Stereo Vision in Dreams

Hi everyone, here's a kind of random question that I thought could have interesting ramifications.

I would find it out for myself, but I haven't yet had a solid lucid since I've been trying.

The question is, when you close one eye in a dream, do you see a different perspective than from your other eye? (This is the real life effect of closing one eye and pointing at something in the distance, then switching eyes and seeing your finger "jump").

The reason I think this could be an interesting question, is it could throw some light on how your brain constructs its model of the world around you. If you do see a different view from each eye, then that could mean that when you dream your brain is actually kind of reversing the process of normal seeing. It would be building a model of the world, and then "rendering" a view of it for each eye, and showing it to your visual cortex.

If you don't see a different view then I guess that means that your experience of stereo vision in dreams is a result of actually knowing how far away things are, since it's constructed by your mind. This might mean that the processing of 3D gets done at an earlier step in the process of seeing, before your conscious experience of seeing happens.

I'm totally talking out of my ass, but I'd be curious to hear other people's thought's and experiences regarding this, particularly if you have some knowledge of neuroscience, of which I have effectively none haha.

Btw, this is my first post on these forums, hopefully I'm putting it in the right place, thanks in advance for your thoughts! Lucid dreams seem like such potentially informative laboratories to study the inner workings of the mind free from external sensory stimulus, sort of how the space station is a great place to study things in zero g. I'm looking forward to a true lucid myself.

I think this could happen either way based on expectations and vividness of the dream. Still, I may give it a try if I think of it.

Yeah that makes sense that expectation would play a role, thanks for the response!

After reading about it... you should have asked for participation prior to writting what you thought could happen.

I close my dream eyes often, so I can kind of answer from memory.

When not pointing, there is no change.
When looking at my hands they will blur and be at different locations, but don't see "phantom" images like normally seen.
The other is when putting my hand on the ground and closing one eye (This is a technique for TD I used to try), but since I wasn't paying attention to the perspective... well, basically I would put my left hand on the ground and then close my left eye, which would make part of my vision dissapear and come back as I opened back my left eye; never tried exchanging it however. I have also that problem when fighting, losing some vision or my hand changing locations while closing an eye and attacking. Don't know if that helps at all, but yeah I would delete the description if you want participation to not factor in expectations.

I've tried this a few times in LD's, with mixed results:

I found that closing one eye has the exact same effect as in waking life, and I found it has no effect at all, plus I also found it changes the dream scene altogether (the coolest result, BTW).

Because I really wasn't closing an eye in the dream, and because I knew that, whatever changes occurred or did not occur were based solely on what I wanted changed, and not on any particular physiological function. Because there are no eyes present in a dream, and dream perception has nothing to do with actual eyes, any change that might occur happened from the input of my imagination, period. Essentially, because my dreaming Self possesses no physical body and is not subject to its rules and limitations, I can make this experiment work out any way I want it to, or expect it to. So can you.

Should I not have posted this?

As always, well said, Sageous. :clap:

And to add to what Sageous said: There are very few fixed processes in dreams, and this isn't one of the few. The ramifications of this are that the process varies from time to time, from person to person. Much more important and interesting though is the fact that with enough skill you can consciously change and adapt the process which ever way you want. Stuff like 360° vision, or seeing colors the daytime eyes can't perceive, I could even imagine seeing in 4D if you are able to add another whole dimsension (time) into what you're seeing. I'm sure there are more possibilites here as well.

I can attest too seeing in completely different manners than is possible in real life. I'm not sure whether it's some intense trickery and self delusion going on, or the brain is actually capable of experiencing (and creating) an adapted form of vision.

The most iconic ones I've felt are multiple focal points, 360 vision, multiple simultaneous viewpoints and astonishingly vivid colous (much more vivid than I've ever perceived in a stable sober waking state). Does the brain have the actual capabilities to form these experiences, the processing power required to genuinely hold multiple points of attention. Perhaps it could be possible in real life too if we had more eyes.
Or maybe we can just simulate the feeling of dissociation, and enhanced vision so much that mixed with the strong belief in our brains and the context of the lucid dream that we are truly deluding ourselves?

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Originally Posted by dutchraptor

I can attest too seeing in completely different manners than is possible in real life. I'm not sure whether it's some intense trickery and self delusion going on, or the brain is actually capable of experiencing (and creating) an adapted form of vision.

The most iconic ones I've felt are multiple focal points, 360 vision, multiple simultaneous viewpoints and astonishingly vivid colous (much more vivid than I've ever perceived in a stable sober waking state). Does the brain have the actual capabilities to form these experiences, the processing power required to genuinely hold multiple points of attention. Perhaps it could be possible in real life too if we had more eyes.
Or maybe we can just simulate the feeling of dissociation, and enhanced vision so much that mixed with the strong belief in our brains and the context of the lucid dream that we are truly deluding ourselves?

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I think this would be easier to test if you WILD, so you can go from one state to another and right back, so that there's no gap in between. That way you can more easily compare those states. You could also try to take apart the flux of information you got during dreams and compare it to real life.
Use of excessive visulization techniques, like layering stuff over the actual vision in real life could also help answer this question, as in trying how far we can push it in real life. It's one of the things I want to learn, and will learn. Likely not within this year though, or any time soon for that matter.

I've never really tried to test this before so I wouldn't know.

Potentially the best way to check the validity of this is to try hold and focus on two veiwpoints as accurately as possible. Obviously the aim would be to concretely focus on two different events without focusing on one more than the other. Even then a grey area remains depending on the level of delusion.

The only trouble is getting a great vivid lucid, remembering the task and then executing it flawlessly. It's easier said than done.

Hi - thought I'd throw in my 2 cents for whats its worth - its an interesting question! (Sorry if this is a bit garbled in advance, hitting the wine alittle early tonight!). Firstly (slightly tongue-in-check) you'd have to ensure all your observers had developed binocular vision - the cells in the brain which deal with binocular vision will only develop normally in someone who has had binocular vision (generally required from a young age) - so any 'one-eyed' lucid dreamers accounts - would be null and void I'm afraid. From your avatars I can see - NO eyes in 123 and StaySharp (slightly ironic in this context given your name!), and 2 eyes (though this does not guarantee normal stereopsis) in Sageous and Xanous, and squinty animal eyes (geese? - eyes wide set= limited stereopsis - more interested in peripheral vision to avoid predators) in Hukif! And dutchraptor - a vegetable with eyes - very untrustworthy! Just jokin :)
Anyways seriously - back to your question about the 'jump' you were interested in switching from r to l eye. Some research has been done on eye movements - I've got some old papers - sorry can't remember the journals but here goes - 'data...indicate that there is a very direct and reliable relationship between gaze shifts reported in lucid dreams and the direction of polygraphically recorded eye movements...La Berge (1986) has carried out related experiments in which two subjects tracked the tip of their fingers moving slowly left to right during four conditions 1 awake eyes open 2 awake, eyes closed mental imagery 3 lucid dreaming and 4 imagination ('dream eyes closed) during lucid dreaming. The subjects showed saccidic eye movements in the two imagination conditions (2+4) and smooth tracking eye movements during dreaming or actual tracking (condition 1 and 3). (LaBerge Psychophysiology of Lucid Dreaming). (my bold)
And second ref - Alan Worsley did a similar experiment 'worsley planned to to dream of moving his finger smoothly from side to side and following it with his eyes to determine if he produce slow scanning movements of his physical eyes. These eye movements are controlled by the frontal lobe eye movement centre and are very difficult to produce in the absense of real stimulus...Worsley did tracking movements wth his eyes....This indicates that volitional high precision eye movements are possible during REM sleep' (Morton Schatzman et al - Correspondence Between Dreamed and Actual Events).

I know this isn't exactly answering your question - but maybe it gets us close? Or at least gives some interesting info - that the eyes are almost uniquely tied to the (lucid) dreaming experience. The evidence suggesting that in the lucid dream (much as Sageous said) if you treat the dream conditions in real world terms your visual system will probably (from experience) behave in a real world fashion as it is hardwired to do - so the jump probably would be expected but if you attempted to 'imagine it' even within a lucid dream it probably wouldn't. La Berges work was particularly interesting (isn't it always!) - the subjects could perform the saccadic eye movements in the lucid dream as in normal life with their dream eyes open - but could not perform either in real life or in the dream with the dream eyes closed imagining it. It would seem then that the visual system (at least for this eye movement) treated the lucid dream as real.

anyways - hope this is of interest! :)