Thread: My Theory on Dream/Waking Life

Of course life is infinite, we just don't know what happens when someone "dies"

Imagine if there was nothing after we "died" could you believe that?

Imagine it for a second, eternal blackness for eternity. Doesn't sound right at all, and if you had no awareness during this eternal blackness, infinity would pass by in an instant.

Something must happen when you die, maybe you're in eternal blackness until you forget your entire previous life, and are reborn anew. Is this why the first 3 years of our life is darkness?
Is it because we are unaccustomed to having a body with senses after so long a state of "hibernation" if you will.

But even then, would this life you are living now be your last? Because I shouldn't remember this life if I was going to be living another life, such as a man having his memory erased will not know he had his memory erased unless told and they had evidence.

So the way I see it, this is my last life on this planet, and since eternal blackness is out of the question... maybe there is something to this religion thing after all, although I am an atheist.

TLDR; Enjoy life, it lasts but an instant in the end.

Originally Posted by LucidTeammate

Imagine it for a second, eternal blackness for eternity. Doesn't sound right at all, and if you had no awareness during this eternal blackness, infinity would pass by in an instant.

No, it wouldn't pass by at all from your point of view because you wouldn't exist. I'm not saying I believe it, but you certainly have no grounds to say that it is out of the question.

The point where we draw the line between the two is at the point of creation. The creation of a dream is different from the creation of a life. When a dream is formed, the dream is formed around the observer, and is simply a projection of the observer's consciousness. When a life is formed, it is not waking reality which is formed; it is the observer itself which is formed.

Why can't I remember the most significant even that has ever occurred in my life? Is life and reality as I know it real? Or am I in a dream?

Well it could be that you are in a dream, but that does not make it any less real. From your sentence, I get the implication that if this were dream, then it wouldnt be real, or it wouldnt exist, if that is the case, then I have a very hard time conceptualizing how something non-existant can be here arguing.

Originally Posted by elucid

Well it could be that you are in a dream, but that does not make it any less real. From your sentence, I get the implication that if this were dream, then it wouldnt be real, or it wouldnt exist, if that is the case, then I have a very hard time conceptualizing how something non-existant can be here arguing.

Yes, but what if all of what we experience In 'life' is a projection just like our dreams and when we die, we just wake up. Hahaha it's not very likely but it kind of fits into what LUC1D is saying

Many people have had this theory, including me, but I'm come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. Would it matter if this is just a dream, within a larger dream, within an endless amount of dreams? No. Even if it is not reality, it is still my reality. I still feel emotion, make decisions, progress through life, and that is all that matters. If someone proved that this was a dream (Although that's probably impossible) then I wouldn't be disappointed. In your dreams, characters, places etc. might be made up, but what you feel is real, and that's all that matters.

As for what happens when we die, I believe that we just die, and that's it. No floating through eternal darkness, you just sort of... disappear. Now this might seem like a sort of depressing prospect, but I would gladly prefer that over heaven. You are supposed to live in your life, and have what you did impact on the world, not just think "Well at least when I die I'll be in a lovely place with lots of nice people" etc. I wouldn't like that. I would like for there to be an end to it all, and since I wouldn't "exist" anymore, I wouldn't be able to be disappointed or anything.

And before anyone mentions Descartes' quote, "I think, therefore I am", let me say, you can know if you exist, but you can never know if someone else exists.

Dreams are just as real as waking life. Both are very real experiences. The only difference between the two is that dreams are our own creations, and can thus be manipulated; physical reality exists regardless of whether or not our bodies are here to experience it.

Like Peetee said, it doesn't really matter anyway. All of our experiences are our true experiences, and they're real for as long as they are experienced.

Yea I agree it doesnt really matter, but it's still interesting listening to all the different theories.

Originally Posted by Peetee36

As for what happens when we die, I believe that we just die, and that's it. No floating through eternal darkness, you just sort of... disappear. Now this might seem like a sort of depressing prospect, but I would gladly prefer that over heaven. You are supposed to live in your life, and have what you did impact on the world, not just think "Well at least when I die I'll be in a lovely place with lots of nice people" etc. I wouldn't like that. I would like for there to be an end to it all, and since I wouldn't "exist" anymore, I wouldn't be able to be disappointed or anything.

That's what I think. exept I don't only believe it cuz I want it to happen, but more that I can't understand how most other thoeries make sence. Our brains are what make us live, we use it to think, see, feel etc. it's made up of billions of atoms which make up cells, which allow us to think (Correct me if I'm wrong). So when we die and and we are buried or cremated our brains will turn to dirt or ash, all of the billions of atoms that makes up your brain will eventually be turned into fertlizer for the soil. So if heaven existed what would we use to think.

Originally Posted by LUC1D

What does this mean? Why can't I remember the most significant even that has ever occurred in my life? Is life and reality as I know it real? Or am I in a dream? If you make the argument that we don't remember the first part of our life simply because our brains are underdeveloped, then what about our dreams? Do we not remember the beginning of our dreams because our brains are too underdeveloped for this task? Or do we not remember because we are being born all over again every time we fall asleep? What makes our waking life so special at all? Does this mean life can be infinite?

This sounds very philosophical. I'm going to have fun with this.

Science tells us that we don't remember our first years because our brain is underdeveloped. However, somebody else would have experienced your first years of life and, because they remember, in their 'reality' you were born and you grew. The question is if you do not recall the experience can you really say that it has happened to you? For example: your mother would remember your creation, your birth, and your growth. In your mother's existence this definitely happened. However in your existence, you do not remember it happening therefore it may not have happened. You may have been told what your childhood was like and you may have made an idea of what your childhood was like from this. There is always the chance that you were lied to and that the reality of your childhood that you believe is not in fact the 'reality' of your childhood. Maybe you were adopted when you were two years old.

So the question is: if a tree falls in the forest and someone tells you they heard it, did it make a noise?

I am told that we have many dreams in the course of one evening but we do not remember them all. Do the dreams that I don't remember exist? I think that 'reality' is what we remember both waking and dreaming. The interpretation of what we remember defines how we choose to use the knowledge of what we remember. What I label as a 'dream' is something that I remember when I wake up in the morning. What I label as 'reality' is in fact just what I consider to be waking life.

It is up to you to choose how do interpret what you do remember. All I know is that if my dreams were 'reality' I was murdered at the age of 13 and I died. Does that make me the new messiah?

I wish I knew philosophy so I could make an educated comment. I hope the messiah joke doesn't offend, I'm just having fun

Originally Posted by HeritageDreamer

This sounds very philosophical. I'm going to have fun with this.

Science tells us that we don't remember our first years because our brain is underdeveloped. However, somebody else would have experienced your first years of life and, because they remember, in their 'reality' you were born and you grew. The question is if you do not recall the experience can you really say that it has happened to you? For example: your mother would remember your creation, your birth, and your growth. In your mother's existence this definitely happened. However in your existence, you do not remember it happening therefore it may not have happened. You may have been told what your childhood was like and you may have made an idea of what your childhood was like from this. There is always the chance that you were lied to and that the reality of your childhood that you believe is not in fact the 'reality' of your childhood. Maybe you were adopted when you were two years old.

So the question is: if a tree falls in the forest and someone tells you they heard it, did it make a noise?

I am told that we have many dreams in the course of one evening but we do not remember them all. Do the dreams that I don't remember exist? I think that 'reality' is what we remember both waking and dreaming. The interpretation of what we remember defines how we choose to use the knowledge of what we remember. What I label as a 'dream' is something that I remember when I wake up in the morning. What I label as 'reality' is in fact just what I consider to be waking life.

It is up to you to choose how do interpret what you do remember. All I know is that if my dreams were 'reality' I was murdered at the age of 13 and I died. Does that make me the new messiah?

I wish I knew philosophy so I could make an educated comment. I hope the messiah joke doesn't offend, I'm just having fun

That was a pretty good attempt, you're philosophical skills are quite good I think the most known example of that was "If you don't look at the moon, does it still exist", I'm not sure who said that. But I agree on the other things. "Reality" to me is what affects you: emotions, feelings, actions etc. so if you feel something during a dream, and it affects your waking life, even in the slightest, then it is "reality".

I should read the replies first, but I'm not going to. I will later. Right now, it's already almost 4pm and I have a list of things to do today that I haven't even started. So I'll just give my immediate response to the OP. I don't doubt I'll be repeating what others have said.

Of course everything you said could be true, just as it could be true that we're in a Matrix world, brains in vats, that the objective world doesn't exist, that solipsism is true (that your mind is the only thing that exists, nothing else, not even other minds.) It colud be true that half of people perceive 'upwardness' and 'downwardness' oppositely to the other half of people, or that we all see the colors red and green switched around (since we would never know), or that 'fate' is real, or that earth is on a reality show hosted by aliens.

But none of these things are likely to be true, and I see your idea similarly. The best explanation, the most likely which explains our experiences, is that this is reality, isn't a dream. It might be fun to think of other possibilities, but it doesn't seem a very exciting idea to me unless I had reason to think it was true.

But none of these things are likely to be true, and I see your idea similarly. The best explanation, the most likely which explains our experiences, is that this is reality, isn't a dream. It might be fun to think of other possibilities, but it doesn't seem a very exciting idea to me unless I had reason to think it was true.

I don't think because all these ideas aren't "very exciting" doesn't mean that they don't have an equal chance of being true. There isn't any definitive proof about anything, really. Is there anything in the world that you can't doubt? I would argue that no idea and nothing in general is safe from doubt. I'm not saying my OP is any closer to the truth than what you're saying, but it's not any further from it..

Commonly accepted theories oftentimes can be backed up with measurable proof, or else they at least make sense based on what we observe. That's what makes these theories more believable than what you are proposing. Just because we are not 100% sure of any theory does not make every single theory just as believable as the next one.

That's not to say that your theory is untrue, but it is more than likely not the case unless we have a legitimate reason to believe so.

I agree with what everyone has said. Basically, waking and dreaming life are both only inside our heads. One is based on senses and the other on imagination or something else that we don't even understand. The quote about whether the moon is still there if you are not looking at it holds water from a scientific perspective. Quantum Mechanics claims that no accurate measurements of an event can be made unless it is observed and its wave-function is collapsed from superpositon. An excellent example of this is Schrodinger's Cat, where a cat is placed in a box with a radioactive sample, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. The Geiger counter is rigged to trigger a hammer to fall on the vial of poison when it reaches a certain level of radioactivity. It is impossible to accurately predict when the level of radiation will reach the critical level causing the vial to break. So while the box is closed and the experiment is in progress, the cat is actually alive and dead at the same time until it is opened and an observation is made (this is the scientifically accepted fact!). This also brings in the concept of parallel universes which I believe could possibly relate to dreams.

Originally Posted by LUC1D

I don't think because all these ideas aren't "very exciting" doesn't mean that they don't have an equal chance of being true. There isn't any definitive proof about anything, really. Is there anything in the world that you can't doubt? I would argue that no idea and nothing in general is safe from doubt. I'm not saying my OP is any closer to the truth than what you're saying, but it's not any further from it..

I don't think there's anything that can't be doubted. We aren't 100% certain of anything. But just because there are multiple possibilities doesn't mean they're all equally likely. But even if they were:

There's a philosophical concept called Occam's Razor which says that, if more than one idea makes logical sense and we have no reason to believe one rather than than the other, the simplest one is most likely and what we should assume. The simplest explanation for the physical world existing is that it actually exists, that there are actual physical objects causing our experiences of them. The other explanation is that we're in a dream, that the physical world is in our minds. This is more complicated than the explanation that we're not in a dream because, once we wake up from the dream, we'll supposedly be in another reality and be faced with the exactly same dillema, wondering whether it too is a dream.

yes, dianeva.