Thread: Why don't light's work in dreams very well?

I've been thinking about this a lot and it's bugging me. Dreams are about belief, if you believe you can do something, you can do it. By that logic, light switches/ lamps/ etc should all work because we use them all the time. Unless you're someone who's never been around electricity, they should work.



Dreams tend to follow a level of reality too. Example: say you're outside in your front yard and you see some zombies coming.



Say your porch has metal railing like this: http://designcoalition.org/features/.../porchpost.JPG


You could try to pull a piece off and use it, but most locations in dreams are like Resident Evil backgrounds: they're pre rendered and you'd know it was attached pretty tight, so it'd be hard to pull it off. Of course, you could use a dream power to do it, like super strength, but you'd probably still have trouble pulling it off, it might bend but not come off, it might do nothing, you might hurt your hands.


Think about all the times you've EVER turned a light on, or a lamp. It's been ingrained into our minds since we were born, it's a given that it's going to work. Sometimes lights burn out, blow out, there's a power outage but these don't happen that often, even if you live in area where the power's always going out, you'd still have more days of the power being on then off.


So why don't they work in dreams? I saw Waking Life recently (past week) and they mentioned this along with small printed material. I can understand the small print messing up, since there's so much of it there, and hard to keep focused, but not the light.



Light switches/ lamps do this for me: they won't work, they'll work but won't add much light if any, they'll work fine, but then go out for no reason, not even a dream reason like someone cut the lines.



I know there's no definite answer to this, since no one really knows why, but any ideas/ theories are welcome.

Hmmn. I think that a large factor could be that your mind doesn't like it when the light levels change in dreams. I think it is the light that is the problem and not the switch.

Whenever I want to change the lighting I have to use magic.

I think it's because light is like a thing that you need to summon. So if you click a swich it's hard for it to turn right on. You need to "summon" it like persons in dreams. Just look for it and it will appear eventually.

I think it's because light is like a thing that you need to summon. So if you click a swich it's hard for it to turn right on. You need to "summon" it like persons in dreams. Just look for it and it will appear eventually.

I think I see what you mean, how if you flick a switch it is not you doing it.

"Hmmn. I think that a large factor could be that your mind doesn't like it when the light levels change in dreams. I think it is the light that is the problem and not the switch."

"Whenever I want to change the lighting I have to use magic."




Why wouldn't your mind like changing light levels? It changes everything else.








"I think it's because light is like a thing that you need to summon. So if you click a swich it's hard for it to turn right on. You need to "summon" it like persons in dreams. Just look for it and it will appear eventually."




You don't always need to summon people though, just go somewhere, they're usually there, and they're almost always there in non lucid dreams. That and light should be like places in a dream. Wherever you are in a dream, you're somewhere, and it's solid mainly. Lights should be the same way.

Why wouldn't your mind like changing light levels? It changes everything else.

You don't always need to summon people though, just go somewhere, they're usually there, and they're almost always there in non lucid dreams. That and light should be like places in a dream. Wherever you are in a dream, you're somewhere, and it's solid mainly. Lights should be the same way.

Speaking from myself (and others') experiences light levels are a little harder to change than anything else.

Originally Posted by Kanano

I've been thinking about this a lot and it's bugging me. Dreams are about belief, if you believe you can do something, you can do it. By that logic, light switches/ lamps/ etc should all work because we use them all the time. Unless you're someone who's never been around electricity, they should work.



Dreams tend to follow a level of reality too. Example: say you're outside in your front yard and you see some zombies coming.



Say your porch has metal railing like this: http://designcoalition.org/features/.../porchpost.JPG


You could try to pull a piece off and use it, but most locations in dreams are like Resident Evil backgrounds: they're pre rendered and you'd know it was attached pretty tight, so it'd be hard to pull it off. Of course, you could use a dream power to do it, like super strength, but you'd probably still have trouble pulling it off, it might bend but not come off, it might do nothing, you might hurt your hands.


Think about all the times you've EVER turned a light on, or a lamp. It's been ingrained into our minds since we were born, it's a given that it's going to work. Sometimes lights burn out, blow out, there's a power outage but these don't happen that often, even if you live in area where the power's always going out, you'd still have more days of the power being on then off.


So why don't they work in dreams? I saw Waking Life recently (past week) and they mentioned this along with small printed material. I can understand the small print messing up, since there's so much of it there, and hard to keep focused, but not the light.



Light switches/ lamps do this for me: they won't work, they'll work but won't add much light if any, they'll work fine, but then go out for no reason, not even a dream reason like someone cut the lines.



I know there's no definite answer to this, since no one really knows why, but any ideas/ theories are welcome.

Hi, yes I have been thinking about this too. The reason is doubt...the worst thing that can happen...the light fails. It's the default in anyone to fear the ultimate thing that can happen. I'm into lights and lighting and the lights in my dreams rarely fail unless I expect it to.... And also about the brightness of light sources....usually it's not very bright...about half the brightness of an actual light source if U compare it with it's real counterpart....I think the reason for this is that the brain cannot create so bright a light as seen in reality otherwise it would wake itself up..wouldn't it?....

IMJ

Dreams [i]are[/] about beliefs, but they are also about association. Your mind doesn't associate a switch with a light. If your switch scheme is activated, your light scheme isn't activated enough to change the lighting.

Also, changing brightness is difficult (computationally) for you mind so it doesn't want to change it. If you are lucid then you can easily turn on a light because you are forcing your mind to.

Maybe because when we walk by and flick a light switch, we just expect it to come on even though we dont know how. I am probably not making a lot of sense but thats all i know

Strangely lightswitchs always work in my lucid/normal dreams.
But there are one of the few things which are normal in my dreams.
The stories and characters, including myself are completly bizarre.

Lights work in my dreams too! so much for Waking Life!

Originally Posted by Eternalhope

Strangely lightswitchs always work in my lucid/normal dreams.
But there are one of the few things which are normal in my dreams.
The stories and characters, including myself are completly bizarre.

...Does this surprise you?

Most dreams are pretty random.

@Grod They are more than random . Now and then I get pretty cool, real dreams, normally when I want to dream about a certain topic, but most of the time ... they are more like surrealistic paintings than anything else.

For example big heads without bodies who spit fortune cookies at me .

Yea, electricity works fine in my lucid dreams. However, things like computers don't usually work right and almost always have some sort of problem. Like, in one normal dream, when I went to use my computer, it kept crashing.

Originally Posted by Eternalhope

@Grod They are more than random . Now and then I get pretty cool, real dreams, normally when I want to dream about a certain topic, but most of the time ... they are more like surrealistic paintings than anything else.

For example big heads without bodies who spit fortune cookies at me .

It's cool you can control what you want to dream about. I wish I had that kind of pre-control.

But I mean basically all dreams are strange. Last night I had a dream where I was in some sort of epic conflict with Santa Claus.

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