What is a dream

(This is my 2nd attempt at this thread. The 1st attempt was removed because I didn't follow the guidelines)

I am realizing that dreams and reality are not that different. And i need to talk about it!
That realization comes with a twinge of shock, so I am hoping to hear some ATS thoughts on the matter.

Just like most of us, in every dream, I am living some story. When I wake up I think to myself "that was just a dream".

But while I am in a dream, I think this reality is the dream. This reality seems like a story worth a couple of seconds of content and this reality feels like - just a whimsical hiccup.

But when I'm on this side of the fence, the opposite is true.

Could everything always be just a dream and all that reality is, is a dream classification of a dream where the dreamer is present? Maybe reality is overrated. Or dreams might be underrated.

These stories that we brew whether we are asleep or awake, are pretty insane.



To suggest that dreams and reality only differ in the presence of the dreamer, suggests there is some third state we could be in. A non dreaming state. Is that possible?

Regardless of which dream or reality we are present in, our attachments, feelings, and experiences are just as significant.

The only thing that seems to change with the translation between dreams, is memories.

Do you ever dream you are another person, or are friends or married to someone who has never been there in reality? Or do you ever dream that you are looking at yourself? Do you ever dream that you are made up from more than 1 person?

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

I have been dreaming a lot about dreams.

a reply to: Daniidoom

They are two distinct states of consciousness that humans experience.

The difference being dreams are products of our imagination, while reality is the world as it exists around us.

a reply to: Daniidoom

There are different types or classes of dreams, most seem to reflect our reality in some way, you could say the subconscious is processing things from our everyday lives. Though they may appear vague and irrational when we think back on them. Other types of dreams are like going into another reality altogether, we are utterly convinced they are real until we wake from them. These are the type I find fascinating… perhaps we really have tuned into another reality? It could be what is referred to as the astral realms, the brain and our perception is nothing more than a filter after all.

a reply to: AllisVibration

Some can be downright terrifying.

Another thing that's no joke is sleep paralysis.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: AllisVibration

Some can be downright terrifying.

Another thing that's no joke is sleep paralysis.

Couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve had sleep paralysis quite a bit in my life. It’s pretty damn scary when you can’t move and you feel like there’s someone in the room.

Dreaming and sleep are essential. Doctors once thought that the lack of sleep was a symptom of other problems although now they believe that it may be causing other illnesses.

a reply to: bluemooone44

"Heart".

Tune.

a reply to: andy06shake

Nightmares are a strange one, if you’re body and mind needs to rejuvenate what’s the point in having nightmares and waking up terrified with a cold sweat? They could represent underlying fears or issues we have that we have failed to address in our lives perhaps? But first we need to make sense of them, and as with most dreams there seems to be little sense to be had at all. Perhaps it is the subconscious dealing with things in a way that only makes sense for it? But I think there is more going on than just that.

I haven’t had sleep paralysis thankfully, though I have heard accounts of people saying it feels like they are helpless and being suffocated by a dark hag type figure. I definitely wouldn’t want to wake to that!

I hope there is much more research into the subject in general as I have a strong sense we are missing something important.

a reply to: Daniidoom

A dream "reality" has no dimensions whereas our awake "reality" always is within a limited dimension of time due to the impediment of our physical/material bodies. In short, in a dream, we are free from that impediment, our consciousness can fly free from the body. Evidence for this is found in any story where, for example, a person dies on the operating table, but they find their consciousness floating above as doctors work to revive them. That consciousness is free to observe, but has no role in restoring itself within that body.

Any dream is taken from the mind, consciously or unconsciously, perhaps held on to or held over from a head full of physical living and thinking as an integrated unit. Death cuts that cord. A consciousness floating over a deceased body on the OR table is then free to move on to what is.... and often is met with other souls that have gone before.

Dreaming is about as close to death as you can get as evidenced by the frequency with which many deaths happen as people are in the relatively safe and quiet pastime of sleeping. The purpose of sleep and its attendent dreaming may be just as much for the connection we have to a higher source as it is to a physical need.

a reply to: Daniidoom

Maybe it is all a dream. But since our brains run on electricity and our brains are also fragile and can be destroyed, we need to dedicate a portion of our dream life to ‘operating our avatar’ in the ‘physical world’ so we can gather energy for our brain and construct or find ‘or pay for’ a safe place to lay down and get back to the real world (of dreams).

a reply to: AllisVibration

I haven’t had sleep paralysis in a long time myself.

Mainly down to lifestyle changes and choices if I'm honest.

Tend to agree further study is most definitely required.

a reply to: Daniidoom

Do you ever dream you are another person, or are friends or married to someone who has never been there in reality? Or do you ever dream that you are looking at yourself? Do you ever dream that you are made up from more than 1 person?

Yes. Nearly all of it at once sometimes. For example, one night, I had a dream that I was watching a movie on TV in which I starred. And it went like this:

I visited my friend in her office. Or rather she was supposed to be my friend because I've never seen this woman in real life. The office wasn't like any office I've visited in reality. Anyway, I arrived there the moment her manager (some female I've never met either) was leaving for a holiday. Shortly after she left, some thugs tried to break into the office, started shooting at the windows and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. I think we were fighting with them but I don't remember the details because it was a total mess, some frantic display of aggression.

Then I woke up and that was it.

It's just one example. I had several dreams where I was looking at myself from aside or watching the movie with myself. Or meeting people who I've never seen in reality. But most of the time, the people I dream about are familiar. I rarely have peaceful dreams. Most of the time I have nightmares. Some of them seem to be random and it's difficult to figure out what they are about.

I hate dreaming. They never make sense. And you do things in them that you'd never really do in life. Once I dreamed I jumped out of an airplane, turned into a rock, and bounced off the ground. Weird crap like that. And then there are the ones where all your teeth fall out of your head, or that you are naked in a crowd, or that you are back in college and you don't remember what classes you are supposed to be in .... all the typical stuff that I've read others dream about too. I hate dreams. I wish I could sleep dreamless, but then you'd go crazy because you need the brain to dream while asleep or your mind can't take life and you have break downs.

a reply to: Daniidoom
I see that this new discussion of dreams has again evolved into people feeling the need to talk about their dreams rather than look beyond the process. --Almost like trying to talk seriously about UFO and aliens.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: AllisVibration

Some can be downright terrifying.

Another thing that's no joke is sleep paralysis.

Seemed funny to me looking back, sleep paralysis that is. It eventually breaks (only experienced twice) and each time I sent the bedside cabinet across the room and did an ouchy on my hand.

Thankfully it's never happened when I've been in bed with someone else.

I've always suspected it's a crossing over of emotions from dreams into a waking state but that's hardly a consolation prize when the fears become temporarily real.

a reply to: CosmicFocus

The correlation process has to start somewhere and it seems to me many have weird dreams but the majority happily dismiss them. I tend to look at emotions and stress as causation but the only one who needs to really work it all out becomes the individual. What else is there but theories and themes?

I had another dream just this morning just the kind that I hate to have. Right as I wake up, I am bawling my butt off and I can't believe I am saying bye to all these people. But within just 30 seconds of waking up tearful and woeful, I realize that I have never seen any of those people in my life and the love that I feel so deeply for them is all artificial....as are they...

Genuine question; do dreams actually serve any practical purpose?

I have some weird one's.
I have some troubling one's.
I have some genuinely hilarious one's.

I can rarely remember them after about half an hour or so.

originally posted by: Freeborn
Genuine question; do dreams actually serve any practical purpose?

If we didn't sleep and dream, we'd go insane.
The purpose is to preserve our sanity.
That's what I was taught in Psychology class decades ago.
The mind has to unwind and it does a 'free for all' kind of thing.
The science may or may not have changed on that.


Anyways .. interesting internet piece about why we dream what we dream and mental health -
Sleep Doctor Click Here

a reply to: Daniidoom

"A dream is a wish your heart makes"-Walt Disney

Sorry. Couldn't resist....digressing....dreams seem to be our unconscious dealing with the jumbles thoughts, dreams n fears...of our consciousness like a salad tossing our daily grind.

I've had amazing ones. Amazing.

I've meditated 50 years, and Astral travel is much like your dreams, but you're awake....

a reply to: Daniidoom

Poster:
May I add to my above reply here? Ponder this:
1. Perhaps our real life is in our dreams, and our real lives, are not...reality?!

2. (This one scares me) What if we are only part of someone else's dream? They wake up? Is when we die!

*May I assure you this from a lifetime of experiences: Dreams...like eyes...are windows to the soul.

Cya...Peace ✌️