Thread: What are dreams made of?

Well, it's the firing of electrical energy across the synapses of the brain that creates thoughts and dreams.

There's no actual sound waves in your brain when you dream of a sound - keep in mind your sensory organs only provide data streams that are meaningless until your brain processes them.

But you need to put it into context - think about this for a moment:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. What is a moving picture worth then? How about an entire movie, with sound?

It's a very dense and complex web of interconnected experiences - it involves people and places and things and ideas and memories and feelings - so much more than just the sum of its apparent parts. What I mean is - if you watch a movie and a character simply mentions the word house - you already know what a house is - it's what's been called by some a machine for living, and there are many other things it means - "home is where the heart is", you might think about the house where you grew up, or if you're an architecture student it carries a whole different package of associations with it. All of this in just a single mention of one word. Most of the words in a movie carry a whole web of associations like this. So in a sense every symbol in a movie - every image and every word, activates a whole vast network of associations and memories and thoughts and feelings in your mind that might not come into full conscious awareness but nevertheless they inform the experience of watching the movie.

Dreams are like that too. Well, life is like that actually, and dreams are really just life while you're asleep and your mind is doodling randomly. We are the sum of our experiences, and each image or sound or memory or bit of knowledge in a dream calls up its own vast web of interconnected associations. Sort of like the way marks on a piece of paper (or on your monitor ) can carry vast amounts of meaning, as long as those marks are words that you've been taught to read, and the words are arranged in meaningful ways.

In a sense you can say a book is nothing more than ink printed on paper - but that would be missing the point. It's actually a network of complex symbols carrying incredibly complex associations. The meaning in stories and in dreams isn't in the mere physical facts - it's carried in the symbols and associations.

^^ Extremely well said, Darkmatters; I might even print that one up and stick it on my bulletin board -- the one made of matter, of course!

That said, I think maybe you didn't completely answer OP's question, so mind if I add a bit?

Terezrucker: Though Darkmatters literally answers your question in his first sentence, it might be easier to understand if you think of the universe as being made of matter and energy or, if you really dig deeply, it is not unfair to say that everything is energy. So, too, are dreams.

But also, they are not.

Yes, dreams are physiologically "just" electrochemical connections between neurons in the brain, times a zillion. In process they are simply energy, perhaps generated by reactions of matter, but still energy. All that stuff you experience in a dream does not exist as matter. Indeed, it does not exist at all, but is nothing more than an energy-fueled projection of your unconscious (and conscious, if LD'ing) imaginings. So dreams are nothing more than energy ... But ... not really energy.

Why? After that initial physiological stuff, when we get to the stuff Darkmatters describes, dreams are not energy at all. Nor are they matter. They are nothing but consciousness. Yes consciousness may or may not be fueled by energy, but it transcends energy in its "sum is greater than the whole" context described above, sort of like that movie Darkmatters describes is more than just celluloid and light -- 'scuse me: bits of digital energy.

Personally, I think consciousness produces it's own unique "energy" that exists outside the electromagnetic spectrum; call it thought energy. Dreams, I think, are made of this.

tl;dr: Dreams are sourced in energy, but are not made of anything that can be readily defined.

Another explanation of the same answer, the way I like to look at it, is that dreams are the same thing that real life is. Think about it for a second, how is it that you experience reality? The easiest way to look at it is that we are always "dreaming", although when we are in the waking state the "dreaming" is reliant on external stimuli to drive it. While asleep, the dreaming continues, but external stimuli is cut off--and so, without being tied down, dreams are naturally more random and less sensible. If you wanted you could replace the word dreaming with perceiving; it would technically be more accurate, even in the case of sleeping. The mind's method of perceiving is the same process whether awake or asleep. You receive stimuli, and to process it, neurons fire within the brain (what Darkmatters said). Whether or not you can remember the perceiving or are even conscious/all the way there is another story.

Hi all sorry for the late reply and thank you for all the input it was very "eye opening". So your answer have created even more questions I will be brief and trouble you no more after this.

So if at its absolute base everything is made of the same energy or "stuff" for lack of a better term dream world , this world , waynes world etc shouldn't it be just as easy to manipulate this world as the dream world with just a thought? Since consciousness is transcendent to energy. I mean the box that this world comes in is no doubt different but isn't it the same play dough if you know what i me an. Unless of course consciousness is not transcendent to energy but simply energy with a will but, then the question arises what is will. Well from how I see it will doesn't exist nor does consciousness.Consciousness can very well be just energy going thru its motions doing what its preprogramed to do, with the illusion of self awareness. No different from how the Earth rotates on its axis or a nuclear reaction.

Dreams are made of the same substance as the curiosity that led you to ask what dreams were made of. Dreams are made of the same thing consciousness is made of. We are so fascinated by what makes a dream, even though the substance that makes dreams is the substance which gives all other substances meaning.

What meaning does Hydrogen bear, without a conscious mind to care?

The scientific answer is energy signals in the brain which make up thoughts - and thoughts which make up dreams. I'd elaborate, but quite frankly I'm not a neurologist, and the answers that have already been given are probably better than what I could provide. So I'll spare this discussion the tainting of my scientific opinion.

I've got somewhere I belong,
I've got somebody to love,
This is what dreams are made of. (According to Hilary Duff)

Scientifically, long-term memory is basically proteins that are synthesised by specific genes and ultimately (after pre-processing by parts of the brain) used in things called DAL neurons to "seal in" the memory (although recent research suggests that memories MIGHT be altered by the very act of accessing them.) So, surely dreams follow the same process? (and are DEFINITELY altered by access) All wrapped up then?

Except research suggests that fundamental particles have varying degrees of "conscious awareness" so maybe (like most science) the more we discover the more layers we uncover Conscious Particles, Fields, Waves

^^ Not wrapped up yet, I think! Though your explanation of the function of memory is spot-on, there is a problem with it in relation to dreams.

Dreams are very rarely recorded into short-term memory, much less long-term. Most are consigned to oblivion upon waking, probably for just the reason you mention: that our access to memories tend to change them. I would imagine that if all dreams were stored permanently in long-term memory, people would eventually become very confused about what was real and what wasn't. Which is a side-effect in LD'ing, I've found, BTW, because, as conscious events, they can and do get recorded in long-term memory.

Oh, and for what it's worth, just because scientists are puzzled by the behavior of subatomic particles does not mean that those particles have conscious awareness. Scientists should be more careful when assembling metaphors to describe what they observe, as it gets regularly misinterpreted by their often breathless audience (quantum entanglement being one of the most abused concepts). Particles are particles, period. They may be amazing and we may not yet be able to explain all their actions, but I really doubt that they have conscious awareness!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Well, it's the firing of electrical energy across the synapses of the brain that creates thoughts and dreams.

There's no actual sound waves in your brain when you dream of a sound - keep in mind your sensory organs only provide data streams that are meaningless until your brain processes them.

But you need to put it into context - think about this for a moment:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. What is a moving picture worth then? How about an entire movie, with sound?

It's a very dense and complex web of interconnected experiences - it involves people and places and things and ideas and memories and feelings - so much more than just the sum of its apparent parts. What I mean is - if you watch a movie and a character simply mentions the word house - you already know what a house is - it's what's been called by some a machine for living, and there are many other things it means - "home is where the heart is", you might think about the house where you grew up, or if you're an architecture student it carries a whole different package of associations with it. All of this in just a single mention of one word. Most of the words in a movie carry a whole web of associations like this. So in a sense every symbol in a movie - every image and every word, activates a whole vast network of associations and memories and thoughts and feelings in your mind that might not come into full conscious awareness but nevertheless they inform the experience of watching the movie.

Dreams are like that too. Well, life is like that actually, and dreams are really just life while you're asleep and your mind is doodling randomly. We are the sum of our experiences, and each image or sound or memory or bit of knowledge in a dream calls up its own vast web of interconnected associations. Sort of like the way marks on a piece of paper (or on your monitor ) can carry vast amounts of meaning, as long as those marks are words that you've been taught to read, and the words are arranged in meaningful ways.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

In a sense you can say a book is nothing more than ink printed on paper - but that would be missing the point. It's actually a network of complex symbols carrying incredibly complex associations. The meaning in stories and in dreams isn't in the mere physical facts - it's carried in the symbols and associations.

This thread made to have a clear understanding about what is actually a dream. Thank you guys,