LD vs WL personalities

Hello dreamviewers,

I've noticed that I have different personalities in my lucid dreams and in waking life. The essence is still the same, but for example I have a much stronger sexual drive in my LDs than in WL, I make some choices there that I wouldn't make IRL... of course, the fact of knowing that I am in my own psyche makes me to think less about consequences and stuff like that. But I do feel there is something different, it is like taking away all filters, like letting myself roam free with no restrictions.

Does anyone feel the same??? Why could this be?

Yes, I totally agree with your observations.

It stems from the fact that in most lucid dreams you're somewhere in between your "full" RL version, and the subconscious sleep version. In fact, studies using brain imaging on sleeping and dreaming people show that during regular dreaming frontal areas of the brain (like the prefrontal cortex) are more active than in non-dream sleep, but less active than during a lucid dream. And during a lucid dream these areas are less active than in RL. These areas are thought to control our "higher level thinking" - things like logic, planning and emotions. So just like in a lucid dream where certain logic can be turned off or muted, certain emotions can be turned off or muted, too - resulting in a great array of personalities (you could be a psychopath in one dream and an "empath" in another, and so on...). In non-lucid dreams these is even more true - as even more logic and emotions aren't active, but even in a LD logic is not always 100% on which is why most lucid dreamer don't usually have full control and/or awareness.

Also, things like sexual drive are thought to have more primal origins in the brain (they are less "high level") so they activate more often than more complicated emotions / logic. In fact, in human and several other animals out of these that are capable of REM sleep (mammals and birds), the REM sleep stage is usually accompanied by "activation of certain sexual organs" (it's called NPT for males or NCT for females).

So basically researchers suggests that it's not our filters that are off, but instead certain areas of the brain (particularly the ones that differ us from most animals) are left inactivated and the amount of activation decreases the deeper your sleep is. Like many other things concerning sleep (and the brain in general), what areas are activated is not a set thing - each dream can isolate a certain emotion or logic or every possible combination of them.

Yes I agree. In lucid dreaming I act like I am a little drunk and my normal restraints are usually missing. Also in REM you have erection, which is a perfect storm for drunk and disorderly behavior. Heck, I have done things with very young girls I would never do in waking life. As a person who takes his faith seriously, I am trying to develop better dream self control. Not that I have guilt so much as a desire to have my mind gain mastery over my sensual desires. Also indulging in dream sex usually terminates the LD early for me.

Thank you both for your replies!

Ok so I am not alone on this haha... I too have had some weird experiences, for example the other day I grabbed my grandmas boob while lucid (what the hell!?). Its wasn't really in a sexual way, just a playful one but still... weird weird WEIRD.

One thing I do notice is that after having sex with a DC my sexual appetite drops just as IRL. Honestly I don't want to stop me from getting this kind of experiences because one thing I've learned is that suppressing things and rejecting aspects of our whole self just makes it worse. I hope that eventually this will be relieved and I can do more interesting stuff in my LDs (not that all I do is have sex of course, but sometimes I have a goal and I get distracted easily).

jzinser, I agree, but this is not necessarily a suppressed desire - again, the active parts of your consciousness in a dream are pretty random...

I won't confess here about dreams that concerns anyone from RL (like actual relatives), but here is an example of a dream I vaguely remember (had it about 1.5 years back). Me and my brother find out that we date the same woman... Bunch of unrelated details happen... Eventually it's decided to have a threesome (me, him and her), which ends up being very vivid and detailed, and we took breaks one by one (so you fill in the blank what happened when she took a break)...

Now, when I woke up I was like o_O Not only because I was so shocked; just look at some difference from real life:

1. I never been in any sexual situation with more than one additional person
2. I'm not gay, nor bisexual, nor pansexual
3. I don't even have a brother !!!

So yeah, just a random experiment of my brain... People who claim they never have such weird taboo-ish dreams are either liars or people with very very poor dream recall.

This happens for me too, in a dream I always have more personality than in WL. Like my barriers have been lifted. I find I am more talkative, confident, creative, outgoing and generally happier. It makes me feel similar to the way I was before I had schizophrenia. Nowadays in waking life I am an extremely quiet person very introverted with little personality. I blame it mostly on the medication but it could also be PTSD from the psychosis. I really wish I could get back to the way I was before that happened. If only there were a way to transfer it across from the dream into waking life. Any suggestions?

Also, there have been random times in dreams where I could do unexplainable things like rapping off the top of my head words that rhyme perfectly like in a rap battle and I don't even listen to rap. There's been times when I could fight like a martial arts expert when I barely know any martial arts. I've heard of this phenomena happening with other people too, someone even said they could speak in a different language fluently when all they knew was English. I wonder how this is even possible?

Eonnn, about your first question - no one knows how to "program" the brain at this level yet. During dreams we get different personalities because of different activation of areas of the brain. A parallel example would be people with split personalities - brain imaging of such people show that while one personality is "on", certain pathways of the brain are "activated" (get more blood flow), and while the other personality is "on", other pathways are "activated". These personalities can even share certain pathways, like these of certain memories and skills. So this is about what happens in a dream, but it's temporary and it's not like you have one alternative personality, rather the personality traits can vary between dreams. No one knows how to activate certain areas artificially yet, at least without putting electrodes in the brain. And even such methods aren't specific enough, can't literally chose what emotion to activate... An even less specific method is medication - which is why every person is effected differently. I'm not a doctor, but as far as I know that's the best solution current medicine has to offer.

About your second question - how can our brains simulate abilities, that we don't have in real life, so well in a dream? That's another great question! My opinion on this:

1. The brain makes the whole dream, thus it has the advantage to make it look the way it wants. Let's say you've seen some kick ass moves in some movie... I real life applying these moves won't necessarily give you the win - since you can't predict the moves of your opponent. In a dream, you also can't predict them, but you brain instructs you with the right way to beat that opponent which he created. It's like playing against yourself, but with a futuristic virtual reality equipment on.
2. Many skills are limited by the body, and by the body-brain connection in real life, not only by the brain. Rapping for example would require a great deal of effort from your mouth muscles and so on... So not only that these limiting factors aren't at play in a dream, but they don't take resources that can be used for the brain - so even the part limited just by the brain is "better".
3. Our brains are great at simulating things and predicting outcomes. This is why we enjoy music - it challenges us to predict the next note / sound, and later we can "replay" it in our heads (simulation) even if most of us can't properly reproduce it with our mouths. So to simulate fluency in a foreign language the brain can use just some vague memories from some TV show or something - because it doesn't need to worry about how to actually use the mouth, the memory is enough.
4. Our perception of things (reality, or dreamscape) is a result of constant filtering by the brain, so if you think you nailed a rhyme this doesn't necessary means it's true. In reality, other people might challenge our perception, but in a dream the brain decided all of it. So if it decides that the DCs will love your song - they will. If it decides they'll hate it - they will. This argument depends greatly on the recall of that particular dream, since if your recall is good enough you'll be able to inspect the details and "challenge" yourself (e.g. writing the rhymes, and checking if they actually work), but if the recall isn't that good you might only have the impression that the rhymes worked.

So the answer in my opinion is some combination of these factors... Seems incredible, but remember that what you see as "real life" is just a huge simulation, too. The only difference is that in real life the brain creates the simulation [mostly*] based on external stimuli (which he collects via senses), while in a dream the stimuli is also supplied by the brain.

*by that I refer to the effects of drugs, diseases and disorders, that can supply false stimuli.

My two cents :wink:

By the way, about being able to do these "unexplainable" things (actually explainable), I can totally relate to this too... Let me just share this example from 14 months ago (which I still greatly recall):

During a dream about meeting a person I only know IRL online, some assassins came after me. The first time, one of them attacked me, but I fought him off and he kinda died on his own fault. Later in the dream, two more came after me, and they were professionals. Out of nowhere I had these amazing fight moves and it was unbelievable to me when I woke up (since the recall of that dream was like 99.9%). I literally could recall every move and it looked like some action sequence from The Raid or something, super realistic. I also recalled being afraid, and angry, feeling pain for their hits, and feeling the rush of adrenaline in my veins... I killed one of them with his own gun, and the other with a sink and the faucet (I'll refrain from the gory details). As I felt the adrenaline come down I suddenly realized "I just killed two people". I was really panicking, could feel my heart pumping. I looked at me bloody hands and thought "what have I done!" and so on... Which is funny, cause only because of that I suddenly noticed that I had 8 fingers on my right hand, and 6 on the left. And then I got lucid... (and a bunch more happened, which is why I still remember this dream so well)

Eonnn, you obviously have a personality that wants to break free. I think the medication might have a lot to do with it but I wouldn't drop it altogether...

You can try to ask in a dream to revive the moment(s) that cause the schizophrenia to happen so you can find the root cause, then you can ask to personify that root cause and interact with it and accept it as a part of you. I think many of these mental diseases are cause either by disintegration of a part of your personality or it might be that you perceive things that most people don't and you weren't able to handle all the information and things that your senses pick up. In any case I think it has a solution and I wouldn't buy into this belief that the disease is permanent, because if you believe that then it will be permanent.

Hope it helps and if there is anything I can help with please tell me.

Thanks jzinser and spock. Think I will try that. It would definitely be interesting to recall the psychotic experience in a dream. Although I have never tried re-living a memory in a dream.

I came off my medication once for about 6 months and in those 6 months I felt so good, got really fit and I felt like I was getting my personality back. So I think the medication plays a large part in blocking my personality. But I became unwell again after 6 months. I've been told by the docs I will have to be on the meds for the rest of my life. I just hope they can invent new medication which doesn't have such severe side effects.