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Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

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Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#61
post #43

AING folks have been doing lucid dreaming for years, their Russian forum at forum.aing.ru has 400k messages, so if you're interested in the topic, there's something you can learn from them. They have a number of attempts to make contacts with each other while lucid dreaming. You can check out the English version for their stuff here: https://obe4u.com

I have practiced lucid dreaming for literally years, and imho anyone who says they get super detailed dreams is full of **. Your mind doesn't have enough processing power to render realistic scenes. It's all a blurry mess and you wake up if you exert too much control.

Isn't it possible other people experience their dreams in a different way than you do?

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have practiced lucid dreaming for literally years, and imho anyone who says they get super detailed dreams is full of **. Your mind doesn't have enough processing power to render realistic scenes. It's all a blurry mess and you wake up if you exert too much control.

Isn't it possible other people experience their dreams in a different way than you do?

Sure, it's possible, by in my experience, most people exaggerate everything - especially things that can't be verified.

The other reason I have a hard time believing this is that I know normal people can't visualize anything. Artists, really good artists, are able to visualize a face with some detail. Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex.

To me, that is a strong argument to believe the mind can't generate clear worlds, as people claim.

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#63
post #43

AING folks have been doing lucid dreaming for years, their Russian forum at forum.aing.ru has 400k messages, so if you're interested in the topic, there's something you can learn from them. They have a number of attempts to make contacts with each other while lucid dreaming. You can check out the English version for their stuff here: https://obe4u.com

I have practiced lucid dreaming for literally years, and imho anyone who says they get super detailed dreams is full of **. Your mind doesn't have enough processing power to render realistic scenes. It's all a blurry mess and you wake up if you exert too much control.

That’s not quite true; you have far more neurons going to the retina than you have coming from it. The retina supplies a surprisingly small amount of bits per second to the brain. Neuroscientists believe that at least half of our conscious experience of reality is effectively “hallucinated” by the brain based on internal models it has built from past experiences. So it’s highly plausible that that same perception-generating system which creates your conscious perception of reality could also function while asleep.

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#64
post #23

People who train themselves to reliably induce lucid dreams call themselves oneironauts (Oneiros = Greek god of dreams). I was actively interested in this topic when I was younger and had much time to sleep and practice, but after I got my job and life problems kicked in, suddenly I realized that the only thing I require from a dream is to get a good night sleep so I will have strength to face problems during the day…

But is a lucid dream merely a dream in which the dreamer is aware of being asleep and dreaming, or is it more than that? I thought it also included taking control and doing whatever you want e.g. jumping off a building and flying wherever you want, because the laws of physics are suspended in dreaming. How to activate superuser mode in dreams?

It’s pretty easy. Instead of looking at a watch a few times a day you carry around a controller and a few times a day you hit: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and Start, and then ask yourself if you’re dreaming. Then when you do it while dreaming: bam! Superpowers. :)

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it possible other people experience their dreams in a different way than you do?

Sure, it's possible, by in my experience, most people exaggerate everything - especially things that can't be verified. The other reason I have a hard time believing this is that I know normal people can't visualize anything. Artists, really good artists, are able to visualize a face with some detail. Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex. To me, that is a strong argument to b…

> Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex.

What? I’m doing this right now. I can do it with a white tiger. I can see Barrack Obama in a marching band on Mars.

I have a friend who cannot picture anything in their mind, so it’s probably a spectrum. You might be projecting your experience onto others.

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#66
post #2

Very difficult not to click on this headline.

I always read the comments here before the article. Usually the comments tell me everything I need to know and are more interesting. Most of the time I never end up clicking on the actual article because I've gotten enough info from the comments.

I make a point to never upvote without reading the article first. Only signal boost new information/insights not rehashes.

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#67
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's possible, by in my experience, most people exaggerate everything - especially things that can't be verified. The other reason I have a hard time believing this is that I know normal people can't visualize anything. Artists, really good artists, are able to visualize a face with some detail. Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex. To me, that is a strong argument to b…

> Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex. What? I’m doing this right now. I can do it with a white tiger. I can see Barrack Obama in a marching band on Mars. I have a friend who cannot picture anything in their mind, so it’s probably a spectrum. You might be projecting your experience onto others.

'One of the creators of the Firefox internet browser, Blake Ross, realised his experience of visual imagery was vastly different from most people when he read about a man who lost his ability to imagine after surgery. In a Facebook post, Ross said:

What do you mean ‘lost’ his ability? […] Shouldn’t we be amazed he ever had that ability?

We’ve heard from many people who have experienced a similar epiphany to Ross. They too were astonished to discover that their complete lack of ability to picture visual imagery was different from the norm.'

https://theconversation.com/blind-in-the-mind-why-some-peopl...

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it possible other people experience their dreams in a different way than you do?

Sure, it's possible, by in my experience, most people exaggerate everything - especially things that can't be verified. The other reason I have a hard time believing this is that I know normal people can't visualize anything. Artists, really good artists, are able to visualize a face with some detail. Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex. To me, that is a strong argument to b…

Are you sure you aren't suffering from aphantasia and extrapolating that to other people?

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#69
post #2

Very difficult not to click on this headline.

I always read the comments here before the article. Usually the comments tell me everything I need to know and are more interesting. Most of the time I never end up clicking on the actual article because I've gotten enough info from the comments.

I have tendencies to want to do this, but I choose to stop myself, to remember that random (hopefully) people on the Internet aren't necessarily more reliable than some random article on the Internet. It's valuable to check one's sources, but how many people actually check the source of some random upvoted commenter? How many people have the capacity to verify the veracity of convincing-sounding Hacker News comments?

Re: Scientists break through the wall of sleep to the untapped world of dreams

#70

Great, I'm so excited to be asleep and have some guy show up in my dreams saying "Hi, I've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty..."

Recently I started day dreaming about a day when, say, I need to see a part of the EM spectrum outside what my natural eyesight allows and I just switch a mode beside my skull which boosts my eye implant.

The more I read how close we are getting to communicating with the brain a bit more directly, the more I feel we are entering a stunning and scary world.

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