Thread: Can dreams alter your memories???????????

Something like that happened to me before, I was in a shop and was looking at a game I wanted that just came out and it was only 15$ then I woke up didn't remeber the dream as being a dream but later I remebr where the game with the lower price was so I went there to buy it and it wasn't even close it was 40$ and it hadn't been on sale or anything. Then I remebered oh yaaa I think that was a dream! It doesn't happen to me very often, if it happens to you alot it might be reallly annoying but I thik if you get dream recall up you can remeber the dream right when you wake and not later in the day and think it's real. I think.

As one goes from various states and alterations of consciousness makes this entirely possible.
I have had this happen to many of my very vivid dreams. Moreover the lucid dreams that I am conscious in.
As you pointed out the dream realm and the waking scene soon return to normal.
Since reality is nothing more than an experience and do to the fact that your brain, during a dream, does in fact think it is real this opaque view of memory can be obscured over time. Depending also on how real or surreal your dream content is.

i believe that in our dreams these feelings of "loss of memory" or "memory alteration" can lead to having more frequent lucidity sessions, because if you can train yourself to relise when this happens in your dreams (because it is the only place it can happen) this could cause you to

1. relise your dreaming.
2. increase lucidity and graphical imagery because they are already good to start off with (because this can really only happen in the first place if the visuals are good so that you believe that its real, so it can increase these factors by them already being hightened).
3. stopping these mind changes and memory lossess happening for good ( because they really are a pain).

there is only one problem: i dont know how to train to stop this happening and help it towards lucid dreaming.

PLEASE report back to this board with your theories or findings... we could be close to a break through on this...as for me i will keep researching...please help... i could really use your views or theories...THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

[quote]As one goes from various states and alterations of consciousness makes this entirely possible.
I have had this happen to many of my very vivid dreams. Moreover the lucid dreams that I am conscious in.
As you pointed out the dream realm and the waking scene soon return to normal.
Since reality is nothing more than an experience and do to the fact that your brain, during a dream, does in fact think it is real this opaque view of memory can be obscured over time. Depending also on how real or surreal your dream content is.

I agree totally.

Whenever I think back to a memory of last week, or a memory of a vivid NON lucid dream...they seem like they are the same thing. So if I don't differentiate them after I wake up, sometimes they seem to mix together...which is scary!

On the other hand, all of my lucids are easily distinguished as dreams.


Mike

Yesterday i saw The Cat Returns for the first time. That following night i was dreaming of the ending but my dream added a twist. The prince was actually Yuki (one of the castle servants) using magic to disguise herself in order the call off Haru's arranged marriage.

When i woke up i couldn't remember the dream but later that day i thought of the movie and though of the title "The Cat Returns", I thought "Well he didn't really return it was just Yuki in disguise." As i thought that, something didn't sit right with me, then i thought about it for a moment and remembered the dream. "Oh yeah! It was the prince! My dream just over lapped my memory!"

I thought that was pretty cool but also a little concerning. What if dreams like that happen all the time, altering our memories, changing them to whatever our subconscious randomly creates?

Yes I believe so, I've noticed this a few times
I had a dream that was set in my past and applying my knowledge of today for that minor situation (like what would I have done differently during that and actually redo it in-dream)
it became a memorable (dream)situation, but somehow I forgot or the tag was lost that it was actually a dream, and somehow is now considered actually a memory

I found out about this when I was talking with my friend about past events and this memory came up, and he remembered it differently
the debate eventually led to me saying, are you saying I'm lying? then he showed me actual pictures of that time, and then I realized and remembered that I had that dream and altered it with my desire to do it differently
naturally I couldn't tell him this or he'd think I went nuts lol, I simply said that's weird my bad

Also I woke up once, after an heavy war battle dream and it took me more than 5 min, enough to boil water and tea bag it, to remember my own name..
I put the tea bag in the water cup and was saying in my head
"What a strange name I had in the dream, but my own name is way cooler, I am...?? what?!! My name is..? holy shit I forgot my own name no way!!! C'mon!!! My name is....? Damnit?!!!
at this point I started smiling, like what the hell is going on now, I turned to my mom who's approaching me, and she calls my name and says: "what are you smiling about?" and I go Aah yes that's what it was, that's my name!!!
of course she looked at me squintingly , and I said I forgot my name there for a sec, really weird, thanks for reminding me and she smiles back, like I'm being weird again

I also said a few times in my life, to my mom in a similar morning approach "what year is it?" at first(when kid), it was just as a joke you know, a cool quote from the first terminator movie
until one day it actually happened and I really didn't know what year I was in after waking up, and taking the joke too far in my moms eyes, also this time she didn't answer me as I came of acting hysterical
by running around, to look for something that represented the date of today, like my life depended on it, by knowing only the date without year was not enough and I kind freaked out, yelling what year dammit!!,
that really scared me but even more so my mom I think, It took a few min to come back fully to my senses

and lastly I had an school exam, and on the top of the page next to name you've have to put in the date of the exam, and I wrote '93 instead of '98 (the day and month were right though)
at the moment I wrote it I didn't see anything wrong only when I got the result A and not A+, and the teacher humiliating me in front of the whole class saying "this guys didn't get an a+ because of getting the date wrong,
apparently he lives in the wrong year" and I was shocked how could this have happened, while still remembering at the time of writing there was nothing wrong when I checked it

and this does happen more often although not related to sleep/dreams, and I do consider this a real nuisance in memory;
example I'm at home reading something on the internet, and I want to tell my friend or somebody about it
so I almost automatically visualize in my head how I would tell it to them, like a rehearsal, and after some time I go visit them, and I'm wondering if I already told him about it or not, since I'm not all that sure anymore because of a memory of speaking to them, and this rehearsal is the way I tell the info to my brother and friend or anyone, same choice of words or way of order
but more often than not I find myself retelling the same thing much to the point of annoying my friends sometimes like "yes you told this already" maybe as often as 7-8 times a year

So in my opinion and experience I do believe it can change some memory, especially if the guy absolutly believes it
but finding out which one, might be impossible if not confronted with it properly
I didn't think I had this many occurrences of it though, I'm surprised myself while writing this :O

ever seen the movie "The Butterfly Effect(2004)" about changing past events and memories to the point of time travel, I recommend it
it's a real shocker-thriller because of the dark/psychological plot though, some of my friends were in considerable awe after watching this one ;D it's not for the timid minded

What really used to piss me off - I used to wake up and go to write in my DJ but then found my memories of the dreams confused because - get this - my last dream of the night was a reiteration and altering of an earlier dream! And sometimes I could remember the earlier dream pretty well because I had awakened and written it down then went back to sleep, and I'd have almost the same dream again but different. Crap! It made the memories of both dreams hazy and unreliable. Or worse yet, sometimes I'd have a dream shortly before waking up that must have been an NREM dream because there were no visuals but I was just going over the earlier dream, telling it to myself, as if to impress it in my memory (I developed this habit in order to help with my dream recall, of telling myself my dreams before I open my eyes in the morning, and it bled through into my dreaming life). That would be fine if the retelling was accurate, but I'd always get it messed up - like I'd start off right but after a while I was talking about something completely different from what I actually dreamed about.

Hey, on a related subject, does anybody ever remember something and keep thinking "where the hell was I when that happened - was I in some kind of huge castle or something?" And then realize it was from a video game? I sometimes 'remember' being in these really awesome environments (don't remember actions or I'd realize right away it was a game) and they seem so real it's like I must have actually been there once - but it was from Tomb Raider or something!

Hey, on a related subject, does anybody ever remember something and keep thinking "where the hell was I when that happened - was I in some kind of huge castle or something?" And then realize it was from a video game? I sometimes 'remember' being in these really awesome environments (don't remember actions or I'd realize right away it was a game) and they seem so real it's like I must have actually been there once - but it was from Tomb Raider or something!

you must have really been into the game m8
Yes, only mine is with movie scenes and environments rather than in-game scenes
unless I had a gaming spree like when Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3 came out spending hours gaming, then it's more likely to have some kind manifestation or resemblance of it in-dream

I had a dream one night, non lucid, where I cheated on my wife, felt guilty, and broke it off. I've never even come close to infidelity in real life, but the dream was so darn vivid it kind of scared me for a little while. The woman in the dream was a former co-worker from a job I was at years ago before I started my business. After waking up, I had to carefully examine my memories to make sure nothing had passed between us when I worked there. Of course a few minutes later I realized that none of it was real, but in the dream it was very real. We weren't having sex, but we were involved in very intimate conversations and the feelings were strong. At the same time I would feel guilt because I knew I was cheating and then later I would be with my wife and I was hoping she didn't know. It was a lengthy dream and very detailed, to the point where some of these strong emotions, including the guilt and fear of discovery, were lingering after I woke up. When I went through the mental images fom the dream, I remembered who the woman is in real life, someone I worked with before and after I got married, and I remembered that I never even had any feelings for her even when I was single. I had to examine my memories, though, because the vividness of the dream seemed like it could be capable of creating false memories.

Ok, I'm gonna spam the forum one more time tonight with this link: The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever | Wired Magazine | Wired.com

An article about the neuroscience of memory - how it's created, stored and recalled, and the fact that it's really isn't as rock solid as we think it is - in fact each time we recall a memory we actually have to rebuild it, and it can be changed slightly (or more significantly) in the process. So this explains why dreams can alter memories pretty clearly I think.

2006.