Thread: Focus to stay in a dream

You're right, and I've tested this out extensively. Everything requires your attention to exist in dreams. This includes your dream body and your surroundings.

Using this for control is a bit trickier. It is possible to focus too much on something, and this coupled with negative emotions is what creates nightmares.

attention? i haven't noticed attention to be there at all whilst dreaming, in waking life however i have amazing attention. How can you use waking life ideals when talking about dreams? You really think its you in that dream?

Originally Posted by d3nd3

attention? i haven't noticed attention to be there at all whilst dreaming, in waking life however i have amazing attention. How can you use waking life ideals when talking about dreams? You really think its you in that dream?

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say, and I'm not the OP, but I do think it is me in a dream. It is my brain that creates the dream and 'stays' in it, and it is also my brain that is taking in my waking life. Also the ideals for things you want to carry out in your dreams come from the same you that has those ideals in waking life, for there is no other place for them to come from.

but I do think it is me in a dream. It is my brain that creates the dream and 'stays' in itbut I do think it is me in a dream. It is my brain that creates the dream and 'stays' in it

I wonder how balls of molecules in our brain create these images and animations with surprising realism? I find it hard to believe that it could be even be possible, there may be another explanation as to how dreams take place.

Originally Posted by elucid

I wonder how balls of molecules in our brain create these images and animations with surprising realism? I find it hard to believe that it could be even be possible, there may be another explanation as to how dreams take place.

(Double checks to make sure this isn't Beyond Dreaming.. )
How does this computer in front of me create images and animations using nothing but electronic signals?

Just because I don't personally understand every step of the process doesn't mean the scientists are lying to us and that the computer is really a magic box. I mean, that's not entirely outside the realm of possibility, but it comes in pretty far behind "it works the way the scientists say it does".

Originally Posted by elucid

I wonder how balls of molecules in our brain create these images and animations with surprising realism? I find it hard to believe that it could be even be possible, there may be another explanation as to how dreams take place.

Do you think you're reading this sentence with your eyes?

Do I dare risk a tiny defense of elucid's statement? Ah, what the hell; I haven't had a good beating in a few days...

Maybe what elucid was trying to describe (correct me if I'm wrong, elucid) was not perception -- our brain's ability to assemble incoming light, sound, texture, and vapors into sight, hearing, touch, and smell, respectively; in other words its ability to use those balls of molecules to turn reality around us into something we can understand and navigate. Maybe he was trying to point out that the mind, in a dream, can assemble and transmit "incoming" information on its own, without outside input. In a sense, it is creating a reality from which perception can draw during a dream.

This would indeed require a fairly staggering amount of computing power -- and also might betray why there are so many "errors" in dreams. If you really thought about it -- and I used to do so myself, a lot, mostly in my teens -- creating what seems like an entire world from scratch does seem like a truly impossible thing, and it could make one wonder if "...there may be another explanation as to how dreams take place."

So don't beat up on Elucid too much; he lies in agreement with a long, long line of shamen, philosophers, mystics, and religious leaders. That doesn't make him right, as the brain is very likely able to create what seems to the dreamer like entire worlds (though in truth they are just one little piece at a time of what he thinks is an entire world). But it does help make his statement make sense, balls of molecules or not.

Well I guess it depends on what the other explanation might be for how we dream. I assumed he was saying we actually visit other dimensions or another world or something.

To me it doesn't seem all that remarkable that the mind can piece together a strange pseudo-world while we're sleeping, because that's exactly what it does all day long, except that while we're awake of course it's just re-assembling the information brought in as impulses along the nerves. We have imagination during the day as well of course, and can day-dream though without the same clarity and focus as is available to us in dreams. That seems logical - while we're awake the brain is kept busy automatically reading and assembling all that massive information into the constantly-updated image of our surroundings, leaving little computing power for creating another one from scraps, but when we're sleeping and that massive world-map is offline, we can use the supercomputer entirely at the discretion of the unconscious. And as is known, the unconscious is always working but normally drowned out by the much louder, more active conscious mind, in the same way as the stars are always there but we can't see them until the sun creeps over the rim of the earth.

It's also well known now that in the pre-scientific age people had a marked tendency to project the creations of their own unconscious "out there" and imagine them as ghosts, gods, and all kinds of creepy-crawlies, without ever realizing they were really inside the mind.

^^ Agreed, 100%. And I think, Darkmatters, that yours may be the best possible answer to elucid's balls of molecules statement...

Why thank you sir!

I will say however (did you ever notice how when somebody disagrees with you it polarizes you and all you want to do is deny, but if they agree suddenly it's easy to counter your own argument.. or is that just me? ) religions, myths, fairy tales and etc can be very profound ways to think about these inner truths and that they can seem too small or powerless if we think of them only as "figments of the imagination". But I think that's only because we've always had a tendency to devalue the power of the mind. Maybe projecting our fantasies and fears onto outside objects and other people helps them to gain that power - maybe it's even necessary?

Archetypes are thought to be not actual thought-forms so much as potentials that need to be projected onto other people in order to become complete. Maybe that's how it's supposed to work?

How does this computer in front of me create images and animations using nothing but electronic signals?

Agreed only if we understand how the computer works and see for ourselves how it makes sense.

Another thing to focus on is "why" do scientist attribute those things are done by the brain? If we get this part it might become very theoretical or even opinionated.

It is interesting to read this article below:

HowStuffWorks "Has Science Explained Life After Death?"

In this article, her brain is clinically dead. No blood flow, no breath and heart stopped. But she has an out of body experiences where she "learns", "memorizes", experiences, hears, sees, and feels. If the brain is clinically dead, and she is able to do all those things, then how do we explain that the brain is creating those images from outer information? Or if the brain is even required for learning, memory, touch, hearing and seeing?

Well I guess it depends on what the other explanation might be for how we dream. I assumed he was saying we actually visit other dimensions or another world or something.

I do think that the other dimensions is one possible answer, but a thing that I was really trying to point out though Sargeous gave it a nice try was that it just might be "command" that we enter a sleep, perhaps a command given in a different frequency where we cant hear it such as "go to a dream" or "come out of a dream" etc.

^^ Okay then... I guess we were talking about something else. I stand corrected. Glad I gave it a nice try, though!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I will say however religions, myths, fairy tales and etc can be very profound ways to think about these inner truths and that they can seem too small or powerless if we think of them only as "figments of the imagination". But I think that's only because we've always had a tendency to devalue the power of the mind. Maybe projecting our fantasies and fears onto outside objects and other people helps them to gain that power - maybe it's even necessary?

It might have been (or is, I suppose) necessary, but I like to think of all this stuff less as a devaluation of the mind's power than metaphors originally created to explain its power which, over the centuries, took on a life of their own. Metaphors, after all, are nothing more than intellectual perception, and the originators of them had to know, intellectually, from where they came. It's what the more "imaginative" folks at the receiving end of the metaphors did with them later, especially as many generations separated the metaphor creator from the receiver. Think of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as examples of this. In other words, the flights of fancy may not have created the fairy tale, but they made it real. This all made a whole lot more sense in my head; I'll stop now before it all falls apart...

Archetypes are thought to be not actual thought-forms so much as potentials that need to be projected onto other people in order to become complete. Maybe that's how it's supposed to work?

I think I may fall more in the "actual thought forms" camp, because I have a feeling that archetypes work because human brains are similarly wired: Archetypes are created first by all, then recognized as needed. Completion is innate, no projection necessary. Damn. That made more sense in my head too. I give up. Besides, what does any of this have to do with staying focused in a dream?

There could always be more to what we know, we never know the complete story because we haven't found the borders of space yet or what it looks like at the very edge of space. So we have to remain open minded to these gaps, to the "what-if" clauses. Having said that, a lot of things DO make senses in this world. But whether sense its self can even be trusted i don't know, everything could be one big illusion where the real working processes are underneath, but that would be paranoia - style thinking. I have to come to accept what i sense and leave it there. Because in either case , we are here, on planet earth, seemingly stuck inside a closed system ... and that closed system only interacts with the stuff inside the system it lives in. Therefore everything outside the system will for ever remain theoretical.

@euclid perhaps when the person dies, with the release of DMT and such, there is enough "energy" for the brain synapses to still exchange data for a brief period of time, this is the experience of NDE. And have we ever heard the stories of someone who had an NDE but died after it? I don't think so because that would be impossible, we only hear accounts from NDE who come back after the NDE, so my point is that all people who die experience NDE but when teh NDE ends in most cases, its game over and lights out.

Originally Posted by d3nd3

@euclid perhaps when the person dies, with the release of DMT and such, there is enough "energy" for the brain synapses to still exchange data for a brief period of time, this is the experience of NDE. And have we ever heard the stories of someone who had an NDE but died after it? I don't think so because that would be impossible, we only hear accounts from NDE who come back after the NDE, so my point is that all people who die experience NDE but when teh NDE ends in most cases, its game over and lights out.

If you read the posted article, you'd know your explanation still doesn't account for how a brain-dead person can experience an OBE during their surgery, and remember specific details about it after being brought back. The lights were already out at that point.

Just to continue this off-topic chat:

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

If you read the posted article, you'd know your explanation still doesn't account for how a brain-dead person can experience an OBE during their surgery, and remember specific details about it after being brought back. The lights were already out at that point.

Were the lights really out, or was brain activity simply too low to be registered by an EEG? Brains have an awful lot of nerves -- couldn't a few of them still have been firing below the radar, or perhaps in a manner that EEG's are not built to register? To assume a great mystery because a machine shows a flatline might be jumping the gun a bit. Perhaps it might be best to first question the nature of the sensor before determining that its failure to detect activity must mean that supernatural things are happening?

I never made the claim that supernatural things were happening. There's likely a biological reason for this occurrence, but to say there's activity within a brain containing no fuel source, for that long a time, seems a bit strange to me.

Not knowing the details of the surgery, however, I don't think any of us can make an informed guess as to what's really going on.

Originally Posted by Sageous

It might have been (or is, I suppose) necessary, but I like to think of all this stuff less as a devaluation of the mind's power than metaphors originally created to explain its power which, over the centuries, took on a life of their own. Metaphors, after all, are nothing more than intellectual perception, and the originators of them had to know, intellectually, from where they came. It's what the more "imaginative" folks at the receiving end of the metaphors did with them later, especially as many generations separated the metaphor creator from the receiver. Think of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as examples of this. In other words, the flights of fancy may not have created the fairy tale, but they made it real. This all made a whole lot more sense in my head; I'll stop now before it all falls apart...

Primitive humans, like children, definitely did not understand about the subconscious and how it works - they think the monsters are really "out there". Just as we all do when we hate somebody and it turns out the be a projection of something we actually hate inside ourselves. Primitive people intuited things, and their most powerful ideas of course paralelled the workings of the unconscious mind - if you understand how it works that's quite obvious. We project the same way onto dream characters - if we're experiencing a lot of anxiety we'll dream up nightmare characters to embody it n a seemingly physical form so we can interact with it.

So the projections come first, before we understand that they're only projections, and later, when we learn about psychology, we begin to understand that they were only projections and not really heroes or monsters or gods or aliens.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I think I may fall more in the "actual thought forms" camp, because I have a feeling that archetypes work because human brains are similarly wired: Archetypes are created first by all, then recognized as needed. Completion is innate, no projection necessary. Damn. That made more sense in my head too. I give up. Besides, what does any of this have to do with staying focused in a dream?

Well there are no 'camps' on this - it's part of the actual definition of an archetype. They aren't active all the time, but just exist as potentials that only become activated when needed. Otherwise all our dreams would be extremely crowded all the time with animas and shadows and all the other possible archetypes. They only come into full realization when needed. And the way they become activated is by being projected. Onto either other people, objects or patterns in the world around us, or onto dream characters or some element of a dream.

But yeah, this is going a bit off topic - and it took a lot of reading before I began t understand all this, and I don't intend to try to explain it all in great detail here. Suffice to say - the way I believe Jung explained it himself - the patterns exist the way a pattern for growing crystals exist - not as anything physical or 'active' but only as a potential - a guide or pattern to direct the growth of the crystals when they begin to grow. And the only way we can detect its existence is in that fact that all crystals of the same type will grow in the same way - we certainly can't cut them open and find that pattern inside somewhere.

And to quickly respond to something I think D3nd3 said - we do understand how computers work, otherwise how could we build them?

^^ I think I was going somewhere else with this, Darkmatters, but you know what? That place I was going wasn't as important. So, considering myself rightfully "schooled," I defer to your wisdom.

U write bull shit its not the subject what I think dream ends cause it have too I do no how to stay longer i think its impossible but I always fell when its happen my sight is like in fog i stop controloing myself like runing or tuch 5 more sec and I'm awake give me people some advice how to stay longer if any body did it :"?

I'm inactive for a week and I miss such an epic discussion, what a shame D: Our brain is constantly forming images out of stimuli that come from the senses. The world may be very different from the way we percieve it. Rather said, it most likely is. In our dreams we are no longer concious of these stimuli, which could explain the capability of our brain to produce these vivid dreamworlds from scraps (schemas and such?) which we cannot do as good in waking life. Ofcourse, this is al the scientific part of it. I do think there are things science can not explain. Talking about those things is a lot of fun IMO, but we simply cannot be sure. As much as I hate to say it, there is no way to confirm or deny theories about this (not in this life anyway). That is also the reason I'm not religious but do not deny the existence of a higher being either.
I do like the comparison of the brain and the computer. In certain ways, the brain is a lot like it, just a lot more powerful (with a few exceptions like math)

As for the person above me: this discussion certainly isn't bullshit, it is using the intelligence which seperates us from most other organisms. The OP has also joined the discussion, so I don't think he considers it a problem.