Can anyone think of anything which is ultimately impossible for anyone to do within a dream? Not something which you personally can't do but something you believe nobody could ever do?
Printable View
Can anyone think of anything which is ultimately impossible for anyone to do within a dream? Not something which you personally can't do but something you believe nobody could ever do?
Cease to exist.
Being omnipresent - Being present everywhere
Being omniscient - Having total knowledge; knowing everything including future and past events.
Intentionally extending dreamtime, so that the dream lasts hours when only minutes have passed IRL.
Effecting physical reality from within a dream, or bringing an object from a dream into reality.
Also 360 degree vision is pretty difficult.
All of those are possible in a dream.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eonnn
It would probably include paradoxical achievements of consciousness. Ceasing to exist, Being nowhere, You could try to see if you can vanquish the dreamworld entirely.
Though ceasing to exist seems impossible enough, in my experience I've found that the others (being nowhere, vanquishing the dreamworld) are possible too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wisher
Ceasing to exist might be the only winner here, though even that is questionable: you might be able to cause your presence in a dream to cease to exist, but you will never know you did it!
Yea virtually all is possible that can be imagined. Even unimaginable things too. I meant if anything it would be something paradoxical to consciousness that is impossibleQuote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
How could you be nowhere?
Technically, being nowhere is what happens 100% of the time: you are not located in any spacial dimension in a dream. Would love to see a study that analyzed the behavior of the same neurons that are responsible for localizing yourself in space when you are awake, I wonder if there are similarities, and if they do, how do they occur in scenarios of physical places mixing with one another or presenting fundamental differences?
Regarding ceasing to exist, there might be a way out: what if you can dream, but not experience it? Something like blind-sight. I wouldn't rule it out as an impossibility just yet :P
Not possible at the moment (except if you want to localize the memory within the soma and rip it out afterwards :P?), but couldn't we technically consider brain-machine interface a sort of valid application if we could send a picture to a 3-print while dreaming? Theoretically it seems possible, even though the technology is far from making it true.Quote:
or bringing an object from a dream into reality.
How would you go to prove that omniscience is possible?Quote:
All of those are possible in a dream.
^^ Interesting take on being nowhere, Zoth (mostly because it's correct), but how about a slightly more philosophical response to Wisher's question?
Perhaps being nowhere is knowing, with certainty, that your dream does not exist on any spacial plane. Or, perhaps, creating "nowhere" is possible by eliminating even the illusory spacial plane on which your dream body stands, so that the only defining aspect of your dream, perception, is rendered useless. I personally think both these things are quite doable, because I've done them.
Regarding omniscience: Wouldn't omniscience fall into the same bucket as being nowhere? After all, once you understand that everything in your dream world is of your own creation, drawn entirely from your own mind, then you will also know that you are effectively omniscient in your dream world (omnipotent as well, though that seems easier to grasp for some reason). Now, given that your unconscious does so much work creating even the most dream-control levered dream, you might be inclined to wonder if omniscience counts if it feels as though half your mind is working without you, but, since half your mind is still yor mind, this concern could easily be discarded as just a bit of confusing semantics.
OK here's another one:
Manifest something which will stay the same for eternity.
There are many non-lucids where either I am not a person or object at all and I am just an omnipresent camera without emotions, and I have wound up in a sea of black that was actually nothingness rather than black (just absence of everything). I could change my form within the nothing without an issue, but it was only the feeling of everything because I didn't really have a visible or solid body. I could stretch out infinitely in the abyss or shrink infinitesimally. As far as I am concerned either of those examples work for ceasing to exist in any kind of useful context of the phrase.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valinor
This is very possible. The essence of the question is can we bring an object from one dream to another (night dream to waking dream) Of course this can be done as simply as wishing for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Same with Omniscience, if we can imagine omniscience in a dream and even if we can't imagine it but simply ask the dream for it we can receive it. Finally, outside of just a dream perspective omniscience would be like the clear light dream or the blue light of awareness mentioned in Buddhism as enlightenment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by snoop
To have a mental concept of "I" would be a degree of existence, to entirely cease existing is beyond any interaction with the void
Well.. from what I've gleaned from this thread, it seems the only impossible things to do in a dream are cease to exist and bring something back.
To me this nakes sense in regards to death. Which begs the question - do our dreams and the fact that we always exist carry over after our body cant support itself? Or is death the final most powerful force in this universe, where it can render our consciousness nonexistent even if its impossible in the dream? Not to mention bringinf stuff back from the world - certainly death doesnt let us do that.
So does death trump the dream and render nonexistence? Or does the dream continue when its all over, which would certainly make sense and tie info the dream like nature of reality / consciousness / experience
By definition nonexistence doesn't exist, so how can you become something which doesn't exist?Quote:
Originally Posted by livingthedream
None of us knows what happens aftee death. The above post was mere speculation, its entirely reasonable to assume that after death we stop existing as all biological processes end. Not sure if this is what you mean bjt this is how i interpreted your questionQuote:
Originally Posted by Valinor
What I'm trying to say is how can someone become something which doesn't exist? It's impossible. There's nothing there to become.
Think of it like this. Lets say there is a door, and behind that door is nonexistence. So that means nothing exists behind that door. It's impossible to go to the place behind the door becasue there is no place to go to.
No. You can't imagine things if you can't have a mental representation of them. Imagine a chair that has no form: you can't, it would be the same as imagining a triangular square.Quote:
Yea virtually all is possible that can be imagined. Even unimaginable things too.
Same above rule applies, and this reminds me of Waking Nomad's statement that he could imagine new colors in dreams that he couldn't in waking life (too bad he ain't here, would love to see him develop it). In another sense though, how can you bring a physical object to waking life? I don't quite get what do you mean by "wishing it true", because even if it's metaphorical, it doesn't make sense. Not unless I use Sageous interpretation, is that what you were implying?Quote:
Of course this can be done as simply as wishing for it.
if we can imagine omniscience in a dream and even if we can't imagine it but simply ask the dream for it we can receive it.
That could lead us to the awareness that WE don't exist in any spacial plane ^^ Just like in the dream, we are everywhere or nowhere, because every spacial plane is inside us...When we look around, everything that we see exists only inside of us. Hm, weird thought.Quote:
Perhaps being nowhere is knowing, with certainty, that your dream does not exist on any spacial plane. Or, perhaps, creating "nowhere" is possible by eliminating even the illusory spacial plane on which your dream body stands, so that the only defining aspect of your dream, perception, is rendered useless. I personally think both these things are quite doable, because I've done them.
(You know what I'm going to say xD) (Hmm, I wonder if this is cheating, let's see xD):Quote:
Wouldn't omniscience fall into the same bucket as being nowhere? After all, once you understand that everything in your dream world is of your own creation, drawn entirely from your own mind, then you will also know that you are effectively omniscient in your dream world (omnipotent as well, though that seems easier to grasp for some reason). Now, given that your unconscious does so much work creating even the most dream-control levered dream, you might be inclined to wonder if omniscience counts if it feels as though half your mind is working without you, but, since half your mind is still yor mind, this concern could easily be discarded as just a bit of confusing semantics.
- Omnipotence in a dream still suffers from the same issue of the logical impossibility of omnipotence (and we'd refer to the god and the rock classical paradox);
- Omniscience is a more interesting take, because you make total sense. But then we'd have to argue semantics (important ones here, unlike, like you mentioned, the "half mind creation" which I totally agree with): isn't omniscience knowing all that there is to be known? Because we'd have to achieve omniscience of literally everything, including other the outside reality. Hmm....yeah, this one feels like cheating I'm sorry xD Guess if we settle with a sort of "reality omniscience" that statement would be true.
- No wait, I found a way! Picture the following case:
a) In a dream, while lucid, you project in the sand of a beach random numbers, and a random mathematical operation symbol;
b) As an example, let's say you'd get 21823821x291218= x
c) Would you consider yourself omniscient? Because that would imply that - disregard the origin of each number as a product of randomness or unconscious reasons, because we probably would have to settle with the second possibility - you would already know the answer. Which you don't: the knowledge cannot exist because your mind has not yet created the product of that multiplication. It falls once again under the impossibility of imagining something which you have no "knowledge" of.
I understand what your saying and it's possible there is no such thing as non-existence, but I think it's equally possible there is some sort of total oblivion where things can be utterly destroyed. Think of it like this, you don't remember what happened before you were born do you? so it's possible you were in a state of non-existence, or at least that is what non-existence would be like.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valinor
There can easily be a triangular square, even a formless chair is easy. It would probably look like an invisible chair.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
In regards to bringing an object out of a dream, this is also easy. You must first realize that wakig reality is just another dream. It's not a special case with different rules.
So really we bring an object from one dream to another all the time. One example is our 'physical' bodies which many of us use in most of our dream scenarios.
Even if you don't believe life is a dream, many of us have done this with 'false awakenings' where we bring our body from one dream to the new one before we finally wake up.
To bring any other object is really just as simple. The reason we may get the impression it is less possible is a matter of deep seated belief systems. If we awaken with heavy doubt that we have the Lexus from our dream in our current experience, then it is much less likely to be there.
I'm sorry but you wouldn't be able to conceptualize a formless chair because a chair is an object with a general form. "It would look like an invisible chair" also doesn't work, because you wouldn't be able to conceptualize the chair once again. Regarding the triangular square, what makes you believe that it would be possible to create in the dream world? It's not like you're using different brains to experience each reality right?Quote:
There can easily be a triangular square, even a formless chair is easy. It would probably look like an invisible chair.
I think I get your perspective on this point a bit better...and I agree to some sense: but would you acknowledge that there are countless objects that can't be passed between realities right?Quote:
So really we bring an object from one dream to another all the time. One example is our 'physical' bodies which many of us use in most of our dream scenarios.
Except we do know that you're using different pathways from when we dream with something and when we actually perceive it in the waking life, they would be different objects...But I understand your point here :)Quote:
Even if you don't believe life is a dream, many of us have done this with 'false awakenings' where we bring our body from one dream to the new one before we finally wake up.
That is, as expected, a good point. But...Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
This may be another semantics exercise, but you might be looking too deeply into the definitional requirements of omniscience and omnipotence. What if you looked at them in the context of the dream, rather than the concept of the real-life definition of the two words?
Huh? you ask...
In a dream, the entire world is you, and yours. Yes, in a dream you cannot possess waking-life omniscience, but, since everything in your dream was created by you, it must on some level be known by you. Yes, (and you're going to love this one ;)), if you set up a complicated math equation you might not know or be able to deduce its correct waking-life solution -- especially before you've finished writing the equation -- but because this dream is your created reality you can give the equation any answer you want, whether or not it is correct in waking life This is less absurd than it sounds, if you remember that nothing in a dream needs to respond to the laws of physics or the rule of math: If you don't have a problem with, say, flying, going to other planets, or breathing underwater, why should there be a problem with attaching whatever solution you'd like to a math equation (and knowing that solution before you set up the equation)?
Same with omnipotence. Yes, I understand the whole God/rock paradox, but consider taking it all a step back from the logic path* that questions the possibility of omnipotence. Instead of applying the waking-life definition, apply the dreamworld definition: Since your mind is responsible for literally every aspect of creation and change in your dream, without exception or constraint by any physical law, isn't it by definition already omnipotent, in the context of the dream? And, when lucid, if you are able to work with your unconscious (aka, dream control), wouldn't you have access to that omnipotence? I think so. [* As an aside, I have a feeling that, should He exist, God would snicker at puny humans being mystified by that rock paradox, and wonder when they'll finally understand that there actually is no paradox (oh, wait, because He's omniscient, God must already know when that will happen!)]
The dream world is, as far as we know, nothing more than the product of our imagination, memory, and unconscious organization. We, the dreamers, are literally omniscient and omnipotent by that definition. We are the gods of our dreams, even if most of that power rests in the unconscious, normally out of reach; lucidity, however, slightly cracks the door to fully realizing that omniscience and omnipotence, I think.
So, I think omniscience and omnipotence -- in the context of the dream, and not the physical world -- is certainly a possibility.
As long as I'm here:
Isn't imagining or experiencing things that lack mental representation/metaphor the definition of a transcendental moment? Do transcendental moments then not exist? A scientist would probably say they do not, because you can't "bring them back," but I think we dreamers know they're out there.Quote:
No. You can't imagine things if you can't have a mental representation of them. Imagine a chair that has no form: you can't, it would be the same as imagining a triangular square.
I'm not great with quotations yet, so just one block quote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
No need to apologize, u can conceptualize a formless chair. What is a chair anyway? What does it look like? Who says it needs form? I guarantee your mind is capable of creating such a small thing as a formless chair, you can choose not to believe it. Free country.
The triangular square: In the lucid state of mind we realize form and math are mythical notions. 5 fingers is 1 finger, tiny is giant. This is harder to explain with words but understood with experience, just ask the dream for a triangular square next time you are lucid.
Any object or person can be transferred between dreams and I am suggesting we do it all the time without thinking about it. Is it the very same object once it travels between dreams? Yes if the proficient Lucid Dreamer wants it to be.
Finally you say you know we use different pathways. I'm not sure I could ever know anything.
Wisher, this is also directed at you: While I was here walking around my office, I started thinking like that. Because if I take a step back from that perspective, I can much more easily grasp the concept of objects (or anything else for that matter) being an example of pure elements (in this case, pure objects), formless concepts that change/switch form and meaning as they go through our brain. When you see a door, you're receiving dream content that is constrained by sensorial input. When you dream, you're receiving dream content that is restrained by memory. It doesn't matter so much the degree of restraint that is being forced upon your mind, not so much as the fact that it goes between realities, and the realities in there dictate that the rules might change. So a chair is a chair because that's the form it receives in the waking reality. But in a dream, a chair can be a duck because every rule, from physical to semantic, can be broken. But then...how do we even organize the chaos? I mean, I still can't wrap up my head towards the notion of a triangular square...how can you even distort the rules of perception in this case 0o So, zoth gets everything but the logical impossibility unless we transform it into a logical possibility by bending other rules...but then, don't we risk landing onto different objects? That wouldn't solve the problem.Quote:
This may be another semantics exercise, but you might be looking too deeply into the definitional requirements of omniscience and omnipotence. What if you looked at them in the context of the dream, rather than the concept of the real-life definition of the two words?
Wow.....just wow 0.0 It's like I just found out a whole new meaning to the concept of...wow 0o By that paradigm, I feel like I'm a 3 years old that can't understand much of the world, there's so much to reevaluate...I mean, the physics part is okay, but to distort these types of languages in itself is...wow lol. But it's very hard to think like this without making analogies, which are in essence the most dangerous thing in this kind of exercises.Quote:
if you set up a complicated math equation you might not know or be able to deduce its correct waking-life solution -- especially before you've finished writing the equation -- but because this dream is your created reality you can give the equation any answer you want, whether or not it is correct in waking life
So *tries to contain excitement* omniscience is pretty much a requirement if we're assuming lucid lucid (as in, you're as lucid as you would be in waking life), because at that point you're creating the reality. So of course you already know the answer to the equation silly, you're the one choosing the answer. And by that, of course we would already know the option you would choose, you're only there (lol, this sound so matrix like) to understand why you're making/wanting to make the choice.
So what would change here would be the image of the horse...the horse would have no image by itself, you'd simply obtain it's initial impression out of one reality and then go from there? Sounds pretty cool, but I'd say I'd take literally years to be able to form a decent "vocabulary" of concepts with distinct images. It's so much easier to just input (and let it be inputed by my unconscious mind) the reality into the dream ^^Quote:
Any object or person can be transferred between dreams and I am suggesting we do it all the time without thinking about it. Is it the very same object once it travels between dreams? Yes if the proficient Lucid Dreamer wants it to be.
*Zoth thanks Sageous and Wisher for the mental kaboom he just experienced*
You can't do anything that's beyond your mental capacity. For example, a person that has been blind from birth can't dream visually.
Not dreaming. Or do anything ultimately impossible of course..:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreamzilla