Thread: "We only dream what we know" Fact or bullspit?

I read the same thing in Hervey Saint Denys' On Dreams and How to Guide them. He was just speculating I think, but he knew a lot about dreams.

But I don't think it's true absolutely. I think that for the most part it's probably right, but I know I have had LDs where I saw a face made up of 2 different faces just a few days ago. It's probably never inventing things from scratch, but the mind definitely combines and alters things we've seen.

But there's no real way to prove this, right?

Not that I can think of. I agree with what stonedape said though. Our minds can just create a face we've never seen before, but using features we have. I can actually do that from day dreaming.

In the sense that our minds cannot "create" a new color until we've seen it. We piece together images, shapes, colors... It is the reason someone who is blind from birth doesn't dream images. They cannot comprehend or imagine the idea of sight without having first experienced it.

But I like to think of dreams as an artist's rendering of memories. They may not always make sense or have deep meaning, but there is always some kind of inspiration.

Of course it's not true. Obviously you have to bring in aspects of things, even when imagining an alien planet. But it doesn't mean that you've seen it before. The limit of our dreams is the limit of our imagination.

I like to think we just take aspects (no matter how tiny) of different things and put them together to create something that "we haven't seen before". Cavemen probably didn't dream about wearing coats or using the computer, same as how we never dream of hunting mammoths. That's the best analogy I've got for this. xD

Originally Posted by Bearsy

But there's no real way to prove this, right?

Not that I know of. Saint Denys also thought it would be impossible to dream of things you couldn't experience and tried this in his dreams. His expectation led him to false results, I think he tried to jump out a window in a dream to kill himself and didn't experience the fall. He ended up as a spectator on the ground in a crowd looking at someone who had just fallen out of the window to their death. But I've jumped off of buildings in LDs before so I know this is possible.

I can't really think of any way to prove that. I would agree that everything we dream about we have experienced. I wouldn't say that they are exact faces or anything. I've mixed peoples faces before plenty of times. I once saw my dad in a lucid dream with long black hair. I've never seen my dad with long black hair in real life, but in the dream it looked as real as ever.

How can I dream about flying if I have never flown?

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

How can I dream about flying if I have never flown?

You've probably been suspended in the air though.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

How can I dream about flying if I have never flown?

You also have the experience of other people flying such as Superman and countless others. Of course that is fake but it's more than enough for the imagination to go off of.

Plus if you've ever been to an amusement park or on a roller coaster, your body would have some idea what the physical feeling might be like. And a real example you've experienced indirectly of flying are obviously birds and planes.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

How can I dream about flying if I have never flown?

You don't experience flying, you experience your brains idea of flying.

One way I can disagree with this is that there have been many cases of people dreaming the future. How is that possible with this theory that you only dream of what you know. Unless they include that our mind knows the future.

Originally Posted by elucid

One way I can disagree with this is that there have been many cases of people dreaming the future. How is that possible with this theory that you only dream of what you know. Unless they include that our mind knows the future.

Can you post an example? Because everyone gets the same sort of Dejavue feeling that they experience something and then realise they dreamed about it, or that you might dreams about something and then something will happen that's similiar to it, but I've never seen a story where someone like has a dream about the lottery numbers or anything and they're correct.

Originally Posted by Bearsy

I saw this online and this really sounds false to me.

Personally not convinced, but that's the sort of generalised arguament it's not worth giving any thought. It would be pretty much impossible to prove either way.

I doubt it. I've seen some weird characters in my dreams. Even stranger representations. Don't think i've seen a film or read anything where people were huge orbs, like burning suns, attached together by bright beams, and attached to vaster orbs, and that's just one example.

But to some extent you would have to argue yes - your representations / symbology often does feature things you're familiar with. This is shown more by culture differences / dreams throughout the world.

Some of the characters that popps up reminded me of figures from star wars, and various other films though slightly different, so perhaps

Think everyones had that hehe. Our memories arent perfect by any means. Wgen I was younger I dreamt Id drifted over the neighbours fence and could see in their garden. I may not have remembered ever seeing the garden before but I'd hedge my bets that as it was accurate I saw it at some point and forgot about it. Just because you dont recall things in waking doesnt mean yoy brain cant drudge them up for you in your sleep

Oh hell no... I guess this goes for everyone when I say I've had some twisted dreams. Look at my first DJ entry. I certainly did not foresee that...

Originally Posted by elucid

One way I can disagree with this is that there have been many cases of people dreaming the future. How is that possible with this theory that you only dream of what you know. Unless they include that our mind knows the future.

Adaptations of Science Fiction movie and books?

I know that all my dreams are from memories, event or movies in my waking life. I mean I can't figure out where I've seen everything in my dream, but I can figure out the where the plots of my dreams have come from.

Even though I claim to be one of those people that never forgets a face or a name, I can't prove / disprove what is being suggested. It has credibility. My eyes may have been focussing on the person directly ahead but the 'light' of the persons standing to the far left or far right would've had a chance to register inside my brain - subcontiously at least. So at night when the brain has the spare capacity, it goes and fetches those images to invent characters you don't actually "remember" previously' because you weren't focussed on them at the time.

I do believe dreams are linked to what you have seen and experienced but also believe they are linked to what you are about to see. Have personal proofs, see thread titled '15 years of precognitive dreaming' on the Beyond Dreaming forum.

I think part of that is tru and part not.
The part that is true is that we dream what we know.
and the part fake about that is that ower brain is program to distort reallitie to prevent us from future dangers.

Thats why it's not completely true....

if it's possible to go into a library during an LD and read Frankenstein having never read it. then you have your answer.

bullspit. our minds are gateways to the universe.

2 examples:

1. as a virgin teen I experienced lucid sex and nearly 2 years later real-life sex,
and as I'm losing my virginity I keep recalling the sensations in my dreams 2 years earlier.
I'm not going to get specific, but "textures", "scents" all felt exactly the same,
how could the mind of a virgin teenager know these feelings so accurately?

2. when I was 10 I had a vivid dream talking to a Brazilian ghost in Portuguese,
not only did I understand every word, but answered him in his native tongue,
in the morning I could still remember one or two sentences,
I wrote them down in english, poorly, but still, a month later
my father's friend translated those 2 sentences I wrote, it was:
"I can't stay here long, I'm going to be late for school".

these are just 2 examples, I have a third one which I don't count,
because it's something fairly new I discovered about the sphinx in Egypt,
in short: I think I may have visited Egypt in 30,000 B.C,
and to my surprise I saw the sphinx only it was surrounded by grass and green forest.
now after I investigated a little about the sphinx statue, I'm shocked to read
that some researches say, the sphinx is much older than what was previously assumed, and that it may have suffered damages caused by water, meaning extensive rain.

I don't remember anything from that experience,
it only recently happened, but since I can't draw much,
I kinda photoshoped that image in my mind, the only one I recall seeing:



anyhow that's my take on this based on MY own dream experiences...

Things were different back then. Goes without saying the land looked different too, but man is just as responsible for changes as nature ever was. Foolishness and superstitious fervor or lack of understanding with childish anger. They still have a lot to learn.

If you want to ground yourself though dont confuse imagination with experience. Perception may be misleading as many fumble through the dark, but to some extent closing your eyes to everything but your own thoughts will only suceed in losing yourself in a world if your own making.

Mankind has gone through many phases of growth and death. Its nature all over. What interest do you have in the distant past?