Dreams, Memory, and Intellect

Recently I read an older post entitled "Can you dream with more intelligence than you have?" I did make a post to this but I doubt if the OP will read it because of the length of time between the last post and mine. Therefore I am going to open another thread and hopefully provide some understanding to this question and why the appearance of unrealized intellect is manifest in dreams. I am not saying that this is the answer that anyone wants to hear and I am not implying that there is no holy grail of intellect lurking deep within our mind, although I believe there is capacity for such but due to the fact that we use only ten percent of our brain's capacity we will likely never realize this enormous potential for untapped intellect in our lifetimes.

The brain is the most sophisticated computing device imaginable. It has the capacity to calculate over 100 trillion calculations per second. This rate of speed is inconceivable and if it were not for conscious separation one would go insane from the shear amount of information being absorbed at any given time during consciousness.

When you are in the deeper stages of sleep (stage 4 and REM) the mind is using subconscious as well as conscious memory. In the REM period, breathing becomes more rapid, irregular and shallow, eyes jerk rapidly and limb muscles are temporarily paralyzed. Brain waves during this stage increase to levels experienced when a person is awake. Also, heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and the body loses some of the ability to regulate its temperature. This is the time when most dreams occur, and, if awoken during REM sleep, a person can remember the dreams. Most people experience three to five intervals of REM sleep each night.

Anything you have ever; heard, read, seen, felt, experienced, tasted, smelled, or in any other manner absorbed is available. Although you may have never realized this information was present in your mind, you may not have even consciously heard the information; however, your brain has and it is logged into memory. The problem with conscious access of memory is that it is dependent upon pathways, which usually come about through associations. The more associations you have of a memory the easier recall becomes for it. If there are no associations, there are no pathways, and although the information is stored, the conscious mind cannot retrieve it; this however, is not applicable to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind has complete access to every bit of information stored in the brain. If you want a visual on this try to imagine an interchange on a freeway, the more associations that are present (inroads) the more the freeway is accessible. Some of these "roads" connect with other "roads" and thus the ability to remember a story or past experience. Have you ever forgot some of the details of an event? This is because there are no connecting "roads" on this freeway. The associations are either misplaced, or have degraded due to lack of recalling the information. Memory degrades when it is not accessed and the more accessed it is, the more defined the pathways are and the better and more vivid the memory. Trauma although perhaps not recalled is deeply embedded in some cases because the emotional attachment is great and thus it creates very defined pathways; although this emotion can also overload the circuit and a "short" can occur and the memory can be completely gone from conscious recall due to that. Remember the brain works on electrical pulses and just as with any electrical circuit, it can be overloaded, the stronger the emotion, the more electricity it produces. This is why if trauma is remembered it can be very vivid and at the same time the emotion may be so strong that the circuit is burnt apart and it cannot be recalled. It is easier to understand how these pathways work if one would compare them to a fence gate. If the gate is used often, it moves freely, if it is used very rarely it may get rusty and not move at all. And the depth of memory can be related to a path through the Forrest, if it is used daily, it becomes deeper and well defined and can easily be found even in the dark, but if no-one ever walks on this path it degrades and can even disappear from site, the path is in fact still there, just grass and other debris has grown over it and it cannot be found. Memory works in much the same way.

When you are dreaming the mind has complete access to both the conscious and subconscious memory, and this could easily manifest itself as having great unlocked intellect when recalling a dream and in fact this knowledge is there, just not accessible through the conscious mind. I hope this helps to understand this somewhat.

Happy Holidays!

[edit on 12/8/2008 by DarrylGalasso]

[edit on 12/8/2008 by DarrylGalasso]

This is quite fascinating. It does help me understand better, thank you.

many of the things you dream are (even more) real (than your daily life):

what we live in dream really happen, not in the physical world obviously.

dream world is not created by our minds, it is our minds, when we are dreaming that are wandering there;

perceptions of them (what we "remember") are however highly biased by our unconscious.

studies are interesting but science is not advanced enough, at this time, to explain the brain/the mind.

[edit on 8-12-2008 by ::.mika.::]

[edit on 8-12-2008 by ::.mika.::]

I usually don't recall my dreams very much and should start writing them down when I get up. I would really like to have lucid dreams. I'm not so sure about my dream intellect though. While some places are very familiar, others are not as if I just saw them for the first time. It does make me wonder if we dream in a dream type matrix, where this information comes from other people's experiences also.

I had a dream the other day I went to some bar I've never been before and I've been having dreams lately about my ex-wife. We've been divorced for over ten years. It's not as if we're back together though. But I haven't since bothered with anyone else either. I guess I should ask my therapist?

reply to post by aleon1018


Often times we do dream in a matrix of sorts. This is due to our creative imagination. And of what I have been taught one does not remember the dream unless they have been awakened while still in it. You may have not awakened fully and just rolled over and may not know or believe that you have awakened; however, according to what is "believed" you have in fact woke up if only for a brief second.

I think we do dream in or at a higher intellect than we project in a conscious state. During the recent Presidential Race, I had a dream one night that really confused me to a degree. I dreamed that it was the distant future and myself and 2-3 other persons were looking through some rubble and found a parchment/placard that stated "The destruction of the U.S. was caused by the "Great Hessian". The issue we had with that was that the "H" and the "n" in Hessian were a little blemished. We discussed this, the same way that people discuss anything in a dream, kind of like a bunch of "blah, blah, blah" and then I said, "Perhaps the "H" is an "M" and the "n" is an "h". That would make it say, "The destruction of the U.S. was caused by the "Great Messiah".
It was at this point I woke up and felt a little strange. I was not an Obama supporter, and there have been references to him being a Messiah, directly or indirectly. I was just really suprised that my little brain could come up with that puzzle.
As I said, I was not an Obama supporter, and I did vote for McCain. However, since Obama won the election, I feel it is my responsibility as a U.S. Citizen to support him, for if he fails, we all fail.
I really didn't want this to be about politics, but I felt I did need to explain that part so I didn't seem like a basher.
I hope you consider this "On Topic".

[edit on 8-12-2008 by RealityisanIllusion]

I guess, depending on our state of health and anxiety, this is when dreams become much more involved. When I was homeless and scared, I had a dream I met what seemed to be the devil. Before I woke up I recall asking: "How can I appease you?" and he replied in a loud voice; "DIE!" I actually had to look the word appease up to be sure. I guess I could have seen that in some movie sometime.

Pretty much most of my dreams are stupid like driving down a road and than walking instead. Very rarely are they more involved as if some part of my life like a movie. I'm not sure what the average dream length is or how many seperate dreams we have in one night.

I guess by the statement of most being stupid suggests a lack of intellect and disconnect. One thing that almost always holds true for me is feeling inhibited in my dreams and typically not doing something I would when I was awake like dating and romance.

I have given thought to playing certain sounds as if to promote a different kind of dream. Mostly because I sleep with the radio on and many times, the music is in the dream and as if it helps construct it.

reply to post by aleon1018


Well, from that I think you are saying I was concerned that Obama would destroy the U.S. and my brain created a dream to help me believe it. Is that right?
On your other point, I believe sounds that occur in the "real' world while we are dreaming, become part of the dream. When I'm really tired, and my alarm starts beeping, it ends up being a sound relevant to my dream, so I don't wake up immediately.
The fact that your dreams are usually you driving down a road and then walking down a road can actually be relevant to your life, such as you are on a journey and at times that journey will be easy, (in the car) and at times the journey will be rougher, (walking). I don't think it means they are stupid. Just a thought.

I'm not sure about the Obama thing. I have my doubts it really matters who becomes president if the agenda or plan is set in politcal stone or concrete.

Yeah, I guess so. It's not my thread anyway. It's hard to say exactly if all dreams are from our own minds. There may be a supernatural connection to some of those who've passed on?

My health issues are erratic though. I recall having a couple of really lucid dreams once. My wife at the time couldn't wake me so she called paramedics because of my rapid and labored breathing.

It's a long story, but in short I supposedly met some young girl whose name was Pandora whose mother was the Queen of Sheba. I vividly recall many of the events in the lucid dream as if for real. I

t was more like an OOBE. So bizarre. It was also the girl's birthday. I'm fairly certain the whole thing was staged as well. I can't say who exactly though, but it was very interesting.

[edit on 8-12-2008 by aleon1018]

The brain is indeed a very powerful “computer”. I read or heard somewhere a very good explanation on how it is we can predict things that are going to happen, sense “things” or even create or attract what it is we want. Here’s how it works. Our subconscious is thinking all the time. It’s coming up with scenarios or possibilities by analyzing everything we’ve seen, know, remember or don’t remember, smell, hear, thought, feel….everything. It process this data without you even knowing while you are awake or asleep. It then outputs the results. Sometimes it in the form of a dream that makes no sense and other times it’s in the form of a prediction that comes true, like when you think about somebody then the phone rings and it’s them. It’s just the brain crunching all the possibilities and allowing you to accurately realize the outcome before it happens. I think our conscious mind is to slow and dumb to read all the data, hence how when a coincidence happens we just think, wow, what a coincidence! It appears as a random occurrence. As simple as it sounds I still think there are some other unknowns at play.

I’ve been really trying to focus on seemingly insignificant things lately trying to harness this “power”. Just the other day out of nowhere this thought just popped into my head. I thought, I’m going to be able to predict the next person I see, and where I would see them. I immediately picked a person, got up and walked out of my office into the hallway and looked around the corner into another doorway down the hall and saw the lady walk right past the doorway. Coincidence? What are the odds I would pick the right lady out of 200 people, half of which are on the road 80% of the time to be in the right place for only a split second? This is only one example of the many seeming impossible, meaningless predictions or guesses I’ve nailed over the past few years. I just wish I could put it to some good use like the lotto or something.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


What you are saying reminds me a lot of a book I read called "The Secret" I believe it was a movie first and then made into a book by the way it read. You may want to google this, it is a very short book and I am sure that someone has it posted in it's entirety.

You are correct about the conscious mind being "dumb"; however, it has to be this way. The shear amount of information processed in our brain would make us insane if we had access to it all at any given moment in time. Have you ever heard that insanity and genius is a fine line?This may very well be the reason for that. The genius mind has more access to the power of the mind, hence it can understand more. That most likely makes it dangerously close to overload or insanity.

im not lying when i say my dreams make no sense, ever. half the time i cant explain them because they are just a jumble of nonsense flung together. the odd occasion i have a dream where i can sense a point, like something is sort of happening, or some normality is there, even breifly. i dont know if thats just me. but the other night, i was drifting of, and i was thinking about a programme i watched on time, origins of the universe and the likes. i wasn't totally asleep but i was starting to dream, my thoughts where going by themselves is the only way to describe it. it was as if i was looking into something, blackness, space perhaps. i saw something appear, either a planet or an atom. then, for a second, it was as though i knew the answer to the questions about time, origin and everything. then i woke up. when i did, for a minute or two i could almost remember the answsers, it was on the tip of my tounge, and i felt like a could just say it any moment. it was so frustrating, then it completly left me. i thought about it all the next day, and now i cant really remember a thing about it except what ive just said previously. it felt good, for brief moment when i suddenly "knew". probably it wont happen again though