Dreaming: Right vs. Left Brain

I just read something insanely interesting, and forgive me if it has been previously discussed.

I'm really interested in the whole Right Brain and Left Brain idea, and for anyone who is unfamiliar of the differences between the right and left brain, here's a quick lesson.

While your whole brain works together, there are certain things that the right side and left side specialize in. The left side is the timekeeper, is concerned with words, reading, talking, math, logic and all that jazz. The right side is visual, spatial, emotional.


I was reading an article that explained how dreaming is unilateral, or, the majority of only one side of the brain is functioning at a certain time while asleep. The reason it's so hard to write down dreams is because REM sleep is driven by the right side of your brain. Since the right side doesn't care about time, it's often difficult to figure out the sequence of events, or about how long it took for something to happen.

It's why you can't read anything in a dream... that's the left side's job! Telling time also gets funked up because of this. The lack of the logic part of your brain makes you believe that stupid stuff in your dream is completely natural.

"Therefore, due to the lateralized remembrance of dreams, the left hemisphere of the brain must access the memories of the right brain when a person is asked to describe a dream or even to remember it. To access the memory banks of the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere must use the corpus callosum or anterior commissure. The left hemisphere of the brain is involved primarily in the encoding and recall of verbal, temporal sequential, and language related memories. As a result, dream interpretation becomes very difficult due to the fact that the left hemisphere is forced to interpret what the right brain has created using a language the left brain does not understand"

I think that's so cool! I guess when you go lucid, you make the left side of your brain wake up to a certain degree.

Anyway, here's the link to the article. :) hope you liked it as much as I did.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neur...b1/MillerJ.html

Oh, definitely :-P

The right brain is known to be the creative-producing side of the brain, and obviously...dreams are spontaneously creative.

Perhaps since LD'ing will equalize the usage of both sides in a dream, that would probably be best for mental health. Maybe it's because our logical-based society doesn't use the right side of the brain as much, so the dreams are compensating? Just my theory....

hmm.. never really read about the whole left-right brain idea.. but like you said, it certainly is interesting.

Glad you brought this up! all you left handed people say EYYYYYYE it would be interesting just to do a poll who is left handed, who is righted handed... and then see who lucids more... or maybe we find there is no connection what so ever.

does the artikle speak about people who can use both sides ? and how this affects dreaming ?

Hmm, good post. Makes sense.

That is an awesome post ashliebelle!!
I had a poll on left or right handed people because I was aware of this differance. I was curious to see how many members were left handed.
I tend to believe that if you are left handed that you may have a better ability to Lucid dream. Just a theory. However there tends to be more right handed people in general so it would be difficult at best to use a poll to determine that. Unless everyone posted and everyone was honest and then you would have to take the percentage and compare it to the number of members which would be compared to the number of right to left handed people as a whole bla bla bla..... Most people who commented do not seem to even believe in the right left brain functioning.

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Originally posted by {Kay}
Glad you brought this up! all you left handed people say EYYYYYYE it would be interesting just to do a poll who is left handed, who is righted handed... and then see who lucids more... or maybe we find there is no connection what so ever

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Here it is if you want to take a look. [Poll]
Left - right- or ambidextrous?

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Originally posted by ashliebelle
I was reading an article that explained how dreaming is unilateral, or, the majority of only one side of the brain is functioning at a certain time while asleep. The reason it's so hard to write down dreams is because REM sleep is driven by the right side of your brain. Since the right side doesn't care about time, it's often difficult to figure out the sequence of events, or about how long it took for something to happen.

It's why you can't read anything in a dream... that's the left side's job! Telling time also gets funked up because of this. The lack of the logic part of your brain makes you believe that stupid stuff in your dream is completely natural.

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Interesting. I often read and write in my dreams though. The writing never remains the same for long, unless it is a pictographic or symbollic. I also believe that all things are logical... some things only appear to be "illogical" because they are to complex or layered for us to analyze.

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Originally posted by evangel
Interesting. I often read and write in my dreams though. The writing never remains the same for long, unless it is a pictographic or symbollic. I also believe that all things are logical... some things only appear to be \"illogical\" because they are to complex or layered for us to analyze.

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I agree totally!!

Are you left or right handed evangel? If you don't mind me asking.

I don't know about that one. I mean its really tough to understand what is logical and illogical. Being Analytical does impose a great deal of common sense that's for sure. But common sense doesn't really apply to all things being logical. And making an analysis of anything surely doesn't apply to all things being logical. If that is the case then why evaluate any given aspect or situation of life? Why try to understand anything? See this is what we do in our normal dreams, our logical thinking is shut down to the form of restriction and we accept anything and everything without second guessing it sometimes.

And I think that is an impressive observation that you've made Ashliebelle Great work! :goodjob2:

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Originally posted by ShadowNightWing
...common sense doesn't really apply to all things being logical. And making an analysis of anything surely doesn't apply to all things being logical. If that is the case then why evaluate any given aspect or situation of life?

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Common sense actually understands "illogic" as being a reality which I am disagreeing with. I do believe that there is "bad" logic as in fallacious reasoning, but it does not necessarily follow that something exists that is the opposite of logic (for example "chaos"). I'm just saying (theoretically) that things only appear to be illogical (specifically in dreams), but I would also assert that if we had more knowledge (of truth), we would then be able to explain and understand more rather than explaining it as "illogical," "crazy," "chaotic," etc. In the long run, I believe there is method to everything... even "madness." Chance and probability are constructs of science but not necessarily true.

As for our minds being "accepting" or simply "believing", I also think that is an interesting and good point, but that does not mean that the dream content is not logical.

-In regards to your above question, I don't follow your logic :-P :lol: . Why NOT evaluate...?

Howie:
I'm right-handed.

With any evaluation it does not mean all things. That is how topics are generally taken out of context. One person says left brained people are better at math. Then the next thing you know you are accused of saying every right handed person is good at math.
It should give you more reason to question everything.

If a left handed person uses his right side of the brain on a more consistant basis then would it not stand to reason that the right hemisphere is more primed for the use of the functions that ashliebelle outline earlier?

"If right-handed people use the left side of their brain, then left-handed people are the only ones in their right mind."

Hehe, my mom always says that.


Actually, I brought this whole topic up because it seems as if the right side is used almost EXCLUSIVELY when dreaming. It doesn't matter what you are while awake, most REM sleep is right-brained, and the connection between the sides isn't strong at all.

If you read the article, it says there ARE some left-brained dreams, where you dream about reading. They aren't very visual, though, says the article. Since left brain is in control of speech, these are the dreams where you talk in your sleep. If you know you talk a lot in your sleep, you probably have more left-brained dreams than usual.

Very interesting, thanks for the link.
I wonder if there are any studies done with lucid dreaming to show
if there is an increase in left brain activity. That's something that should be investigated if it hasn't been already.

It probably has, but then again who knows...

This is a great topic ashlie and it could further explain how it is posible to become lucid. Next time instead of yelling "Super Lucidity!!!" I will shout "WAKE UP LEFT SIDE!!!!!"...probably work even better...

try this artcile on my site

http://www.geocities.com/hairybobby2000/dr...lthetawave.html

ah...it posted ..sorry for the short message ..i had problems posting

theta waves were discovered by jonathon winson and he also did research into the hippocampus.

its all very science like but the conclusion was that dreams are jusrt memory sorting...they help us understand our emotions and thoughts.

but the interesting thing is that if we do not sleep these brain functions do not take place..thats whyu we uffer major problems if we suffer sleep deprivcvation

try a google search on jonathon winson hippocampus theta waves

its very fascuinatuing

Firstly - I'm right handed, before anyone asks :)
I find that I can read near PERFECTLY in my dreams. Its a useless dreamsign for me.

But if my left side is doing it.. why can I read well even in my non-lucid dreams?

One explanation is that the left/right hemisphere idea is far too simplified.
Its vaguely true, but not ALL logic is processed on the left side
Your brain tends to optimise many logical processes to that side, but definitely not all of it

Its the same as the argument of eg. 'this area' (pointing at a chart) is involved in pattern recognition.
That action of pattern recognition is HIGHLY complex, and that little area may have a great amount of the impact on it, but it still relies on a lot of outside 'areas' of the brain.

Ie. its an oversimplified view of the brain, that is more or less helpful to know, but not 100% accurate.

Of course, this is my opinion, and like all opinions... you know...

ive thought of this too, i think its waay interesting. :D
theres actually a quiz u can take at quizilla.com which tells u if u are more of a left brained person or a right brained person..

i was more of a right brained person

i'll find a link and post it if anyone's interested 8)

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Originally posted by vivdness
i'll find a link and post it if anyone's interested

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Indeed. That would be interesting. I would be happy if it said I use either side of my brain. :D

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Originally posted by Howetzer
That would be interesting. I would be happy if it said I use either side of my brain. :D

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Nobody wants to be a no-brainer! :P

I took one of those once, I was distributed evenly on the two halves. :)

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Originally posted by Howetzer+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Howetzer)</div>

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<!--QuoteBegin-vivdness

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i'll find a link and post it if anyone's interested

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Indeed. That would be interesting. I would be happy if it said I use either side of my brain. :D[/b]

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http://web.tickle.com/tests/brain/index.jsp

here's the link howetzer^^ :wink:

I took the test and it said I am a logical thinker and use relitivley equal parts of the brain but leaning toward the right. It said I pay attention to detail but have a short attention span. What was I saying :P
Thanks for the link Vividness!

I took the test and got Balanced Brained. It said depending on the given situation can draw on left or right side for strengths.