Need an interviewee

I have a project which includes interviewing an expert on the topic you have chosen. My topic is about dreams, and I need an expert or someone that has sufficient knowledge in this subject that can thoughtfully answer these questions:

1. Do surrounding sounds in reality affect what you are dreaming?
2. Can you feel pain in your dreams?
3. Why do some dreams include strange/distorted versions of places you've seen or been to in real life?
4. Some things happen in dreams, like when you see a digital clock and the numbers appear all "jumbled up". Why?
5. If you are lucid dreaming, can you really turn your dream into anything you desire?
6. Sometimes a dream transitions into a different kind/scene. Why?

If anyone here or knows an expert on dreams, please answer by tomorrow and tell me the full name. Thanks.

1. It has been observed that outside forces can influence dreams and sound was one of the more important ones. People who sleep while listening to a television or radio will often dream of whatever was broadcasted but will not necessarily remember it, nor will the broadcast always penetrate the dream. Both have been reported, though.

2. Yes. Pain is neurological in itself as are dreams. While pain in dreams may often be diminished or lessened, it is still often prevalent. However, through the use of lucidity or certain states of mind pain can be reduced and even eliminated during dreams. Your expectation of what an event will feel like will determine how it ends up being perceived. If you are not lucid and think that getting stabbed hurts, then in a regular dream it will. If you are lucid and are not expecting any type of pain or sensation from a stabbing then it will not hurt or will only be a minor inconvenience.

3. It has been theorized that dreams are the result of our brains going through information that was taken in throughout the day being sorted out and determining what is junk and what should be stored in long-term memory. Based on this, dreams are based on actual events that occurred during previous days and will, as a result, reflect places/events/people in waking life.

4. During REM sleep, the stage during which dreams occur, the right side of the brain, the artistic side, is the most active which causes for an overactive imagination-like feel. This causes your brain to take what would logically be a certain set of numbers and turn it into this "jumbled up" appearance. It also is the cause to why dreams seem so weird and different from waking life, in addition to the fact that the logic centers of your brain are mainly turned off.

5. Yes. Lucid dreaming adds that logic back into your dreams but in a conscious way, meaning you can control it. As long as you truly believe something is going to happen, then it will happen no matter what. Whether it will destabilize the dream to the point where you wake up is a matter of experience, but the actual act of changing something itself, primarily, is not.

6. This is due, once again, to the fact that your brain is rummaging through information taken in throughout the day. When your mind goes from one piece of information to another it can cause a "skip" or "blip" in the dream. These can also be caused by a lack of recall and simply forgetting bits of the dream causing it to seem as though it skipped around.

Just call me R. Burke ;)

Hi captcookie,

1. Do surrounding sounds in reality affect what you are dreaming?
I've heard a few loud noises and in my dreams, only to awaken later and realize that people were working on the roof next door rather loudly, or something heavy fell in my room. But they do not directly affect the content of my dream(s).

2. Can you feel pain in your dreams?
Yes, ranging from minute soreness to extreme pain. I have felt worse pain in dreams than in real life, but I am positive that it is all very realistic. I know what a paper cut feels like, but if something much larger cuts me in a dream, the pain I recall from getting a paper cut is amplified and radiates more from the source.

3. Why do some dreams include strange/distorted versions of places you've seen or been to in real life?
In dreams, the mind takes memories and experiences of the person and attempts to replicate them, including locations. Sometimes there are different or added components to said location, but this is all (what is believed to be) mental processing that naturally occurs during sleep.

4. Some things happen in dreams, like when you see a digital clock and the numbers appear all "jumbled up". Why?*
From my own experiences, I've observed that the mind cannot replicate time or words exactly. The clock might read 29:22 the first time, then suddenly change to 29:25 in a brief moment. The five senses are easier to replicate than chronological events. It may also be due to the fact that during REM sleep, the part of the brain dealing with logic shuts off so the time can shift rather easily.

5. If you are lucid dreaming, can you really turn your dream into anything you desire?
Yes. If you imagine and visualize something, expecting it to occur, it will. This includes flying and virtually anything else. There is a slight amount of propaganda where lucid dreaming is concerned, however; just because one is lucid it does not mean they will be able to control absolutely anything at first. Being confident in the dream and fully believing something to happen, knowing what it will look like or play out, can sometimes be difficult in the first few experiences. Some people naturally find it easier to shape their dreams than others.

6. Sometimes a dream transitions into a different kind/scene. Why?*
If the person is lucid, maybe they have purposefully changed the scene through expectations or willing it to change. If it is a regular dream, it could be because the mind is processing events and may be moving on to different ideas or matters. Different pieces of information are being stringed together to help your brain comprehend certain things.

* These two questions may not have a truly set-in-stone answer but there are many explanations out there.

These answers are great, thanks so much you two! :D It will help my project greatly.

1. "Researchers at New York University suggest that wakefulness and REM sleep are essentially similar brain states, differing only in the extent to which they are shaped by sensory stimuli from the outside world."

Brynie, Faith Hickman. 2006. Sleep and Dreams: 101 Questions about Sleep and Dreams. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books.

2. "...the present study describes experiences of dreamed pain that were reported incidentally in experiments on the effects of somatosensory stimulation administered during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep...Most often, these references appeared to be direct, untransformed incorporations of real sensations produced by stimulation. Pain was the principal motivating agent in a majority of these dreams and was in many cases associated with strong emotion--typically anger. Dreams often depicted the subjects' attempts to obtain relief from pain, in some cases by repetition of actions, in others by metaphoric renditions of the goal. The results indicate that although pain is rare in dreams, it is nevertheless compatible with the representational code of dreaming."

Nielsen TA et al. 1993. Pain in dreams. Sleep. Aug;16(5):490-8.

1. Do surrounding sounds in reality affect what you are dreaming?

I think so. If that wasn't the case, there would be no such thing as a white noise tape to listen to when you go to sleep. For years I have fallen asleep with the TV or radio on to avoid certain dreams/experiences while asleep. But you have to be sure not to have the TV on a channel showing a scary movie, otherwise you're in for it. Lots of times if the TV has on a movie that I've seen before, I will simply dream of watching the movie.

2. Can you feel pain in your dreams?

Yes. I've felt the pain of being shot, stung, stabbed. I also feel the brush of the wind, the water around my ankles when dreaming of the beach, other pleasurable feelings. The other senses work in my dreams too. (taste, smell, hearing, sight, awareness).

3. Why do some dreams include strange/distorted versions of places you've seen or been to in real life?

Dreams are full of symbolism sometimes, and symbols will appear as things that are pulled from your memory, but maybe something about that memory is altered to fit the message that needs to be received.

4. Some things happen in dreams, like when you see a digital clock and the numbers appear all "jumbled up". Why?

Again, the symbolism. Our minds will use information that we have stored in the brain to visualize a thought, an idea... i would think that a clock with jumbled numbers would indicate that there isn't enough time, you feel like time is lost.

5. If you are lucid dreaming, can you really turn your dream into anything you desire?

If you're aware of something that is going on, you can change it, or stop it. The most basic form of lucid dreaming is waking yourself up before something bad happens in the dream. This is a normal response to fear. When you deal with the fear, the next time, you may find yourself ending that adream and beginning a new one without waking up. Then after that, maybe you'll be dealing with the danger in the dream instead of changing the dream.
6. Sometimes a dream transitions into a different kind/scene. Why?

I think I just touched on that in number 5. It's a mechanism we use to avoid dealing with the fear of something that happens in the previous dream.

You probably had all the answers you need and your project is done, I'm just doing it for fun. I might not be right, I've gathered my answers from what I had read and experienced.

1. Do surrounding sounds in reality affect what you are dreaming?
Yes, provided you're able to hear them in your dreams. Your brain will take those sounds and implant them into your dreams, twisting the original dream story as it goes according to the sounds. Pretty amazing I must say. I slept with the TV on and I was surprised I knew the TV plot although I was fast asleep.

2. Can you feel pain in your dreams?
Yes definitely, as long as you have memories of pain in your lifetime. However you can't replicate a feeling you haven't felt before, so if you were to experience a gunshot in your dream when you never had been shot by a gun in real life, the "pain" you felt could be replications and modifications from other types of pain you had felt before.

3. Why do some dreams include strange/distorted versions of places you've seen or been to in real life?
My guess is the logical part of our brain closes down when we're asleep, so certain familiar places become distorted as our unconscious plays with them and plants certain things into it.

4. Some things happen in dreams, like when you see a digital clock and the numbers appear all "jumbled up". Why?
Same as the previous question, our logical part of our brain is closed down when we're asleep, things can't be access logically. But I wouldn't rule out the possibility that numbers will appear normal if we had enough emphasis of it in real life.

5. If you are lucid dreaming, can you really turn your dream into anything you desire?
That highly depends on how much control you have over your dreams. Experienced lucid dreamers probably can change more elements of the dream whereas newbie lucid dreamers might struggle to even summon a person or an item into the dream.

6. Sometimes a dream transitions into a different kind/scene. Why?
I don't really have any idea. I only know dreams are random when it comes to transition of scenes. But I think the key in dreams is to let you be always doing something at any particular point of time in the dream, let's say if you're walking a long path from point A to point B without anything to do, I presume the dream considers that as dull and just bring you straight to point B, perhaps that explains the transition to a different place.

This also brings up another question about viewing dreams in 1st person and 3rd person. I believe that originate from reading stories, watching shows and playing games.