Thread: Are DCs Real?

It is commonly beleived that when you dream, your brain secretes a pychedelic substance called DMT, which can be synthesised(sp?) as a drug and used for Pychedelic trips.

So, i'd be curious to know if you beleive that when people have a DMT tripa fter smoking it or whatever, that they go into an objective reality apart from our minds just like when we're dreaming?

Also do you beleive that we go to this reality and effectively become DC's when we die?

My position is #1.

You haven't really said anything at all as far as making a case for DCs being objectively real is concerned. You've basically just linked to some papers on philosophy and physics as if that somehow lends vicarious credibility to your argument, which is directly reducible to:

• It's possible, therefore I believe it.
• "Basically, if the DCs are having coherent experiences, they are conscious, and more/less sentient."
• Some vague rambling about the "multiverse."

#1 frankly doesn't warrant a response, and #2 is going to require a lot more elaboration on your part. In particular, you're going to have to define "coherent experiences." It would also be nice if you could explain your reasoning of how that necessitates sentience, rather than lazily linking to a paper which may or may not even be relevant (and given the structure of your post, I have my doubts). As for #3, you're going to have to point out for us the connection that this has with your thesis, because as it stands that entire passage is simply meaningless; a proper evaluation is impossible.

By the way, I moved this to General Dream Discussion. This thread is directly relevant to dreaming and thus does not belong in the off topic section.

I am not sure about the details. I'm just some guy. I pick up what I can from lay science links like the ones I included.

But I didn't say that we "go there".

I think our minds can tap information from there. Something like FM radio. I can certaiinly see that happening in a heightened way on DMT, LSD, etc. - chems as amplifier, modulator.

Seems our our brains are pretty high tech; basically, powerful quantum computers. Really, as such, they would be able to pull information from far far away. (See Wiki for an intro to quantum theories of mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mind)

I am quite certain that in dreams I am getting get real information about other realms/worlds. Real information is ... unique... distinct. I don't know about you, but my dreams are just waaaay too vivid, realistic, detailed, anomalous. Very high tech. Unfamiliar aircraft, buildings, tools, cities, entities, etc. etc. Wow.

And I can't see brains just fabricating such images. That would be the ONLY context in which brains do that. Even if you hallucinate, it's just color/raster over an existing real-life scene mostly - not completely synthetic.

So... finally, anyway, in ignorance one way or another, what to think? I can neither affirm nor deny DCs existence.

Go with the best information. And it's all pointing to #3.

And, yes, it may well be that the DCs are in some "afterlife" realm, relative to us. Disembodied, more information than material, this might also explain their apparent insubstantiality, unreality to us..

They are just less ... dense.

Thanks,

Stay cool.

Thanks. Sorry about the mis-posting.

And you read the irrelevant info at the links, right? Or, you just already know it's irrelevant?

But you're right. #2 is an uninteresting middle ground. I should have left it out.

The real choice is between #1 and #3. The linked Chalmers article gave background you want on the experiential definition.

But, on logic and ethics, assuming uncertainty, #3 is the correct position.

I can't prove it impossible. Therefore it's possible. Therefore I can't deny it. Given the possibility of harm to them, I assume that DCs might be real, and I act that way in LD.

Again, to disbelieve in DCs' reality is also to affirmatively believe that they are unreal. In all this 14billion year old maybe infinite multi-universe ... that's a big claim.

I know you dismissed the links, but you might try reading them or whatever better you can find on quantum consciousness, multiverse, fractals, chaos, relativity, information theory, string theory etc. etc.

This is not New Age crystal healing mumbo jumbo. How pointless - especially when this stuff is so accessible now in lay form. The big picture is slowly coming together. And it's non-local, entangled, informatic... time inverted... weird.

So. I agree that it's equally "not what it's not" as it "is what it is".

But, man... infinity. Literal infinity. That's the context. It's bit much to swallow, I know.... but you can get used to it.

PQ

Hi everyone,

I do not have any scientific reference for my opinions regarding this topic.
However, there is this strong feeling...something that I have brought with me from my dream world into this reality. I cannot explain, it is just a feeling ....but for me -dream characters are as real as anything can be real!
I sometimes even recognise some of them, I remember them ('oh I know you from somewhere'), I negotiate with them...sometimes they really surprise me....they tell me things I could not possibly know ( not even in my subconscious!)
I know, all of this can be explained in a different way. But I am the ultimate authority over my dreams, and there are REAL dream characters.
By the way, why don't you just ask your DC - are they real?

Hi Sanja,

You're up late ... or in Asia?

Good idea. I'll ask. Maybe I would have to think twice if the DC asks ME if I'm really real. But, under #3, I think that I usually am real.

Sorry. Too much existentialism back in Uni ... too many fractals ago.

Peace,

PQ

No, they are created by your brain.

my answer is..well..actually I have no idea what number I would choose if any

My answer is YES, DC's are real. Or at least, some are.

And the ones that are real, have their own, how do I say this....awareness. I've had DC's tell me things. I've had DC's snap me out of my dream, and show me that I am dreaming, even when I didn't believe them.

I've had enough strange experiences with DC's to believe they are real. However, they don't exist outside of my being

it turns out, the DC was just the other part of me

Originally Posted by juroara

it turns out, the DC was just the other part of me

So...they are not real. They are just you, not someone else.

Originally Posted by juroara

it turns out, the DC was just the other part of me

So if you kill a DC, you kill a part of yourself? Sounds stupid.

Originally Posted by yellowlight

So if you kill a DC, you kill a part of yourself? Sounds stupid.

The notion that killing a DC kills someone else is just as stupid

Originally Posted by khh

The notion that killing a DC kills someone else is just as stupid

That's even more stupid. :p

I'm not voting because your poll makes no sense. But, I think DCs are just hallucinations. Made up, and based on things I've experienced. Are dream trees real? What about dream clouds? How come no one cares whether or not dream chickens are real

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

No, they are created by your brain.

How can you know? Proof!

Originally Posted by Swordz

How can you know? Proof!

How can you know they're not? Proof!

There really isn't much hard proof, leaving me skeptical. But, this does make me want to be nicer to DCs. Maybe I'll ask them before I blow their heads off if it's ok with them....

I would say that (for me) there are two parts to every dream character.

One part is their sensory appearance, the details of how I perceived them. I think that part is mostly in the mind of the beholder, either an illusion or an illusion directed by symbolism.

The other part is what I can't directly perceive, the process or intelligence that animates and controls their illusory forms. And for that, after meeting so many dream characters, I can only suppose that some are directed from my own mind. While others are not, and might possibly be controlled by unknown external sources.

Originally Posted by starry eyes

While others are not, and might possibly be controlled by unknown external sources.

But that's only what you think. It doesn't mean that it's true.

Originally Posted by yellowlight

But that's only what you think. It doesn't mean that it's true.

Same dream(s) some DCs can be controlled and/or reasoned with. While others are just completely impervious to that control. Some DCs know nothing beyond seemingly pre-rehersed dialog, others say completely unexpected things and demonstrate more advanced knowledge of complicated subjects than I have even when I'm awake, which often turns out to be true knowledge when I research what they said when I wake up.

The poll asked for our opinions. And I qualified my opinion with "might possibly be". If you don't like my opinion that something might be possible, then I might refer you to Arthur C Clarke's first law of prediction.

They're as real as you want them to be...especially if by "are they real?" you mean, "do they exist?", in which case, yes, they do. Perhaps not in the waking world, but in the dream world, they're totally real.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

No, they are created by your brain.

So is one's perception of just about everything in waking life.

Originally Posted by Lëzen

So is one's perception of just about everything in waking life.

But the only way we see them is by the waking life. If you're blind, you wont see any DC's because you have not seen anybody, ever. The waking life images are what you dream about, not some other place that you have never been before.

This is not my dream experience.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

The waking life images are what you dream about, not some other place that you have never been before.

I mostly see scenes, places, fixtures, buildings, cities, vehicles, technology, entities etc. that I know I have never seen or heard of before, in person or in movies / media.

So, I have difficulty believing that my mind just "makes up" such scenes, or the DCs in them. The scenes are far too detailed, vivid, independent of my will. These are not replayed, dull, poorly recycled. Rather ... unfamiliar, novel, complete.

And, in my waking experience, my mind does not just constantly make things up, fantasize, project. It perceives, and I see and interact with, the world... not my own phantom mental images.

So, really, if you're arguing for #1, and if you have DC dream subject matter that is NOT familiar (replayed), and if you have DCs or scenes that don't obey you, you're actually making a claim for mental functions even more extraordinary than mere extended perception.

You're really suppoosing that your mind is somehow helping to create those worlds.

Given the weird role of consciousness in the quantum, we can't really prove that impossible, either. But the ethical imperative remains the same ...

PQ

This is soooo important!

Claims of impossibility also require proof.

And claims of total impossibility are even more ambitious, more far reaching, than affirmative claims of existence/effect. What can we prove impossible under all assumptions? What assumptions are impossible under all circumstances?

Consciousness and quantum information effects are so weird, so connected and so powerfully "extended" that there is very little that we can definitively rule out altogether. Rather, the science itself suggests the likelihood of processes and worlds far beyond our mundane experience.

Without the technology to test a phenomenon, the absence of proof in its favor does not prove its impossibility. So our lack of tech powerful enough to test macro quantum telepathy - which seems structurally posssible - doesn't mean that it is impossible.

Dreams are not about your grandpappy's science - fulcrums, gas engines and the marvels of radio.

We know so very little, with our few hundred years of science, few thousand years of bloody history. The little that we can now affirmatively prove actually rules out very little of what might be possible, based on all that we might know in the future.


PQ

Originally Posted by Posquant

This is not my dream experience.



I mostly see scenes, places, fixtures, buildings, cities, vehicles, technology, entities etc. that I know I have never seen or heard of before, in person or in movies / media.

So, I have difficulty believing that my mind just "makes up" such scenes, or the DCs in them. The scenes are far too detailed, vivid, independent of my will. These are not replayed, dull, poorly recycled. Rather ... unfamiliar, novel, complete.

And, in my waking experience, my mind does not just constantly make things up, fantasize, project. It perceives, and I see and interact with, the world... not my own phantom mental images.

So, really, if you're arguing for #1, and if you have DC dream subject matter that is NOT familiar (replayed), and if you have DCs or scenes that don't obey you, you're actually making a claim for mental functions even more extraordinary than mere extended perception.

You're really suppoosing that your mind is somehow helping to create those worlds.

Given the weird role of consciousness in the quantum, we can't really prove that impossible, either. But the ethical imperative remains the same ...

PQ

Just because you don't remember it, does not mean you did not see it. Even a glimpse is enough to get stored. Also, the brain can fill in the blanks as to what it may look like, perhaps a book you read or something else.