Originally Posted by
Mzzkc
This thread confuses me. Is this simply a list of things people have personally experienced in dreams, or is this a serious attempt at finding root schema?
If it's the latter, we need to analyze every entry in the list for validity by examining possible causes and gauging anecdotal evidence. Obviously, no one is going to care enough to do this "properly," and I'm not suggesting anyone needs to, but I clicked that link expecting higher levels of discussion than your typical list thread.
I guess I'll start; if anyone else wants to contribute something to this effect, feel free.
The idea of a "mirror world," or a reality beyond the mirror, probably dates back to early childhood and is the lingering effect of a misunderstanding of how mirrors work. For me, and others I've spoken with, the mirror phenomena is much less pronounced than it seems to be for others. I attribute my personal experience to learning the basics of how mirrors work at an extremely young age (3ish).
Another iffy one. Most of the people I've personally spoken with (especially ones with well above-average LDing experience who were self-taught) find this RC useless because their hands are always perfect. I'm the same way, so my best guess here is that this isn't a universal archetype, so much as one that is propagated through various reference material and accepted as fact by the masses. Personally, due to past experiences, I didn't give this idea much credence, which might explain why my hands are almost always shaped correctly in dreams.
Except when it's not?
Which, for me, is almost always. Probably a result of all the gritty visual media to which I subject myself. Of course, having been in Hawaii for a few months, I can see how living there, or anywhere else that isn't grey and dull, could affect your unconscious perception a bit.
Since this is one of those few RCs that rely on physical, waking mechanics, I would agree that it's an excellent RC, but that's exactly what prevents it from being a universal archetype. I (and others I've spoken with or read the posts of) have had issues with this RC whenever the sinuses are clogged, which leads me to believe this isn't so much a mental thing going on as a physical thing.
This is pretty legit. Ctharlhie has already shed some light on the cause of this: namely, a desire conceived at childhood to overcome looming, physical obstacles. That's the sort of mentality that persists with you throughout life, so it's not much of a stretch to say this could be an "adult" manifestation of that core desire.
This is just a matter of proper focus. The Cusp will back me up on this one, but the reason you'll "lose" a sense is simply because you aren't using it at the time. Throw some attention its way and you'll be sensing that sense in no time. Thus, this is simply another example of how the brain filters out unneeded information applied to dreams; the same thing happens IWL.
I don't trust spinning with anything, personally. The effects are too random and across the board to be considered universal. Some people can use it to change the dream scene, others think it will help them stabilize, there are those for whom spinning will simply end the dream altogether, and for a few it doesn't do anything at all. I can't say for sure where the "power of spinning" comes from, but I'd guess that this falls into the same category as hand check RCs, due to its origin.
Easily attributed to Normal brain functioning during sleep. Higher reasoning is all but dead unless you can manage to spark it into life with a bit of awareness. Would go into more technical details, but you can all do your own research on that stuff if you're interested.
Also normal brain functioning. To put it super simply, most of the filters that deal with that data are turned off, so the emotions you feel are much more primal and raw than what a fully conscious brain would be able to experience.
It's very likely impossible to experience and retain something in dreams outside of what we can physically perceive. If you can find a way to transcend metaphor, as Sageous puts it, then it might be doable. But I've not heard or read of any such case, which makes it difficult for me to accept this as anything remotely universal. I'd like to hear your, or anyone else's reasoning on this, though.
A normal function of daily life and thought flow. Makes sense that it'd translate to dreams in such a way.
Not for me and others with above-average visual and phonetic recall. I think it'd be interesting to do a study on the correlation between text in dreams and the dreamer's vocabulary and spelling aptitude.
Can't speak on this outside of personal experience, since it's not a topic you see come up very often, but the logistics of my dreams typically make sense even after inspection upon waking. If I had to make a conjecture here, I'd say it's because I'm very grounded in reality and critical about partially-formed or incomplete ideas.
You mean. . . hunches?
Can't say with complete certainty, but it seems like this could be attributed to experiencing the event without working memory functioning properly.
Except when it's not?
Which, for me, is almost always. Probably a result of all the gritty visual media to which I subject myself. Of course, having been in Hawaii for a few months, I can see how living there, or anywhere else that isn't grey and dull, could affect your unconscious perception a bit.
Seems that way, but belief itself is nothing but another archetype. Dream control is achieved by manipulating the processes that form dreams in the first place. If anyone reading this wants a crash course in actual dream control, hit up the "Unifying Theory" thread I put together (link in sig) and read through all the guides listed at the top.
See above.
I'll cover more stuff later, but it is currently an hour past my bed time. And that's very bad when you're on a poly-phasic sleep schedule. x.X
