Why is it that we dream? for what purpose?Are we god in our dreams?

I've been wonder this for some time now, I've researched a lot about dreaming in general. But
most dont realize the power behind dreaming, its like we have the power of "God"
within our dreams, where anything possible and I DO mean ANYTHING. I wonder
if dreams are taken out of context, within some books, and mistaken.

There are different stages of control within
dreams people might experience.

Theres your normal dreams, which just float on by, they can appear
boring, with no control over them. These people tend to forget
continue on their mundane life.

Theres vivid dreams, which seem even more clearer, lifelike, as well
no control over them. These might have partial impact on you.
Might start wondering, thats a interesting dream I had. Even think
it was a revelation of some sort.

Theres also realistic lucid dreams in which you dont realise you are
dreaming basically a false awakening, this will trick a lot of people
if they are dreaming up something scary, and they'll mistake
this for paranormal. Its like waking up out of bed getting ready to
work and then you repeat this sequence 2-3 times in a row and
finally wake up.

Depending on people in general, not everyone dreams the same, some
dream better than others, while others just forget them. I was the
forget.

Theres also Sleep paralysis/night terrors, which can scare the jeebus out
of most people that are not expecting it. This just shuts down your
motor skills, so you dont act out your dreams.
This is really nothing to be afraid of, its natural, your mind is just aware of
the moment. Just enjoy the ride into dream land, nothing to be afraid of.
Hallucinations even tend to start for some people if they are afraid of something, these
can do no harm what so ever, if you dont like them, just close your
eyes. People tend to relate this to paranormal,
just like shadow figures, its like daydreaming.

Even strange body sensations will occur, like vibrations very strong all over
body, or a strangling sensation or heavy lead blanket is on you or someone
is sitting on your stomach, theres quite a few actually, just relax it'll subside.
I actually enjoy sleep para, basically leads you to lucid
dreaming. You can also dream within sleep para by forcing yourself
out of your body by rolling out, our releasing self out of mouth like a ball of
energy or you can just continue to dream on. Forcing self out can have side
effects of sleep para still continuing its job, while you are roaming around
your home, can be tricky to overcome, takes practice, might be different
for others.Theres a lot of methods on the net.

Then there are Lucid dreams/Obe/asteral[basically its the same thing)
which can appear as if you are "GOD" basically.
And I really do mean it too, you can basically do what you want in these type of dreams.
Basically your own personal little sandboxed world for some, while others it might
appear as a scenario. In this sandboxed world, you can create "life", you can
create lets say NPCs(nonplayable character/pc gamer reference) or they can
have personality of what you would expect from them. You can create
"light". You can even create the moon, stars, whatever you desire. Like most people
enjoy Flying in these type of dreams, can run really fast, can jump over buildings.
Can create a wave of flesh eating zombies at your disposable and blow torch them
to hell. To do all these things, you "MUST" have visual skills/good imagination
for these things to happen, they will happen, just need to be confident of yourself!
List can go on and on.

Whats really the purpose of us humans having the power to dream>? Even animals
dream, but for what? People can say yes there is brain activity in the brain, but doesnt
really prove the images on what we are experiencing.

I wonder if we die, and our dreams become our reality? Little to naive ehhh. We
are composed of atoms, they're able to rearrange themselves. Meh never know.

reply to post by aerial

I do know that if we don't sleep for a period of time that we can go mad and even die, so sleep is necessary to our well being. Sleep deprivation has even been used as a form of torture.

Some believe that we are able to travel, that would mean that what we experience is real... somewhere. I always thought of this as an interesting line of reasoning, or I suppose some would call non-reasoning. Still all the same interesting...

I think there's basically two kinds of dreams. There are dreams that take place in the personal unconscious mind of the dreamer. These are trivial.

Then there's psychic dreams that take place in the collective unconscious. These dreams are part of the individuation process. These are not trivial. In these dreams we interact with activated archetypes of the collective unconscious in symbolic, poetic, mythological form.

So the question then becomes why do we undergo the individuation process.

There are dreams that we dream using our limited intellectual of a locked mind.

Then there are dreams where our mental capacity is unlocked.

Your mind will know the difference.


2-3 dreams in my lifetime i can't even come close to explaining... there are no words yet...

Funny, Aeriel, I was JUST thinking about this topic yesterday!
I can only speak for myself here...but for me personally, sometimes my dreams can be vivid and specific. I can be in a place, and in the dream, it feels familiar. After I wake up (if I still remember the dream) I try to rewind the dream to get more details and sometimes the particular place in my dream still feels familiar. I still remember dreams from long ago but not so much the details of the dream but the place of the dream. A sort of familiar place even though I may have never been there in reality.
Dreams are so complex, I wish I understood more about them.

As an avid dreamer, I feel that in some sense we 'play' God in our dreams but are not "God" in our dreams if you understand what I'm saying. Like, you said, ANYTHING is possible in our dreams - so long as we believe that anything is possible in dreams. There have been cases of people who have healed themselves in the dream from a malady, to find that they wake up and the healing process has already begun! This is a dramatic case of the psycho-somatic (or somato-psychotic, perhaps, who knows, really?) in which dreaming was the catalyst for change.

Now, I understand fully well the different 'types' of dreams and also the different 'stages' of dreaming. Here is a little experiment that might take you a few years to completely master (I've been at it for 6 years now... and I still can't do it every time!) When you fall asleep (provided you don't have to go to work early the next morning) try to stay awake while falling asleep. You will drift through hypnagogic imagery, and sounds, you will enter a period of thoughtful contemplation and eventually..... you will be in Delta sleep, a most relaxing state of mind to enjoy while 'awake' if you make it there... Last night it took me about 3 hours (more or less, hard to tell time when you're sleeping, right?) to get into delta, in any case, you will enjoy this period until you start to see images, real life images and sensations, you can touch, you can feel, you can smell, hear, see, everything is life like and realistic.... this is a lucid dream. Why do we dream? Ask yourself in your dream. I did once, I got more or less a reply which answered my question with itself. Why do we dream? We dream to dream... it's that simple, really. It allows us to lose control, it allows us to gain control, it allows us to break the bondage of physical reality, to access new and improved imaginary worlds where everything is perfectly as we wish it to be.... and sometimes, we find, that there are things that our own imaginations could not possibly have come up with! What do they mean? Is that a part of us forgotten by our conscious and perhaps even subconscious minds? Or.... is it a part of us that MAKES UP our conscious and subconscious? Who knows, and who can know?

There are no easy answers to your questions, my friend, I do sincerely wish you the best of luck in your proceedings to find out what the truth is to you about these things...but remember that sometimes the best answers are those that we give ourselves, and sometimes, the best answers are those which we cannot have given ourselves. Good luck, and God Speed.

Originally posted by aerial


Then there are Lucid dreams/Obe/asteral[basically its the same thing)
which can appear as if you are "GOD" basically.
And I really do mean it too, you can basically do what you want in these type of dreams.
Basically your own personal little sandboxed world for some, while others it might
appear as a scenario. In this sandboxed world, you can create "life", you can
create lets say NPCs(nonplayable character/pc gamer reference) or they can
have personality of what you would expect from them. You can create
"light". You can even create the moon, stars, whatever you desire. Like most people
enjoy Flying in these type of dreams, can run really fast, can jump over buildings.
Can create a wave of flesh eating zombies at your disposable and blow torch them
to hell. To do all these things, you "MUST" have visual skills/good imagination
for these things to happen, they will happen, just need to be confident of yourself!
List can go on and on.

I also wanted to address this part of your post (I apologize in advance for the double post, please do not be angry with me Mods). I do not think that OOBEs, and Astral Projection are the same thing as Lucid Dreams. Some people think so, yet this cannot be proven by any method we have at our disposal at the moment. Perhaps it is true that these two states are 'similar' in terms of EEG and MEG techniques of measurement of brain activity, but just because they are similar or identical in terms of this does not necessarily mean that they are at all the same thing. For one, Astral Projection and OOBEs do not require the subject to be 'asleep' or have gone through any of the usual 'sleep' patterns. They can be achieved in meditative states, or by entering a trance state and allowing oneself to become subject of the 'astral' plane if you will. I have done this a few times (no easy task, believe me, although some find it remarkably easy, and I envy those people) and achieved the OOBE/AP experience I had read so much about. They are in some ways akin to Lucid Dreams (LD) but they are so different from them that I would not classify them all as 'the same thing'. I say this because in LDs although you can entirely change your environment, in AP/OOBE there seems to be some other power or force which exists 'out of the mind' and 'in reality' or something LIKE 'reality' that allows you to be outside your body without moving... it is a hard thing to explain to someone who may never have experienced it, so I can only really suggest that you try to consciously achieve this state of mind to perhaps better understand what I am trying to say...

that's all, Be Well and Don't Stress

Originally posted by BlueMule
I think there's basically two kinds of dreams. There are dreams that take place in the personal unconscious mind of the dreamer. These are trivial.

Then there's psychic dreams that take place in the collective unconscious. These dreams are part of the individuation process. These are not trivial. In these dreams we interact with activated archetypes of the collective unconscious in symbolic, poetic, mythological form.

So the question then becomes why do we undergo the individuation process.

edit on 4-7-2013 by BlueMule because: (no reason given)

The gates of horn and ivory are a literary image used to distinguish true dreams (corresponding to factual occurrences) from false. The phrase originated in the Greek language, in which the word for "horn" is similar to that for "fulfil" and the word for "ivory" is similar to that for "deceive". On the basis of that play on words, true dreams are spoken of as coming through the gates of horn, false dreams as coming through those of ivory.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by StarsInDust


reminds me of religion a bit, not to be mean, but I wonder, correct me if im wrong,
where it says jesus walking in the desert, also he fasted, then the devil offers him something
now for that part I thought, well hes in the desert of course will occur
hallucinations, 100f + weather and hes fasting
you do know what happens when you fast, same effect and now if hes sleep deprived, and
hes in a human body as well, makes me think about. I wonder how much of the bible
accounts for dream related or hallucinations. Dreams are extremely powerful, then
what people give it credit for.

During sleep your body heals and replenishes itself. This includes neurotransmitters. As far as God goes it would seem that dreams are a way to integrate the conscious with the unconscious. The unconscious knows God/spirit and everything that ever is and was.