Non-existant memories

[reapsltd666]

You guys ever had a dream (lucid or non) where maybe you recall something or recognize something that you've never seen or doesn't exist? Ex.- Maybe you dream you're watching a movie and you're like "Oh yeah, this is that movie with Tom Hanks and Bernie Mac "The Pea and the Lamborghini."" "This is the part where Ronald Mcdonald and God arm wrestle for control of the Nabisco factory." Then you wake up and get your recall, and your like, "Wtf was I talking about last night, I've never even see anything like that.." Why do alien things seem so familiar in our dreams as if we've experienced them although we may never had?

[Mertruve]

False memories, those are used quite often

[Hazel]

That happened to me last night, actually. I was teaching an LDing class (somehow I was non-lucid) and I was telling my students about a lucid dream I had where I looked into a mirror and saw my reflection as a blue neon skeleton. In actuality, I have never had a dream like that in my life, so I really don't know what I was talking about. It's almost as if we have a completely different set of memories in some dreams; like a whole life that we've never experienced.

[Liberty]

LOL that's hilarious. Yes, I've had dreams like those. Not often though.

[Shift]

No one knows? Can't wait to find out. I hope it happens in my lifetime.

[Tarsier]

i always have dreams where inside the dream i think "i have had this dream before i know exactly what to do" and you remember it all, like dejavu, but when you wake up you know that was the first time you've had that dream i like that, it's weird

[Hukif]

Oh False Memories, used to ruin my non-FA dreams before <.<

[High Hunter]

I had one of those last night, and I am convinced that it was the result of my brain making random associations in order to remember a scene. A dream character, a friend of mine, asked me if I remembered the time when he got chased by a construction worker after messing with his tool box. He described the situation so well to me that we randomly found ourselves in the exact place where it happened. Now, this scenario happened before in real life. However, it happened to a different friend and it was a lunch box, not a tool box. Also, there were a few different things with the area we were in also. So that's when it gets tricky. My friend was reminding me of a memory, yet the way he reminded me was different than the actual memory. The situation happened, but my brain made false associations because of the character (which could be my subconscious, right?). Maybe our sleeping mind remembers memories of past dreams easier than our waking mind for some reason? I don't know if it has to do with certain neural paths being easier to access during sleep or not. It's worth looking up..

[SleepyCookieDough]

In my dreams, my memories from real life banish replaced by my dream memories... Like, I will remember other dreams I had before that i don't remember in real life... I could walk somewhere and it would remind me of a dream I had a LONG while ago (that mean years and I normally don't remember about the dream anymore). Not long ago, I was walking in a bunch of hallways (in a dream) and on a wall there was a painting. I was lucid on a subconscious level and I was looking at everything trying to remember it when i would wake up. So, when i looked at the painting I immediatly remembered where it came from (another dream I had before). i was walking in a stumbling manner I somtimes have in lucid dreams so I kind of went passed the painting but since I had remembered what it was, I came back and looked intensivily at it and it brought me back memories. Then I got attracted away. i don't know if they are False memories or if they are real memories because when i wake up, I keep believing it might have been real memories... Memories that i might have had forgot and remembered again?

[detroitLions1970]

False memories are fun, but an absolute b1tch. If anything gets in the way of me getting lucid, its the fake memories. Although, I've noticed that hasn't been happening as much lately... :]

[SleepyCookieDough]

False memories are fun, but an absolute b1tch. If anything gets in the way of me getting lucid, its the fake memories. Although, I've noticed that hasn't been happening as much lately... :] How are fake memories stopping you from LDing? Is it the fact that fake memories make it feel like its normal to see a monkey bouncing on your teacher's head which you would be talking to at a pool because you falsly remember to have seen it before?

[detroitLions1970]

How are fake memories stopping you from LDing? Is it the fact that fake memories make it feel like its normal to see a monkey bouncing on your teacher's head which you would be talking to at a pool because you falsly remember to have seen it before? Here are a few examples, from real dreams I have had [listed under the name of the dream, linked to my dream journal]: Office Under Siege I considered it "normal" because I got false memories of being a cop, being older than I actually am, and that "there have been problems with guns lately" (I'm referring to the semi-automatic fire on revolvers). Invasive Nature I considered this one totally, absolutely normal because I gained fake memories of a military government taking over Australia, and funding a corporate scientific firm to develop a virus that turns people into zombies. Only reason I didn't go lucid. Pirating Teevo Pirating Teevo is an especially unusual one (because it's more normal, the fake is hard to tell from the truth anyway). I gained memories of playing around with Teevo for months until I managed to find a way to pirate it. Last one... The Hunter In this one I gained at least a years worth of memories. Memories of being accepted into the military, memories of being hired by this private sector of the government, memories of relationships. This one was especially hard to tell from waking life, as unusual as it was. Because of the memories. As you can see, fake memories can seriously play you, making lucidity harder to obtain. It's one thing noticing something strange, then realising its strangeness. Its a completely different thing when you're brain is working overtime to explain it in the most intricate details.

[SleepyCookieDough]

Here are a few examples, from real dreams I have had [listed under the name of the dream, linked to my dream journal]: Office Under Siege I considered it "normal" because I got false memories of being a cop, being older than I actually am, and that "there have been problems with guns lately" (I'm referring to the semi-automatic fire on revolvers). Invasive Nature I considered this one totally, absolutely normal because I gained fake memories of a military government taking over Australia, and funding a corporate scientific firm to develop a virus that turns people into zombies. Only reason I didn't go lucid. Pirating Teevo Pirating Teevo is an especially unusual one (because it's more normal, the fake is hard to tell from the truth anyway). I gained memories of playing around with Teevo for months until I managed to find a way to pirate it. Last one... The Hunter In this one I gained at least a years worth of memories. Memories of being accepted into the military, memories of being hired by this private sector of the government, memories of relationships. This one was especially hard to tell from waking life, as unusual as it was. Because of the memories. As you can see, fake memories can seriously play you, making lucidity harder to obtain. It's one thing noticing something strange, then realising its strangeness. Its a completely different thing when you're brain is working overtime to explain it in the most intricate details. Wow, i get what you mean now... Your false memories seem to be really strong... I never had so much false memory... Good luck with that, man!

[[user-name]]

I hate it because it messes with my logic during the dream. (also, weird stuff ends up happening because of it. Sometimes stuff that I'd rather not remember in the morning.) I doesnt happen when im lucid.

[moonshine]

I often find when I dream that I remember bits of old dreams. So that in the wider context the dream makes more sense.

[Noogah]

Oh yeah! Those are really annoying!

[SleepyCookieDough]

I actually find them really good actually. All we have to do, is become better at lucid dreaming by doing reality checks more often. Then we can use those memories to remember other dreams. I find it useful.

[Xyster]

Lol, I think this is something everyone equally shares, I get them pretty much every night. Some times I'll spend all day thinking that it's a real memory, and toward the end of the day, I'll just go, wait a minute, where the fuck did that come from?

[SleepyCookieDough]

I have some memories I can't chose if there either from a dream or from real life

[juroara]

its one thing to have false memories in a normal dream, where maybe you are roleplaying. like I can falsely remember my arch nemesis and where we used to battle! its another to have false memories in a lucid!! in my lucids, I always falsely remember the day. which weirds me out every time. why do I always remember something entirely different? and like the OP, a lot of times these false memories are with dream movies

[Binsk]

I have many many dreams like that, perhaps that is why I struggle so much with Lucid Dreaming. I have had a dream where I was in my mid-20's and I remembered my entire life before then, even though that entire life I remembered is really non existant. I still remember many "special memorable moments" from that life today... That was probably one of my worst though. (Specially since I still remember it like it was real and it happened around 2 years ago)

[Conkt]

Your brain creates these memories a second before you see them in the dream, and so you think you've seen them before. It's the same thing that causes déjà vu. When you see something, it is saved into the short term memory part of your brain and you think "This is new!" But when you have deja vu/false memories, the new information is saved into the long term memory part of your brain and you think "This has happened before!"

[moonshine]

What I do find strange is recalling events in old dreams which I can't recall when awake!