Ever Seen New Colours?

[Reality_is_a_Dream]

Anyone ever seen a colour that doesn't exist in a dream, not like a combination of purple and green, a new colour all together.

[mandy2583]

Wow i think that would be pretty much in possible becuase don't we have to see it or at least describe it in a minimal? I always thought thats how dreams work maybe i am wrong.

[EEclips3]

There is no way to see a color that doesn't exist. Maybe see a color that you haven't seen before but you could do that once in every dream since the pixels of life are in the billions of different shades of color.

[TheWrathOfCreation]

yea thats not possible cus every color has to come from the primary colors, maybe a new shade youve never seen or it may look super cool glowing or what not but not a new color. well at least i dot think so...just my 2 cents, cant no for sure tho

[apachama]

I thought I did when I was a kid. It was kind of sickly fractal space beige.

[Reality_is_a_Dream]

I ment like a new primary all together, or maybe a new addition to the black-white scale.

[JET73L]

Or colours that couldn't exist, like Octarine (a sort of purplish-greenish-yellow, and looks black or invisible when humans see it). I occasionally try to envision such colours in my head, which tends to give me a migraine if I manage to imagine it for more than a few seconds (same goes for four- and five-dimensional space). It would be an interesting experiment to try to see nonexistent colours in a lucid.

[Photolysis]

Uh seeing as we evolved to have trichromic vision there will only be a certain set of 'labels' available for the brain to use as colour. I mean, people with red-green colour blindness can't imagine what red would be like, and red/green labels are potentially available to them (just because they can't see it, there's no reason to think that they couldn't if it were possible to give them full colour vision). So tell me how people with normal vision are supposed to imagine a whole new colour? There's not even any reason to think that there is a label in the brain to do so.

[Mr. Pig]

The human eye can only see a small range in the complete color spectrum. I don't know how you would imagine it, but I'm sure the mind's eye can view it.

[JET73L]

Uh seeing as we evolved to have trichromic vision there will only be a certain set of 'labels' available for the brain to use as colour. Wrong. We can only see in three colors, but our (or at least my) subconscious mind can imagine other colours, ones that don't correspond with anything we have seen.

[Ellipsis]

Wrong. We can only see in three colors, but our (or at least my) subconscious mind can imagine other colours, ones that don't correspond with anything we have seen. The mind builds what it sees in dreams and whatnot based on pre-learned schemes. From birth we are prescribed to a certain spectra of color we can view, and our mind builds expectations for what it will see around that. It would seem to me to be really unlikely for the mind to be able to spontaneously create a new color when all our lives are spent seeing the only ones we can physically see. I think when people say they can see other colors, unknown ones, they are merely getting the IDEA of seeing those colors, not actually seeing them. :/ I think this is an issue that is scientifically dubious but, like AP and other things, cannot really be proven one way or another. Testimonials can only be believed so much.

[schematics]

Wrong. We can only see in three colors, but our (or at least my) subconscious mind can imagine other colours, ones that don't correspond with anything we have seen. You just think you are. It's just the sensation (illusion, w/e) of seeing that color, and while the feeling that you are seeing a new color might be profound and interesting, you will never be able to concretely visually imagine it in your head, because we are just not equipped to. And don't say you can, because physically speaking, it's just impossible to see any wavelengths of light that reside outside of our visible spectrum unless you are equipped with receptors that take in different wavelengths, but then you probably would have already been discovered by scientists willing to know more about your "new color seeing phenomenon." Also, I'm tired of people throwing around the subconscious mind like it's some tangible thing that resides in us...it's just a concept to explain many gaps within our understanding of the mind, which itself is a very abstract concept. I don't see why the "subconscious mind" can imagine things that we physically can not perceive, why it would have supernatural abilities....it's still a part of our own brain.

[Mr. Pig]

physically speaking, it's just impossible to see any wavelengths of light that reside outside of our visible spectrum unless you are equipped with receptors that take in different wavelengths The mind's eye doens't see colors in wavelenghts like the human eye does.

[schematics]

The mind's eye doens't see colors in wavelenghts like the human eye does. I have no problem talking about things in terms of abstract concepts such as the "subconscious" or "mind's eye", I feel they are really interesting representations of the unexplained aspects of our own mind, and beautiful in their own right, but you can't just use these abstract concepts to conveniently explain all of these extraordinary claims about seeing "new colors", it's like answering every question by saying, a wizard did it! When you talk about the mind's eye like you are, what you're saying is you get the SENSATION of seeing a new color in your head, but don't actually SEE it. Saying that there is some other eye called the mind's eye which somehow responds to more wavelengths, or somehow magically sees light in a different way, is like substituting religion for science. Nothing wrong with it, but just acknowledge it's pure faith.

[Mr. Pig]

I understand all of that, but it would still be a fun challenge to try and imagine a new color in a lucid dream.

[z1nk666]

Or colours that couldn't exist, like Octarine (a sort of purplish-greenish-yellow, and looks black or invisible when humans see it). I occasionally try to envision such colours in my head, which tends to give me a migraine if I manage to imagine it for more than a few seconds (same goes for four- and five-dimensional space). It would be an interesting experiment to try to see nonexistent colours in a lucid. It's nice to see another discworld fan here =p

[Licity]

It should be possible to see unviewable colors during a dream. The limiting factor on our visual perception are our eyes. They are only equipped to see the part of the spectrum we consider the visual spectrum. Yes, we typically dream in visible colors because they are the only colors we see. If you really try though, there is no reason you can't come up with something that our eyes can't perceive. After all, we don't see things with our eyes in a dream, we just have the images come straight from the brain.

[Mr. Pig]

Exactly what I've been trying to say...but with better wording.

[RunflaCruiser]

I think i see the colors with a new sense. Your not really using your eyes so when you see the colors you actually feel/absorb them in a new way. I really think its a 6th sense. Try it. Look at your hand in a dream for a while. You will realize this.

[LuxAeterna]

I have no problem talking about things in terms of abstract concepts such as the "subconscious" or "mind's eye", I feel they are really interesting representations of the unexplained aspects of our own mind, and beautiful in their own right, but you can't just use these abstract concepts to conveniently explain all of these extraordinary claims about seeing "new colors", it's like answering every question by saying, a wizard did it! When you talk about the mind's eye like you are, what you're saying is you get the SENSATION of seeing a new color in your head, but don't actually SEE it. Saying that there is some other eye called the mind's eye which somehow responds to more wavelengths, or somehow magically sees light in a different way, is like substituting religion for science. Nothing wrong with it, but just acknowledge it's pure faith. The eyes are only physical devices that take in information. It is our brains that actually process and interpret the information and construct a mental image of the world based upon the sensory-input provided by the eyes. In that sense, any image that we see "with our eyes" while awake is really just a picture made by our mind--though, while awake, our mental construct of the world is constrained (for the most part) by the data being collected by our senses. The data collected by our eyes is restricted to the visible wavelengths of light, but the experience of seeing color is created by our minds. Another example: depth perception. Our eyes DO NOT see depth. One eye sees one flat image, and the other eye sees another flat image. It is our brain/mind that puts the two together to create our experience of seeing in three dimensions. I think, therefore, that it is not a huge leap to imagine that it is at least possible for our brains during sleep, when no longer constrained by sensory input of the outside world, to construct an experience of "seeing" a color outside of our normal experience of color. Perhaps it is unlikely, but that the eyes can only physically percieve the colors that they can is really quite irrelevant to the question of whether our minds are powerful enough to create an experience not possible in waking life. Our brains are, after all, able to take the raw data of our senses and create a mental "image" (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory) of the world that is an extremely complex and truly awe-inspiring feat of computation and virtual representation. AND our brains can do all of that without the benefit of the senses--and indeed in spite of them--when we dream. Is it really wise to so adamantly and prematurely rule out the possibility of our astonishingly powerful brains imagining one little "color" that is not red, yellow, blue or one of their many combinations simply because the eyes are physically incapable of providing sensory data for this new "color"?

[Rodiath]

Couldn't be bothered to read all of this, but I'm sure this is possible. People repeatedly report seeing colours they have never seen before while on lsd. Your eyes might be limited to three colours, your mind is not.

[RunflaCruiser]

I've seen my emotions with my eyes while on a form of LSD.

[gigaschatten]

There is no way to see a color that doesn't exist. Maybe see a color that you haven't seen before but you could do that once in every dream since the pixels of life are in the billions of different shades of color. The primary question is: What is color? Color is an indirect representation of electromagnetic radiation that lies within our perception range, commonly and scientifically called "light". That range has a wavelength of roughly 400 to 700 nm. The wavelength of electromagnetic radiation is not limited to that range and there are animals and instruments that can receive more wavelengths than we can. But that is just a description of the stimulus (or rather one possible color stimulus) affecting the photoreceptors in the eye, which various image components are compressed and sent to the brain. That data consists mostly of contrast and movement information. It works completely different than e.g. a digital camera does. Finally an "image" is constructed in the brain, but that image is a very individual interpretation of what the eye originally received. This is where color comes into existance. There are various optical illusions which show that we can even see colors where there are no accordant wavelengths and when we imagine objects, landscapes, etc., we see colors where there is no light at all. "Light" in fact only exists in the darkness of our mind, it is no physical quality. Color itself is a phenomenom that does not exist in the physical world. Surely we can measure the wavelength of light, but that is not color. Colors only exists within ourselves and could be completely individual, because there is no way to tell if one persons colors "look" the same as another persons colors. Color is not a physical quality, it is a mental concept. Frankly I don't know if you can see additional colors in dreams, but considering what color is, I can't eliminate the possibility.