Thread: why dont light switches work in dreams?

i always wondered why they dont work in dreams.

I don't have an exact answer (or the right answer) on this question, but I believe it is that certain areas of our brain shut off and don't provide us with proper logical thinking in our dreams. This is a fact; the next few sentences are my hypothesis. This is an example of how 1 + 2 = 5 in your dream. You can't do math, read, or other kinds of high-level information processing. I have been able to retain info I read from a book in my dream, and it was a clear read too. I must say that you would maybe have to know how a light switch works in order for your brain to properly construct a model in your dream, anyway. But you could make up some bizarre way; like the toaster must be toasting while the water is running so that the light switch works. This may be different when lucid since your brain wakes up some parts that involve consciousness.

Just a few thought.
~Typhuse

personally i think it is just placebo effect. If you really want it to turn on, it would probably turn on. I never mess with light switches though. i prefer much cooler ways for light. like pulling the sun around the world

u know, i think that since lights and electronics are so taken for granted during Waking Life then maybe thats why they dont work the same in a dream. See in my dreams lights and electronics work perfecly but have some differences.......
i think that the whole light thing depends on the person.

this is not entirely true. there have been times when light switches have worked for me in dreams, as has reading. not all the time though.

^ Yup electronics work for me, but they have some differences for instance sometimes if I flip a light switch the light wont turn on but the room will be brighter other times the light does turn on etc. It's person specific or possibly hit and miss as sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Some people belive that the part of the brain dealing with light in your dreams is usually pretty dormant.

Thought can be very abstract without some form of concentration, focus. So I would say, your just expecting it to work like bits of machinery/technology do in RL, but as you know the dream world is different and sometimes you haven't put any focused effort on it to really do what you want it to do.
If you are putting focused effort into it switching on and it doesn't, you probably don't think it's going to turn on anyway. Or it's simply your mind screwing with you because it knows you have been waiting to see how it responds. But I would try not to make it into a big mind game because it's really your light and it's a working light because you say it is.

Electronics doesn't seem to work but lights do change in my dreams, so I suppose you shouldn't rely on that to make a check.

This has probably been said before. Im just new and browsing around. Waking Life was indeed a great movie, but scientifically it wasnt the most accurate. But we know that the left/right brain idea isnt as cut and dry as we used to believe. still, it inspired many to learn about dreams and the science behind them. To me, the best left/right brain story was A Scanner Darkly, also scientifically innacurate, but much like Waking Life, raised some great philosophical thoughts.

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