Dreams - the act of dreaming

Metaphysics & Epistemology
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Dreams and the act of dreaming are intriguing aspects of our minds to me. However, I see that it is quite complex to approach this topic correctly. With the aim of not being purely scientific, I wanted to handle it in a philosophical way, if it is possible at all. Furthermore, I am aware that some consider dreams and nightmares unimportant, viewing them as meaningless. I respect this position, but I see dreams as reliable, and my perspective led me to think of the following points and questions:

Who am I while I am dreaming?

This is key to understanding dreams. Occasionally, I thought there were two (different or the same) versions of myself: the one awake and the one dreaming. I could be fairly mistaken, but my point is that they both have in common that I’m aware of myself in the two states of mind. While I’m aware that I’m conscious of writing this thread, I also feel that I’m aware of being conscious while dreaming.

It would be interesting to approach if dreams were also another version of a mind-created reality/world whose elements are allocated in our consciousness and, for different reasons, they hatch in REM sleep.

Are dreams based on experience?

It may be worth discussing if it is metaphysically impossible to dream of places, persons, colors, odors, etc., which we hadn’t experienced before.

For example, I have never been in Australia. A priori, it would be metaphysically impossible to dream of being in Australia because I haven’t been there. However, I interacted with users who are from Australia before.

Imagine I dream of Banno that we are in a park drinking tea. I can’t recognize the park but since Banno is with me, I could conclude that perhaps I’m in Australia; or the other way, he is the one who is here with me in Madrid, because since I haven’t been in Australia, it should not be possible to have this country as an experienced place in my dreams. Banno might be a sign of Australia abstractly, but not the land itself.

Or perhaps I should ask myself why I relate Australia to Banno when I dream of him.

What are your thoughts and ideas about this topic?

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Never been a Jungian. I’ve always thought of dreams as a kind of bowel movement of the brain. :wink:

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I was interested in dream interpretation when I was young. Although I had to give it up after a while because the number of dreams increased and the frustration and angst caused by the enterprise was exhausting (I was a teenager at the time).

In hindsight, I can see how my dreams were a representation of my emotional and mental states of the time. Plus some more long established themes from my childhood, which had become recurring narratives in my dreams.

Now as a much older person, I see the subject and narrative of the dreams I have as an acting out emotional and stress related issues of the moment. I recognise the themes and understand what they represent for me.

What is more interesting I think is lucid dreaming and premonitions in dreams. Two things that do happen and yet are unexplained by science.

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I find in my dreams that people and places do not stay very consistent. Perhaps due to a difficulty remembering, or maintaining person and place, they tend to change pretty easily and often. I also find it funny how the weirdest stuff can be happening, but dream me is generally like “yup, this seems normal”. I don’t tend to think anything is off in dreams.

Overall I usually enjoy dreams, they deliver a good experience far more often than not.

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It is very interesting the way you described it: a bowel movement of the brain. I can’t disagree with this, but I personally believe that dreams hold intriguing aspects of our consciousness.

This also happens to me.

Dreams of childhood memories are very frequent. For example, I usually dream of an old flat I lived in a different neighborhood. The dream is very lucid—I can feel almost everything. However, for reasons that I can’t understand, I can open the door of my house. I’m just in the elevator or coming up the stairs. I believe this is trying to say something to me, but remains cryptic and unexplainable.

I wish I could understand the themes. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. I guess it takes time to understand dreams.

If you feel that places and people of your dreams do not stay very consistent, this might mean that you are able to reason while dreaming. This is very important, in my humble opinion, and it is a good example that the versions of ourselves in our dreams are another proof of our existence.

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Well here’s my completely unscientific philosophical take. Our brains aren’t really like hard drives when it comes to information, but they have a lot of it.

In your brain there is earth, and there is every person you know and there is at least a concept for every place you’ve heard of. Countries, the moon, the sun. There is a whole universe in there filled like sketches on a canvas.

When you’re dreaming you are freely moving within this universe and feeling things. The thing that really interests me is are the feelings we feel while dreaming “less real” than awake ones? If we chase some intense happiness in awake life and yet ew get it dreaming is it suddenly worth less because you didn’t earn it?

I believe dreaming is born from simple feelings and then brain creates a story around it with what it has. But at best, that’s a guess.

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It’s a brain power check.

Dreams are meant to guide or inform, and they refresh. Dreams attempt to force a future state of resolution.

It uses signs that are personal, rather than a common interpretation for specific content.

Such as if a ‘tree’ is shown, then it means something collective; that’s not what it is: it’s more the person looks like an ‘R’ or ‘you know this street’.

It knows your daily action is accompanied by the dream effect, and it acts as a hardboint- and if you manage to read a bit, it pulls you deeper.

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No, I don’t consider the experience of a dream less real than what I experience while I am awake. Furthermore, there are dreams that are memories of my childhood and my old house. These are real because I was a kid and lived in that house in the past. What makes me wonder in all of this is what the meaning of the past version of myself is. I want to think that my mind is trying to say something to me, but everything is a bit blurry. Perhaps different versions of myself exist within my mind.

This is very interesting. In what sense dreams guide us?

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It’s like sign language, or a play pit. If you think, it knows you deeply, and that it’s trying to communicate, you may be able to decipher it.

Not to mention you’re groomed by it’s refreshment.

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But are those memories of what was exactly or dreams created in the now about your old house?

I would agree that different versions of you exist but rather I’d say there is no one solid version of you. Not one known grounded identity, let alone many more.

When you play a game, you are a player, when you work you are a worker. Actions and circumstance give you the identity. So in your childhood home in your dream you are your childhood self.

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They are memories of what was exactly.

My dreams didn’t create anything out of the place. For this reason, I believe is why I feel comfortable in those dreams. It is just a memory of myself in the living room of my old house.

Despite some dreams may be odd or inconsistent, there are others which seem very plausible. It is in the latter where I realize that I am also existing.

Yes. So, in our consciousness, there is a place where different versions of ourselves can coexist together.

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Brain fodder; art of scene, for interpretation.

Advice: don’t play with your food.

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Great OP, on a topic that fascinates me. I have way too much to say about dreams, so let me home in on the main question I think you’re asking.

Am I aware of myself while dreaming? If so, is this self-awareness essentially the same sort as what I experience while awake?

You’ve set it out as a 3-stage structure: There’s “writing this thread,” there’s “conscious of writing this thread,” and there’s “aware that I’m conscious of writing this thread.” I’ll take that as your paradigm for conscious self-awareness. So, is that how I also experience self-awareness in dreams?

I think not. My dreams resemble waking life in that I simply undergo them, or act within them, without stopping to think, “Hey, I’m conscious.” That “undergoing” would equate to your 2nd stage: I simply am conscious of whatever is taking place in the dream. But I don’t move to the 3rd stage; the “Hey, I’m conscious” doesn’t occur, except in rare circumstances, and we can see why. For dream “consciousness”, if we can call it that, occurs when we are in fact unconscious – asleep. To have the experience of “Hey, I’m conscious” in a dream would result in one of two things: Either I’d be adopting an illusion, a mistake (since I’m not in fact conscious), or I would be dreaming lucidly, aware that I am dreaming.

We can debate what ought to be considered “conscious” here (maybe I am conscious in dreams), but that doesn’t so much matter. The point is that the experience must be different. Even if we agree to call dream awareness “consciousness,” it’s still not at all the same as waking consciousness, at least according to me, partially because it leaves out the fact of dreaming. To go further into that would be tiresome, so I’ll stop there and see what you think.

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Or our unconsciousness? I refer, of course, to the (far larger?) portion of the human mind, that we habitually label ‘unconscious’. Don’t dreams have something to do with it?

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I guess the difference is repetition, and consistency, in awareness.

You are already aware of what your awake self means, but a dream is a scene or multiple scenes that you’re not already aware of.

An anomaly of context, finding a place you’re unaware of.

You do understand the parts/props in your dream, however new things can be experienced.

Perhaps dreams are as so, parasitical creation, creating something you are unaware of, constructed out of things that you are.

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Could you say more about this? I’m not getting it yet.

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You have repeatedly woke up in this state, it is not new to you.

Your dreams aren’t permanent like this state.

You recognize that a dream is temporary, and easier.

You are simply a light source in your dreams, experiencing an often serene scene.

The affair you’re in when you wake up into this returning state, is a gravitational, and biotic affair- there is no easy escape.

My point was that you’re unaware of a dream, until you have it, whereas you are aware of what’s outside your home, when you’re awake.

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On the act of dreaming……
……conscious thought is the synthesis of imaginings in accordance with empirical rules, the only object of which is possible experience;
…….dream is the synthesis of possible experiences in accordance with a priori rules, the only object of which is merely an imagining.

Conscious thought is the operation of the intellect with both phenomenal and logical inputs; dreams are the operation of the intellect with the logical input alone, the phenomenal tasked from consciousness rather than intuition. Hence the different natures of imagining, re: productive/reproductive and different sources of, re: understanding/reason, and scope of, re: immanent/transcendent, determining rules.

Keeping in mind, that the transition from conscious thought to dreaming is a change of state of the subject’s intellect alone and is always passive, whereas transitioning from dream to conscious thought is a possible change of state of the entire subject, and in such case can be the very antithesis of passive.

Thoughts and ideas.

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First of all, thanks for your detailed contribution to this thread. I appreciate it. :slightly_smiling_face:

It is a complex topic to approach, indeed. I like how you explain the three possible stages of consciousness – yes, I was referring to them in the main OP.

I’m aware that in dreams we are not deeply concerned about ourselves to say, “Hey, I am conscious that I am dreaming.” Furthermore, this conclusion usually manifests when we wake up. We say, “This dream looked very real and consistent.” For this reason, I wanted to understand why some dreams appear to be more consistent (or plausible) than others.

For example, imagine you dream of yourself replying to this OP. It might be interesting to discuss if in that dream you are also “conscious” that you are replying to me. If so, we could conclude that we have a bit of self-awareness even in dreams.

Apart from that, there are also sometimes dreams of our childhood or past experiences. I understand that these are “stored” in our minds, and for different reasons, they hatch while dreaming. However, when I envision myself in a past version of myself, I experience feelings of comfort, warmth, and melancholy, among others. I take some time to conclude that I am conscious or have a similar thought. At least, we could say there are some “sparkles” of it. Don’t you think?

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Perhaps.

Interesting approach, mate.

But I experience things and feelings while dreaming… not always, but sometimes.

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