I've spoken near fluent Japanese and French in dreams, debugged code that I had been working on and gotten stuck...

I have 2 theories on this.

1) We just seem smarter to ourselves
2) We really are opening up more of our minds or tapping into something else

Was I really having a real japanese conversation with Pat Morita (don't ask)? It sure seemed like it. Or were we both speaking absolute gibberish and I only understood because my brain was basically having a conversation with itself anyway? This dream came at a time when I was ambitiously self-learning the language, so it's hard to say either way.

When I figured out the solution to my problem when writing a program, I didn't remember what the solution was when I woke up. Would it have actually worked? Did it at least give me inspiration enough to figure it out later?

They're different modes of brain work.

Awake, we solve problems consciously, with sub-conscious intelligence and knowledge acquired up to the previous night's sleep

Asleep, we open up communication between the conscious and subconscious and the previous day's information updates the subconscious.

If going to sleep we ponder a problem acquired the previous day, sleep will update the information in the subconscious (and probably conscious and subconscious communicate over said problem) and the next morning we can go back to that problem with more information in the subconscious. Hence we sometimes 'sleep' on it.

I don't know if this makes us more intelligent asleep or not, we can hardly do an IQ test asleep, but I think it's part of the process of understanding. I think awake intelligence is 'different' to asleep intelligence, qualitatively.

Interesting topic but it seems there isnt much logic in the theories being suggested.

Firslty, it is impossible to have knowledge of something you have never heard of before. You cannot just create real world knowledge in your head and assume it is real. Theories being suggested that somehow our unconcious brian knows things that we could never know are simply not valid. Our unconcious can only store what we have experienced through our concious mind.

Secondly, the medical jargon you were hearing and understanding in your dream would have been medical words you had unwittingly picked up throughout your life. Pair this with someone who has a history of lucid dreaming, where dreams seem as real as everyday life and you get what appears to be understanding of actual medical procedures. I would advise you to read up on lucid dreaming to understand this more.

I'm not trying to say the human brain isn't a remarkable thing, but the extent of our knowledge will always be relative to our real world experience. We cannot speak another language if we have never spent time studying it. We cannot know the processes of a medical procedure if we have never experienced it.

Skepticsnake.

Interesting topic but it seems there isnt much logic in the theories being suggested.

Firslty, it is impossible to have knowledge of something you have never heard of before. You cannot just create real world knowledge in your head and assume it is real. Theories being suggested that somehow our unconcious brian knows things that we could never know are simply not valid. Our unconcious can only store what we have experienced through our concious mind.

Secondly, the medical jargon you were hearing and understanding in your dream would have been medical words you had unwittingly picked up throughout your life. Pair this with someone who has a history of lucid dreaming, where dreams seem as real as everyday life and you get what appears to be understanding of actual medical procedures. I would advise you to read up on lucid dreaming to understand this more.

I'm not trying to say the human brain isn't a remarkable thing, but the extent of our knowledge will always be relative to our real world experience. We cannot speak another language if we have never spent time studying it. We cannot know the processes of a medical procedure if we have never experienced it.

Originally posted by skepticsnake
Firslty, it is impossible to have knowledge of something you have never heard of before. You cannot just create real world knowledge in your head and assume it is real. Theories being suggested that somehow our unconcious brian knows things that we could never know are simply not valid. Our unconcious can only store what we have experienced through our concious mind.

I'll play Devil's advocate with you, then.

How can you explain young geniuses, that at the age of 5, have an almost full understanding of complex Math, Science, and the worlds history? I'm pretty sure they weren't taught this through cartoons or even their parents. Somehow, they just "know" it, and while still having to go through school to be tested to make sure, they still knew it before hand. While it normally takes us humans 21-26 years to finish up through college, it takes them 10-12. And the only reason it takes them that long, is to make sure they are tested fully, so they can get the right degrees and such.

[edit on 26-11-2008 by TravisT]

Originally posted by TravisT

Originally posted by skepticsnake
Firslty, it is impossible to have knowledge of something you have never heard of before. You cannot just create real world knowledge in your head and assume it is real. Theories being suggested that somehow our unconcious brian knows things that we could never know are simply not valid. Our unconcious can only store what we have experienced through our concious mind.

I'll play Devil's advocate with you, then.

How can you explain young geniuses, that at the age of 5, have an almost full understanding of complex Math, Science, and the worlds history? I'm pretty sure they weren't taught this through cartoons or even their parents. Somehow, they just "know" it, and while still having to go through school to be tested to make sure, they still knew it before hand. While it normally takes us humans 21-26 years to finish up through college, it takes them 10-12. And the only reason it takes them that long, is to make sure they are tested fully, so they can get the right degrees and such.

[edit on 26-11-2008 by TravisT]

Ok, so wheres the evidence of these '5 year old geniuses'? You think they just somehow inherited that knowledge my magic?

If you do a bit of research on these wonder kids or whatever the meda call them i'll bet anything that you'll find they all come from wealthy middle upper class families with well educated parents. The truth is that they are not born with knowledge, but they are exposed to external conditions that encourage learning.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to have knowledge of something that you have never been exposed to.

I have had dreams about things I didn't understand, or know about, at the time, and even continued to converse with myself about the subject after I was awake. Later, when I discovered these things in reality, the dream discussions made sense.

I've also read about some considered geniuses who used lucid dreaming techniques to solve complex problems.

I believe the answer is not in the brain, which, baring defect, is pretty much the same in all of us, but rather in the mind of thought which can be obstructed. I do believe that in dreams the barriers erected can be removed or bypassed, but seem to return with consciousness. Why is an intriguing mystery.

Originally posted by skepticsnake
Firslty, it is impossible to have knowledge of something you have never heard of before.

I wonder if Tesla, Newton or Einstein knew that, or anyone else who ever figured anything out for themselves. I think it is very possible to deduce things logically for yourself based upon what other experiences or information you know to relate it, whether you want to call it intuition or whatever. Many things have occurred to me that I had never heard before and wondered about, that I would later corroborate as true. I also believe many things that I have "seen" intuitively that I have yet to see anyone else corroborate in any way, but I find my reasoning nonetheless solid even if I can't clearly articulate it. The information just strikes you as "common sense" based on other things you know or highly suspect in "coincidence" together.

We cannot speak another language if we have never spent time studying it.

I have actually read many reasonably credible reports of this throughout my life, so I am not so certain of even this. I have also read of people being miraculously able to understand foreign languages that they have never studied, even if only briefly. Strange things sometimes happen. I am not one to ignore exceptions to rules and dismiss them outright. Those exceptions may be opportunities to better understand little-known aspects of your universe.

I think this is really interesting. I have never really looked into it but I have wondered the same thing.
When I was younger I used to have conversations with people in my dreams, very vivid, and I could always remember the dream perfectly.
After I woke I would have to look up some words that I did not know the definition of that were spoken in my dreams (spoken by myself as well as others in my dream), as well as sometimes having to open an encyclopedia to look up subject matters that were discussed.
It still hapens every so often, but not so much, probably because I'm older and a bit more educated.

So I guesse I do beleive that we dream with more intelligence.
I've never really talked about it or realized other people have the same experiences.

I actually agree with the notion that we can be far more intellectual in the sleeping stage.I had read a book on the subconscious mind in which it was written that while sleeping,dreaming the subconscious mind is active and can solve and understand problems the conscious mind couldn't imagine of doing.
There were numerous examples of inventors giving up on their gadgets until they got a solution to their problem in their dreams.
I do believe that dreams are an untapped resource of higher intelligence.

All I can attest to is my own experiences with dreams.

First time it happened I was a playing Super Mario Brothers 3. In real life there was 1 part in the game at the last stage I could never get passed and die every single time. I had a dream about how to pass the stage and what I was doing wrong. I of course woke up right away went straight to the game and passed it using the technique I dreamed about.

However at the same time I had a dream I was a James Bond type spy and was in a shoot out by some building in Egypt and killed every single attacker with a pistol and all 1 hit kills. Now I'm not about to put myself in that situation and see what happens sense I've never been in a situation like that before.

I've dreamed about quite a few things that in reality could be possible and when gotten the chance checked out how accurate they were. Normally I have about a 50/50 chance it will work or my dream was flawed because it failed to take into account other factors. Oddly enough the other factors I would determine as soon as I awoke and realize the dream was flawed.

I believe if you expose enough of your real life to one area of study your dreams can work out problems for you in that area, however if you have no experiance in that area chances are you will fail.

To take this story a little further, keeping in mind the fact that I, in no way claim to be an expert in dreams, their meaning, etc but I do know that our conscious and subconscious minds may not always be in sync from moment to moment and sometimes dreams bridge a gap of missing information.

Our senses deliver all sounds, all smells, all sights in the field of vision, all tactile sensations, etc to our brains and our subconscious mind then processes this information to our conscious mind. However, we do not process all of this information to our conscious mind because it is simply too much information and requires some filtering. This is to say that when we open a door and look into a room, we only notice the things that are relevant to us at the time we open the door and look in, and everything else is dismissed, even though we actually see everything. Occasionally, the subconscious mind misses the relevance of something perceived by the senses and attempts to reconcile in dreams. At times, the grandeur or sophistication of a subject, previously unrealized or simply forgotten may be reveled or remembered in a dream and thus an illusion of being of greater intellect in the dream than while awake.

Example, I took French as a foreign language in seventh grade and have never really used it in life so I have forgotten the lessons. I don’t speak French as an adult and if a French speaking person starts talking to me, I take on that glazed look and they quickly recognize, “no, he does not speak French”, but a friend was looking at a website that had the line “la chant petit, ah, le chat est petit”, in which she said “that means something about little houses, with little boxes”. I thought nothing of it at the time, but that night, I dreamed about a tiny black cat, drinking a glass of milk and singing about Napoleon. I had remembered enough of my seventh grade French lessons in my dream that I understood the line from the previous day actually meant “a little song, a little cat”. So, to clarify, I didn’t learn French in my sleep, but I did recall a French lesson from my childhood in my dream that helped me to correctly translate something from the previous day that had been overlooked by my conscious mind but obviously flagged by my subconscious mind.

Just thought I’d share.

One of the best dreams I have ever had was last year when I got sick.

I had a dream that I was a small ball of light. Accompanying me was another ball of light but this one seemed slightly more blue or grey in colour.

I floated into 3 human people's beings in total, each time I could hear their thoughts and physically move them as I was in their bodies influencing their actions and thoughts. All of my influences were from the intention of positivity so my presence alone was beneficial for whomever I was inside / part of.

The overall experience was amazing as I travelled from person to person very briefly experiencing that own persons senses and feelings.

All the while the person whom I was experiencing had no idea of my presence to my knowledge. They were just receiving the beneficial effects of my intentions.



Another example would be 360 degree vision. This is something I have experienced in a dream but have yet to experience in real life unfortunately.




Sleeping itself is very weird. The fact that we need to be unconscious for half of our life otherwise we become disoriented and unable to function.
Why do we sleep? Why do we need to sleep?

Why do we dream? Why do we come back from this unconscious 8 hour a day knock out with tales of insanity that make complete sense at the time.

The most ludicrous idea become as common as putting on your pants in the morning during our dreams.

Amazing.

Also someone mentioned how powerful your subconscious can be without you knowing. How many times have you looked at the clock before you went to bed, set your alarm, only to wake up one minute before it rings?

Your subconscious will store everything you ever precieve - all your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and everything else.

This is the only explanation for the "life flashback" or total recollection of your life described by so many Near Death experience survivors.

I think I'd actually have to go to bed sober one night to find out.

Might just try it though.

Interesting thought!



I have written some amazing tunes in my sleep, only by time i'm awake enought to turn on Reason on my computer and plug in my keyboard, I've lost it. I can remember thinking 'Wow - that was amazing' but can never get the sound in my dreams recorded.

I know there are overtones of Tartini's Devil's Trill Sonata here, but there is no divine intervention here, just my own musicality that I can't seem to express when awake.

It's soooo frustrating.

peace,

MGGG