What you dream does count as a real experiance.

After experiancing the dream I had a few days ago and the (real life) practical experiance I had two days after the dream I must come to the conclusion that what you feel emotionally in a dream is equal to what you would feel in a simular situation ...but in real life...awake.

I came to this conclusion because I know how I would deal with a certain stress situation for the first time and how different I will deal with it when I already have dealed with a simular situation before.

By doing something stressful for the first time and doing it a second time....the second time I will have more control over the situation and will be more relaxed. And that is what happened to me...

The whole situation is not realy that sensational or that I can cause a national security breach by telling you. But I can not go much further into what I exactly dreamed because it has to with what they call security awareness. The company I work for would not like that I go into details with my friends here on ATS,.. not even when I think nobody knows who I am.

Anyways,..the thing is that I encoutered a simular stressful situation in real life...at work. To my surprise I was not only flabbergasted because of the fact that I had a kind of predictive dream but also because of the way I had the situation under control. I know for sure that I would not be so relaxed and self-assured if I didn't have that dream in advance.

When you think back at your own emotional dream(s), would you come to the same conclusion or do you think that a dream will never prepare you for what you will experiance in real life.

Interesting theory, you may be onto something.

And it leads me to another question. If one day virtual reality is indiscernible from reality, will the experiences and emotions we live through in VR be equal to the ones made in reality itself ?

Will reality become obsolete one day altogether ? We may spend our existence in a dream state induced by some machine.

From a resources point of view this really does make sense, you'd barely waste anything while being able to simulate your every wish.

reply to post by zatara


In my dreams I am capable of anything. In real life I am mild mannered human. Here I obey the law, ask politely and help my land lady take out her garbage...

there I tunnel underground by walking and flame demons with hi powered light guns that spew horrendous bolts of searing energy. I fly overhead and visit other planets. I am abducted and discover vast treasure.

If after life is anything like dreams it should be fun.

Dreams are a "species of reality",

Dreams are as capable of teaching you as a map, a good book, or a professor at a university. Of course dreams are real experiences!

reply to post by intrptr


Agreed, the dream world is way WAY cooler. I am usually somewhat lucid in my dreams and I can have some control over them. It's kind of like the worlds best virtual reality or Star Trek holodeck.

Sometimes I wish I could just dream forever. I always slay the dragon and get the girl in my dreams. In real life? Not so much.

Originally posted by zatara
By doing something stressful for the first time and doing it a second time....the second time I will have more control over the situation and will be more relaxed. And that is what happened to me...

I tend to agree with you.

In another thread a poster asked the question "Why do we dream?"

IMO it's simply an evolutionary tool that has been mostly lost to us. A tool to play out specific scenarios without consequence.

Lucid dreaming allows us to play out any scenario the dreamer wishes to encounter. You name it. Dreaming is only limited by the seemingly limitless imagination.

Ancient man would most probably have used lucid dreaming to prepare for the upcoming hunt, to prepare for battles, or other extremely important tasks. There is a huge advantage to the animal that has the ability not only to critically think about future events, but whom can also play them out consciously, "physically", visually, and emotionally in a dream state.

That's my take on it. I think that you describe is exactly why creatures have developed the capability to dream at all. Dreaming is an evolutionary intuitive simulator that enables us to play out specific scenarios without consequence.

Advantage= Dreamer

You are absolutely right, and it is all so self-evident, but hardly recognized in a objective way.

Surely, everybody has dreams where they wake up emotionally charged one way or another. Nightmares would be your perfect example, or a dream of a close loved one dying. Or just having a run-of-mill bad dream and waking up in a bad mood?

Dreams ARE an experience. Just think about it. they make a dent into your memory, add to your experiences and can give you insight. You can have an incredibly detailed dream, see things as good as if not better than you see things in a waking state and wake up remembering that experience. This is why lucid dreaming is so important. There, you can control parts of your dreams, putting yourself in charge of what normally plays out on its own.

However, we are not all dreams are created equally and some folks hardly are aware that they dream, some dream in black and white, some dream in color, and some only have nightmares. But dreams can be productive and beneficial to your waking life even if they need some interpreting sometimes.

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
Dreams are as capable of teaching you as a map, a good book, or a professor at a university. Of course dreams are real experiences!

They sure are. I learnt the benefits of dreaming helping me out when I was little.

I was playing Warcraft 2 and having real trouble passing this one map. I went to bed, dreamed of several scenario's and found one that would beat the map. I proceeded to beat that map the very next day using that strategy.

The same thing happened in Command and Conquer: Red Alert when i was little ;-p.

And various other games. And they're just games!

I'm pretty sure this could well be true.

In one dream where I was having an adventure being Dana Scully and trying to kill a dragon but it wouldn't die.
This dragon turned into a psycho girl who tried to saw her arm off with a saw, as I had her cornered.

Three days later we got home invaded and the front black man had my saw in his hand, (as they had broken in through the back door and come through the conservatory where my DIY tools are).
That's when I knew we would be alright and I was able to be very calm and alert.
It all seemed to be really surreal.

So yeah I look at my dreams a lot now to see if they are warnings.

Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by zatara

 

In my dreams I am capable of anything. In real life I am mild mannered human. Here I obey the law, ask politely and help my land lady take out her garbage...

there I tunnel underground by walking and flame demons with hi powered light guns that spew horrendous bolts of searing energy. I fly overhead and visit other planets. I am abducted and discover vast treasure.

If after life is anything like dreams it should be fun.

Are you saying that you are capable of controling your dreams and able to decide what the dream is going to be about? If so, that would be a valueble asset in life. Because that way you can prepare for any possible senario on your real life agenda.

It is remarkable to notice that most, if not all repliers in this thread do agree with my conclusion when it comes to experiancing emotional aspects in a dream. It is an other discussion but i do not belief that the dream world is the same world when we die.

Dream are very interesting....just the abillity of the brain to create so much detail and the random events that occur...I really would like to know more about what the leading scientist make of the whole dreaming process...not so much the psychology but the mechanics of it all.

What will somebody that has never been able to see dream..?

reply to post by zatara

Sorry about the delay.

Are you saying that you are capable of controling your dreams and able to decide what the dream is going to be about?

Only when I get into trouble. It seems when I am attacked I am never injured or feel any pain and always fight off the monsters. Its just a dream after all. I am dealt what should be a death blow, but am alright and fight back and defeat the foe. I don't control my dreams otherwise. Except when I have had enough and force my self awake.

What will somebody that has never been able to see dream..?

Thats a really good question. I haven't done any study on that. Of course it would be subjective. If a blind person says they were driving a car in a dream, what does that car look like to them?

They would also have trouble maybe, defining a sun, clouds or sunset?

reply to post by MystikMushroom

I always slay the dragon and get the girl in my dreams. In real life? Not so much.

Same here. Thats what I need, more women. In dreams they are awesome.

reply to post by intrptr


I take it that you are able to say..."OK..I am dreaming now, I able to upload the Kung-Fu program, arm myself to the teeth... and now its my turn...". Being able to that is awesome and is what they call lucid dreaming.... I guess..

Once I had a dream in which I cried and that made also an impact on me because it was just as real. Then there is of course the most sought after dream...the wet-dream. I do not know if girls also experiance such dreams but they are also as real as they come...no pun intended there..

It is a remarkable world..the dream world. But I do not think it is the same world where we arrive when we are dead. Which is probably also a world where we will experiance emotions as intens as we would in this reality. Who knows...maybe both worlds are occuring each in an other dimension, yet to be discovered.

Completely off topic but...what if science will be able to interact with those dimensions...that would be really crazy...something out of a movie..like Inception...maybe?

reply to post by zatara


Good job figuring this out, as once you do its possible to draw some more theories from this fact. Yes, dreams do prepare you emotionally to deal with real life circumstances. I used to think dreams pointed to some unconscious activity allowing you to foresee circumstances. But, now since coming to the realization that you have come to, I realize that words cannot express our understanding of the world we live in. Dreams act as a bridge of sorts to synthesize everything we see hear and feel during real life, and builds a better understanding of those issues in our life.

reply to post by zatara

When you think back at your own emotional dream(s), would you come to the same conclusion or do you think that a dream will never prepare you for what you will experiance in real life.

My personal experience is that dreams are like images in sand that slowly slip away. You may wake still carrying the feeling you had within the dream... the emotions survive as part of the experience memory. While still fresh, we review those that stir us and touch something inside that perhaps inspired the dream to begin with.

Like I said... it's just one person's opinion; my own but, I think most dreams are nocturnal wanderings into subject matter that we either cannot approach in waking or, as a way to reconcile unanswered questions that haunt us deeper within. To that end, conscious recollection is far less important than quiet, internal reconciliation.

reply to post by zatara

Thanks for the reply. I happened to find it, it did not appear in my messages...

But I do not think it is the same world where we arrive when we are dead.

Thats really interesting. I didn't say this before. If you believe you have a soul, then you might have thought that during the day we are not in close contact with it. It is intangible to our waking mind, so to speak. I have thought sometimes that when we dream it is our soul that is "us" in our dreams. Same sense of self, just able to do weird things like fly or teleport.

Even further that sometimes we meet others we know or family passed on or "guides" whatever, that teach us stuff or take us places. Then when we wake we are back in our body. Maybe the dream world is a real place after all.

Good thinking. Thanks for the mind trip.

reply to post by intrptr


Yes...no..I am aware that you didn't say the part about when we die, it was more of a personal thought thinking out loud.

Here's an other one that I find most bizare...where do all those faces come from. I mean,..all those people I have encountered in my dreams and the faces that go with them. Maybe someday I will meet one of these persons in real life?

If dreams are generated with information stored in our subconscious I must have seen them somewhere but never really noticed them. I am speculating now because I am not an expert....any idea what the current understanding among psychiatrist is these days?

A realistic dream can be equated to being in a "Simulator"....and they are usually some sort of "test" for you.

reply to post by zatara

Here's an other one that I find most bizare...where do all those faces come from. I mean,..all those people I have encountered in my dreams and the faces that go with them. Maybe someday I will meet one of these persons in real life?

Loads of other cultures like Chinese, Indian, revere ancestors, believe they are around us, watching over us. Some think we meet them in dreams. "Faces" as you describe them... (IMO)

If dreams are generated with information stored in our subconscious I must have seen them somewhere but never really noticed them. I am speculating now because I am not an expert....any idea what the current understanding among psychiatrist is these days?

They would tell you that it is simply the complex human mind, sorting out the days activities (which it does) and other stuff like desire or feelings of guilt about concerns you have in real life. "Nothing to see here".

You of course have to decide between the two. One way is to ask yourself if the faces you see are always the same, are they human, too they teach or tell or take you places? Do your dreams have a direction or randomness?

My mom dreams all the time of being lost in a labyrinth she can't find the exit too. She is trying to get to somewhere form nowhere and always there are more moats and walls and hallways. In real life she is a worrisome, anxious, selfish person who is never happy. So I am unable to tell her anything useful. She doesn't want to hear the obvious.

Maybe if you get a little more specific about a particular dream you are thinking of? It's okay if not.

Gotta go, I'll check back. (By the way, I am no expert either, just have ideas too.)

ETA: I just reread your OP, I'll address part of it when I get back.

reply to post by zatara

The whole situation is not realy that sensational or that I can cause a national security breach by telling you. But I can not go much further into what I exactly dreamed because it has to with what they call security awareness.

So it doesn't really help to ask for details, and I am not into guessing games. If you had a premonition in a dream that is good, your stuff is working just fine.

"What you dream does count as a real experience." Your thread title.

I'll go you one better. Everything you think, do or say is recorded by your brain, even in sleep. This is connected to a memory bank in your soul. Like a security camera recorder that just sits and takes it all in. You can't edit or erase that.

So be good for goodness sakes...