Thread: To Exist - My take on the dream world.

The dream characters are part of WHO U ARE. They r essentialy part of ur personality, I still suggest going to a magic mirror to find out who u r!!!

Originally Posted by Dream Sailor

I've since thought about what is actually occurring in a dream, and come up with this odd but interesting assumption. The brain as we know it is basically a powerful computer, able to process and render 3D worlds of better resolution than any current physical device we can use.

This is a very very simplified view of the human brain. The way the brain works doesn't really have much in common with a computer and also the analogies of a "3D world" and a "resolution" don't work for a brain. Neither is there any resolution nor is their frames per second or a type of virtual XYZ grid that is used to render reality either when asleep or awake.

So in the dream world, it can then be noted that everything falls into the same realm, in that a computer (the brain) is simply creating the realm itself. Now think about this very hard. At this point (while in a dream), "you" are sharing the same processor as every other event in the dream. The girl you are talking to, the professor next door, the sales clerk, and you yourself, are all sharing the same brain. They think and respond, just like you do.

This is an assumption you are making that cannot really be said to be true. Lucid dreaming pioneer Paul Tholey actually wrote a paper on the question "Are dream characters self-conscious?" and experimented on this question in lucid dreams. To be honest, I forgot the exact results, but from a purely philosophical standpoint, based on phenomenological experiences in lucid dreams, you obviously can't be sure about the nature of your dream characters. For all we know they are unconscious representations and not actual persons like the persons we encounter in real life.

Paul Tholey's theory was somewhere along the lines of dream characters occupying certain areas of the brain and gaining consciousness in the same way the dreamer does. This would serve for very in-depth dream experiences since all the characters would be even more real. It's not that probable though and for all I know even the question of the Ego-consciousness isn't really answered, so it's not likely for dream characters to have consciousness as well.

Dream characters are more like objects that have a lot of input-output going on. You can probably turn a chair into a person if you're skilled. Every object in the dream world both accepts and sends messages, on varying degrees. A dream character is a very complex dream chair.

At this divided state of being, you may find it even more ironic that you are asking them what it feels like to be a dream character, for you are just a dream character yourself.

No. You are more than just a dream character, you are the dreamer himself. That's a major difference. You are the brain's conscious Ego-representation, the same way as when you are awake. All the dream characters are just representations of aspects of your psyche that you may not be wholy conscious of. They are part of your dream. The fact that they act as if they don't know it's a dream can have several explanations. For one it can be an unconscious resistance against consciousness invading the realm of the unconscious, the dream. That's actually a mechanism of protection. To keep the dreamer from going conscious they keep up the facade of being real. Also, as I said above, dream characters aren't conscious in the way that you are. Their sense of reality is very limited. They don't see the big picture of what they're in because for them the concept of dreaming or waking makes absolutely no sense. Their whole point of existing is interacting with the dream environment, in a way that relates to the dreaming Ego. They're not conscious of what they're doing, they're just projections of unconscious psychological aspects.

Remember at this point, the physical state is disassociated from or on a different plane of reality. In essence, you exist equally as much as they do at this point, except when you leave this realm and enter the physical characteristic of your body again when you wake up. But even then, the only change is that you visually leave this realm.

I think you are making the assumption that there is some sort of major difference between the experience of lucid dreaming and being awake. The difference isn't really all that big. All the brain areas relating to that which you call "I" are more or less active. You can think, you have an identity. Everything you do, say and perceive you do, say and perceive in the same way and in the same brain areas as you do when you are awake. The only real difference is that in the one case the source of information is internal, in the other it's external. Though even when you are awake a lot of what makes that which you see seem real to you is the result of countless internal filtering and optimizing processes that are used to make the reality as it is perceived by the organs navigatable. So you could say that "your" realm is actually the same. And I didn't really get the rest. Do you mean that dream characters continue existing in a way when you wake up? This can be said to be true but only in so much as there is a memory of them that can be reloaded in a future dream. They're not existing in the same way that you are, conscious. However, they can represent a connected set of complexes but that doesn't make a complete person.

Theoretically these dream characters could co-exist inside of you without you even knowing as altered imaginations - like pipelines on a computer chip. They are requiring brain use as do you. When my dream characters tell me they are not in a dream, I start to think...maybe they are telling the truth. If they have no physical state to attach to, in a sense, the dream is their reality, and they do exist.

I think it's more of a psychological question. You imply that these dream characters actually have any idea what they're talking about. For all we know, when we take dream characters as representations of the realm of the unconscious, then they will act in a way that is appropriate to the specific complex that is being represented. There are more than enough examples of dreams in which dream characters actually very explicitly hint to the dreamer that he is in a dream and encourage him to go lucid. I think that should be kept in mind.

On the whole, the resistance you get from dream characters in dreams is analog to the unconscious resistance you might get in any other type of scenario. It's just unconscious forces trying to prevent you from making an unpleasant realization. If you try to do something extremely scary in a dream, walk down instead of up, to the dark instead of the light, to the areas you don't feel so pleasant about, then you might very well get a lot of unconscious resistance because these areas contain hidden parts of your personality. The closer you get the more intense your fear will get. This fear is one of the major mechanisms that unconscious forces can use to keep you from doing specific things.

I don't really get you (a bit tipsy I am).

However: Dream characters are indeed You. Or a direct result of You. The dream world is completely 'in your head', and in no way created trough material reality.

However, the 'real' world, the waking viewpoint, is also completely 'in your head'. However, it is created mainly from sensing the material world, and some derivatives of that (imagination and optical illusions will add some of your brain to to image).

Basically.

I don't know.

The material world exists, as much as it can, actually. (unless we are in the matrix. unlikely)

If you try to do something extremely scary in a dream, walk down instead of up, to the dark instead of the light, to the areas you don't feel so pleasant about, then you might very well get a lot of unconscious resistance because these areas contain hidden parts of your personality. The closer you get the more intense your fear will get. This fear is one of the major mechanisms that unconscious forces can use to keep you from doing specific things.

Wait i dont understand what do you mean by "hidden parts of your personality"

I'm confused what would you discover there? Why would you'r brain prevent you from there?

please elaborate...

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Wait i dont understand what do you mean by "hidden parts of your personality"

Any negative fact about yourself that you once repressed and disowned in order to prevent pain and protect your self-image. C. G. Jung called them "the shadow". The possibilities for what kind of things you repressed are virtually endless.

I'm confused what would you discover there?

It all depends on your personality and your history. What you're likely to find are disowned child memories, painful situations that you didn't accept as painful, feelings that you ignored, generally any situation that you went through in an unconsicous manner. Can be much more though.
Just to name some examples from dreams I read:

- A lucid dreamer is frightened of a certain room in a house he's in. He gets over his fear and enters the room in which he finds his brother having sex with his mother. In this symbolic situation the dreamer realized that he always felt that his mother preferred his brother over him when he was a child and that this made him very jealous. Growing up he ignored these sentiments and as an adult he basically didn't know anymore how he then felt about his brother and his mother.

- A lucid dreamer enters the cellar of his childhood house. As a child he had always been frightened of this cellar and didn't like going anywhere near a certain room down there. As he goes deeper and his fear increases he meets a big person with his face disguised and approaches him: "Who are you?" The person replies: "I am your father and I command you to go back up" But the dreamer goes: "You're dead, you can't tell me anything." and the person shrinks and turns into a mummy. Now as he goes deeper he hears a slow scuffling walking sound and shallow breathing from the room he fears the most. He proceeds to enter the pitch black room and from the corner of the room a creature hisses: "We're coming to get you". The dreamer knows that this is the devil himself. As a child he always thought that the devil was living somewhere down there. But he responds: "If you have the balls to do it, try." The room then lights up and the creature vanishes because he faced his fear.

Why would you'r brain prevent you from there?

Those are the same psychological mechanisms that affect you in your waking life. They are used to protect you from going through pain, fear, anger or any other kind of negative emotion. They are used to protect your self-image from facts that aren't compatible with it even though you have unconscious knowledge of them. They are also used to protect the Ego itself since any such revelation has a direct impact on the Ego and can lead to a profound change. However, the Ego is always supposed to stay more or less the same to find security. So it's also a mechanism against feelings of insecurity.