Dreams - Is There Anything We Cannot Dream About?

hi all,

Wondered if there are any subjects that can never ever come into our dreams?

It is said by many that we cannot dream our own death, but I have had maybe 5 or 6 dreams where I have died, everything from Plane Crash, bus Crash to being Stabbed and squashed in doors!!

Is there anything that we are forbidden to dream about and WHY?

Just a thought, what about having a dream but watching it through somebody elses point of view with the ability to see your self and your actions. Any one ever had any of these ?

Technically if you can think it then you can dream it meaning that if there is anything we cannot dream about then we also cannot think about it therefore we can never answer this question!

Phew!

I don't know about 'forbidden',

but i will venture that most of our imaginings stem from the pre-existing reality we already experience/know.

If we have never experienced the 4th dimension, how can we really, meaningfully dream about it?

The notion of 'magic' or miracles is that events happen counter to our experienced expectations of reality.

I am sure in dreams & imagination we push the boundaries & create interesting & odd juxtapositions/connections,

But i am pretty sure we don't create whole fabrications that might reflect an entirely new alien universe of operation.
I don't think it would have any meaning to us. Perhaps it wouldn't even register in our brains.

reply to post by AG123


I can recall a few dreams from when I was under 5 very vividly, and most were all from my own perspective, but I was watching my self from above. In my adult life, I have never had a dream from that viewpoint, they have always been from my eyes with me as the subject.



To the OP, well, that`s an interesting question, one which without access to each and every dream scenario can only be semi answered with an theory.

Hmm, I think that`s a totally unanswerable question, but nonetheless a very good one.

Originally posted by slank


I am sure in dreams & imagination we push the boundaries & create interesting & odd juxtapositions/connections,

But i am pretty sure we don't create whole fabrications that might reflect an entirely new alien universe of operation.
I don't think it would have any meaning to us. Perhaps it wouldn't even register in our brains.

Hey, nice idea, I think that`s about as close to an answer of the OP`s question that we could get.

Then again...

[edit on 21-4-2010 by psilo simon]

In Reply To AG123

Yes. Also ones where I can see my hands. The most disturbing ones are "chase/escape" dreams, semi-lucid recurring locations and sometimes plot continuation between dreams - all like I'm watching it on cctv.

gj

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[edit on 21-4-2010 by ganjoa]

It is said by many that we cannot dream our own death, but I have had maybe 5 or 6 dreams where I have died, everything from Plane Crash, bus Crash to being Stabbed and squashed in doors!!

Yes, this comes up often. Lots of people dream that they die, although many of them wake up at the climactic moment. But others continue on, dreaming more of the dream, but "dead." Attending your own funeral may be a popular dream motif, and a common waking fantasy, too.

So far as I can tell, the idea that we cannot dream our own death is a misunderstanding of a remark by Freud, that the ego cannot trully concieve of its own non-existence.

Obviously, that's not necessarily the same thing as bodily death. Both religion and dream can supply an "afterlife." Also, the remark is tautological: there is nothing to experience in non-existence, so of course you cannot conceive experiencing it, conceive "what it would be like not to exist."

As to the title question: if you make an answer and name something, then you have imagined it. If you can imagine it, then you can dream it; or so it would seem to me.

... if you can think it then you can dream it meaning that if there is anything we cannot dream about then we also cannot think about it therefore we can never answer this question!

Yeah, that's about the size of it. Now say it three times fast .

Nothing you can do, think or dream is forbidden if you free yourself from your own judgment.

I'm not sure and have no science to back this up with, maybe someone can help. But a healthy person is not going to have the same dreams as say a mentally challenged person. Or deaf, blind, handicapped. Also maybe straight vs. gay, or male vs. female. Also ethnic/cultural backgrounds.

I starred you OP, for the use of the word forbidden. I like that, in Hawaiian Language forbidden is Kapu (Cah-Poo).

Usually Hawaiian names are given by something that the Parent dreamed about, and latter saw the sign while awake from the dream. For example they dreamed about a Rainbow, and then when they woke, they saw the rainbow at the beach, and named the new born after a rock they were standing on while at the beach, or something like that, very sacred, full of meaning.

Names/Dreams are big in Hawaiian Mythology. Almost every story with naming a child has to do with a dream. I'd say almost all traditional Hawaiian families name their children based off of visions from a dream. Usually dreamt by a Grandparent or Great Grandparent. I think in most cases the grandmother or great grandmother. Hope that helps.

Anything is possible in dreams. I have died in dreams, had sex in dreams, flown in dreams, all kinds of awesome stuff that felt 100% real.

I really think there are no limits.

Originally posted by game over man

I starred you OP, for the use of the word forbidden. I like that, in Hawaiian Language forbidden is Kapu (Cah-Poo).

brah, now you speaking my language! Kapu is one of my favorite all time words. It matches its meaning perfectly. I love it.

Yeah, there are no Kapu dreams for sure. There are definitely Kapu areas in real life that you do not want to mess with though.

Why I mention the Hawaiian dreams with naming, only certain family members have those dreams and role/connections to Gods/Ancestors to empower that person to name the child.

Thus a younger brother is forbidden to have the dream and name the child, that is not their role/function, and do not have that empowerment. If that makes any sense. It's an elder person's responsibility, usually a female.

At one point in the History of Hawai'i, there was a law system called the Kapu, maybe there is something in there about dreams/naming children. Not sure if you can find anything online. Better head to a library lol, or find a Hawaiian, haha.

One cannot dream of 2-Dimensional beings.

I say this because existence itself lies in at least 3 spatial dimensions. E.g. Without thickness, no physical existence.

It then follows that one can never imagine or dream of purely 2-Dimensional beings.

reply to post by SolarE-Souljah


Seems we have one! lol, Aloha cousin!
2nd line

Originally posted by WeShallBeFree
Technically if you can think it then you can dream it meaning that if there is anything we cannot dream about then we also cannot think about it therefore we can never answer this question!

Phew!

I have to agree with that. Castaneda mentions this when he talks about the difference between the Unknown and the Unknowable. The way I understand it is if you can ask the question, you can find an answer to that question. The only limitation if if you can't even conceive of the proper question to ask.

Dreams are expressions of our own personal archetypes. Assuming you can encounter things outside of yourself in the dream world, you'd still have to interpret them in terms you are familiar with. There is a story about when the indians saw the first pilgrim's ships, they didn't see actual ships, because they had no conception of such large boats. They literally say something else. I can't prove that's true, just an interesting anecdote.

So encountering something completely "alien" would be like trying to build a lego space ship from a medieval lego set. It can be done, you'd just have to use swords to represent antennae or laser guns, stuff like that. Quite frequently on Coast to Coast AM, I hear about groups of people who encounter "paranormal" phenomena where each individual sees something completely different. Different, yet archetypally describing the same thing. Those kinds of archetypal differences, different yet the same, appear in almost all shared dreaming accounts.

Originally posted by eight bits
So far as I can tell, the idea that we cannot dream our own death is a misunderstanding of a remark by Freud, that the ego cannot trully concieve of its own non-existence.

Obviously, that's not necessarily the same thing as bodily death. Both religion and dream can supply an "afterlife." Also, the remark is tautological: there is nothing to experience in non-existence, so of course you cannot conceive experiencing it, conceive "what it would be like not to exist."

The problem about dreaming of death is that everything in dreams are archetypal in nature. We learn by making connections, and archetypes are nothing but a series of connections to one topic or idea. Dreams archetypes are very similar to the notion of "collapsing the waveform" in quantum mechanics. If you're familiar with the concept of "weight" in neural networks, the the stronger the path, than the greater the odds of the dream archetype collapsing down that path when it collapses.

Unfortunately, nobody knows much for sure about what happens after death. The archetypal links on that subject don't really lead anywhere. This is why people most often wake up when they die in dreams. Someone with strong religious convictions may end up in heaven or hell of course. Another fairly common one I've noticed from reading online dream journals is a kind of "Game Over" screen when the dreamer dies. It all depends on the individual, and how they've built up their individual death archetype.

Originally posted by Unlimitedpossibilities
One cannot dream of 2-Dimensional beings.

I say this because existence itself lies in at least 3 spatial dimensions. E.g. Without thickness, no physical existence.

It then follows that one can never imagine or dream of purely 2-Dimensional beings.

You've obviously never read Flatland. You can dream of anything you have a decently well developed archetype for. Reading the novel Flatland will develop those 2D archetypes.

I had several 2D being dreams after reading that book. Just like I have zombie dreams after watching zombie movies.

[edit on 21-4-2010 by The Cusp]

Originally posted by AG123
Just a thought, what about having a dream but watching it through somebody elses point of view with the ability to see your self and your actions. Any one ever had any of these ?

Yes, I have. Sometimes in a single fluid dream sequence my perspective will swich between first and third person.

[edit on 21-4-2010 by Arkady]

Actually, there is only one thing I can think of that is impossible to do in a dream, and that is to fly faster than the speed of light

This is a conceptual limitation. In order to have movement, you have to be moving relative to something else. As you approach the speed of light, all visual landmarks around you blur out of existence. With nothing to gauge your movement against, you lost all sense of of movement and stop moving, just kind of hanging there in empty void like space, and finally wake up. I've tried to do this many times in dreams, and I'm telling you, it just can't be done.

Some jackass invariably mentions teleportation whenever I bring this up, but that doesn't count as faster than light travel in a linear fashion.



[edit on 21-4-2010 by The Cusp]

[edit on 21-4-2010 by The Cusp]

Yo, I have totally had 2d dreams before. Back when 2d game systems were king, i always used to have 2d dreams with me as one of the characters. So.... your point about no 2d doesn't fly with me.

reply to post by The Cusp

You've obviously never read Flatland. You can dream of anything you have a decently well developed archetype for. Reading the novel Flatland will develop those 2D archetypes.

I had several 2D being dreams after reading that book. Just like I have zombie dreams after watching zombie movies.

Yes but in your "2D being dreams", the beings had thickness to exist at all.

If one has (x, y, z, t) coordinates, drop one or more of those, and that physical entity ceases to exist. Existence itself must lie in at least 3 spatial dimensions while simultaneously maintaining duration.

As I am typing this, I just realized perhaps you are referring to images that constitute the dream itself. So I guess the question may be, how many dimensions are required to create an image. What is an image in the brain?

I will think this over a nice sleep tonight as to not go off the logical path.

Anyway.