Thread: Dreams are real

Originally Posted by Goldenspark

True, but they are also supposed to use the scientific method to sort the truth from mumbo-jumbo. I totally agree that all of us, including scientists, should be skeptical and question everything, but that includes not getting duped by pseudo-science.

You can use a loose definition of real, but then what is the opposite of real?
Real and imaginary seem to work well as opposites, and I struggle to think of a more apt imaginary than a dream.

Do I believe that dreams have any more depth than the result of one brain's imaginings? No. I don't believe in any mystical dimension, but there is plenty to marvel at when considering the truth.

I consider dreams to be real in the sense that they give us real, powerful emotions, and that they always mean something for our well-being.
I mean, if I experience a dream where I fly high above the clouds and then wake up with a strong feeling of exhilaration, then clearly I experienced real emotions In that dream.
And to me, the fact that we are aware as living beings during our dreams make them just as real from an experiential perspective as waking life, because we experience real feelings in them and can even learn things in them and practice certain skills in preparation for waking life.
Some people have even used lucid dreams to get rid of certain fears in waking life (like public speeches and airplanes), and there are even serious speculations that dreams could be used for physical healing by imagining healing substances in the dreams and expecting them to work on certain body parts - kind of like a powerful placebo effect.
And this could in fact work, because the placebo effect has been tested several times and turned out to have real effects.

Also, everything has been pseudo-science at some point.
General relativity would definitely count as pseudo-science a couple hundred years ago, and alchemy is sometimes considered a pseudo-science, even if it should deserve to be treated as real science, since it is based on the goal to turn metals into gold, which is basically just chemistry and the combination of elements.
Newton was an alchemist, by the way.