Is life a dream?

**Ex Nine** · 11-26-2005 08:46 AM

Well, will, we're not enemies here. I think our words are crossing somewhere.

Originally posted by willthepathfinder
As far as life being some sort of dream, I said it already, it's an analagy for lack of *a better word.

Then you don't think it actually is a dream. There. That was simple, wasn't it?

We have no idea what life is really about, so trying to find one simple word to define it is next to impossible.[/b]

But, didn't you just use the word "life?"

I'm not looking for a definition of life here. I was just wondering if people see life and a dream as synonymous. You don't seem to, but you seem to like a figurative relationship.

I'm not looking for poetry. I suppose I should've said that in the first post.

**willthepathfinder** · 11-26-2005 09:07 AM

Hey, don't get me wrong. I love to hear other peoples opinion. I will be the first one to admit, I'm human and don't have all the answers. I have my opinions but, hey I could be wrong. What the hell do I know? Besides that, I love someone who can stick to thier guns and give plausable reason why. That's how we figure all this s$%t out, right? I'm just like any other guy, I'll latch on to what explaines my world best for me untill I find something better. Debate with others is a wonderfull thing. It makes one think in ways you wouldn't otherwise. Even though we may not see eye to eye, it's all still soaking in and I'll be chewing on it till my nest post. And perhaps I'll be forced to revise my opinions on this or that topic. This is a good thing, and so is a diference in oppinion.

**djaio** · 11-27-2005 03:50 AM

Life is a dream, we just haven't become lucid - awake - yet.

duh.iI thought that was obvious.

**Ex Nine** · 11-27-2005 03:55 AM

Originally posted by djaio
Life is a dream, we just haven't become lucid - awake - yet.

duh.iI thought that was obvious.

How can it be obvious to you if you're not awake yet?

**Placebo** · 11-27-2005 08:12 AM

Originally posted by Ex Nine
How can it be obvious to you if you're not awake yet?

Exactly what I was thinking after reading that

If you're not truly lucid, then how can you know you're dreaming. You find this in lucid dreams as well, the action of questioning the dream seems to have a hand in making you lucid.

BTW, some people believe in fairies and think that it's obvious that they exist.

**willthepathfinder** · 11-27-2005 10:11 PM

Perhaps a better question would be, "Is life an allusion?" Can we know everything about ourselves and the world with our limited five senses?

We contrive devices to probe our world deeper, but with our current concept of reality and limited senses. The data we attain is then interpereted with our limited perception.

Think of how far we have come from a thousand years ago and then think about a thousand years from now. I imagin that there will be many who will wonder how we could be so dumb.

Maybe we are living in a dream.

**Howie** · 11-27-2005 10:21 PM

Originally posted by willthepathfinder
Perhaps a better question would be, \"Is life an allusion?\" Can we know everything about ourselves and the world with our limited five senses?

We contrive devices to probe our world deeper, but with our current concept of reality and limited senses. The data we attain is then interpereted with our limited perception.

Think of how far we have come from a thousand years ago and then think about a thousand years from now. I imagin that there will be many who will wonder how we could be so dumb.

Maybe we are living in a dream.

What a good point willthepathfinder
This is why I could not answer with just a yes or no answer.
While life might, in light of science not technically be a dream, many of us may be living a a state of unawareness. a dream like state.
WAKE UP

**Ex Nine** · 11-28-2005 12:42 AM

Originally posted by willthepathfinder
Perhaps a better question would be, \"Is life an allusion?\"

An allusion is an indirect reference to something. What do you think life is indirectly referring to? Or do you mean \"illusion?\"

Can we know everything about ourselves and the world with our limited five senses?[/b]

We have more than five senses. It's an incredible failing of modern schooling that people aren't commonly aware of this. Just outright a grade F. [i][Edit: Schools are failing

Medical science has shown the existent independence of the kinesthetic sense and the vestibular sense. Also, through victims of certain kinds of sensory paralysis, we know that touch is actually a conglomeration of other independent senses, including heat and pain.

Science is and always has been in the business of discovering new senses.

We contrive devices to probe our world deeper, but with our current concept of reality and limited senses. The data we attain is then interpereted with our limited perception.

Another failing of schooling.

I really mean to accommodate us while saying that. I am not saying that you are faulted, but that the teachers and governments who have assumed the role of guiding us have done a poorible job. It's so bad I feel the need to construct a new word for it, meaning both poor and horrible.

That data we attain is interpreted with the use of mathematics. Nothing in mathematics is dependent on perception. That's the whole point.

Think of how far we have come from a thousand years ago and then think about a thousand years from now. I imagin that there will be many who will wonder how we could be so dumb.[/b]

They'll probably just think of our ideas as quaint. For example, when Copernicus said that the Earth was moving through space, there were many logical questions to challenge that statement. If the Earth is spinning, why aren't we flying off of it? Kids have the same questions when they hear that the Earth is moving, and no one would seriously say they are dumb. Their questions reveal their intelligence.

If anything, they will think of our questions as extremely intelligent, the same way we look back on the questions of others with reverence, while knowing their fruits.

Maybe we are living in a dream.[/b]

Notice how different that is, though, from saying, "maybe I am living in a dream." That's essentially the same as, "maybe I am dreaming," and produces a touchstone for lucidity. However, when you say, "maybe we are living in a dream," then who is the dreamer? Us? God? Amorphous matter? Suzy?

If you can't identify the dreamer, you cannot know that life is a dream.

I really should have made it clear in the first post that I wasn't looking for metaphor, simile, allegory, figurative language, or other poetic devices.

Howetzer, for example, if I had asked for that, it might have made your answer a whole lot easier. You do not appear to think that life is a dream but rather that it is dream-like, in which case your answer would be a "no."

**willthepathfinder** · 11-28-2005 01:23 AM

Man! You really love to pick apart every little detail don't you.

Yes, my spelling sucks and often I type a little to quick and hit send. Jeez.

The fact that we continue to revise our ideas on what and how we perceve and with what senses and how many just prooves the limitations of our senses and perception.

Mathmatics is pure and dosen't involve the faculty of perception? Wow, you're right, schools do pump a lot of crap into our heads!

Life is a dream, life is like a dream, life has dream like tendancies. Life is a broad topic and I don't think a simple word or phrase will encompass it. So, in a sense the statement, "Is life a dream?" is a trick question.

**Howie** · 11-28-2005 01:34 AM

Originally posted by Ex Nine
Howetzer, for example, if I had asked for that, it might have made your answer a whole lot easier. You do not appear to think that life is a dream but rather that it is dream-like, in which case your answer would be a \"no.\"

Well pardon me Ex Nine! But sometimes there is too much grey area for me to give a yes or no direct answer.
Yes I tend to lean towards that life is dream-like. But to me that is far from no!
If I could not give a yes or no answer in a yes or no poll then, I maybe should have not posted. My apologies

**Ex Nine** · 11-28-2005 02:31 AM

Originally posted by willthepathfinder
Man! You really love to pick apart every little detail don't you.

It happens when I don't understand something.

[quote]Well pardon me Ex Nine! But sometimes there is too much grey area for me to give a yes or no direct answer.
Yes I tend to lean towards that life is dream-like. But to me that is far from no!
If I could not give a yes or no answer in a yes or no poll then, I maybe should have not posted. My apologies

Oh no, I should be apologizing! And I do apologize. As I've said before, I did not clarify my meaning in the question.

Actually, I should thank you. Because you just helped me prove that "Is life a dream?" is a poor question. All questions are good in at least some sense, but some are plainly more insightful and penetrating than others. And much of science is concerned with finding the right questions to ask. This one is not high on the list.

"Is this a dream?" or "Am I dreaming?" are essential questions for everyone concerned with having a lucid dream, and that includes all of us here. We can't become lucid in a dream without them. Substantively answering them in the affirmative literally give us the definition for "lucid dream," dreaming while knowing you are dreaming. Those questions lead to the wonderful discovery of lucid dreaming.

"Is life a dream?" is a poor question, much like "Are we a dream?" and "Is reality a dream?" They are all poor questions. All questions have some value, but these don't have much. These are an intellectual pauper's questions in my opinion. People who pursue these questions for a long time are people who do not want to know very much about life, people, or reality.

If only for the reason that there are better questions.

---------

Why did I ask it if I don't think it's a good question? Good question

So many people make the claim that life is a dream or is indistinguishable from a dream, therefore making it synonymous with a dream. I'm disheartened by those people and I wanted to see how many of you agreed with this claim in the simplest way possible. The results were about what I expected from DV after having been here a couple months - a majority of "no," which is why I stay here, but a sizable minority of "yes," which means I have to continually brace myself for posts of that nature.

I still haven't found anyone who will agree to my Matrix/Mechanical Universe challenge.

**Placebo** · 11-28-2005 03:03 AM

There is no such thing as a stupid question, just a stupid answer

Sorry, just had to ... *grimaces*

**willthepathfinder** · 11-28-2005 04:16 AM

I apologize if I come off a little abstract at times. It's not always easy to put an idea into words that everyone can follow. I try but, someone will always read something else into it. I'm sure you can relate.

Life is a dream, a big shared dream that we all have a part in creating. We all have a part to play and a contrbution to it. Does that mean it's not real? Ya it's real. What comes first the dream or the reality? One must have a dream first before it can become a reality. And since it's a shared dream, other peoples dreams can become our reality as well. Whether we accept that or not is entirely up to us. What you accept becomes your reality.

**djk99** · 11-28-2005 05:10 AM

If life is a dream then the question becomes how do we make it a lucid dream. Alot of post have been saying that life isn't a dream becuase there are "rules" in life. When we dream a non lucid dream there are "rules" as in we are unable to controll the dream and we are unaware that it is a dream.

Wait am I high...

**Belisarius** · 11-28-2005 05:38 AM

I don't know and so I voted yes to piss Ex Nine off.

We really don't have a way of knowing what dreams are, or of what their relationship with life is. Dreams would seem to be a part of life, and so it would be inappropriate to call life a dream, but that doesn't mean that we truly know what life is, or what dreams are.

**Ex Nine** · 11-28-2005 07:10 AM

Originally posted by Belisarius
I don't know and so I voted yes to piss Ex Nine off.

We really don't have a way of knowing what dreams are, or of what their relationship with life is. Dreams would seem to be a part of life, and so it would be inappropriate to call life a dream, but that doesn't mean that we truly know what life is, or what dreams are.

You said you didn't know, but then you said no.

Okay, wait, I'm grappling with this... you said, "It would be inappropriate to call life a dream." For what other reason would it be inappropriate to call life a dream than for the reason that it's not a dream?

You say that we don't know what life truly is or what dreams are. But that's not a sufficient reason.

For example, I don't truly know what's in the book War and Peace. I've never read it. But I know that it doesn't include a hundred-page treatise on Coulomb's law of electric fields. And, of course, I don't truly know the subtleties of Coulomb's law either. How can I not truly know either War and Peace or Coulomb's law and yet know they are not, in at least one sense, one in the same? I really do think that is an interesting question! They were both known at the same time period. Tolstoy might have heard of Coulomb's law and War and Peace is certainly large enough that it might have an idiosyncratic mention - but certainly not a hundred-page treatise. How do I know that? Really, I think that is a great question.

The answer, though, turns out to be, because I do have at least a rudimentary understanding of both. One is a work of historical fiction about Russia encompassing a large number of years and focuses on human emotional events, military strategy, and political philosophy. The other would be a work of science, nonfiction, without human emotional events or political philosophy.

You may think I am the one being idiosyncratic here, for life and dreams aren't anything like War and Peace and Coulomb's law, right? But whatever we don't truly know might as well be a book we haven't read or a law of nature we haven't discovered. We do know something about this book and we have experienced something about this nature.

So, even though we don't truly know what life or dreams are, all of us here have a rudimentary understanding of both. Without that, of course, we wouldn't even be able to speak of them. That rudimentary understanding can be shown by their dictionary definitions.

dream - a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.

life - the state of being alive as a human being.

We often refer to dreams as the "dream state." So this makes the question very sensible. No tricks.

Is the state of being alive as a human being a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep?

That's the question I meant to ask.

**djaio** · 11-28-2005 01:42 PM

Originally posted by Ex Nine

How can it be obvious to you if you're not awake yet?

how do i put this... it's obvious to a part of my mind. the dreamer(pun?), the philosopher in me knows that i have the ability to walk outside right now and fly into the air. but the more physical, practical part of me - my body, i guess - still has its doubts.

if i had complete faith with every part of my being that life is a dream with limitless possibilities, i'd be flying in the clouds right now.

changing the subject a little... i think the poll question is much too simplified. it's not one of those things you can force a yes/no answer to. sometimes you have to give a poetic answer. i think life is a dream...but not the same kind of dream we experience each night. 'dream' is just the best word.

kind of like asking if you believe in god. unless you're a devout christian or a diehard athiest, it just isn't a yes or no question. [/i]

**djaio** · 11-28-2005 02:17 PM

Originally posted by Ex Nine

Is the state of being alive as a human being a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep?

That's the question I meant to ask. :whyme:

the question is more open then you realize.

here, look at your definitions of life and dream:

life - the state of being alive as a human being. [/b]

What is \"alive\"? doesn't that just mean \"having life\"? which brings us right back to the question \"what is life?\" so your definition of life really says nothing.

dream - a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep. [/b]

What are thoughts? can we really agree that dreaming happens in the mind? What is sleep? when you say "sleep" what immediately comes to mind is a person lying in their bed, unconscious. but sleep could also mean other things. for instance, 'asleep' is a good word for the state of unawareness, unenlightenment, etc.

it's like when the Buddha says "I am awake." yes, we know he's physically conscious, but he meant something deeper than that.

that's the nature of words. they depend on people's differing minds to gain meaning. we may think we have a universal understanding of words like life, death, dream, love... but they're open to interpretation. in fact, their meaning depends on your interpretation.

if you've seen the movie Waking Life, the part near the beginning when the girl is talking about the word Love sums up pretty well what I'm trying to say.

yeah...sorry if my thoughts are scattered, it's 7 AM and i haven't slept all night. wish i could dig up better words to express my ideas. i guess my whole point is, the question "is life a dream?" is by its nature an open question that demands more than "yes" or "no" - and no matter how you try, you can't change that nature.

**Ex Nine** · 11-28-2005 08:55 PM

Originally posted by djaio
how do i put this... it's obvious to a part of my mind. the dreamer(pun?), the philosopher in me knows that i have the ability to walk outside right now and fly into the air. but the more physical, practical part of me - my body, i guess - still has its doubts.

if i had complete faith with every part of my being that life is a dream with limitless possibilities, i'd be flying in the clouds right now.

So, you have complete faith that complete faith makes a difference?

**Howie** · 11-28-2005 09:03 PM

Originally posted by Ex Nine

So, you have complete faith that complete faith makes a difference. Is that right?

If you really put it into context of our brains and the way they are manipulated. Or better, I should say disillusioned it is rather vexing. But true.

**djaio** · 11-28-2005 11:58 PM

Originally posted by Ex Nine

So, you have complete faith that complete faith makes a difference?

um, sure? i don't really know how to answer that. what's the point of this question?

**Ex Nine** · 11-29-2005 12:06 AM

Originally posted by djaio
um, sure? i don't really know how to answer that. what's the point of this question?

Because, if you have complete faith in the efficacy of complete faith, why is it so difficult for you to have complete faith that reality is a dream and then go around flying? You already have complete faith, so shouldn't that complete faith be making a difference?

Your complete faith in the efficacy of complete faith, combined with your inability to have complete faith, is an inescapable contradiction.

**BillyBob** · 11-29-2005 12:42 AM

If life WAS a dream and we were all members of it, surely at least one person would have discovered lucidity and would be flying around making things appear and stuff.....

So my answer is no, life is in no way a dream in the sense that my other body is laying in bed right now creating my surroundings.

**djaio** · 11-29-2005 06:30 AM

Originally posted by Ex Nine

Because, if you have complete faith in the efficacy of complete faith, why is it so difficult for you to have complete faith that reality is a dream and then go around flying? You already have complete faith, so shouldn't that complete faith be making a difference?

Your complete faith in the efficacy of complete faith, combined with your inability to have complete faith, is an inescapable contradiction.

wow. you're putting way too much thought into this.

i don't know all about how my mind works. it's not like i can rate my faith on a scale of 1 to 10. but to answer your question, no, i guess i don't have complete faith in my complete faith. next are you going to ask me if i have complete faith that i don't have complete faith that i have complete faith?

If life WAS a dream and we were all members of it, surely at least one person would have discovered lucidity and would be flying around making things appear and stuff..... [/b]

we're still struggling with control of our dreams, and that's the few of us that are trying. patience. humanity is young.