How much real is the lucid world?

[graphicsgriffin]

Hi everyone, just another one of my crazy questions Haven't succeeded in WILD yet. And have been reading that lucid dreams can be more vivid and clear than usual dreams. Just wondering... How realistic are lucid dreams? How much content your brain is able to draw for you? Any details missing? Like in computer graphics, is the brain able to supply the "bandwidth" required for a realistic look? For example, in your lucid dreams, if you look at a building, do you see all the windows detailed like real world? Or you just see an approximation of it? Are the laws of physics 100 percent accurate there? Any replies would be most appreciated. Yours.

[KuRoSaKi]

Hi everyone, just another one of my crazy questions Haven't succeeded in WILD yet. And have been reading that lucid dreams can be more vivid and clear than usual dreams. Just wondering... How realistic are lucid dreams? How much content your brain is able to draw for you? Any details missing? Like in computer graphics, is the brain able to supply the "bandwidth" required for a realistic look? For example, in your lucid dreams, if you look at a building, do you see all the windows detailed like real world? Or you just see an approximation of it? Are the laws of physics 100 percent accurate there? Any replies would be most appreciated. Yours. Well in my dreams they look more clear and real than anything you would see in real life. So from what you have sad it has bandwidth and then some. Most building if you are just passing by I would say have about 60-80% accuracy but if you really look at them it shoots well over 100%.

[skysaw]

I find it's really a large spectrum of possible clarity. I sometimes have "fuzzy" dreams, sometimes more or less like real life, and sometimes a sort of heightened awareness of my surroundings.

[RooJ]

Yep, it changes with each dream usually, in some dreams colours are much more vibrant then real life and scenes breathtakingly realistic, other times they can be fuzzy with really poor colour and clarity. If you dig around you'll find methods of enhancing dream realism and 'picture quality' . I often comment to myself while lucid that the brains graphics card is awesome, its certainly capable of rendering a very realistic scene fit with reflections, shadows and perfect water effects heh. Apparently the reason for this is that the same part of the brain and the same processes used to model the outside world are also used when modelling the inside world of dreams. If you think about it, everything you see while awake is just the brains model of the world in your head... your eyes recieve the light, and its carried as electrical pulses through the brain which is then processed and the scene created. In dreams the data just comes from the inside rather then the outside and your brain creates the image just the same.

[hawkeye]

Just to echo what RooJ said; the images we see when we are awake are processed through the brain before we see them so when we dream our brain brings all the things we see back up so it is possible to see something 100% the same as RL. Also many people seem to exp. increased clarity in some dreams which i guess is the brain sharpening the image for you due to some reason, while others have hazzy dreams which could mean the memory retreval isnt perfect, the other explanation could be how good your recall is of the particular dream. Just another point on realism in dreams from personal exp. i find that you can exp. everything you can in RL. Now this sounds freaky but you get used to it, it does however in my case fluctuate in how realistic the dream is. Something that springs to mind after last nights strange LD is exp. pain in my dreams. I have felt pain a fair bit in dreams, this was really bad at first as i would wake up and have to check my self over for injuries and that sort of thing as i would stress out about it. These days i just take it for granted, pain is something that comes from the brain interacting with its enviroment so if the environment is a LD then i guess it makes sense that i can hurt in it (you havent been pissed off till you feel like you have paper cut yourself in a dream and wake up due to it).

[RooJ]

you havent been pissed off till you feel like you have paper cut yourself in a dream and wake up due to it. Or you feel like you've been stabbed/peirced through the sides, 3 spears in the right side of your ribcage, 3 in the left... damn that hurts.

[skysaw]

Or you feel like you've been stabbed/peirced through the sides, 3 spears in the right side of your ribcage, 3 in the left... damn that hurts. I had a guy cut the inside edge of my hand with a pair of scissors the other night. Yowch!

[trigotron]

Apparently the reason for this is that the same part of the brain and the same processes used to model the outside world are also used when modelling the inside world of dreams. I'm fairly convinced this isn't true. Very different areas of the brain are involved real life versus dreams, even if the sensations in a dream mimic the sensations in real life does NOT mean they are created by the same areas of the brain. Dreams mainly draw from past memories/subconscious thoughts and scrambles um all up then presents them through your sensory lobes of the brain. This is the exact reverse of what happens in real life where your experiences enter through the sensory lobes and eventually settle in the conscious thought/subconscious/memory lobes of the brain. By the way, with the pain thing, i've never actually felt pain in a dream, extreme anxiety or fear... even to the point that they might be considered painful, yes, but never pain itself. For example i would see myself opening the microwave door, putting the paperclip on the safety switch, and putting my hand in then pressing start, it would cause extreme anxiety, but i would only wake up instead of feeling pain while asleep, i honestly don't think i would feel pain in a dream because of the simple subconscious option of just waking up. However, this might be just me though, and i'm not basing anything off of this.

[Adanac]

My dreams are very realistic normally. Sometimes I do get hazy or fuzzy ones, but they are about as realistic as RL. Lucid Dreams however, are at least 50x more realistic than RL. It's like I can focus on everything at once, and all my senses are turned up to the max. As of now, it's the main reason why I LD.

[RooJ]

I'm fairly convinced this isn't true. Very different areas of the brain are involved real life versus dreams, even if the sensations in a dream mimic the sensations in real life does NOT mean they are created by the same areas of the brain. I was simply quoting Stephen laberge, and from what I've read on different sites there seems to be a strong connection between visual and mental imagery and how they're processed.. http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology.../section1.html In addition to evidence from interference, evidence from brain imaging studies (see the Neuropsychology section on methodology for more information on brain imaging techniques) shows that many of the areas of the brain used for vision are activated when people perform a task requiring mental imagery. Final evidence for overlapping systems comes from people who have suffered brain damage. People who lose some visual ability as a result of brain damage also lose the corresponding ability in mental imagery; for example, people who lose the ability to see color also lose the ability to imagine scenes in color. Thus, it seems that people use the same physical areas of the brain for mental imagery and visual perception. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neur...3/Mintzer.html Studies using this technology soon confirmed that areas of the visual cortex are active during mental imagery, suggesting that indeed visual imagery and visual perception may share a common neural basis.

[Onimal]

From my experiences it is just as real and vivid as waking life, but only whilst it is happening. You remember it being like reality, but you cannot re-manifest that feeling again. I've LD'd in a crowded town square before, with lots of people around, and no perceivable "mistakes".

[graphicsgriffin]

I've enjoyed reading all of your opinions, most of them are really informative. But I was also wondering, how much stable are the lucid dreams regarding their content? For example, in my usual dreams, if I looka at a plate, after staring for 3 seconds it either changes shape or color, or just disappears. So here the content is not stable. Will this also happen in your lucid dreams? Is the content of lucid dreams stable? (Regardless of image quality and how much clear the dream is). Do you have that feeling that if you stare at something in your dream, it will just change shape or disappear suddenly? Will scenery remain intact no matter how much time is passing? What do you think? Yours

[hawkeye]

on the paper cut thing, ive have been in extreme pain at other times its more that a slight pain can wake me so easily at times! Stability in a LD shouldnt be that much of a problem if your in full control (from what i have exp) that problem comes from being not 100% in control and your mind wondering onto other things, its at that point that the dream can lose focus quickly and plates start turning into ICBMs and small furry things that sing the song from cheers... I think that if you tell your self that the dream will be stable it will be, if you go into it with the mind set that you dont have absolute control you may find it hard. the emperor prtects

[stranger]

My experience is that my mind creates fine details "on the fly", I mean when I focus my attention in some dream object it gets "rendered" with higher accuracy. And when the dream is stable enough, things don´t change easily. They're too stable for my taste, indeed On the other hand, in most of my LDs colors tend to be too saturated, as if they had too much bright and contrast. It really happens from the moment I realise that I'm dreaming. It resembles me of a playstation game called Ico. Its graphics looked very... dreamish? to me

[Grexxis]

My dreams either shoot for clear detail. Or somewhat demented unfunctioning, well, everything. Sometimes lights won't work at all or behave erraticly. Various random things are missing from my house, like deoderant or toilet bowl cleaner. Other times they can be perfectly detailed. Like last night I dreamt of working on a truck, and everything in the engine that was suppose to be there was. Except GM never put a 6.7 liter engine in a truck. And the tires were all different size though lol. Damn, why I can't I do RC's when I really need em...

[LucidMike14]

Dreams seem like you aren't even dreaming. Thats what makes the lucid experience so much more fun!

[~Erin~]

[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']When you reach the high level of lucidity the dream world is just like as if you were awake. Though, I always personally feel calm, peaceful. Not something I always feel when I'm awake. With it being so realistic that’s what makes lucid dreaming so amazing[/FONT]