Not sure if anyone has talked about this or thought of dreams in this manner before but here goes:

Ever had a dream that is extremely weird and you have no idea how you could have thought of such a thing?

My theory is that dreams are a construct of our memories and knowledge all rolled into one. So how can we dream things that have never been thought of before?

I'm beginning to think that these dreams could be from experiences in past lives and the memories are stored somehow within our brain (remember we don't use all our brain).

Just an 'out there' theory that I was thinking about and thought I should share.

Aren't dreams an indication of an active imagination? When we are asleep is the brain asleep as well? If it is what does that mean? Does the brain stop all thought processes.

Dreams may just be our subconcious projecting images into our minds.
Dreams may also be our fears, hopes for the future or just our imagination.

Originally posted by DAF

When we are asleep is the brain asleep as well?

LoL...Silly Goose, If Our Brains Slept While WE Did, We'd Never Wake Up. Think About It.

Your Heart Doesn't Stop Pumping...You Don't Stop Breathing, Do You? No. Sleeping Is Basically Just Resting Your Concious Mind And Relaxing Your Body While Your Eyes Are Closed, For A Set Period Of Time. Who Knows Exactly What Dreams Are Made Of? I Just Believe It's A Concoction Of Memories, Fears, Hopes, Thoughts, And Absract Subconcious "STUFF" Rolled Into One...There's Just Some Things You Just CAN'T Put The Stamp Of "100% Logical" On..."Dreaming" Is One Of Them.

"So how can we dream things that have never been thought of before?"

But we are able to imagine things we have never thought of before. Our brain is capable of creating original ideas and thoughts.

NaCirema_NY i knew that our brains dont sleep i was just rying to make a point that we still have brain activity.

And maybe we can we can imagine things never thought of before because that is what is called imagination, that creative side of the brain.

Dreams are very complex. there are obviously various ways it works.
once you fall asleep your body is resting and your brain functions as well (Except for the primary ones causing you to keep breathing and blood pumping of course).

your soul is not asleep and neither is that part of the brain, nor the part of the brain. at that time your soul leaves the body and goes to the astral plains. your own personal spot there. here the "dreaming" begins, the astral plains consist of energies which can be manipulated to create anything...that said

1. your subconcious, guides will form the "dream" for you. these are ment to give you deeper messages from within yourself and about yourself. these messages usually come in symbolism during the dreams. difficult to decypher but worth it.

2. since time at the astral plains works different it is possible to dream about fragments of possible futures. this is how people sometimes know when something happens before it actually took place

3. lucide dreaming is when you know that you're "dreaming" and you can take control. wake up and take your soul of automatic so the speak and move it yourself. you can then manipulate the astral energies yourself and do anything you wish there. this is one of the first steps to astral projecting btw

4. then there are the regular "dreams". nothing much happens and you just enjoy and relax.


during all that time your body and soul will stay connected so you never have to worry about not finding your way back. when you wake up in the middle of a "dream", and you wish to continue it, just keep laying in the same position without moving and fall asleep again. your dreams will continue where it left.

the reason you can think of new things is because during your dreamstate it's easier to get the right vibration to enter the akashic records unconsiously. so you can get suggestions for new ideas there without even knowing it.

same way einstein made his discovery. he was working on his research so intensely and then when he was about to give up he reached the right vibrational level and gotten the last push he needed from the Akashic. same way it works for loads of people.

so it's more a combination of human imagination and getting pieces of input for new insights from elsewhere.

those are the basic dreams, but there are a lot more.

[edit on 18-8-2005 by Enyalius]

To a certain degree, they show the future. This morning I dreamt my school report came. I got four As: latin, geography (both which I don't do) acn't remember other subjects, three Cs in the sciences and two Bs for something. This morning my mum found my report and I got :
Biology
Chemistry:C
Physics:C
Maths:A
English:B
French:B
Music:B
Religion:A
History:B

Not the best report, as I want to continue with physics, although it's enough to get me into being an officer with the Royal Marines.

I believe some dreams are the product of our subconscious mind trying to deal with what information we were unwilling to deal with at the conscious level.

I believe some dreams are the product of our brains tapping into parts of the brain that seldomly surface to the conscious level.

From the work of Stewart Swrrdlow, an expert on the topic of Mind-Control and programming, as well as hyperspace he states that whilst in the sleep state, our minds go into a level called hyperspace, which is the level of existance that eminates from the mind of god. Because our brains are not made to conciously decipher hyperspace (as it consists of tone, colour and symbols) when we dream the left brain is trying to interprit these messages and puts it into a pictogram form before we wake.

Have you ever woken and for a split second realised you know everything there is to know about everything, then all of a sudden that dissapears? Thats because the logical/female/left brain kicks in and tries to put logic behind it.

Dreams can be interpreted, because certain pictograms mean certain things in hyperspace.

You can have many types of dreams, from prophetic, to lucid, to programming dreams, the latter i find the most intriguing as programming dreams gives indiciations to what types of programs you have within your matrix if you happen to be a specifically programmed individual.

Hopes this helps.

All the best
Merger

I have a question. Do people who have been blind since birth dream and if they do what do they see in there dreams? Do they see images or is it perhaps just sound.

Merger, your absolutely right.
This happened to me.
I woke, and in that instant i knew i knew something i shouldnt. I remember it a plain as day.
In the millisecond i realised this my bedroom was filled with an awful screaming. I panicked. Checked my wife, ran around the house and checked the kids. Nothing.
At this point i realised i had forgotten what i knew when i awoke.
Is it possible that some force realised i had remembered and distracted me into forgetting.
Question.

Well, dreams could be a connection with the world on the other side, or it could be the mind being able to conjure up new things. Either way, I had someone - I believe it was on this forum - that we weren't capable of creating anything new; that the mind builds upon previous knowledge.

I think that is a lot of bologna. In fact, if this were true, we wouldn't be able to progress and come up with anything new from the beginning of time. Their is such a thing as inspiration - whether it be divine or from somewhere else - but we do bring forth stuff that did not originate from our own understanding. Eureka!

I don't really come up with any idea that is new in my dreams but I certainly experience things I cannot do in real life. I do however, come up with things in my conscious state, that are original, in that I had no knowledge of them before and it just hits you without any other input or prodding.

Jehova620,

Possibly, the powers that be have kick ass technology, and perhaps used technology such as ELF to wipe those thoughts as you woke, but more than likely, your left brain tried to decypher what came up and thought 'nah, won't hold this as a memory' and discarded it.

All the best
Merger

You're brain's more active when you sleep than when you watch TV.
I don't think dreams are from past lives. When I was 9 I had a dream of being stabbed with giant pins and being teased, I don't see how that could've happaned in real life.

I don't know what dreams are, but I find it interesting that dreams create their own reality. Last night I dreamed that I was a pilot in some kind of battle in orbit above the Earth. In my dream, I knew, as a matter of course, that I was a pilot and that I had always been a pilot and that my mission was to protect the planet. When I woke, I found it interesting that my dream was able to convince me that I was a wholly and completely different person, with different beliefs, memories and personality. It had fabricated a reality that was, for the duration of the dream, my primary reality.

I also find pain in dreams interesting. I have often dreamed of being shot or stabbed. Once I was stabbed in the arm in my dream and I felt the pain go through my arm into my shoulder and chest. Now, in the dream, I don't really have a physical body. There are no nerves, no impulses, no muscles and therefore there should be no pain. The conclusion that I reached was that your physical body must act on the situations in your dreams, sending pain signals when you are hurt, for example. How else could you experience the physical sensation of pain in what is essentially a non-corporeal state? After all, even if you appear to be on a battlefield, or at your childhood school, you really aren't anywhere. You are, in reality, in your own mind. I am aware that your body is essentially paralysed during sleep, to stop you from acting out your dreams. But do certain physical processes, such as the transmission of pain signals, actually complement what is happening in your dream? Any thoughts?

Based on the theory of a Holographic Universe, dreams might be your unconscious mind tapping back into the 'human energy field' which in simple terms contains all human memories and experiences. Dreams could then be forming based on information from your memories and memories from that field.