Thread: Created a persistent dream realm

Originally Posted by Kaan

I don't want to impress, just telling that "what I know" about dreams , LDs, and how the brain works, all of this makes me have some doubt about some of the claims that I can read sometimes, and also that some aspects of this remind me few mental illness aspects.

I don't see the point of explaining in detail what I put in "what I know".
I don't understand where you want to bring me.
what I know about the DLPFC, which book I read, how many DJ I read, and since when I am interested about lucid dreaming, putting all of this in the table is not necessary as I am not pretending to prove anything.

The basic research have been done, but since I consider some stuffs I can read as exaggerations, I don't see the interest of arguing.. this is a simple point of view I feel free to express.
Believers can freely continue to believe, sceptic will have another feeling and maybe will share some of my doubts, and everything is good.

Yes, but it gives us an idea of where you are coming from and helps to continue a conversation instead of an argument. Please present some data, experiences, and research as everyone else has so that we can find out more why you believe that.

Well, it is more a overall impression / feeling, it's intuitive.
Books go from Laberge's first books, to Hobson's one, + a certain amount of books on LD, OBE, AT, Read during these two last decades, the most recent one may be thomas Yuschak's one. I also often read articles about neurology read there and there, DJ's from other forums (french ones), my own experience, books about psychology, (and yes I am aware of the Role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on lucid dreaming) , self hypnosis, meditation, spirituality, discussions from the french LD forum where I am moderator, and many other things I guess.

The main argument I rose was about the dream instability, but I can't go inside one's head , you know.
And going further in the discussion would be very hard for me as I would quickly attain my English limits.
It's not like if I was discussing about that in French.

I think the skeptic's case is solid and needs not further defense until more evidence is provided. The argument that "you can find it on the Internet" doesn't hold water. Sources need to be reliable. Forum posts and dream journal entries are not reliable, in the rigorous sense of the word. They are anecdotal, subjective, self-reported. From the aggregate of many anecdotes or from particularly unusual anecdotes, we can form some hypotheses, but this is only the beginning of the scientific method, not the end. Popularity lends "social proof," which can be very powerful, but is still not scientific. Allusions were made to topics in neuroscience. Okay, interesting. How do they relate to the topic? Can we derive a logical conclusion from them? If not, we are still also willing to entertain some reasoning or speculation between the science, anecdotes, and personal experience. If so, please state those thoughts plainly.

Having said all that, I want to assert that the spirit of skepticism is not to be predisposed to the negative, but rather to delay belief until more evidence is provided in the positive. Anecdotes are not useless. They are data points that open us up to new possible explanations and hypotheses.

Now, the point I want to make is in that realm of reasoning and speculation, but I think it is compelling because it finds a middle ground. For dream control, we engage in an act of storytelling with ourselves. We are creating fiction. By entering the realm of fiction, we put reality behind and instead focus on what is useful for creating interesting content. That invokes memory, schemas, expectation, creative interpretation, and suspension of disbelief. Is persistence and time dilation inside a dream real in a physical sense? I wouldn't try to defend that. But are they useful narrative tools, in the same vein as in works of fiction? Yes.

This act of storytelling can be problematic when trying to communicate it to someone else. It is difficult to succinctly describe the whole fiction of one's imagination. (And if you can do it well, write a book or screenplay). More often, it comes across as bizarre claims. This may simply be a consequence of lack of time or effort or diligence. Might it be delusion? Maybe. Might it be deception? Maybe. This is all in the realm of unreliable sources. It may become a failure of communication while still being a useful tool of dream control.

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

on the topic of neurochemistry as it relates to dreaming?

When I was a graduate student in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology I used to do a bit of neurological development research, but it was all focused in the Hind Brain. I don't think the rats I was using were doing much dreaming tho. Step one decapitation, step two dissect out hind brain, step three place in liquid nitrogen. Of course I'll never know since I didn't even bother to ask them!

Now that I think about it from the looks on their little faces they did seem to be attempting to invoke invulnerability, guess they weren't that good at it tho.

Perhaps some of the brains are still frozen and due to quantum entanglement with a living rat's brain in an alternate universe, that rat is able to create a persistent alternate reality. I just need an infinite amount of energy and find a way to breach the gap to an alternate reality, find a rat and ask them. Oh silly me, I could save on the energy by astral projecting there, besides rats only talk in dreams.

Kaan, here's the gist of how creating a persistent realm is possible:

Consider first, one of your favorite fictional books which features its own universe. If the book is any good, the author spent a painstaking amount of time building up a self-contained universe. When you read this book, you built up associations, connections within your brain, linking together the various aspects of this universe into a more concrete whole. Perhaps you even had dreams wherein you were in this universe, and the laws of that universe were in effect. In essence, what you experienced could be considered a (watered down) persistent realm. Does having an experience like that make you crazy? I think we can reasonable agree that it does not.

A persistent realm is built in much the same way as the example above, except this time you take the role of the author--the world builder. You lay out the laws of the universe, political landscape, technological advancement, arcane knowledge, etc. As part of this universe, you also create a method of entry, which you can perform within a dream to slip into that universe. That's the key difference between other fictional universes and a persistent realm. The typical fictional universe has no built-in point of entry--whereas persistent realms do. In the end, they're all just fictional places. One's just a bit easier to get to.

I do not see how this is incompatible with any known theories regarding brain function or dreaming. Yes, if the universe is not well formed, then there will be frequent inconsistencies. But a good author accounts for as many details as possible, and obsesses over every detail until they can rattle off every intricacy of the fictional histories they've created. If those pathways and associations are thoroughly reinforced to such a degree, the realm will become that much more consistent whilst dreaming.

sisyphus, I concede the point that all my evidence in relation to Hukif is anecdotal. In full disclosure, I admit to considering him a friend (and rival). Further, much of my knowledge regarding his exploits is no longer public information. Much of it is relegated to various chat logs and Siberia. There do however exist some interesting tidbits still visible to the public eye. If not for the rules on this forum forbidding linking to other LDing forums, I would have provided sources for perusal. As it is, you'll have to take that issue up with staff (glhf).

Edit: cooleymd, check out stuff on SRIs. Also, wat?

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

Kaan, here's the gist of how creating a persistent realm is possible:

Consider first, one of your favorite fictional books which features it's own universe. If the book is any good, the author spent a painstaking amount of time building up a self-contained universe. When you read this book, you built up associations, connections within your brain, linking together the various aspects of this universe into a more concrete whole. Perhaps you even had dreams wherein you were in this universe, and the laws of that universe were in effect. In essence, what you experienced could be considered a (watered down) persistent realm. Does having an experience like that make you crazy? I think we can reasonable agree that it does not.

A persistent realm is built in much the same way as the example above, except this time you take the role of the author--the world builder. You lay out the laws of the universe, political landscape, technological advancement, arcane knowledge, etc. As part of this universe, you also create a method of entry, which you can perform within a dream to slip into that universe. That's the key difference between other fictional universes and a persistent realm. Fictional universes have no built-in point of entry--whereas persistent realms do.

I do not see how this is incompatible with any known theories regarding brain function or dreaming. Yes, if the universe is not well formed, then there will be frequent inconsistencies. But a good author accounts for as many details as possible, and obsesses over every detail until they can rattle off every intricacy of the fictional histories they've created. If those pathways and associations are thoroughly reinforced to such a degree, the realm will become that much more consistent whilst dreaming.

sisyphus, I concede the point that all my evidence in relation to Hukif is anecdotal. In full disclosure, I admit to considering him a friend (and rival). Further, much of my knowledge regarding his exploits is no longer public information. Much of it is relegated to various chat logs and Siberia. There do however exist some interesting tidbits still visible to the public eye. If not for the rules on this forum forbidding linking to other LDing forums, I would have provided sources for perusal. As it is, you'll have to take that issue up with staff (glhf).

Well stated. What most interested me in your previously replies was "schema bleed." I grasp the idea and its cautionary implications, but wonder if that angle has more to discuss.

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

All around, you're just making yourself look like an ass-hat.

Let's not do this again, k?

Check-out post 3 of my thread called:

http://www.dreamviews.com/artists-co...ml#post2172236

ok, lets argue a little bit.

I can imagine how a persistent dream can be built, after all, FA is a good example of persistent dream as it has good chances to happen in a copy of one's home, and if you add to this the idea of dream incubation, it can easily bring you to what we are talking about.

I could also add some credit to it when I think about certain of my old never forgotten dreams that really feel like they were a kind of parallel life episodes, emotionally and realistically speaking, they were very different from other dreams, even more amazing than LDs, cause I really remember them with that feeling that I went to real places, and sometimes, I went several times in the same "alternative" places.
Some of these places were built from places I know IRL but with differences, like scale and other stuffs that made theme other places, and I was often traveling a lot through those dreams, sometimes several km/miles and sometimes ten times more.

Even If I didn't voluntary build and went to these special places of special dreams, these dreams are the closest things I know to what we are talking about.

But, even in those very elaborated and stable dreams, there always were concerned about what claude Rifat calls "MHV transformations".

Two simple examples about what MHV are:
I will use two dreams I had, one non lucid, one LD

Non lucid : (few nights ago), I am riding a Harley Davidson motorbike for a while, when I arrive to a pub where some friends of mine are waiting for me, My HD motorbike is not a motorbike anymore but a Harley Davidson Bicycle.

Lucid: (few years ago) I am in a park, and while I was doing something (I don't remember what) , behind me there were some punks around a bench.
I knew that I let a nunchaku near the bench, and when the punks attacked a friend of mine, I decided to take the nunchaku, but when I arrived to the place I let the nunchaku, it had turned into handcuffs

black-telescopic-nunchaku-with-metal-chain-and-carry-case-256px-256px.jpg
350105_lg.jpg

You understand what a MHV transformation is?
Dreams are build from thoughts, mainly unconscious thoughts, expectation is one of those kinda unconscious thoughts, psychological conflicts, wonders are another kind of unconscious thoughts.
Conscious thoughts can also create and modify some aspect of the dream reality, we can see it more easily when we are lucid, but those thoughts (conscious and unconscious) are bringing other thoughts by homology and shifting/sliding.
One idea brings another one.
A cat can easily become a tiger after few minutes, a closed umbrella can become a stick, a friend can become someone else.

What bother me is that even if you manage to incubate a really complex and detailed sci-fi like alternative dream reality, I don't see by what magical stuff these persistent dreams would avoid such a natural specificity of dreams: MHV transformations.
The activation of the Dorsolateral Pre frontal cortex which is responsible of the Lucidity doesn't change this way the brain has to transform thoughts in hallucinated reality.
Thoughts sill are thoughts and during dream this sliding process is made very easy.

Since dreams are an endogenous reality, build from conscious and unconscious thoughts, (the source of this virtual reality is inside our brain), contrary to our exogenous reality where stimulus come from a stable objective world, I really dont see how a persistent reality could be stable during all the dream, escaping the MHV Transformation rules.

This is why I cant even discuss things with people in dream views sometimes.Continue on with your unnecessary conversation and have fun.

Originally Posted by Kaan

...

I certainly relate to that constantly changing landscape of dreams. Just the other day I had a dream in which, wanting sex, I summoned a "pussy" and a cat appeared. Ha ha, what a perfect pun. It totally broke the narrative I wanted, but it was still delightfully amusing and I woke up laughing. If it entertains me, then all is well, so I welcome these bizarre twists and "fails."

Earlier I suggested the metaphor of being the author of one's dreams. Perhaps though a better metaphor is that you are but one author, collaborating with other authors from your subconscious. It's like trying to communicate with someone who speaks a different language, or who has a very different set of values. (Like a forum thread? I digress). You can't control them completely and that might be a good thing because it leads to a richer story. With experience, you might learn how better to collaborate with them; what words to avoid and what topics they prefer so as to build momentum toward a common goal. As a tool, persistence can be useful because it leverages memory and our experience from the real world, which will connect strongly with some of those authors in our subconscious. But it might run contrary to other aspects of our mind that have a more fluid interpretation of symbolism, language, shape, desire, and fear. In the end, your role as the "head writer" is to appease all these conflicting interests/tools/authors and synthesize them into a good story.

This all made me think of the Yes, And... game from improv comedy. It is an acting exercise where multiple actors contribute to a developing story with spontaneous dialog. The most important thing is that you accept the contributions of others and add to them. (Again, like a forum thread? I digress). You can't go back and edit or critique them. Thus, no one participant has total control. But the end result is a fun, playful exercise that encourages openness and willingness to work with what you have in unexpected circumstances. And finally, while the narrative may swerve far from one's expectations, it is still continuous because each line of dialog builds on the previous, no matter how wacky.

Originally Posted by Kaan

What bother me is that even if you manage to incubate a really complex and detailed sci-fi like alternative dream reality, I don't see by what magical stuff these persistent dreams would avoid such a natural specificity of dreams: MHV transformations.
The activation of the Dorsolateral Pre frontal cortex which is responsible of the Lucidity doesn't change this way the brain has to transform thoughts in hallucinated reality.
Thoughts sill are thoughts and during dream this sliding process is made very easy.

Since dreams are an endogenous reality, build from conscious and unconscious thoughts, (the source of this virtual reality is inside our brain), contrary to our exogenous reality where stimulus come from a stable objective world, I really dont see how a persistent reality could be stable during all the dream, escaping the MHV Transformation rules.

I'm going to wax heretical* for a moment, Kaan, to maybe offer an explanation for why persistent realms work:

Persistent realms might actually be changing all the time, whether "suffering" from MHV transformations or simply from the unconscious/dreaming mind filling in details or plot lines with things that the dreamer hadn't expected. But, in the name of maintaining his persistent realm, the dreamer, upon waking, either forgets those diverting details or remembers them as true additions to what they had intended in the first place.

The same goes for time dilation: like everything else about the dream time dilation is defined post-dream by memory, and it is very easy to remember yourself living through weeks or even years in one night if your dream was laid out like a movie might be, with the passage of time built into the dream's plot; and yes, an inventive dreamer can easily assemble, and honestly believe, an "actual" tick-tock of the dilation by filling in the missing spaces with memories that never happened (just as any Star Wars fan, for instance, could easily give you a 20-year history of the Republic/Empire, with an accurate tick-tock by accessing the "memory" that Lucas created when presenting his overall persistent realm).

On top of all that, MHV transformations or unconscious additions might not be happening at all. During the dream, the persistent realm might be a very dull, bare-bones place indeed, but upon waking a dreamer dutifully, even energetically fills in interesting details or bridges gaps in imagery or time, all while completely honestly remembering that those details and bridges were there in the dream in the first place.

In other words, it can be very easy, even exciting, to remember a persistent realm, even if the place you just dreamed about only vaguely resembled your invented realm. Change in the dream itself can be overlooked, ignored, or properly adjusted by a dreamer upon waking without the dreamer ever realizing she had made any adjustments.

I personally believe that a substantial amount of our dreaming lives, my own included, might never have occurred at all; we are simply remembering that it occurred, and adding details that best fit our expectations (or hopes). I also believe the opposite -- that there is some truly amazing shit happening to us in dreams (or during sleep in general) that we do not remember at all, and our lives would be much more interesting if we could hang on to those experiences.

Like I said, this may be DV heresy (and I don't want to argue about it), but it could explain your misgivings about persistent realms, and how they might exist -- even if they cannot.

tl;dr:Dreams are a unique experience in our lives in that the only way we see them is as memories; we cannot record them as they are happening, but must rely on how we remember them upon waking. Memory is a fallible tool in the best of cases, but with dreams -- even lucids, though they are much easier to remember -- memory is an extremely weak tool at best. When remembering dreams, it is very important to avoid adding details or making assumptions about what "really" happened, lest the dreams start picking up details that never occurred during them. I wonder if a lot of persistent realmers are assembling much of their realms upon waking without ever knowing they were doing so. I could be wrong, but it is a thought...


*Heretical because: so very few dreamers are willing to accept that they might not remember what happened in exactly the same way that it happened -- sometimes, especially with dreams, memory is an extremely shoddy tool; and yet we LD'ers base everything purely on what we remember, and rarely question the validity of that memory.

Originally Posted by Sageous

...

Very good point about the uncertain connection of real-time perception and after-the-fact memory recall. For a formal presentation, see: Wikipedia: Confabulation.

As always, no insinuation for or against delusion, deception, pathology, verifiability. Just a mental phenomenon that we can all probably relate to. Not "heretical" in my view but I appreciate your clever language and desire to qualify the context of your thoughts.

Yeah

Not relevant but ...

Joe Griffin says that the brain turns off long-term memory before we dream and the brain also does a switch-a-roo with the characters we dream about so that we don't wake up with false memories. If the brain didn’t do a switch-a-roo, we might wake up, very sure, that we punched-out our boss (false memory).

Not sure what that has to do with Persistent Realm's though? Just saying

Originally Posted by Sageous

I'm going to wax heretical* for a moment, Kaan, to maybe offer an explanation for why persistent realms work:

Persistent realms might actually be changing all the time, whether "suffering" from MHV transformations or simply from the unconscious/dreaming mind filling in details or plot lines with things that the dreamer hadn't expected. But, in the name of maintaining his persistent realm, the dreamer, upon waking, either forgets those diverting details or remembers them as true additions to what they had intended in the first place.

The same goes for time dilation: like everything else about the dream time dilation is defined post-dream by memory, and it is very easy to remember yourself living through weeks or even years in one night if your dream was laid out like a movie might be, with the passage of time built into the dream's plot; and yes, an inventive dreamer can easily assemble, and honestly believe, an "actual" tick-tock of the dilation by filling in the missing spaces with memories that never happened (just as any Star Wars fan, for instance, could easily give you a 20-year history of the Republic/Empire, with an accurate tick-tock by accessing the "memory" that Lucas created when presenting his overall persistent realm).

On top of all that, MHV transformations or unconscious additions might not be happening at all. During the dream, the persistent realm might be a very dull, bare-bones place indeed, but upon waking a dreamer dutifully, even energetically fills in interesting details or bridges gaps in imagery or time, all while completely honestly remembering that those details and bridges were there in the dream in the first place.

In other words, it can be very easy, even exciting, to remember a persistent realm, even if the place you just dreamed about only vaguely resembled your invented realm. Change in the dream itself can be overlooked, ignored, or properly adjusted by a dreamer upon waking without the dreamer ever realizing she had made any adjustments.

I personally believe that a substantial amount of our dreaming lives, my own included, might never have occurred at all; we are simply remembering that it occurred, and adding details that best fit our expectations (or hopes). I also believe the opposite -- that there is some truly amazing shit happening to us in dreams (or during sleep in general) that we do not remember at all, and our lives would be much more interesting if we could hang on to those experiences.

Like I said, this may be DV heresy (and I don't want to argue about it), but it could explain your misgivings about persistent realms, and how they might exist -- even if they cannot.

tl;dr:Dreams are a unique experience in our lives in that the only way we see them is as memories; we cannot record them as they are happening, but must rely on how we remember them upon waking. Memory is a fallible tool in the best of cases, but with dreams -- even lucids, though they are much easier to remember -- memory is an extremely weak tool at best.

When remembering dreams, it is very important to avoid adding details or making assumptions about what "really" happened, lest the dreams start picking up details that never occurred during them. I wonder if a lot of persistent realmers are assembling much of their realms upon waking without ever knowing they were doing so. I could be wrong, but it is a thought...


*Heretical because: so very few dreamers are willing to accept that they might not remember what happened in exactly the same way that it happened -- sometimes, especially with dreams, memory is an extremely shoddy tool; and yet we LD'ers base everything purely on what we remember, and rarely question the validity of that memory.

Originally Posted by EbbTide000

(…)

Why do we dream in Metaphor?

(…)

If you see someone in a dream they are not themselves. They are standing for someone else.

(2:22)

Nothing that you see in a dream is for itself. It’s a stand-in.

It’s like a dream is a theater in which a play is acted out.

(2:33)

The script is the unfulfilled waking expectations but they are acted out in a theater, called the REM state and there is a cast of characters doing the part. Not the original people.

(2:44)

A replacement cast of characters.

So that, for example, if you’re upset with your mum, in your dream it might be your aunty whom you’re upset with. If the dream involves you’re current school you might dream about you’re old school instead.

(…)

(3:03)

But why was that? Why are dreams expressed in metaphor? (…)
And the answer is this.

What would happen if you didn’t dream in metaphor?
(3:13)

suppose we actually dreamt-out exactly the scenario’s we were in whilst we were awake. (…) Just think what the consequences would be. If we remembered those dreams we would be creating false memories, wouldn’t we?
(3:33)

If we actually dream that instead of holding back our anger we punched our boss in the face (…) and now we actually dream punching our boss in the face and if that goes into memory our memory would be full of false memories, which would be devastating.
We use our memories to guides us in reality and if they are full of false memories then that would destroy the whole bases of our intelligence.
(…)

(4:08)

That’s what the brain actually does with dreams; it switches off long term memory. It’s only very rarely that we remember dreams. We actually have to get them just as we are waking-up and grab them very quickly and put them into long term memory.
So, that’s what the brain actually does it switches off long term memory storage for dreaming. (4:22)

Why we evolved to dream: the new understanding
Why we evolved to dream: the new understanding - YouTube
(9:40) 13,307 views

Edit:

Sorry, link above didn't work. Try this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMYOq...feature=relmfu
(9:40) 14,911 views

(5:27)

You have to dream in metaphore or you would destroy memory.

(5:33)

Joe gets toooo tecknicle for me now.

The REAL reason why we evolved to dream

Human Givens*19,253 views

Uploaded on Nov 29, 2008

Joe Griffin explaining the psychology and biology of the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming.*

Why do we dream in metaphor? What does dreaming do for us? What would happen if we didn't dream in metaphor? What happens in our brains when we dream?

Find more about this theory here:

Why Do We Dream? Theories Of Interpretation, REM Sleep & Fulfilment

♥

https://youtu.be/SMYOquesvg8

♥(9:39) 19,253 views

Originally Posted by EbbTide000

...

That's an interesting take. Perhaps dreams are purposefully not realistic so that we do not confuse them with reality. This may be an evolutionary adaptation. Perhaps dreams serve some practical function like consolidating memory or resolving conflicting emotions. But there is a risk that these functions may disturb our waking well-being as a side-effect, so evolution has guided these experiences to be obviously bizarre so that they don't have unhelpful consequences in our waking memory.

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

Edit: cooleymd, check out stuff on SRIs. Also, wat?

Mzzkc:
Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors? I never use them, I use 5-HTP the intermediate between Tryptophan and Serotonin.

as for the wat? I was trying to illustrate absurdity by being absurd, the rats didn't do anything but die and have their genes shot gun cloned in to plasmids.

as for books I'd be happy to think that many a gifted author came up with ideas from dreams, especially lucid ones, but I think few could write a book with most of their logic centers in their brains turned off.

Sageous:
certainly people will edit some details of dreams, but I think when Lucid and Vivid recall is pretty good, but when someone can quote you sentence after sentence from a DC they are definitely editorializing.

sisyphus:
"practical function like consolidating memory" certainly, I have also heard and believe in the Threat Simulator view of dreams other main functions, and this is what allows us to take control with expectation, things in the threat simulator tend to behave as we expect them.

EbbTide:
if only this were a dream journal and the competition were still on you'd be 2/3rds of the way to 1pt

Memory in dreams. I think that it is very similar to memory in waking.

In waking, memories are definitely wavy, and people will definitely miss details... but we miss details... not main points.

In waking, people have a lean towards certain memory patterns. This is why I think that there is no limit to our recall. I lean towards visual and kinetic. So things like conversations kind of disappear a few minutes after waking. I generally write down convos I want to remember directly after waking. Cooley said:

certainly people will edit some details of dreams, but I think when Lucid and Vivid recall is pretty good, but when someone can quote you sentence after sentence from a DC they are definitely editorializing.

and I think that a lot of times people might "editorialize", but I think that most people will post a very similar convo to waking. Probably 80% of what they heard, things that they miss is probably sentence structure that is not relevant to the convo.

As for me, I think that it is very similar in all senses, but some people remember some things more. As I said I am visual and kinetic, so places and things I see are remembered much easier and in great detail.

This being said, I think that your level of awareness is going to effect your persistent realm. If you don't have enough awareness to make one that makes sense, then it would probably fall apart. If you are super aware during lucids (which a lot of us are), then you will notice when things mess up and the persistence will be broken.


Zödra
Also, I have to say, I do believe in persistent realms even though my persistent realm is more of a pseudo persistent realm. It was handed down to me by my dreaming Father, a dream character that is persistent. Zödra is a place that is quickly changing because some people know that it is a dream and others don't. I don't always know when I am there unless one of the 5 persistent characters are there. Things changing can easily be explained by another dreamer (not anotherdreamer) being there or if I am in one of the 14 different realities (of which I have only been hyper aware in enough to explore 2 of these).
The persistence is as follows:
Me (I don't count, but I kind of do)
Old Man
Dad
Sister
Vixen
working on adding a fifth, she has only appeared once, but I am hoping she will become a staple.

Everyone calls it Zödra and everyone considers my dad a hero. He continually helps the people that don't know that it is a dream and I have helped him out quite a few times. I will just realize I am dreaming and he will appear and ask me to help him save Zödra. One time It was actually Jason, him, and my sister there, It was a big deal for all of us to be there because someone was screwing with the timeline and trying to commit genocide. We ended up failing and only switching genocide to mass murder. The same amount of people were killed, but of varying races instead of one.

The old man taught me how to do some very basic controls and to stabilize.
My dad taught me how to do scan
Vixen taught me imagination speed
Jason has helped me one on with fighting
Sister has shown me a lot more how to use items as a catalyst for dream control to save mental energy

There are witches plaguing Zödra. They have quite a few abilities and were able to easily handle me when I first started. I had to teleport away in order to live quite a few times. Now I can fight witches like you wouldn't believe even though they are immune to regular attacks.

I have a watch and a start menu, as well as a few other items to help me out. I even just got an amulet from inside a dead witch. I don't know what it does yet, and it probably doesn't have a use until the dream that I figure it out. That dream and the memory of it from other dreams will solidify the rules of the amulet.

Zödra is really considered a "dreamland" and doesn't have to follow rules like others since it was handed down. There are some rules though, like not letting people know that they are dreaming. There is a place in Zödra for all the places in the world. Different places have different rules as well. At first I thought that this was all a nuisance because I really wanted a dreamland I could control. I then realized that if I can't control Zödra I won't be able to control a persistent realm.

There are even places in the world that people fly. They don't know that they are dreaming (I know that I am the only one dreaming), but they all know how to fly.

This Kaan might make more sense (not that you are dumb, but that you have a different way of thinking than I do in this matter) to you in the ways of how my realm works. It might be easier for you to accept It is like a dream that some of the characters are always the same in. If something does change, it can easily be explained. The characters haven't changed much though, they act very similar to humans except a lot more mysterious.

There are a few things that are kind of persistent in Zödra, but it could just be me accidentally bringing in a DC, place, or thing multiple times and could be subject to change. It might just be dream control and not part of Zödra, and this seems to be a normal thing.

Hope this is more contributory than some of my previous posts. I still plan on creating a few persistent realms (I am working on getting all the powers I need for it in Zödra for now) and have one that I am going to start at the end of the year. My plans were actually to spend this whole year preparing for it, and that is why I have a lot of my items.

Originally Posted by Sensei

...I think that a lot of times people might "editorialize", but I think that most people will post a very similar convo to waking. Probably 80% of what they heard, things that they miss is probably sentence structure that is not relevant to the convo.

mostly in my dreams people are talking gibberish, but I don't notice its like techno babble. Once in a non-lucid dream the words you have been virused appeared all over my work computer, so I apparently called the you've been virused hotline. It was pretty funny, I recognized the voice of someone from the Server Management Group, saying things like "no we don't have the capabilities of the FBI, we don't spend all day browsing the latest anti-hack websites, we don't have the equipment of CSI..." it was like a recorded message that basically meant we'll replace your hard drive when we get around to it. I remember it mostly because it was so funny. The best dialogue from a lucid I also remember because of humor. Two dream cops appear and one of them says "I'm afraid your going to have to come with us" I thought I'm the dreamer who do they think their kidding so I ripped his head off with my bare hands, I'll never forget the second dream cops response standing right there next to the body of his headless partner "I'm very sorry Sir, but I'm afraid your still going to have to come with me". After shooting me a couple of times and his retreating in a hail of gunfire, I didn't go with him. So when DC's are a laugh riot then their convo's are remembered (in my experience)

Originally Posted by cooleymd

mostly in my dreams people are talking gibberish, but I don't notice its like techno babble. Once in a non-lucid dream the words you have been virused appeared all over my work computer, so I apparently called the you've been virused hotline. It was pretty funny, I recognized the voice of someone from the Server Management Group, saying things like "no we don't have the capabilities of the FBI, we don't spend all day browsing the latest anti-hack websites, we don't have the equipment of CSI..." it was like a recorded message that basically meant we'll replace your hard drive when we get around to it. I remember it mostly because it was so funny. The best dialogue from a lucid I also remember because of humor. Two dream cops appear and one of them says "I'm afraid your going to have to come with us" I thought I'm the dreamer who do they think their kidding so I ripped his head off with my bare hands, I'll never forget the second dream cops response standing right there next to the body of his headless partner "I'm very sorry Sir, but I'm afraid your still going to have to come with me". After shooting me a couple of times and his retreating in a hail of gunfire, I didn't go with him. So when DC's are a laugh riot then their convo's are remembered (in my experience)

This is my favorite thing you have ever written my good sir. I wish I could see or live this dream.

I think it's important for all of us to remember that our experiences of dreaming tend to vary wildly from each other. Questioning assumptions is important, because it can lead us to a better understanding of how our dreams work (great news for our lovely hobby), but it's easy to go to the extreme that you see with new forum members sometimes. I've seen reasoning that goes:

I have not experienced a lucid dream despite trying for some time,
and
People here claim to experience lucid dreams,
therefore
Everyone here is a liar.

We're all limited by our own experiences. That's why getting feedback from all sides can be useful.

Like Mzzkc said, the two of us have been chatting about the nature of what persistent realms would entail, and creating a persistent realm would be all about creating a rigid set of assumptions and consequences. Which brings me to kaan's point:

Originally Posted by Kaan

What bother me is that even if you manage to incubate a really complex and detailed sci-fi like alternative dream reality, I don't see by what magical stuff these persistent dreams would avoid such a natural specificity of dreams: MHV transformations.

It sounds like your dreams are like mine: by nature, very, very fluid. (As are most people's, I think.) I dream of my hometown, the map has transformed into another world. Last night, I dreamt about a place I lived once, and the perspective of the hardwood floors was literally warping in front of me. My dream locations don't remain consistent; they change as I'm dreaming.

However, not everybody dreams in the same way, so even though I can't keep a map straight in my dreams to save my life, it wouldn't surprise me if other people kept places relatively consistent, especially in lucid and vivid dreams. It's like... I skip past a lot of extraneous detail when I'm reading fiction because I'm mostly paying attention to the interactions between characters... but other people are detail-oriented enough to figure out exactly how the space battles are supposed to work. I wouldn't expect that detail-oriented person's dreams to resemble mine at all.

Let me posit a hypothetical, and you all can tell me if it seems like a situation you might find possible: Mzzkc has stated that persistent realms are essentially a series of complex mnemonic devices. I'd say that wouldn't be dissimilar to a memory palace. Not a technique that's ever appealed much to me, but say that a detail-oriented, somewhat obsessive person set up an incredibly detailed, vivid memory palace and filled it up with mnemonic objects. I'm making three assumptions about our lucid dreamer:
- That they can induce a dream with a specific location at will
- That they are experienced enough to be able to continue to focus throughout the duration of a dream
- That they have vivid enough recall to remember details

This set of assumptions requires a very specific person to exist, but none of this seems outside the realm of possibility to me; it only seems outside of the realm of possibility for me. I don't care enough about the details to make this happen, but for someone whose brain does work this way, why wouldn't it be possible for them to take the next step, as it were, and create something bigger?

Originally Posted by cooleymd

certainly people will edit some details of dreams, but I think when Lucid and Vivid recall is pretty good, but when someone can quote you sentence after sentence from a DC they are definitely editorializing.

Why not ask, if you see it in their dream journal? If you were non-confrontational about it: "Hey, I noticed that you write a lot of dialogue in your dreams. Do you write up the gist of a conversation, or do you remember it word for word?" I'd answer that.

In my DJ, I'm usually editorializing a fair bit just for length. My dreams are a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey in that I'll often dream a scene, and then my brain decides that the scene could be more interesting if we did it this way, so I'll dream the scene again, and then we might go on a random tangent, and then we'll go back to the scene and do it again, and if I wrote all this down, I wouldn't ever do anything else. The purpose of my dream journal is to help me remember my dreams, and let me go back and find themes and interesting stories; dialogue quite often lets me sum up a scene in just a few sentences. In the same way, I sometimes don't pursue tangents in my dream journal itself, because I don't find them interesting and it would take forever.

At the same time, this:

Originally Posted by Kaan

So, it is just my opinion, but I don't buy such a complicated, written like a sci-fi movie, and stable persistent dream.

...aside from speaking about persistent dreams, doesn't necessarily speak to my experience. Quite often my dreams do end up written like a sci-fi movie... it's just that by that point, we're on the fourth or fifth "loop," and I've forgotten all the previous ones.

Originally Posted by sisyphus

I think the skeptic's case is solid and needs not further defense until more evidence is provided. The argument that "you can find it on the Internet" doesn't hold water. Sources need to be reliable. Forum posts and dream journal entries are not reliable, in the rigorous sense of the word. They are anecdotal, subjective, self-reported. From the aggregate of many anecdotes or from particularly unusual anecdotes, we can form some hypotheses, but this is only the beginning of the scientific method, not the end. Popularity lends "social proof," which can be very powerful, but is still not scientific. Allusions were made to topics in neuroscience. Okay, interesting. How do they relate to the topic? Can we derive a logical conclusion from them? If not, we are still also willing to entertain some reasoning or speculation between the science, anecdotes, and personal experience. If so, please state those thoughts plainly.

Dream journals themselves, as posted on the internet, don't hold up the same way that a peer-reviewed academic study would. That doesn't mean that they don't have a place in a conversation like this. For example, by posting my experiences with lucid dreaming, I'm trying to bring forth one person's perspective on how dreams might work, because until we create the language about how this stuff works (forming the hypothesis), we can't test it through more empirical means.

In short, we're discussing semiotics (meaning, creation of language, creation of meaning).

I also disagree that only quantitative analysis would be useful if we brought more questions about lucid dreaming into academic study. (Note: I am all for more academic study of dreams.) Right now, we don't really have any useful way to empirically measure the content of dreams, but that wouldn't necessarily make it impossible for studies to provide useful insight. Even with a self-reporting element, a large qualitative study of the content of dreams across a diverse group would give us insights as to how dreaming worked. Especially if none of them were on a forum trying to one-up each other.

This is a semiotic question because until we have the ability to form a hypothesis through language, we are unable to test the result. Qualitative studies provide valuable insight that allows us to move further in our empirical analysis, and vice versa.

Edit: Damn it, I really need to be writing an essay on queer theory for my class that ends this week. Instead, here's an essay on dreams!

Great points by all. I wanted to add, on the topic of dream journals, that I appreciate those dreamers who make an effort to write about their methodology of dreaming and journaling. So, in addition and in support of the individual dream entries, they author a post or more about their purpose, their writing style and what they choose to edit, recurring/persistent elements, a unifying narrative or mythology, interpretations, things like that. I recently re-started adding posts to my DV dream journal after some years' hiatus and there's been a shift in my purpose and style. So I've been thinking about that and how it might be a good exercise to both the writer and the reader.

I know




sisyphus You inspire me

Originally Posted by sisyphus

Great points by all.

I wanted to add, on the topic of dream journals, that I appreciate those dreamers who make an effort to write about their methodology of dreaming and journaling.

So,

in addition and in support of the individual dream entries, they author a post or more about

their purpose,

their writing style and
what they choose to edit,

recurring/persistent elements,

a unifying narrative
or mythology,
interpretations,
things like that.

I recently re-started adding posts to my DV dream journal after some years' hiatus and there's been a shift in my purpose and style.

So

I've been thinking about that and how it might be a good exercise to both the writer and the reader.

I am 3 people and you are gentle on the infant in me, Thanx.

My infant infuriates most normal members here and at other places. Dr Robert Van De Castle was gentle like you. And his gentleness gave confidence that encouraged that amazing, amazing infant. That infant isn’t me. That infant started off as pure emotion and iliterate. It has come along way but is still emotional and impatient and it's posts appears off-topic, strange and mainly likes to communicate through songs and pictures.

But somthing tells me you know that.

You made me cry with relief when
You summarised what the infant was trying to say in post number #65 of this thread.

Here is how you replied:

Originally Posted by sisyphus

That's an interesting take. Perhaps dreams are purposefully not realistic so that we do not confuse them with reality. This may be an evolutionary adaptation. Perhaps dreams serve some practical function like consolidating memory or resolving conflicting emotions. But there is a risk that these functions may disturb our waking well-being as a side-effect, so evolution has guided these experiences to be obviously bizarre so that they don't have unhelpful consequences in our waking memory.

The late, Dr Robert Van De Castle did that a lot with me.

My thread called "What are your thoughts on this" is the last paper he wrote for a prestigious magazine. That paper is the link in my signature.