If a Tree Falls in a Dream forest...

So I was thinking along the lines of the nature of dreams and how things work and the amount of detail put into it and blah... Blahh.... Blah.... I have a freakishly strange mind and you will get some insight on how it works during this thread. :P

Do you remember the Truman Show? Jim Carrey adopted by Hollywood and spends his whole life in a bubble surrounded by cameras that he knows nothing about and a bunch of actors that he thinks are his friends? great paranoia inducing show right? :P
When i was a kid i noticed so many strange things that reminded me of that show, so much that whenever I was alone I would think about people watching me and think out loud in case they were getting bored. It caused me to think about "what would people watching me right now think?" Many times. Lol. But that really isn't the point. I started seeing things like how every small town looked alike, there are only 4 basic water towers, mountains in the background could easily be changed, they would just have to have more technology than me. The internet must be very carefully edited, or the whole thing might just be something that they put on here for me and anything about me isn't posted, just stuff that they would want me to read. What if my religion was made up by them? Are these books from the outside or are they put here as reading for me? Do all of these books have stories or are they props? Would they have put old encyclopedias and dictionaries or have edited ones?
Yes yes. Insanity at its finest, please dont take me away, to those nice young men with their clean white coats. :P

I was reminded of this by my wife on my vacation this last weekend (as that insanity has passed) because she brought it up since I have told her about these past thoughts. I started thinking about it and how it pertains to LDing. All those questions, I asked about the LD now. When people ask how many reality checks I do throughout the day or how much time I spend in the day on lucid dreaming, I have a hard time answering, because everything that pops up through the day, every conversation, every movie, I apply to LDing. I also look at things as they relate to a couple other things (religion and such) but LDing is always on my mind.

main point if you dont like my rambling
So in a lucid dream you have the same setup, an entire world that is made to trick you into thinking that it is real, every single dream. It is easy sometimes because you are not very aware, but other times it is about flawless.

If you run across a tree in a dream that looks knocked over, then was it knocked over or just made knocked over?
If you look at a mountain in the distance, is it already made by the dreamscape in full details, or is it just the image of a mountain in the distance?
If my phone rings when I am lucid, would it have rang when I was not lucid?
Do dream characters that know that it is a dream know it the whole time, or just when you realize it?
If Ipicked up a book in a dream and read the story (full story) would it have been the same in all the books? Or is all the writing on every book in every dream a full story without plotholes?
If I don't look behind me in a dream is there anything in the dream or is it just made as I turn around? What about behind that door? Or above you?
Are DCs programmed with phrases or personalities? If I ask one if it loves me would it have answered the same if I asked it if it loves chocolate?
Are the stars in the sky actual stars or just lights? If I flew to it when would it stop being a light and start being a mass of incandescent gas?

And my favorite question of all goes after this question.
What proof is there that everyone else is sentient like me, stuck inside this body, thinking like I think, feeling like I feel?
So
Do we have any more proof that other humans are sentient than DCs? Because it seems the same.

I know that this is a lot of questions, haha, but I would like to know your ideas on these things. It is really just another philosophical quest, but it might yield something. If someone knows how to experiment or has experimented with this iI would like to hear it. I would like a "if you do this or that in a dream and it turns out this or that way it has to be this" type of experiment. I answered one question by myself when I wasn't a lucid dreamer. I read the circle trilogy by Ted Dekker (good LDing material, goes to sleep in our world, wakes up in heaven, goes to sleep in heaven, wakes up in our world) and after heaven was ruined and turned similar to earth, he was a prisoner of people that couldn't read. He read books to them and they said that it was impossible to read and that he must be making it up as he went along. So my question was:
If I started talking out loud and went with a story would it be possible to make a full sized story with no noticabke plot holes, almost as if i was reading a book, but not really reading it?
I had a dream that I read an entire book, and even though it was boring and now I have forgotten most of it, when it was still in my head I went through and noted that each page had a pages worth of real words and that the whole story was made by my subconscious that quickly, so it is possible, it would just be difficult.

So there is a dose of crazy. Feel free to put your own questions like this. Maybe we can find a way to get sanity back together.

edit:
Aha! I thought of it. An example question for all of them.
So you are in a dream and you walk out of a home and turn left around a corner. You see a boat and you talk to the three men on their. Hank, Frank, and Joe. They serve you up some scotch and ask you if you want ice in it. You say no. They hand it to you and you can feel the ice and hear it tinkling in the glass. It is cold and the scotch tastes amazing.

If you had turned right instead of left, would the ice still have been there? Would those personalities? The function in your brain for scotch? The boat? Had you chosen without ice would their have even been the ice in the first place? Had you refused the scotch, would it have existed?

This is more of the idea that I am looking for. How much of the dream is already there, and how much is built on spur of the moment subconscious decisions? Does it make a whole universe and then send you in, or does it just have what is immediately in your senses?

I'm a little bit confused as to what exactly you're asking. You're asking for proof that humans are more self-aware than dream characters? It sounds like the things you're saying are relating a bit to solipsism. But again, I don't fully understand the questions (or just don't know how to answer them). But do you hold the philosophy of solipsism?

I am asking if anyone can help me answer any of the questions! Not just the last one. :)

No I do not. solipsism seems a little weird. Like "since it can't be proven that others are self aware," I think that every human is just as alive as I am, I was just pointing out that DCs are similar to humans in our world, in the fact that we cannot prove that they are not sentient, how much work does our dreams put into making a DC? Is it given a single thought or a personality and access to your database of knowledge? (Like I said in the other thread)

The other ones were strange questions too. I am quite tired, and these questions run through my mind when I am worn out and not directing my thoughts.

Well, I don't think there's anything separate in our dreams which is sentient. I think it's just our minds and a character isn't more alive than the ground they walk on. I once heard about a man who had an entire conversation with a bed frame. Objects can have self-awareness simply by talking to them or consciously making it so. If anything, maybe it's the dream itself that's aware because it's our mind that makes it. And if that's the case, technically the dream would be aware, because it's our mind and we are aware of ourselves.

I think characters behave the way they do based on expectations. Even while lucid, we don't consciously create every last detail. Some things are done on "auto-pilot." I think expectation and auto-pilot play a role into the things we don't consciously create in dreams. Whether lucid or non-lucid, when entering new environments, we expect the sky to be blue, the ground to be beneath us and not above, objects unable to speak, and people with personalities. And this might explain why DCs offer varied responses. If you consult a book for information, you expect it to be concise and have clear answers. If you consult a person for information, you may want them to have a proper answer, but you expect it to range from precisely correct to dead wrong.

Then, I think their varied behavior also revolves around creating people being a "high-level" technique. The idea of crafting a person doesn't sound as easy as flying or changing an object's color. It could be this "auto-pilot" has varying success on how complex characters are because to it, it's not as easy--or maybe not important--to creating the dream. Maybe its priorities--or the things that are easier for it--are focused on making sure the laws of gravity apply, you can still see, the ground remains intact, and things like that.

All in all, I think characters themselves are not aware, and that it's all a projection of the mind to give you the impression you're inhabiting a realistic world. It's kind of like making an avatar, whether you consciously mold its appearance and personality or just randomize it, it's not aware despite the seeming impression. But the ultimate creator behind the avatar is. So to translate back to lucid dreaming, characters aren't sentient regardless if we make them or they're as random as our dream setting. What's truly aware is our minds, which is the creator behind it all.

Though, there's still the idea that we can share dreams and other people might be occupying them. However, if that's true, they still wouldn't technically be dream characters, but other real-life people. I can't say these are even my beliefs on the matter, just my ideas.

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Originally Posted by Screen

Well, I don't think there's anything separate in our dreams which is sentient. I think it's just our minds and a character isn't more alive than the ground they walk on. I once heard about a man who had an entire conversation with a bed frame. Objects can have self-awareness simply by talking to them or consciously making it so. If anything, maybe it's the dream itself that's aware because it's our mind that makes it. And if that's the case, technically the dream would be aware, because it's our mind and we are aware of ourselves.

I think characters behave the way they do based on expectations. Even while lucid, we don't consciously create every last detail. Some things are done on "auto-pilot." I think expectation and auto-pilot play a role into the things we don't consciously create in dreams. Whether lucid or non-lucid, when entering new environments, we expect the sky to be blue, the ground to be beneath us and not above, objects unable to speak, and people with personalities. And this might explain why DCs offer varied responses. If you consult a book for information, you expect it to be concise and have clear answers. If you consult a person for information, you may want them to have a proper answer, but you expect it to range from precisely correct to dead wrong.

Then, I think their varied behavior also revolves around creating people being a "high-level" technique. The idea of crafting a person doesn't sound as easy as flying or changing an object's color. It could be this "auto-pilot" has varying success on how complex characters are because to it, it's not as easy--or maybe not important--to creating the dream. Maybe its priorities--or the things that are easier for it--are focused on making sure the laws of gravity apply, you can still see, the ground remains intact, and things like that.

All in all, I think characters themselves are not aware, and that it's all a projection of the mind to give you the impression you're inhabiting a realistic world. It's kind of like making an avatar, whether you consciously mold its appearance and personality or just randomize it, it's not aware despite the seeming impression. But the ultimate creator behind the avatar is. So to translate back to lucid dreaming, characters aren't sentient regardless if we make them or they're as random as our dream setting. What's truly aware is our minds, which is the creator behind it all.

Though, there's still the idea that we can share dreams and other people might be occupying them. However, if that's true, they still wouldn't technically be dream characters, but other real-life people. I can't say these are even my beliefs on the matter, just my ideas.

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Thanks for the comments screen. :) I look forward to seeing all your LDs. You had better post them in a DJ when you get them and not quit LDing before you get better. :)

I edited the OP since I realized that it was a little confusing (I am soooooo tired. Haha, does any one on this site know a cure for tiredness? Maybe something that I can do to make sleep seem less boring? :p)

I truly believe that parts of some dreams have an existence whether we are aware of it or not. This is how dreamers can create perpetual worlds and such. I can not claim to know the science of this stuff, but some DCs have an ability to function as entities separate from the dreamer.

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Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

Aha! I thought of it. An example question for all of them.
So you are in a dream and you walk out of a home and turn left around a corner. You see a boat and you talk to the three men on their. Hank, Frank, and Joe. They serve you up some scotch and ask you if you want ice in it. You say no. They hand it to you and you can feel the ice and hear it tinkling in the glass. It is cold and the scotch tastes amazing.

If you had turned right instead of left, would the ice still have been there? Would those personalities? The function in your brain for scotch? The boat? Had you chosen without ice would their have even been the ice in the first place? Had you refused the scotch, would it have existed?

This is more of the idea that I am looking for. How much of the dream is already there, and how much is built on spur of the moment subconscious decisions? Does it make a whole universe and then send you in, or does it just have what is immediately in your senses?[/B]

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Personally I believe dreams are an ongoing flow of mental and emotional expectations which are interpreted by your subconscious mind. These expectations are shaped spontaneously by the events currently occurring in your dream. But, you are not consciously aware of those expectations and what interpretation your subconscious will make of them. Therefore you may see things that surprise you.

If you had turned right instead of left would it be the same scene? What were your mental and emotional expectations of what was at your left? Subconsciously you may have expected something different if you took a left based on the current events, environment, emotional state, past memories of similar places, or other things. So the left may have taken you to the same scene, but probably not. The expectation of each decision is most likely, at the least, slightly different thereby completely altering the outcome. Whether we realize it or not, every decision we make carries a different expectation of the outcome.

I don't know. My first lucid involved me wondering to myself what was going to be on the other side of a hill I was about to crest (on an alien planet). The palace from Aladdin came to mind for some random reason and sure enough there it was (but it was the size of a city). The question is, did I create it with that random thought, or did the thought rise up into my awareness because that palace-city was already there?

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Originally Posted by tofur

I don't know. My first lucid involved me wondering to myself what was going to be on the other side of a hill I was about to crest (on an alien planet). The palace from Aladdin came to mind for some random reason and sure enough there it was (but it was the size of a city). The question is, did I create it with that random thought, or did the thought rise up into my awareness because that palace-city was already there?

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In my opinion: Both.

The city was comprised of a compilation of already existing memories (many things your seen in your past), mixed by your imagination (subconscious) to create an amazing city. So all the ingredients were already in your mind but your expectations cause it to assemble as it came into site. This is why dreams can be so fluid. You look at something, look away, and look back again and it can be completely or subtly different if your expectations have shifted based on what is happening that moment.