I am of the opinion that there may be more to dreams than most people realize.

I am curious about your thoughts on the following questions:

1) I have very lucid dream quite often, in which I am in very detailed environments. I have on multiple occasions realized I am dreaming before making a conscious effort to note the detail level in the dream (the resolution/clarity of the dream space). Many times my dreams have settings practically indistinguishable from the real world (with respect to detail/lighting/etc.). These dreamscapes are of course volatile and often short lived once we realize we are dreaming, but for a bit of time -- it's really impressive. In a recent dream I was riding on a bus through a city for ex. -- a very dynamic, seemingly lively/detailed cityscape (this is very complex scenery).

How is it that our minds can create theses scenes? I am a game programmer, and I know that there is a ton of math (math that we could never consciously describe) required to generate realistic 3D scenes/renders. Let us assume for a second that due to the parallel processing nature of the mind that the capacity for these calculations is there. Either way -- how do we KNOW them (these calculations)? The way I see it, a dream like this would have to have the visuals either computed or experienced. And since the common belief is that dreams are a total byproduct of the mind, how do we compute these things?

When we are awake and observing our environment, the kind of work our brains do is very different. First, the scene exists (so our minds do not have to construct/maintain it). Second, our eyes are simply taking light in from the environment -- the rendering is essentially done for us (light interacts with the concrete world, and we simply see it as it is).

So again -- do scientists have any insights into how this kind of dreaming is possible?

2) If it is true that our minds have the capacity to create these dreamscapes, why can we not do it when awake (with our eyes closed)? I am highly skeptical of people who say that they can have similar visual experiences while meditating -- I think they either are exaggerating or simply do not have recallable lucid dreams.

Is there any other kind of function that we can only do in certain states (like sleep state), regardless of our will to do said function? I can't think of any.

hi

I've often had dreams where I'm reading a book, and actually finding the book interesting and learning new things. I'm puzzled how I can learn new things in dreams like that if all that information is supposed already be in my head and I'm producing the dream.

Once I read a way of solving a puzzle, which came up a few weeks later when I remembered the dream, used the solution and it worked out.

that tripped me out.

Dont know, Im still trying to figure out how we think... how do we put ideas together.... how does this mass in between our ears form a thought from billions of connections..

I would encourage you to research DMT and the pineal gland. Not DMT as in the synthesized drug but as DMT as natural occurs within the human body.

I think if you do as much research as I have in the subject matter, you may feel like you have a better understanding of what dreams actually are.

S & F's

Very good topic, and great questions...which i can not answer! But have been thinking alot about this kind of thing lately.

My dreams have become so real of late, i feel dazed, confuesed and exhausted when i awake.

My conscious Imagination can be creative as my dreams, and accurately to scale. Think of all the creative Ideas, concepts, and actions that are visualized,formulated, constructed in the imagining mind for example, any invention, any creation from a bridge to a building to a video game. Yes when we are awake we are using fresh scenery to input, but when we are asleep, the earthly scenery depending how long you have been on this planet, is still quite fresh, not to mention emotions, thoughts(subconscious and all), and any subtle experience can be used in dream.
perhaps that is another trait of personality, how one formats their consciousness. what images they can creatively produce for themselves to understand objects and information.

My conscious Imagination can be creative as my dreams, and accurately to scale. Think of all the creative Ideas, concepts, and actions that are visualized,formulated, constructed in the imagining mind for example, any invention, any creation from a bridge to a building to a video game. Yes when we are awake we are using fresh scenery to input, but when we are asleep, the earthly scenery depending how long you have been on this planet, is still quite fresh, not to mention emotions, thoughts(subconscious and all), and any subtle experience can be used in dream.
perhaps that is another trait of personality, how one formats their consciousness. what images they can creatively produce for themselves to understand objects and information.

By the way hope to hear your response, and good question and post. The real truth is i dont know how we dream in detail any more then I know how a flower can grow in dimensions of detail.

Waking perception is fairly complicated. While it is true that the environment shoulders a lot of the computational burden of providing us a realistic visual surround, it is also true that the raw received visual signals are far short of a "scene," and many features of the experienced scene are made up, that is, computed by the perceiver.

Some of this computing is proper signal processing (we make a stable visual surround despite the jerkiness of our eyeballs, impacts of our steps walking though the environment, etc.), but we also correct for merely intended movement, do "reality checks" with other sensory modalities, and outrightly hallucinate (only on purpose-built targets do we directly perceive that we have blind spots, but the hole in the visual field is always there, and moving). And of course, we "see" quite a bit of the visual field as focused and detailed, when the actual foveal area is small, and constantly in motion.

Bottom line: our waking visual experience is largely made up.

It follows that all of that computational power is tied up when we are awake. (And yes, if you close your eyes, that will not "turn it off" for a while... otherwise blinking your eyes to keep them wet would be a perceptual disaster). However, dream quality imagery can arise while awake, and even superimpose itself on actual signal. This is usually undesirable, and most of us learn to keep that sort of thing limited to occasions when it is safe to indulge.

The quality of the dream experience is very difficult to measure, to say the least. In waking life, people with actual perceptual impairment (say, 20/40 vision, 6/12 in the metric world) can believe they are fine, until something forces them to know otherwise (for example, they put on a pair of glasses for the first time).

So, we're not very good judges of the quality of waking perception, without learning how to test that. Have you, as a result of your occupation, become a better judge than most people? It's hard to say without knowing you and talking to you.

In waking life, learned judging involves challenge-testing. If I have such-and-such visual acuity, then I should be able to read license plates at such-and-such distance, for example. So, if I want, I can do an on-demand eye test, because I know what I should be able to see.

Does that map into dreaming? Tricky, no? I can dream that I pass the eye test. I might therefore conclude that "I dream with great acuity." Do I really? *Shrugs* You could dream that your dreamscape passes whatever waking tests you apply to what your programs display...

Not saying that that's the way it is, just pointing out that you ask a very difficult question. S&F, if not an answer.

Impressive observation!

I find it odd that sleeping/dreaming is something we spend about 1/3 of our lives doing, yet it isn't understood at all beyond subjective theory.

As far as I know the extent of our knowledge about sleeping is that we go crazy if we don't get enough of it. And all we know about dreaming is that our eyes move really fast when it happens...LOL

Originally posted by AkumaStreak
I am of the opinion that there may be more to dreams than most people realize.

I am curious about your thoughts on the following questions:

1) I have very lucid dream quite often, in which I am in very detailed environments. I have on multiple occasions realized I am dreaming before making a conscious effort to note the detail level in the dream (the resolution/clarity of the dream space). Many times my dreams have settings practically indistinguishable from the real world (with respect to detail/lighting/etc.). These dreamscapes are of course volatile and often short lived once we realize we are dreaming, but for a bit of time -- it's really impressive. In a recent dream I was riding on a bus through a city for ex. -- a very dynamic, seemingly lively/detailed cityscape (this is very complex scenery).

How is it that our minds can create theses scenes? I am a game programmer, and I know that there is a ton of math (math that we could never consciously describe) required to generate realistic 3D scenes/renders. Let us assume for a second that due to the parallel processing nature of the mind that the capacity for these calculations is there. Either way -- how do we KNOW them (these calculations)? The way I see it, a dream like this would have to have the visuals either computed or experienced. And since the common belief is that dreams are a total byproduct of the mind, how do we compute these things?

When we are awake and observing our environment, the kind of work our brains do is very different. First, the scene exists (so our minds do not have to construct/maintain it). Second, our eyes are simply taking light in from the environment -- the rendering is essentially done for us (light interacts with the concrete world, and we simply see it as it is).

So again -- do scientists have any insights into how this kind of dreaming is possible?

2) If it is true that our minds have the capacity to create these dreamscapes, why can we not do it when awake (with our eyes closed)? I am highly skeptical of people who say that they can have similar visual experiences while meditating -- I think they either are exaggerating or simply do not have recallable lucid dreams.

Is there any other kind of function that we can only do in certain states (like sleep state), regardless of our will to do said function? I can't think of any.

edit on 11/29/2011 by AkumaStreak because: (no reason given)

Very interesting thought, but if I may,
You say the 3D requirements of mathematics are huge to render environments in games etc, but what of our memory? Even the ideas we process? What of the creative mind that brings into being entertainment we watch everyday? Everyone no doubt has thoughts and ideas constantly, how much would it take to compute the logic that goes into the everyday. I think at some point we are de-tuned as adults to be less creative and follow the curve, ie; life, love, family, debt, work, death, etc, and our subconcious mind sometimes creates what our concious mind can't, or bridges the gap per se. You only have to compare the workings of a child's mind to that of an adult to see just how far ahead they are. Whenever I'm stuck for an idea to continue my writings I only need ask one of my kids, and they usually give me the best answers. The brain, as little understood as it is, has huge potential we are only just beginning to realise, and it's ability to process data while concious is staggering when you actually take into account every little thing we do each day. The subconcious mind, usually most active while we sleep, has no need to keep us going like the concious mind does, and I believe that is why dreams are so prolific, in that our brains can let go, and really see the details our concious mind cannot, or simply misses.
In answer to number two, consider just how much you do automatically without the need for thought each day. When I drive my car, I don't take all the processes it takes to drive the car, if I did that I would crash on the first corner! I just do it, because it is something my brain has learned to do by repetition, just as the job I do everyday doesn't require me to always be thinking what I should be doing next, I already know the process, the only time I need to put any thought into it is when something out of the ordinary happens.
Just a few thoughts

I've often thought about this. It's interesting that you're a coder, because I am a huge gamer and have often considered the potential parallels between videogames and dreams (and reality, for that matter.)

I think the answer may lie in the human brain's capacity for visualization. Consider the fact that everything you're seeing and experiencing around you right now must be processed by the brain in order for your "mind" to perceive it. (Whether you regard this as the "executive" or "executor" of the brain organ heirarchy as cognitive science theorizes, or a soul or what have you, is your prerogative.) Likewise consider the massive capacity of the brain/mind to replicate what it has seen. Close your eyes and envision the room around you that a moment ago you were seeing with your eyes. You can not only recreate it in a very detailed manner, but can augment it as well on the fly. (You want to talk about processing power and an analog to rendering on the fly... lol! That's a huge capacity!)

Then we have to consider the fact that it is believed the mind is always active on a subconscious as well as a conscious level. For all the complexity, detail, precision, and memory capacity of the conscious mind, the subconscious mind supposedly equals or rivals it, as it is able to do all of this without the direct awareness of the conscious mind while also drawing from memorized (stored?) information that we may not even consciously be capable of accessing at any given time. This would seem to directly impact dreams, since excepting those cases in which we become lucid (or can induce lucidity,) dreams tend to be on autopilot in a sense. We may have emotional and perceptual awareness of what's happening in dreams, but unless we're lucid dreaming, we're more or less along for the ride. That sounds like the purview of the subconscious to me, or at least, a meeting ground between the conscious and subconscious.

As a coder of videogames I'm sure you're familiar with emergent behavior and procedural generation. Suppose you created a game with something akin to Bethesda's so-called "Radiant AI" but in much more detail and complexity. It would allow for a ton of emergent behavior, I would have to imagine. Now suppose parallel to this you coded a sort of "game subconscious." A database of content and parameters continually generated by things a player does in your game, but which then "behind the scenes" (without the player ever seeing it) could recombine, rearrange themselves, and spit out new permutations of those activities and gameplay systems on the fly, as emergent behaviors or a form of procedural generation that is extremely organic and unpredictable, but still made up of those player behaviors/choices/memories.

If once a day in-game the player could "dip into" this database and see what it was doing, it wouldn't be that unlike what we experience as dreaming in theory, would it?

Actually, the idea of an emergent "gaming subconscious" really intrigues me now. Maybe you'll be the developer to create something like this one day. (As an aside, feel free to let me know what projects you're working on. I believe in supporting independent developers... or if you're fortunate enough to get a publisher, let me know that too so I can follow your work!)

I remember once I had a dream of floating on clouds, everything was real, right to the sense of touch, and then when my eyes opened they were just the bedsheets - why couldn't that experience continue into my waking world, why can't I exist in a living dream?