The Reasons Behind Super Vivid Dreaming

I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about already, and that many of you have experienced for yourselves this phenomenon of feeling as if your vivid lucid dreams have become 110% real. I've experienced it a couple times, and it made me wonder as to how this could be. How could something be more real than real life? When pondered in real life, it doesn't seem to make much sense, but when dreamt the experience is undeniable.

One explanation is that it's some kind of spiritual experience, accessing another plane of existence or some kind of stuff like that, but I think there are many other possible reasons for this experience. I think perhaps, that the imperfections in our sensory organs are an impediment to experiencing normal life at such a high level of vividness as we can in our lucid dreams. Since we really do see, hear, taste, smell, and feel with our brains, not our sensory organs, any minor damage sustained by them can downgrade the quality of information we receive over time from normal wear and tear, and when the information is fed to us by the subconscious instead of the sensory organs, it's absolutely perfect and as it's meant to be in the state of super vividness some lucid dreams seem to have. So, we can "see" and "feel" the details and nuances of objects more clearly in dreams than in real life.

Another possible reason could be the fact that since the lucid dream world is in fact a construct of the mind, that we're 100% focused on every aspect of it in the lucid dream. It might be as if we are simply at a very high state of awareness to our environment, since there's nothing in it beyond our capacity to be aware of.

What do the rest of you think?

I'm along the same lines you are. I think that reality being filtered through the senses is a bit of a drawback on the true quality of "direct experience." With dreaming, as far as we know, we are experiencing the dream directly. It is within our minds, not being calculated by information from the outside. I don't even think it would have too much to do with wear n tear, as much as I think that we, as well as any other complex organism, possibly, have a naturally subsufficient perception of "experience."

When we're dreaming, like you say, we can feel the experience. You feel the "oneness" that's often talked about in myth and theory, when it comes to waking life. It's this sort of "extra-sensory perception" for lack of a less contraversial term, that I think accounts for the hyper-real sensation of a completely vivid dream, lucid or otherwise.

I agree with both of you.
Good point john. " Another possible reason could be the fact that since the lucid dream world is in fact a construct of the mind, that we're 100% focused on every aspect of it in the lucid dream. It might be as if we are simply at a very high state of awareness to our environment, since there's nothing in it beyond our capacity to be aware of."
I myself have induced a tremendous vividness to the experience to which I direct my focus towards, pain, color, ecstasy and more.
Maybe our brains our trying to simulate what would be this extra sensory perception during these events.

So reality and it's illusions often dull down the experience that could be perceived in it's pure content, you are saying? Interesting. I have often wondered this myself.

To the contrary the illusion might very well be in the realm of consciousness we are in during this state too?.?

Oh great... we have another Materialist.

Isn't it wonderful to have another advocate for the position that Life is completely meaningless, like we don't have enough of them already.

Lol. You know what I find hilarious?

I saw Leo's name as the "Last Post By" and said to myself. "Haha. Well well, who's he gonna insult now?"

Nice to see you're in good form tonight, Leo. :chuckle:

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Originally Posted by Leo

Oh great... we have another Materialist.

Isn't it wonderful to have another advocate for the position that Life is completely meaningless, like we don't have enough of them already.
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I would like to know how your mind extracts that position from that post.
If you could elaborate it would surly be fascinating.

I came across the idea that we filter reality in Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception”, which contains this great thinker’s thoughts following an experience he had with LSD in the 50s. A must read for anybody interested in (altered) consciousness.

It seems clear that we each create our own filtered version of what’s “out there”, and that “reality” is a very subjective experience indeed. So the idea that we would have a more intense experience if the “filter” is turned off (by drugs or, preferably, by more natural means), seems to make sense.

The idea that dreams would allow us this more direct experience – unblemished by our sense organs – is pretty tempting, but... to me the logic of it would only apply to visual experience.

I’m sure we all agree that the visual experiences that can be had in LDs are beyond stunning. I would go as far as to say that the most breathtaking sights I’ve seen, that the most strikingly vivid colors I’ve looked at in all my life have been in LDs.

However, when it comes to the other senses, my dreams are at best pale recollections of what I’ve experienced in waking life. Food: the experiments in tasting I’ve carried out in lucids have been total flops – the French cooking I’ve had in France or the spicy meals I’ve had in Thailand are way better than anything I’ve experienced in LDs. Music: I’m a big classical fan and grew up listening to Bach and Mozart. There is nothing in my LDs that has come anywhere close giving me the same acoustic uplift as a real orchestra playing the great composers.

My point is this: the visual center of the brain does seem to be far more active during (lucid) dreaming - certainly more active than the hearing / musical center, and than the taste / smell center. This doesn’t really help the “filter” theory: why would dreams only allow us to see more intensely, but not give us similar experiences with hearing & smell?

As far as LDs giving us access to “spiritual” planes… well, sure, I can imagine that spiritual planes would indeed be very beautiful, but… why would the pizza taste so bad? :wink:



P.S. Had my 47th LD last night. WILD is starting to work pretty regularly. Yay! :)

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Originally Posted by three

The idea that dreams would allow us this more direct experience – unblemished by our sense organs – is pretty tempting, but... to me the logic of it would only apply to visual experience.

I’m sure we all agree that the visual experiences that can be had in LDs are beyond stunning. I would go as far as to say that the most breathtaking sights I’ve seen, that the most strikingly vivid colors I’ve looked at in all my life have been in LDs.

P.S. Had my 47th LD last night. WILD is starting to work pretty regularly. Yay! :)
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Congrats on the Lucid dreaming success :)

Although it so happens I edited my post in regards to color, I feel as you do because I have similar experiences.
I do not think it has to pertain to visual stimuli. Our brains, when dreaming feel as if the action is real. So perception could fall upon sensory perception too. It is all manifested. We are not using our waking eyes in a dream.

Hell yeah. @ Threeandfour.
:goodjob2:
Congrats.

Well I think the direct experience of dreaming might arbitarily either differ, mimick or surpass waking world experience because it is still subject to so much change on a constant basis.
Some of my dreams look, sound and feel different than real life, sometimes the same so, to me, it's obvious that the experience can fluctuate. It may not be an example of more filtering though when I think about the way dreams may be structured.
I think that our experience is still subject to influence through our ego, superego and id. Even though it's happening subconsciously, even "directly," many times our basic level of consciousness can interact with the dream, changing what happens in the scene by your own, involuntary reactions to the dreams content. The conflicting changes are sometimes rapid and out of the lime-light, which help give dreams their sort of fluid progression.
I've had dreams were a loud sound can go off and it's so real I can feel it all through my body, as if the sound was making my spine reverberate, giving a nod to waking world physics. The flesh of a woman feels exactly like the flesh of a woman, but getting shot in the thigh is somewhat obscured. I think the intensity of the nature of whatever you're sensing determines how realistic the sensation is; how aware you are of the sensation. I heard the eye muscles were the most used muscles in the body and, if you ask me, sight is definitely the most active sense. I think it's only natural we would be more readily visual, in our dreams, as well.

I don't have very much experience with taste and smell in my dreams, at all. Thing is, though, I don't believe this is an unchangeable deficiency. I think that if I wanted to become more aware of the smells and tastes of my dreams, and made a conscious effort to do so, I could have some amazing experiences with those senses that I've never even (or at least remembered) used before.

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Originally Posted by Leo

Oh great... we have another Materialist.

Isn't it wonderful to have another advocate for the position that Life is completely meaningless, like we don't have enough of them already.
[/b]

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Making new Friends again Leo? :wink:

Yeah this HyperReality topic'sreally good: I've experienced dreams that wee like realer than real. I remember the tiniest details of rooms such as lighting kevel, color details, exact locations from dreams ( Even old dreams I had Years ago ). I am naturally a very Visual person AND I appear to have a photographic Memory: Learning French, Spanish, English, Dutch, Geography, History ( as long as it doesn't include NUMBERS :| ) I find very easy and I usually get Straight A's.

The same way I remember Visual Details as my mom found out that I could Correctly draw a BICYCLE which, after trying herself, she found to be a very intricate formto draw, with all the fraims an all. Yet I was a child of 8 years old.

I think it is no wonder why my Dreams include such Hyperreal detailed visual scenes. The reason we experience this as ''hyperreal'' is because we have a sort of clearminded moment during these clear, vivid dreams. Same as Sometimes experienced in Real Life during Altered States of Mind: Be it by use of Meditation, Magic Mushrooms, Marijuana or other Awareness expanding methods:During these expanded awareness-experiences we suddenly seem to become aware of life in it's tiniest and fullest details, and we find every individual small object special in it's form and realise what immensely intricate beings Cats are when a cat for instance walks into the room at such a moment when you're in the ''Philosophical'' state of mind.

These states of Mind often are [present in these very Vivid Hyperreal Dreams as I have experienced it.