Has anybody used a calculator while dreaming?

I've always been curious about the capabilities of the mind. I've heard everyone is capable of photographic memory and other remarkable powers, most of us just don't know how to use our brains. I find myself in lucid dreaming from time to time. It's not something I plan or expect. My reactions to it have ranged from simply trying to wake up, to just playing with my powers. In my lucid dreams I can more or less conjure things into existence just by imagining them (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't). I've attempted two failed experiments in this state.

In one instance I was curious to test my brains mathematical capability. I planned to use a calculator in my dream to multiply two random numbers, then check everything out on a real calculator after I woke up. I was hoping to see an instant and accurate calculation, but when I attempted to conjure up the calculator I was instead met with a girl asking me a simple algebra question. I asked "where's my calculator". She said "you'll get your calculator, but you have to answer this first". I figured I may as well, algebra is more important than arithmetic. It was a basic FOIL problem, similar to what my tutor gave me as an introduction to algebra. I worked it out in my head, but I woke up before I could ask for my calculator again. When I realized what just happened I ran the problem through my head again to check it. What I came up with in the dream was wrong. Some of my reasoning faculties are impaired by sleep.

In another instance I tried testing my memory. I conjured up a table full of random trinkets and clutter, made it disappear, and then brought it back. Then I realized I had no way to verify that I brought everything back exactly as it was... So I figured I'd try checking my memory against something from the real world. Before I woke up I would pick a random magazine from my room, open it to a random page, and check it against the real magazine after I woke up. If I could bring back a sentence word for word it would show me there's more to my memory than what I know how to use. When I picked up the magazine in my dream, I realized it wasn't anything from the real world. So I put it out of the way and pulled out another magazine. It was an exact copy of the one I discarded. As I shuffled through all the magazines in my dream (there were far more of them in the dream than in real life), I saw they were all copies of the same thing.

Has anyone ever tried anything similar?

No, but I have used a slide rule. I'm an old fashioned guy.

a reply to: ColeYounger

Cool!

a reply to: ColeYounger

Do you recall how well it worked?

You have interesting dreams

I've had fun with dreams but always just trying to manipulate the outcome.
I will have to try doing experiments, it sounds like fun.

a reply to: VoidHawk

LOL yeah. My 'normal' dreams can be kind of weird. My transition between sleeping and waking has at times made me analyze my sanity!

a reply to: VP740

I haven't tried to work out any mathematics problems in my dreams, but I have tried to read. I find it impossible to concentrate on any text I see in a dream for more than a few seconds then the words (word order & spelling) become jumbled and incoherent.

No calculations..but have you tried putting your index finger at the centre of your palm? it wil go through and you will wake up lol

a reply to: frostjon361

Interesting. I've heard of that in dreams and remote viewing. In my dreams I am capable of reading. I've had some peculiar experiences related to that. I guess I should elaborate, but I'm going to bed for now. I'll add more tomorrow.

Good night, and pleasant dreams.

a reply to: VP740

I remember that in a dream I was receiving numerical sequences that held special meanings and contained special knowledge, foreknowledge, insight. Then I was given a sequence that had a specific meaning that I recieved as I was waking and so I tried to remember it. I did, but I realized it was a nonsensical issue as it came into conscious focus and realized as sleep receded that numbers don't have those types of meanings.
The complex meanings I was associating between knowledge, insight and idea were real only in the complexity of the association but not in the mundane world where it is was meaningless; a subconscious idea that was associated with the number and the idea of remembering as I awoke.
Perhaps subconscious ideas are associated in a semi random fashion with numerical processes involved with the semantic generation of conscious content and knowledge but the association s not repeatable and hence meaningless not repeatable and the one time symbolic maths used subconsciously have no ongoing association but could lead to a temporary specialized insight into hermetic knowledge and are arrivable at by no other means?

Very interesting idea op. and awesome lucid experiences.

Never tried to use a calculator but i'v seen myself trying to solve math problems, trying to read pages
and once I show myself somehow like in digital form, and i had to follow strategic chess like moves but in strange patterns and in 0 1 code instead of black and white squares. It was a totally different world around me and an ''exotic'' experience of awareness. I felt like I knew like a million different patterns which also had a meaning to them.
Of course when you wake up the next day nothing makes sense.
weird as hell.

a reply to: luciddream

I've never tried that. If I want to wake myself up I usually jump off a cliff or something. It works pretty well. If I don't die on purpose I may not wake up though. It sometimes wakes me up, and other times sends me to an afterlife.

a reply to: cryptic0void

Sounds a lot like the movie Pi. I think the mechanisms our brain uses to manipulate numbers gives us special abilities to reason. Numbers as we usually think of them are nothing special, 1 2 3... just figures on paper.

In computers we represent voltages in RAM with numbers, and the numbers may be considered interchangeable with other symbols. 97 = 'a' in hexadecimal for example. But as with Godel numbering, it doesn't matter which number you use with which symbol. The numbers can mean all kinds of things. As numbers are defined in Peano Arithmetic, the definition for 1 could could be applied just as easily to the number 2, or 572 etc...

Numbers may be seen as a sort of vessel for symbols. They can take whatever meaning you give them. The relations between numbers may be seen as a sort of map of how minds can move.

a reply to: Dr1Akula

Your brain comparing itself to other systems that process meaning?

a reply to: VP740

So, I'll expand on my experiences with reading. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia, but the issues with those conditions and misdiagnoses deserves a whole other thread. I first learned to read by following my father as he read The Monster at the End of this Book to me. After going through it enough with him, I remembered enough to get through it on my own. Reading was slow and difficult for me initially, but my comprehension was good. I would learn from following my father, then going back through things repeatedly myself, or just picking up a bible or magazine and seeing what I could make of it. This conditioned me to sight reading, and I got fairly good at filling in the meaning of new words.

The first 'real' book I read was Asimov's Foundation. I've had insomnia from a young age, and spent a great deal of time lying awake in bed. Sometimes I'd only be half awake (this was usually a very pleasant experience, but it could lead to sleep paralysis). One morning waking up half way, I felt like reading more of my book, but I didn't feel like getting out of bed. I don't have psychic powers, but for some reason I decided: no problem. I can just read from here. I could see the open pages through my mind. It was a bit dim and I struggled with each word. I would forget the last word upon going to the next. I might have turned a page or two before I went back to sleep. I wasn't sure what to make of this when I woke up later.

Eventually I would drift into a near hypnotic state while reading. Instead of translating the words verbally, I would see images. Sometimes they were like a photo or illustration depicting what I read, other times they were completely abstract (like fractals). I'd read some books in this state (mainly Michael Chrighton), at about one hundred pages an hour. But I couldn't slip into this state at will. In my early twenties I decided I could merge mnemonics with speed-reading. For those not familiar: I could memorize the presidents by visualizing whatever pops into my head when I hear washington: washing a car. Then Addoms: an atom. Then mix them: atoms washed from a car. Then mix atom with Jefferson and so on. I would try to come up with a visual mnemonic before the word sounded in my head. As soon as I had an image I'd go to the next one (these images could represent anything from one word to an entire sentence). The first time I tried this I was successful. I had to struggle at the time to come up with symbols for numbers with Feinaigle's alphabet. That seemed to shift me into the speed reading state. That time it was a strange and intense experience. My mind stopped bringing sound from the words; instead I heard a sort of buzzing noise when my eyes moved. It was almost like a click going to the next word on the right, and it buzzed longer when my eyes moved back down to the next line: z,z,z,zzz z,z,z,zzz... I felt an odd sensation at the back of my head. It remaindered me of what you feel when you try to touch repelling magnets together (someone told me that could have been a sort of reaction from eye strain). My posture was limp, sort of like Stephen Hawking. Despite being very physically relaxed, I felt strained and my breathing was heavy. I only felt this sensation one more time when waking up early, then falling back to sleep. Since then I haven't been able to do it, and I haven't had any natural speed reading experiences.

Later on I worked on a computer program trying to develop savant like abilities, but it seemed to make my mnemonics weaker instead (the idea was inspired by Dr. Renshaw's research). probably as a result, I would on occasion 'wake' to see text. Unlike my first encounter trying to remote view Foundation, I could read what I saw effortlessly. At first I only saw random words. Then small sentence fragments. I noticed If I tried to reread something, it would change. Eventually I saw entire paragraphs complete with punctuation, but I don't remember anything it said. It went away for a while, then I saw a sort of collage of random words in front of images (all seemingly unrelated). This sort of thing hasn't happened to me in a while. Somewhere in that time, I'd heard people couldn't read while dreaming or remote viewing. I noticed I could read in my dreams. I don't recall reading entire pages in my dreams though, just titles and stuff.