, these hostile feelings are censored and become symbolic. As a result, the latent content (doing away with the person) manifest itself into surface content such as seeing the person off at a train station. Therefore, according to Freud, dreams may not make sense to you consciously but beneath it lies an unconscious and hidden motive. Keep in mind that this is Freud's theory and that much of Freud's ideas have been disproved and have met widespread opposition. Since this theory deals with the conscious, it has a limited amount of research backing it up.

[MrT]

Originally posted by Rasta [email protected] 9 2005, 04:42 PM
As far as evolution goes I also beleive that dreaming in the subconscious state can give rise to a deeper connection for mankind and give rise to a more telepathic connection of the minds....... and can even forshadow future relations and scenario's, which may also inturn trigger the effect known as "de jah vu"


I heard "De jah vu" is when your brain doesnt get enough oxygen.
I do seem to be breathing very lightly when I feel de jah vu, after i heard that^ anyway.

[Xvall]

In all likelyhood it's just an anomaly in memory, or possibly immediately forgetting something after experiencing it, and then feeling like you've been in the situtation before. (Because you were a few milliseconds ago)

[TheComrade]

I sometimes have very vivid dreams - and nightmares - others are very vauge, almost as if I am in control of them. I sometimes think I am awake, that I am tailoring my dreams to my desires (take that as you will...)

[Goatse]

Similar things happen - hallucinations and so on - to people who are awake but have experienced sensory deprivation.

I'm unsure if this is what you meant but once I was out camping with my friends. Everyone we exhausted and fell asleep, and the girl next to me somehow pulled all my blankets off me and rolled on top of them. I sat in the cold for seven hours, and it was getting really damp. I was absolutely fucking exhausted and I started sort of dreaming while I was awake. I started seeing the tent dissolve etc.

Or is that completely different from what you meant?

[Xvall]

I believe that is somewhat of the case. Sensory depravation is usually far more extreme though; minimal (if any) clothing, usually in some body of water; no light, noise, or temperature other than something average.

[Commie Rat]

De javu (sp?) is when the elctrons in your nural (sp) strands fire twice, a werid anomaly that is theroiesed to be linked to higher intelligence (but highly discredited)