My confidence of the reality of the world around me is shaken

This is about a dream, no predictions involved. I wanted to start a thread about this because the experience I had last night has caused me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about the dream state. I dropped off to sleep last night without incident, but then woke up sometime in the middle of the night to the aching pain of carpal tunnel in my left hand. I felt my wrist brace and the cool plaster of the wall against the back of my hand and told myself, no, you don’t have to get up to pee yet.

I stayed there for a bit just lying in bed and then I did decide to get up to relieve myself. After walking through the house to the bathroom, I found that I didn’t recognize it when I got there. It was a big room with some really strange fixtures and a mirror that I could not see myself in because it was mounted way too high on the wall. I could just see my hair in the bottom of the mirror. Of course, I realize now I had to be dreaming but the whole time I stood there at the weird toilet I had the unshakeable feeling that I was wide awake. I mean, I always said that I know when I am awake. Even though some dreams seem real, there is something about being awake with all the feeling of being completely conscious and feeling things against your skin, etc. Well, I was feeling all of this, but it just couldn’t be. I even felt relieved as I was going to the bathroom and slept for some time after that without having to go again.

As I was walking back to bed there were other strange things that I noticed as well. There were rooms that were not part of the house I live in now. One was the living room of the house in which I grew up. Now I know that we often dream things like this, making an amalgam of familiar things and putting disjointed stuff together in ways that don’t make much sense to our logical minds, but I really thought I was awake! I am 55 years old and I’ve had a lot of dreams in my life, but nothing like this. I felt everything, I saw every detail clearly.

When I did wake up in my normal room in my normal house (the wall is several feet away, no way I could have felt the coolness of it on my hand) I lay there for an hour trying to make sense of the dream I had had. Is this what people call lucid dreaming? I was wondering how many people here have had similar experiences and would like to discuss them. I’m wondering if some experiences I had years ago when I was sure I was wide awake were of this same nature. Things that terrified me as a child that I have accepted as fact in my own mind and was sure I was wide awake and actually experiencing could have been dreams?

When we dream is it always a virtual world that we manufacture with this wonderful, crazy organ inside our skulls, or could there be more to it sometimes? Could it be caused by some outside force or personality? There was a lot more to the dream I had last night that I haven’t mentioned and it was really dark and malevolent. I have a lot of dreams like that but I never thought I’d question the ability to know when I am wide awake like this. I am in a strange place right now, questioning things that I have had sorted out in my mind for half a century…

Sorry for the long and maybe boring story. For those who find this subject interesting, your thoughts?

Interesting experience. A few things that come to mind: It's possible that your carpal tunnel aching kept you a bit more conscious than usual as you entered the dream state. When you formed the intention to visit the bathroom, that may have triggered the dream about doing just that. You may have felt more "awake" cues because you were closer to being fully conscious.

When you were a child, was your bed against a wall on the left side? Your view of the top of your head in the bathroom mirror sounds like what a child might see if that child was not yet tall enough to see directly into the mirror. From the rest of your description (living room from your childhood home), it sounds to me like you may have had a dream that mixed in elements of your childhood with current time, & were held in a greater state of awareness, giving you more of a sense of what "happened" in the dream.

reply to post by BuzzCory


Thanks for your reply and very observant! I had not thought of those things, but that makes a lot of sense. Especially about the mirror and the top of the head being what a child might see. Excellent! Good thinking. I will not discount any possibility since I am in a sort of a discombobulated state since, and very tired also...

Stories like this are so interesting and fun.

Last night I read an article from a lady who had an experiences that somewhat similar to yours. Maybe not, but I will explain what I am talking about.

It sounds to me like you were experiencing some sort of flash back to your childhood, it was seeping into your experience (dream or OOBE, whatever). The effect of you only being able to see your hair in the mirror reminds me of when I was a child and I was too short to see myself in the mirror, then of course you find yourself walking through rooms that you walked through as a child (or at least see them along side of you).

The article I read, the lady was with her son and suddenly it was as though she was back in time and in her current time simultaneously - she saw her son turn to go into another room, then suddenly he was next to her as a child, speaking in unison with the grown version of him talking from the other room, but speaking as a child.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

What if all this babble about new age and transforming earth and humans blah blah, some how people are experiencing rifts, where the past and the present are somehow merging (at least from their own perspective). Trippy

This is an out there theory - but I think they are the most fun.

reply to post by Infinitis


Another intellegent person that noticed the mirror thing. Very observant, or maybe I just can't be objective enough to have noticed it myself. Thanks for posting and yes, I like the farther out theories myself but I think from what you people have posted it must be my own subconcious mind trying to get me to face something I have repressed from my childhood, IDK.

Oh, and thanks for that wild story!

reply to post by BuzzCory


Oh, and I forgot to answer the question about the bed. As a matter of fact, my bed was against the wall on the side to put my left hand against it lying on my back (as I did). I had my bed this way from childhood on through my teenage years.

I guess the dream I had last night was just that. A dream. But it seemed SO real.

reply to post by wtbengineer


You are fortunate that when you felt the relief of urinating in your dream that you did'nt wake up with soaked sheets.
I've had dreams of waking up to pee and felt that relief at the urinal only to find the truth upon really awakening.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


Yes, you are right. I thought about that too. I have a very deeply ingrained control in that area after all these years, but that dream was so real I did have to check myself when I woke up.

reply to post by wtbengineer


I'd like to add that part of the reason I thought it was a real experience is that it had the same feel as the very real experiences I had growing up. Well, until last night I believed all of them were real.

When I was very young, I had these terrifying experiences in which the lights in my room would not turn on. I'd grope around in the darkness in utter fear flipping light switches and nothing. It was always 3:15am when this happened. These are the happenings that I question now. The feeling was the same as last night. The reality of it.

Then as a teenager I had the classic poltergeist hauntings. These were different because I wasn't woken up. Many times I'd just be getting home and sit down and pick up the guitar and things would start to move. Things slide across the desk, pictures fall off the wall, etc. And the footsteps that would walk around and around in my bedroom as I sat directly underneath in the TV room when I was the only one occupying the upstairs. It sounded like 10 or 15 people having a party up there.

Anyway, last night just felt like a continuation of the same thing, only I know I was in bed, the wife was suffering from insomnia and she says I was there. Still affects me on some level though.

reply to post by wtbengineer


Well I've never mistaken a dream for reality AFTER THE FACT, I think. But I have questioned the nature of reality. I've wondered, for example, if coincidences or synchronizations hint at a deeper layer of conscious-driven reality. In other words, is reality both a combination of an external reality and the reality inside our own brain? In this I mean to say the fictitious reality inside our mind merges with the external to become real. It no longer only exists in the mind.

What are coincidences or synchronizations? It's kind of like reading a book and you're enveloped in a scene where there's a train wreck and on the following morning you turn on the tv and there's a movie focused on a scene where there's a train wreck. Traditionally and conceptually one enforces it's simply coincidence because it makes sense, outside of confirming evidence. However, I sometimes wonder if it's more than that. Maybe there's an hidden interplay between our mind and what's real. Without evidence to back it, it's only just a thought.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Yes, I suspect such a thing is so. That's what I keep coming back to even though for so long I have thought I had this reality thing down pat. As far as knowing reality from a dream after the fact, I think I only had that uncertainty for a millisecond until I realized it HAD to be a dream because of the imposssibilities involved. But the feeling continued to linger on.

reply to post by wtbengineer


Sorry to hear about the carpal tunnel. My neck is sore right now and I sometimes get a taste of aches and pains. I hope you cope with it well and it doesn't get worse. I'm younger and maybe too young or blessed to relate.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Thanks for that, I've got a sore neck too. I use this over the door neck traction when I get a chance to sit and do nothing for a while. It feels great to stretch the veribrae apart!

I had the right hand fixed. That was the really bad one, but the recovery was so long and hard I've been putting off the left hand.

reply to post by wtbengineer


I do exercises to try to keep in shape, but sometimes things happen. I don't know where it came from. Just started to get sore. Now today I can't bend it like normal. It has done this before. It feels like when you exercise a lot on one day and then on the next your muscles are sore, but I don't know what I did.

Anyway, when I first read the OP it made me think of when I sleep over at somebody elses house. I'd wake up in the night and not know where I am.

reply to post by wtbengineer


Hello mate, cheers for the story about your dream - I've had many strange dreams not too far from what you describe.

My first instinct is to say that you experienced a lucid dream but it sounds like an immensely realistic one. I've had phantom pains and such in dreams; so I assume the whole spectrum of sensation is virtually possible within a dream. I've had 'lucid dreams' of various sorts; some I feel conscious at the time and it feels as real as this reality, but when I wake up my memory goes very quickly.

In others I seem to be semi-conscious but when I wake up I remember great amounts - and these usually involve dreams that play out like another life and contain sequence/order, consistent characters, consistent cities I've never seen before and so forth. It can confuse me to an extent sometimes.

In regards to the mechanisms and possible 'meaning' behind this there's a few general paradigms you'll see round here, and anywhere else probably. But it often depends on whether someone believes in a 'soul', or believes consciousness/the complete human experience is the complete product of the physical/tangible.

Some believe all dreams are subconscious manifestations and nothing more. Others believe the dream world is an astral realm as real as ours, for the soul; and can be shared and occupied or invaded. Others believe it is your 'soul' or source of consciousness using the brain to create virtual realities at will. Others believe they are completely seperate yet mutually real universes that you either live in or can temporarily access.

Who knows?

I'm an agnostic but I do believe in the 'soul'. A ghost in the shell if you like. I am the 'thing' operating through this body, of which by its very virtue of existence 'creates' the universe I perceive during everyday reality. The human is partly a robot, and hence can be programmed and influenced by what's stored in the brain and what behaviour becomes conditioned and so forth.

Because of this, I believe dreaming can become a function of the physical mind, the 'soul' or potentially 'something' else.

A true lucid dream is the 'soul' using the brain at its will, since you have complete control of your virtual reality. The subconscious programming of the brain can never be discounted however; because the ghost is working THROUGH the machine and hence is influencable by the machine - which creates its own 'mind' through subconscious processes and existing genetic information.

But it's impossible to really answer the complete mystery of dreams.

How does the brain organise a virtual reality in such a way, and what perceives this reality? In its normal daily functioning; the brain depends on all the senses to provide the 'source' information that needs to be decoded into a meaningful form (for you). But when you are asleep, what is the brain doing? Is it creating artificial 'sense data' for the dream it wants to make and then decoding that data itself while also experiencing the dream itself? How does it do that?

Or is it creating the dream in its meaningful form straight away? But then how are realistic sensations of touch achieved? How much of the brain is actually active during all types of dreams? Does a lucid dream create different/significantly stronger brain activity or signals than a normal dream? How can a lucid dream really happen? It is nothing short of a perfect virtual reality...

I once had a weird encounter that really changed my more 'skeptical' stance on dreaming. I am still quite skeptical, but I'm more willing to hear out ideas I would not have before. It's a long story but involved me waking up in my bed and being SURE I was awake. I have always had crazy realistic dreams but I've always known when I wake up and am back in my room. I quickly realised something wasn't right; the room was somewhat 'misty' and surreal, but I was SURE I was awake and this wasnt a dream or even a lucid one. Then I felt the most ridiculous fear I have felt in my life. I've seen and been in some messed up situations in reality, including where my life has been at direct risk - and it DOES NOT compare to this.

I shot my vision to my doorway and there was this black creature taking up the whole entrance. I say creature but it wasnt anything Earthly; it was like the grim reaper but with no face; a floating hooded like entity (though not actually hooded). When I saw this 'entity' I basically had a heart attack because I was so confidently conscious of the event. It (I originally called it a Shadow Demon for lack of better words) then began floating towards my bed and I couldn't move or scream for the life of me. I honestly believed I would die at that point, and remember thinking 'just do this quick'.

The 'negativeness' coming off this thing was ridiculous, the fear and sense of evil literally HURT with each passing moment as it approached. It proceeded to slowly float past my bed, RIGHT NEXT to me and whispers something in an incomprehensible language; that reminded me of a snake in some sense. It also sounded like voices over-layed on eachother but saying the same thing.

It then disappeared out the window and I remember just closing my eyes and trying to comprehend wtf just happened - and I fell asleep, just like that - boom! I encountered this thing again but this time DEFINITELY in a dream; we were in a weird, distorted and unreal feeling version of a location I know. We literally 'fought', but it was so strange that I can hardly remember it at all, but I vividly remember the experience in my room. I can simply remember it chasing me through sections and I had to figure out something. It was very, very bizarre but I do remember that I 'won' - whatever that meant.

A week or so after this 'event' I was having a semi-conscious dream and this 'howling demon' INTERUPTED my dream (at least from the context of the dream at the time). Originally it was like a ferocious beast ripping through the 'cloth' of my dream and bellowing this horrendous scream, and only when it started talking did it take a 'demon' form - it looked like a black dragon-like humanoid, if that makes sense? I say demon because it was menacing in its nature within my dream.

It talked to me in a sneering/smug/patronising sort of manner and I remember it distinctly saying 'look, look! I can control your dream!' and it then proceeded to apparently manifest and destroy people in my dream, outside of my semi-conscious control. I also remember it changing the environment and such. I wish I kept a better memory of that dream but I almost forgot it all when I woke up.

Those two dreams really made me stop and think at the time. I still don't know if there's anything more to all these different types of dream phenomena and so forth. What did freak me out slightly was when I went and did some research after my dreams and found a whole, thriving community based on these experiences and what they call the 'shadow people'. I was shocked how many people had an almost identical experience to mine. The medical explaination is 'sleep paralysis'. It doesn't really go much further in terms of explaination than that lol.

There are many questions that arise in regards to dreaming. I think we only have a fractional understanding of the whole range of mechanisms and processes behind dreams. I think they are fascinating none the less

reply to post by DazDaKing


Wow, thanks for that post. You give a lot of information and ask a lot of good questions too. Who knows, but I can tell you your description of waking up from sleep and "knowing you were awake" is exactly what I felt. My dream was full of dark frightening stuff too, that I chose to leave out of my description. I feel that I have some kind of defense mechanism that I use to never have to look at anything directly that might be really terrifying to me. When I was a kid it was the covers over my head. In the dream, I don't know how to describe it, but I can direct my mind away from having to actually look at something that I know will cause me terror.

reply to post by jonnywhite


I work out and run everyday, but I am afraid my frame is just wearing out. I have to keep it up though... who knows how bad it might get if I just let it go?

I kind of had that feeling while I was asleep, like I had awaken to find myself in a strange place. But I just couldn't have been awake, huh?

reply to post by wtbengineer


Time to go pick up my little one from daycare (off work at 3:30). I'll be back later.

reply to post by wtbengineer


I've had some of these, with one notable dream about 25 years ago. I could feel the temperature of the air on my skin, the breeze, the sun - everything was exactly like it is in this reality. In one place I even took precautions when jumping to the ground from high up because I knew it would hurt if I landed wrong. It was awesome, really because I knew I was dreaming. I also knew when I was waking up, and I asked someone where I was - and I told them I was "visiting" so as not to sound like an idiot.

reply to post by ScientiaFortisDefendit


That's pretty cool, but I didn't think I was dreaming. I've had dreams before when I knew I was dreaming. That's actually the majority of times for me. This time I was sure I was really awake.