Thread: The realism of lucid dreams

Originally Posted by Tommo32

Its always fascinated me how the brain produces these amazing photo-realistic images during lucid dreams. How does it do it? Are they really as lifelike as they seem or is the unconscious brain tricked into thinking it looks that real?

The brain is producing images all the time, be it in the awake state or the dream state. Everything you experience via your senses right now, is being generated by your brain.

One of the theories for reality checks (as a conscious habit) carrying over into dreams, is that a habit is established during the waking state, and becomes sufficiently emdedded into the consciousness. Then when you're in a dream, that ingrained habit minefests itself.

Now consider you're awake for 10 - 15 hours each day, during which time your mind takes sensory input, and with that data, paints a picture for your conscious self. This action is such an ingrained habit, that when the sensory input of the waking realm is switched off, the brain tries to maintain that habit of reality generation and thus the dream arises.

You could speculate that the tendency of the brain to tap into a reality generating data stream (that which provides our sensory input) is also a habit. So that when we switch off the sensory input of this particular realm (go to sleep), the brain taps into another reality generating data stream.

Originally Posted by Tranquil Toad

I don't think your brain produces a subjective dream environment as opposed to viewing and objective waking environment. They are both experiences which are real as long as they last. We assume dreams are less real only because our society has labeled them as such.

Strange, isn't it - that just because an experience is generated by a different mechanism, it is deemed inferior, or less real. It would seem that any realm of experience with which a being interacts, and in which the lego of that beings nature is changed - is a valid and precious place.