Thread: "thought" dreams?

I've noticed that sometimes (not very often, maybe once every few months or so) I will have a very strange type of dream, with absolutely no visual content, just thought. It's rather like being awake and just having my eyes closed and thinking about stuff, however because I'm dreaming my thought processes are very different. This seems to happen more when I'm studying for exams or working on something that requires a lot of logica/analytical thought.

It's extremely hard to explain, but it's like the thoughts become tangible, like objects that I can touch, but there's no visual content, everything's pretty much black. Sometimes I come up with some interesting concepts that never occurred to me before, and I remember them when I wake up. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else experiences dreams like this. I'm almost tempted to think that maybe they're dreams that happen outside of REM (but I don't know if this is possible?)

Typically, when a dreamer closes their dream eyes, the dream will quickly end. That's not always the case, it's more that as long as their dream body is being stimulated, they can remain in the dream. Usually it's visual stimulation, sometimes it's tactile or touch.

That's why I am curious. Is it just thought after thought in rapid succession with no in between periods? You've said that you see black, but that you can touch your thoughts. Is there any way you can explain this in terms of what I just said in the first paragraph? Which part of the thinking keeps you in your "thought" dreams, in your opinion?

I believe I have experienced these "thought" dreams. They are in themselves very bizarre, and confusing. Sometimes they're simple thoughts, but they become complicated ideas, and sometimes even dialogue shared with an invisible person. Usually these dreams are accompanied with exhaustion, or at least when I awaken. It's as if I haven't slept a wink, yet somehow my body is energized. It's strange.

Originally posted by lucy
I've noticed that sometimes (not very often, maybe once every few months or so) I will have a very strange type of dream, with absolutely no visual content, just thought. It's rather like being awake and just having my eyes closed and thinking about stuff, however because I'm dreaming my thought processes are very different. This seems to happen more when I'm studying for exams or working on something that requires a lot of logica/analytical thought.

It's extremely hard to explain, but it's like the thoughts become tangible, like objects that I can touch, but there's no visual content, everything's pretty much black. Sometimes I come up with some interesting concepts that never occurred to me before, and I remember them when I wake up. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else experiences dreams like this. I'm almost tempted to think that maybe they're dreams that happen outside of REM (but I don't know if this is possible?)

These types of dreams happen to me usually always when i become lucid - i realize that i can't be able to "see" anything, because my eyes are closed, so the dream stops to be visual, and becomes "mental". When i'm in this type of dream, i can't feel my physical body - i'm still in a dream, or should it be called something other than dream... It could be some other level of awareness when you exit the physical world and enter your mind - i know it's really hard to explain, for it is a completely different experience than anything else.
What happens to me in these types of "dreams" : no feelings of physical body, no visual images (i guess what i see is just pitch-black), yet i can travel to places, enter houses, etc - but i know i just think all of that up. And always I am lucid. I find this completely mind-blowing and incomprehensible how it comes to me directly that "what i think, becomes reality" and "thought creates matter" for what i think of in these "dreams" becomes real. It could be sort of explained through the Matrix, when you stop seeing the world as images and start seeing the "code" or something...
And i know that tibetan dream yogis used to become aware during the non-rem sleep, so maybe this is it.

Originally posted by Follower
Sometimes I have dreams about nothing but thoughts, but more often than not they're accompanied by small static pictures of bad quality. I'm not sure if we're talking of the same thing, though. The thoughts in my case don't necessarily sound like mine, they can be a dialogue or even a talk between people. And usually the thoughts are a mess, they often make sense only in the dream and after you wake up you see what a mess they were.
What I noticed is that this type of dreams only happen to me when I'm nervous.
Does it sound like the same thing? What did you mean by 'tangible' thoughts? Are you touching them?

Well... it's always me doing the thinking in these dreams, not lots of different voices. And often the things I'm thinking about do actually make some sort of sense, if I'm studying for an exam or working on some kind of project then it will relate to whatever's on my mind.

When I said "tangible" thoughts... that's probably not the best way to describe it, but it's very hard to explain. Like the thoughts were separate from me, from my mind, and I was sort of piecing them together, like a puzzle, into new thoughts. However there was no physical sensation accompanying this.

Originally posted by Distant Clone
Typically, when a dreamer closes their dream eyes, the dream will quickly end. That's not always the case, it's more that as long as their dream body is being stimulated, they can remain in the dream. Usually it's visual stimulation, sometimes it's tactile or touch.

That's why I am curious. Is it just thought after thought in rapid succession with no in between periods? You've said that you see black, but that you can touch your thoughts. Is there any way you can explain this in terms of what I just said in the first paragraph? Which part of the thinking keeps you in your "thought" dreams, in your opinion?

Yes, thought after thought... I think it's the piecing together of thought that keeps me in the dream, the process of thinking through a problem. There isn't really any sense of a dream body though. It's just like being awake, closing my eyes and thinking, except my thoughts come in different ways, sort of fragmented. Very weird. I wish I could have dreams like this more often, I think it would be a great tool for problem solving if I could do it on a regular basis.

I may have experienced this. Abstract thoughts that join together and make some sort of a story, but not sensible. Not related to senses.

I sometimes explain them using sensible descriptions, but that's just the way i describe something that i experience.

It's like... "Surface", "lack", "chesshorselike movement", "mirror-like self reference", or things like that, which cannot make sense in waking life. What i just said isn't even close enough to describe it. It's just pure thought, detached of reality-reference. Weird.

Am i close to what you mean?

This is an OLD thread...

Anyways, sounds mightily like a dream made of conceptual thought.

Sounds like some of the mind rapeage sequences in Neon Genesis Evangelion, but no, I haven't had any of these.

do you mean like when you're lying in bed at like 9:00 and thinking about something, and then all of the sudden it's 4 in the morning, and you're thinking "woh, what just happened?" and you can't remember anything between those hours; if you were awake or asleep? that happens to me sometimes... a lot, actually.

I always think in dreams,and random thoughts float through my head, and I analize and think about the things that are going on and the things I see. But I'm not sure if I've ever had a 'just thoghts' dream.

I have dreams like this sometimes. For me they are often just an idea that will repeat over and over. Earlier this week the word "gumshoe" repeated over and over in a dream. Other times I will see one image and it will flash over and over, or seem to drift back and forth. From what I have read about dreaming, I believe that when I do this I am dreaming outside of REM. I call these dreams "flash dreams" because that is what they feel like.

I have these, and they're a lot like what seeker28 described - a thought or an idea that just goes round and round my head, but in a very dreamlike, almost-solid way. Similar to what wisp said, too - sometimes the thoughts or concepts don't really make much sense and can't really make much sense in the waking world - I will find them completely incomprehensible when I wake up. It sort of fascinates me that my brain can seem to switch into such a completely different mode and way of understanding things...

I don't particularly like these dreams for the most part, though - they're often accompanied by a feeling of "not being able to escape" from whatever I'm thinking about, and I always wake up feeling tired and unrefreshed - I've always thought perhaps they are the dreams that I get when I'm only in a very light sleep. They decreased drastically in frequency after I was prescribed medication to help with my sleep issues (I suffer from horrible insomnia, and prior to the medication tended to wake up five or six times a night even on a good night), which I'm pretty happy about. Give me a proper dream with a plot and setting any day, no matter how weird! ;)

(Also, hi everyone! I'm new...)

ha this thread got dug up from like more than a year ago

I know, but I saw other people responding so I thought it'd be ok - is it? Like I said, I'm very new... sorry!

Originally Posted by Starfish

I know, but I saw other people responding so I thought it'd be ok - is it? Like I said, I'm very new... sorry!

Don't worry about it. It's Wisp's bad for digging it up in the first place but once it's up at the top with discussion in it, theres no reason not to post. =)