Impossible Music Made Possible in Dreams?

[LiveInTheDream]

Hey guys! Last night I had a dream that really fascinates me. I've dreamed about music before, but only once has it happened that I've heard impossible music, and even then I wasn't aware that it was impossible until after I woke up, so it wasn't as good. Here's the dream as I wrote it in my DJ: I found myself sitting on the floor with a bunch of candies. Ferrero Rocher, from the look of them. I picked one up and placed it in a spot in that plastic tray fancy chocolates always come in. A small note played. So I put another one in, one slot higher than the previous one. A slightly higher note played. Then I took those two out of the tray and put two different candies in. Each one of them changed the octave, but played the same note as the ones before. After experimenting with this for a while, I figured out which candies would produce notes in which octave, and which positions in the tray caused which individual notes. Next thing I know, the tray that I was working with contained several more spaces. If I filled up the available spaces and still needed more, more would simply be there. So I got to composing a song in this manner. Once I got the main melody down, I started to add in harmonies. This is where things got interesting. As I put more candies into the slots to add harmonies, I began to realize how many different notes were playing all at once and still sounding great. "How is that even possible?" I asked, amazed. So I added in some more. Still the music didn't sound bad, and in fact, it sounded even better than before! "This many notes can't good together..." It seems to me that simple science can explain the basic idea of what's going on here, but it doesn't answer the full question of "how". You see, sounds are generated by vibrations in the air, and we pick those up with our ears. In dreams, obviously, there's no air, we don't hear by our ears, and vibrations are impossible, considering none of it exists. But how the brain can generate something during a dream that it can't grasp during waking life is beyond me. I've wondered about new colors, too...we don't perceive colors by light reflection in dreams, so we could see new colors, too. And who knows what else? Feeling every object around us at once because we don't have to make physical contact with it in order to do so, seeing in 360 degree vision (I know that one's been discussed, at least)... Has anyone else had something like this happen?

[J.D.]

Nice thread. It seems to me that simple science can explain the basic idea of what's going on here, but it doesn't answer the full question of "how". You see, sounds are generated by vibrations in the air, and we pick those up with our ears. In dreams, obviously, there's no air, we don't hear by our ears, and vibrations are impossible, considering none of it exists. But how the brain can generate something during a dream that it can't grasp during waking life is beyond me. I suppose it's all about how you view perception, real/unreal. From what I've been reading lately, I gather that the brain creates our own reality, whether we are awake or dreaming. The brain creates the sounds for us, in our own head. The input from the ears (or other senses, whatever), is just used to tell the brain which sound (or smell etc) to create for us. When I was a kid I used to wonder, "Does everybody else see "blue" the way I see blue?" Maybe their brain renders it differently, but ultimately it doesn't matter, because everybody can identify the same colours and colour combinations. (Except those with colour-blindness of course) Therefore, when we dream, the brain still goes about its business of creating a reality, free of the constraints of sensory input, and its limits. The apparatus in the human ear is only able to pick up a certain range of note pitches, and there are a finite number of light wavelengths which can be seen by the human eye. My best guess is that the brain can (and regularly does, in dreams) go beyond what is physically possible using our waking senses, and create music, sights, and methods of perception that are not only impossible in waking life, but incomprehensible to us when we wake. I've wondered about new colors, too...we don't perceive colors by light reflection in dreams, so we could see new colors, too. And who knows what else? Feeling every object around us at once because we don't have to make physical contact with it in order to do so, seeing in 360 degree vision (I know that one's been discussed, at least)... Has anyone else had something like this happen? I do think things like feeling every object around and 360 degree vision are possible in dreams, but it would involve completely letting go of how you expect to perceive reality. Me? I like to remain very aware of my body in the dream, it keeps me grounded and everything more vivid- but I'm sure with practice, one could learn to break out of the habit of using their limited physical body to "sense" stimuli in dreams, because it is not in fact necessary. What do you think?

[ruba]

It's a really complicated thing with the colors thing, but honestly I don't expect that to be true. Well maybe in a certain way, that our mind makes us think it's a new color, but it actually isn't . Your mind just gave you the idea the music sounded great, while so many notes were playing. And it's a pretty common thing. I've had all kinds of false thoughts during dreams, ranging from "I've been here before" to "If that man would really have crossed that enormous gap, he would have jumped, and not have used an airplane" Dreams can be very random and strange, but new colors? No. edit: I didn't notice JD had posted that since apparently I was still typing at 7:20

[LiveInTheDream]

I suppose it's all about how you view perception, real/unreal. Perceiving perception; that's an interesting concept But I think you're right about that. One's sense of reality is definitely a major player in his dreams. And it's like Morpheus told Neo: "If reality to you is simply what you can feel, what you can taste, then real is nothing more than electrical signals interpreted by your brain." I would expect that having a sense of reality far deeper than this in waking life would make it easier in a dream to stretch your idea of reality as far as sensations are concerned...interesting thought!

[lucidreamsavy]

I suppose that feeling things all at once and 360 vision is PROBABLE- but few would be able to get this, HEL-LO it would be difficult to let go of reality. Yes, pointing out the obvious here . They would just both be like thinking about a sensation or seeing something all at the same time. I'm sure, that anyone would have a REALLY REALLY concentrate in dreams to feel this. One major problem, at least with the feeling: I don't know about everyone else, but I rarely feel things in dreams. You have to only think about the feeling, often times. Even then, it feels weird. Trying to feel lots of things at once...would be EXTREMELY difficult. I do think that a pro could possibly be able to do these things. And, I'm skeptical about the color thing...I think that, at the very least, it's next to impossible for your mind to come up with a fresh new color.

[J.D.]

If anything, my sense of touch is enhanced in dreams. You might be right about the colour thing, but it's along the same lines as the 360 degree vision. ie, it's outside the bounds of normal sensory perception. It would be pretty incomprehensible to you when you woke up, because there's just no way you could remember it exactly- because you'd only have your own waking senses as reference. There was somebody (I can't remember who, maybe they'll post! ) who talked about either being in control of two bodies at once, or seeing out of two sets of eyes at once- I can't remember again lol. They said they couldn't comprehend it very well when they woke up, but they knew that was what they had experienced. And yeah, it would definitely take someone with uber dream-skills to pull something like that off. Maybe a few years down the line I'll try!

[LiveInTheDream]

There was somebody (I can't remember who, maybe they'll post! ) who talked about either being in control of two bodies at once, or seeing out of two sets of eyes at once- I can't remember again lol. They said they couldn't comprehend it very well when they woke up, but they knew that was what they had experienced. Well I don't know if you're talking about me, but I was one of them. I had a dream where I suddenly turned into two people with diametrically opposed goals. One of me was a spy trying to flee the country, and the other of me was a soldier trying to catch the spy. I had both of these me's sets of emotions, field of vision, and thought processes all at once. And truly, both of them were me, even though they had opposite goals. It was only because of the fictional background of each me that I responded differently. But interestingly, the closer the two me's were in the dream, the more in-tune my thoughts got, to the point where when the soldier me caught the spy me, I let myself go because I understood both sides of the story, and apparently the spy me had better reasons for doing what he was doing. All this was non-lucid, by the way.

[J.D.]

It might have been you! Although I had it in my head it was somebody with those green stars... of course the green I remember might be the green from you avatar/sig. That dream must have been bizzare anyway!