Thread: Interviews

Ask some rational and irrational questions. You will get rational answers to some irrational questions, and vice versa. Dream characters are hilarious. Good luck in your quest.

Sound like a good idea.
Some of Paul Tholey's research in the late 1980s was based somewhat around this idea. He was interested in the abilities of dream characters (besides the one of the dreamer). In a study from 1989, he has lucid dreamers ask the other characters in their dream some basic questions that had rather interesting implications.
Taken from the abstract: "Dream characters were asked to draw or write, to name unknown words, to find rhyme words, to make verses, and to solve arithmetic problems." He was trying to find out the perspective of the dream characters, and discusses the concept of them having consciousness! Pretty cool stuff... He obviously agrees that dream characters are not separately existing beings, but depending on what we define as consciousness...maybe the dream characters qualify.

My favorite result was that when a lucid dreamer asked a fellow dream character to say a word unknown to her, the character said "Orlog, the word Orlog describes our relationship." While this word was apparently unknown to the dreamer, it turned out to be a Dutch word meaning "quarrel."
Where did that word come from?? Past experience?

A much more recent study had lucid dreamers ask dream characters for solutions to "creative problem solving" tasks. Here is a link to the abstract, and I'm pretty sure this one can be downloaded for free from there (you will find some cool stuff even with a skim, and all the good stuff is in the intro and conclusion anyways ) Dream characters can be pretty interesting...

I like your idea of strictly interviews--I am picturing a really formal interview, that would be awesome! Especially if you kept the interview consistent across different characters, then compared their answers.
Whatever approach you decide to take, I (and I'm sure others) will be very interested in whatever answers you get! Let us know! and good luck.

"Orlog, the word Orlog describes our relationship." While this word was apparently unknown to the dreamer, it turned out to be a Dutch word meaning "quarrel."

Wait what? xD That's not a Dutch word I assure you. Perhaps you mean Oorlog? Which means War. But I am pretty sure orlog is not a Dutch word xD

Originally Posted by MrPriority

Wait what? xD That's not a Dutch word I assure you. Perhaps you mean Oorlog? Which means War. But I am pretty sure orlog is not a Dutch word xD

Wow, thanks. That's what the original paper says, but maybe it was interpreted wrong. I am sure that is what they meant, though. War and quarrel are relatively close, and I am not sure about the details of translations, but since the question referred to a personal relationship, maybe that is why they used "quarrel." Isn't a quarrel a relationship war?

I guess "orlog" is not a word, but if it were, would the two be pronounced the same?

That's exciting, I didn't think there would be much research on the subject, I'll have to look that up. I'm surprised I haven't already heard of Paul Tholey. Also, I really like the idea of asking "What word describes our relationship" or "How would you describe our relationship". I'll have to add that to my list. Just don't know if it would be better as a first question or a last. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Sensei

Ask some rational and irrational questions. You will get rational answers to some irrational questions, and vice versa. Dream characters are hilarious. Good luck in your quest.

Thanks, I'll definitely mix it up a bit. I'm excited to get started.

Never mind, turns out I have seen Paul Tholey's name come up in a couple of the things I have read. I'll have to look more into him.