Dreams: the ultimate game

[jamieadd]

Is it possible that instead of a screen or speakers, you could send signals to you brain, and could you use dreaming as a controller (so you are in a sort of virtual reality where when you move it would tell the console, but you body wouldn't move like in a dream)?

If so could you use the technology to have multi-player dreams?

[miracmert]

Well there is this thing called lucid dream which is pretty fun after you learn the basics. It's your own game engine, it's your own imagination and you can do whatever you want with extremely real feelings. It's way more than any realistic hardware you can imagine (I mean like oculus rift etc.) However it is a little it difficult at he beginning to stay awake as you usually wake up when you realize you are in a dream. I used to tell myself that I could control my dreams with ease right before I sleep and I did that for 21 days and ta-duh! Now whenever I want I can have lucid dream.

But I have to warn you about one thing: After having lucid dreams I started waking up tired like I didn't sleep that much and when I went to doctor he checked my brain with some tests and said there is a problem with my brain that I can't go into deep sleep phase because my REM sleep phases are too long and often. So that is a side effect for you to know

[jamieadd]

I knew about that, and its what gave me the idea. It is interesting.

[swiftgates24]

I'll try to control my dreams...sounds like fun ;)Normally things just happen when they happen, part of me knows I'm dreaming, but the part of me controlling it doesn't, so I can't do anything. I'll see if I can talk to someone and tell them I'm dreaming

Something else when you dream: Can you even see anything? I can only remember talking, and I think I can see what happens, but after it happens, I can't describe it at all like it was wiped from my memory.

Edited August 26, 2013 by swiftgates24

[lajoswinkler]

I wouldn't recommend screwing around often with your brain like that. REM, dreaming and unconsciousness have a purpose. It's like disk cleanup and defrag all at once. miracmert's doctor is right.

If you'd force someone to stay awake, you'd permanently damage his brain and ultimately kill him.

jamieadd, no, of course the technology doesn't exist. Brain is not a digital computer. I'm not sure if I'd like such technology. Our minds are our last resort.

[Randox]

What I am reading now would suggest that rather than strengthen connections, NREM sleep weakens them to return the brain to a base state, and make important stuff stand out. REM sleep would be the point where the brain plays with combinations of experiences both recent and old to look for significant relationships and get an idea of what is important, and what should be discarded during NREM sleep (or something like that). Under that theory, screwing with the REM cycle by controlling it (and preventing the random associations checking) would inhibit the ability of NREM to do it's job, and if your brain can't return to it's base state, it can't feel refreshed.

Most people find it easier to go lucid after waking up (and going right back to sleep), probably because the transition happens quite quickly. Also, REM cycles get longer each time, so you have more dream to play with (ideally, I would only be lucid in the morning when I just keep going back to sleep, and really only have REM cycles, no NREM to lose out on). That would neatly avoid the messing up your brain.

Anywho, I think that something to induce lucid dreams would trump plugging a game into your dreams. The way I see it, a dream makes possible any experience your brain can imagine. While it's not perfect, you aren't going to see what higher dimensional perceptions would be like for example (since it's beyond the brains ability to process), feeding the data would have the same problem, since you are still using the brain as the hardware. Why go with something more complicated that is more restricted, and has a greater chance of messing things up.

[jamieadd]

But if you could send information about your dream to another person, and they did the same, you could have multilayer dreams where you meet someone. This would let us contact people we know from around the world and actually meet them. Not that you would always want to, but you could work in dreams, wake up, and rest all day with family and friends

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Something else when you dream: Can you even see anything? I can only remember talking, and I think I can see what happens, but after it happens, I can't describe it at all like it was wiped from my memory.

90% of your dream gets wiped after the first 10 min of waking up. Keep a notepad next to your bed handy.

Anyway, lucid dreaming happens when the part of your brain that deals with rationality becomes active during your sleep. As said by everyone else, this part of your brain is kept switched off during sleep for a reason. Like sleep-walking, your brain sometimes forgets to switch things off, and things happen. I used to lucid dream when I was 6, and I used it for dream manipulation (what else would I use it for? ). Also, based on experience, lucid dreaming doesn't have to last the entire dream, because I remember on one instance I realized I was in a dream, but I thought that it was too risky turning it into a nightmare, so I tried to avoid thinking about it, and I eventually forgot about that (something easy to do in a dream) and it turned back into a normal dream.

TL;DR: It's your dream, do whatever the heck you want to do with it.

[miracmert]

Randox said:

What I am reading now would suggest that rather than strengthen connections, NREM sleep weakens them to return the brain to a base state, and make important stuff stand out. REM sleep would be the point where the brain plays with combinations of experiences both recent and old to look for significant relationships and get an idea of what is important, and what should be discarded during NREM sleep (or something like that). Under that theory, screwing with the REM cycle by controlling it (and preventing the random associations checking) would inhibit the ability of NREM to do it's job, and if your brain can't return to it's base state, it can't feel refreshed.

Most people find it easier to go lucid after waking up (and going right back to sleep), probably because the transition happens quite quickly. Also, REM cycles get longer each time, so you have more dream to play with (ideally, I would only be lucid in the morning when I just keep going back to sleep, and really only have REM cycles, no NREM to lose out on). That would neatly avoid the messing up your brain.

Anywho, I think that something to induce lucid dreams would trump plugging a game into your dreams. The way I see it, a dream makes possible any experience your brain can imagine. While it's not perfect, you aren't going to see what higher dimensional perceptions would be like for example (since it's beyond the brains ability to process), feeding the data would have the same problem, since you are still using the brain as the hardware. Why go with something more complicated that is more restricted, and has a greater chance of messing things up.

Hey I liked your technique to have lucid dream on the morning, I will give that a try. Maybe that can save me from my narcolepsy -And yes, I got narcolepsy because of lucid dreams-

And about remembering it, I still remember most of my lucid dreams because I think it is related to your consciousness. Like in normal dreams, you don't remember it because you weren't conscious however in lucid dreams you can remember it because you have controlled it.

In my first lucid dream I wanted to talk to my subconscious (it is too easy) to do that just picked anyone from the street and asked what my biggest fear is. While the man was saying that he does not know anything about me, I kept asking my biggest fear and then suddenly realized everytime he says he doesn't know anything there were big bright and loud lightnings in the sky. So that's how I learned it I am also a hypnotist so it's really easy for me to reshape my subconscious in lucid dreams since I can interact without any barrier between.

Also one of my first lucid dreams I was not really good about controlling the whole dream, I was a soldier in Iraq border of Turkey and everything was going good until I got shot out of my will which hurt my stomach like a son of a [snip] and it was bleeding like a river until I woke up So yeah don't try big dreams until you learn it

Edited February 21, 2019 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Helix935]

90% of your dream gets wiped after the first 10 min of waking up. Keep a notepad next to your bed handy

.

whenever i have a lucid dream that i want to remember the real trick into actual remembering without writing it down is that you have to think about the dream after you wake which i had learned after suffering 5 lucid dreams at once in my sleep which went one at a time and i still remember each one even now and it was over 2 years ago

[ROFLCopter64bit]

whenever i have a lucid dream that i want to remember the real trick into actual remembering without writing it down is that you have to think about the dream after you wake which i had learned after suffering 5 lucid dreams at once in my sleep which went one at a time and i still remember each one even now and it was over 2 years ago

What I said assumed you wake up and do morning stuff instead of staying in bed and reflecting on what you dreamed about. Thinking about something more increases the strength of the memory of something.

[jamieadd]

This is all very interesting, so I wonder why more people don't know about it.

[miracmert]

This is all very interesting, so I wonder why more people don't know about it.

Because unfortunately people think this is childish bullsh*t, therefore they don't believe it. They don't know what they're missing though