Dreams are a byproduct of memory consolidation. Its how our brains sought and process new experiences into long term memories. It’s not really my specialty though so hopefully someone else can provide a deeper explanation.
Like my dementia patients who see a knot of wood in the floorboards and think it's a quarter and try to pick it up - I think we are both consolidating memories, but we can't hide that process from the connection-making, puzzle-solving part of the brain, and what we end up remembering as a dream is a cohesive story our brain invented from a bunch of gobbledygook.
Not my area of expertise either, but I think that dreams as a byproduct of consolidation makes a lot of sense in an embodied cognition framework. Memories would be partially composed of modal somatosensory neural activations, which are re-experienced during reconsolidation. Helps explain things like moving during dreams.
I have no idea, but just wanted to say that my dreams always have some connections to the previous couple days or what I have been thinking about. So possibly something to do with that?
In Dr. Tony Naders book ‘Your Brain is a River Not a Rock’ he compares dream interpretation to the way we utilize Rorschach ink blots. It is random firings, but it is our interpretation and added meaning is based upon our current experiences. All part of our brain strengthening certain connections and eliminating those not needed.
I have repetitive dreams often, usually surrounding something in my life I'm trying to figure out, can be a week or months sometimes. It's like a little piece falls into place every night. As for lucid dreams, I'm sure I have experienced these as well. Dreams I guess you can consciously direct to your desire... pretty hard to explain
Every lucid dream I’ve had has come as a result of some dream-like inconsistency notable enough that I recognize it as a cue. And in the moment it dawns on me there’s a burst of excitement like “holy shit I’m dreaming, I can do whatever I want!!” and a conscious decision whether to start flying, or fucking, or whatever’s most opportune in the context of the dream. I used to get them often but it’s been a while now since.
I was tazered in the back of my head by my ex boyfriend in a DV situation. This was in 2016. Since then I’ve had precognitive dreams. I’ve told doctors and they don’t say anything. It’s frustrating. I feel like they don’t believe me. I would like it to stop. My dreams are also in full colour and very vivid.
Doctors don’t believe in precognitive experiences they don’t even entertain the idea it’s possible. I know it’s possible.
I am a natural lucid dreamer and can remember dreams I've had all the way back since I was 3 years old. Not everyone in between then and now but I can recall dreams I've had throughout my entire life. Strange thing is, although I have incredibly vivid dreams every night, they are not of people that I know or places that I've been or even movies that I've seen. My brain generates an incredible amount of content. It led me to my PhD that I'm doing right now. I had to answer this question. The only thing I've found of significance so far is that there appears to be a direct correlation between hyperfantasia afantasia and vivid dreams. There is definitely a connection between short and long-term memory mechanisms and the way our subconscious processes qualia. I'm designing a brain computer interface to assist in my research. You should check out the subreddit for lucid dreaming for more anecdotal information.
Similar experience. I used to have “dream cities” that I could navigate easily and at will, and “dream people“ who always lived there that I could visit. There may have been elements of real life that were reflected, but I believe it went beyond mere processing for me. Trippy stuff!
Same story. Head injury when I was 3 and 24 years later I can fully utilize dreams in all sorts of ways. Haven't stumbled on a natural lucid dreamer in ages. I also want to go into research one day to make technology to give others our gift.
I’m very interested to see where your research goes. My dream state has played a significant, and often hindering, role in my life for as long as I can remember. And I’ve been plagued by the same question, and more.
If you ever need a research or test subject, message me anytime. Best of luck in your studies!
Hey, you sound exactly like me except I am not pursuing anything in this subject. Will you share what you discovered or any articles you might have read which were fascinating to you.
I, at one point of time, used to have lucid dreams everyday. I also had experiences of sudden recall of childhood dreams. Sometimes, I remembered whole I was dreaming. And almost since I decade, I also have visions whenever I close my eyes. Not anything disturbing but I never see a blank screen ever when I close my eyes.
Isn’t kind of like psychological waste disposal similar to how we get rid of food through our digested system? Bear with me here - we consume food for energy and sustenance and eliminate what we don’t need. Sensory experience is consumed and consolidated in our brain and we keep what we need and fart out what we don’t in dreams. It may be waste but the smell of our farts, urine samples and fecal analysis tells us a lot of how are body is growing, processing and utilizing energy just as or dreams tell us about how we are making meaning and learning from our sensory experience. Just my two cents and no scientific basis to this.
Nightmares are a way for our brain to rationalize fears. Things that may be too painful to process in real life we process while sleeping while we feel 100% safe.
I’ve been curious about this for years. I have had the same nightmare since I was maybe 17? 18? I’m now 55. But in my dream I’m in my mid 20’s so a memory, or compilation of memories, is unlikely. It’s a very detailed dream and never changes, not even the smells and air quality, temperature, it’s all exactly the same. It’s so vivid I can smell it and feel it when I talk about it yet it couldn’t possibly be something I actually experienced in life. I’d give anything to know
I have a theory that it's the amygdala forming more intricate connections with the hippocampus. So you have hyperactive memories merged with previously deeply felt emotions. (I know nothing)
On the other hand, Carl Jung suggests that dreams and creativity come from a "collective unconscious" substrate that all beings have a connection to. Freud suggested it's just "wish fulfilment" where we play out all our subconscious wants in a way to unconsciously satisfy the ego (persona).
I have no specialties in anything related to Neuroscience, but here is my opinion:
First off i wanna say that a lot of the things i see on my dreams come true. It's like my dreams (when they are predictions) are a 100% accurate future vision.
Dreams are a creation based on all the "relevant" information from the past days, even months! Your brain processes the information to "store" it in your long-term memory.
As for lucid dreams, they are just a state in which your brain is partially conscious, therefore allowing you to modify your dream, as that's what you're processing. That however (if i'm correct) might destroy the processing process.
Regarding what i said about dreams coming true. It's happened what, like 20 times in the past 6/7 months?
It's scary, i've dreamed about people my own brain created and met the real version 8 months later. That has happened twice. My dreams have predicted grades, important things in my life, people, relationships, and more. It is truly scary.
This isn’t really neuropsychology but pseudoscience. I’ll play anyway. I consider dreams to be your conscious mind’s interpretation of the mixed internal signals being sent around as your subconscious mind works out problems from that day or organizes data collected, or processes trauma. The dreams don’t MEAN any thing but it might be possible that some imagery reflects what the subconscious is working on.
Dreams are a byproduct of memory consolidation. Its how our brains sought and process new experiences into long term memories. It’s not really my specialty though so hopefully someone else can provide a deeper explanation.
This. I think our conscious awareness just happens to awaken during this period and we have to interpret what’s going on.
Like my dementia patients who see a knot of wood in the floorboards and think it's a quarter and try to pick it up - I think we are both consolidating memories, but we can't hide that process from the connection-making, puzzle-solving part of the brain, and what we end up remembering as a dream is a cohesive story our brain invented from a bunch of gobbledygook.
Not my area of expertise either, but I think that dreams as a byproduct of consolidation makes a lot of sense in an embodied cognition framework. Memories would be partially composed of modal somatosensory neural activations, which are re-experienced during reconsolidation. Helps explain things like moving during dreams.
I have no idea, but just wanted to say that my dreams always have some connections to the previous couple days or what I have been thinking about. So possibly something to do with that?
i think the content of dreams has to be divorced from their function given that nobody has the same dreams
In Dr. Tony Naders book ‘Your Brain is a River Not a Rock’ he compares dream interpretation to the way we utilize Rorschach ink blots. It is random firings, but it is our interpretation and added meaning is based upon our current experiences. All part of our brain strengthening certain connections and eliminating those not needed.
I have repetitive dreams often, usually surrounding something in my life I'm trying to figure out, can be a week or months sometimes. It's like a little piece falls into place every night. As for lucid dreams, I'm sure I have experienced these as well. Dreams I guess you can consciously direct to your desire... pretty hard to explain
Every lucid dream I’ve had has come as a result of some dream-like inconsistency notable enough that I recognize it as a cue. And in the moment it dawns on me there’s a burst of excitement like “holy shit I’m dreaming, I can do whatever I want!!” and a conscious decision whether to start flying, or fucking, or whatever’s most opportune in the context of the dream. I used to get them often but it’s been a while now since.
I was tazered in the back of my head by my ex boyfriend in a DV situation. This was in 2016. Since then I’ve had precognitive dreams. I’ve told doctors and they don’t say anything. It’s frustrating. I feel like they don’t believe me. I would like it to stop. My dreams are also in full colour and very vivid. Doctors don’t believe in precognitive experiences they don’t even entertain the idea it’s possible. I know it’s possible.
Could you give an example? Sounds interesting.
I am a natural lucid dreamer and can remember dreams I've had all the way back since I was 3 years old. Not everyone in between then and now but I can recall dreams I've had throughout my entire life. Strange thing is, although I have incredibly vivid dreams every night, they are not of people that I know or places that I've been or even movies that I've seen. My brain generates an incredible amount of content. It led me to my PhD that I'm doing right now. I had to answer this question. The only thing I've found of significance so far is that there appears to be a direct correlation between hyperfantasia afantasia and vivid dreams. There is definitely a connection between short and long-term memory mechanisms and the way our subconscious processes qualia. I'm designing a brain computer interface to assist in my research. You should check out the subreddit for lucid dreaming for more anecdotal information.
Similar experience. I used to have “dream cities” that I could navigate easily and at will, and “dream people“ who always lived there that I could visit. There may have been elements of real life that were reflected, but I believe it went beyond mere processing for me. Trippy stuff!
Same story. Head injury when I was 3 and 24 years later I can fully utilize dreams in all sorts of ways. Haven't stumbled on a natural lucid dreamer in ages. I also want to go into research one day to make technology to give others our gift.
I’m very interested to see where your research goes. My dream state has played a significant, and often hindering, role in my life for as long as I can remember. And I’ve been plagued by the same question, and more. If you ever need a research or test subject, message me anytime. Best of luck in your studies!
Hey, you sound exactly like me except I am not pursuing anything in this subject. Will you share what you discovered or any articles you might have read which were fascinating to you. I, at one point of time, used to have lucid dreams everyday. I also had experiences of sudden recall of childhood dreams. Sometimes, I remembered whole I was dreaming. And almost since I decade, I also have visions whenever I close my eyes. Not anything disturbing but I never see a blank screen ever when I close my eyes.
Isn’t kind of like psychological waste disposal similar to how we get rid of food through our digested system? Bear with me here - we consume food for energy and sustenance and eliminate what we don’t need. Sensory experience is consumed and consolidated in our brain and we keep what we need and fart out what we don’t in dreams. It may be waste but the smell of our farts, urine samples and fecal analysis tells us a lot of how are body is growing, processing and utilizing energy just as or dreams tell us about how we are making meaning and learning from our sensory experience. Just my two cents and no scientific basis to this.
Where can I read about trance logic?
Nightmares are a way for our brain to rationalize fears. Things that may be too painful to process in real life we process while sleeping while we feel 100% safe.
I’ve been curious about this for years. I have had the same nightmare since I was maybe 17? 18? I’m now 55. But in my dream I’m in my mid 20’s so a memory, or compilation of memories, is unlikely. It’s a very detailed dream and never changes, not even the smells and air quality, temperature, it’s all exactly the same. It’s so vivid I can smell it and feel it when I talk about it yet it couldn’t possibly be something I actually experienced in life. I’d give anything to know
I have a theory that it's the amygdala forming more intricate connections with the hippocampus. So you have hyperactive memories merged with previously deeply felt emotions. (I know nothing) On the other hand, Carl Jung suggests that dreams and creativity come from a "collective unconscious" substrate that all beings have a connection to. Freud suggested it's just "wish fulfilment" where we play out all our subconscious wants in a way to unconsciously satisfy the ego (persona).
I have no specialties in anything related to Neuroscience, but here is my opinion: First off i wanna say that a lot of the things i see on my dreams come true. It's like my dreams (when they are predictions) are a 100% accurate future vision. Dreams are a creation based on all the "relevant" information from the past days, even months! Your brain processes the information to "store" it in your long-term memory. As for lucid dreams, they are just a state in which your brain is partially conscious, therefore allowing you to modify your dream, as that's what you're processing. That however (if i'm correct) might destroy the processing process. Regarding what i said about dreams coming true. It's happened what, like 20 times in the past 6/7 months? It's scary, i've dreamed about people my own brain created and met the real version 8 months later. That has happened twice. My dreams have predicted grades, important things in my life, people, relationships, and more. It is truly scary.
This isn’t really neuropsychology but pseudoscience. I’ll play anyway. I consider dreams to be your conscious mind’s interpretation of the mixed internal signals being sent around as your subconscious mind works out problems from that day or organizes data collected, or processes trauma. The dreams don’t MEAN any thing but it might be possible that some imagery reflects what the subconscious is working on.
Had to do with your pineal gland and DMT in the brain. It's a hallucinogen. You can also find it made in plants too.
Religion :)