Thread: If you gain knowledge threw a lucid dream, would you remember it in the real world?

Thats of course what I think anyways.

Originally Posted by Origami

So are you talking about hearing things, and forgetting them, so you technically don't know them, like looking at a page of words for a second, and what you mean is getting information that you technically forgot?

So you don't mean learning something totally new just from your brain, you're talking about learning something new that you already saw but just forgot?

Think the more interesting question here is whether you regard simply memorising things as learning. The ability to remember facts doesn't really alter the way you understand a topic. Only if that fact is somehow connected to something else, lets say another fact, and a new understanding emerges would I call it learning. However I firmly believe dreaming can help connect these dots. Although there may be a story to tell regarding registering things subconsciously unavailable for waking recall, I believe that particular capability is irrelevant with regards to the question of "gaining knowledge through dreams".

However if your goal is to practice memory and you are seeking a way to access things you normally wouldn't have access to, then ofcourse it is an interesting discussion, I don't know whether or not dreams can do that for you though =P. In general it is possible to "prime" people so they will recognise certain words faster than others, but I don't know if you can actually recall these words in dreams.

Yeah, that does sound reasonable. I've found at random times doing math, pertinent information would pop up proving to be useful. But then again I don't know if that was the subconscious at work, or regular practice with math. Like a dream journal I've found writing things out stay with my long-term memory as opposed to trying to memorize it by looking at it.

Originally Posted by Firebat11

Yeah, that does sound reasonable. I've found at random times doing math, pertinent information would pop up proving to be useful. But then again I don't know if that was the subconscious at work, or regular practice with math. Like a dream journal I've found writing things out stay with my long-term memory as opposed to trying to memorize it by looking at it.

You should sleep after you try and learn something. Sleep, in particular REM sleep, helps consolidate newly formed memories making them more available for recall. I find that when I am studying for an exam I take quick naps whenever I feel tired and it helps me remember the meaning of whatever topic I am at work with (I study psychology, but I am sure it is the same for the natural sciences). This aspect of sleep is widely recognised in experimental psychology. Conclusion, if you try to hard you may ruin it, try sleeping on it before you read it again ^^.

Although the discussion is till open for actually gaining knowledge through dreams they certainly help consolidating what we already know. If you are to believe the stories of people (myself included) waking up with new found understandings and ideas, they do, but these reports haven't been as stringently controled as the memory experiments (to my knowledge at least).

Sometimes however I also find myself getting a brand new idea or angle at a topic although that wasn't even remotely connected to the theme of the dream.

What I was saying is that you remember much more than what you think you remember. If someone showed you a list of 20 things, and you had to memorize everything in one reading, you wouldn't be able to. You could maybe recall 7 things. But your mind will remember everything. So deep in your mind you can go back and access that list in full, in your subconscious. Your waking mind can't though.

So yes, you can learn stuff you didn't know before, but only if you have seen it before. Like you can recall a list you only saw once, but you can't suddenly understand what UFOs are.

I could've sworn that I posted a thread exactly like this one. It's definitely a very interesting aspect of lucid dreaming. You can't gain knowledge because when you dream nothing new is coming into your mind, but they are excellent sources of creativity and inspiration. When you dream, your logic centre is down so ideas that your mind wouldn't normally associate together can collide and form new ideas; for example, Einstein dreamed that he was on a sled going at the speed of light, which proved to be invaluable when he developed special relativity), and Salvador Dalí described his painting, the 'persistence of memory' as 'painting his dreams.'
So you can use your dreams for inspiration but don't rely on them to give you knowledge.

Why couldn't I just say that?