Dreams & Dream Memories

[Callista]

I usually have pretty good dream recall--three or four a night--and I'm wondering whether some of the things I remember in dreams are actual dreams or fabricated memories. Okay. That sounded confusing. Sometimes, when I dream, lucid or non-lucid, I'll be in an "alternate reality" of sorts where the past is different from my real-life past. I'll have memories of the layout of a place that doesn't exist in real life, or know people I didn't know in real life. Occasionally, I'll have memories of past events. For example, if I have a dream about fighting a bad guy, I might have the memories of past encounters, or remember what I did to get him annoyed at me in the first place. Upon waking I don't, however, actually remember experiencing these things; I just remember remembering them, if that makes sense. So, are the memories I have in dreams a part of the dream I didn't recall upon waking; or are they memories fabricated by my brain as part of the dream?

[Citrusponge]

This happens to me too. I usually just brush it off as deja vu. If dream characters, landscapes and allsorts of crazy crap can be spontaneously generated in the mind, dream memories could be too. Seems the simplest explaination.

[Barbizzle]

I have this a lot too. I can never quite tell if i have had dreams when them before, or if the memories are a part of the dreams.

[Sortilegio]

I think you fabricate the memories as the dreams goes on and you encounter things that need an explanation. For example, like when you are running away from people, you don't know who they are or why are you running, you are just running away from them, then all of a sudden you start remembering the cause of it, who it is after you and all of that to keep you runnig, cause its "safe"; wich I think is just your brain trying to make sense. I find this very important cause in cases like this you could become lucid straight up, training your mind to think more logically instead of going on with what happens, or well at least thats the way how it most happens to me for becoming lucid ,it is those times when you start to think that you get a little closer to awarness.

[TravisE]

I have that, too: artificial memories from dreams. It can be confusing at times. I remember several years ago where I would very frequently have dreams that seemed like I had them before, but I could never be sure. It seemed like "last time" I had the dream, a particular set of events happened (although these weren't lucid dreams), but when I woke up, I was suspicious of the idea that I had even had that dream before. I wrote down the dreams I had around that time, and never wrote duplicate dreams. Of course, I may not have written about enough dreams for a long enough period of time, so I don't know.

[Genjyo]

I too have had dream memory where I'll justify current events, no matter how bizzare they may be. This also explains why places and people are really not so unfamiliar with you there. There are times when my real life memory is intact and it will trigger lucidity. This is quite fascinating because gradually your 'dream memory' will be replaced by your true thoughts. love

[CowMan339]

when i was like 4 or 5, every time i visited my cousins i always thought that these 2 places were real that werent, cuz at my house i would often dream the same dream that i was there and then think it was real. sometimes i couldn't seperate reality and dream, if there is much of a seperation

[Led]

Originally posted by CowMan339 when i was like 4 or 5, every time i visited my cousins i always thought that these 2 places were real that werent, cuz at my house i would often dream the same dream that i was there and then think it was real. sometimes i couldn't seperate reality and dream, if there is much of a seperation I used to experience omething similar, I thought that there was this second staircase down in our basement.

[sss3d]

Something similar would also happen to me.. I would wonder, "is this real life, a dream, or my memories?" And so I would keep a dream journal, and I would remember that it's not a dream. And usually my thinking isn't clear in the middle of the night, so I tell myself I'll think about it tommorow. Usually during the day, I could tell if its real life or just memories. I don't have much experience with it in dreams, so I'm not really sure about that.

[Asclepius]

memories fabricated brain/consciousness as part of the dream Whatever part of our mind creates dreams can make up anything. In dreams I've had best friends, who don't exist in reality. Extra brothers and sisters. Different jobs (even a lawyer once - yuck). Some things I've been really convinced were true, and only after 8 hours of being awake did I start to question them. The freedom of dreaming is why I want more LDs! Anything can happen.

[kafine]

I quite often remember stuff from real life while I'm dreaming. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it isn't. For example, I dreamed that I was in a new bath at home, and I remembered my mother telling me that they had got new taps for the bathroom. Until I came home I was convinced that her telling me that was what had triggered the dream. But there are no new taps. Nobody had new taps. And I remembered that I didn't have to buy deodorant after all, because there was a spare can in the top of the wardrobe... when in fact I DID need to buy deodorant. Thankfully that one didn't have me fooled when I woke up.

[TravisE]

I don't remember having any dreams that caused me to be confused between fiction and reality for a significant length of time, but around the time I was 14 I recorded a few dreams that did briefly confuse me. I had recorded my dreams on and off over the years. I had a dream at that time that I was reading about the dreams I wrote about in an older journal (which really existed), but I read about a dream that I didn't really have (as far as I know). When I woke up, I wondered if I had really recorded that dream I read about in the dream, and I would have been surprised to look through the old journal and not find it. Several minutes later, though, I realized (without having to look it up) that the dream I read about in the dream definitely did not really exist in that journal, and I was not surprised. Another example: In real life at that time, I had a small electric heater in my room since the house's central heat didn't heat my room that well. In a dream, the heater had a whole bunch of different indicator lights on it, two or three rows of them. When I woke up, I knew it didn't really have that many lights, but when I got up and looked at it, I was really surprised that it only had two lights on it. Just two! I expected at least four or five. That's strange since I had seen that heater in real life every single day and knew that there were only two lights. I must have been half asleep when that happened. Both were non-lucid dreams, by the way. I haven't had any dreams in the last several years that have confused me in a similar way, though.

[Merlock]

Here's a topic realting to the matter: http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23450 I think I've said what I wanted in my post there. Seems impossible to grasp whether separate dream and waking memory banks exist, at least for now, heh.

[Asclepius]

I had a long and vivid dream about this last night. In the dream I was reminiscing with a cousin. We talked about when I was young. Some of the dream memories were false, some where real, and some I can't tell whether they are real memories, or just realistic events made up by the dream. I've sent emails to my family to see if they can verify these memories as real or false. I have a very good memory, so I had never thought I could dream a 'false' memory, but its happening more often (or I'm remembering more frequently ) Also in the dream, one of my uncles was there, but he didn't look like he really looks. I find I periodically dream about people, and they don't look like they should. Seems another area where dream access to memory is distorted. Interesting thread