Thread: Are there computers in your dream? How do they work?

Do they work as intended, or there are weird behavior? Do they react on input? Were there computers in strange places or circumstances?

For example, once in my dream, I turned a computer off, but the hard drive continued to work after being disconnected, despite having no power supply. That's how I realized I was in a dream.

I never thought about it, but I'm pretty sure I have never had a computer in my dreams, even as an inert prop... curious, considering how much a part of my life they are...

Still, it sounds like you've stumbled upon (or proved your ability to identify) a useful dream sign; nice!

Haha, on mine, computers and electronic devices always bugs as f**k .
It's hard to remember just ONE dream witch devices working well.

Considering all the hours I spend every day on my computer and how many years I've used one, it's amazing how rarely a computer or really any form of electronic technology appears in my dreams. I had a cell phone for ten years before one appeared in a dream. On those rare occasions when computers appear, the main problem is reading what's on the screen.

I think I had this dream last night because I was reading this thread yesterday:

I'm working in a large office building. My computer is cube shaped, about 12 inches on a side, with a separate keyboard. [Don't remember if it had a mouse.] Its design is reminiscent of--but not identical to--a Macintosh 128K:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K

The worst thing is the screen is only about 2-inches square. I'm thinking, "What is this thing?! Some kind of Mac?!" [I never use Apple computers IWL.] I walk over to the office manager to complain about it. She just shrugs and goes back to whatever she'd been doing; won't even talk to me. Besides the useless computer, my office is cluttered up with lots of other kinds of useless junk. I spend some time sorting through it. Can't even figure out what any of it is.

Computers are a huge component of my waking life, and I care a lot about them, so they (and electronic devices in general) show up pretty regularly in my dreams.

How they behave depends on the dream. Usually they'll react generally in line with my expectations, though there will frequently be differences from waking life, or other odd quirks or unexpected behavior. In lucid dreams, I have taken advantage of this inexactness from time to time. For instance, I've decided that a few typos in a password prompt or command to execute in a dream are tolerable, and I can usually get away with that, unlike in waking life where a computer would demand 100% correctness.

In daily life I live, eat, and breathe computers, and have been doing so since about 1980. But computers have never been a meaningful part of my dreams. Phones neither. In fact, the only piece of advanced electronics that ever played a significant part was a black-and-white tv, on which was running a game show from the early 1970's (this happened a couple of months ago). Cars, trains, and buses make appearances now and then, but generally speaking my dream worlds are powered by mechanical and/or magical forces - not electrical.

Like Sageous, I never really wondered about that. But, come to think about it, it is strange, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Voldmer

In daily life I live, eat, and breathe computers, and have been doing so since about 1980. But computers have never been a meaningful part of my dreams. Phones neither. In fact, the only piece of advanced electronics that ever played a significant part was a black-and-white tv, on which was running a game show from the early 1970's (this happened a couple of months ago). Cars, trains, and buses make appearances now and then, but generally speaking my dream worlds are powered by mechanical and/or magical forces - not electrical.

Like Sageous, I never really wondered about that. But, come to think about it, it is strange, isn't it?

Yes, that does seem strange!

Originally Posted by Voldmer

In daily life I live, eat, and breathe computers, and have been doing so since about 1980. But computers have never been a meaningful part of my dreams. Phones neither. In fact, the only piece of advanced electronics that ever played a significant part was a black-and-white tv, on which was running a game show from the early 1970's (this happened a couple of months ago). Cars, trains, and buses make appearances now and then, but generally speaking my dream worlds are powered by mechanical and/or magical forces - not electrical.

Like Sageous, I never really wondered about that. But, come to think about it, it is strange, isn't it?

That does seem odd. I have certain daydreams/fantasies I think about just about every single day but which I can virtually never for the life of me seem to be able to have dreams of, even when I want to (and it's a huge challenge even in LDs). Haven't managed to figure that out yet. But when it comes to everyday waking-reality-related stuff that's important to me, that does typically show up in my dreams easily, though fiction-oriented stuff just does not come up readily. Hmm.

Computers appear every so often in my dreams, though like others above, not as often as would be expected. These devices tend to have anachronistic features. For instance, I may end up browsing through seemingly old, 90's era websites, if not for the presence of contemporary media. Or, I'd end up using a decades old monochrome screen computer, which could otherwise run a game like Skyrim just fine. In fact, CRT screens tend to appear almost have the time (even for TV's, but that's another matter).

Originally Posted by FireFlyMan

Computers appear every so often in my dreams, though like others above, not as often as would be expected. These devices tend to have anachronistic features. For instance, I may end up browsing through seemingly old, 90's era websites, if not for the presence of contemporary media. Or, I'd end up using a decades old monochrome screen computer, which could otherwise run a game like Skyrim just fine. In fact, CRT screens tend to appear almost have the time (even for TV's, but that's another matter).

Wonder why. Do other types of technology in your dreams have anachronistic features? For example, cars, household appliances, and so forth?

Originally Posted by Zthread

Wonder why. Do other types of technology in your dreams have anachronistic features? For example, cars, household appliances, and so forth?

Well, the presence of dated video game consoles, maybe. Now that you mention it, I've never on-board cameras, GPS, and multimedia hubs for vehicles in my dreams. Definitely something interesting to reflect on...

Originally Posted by FireFlyMan

Well, the presence of dated video game consoles, maybe. Now that you mention it, I've never on-board cameras, GPS, and multimedia hubs for vehicles in my dreams. Definitely something interesting to reflect on...

Is interesting. Actually don't think I dream much at all about most of the technology I use everyday. Almost never dream about smartphones, for example. Weird.

On dreams Computers / Electronics tend not to work for many people - or work not according to expected logic. I treat it even as a RC .

When I tried to operate a TARDIS in a lucid dream to reach a specific planet I had been chasing forever, the computer inside TARDIS was a mess. The map was nonsense and the search function kept finding zero hits.

Computers are a part of many of my dreams. Most of the time I use the camera or google something with my phone. Sometimes I believe to be in a game and use a keyboard that I can't see to perform some action, like opening a menu. In one dream the world was blurry. I imagined pressing escape on a keyboard and a menu opened up. I went to graphics options and changed them to reload the world. It worked and the world was no longer blurry.

What I’ve always heard is that electronic devices function strangely in dreams. And I also have the idea—though I don’t know how true it is—that they show up less often than you’d expect based on how much you have to do with them in waking life. For what it’s worth, that does seem to be the consensus on this thread.

I’d say they play a smaller role in my dreams than they do in my waking life—and a smaller role in my waking life than they do in the lives of most of the people around me—but they do show up in my dreams on a regular basis and function normally, or close to it. I think I come across in my dreams as a much tech-savvier person than I am in waking life—especially because in dreams, I seem to be able to hack into the devices. Of course, there’s no reason I couldn’t when it’s mental machinery, and I probably know this on some level—but I still find it interesting.

Like a lot of people in here, I spend a lot of time with computers but they rarely show up. When computers or phones do show up they usually act weird, especially if I'm trying to type or log into a site. I'll type out the whole thing and get an error, then I find out I typed something wrong. The more I struggle the harder it is to type. Also happens when typing messages into my phone (which is even harder, I think).

This may be only partially related but whenever I'm playing videogames, the dream keeps switching back and forth between how it wants me to experience the game. One moment I'll be holding a controller, them the whole dream turns into the game (like all I can see is a screen, or a direct feed of the game) but I'm still kinda controlling into my mind and sometimes I can even feel things that happen inside the game, sometimes I'm physically inside the game (but I still think I'm playing it, kinda like a virtual reality situation) and sometimes I just start living the game's story (I'm no longer controlling it, instead of it being a game it's a "real" world so to speak where I'm a character).

Also kinda related, maybe... TVs usually work fine but the content is really weird. I remember one time watching a news report about how there was a fad going around with teenagers where they would cover their faces in transparent adhesive tape for some reason.

I don't think I've ever had an actual computer in my dreams, only cellphones. They have always functioned normally. Sometimes whatever I'm viewing on my device will consume the whole dream so that there's no actual device after all, only the website/forum etc. I have also dreamed of being in a computer game but I guess that's a different thing.

They work pretty close to normal, sometimes though programs n' buttons giltch and don't work properly.

Googling stuff in dreams and playing games is really bizzare experience though,
Games usually have more content than usual and you can pretty much google anything, even articles from future date range (2100-2500).

Brain is way too good at making up all this stuff

Originally Posted by MisakaMikoto

Games usually have more content than usual and you can pretty much google anything, even articles from future date range (2100-2500).

Googling articles from the future could be useful!

I have vague dreams where the only thing I'm interacting with is the 2D computer screens. It's mostly... Reading? Absorbing information? Nothing complicated.

But I realized when you asked this question that like a lot of people here, I don't really see computers in my more "real" and interactive dreams.