Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

psypost.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 180 posts

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#51

Post by jasonladuke0311 »

dinkleberg wrote: post #49
jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #41

The supplement ZMA gives me good recall of my dreams pretty frequently.

I was gonna comment about this. ZMA really seems to have an impact on how vivid my dreams are. When I forget to order another bottle my dreams are far less interesting. It's quite odd. It makes me think about how heavily our experience of life is impacted by our chemistry.

Yeah I like it even though the science says it’s bunk. I feel more well-rested. I tried the constituent minerals separately but the effect wasn’t the same. Either a placebo or the dosage/formulation in ZMA has a unique effect.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#52

Post by sammalloy »

I have this ability, and it’s not as wonderful as it sounds. I think I might have posted about it before. The thing is, it’s sometimes better to forget than to remember. I am sometimes haunted by my dream memories because they are too vivid, too real, and interfere with my other memories. I have intense memories of dreams stretching back many, many years, and it’s not beneficial to me. It’s more nightmarish than creative.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#54

Post by iratewizard »

armchairhacker wrote: post #6

I don't get particularly vivid dreams but I sometimes get dreams of really interesting stories. The dream itself is like a movie, I'm not the main character but I'm just kind of watching it unfold. What's really interesting is that these "dream movies" always have a half-decent plot. IMO a lot of movie plots are really bad and stick to typical tropes and lessons. My dreams don't stick to these tropes and have actual…

> IMO a lot of movie plots are really bad and stick to typical tropes and lessons

It's a huge problem. I have watched very little American media produced in the last decade because of this. Whenever some coworker talks about how great this new show is, I'll watch it and cringe. It's 90% an A-plot B-plot following the same tired template. Then 10% of it is doing some form of virtue signaling, grievance agitation or other propaganda technique to rile the plebs. I can only imagine people who watch it are desperate for any sort of escape from reality.

Outside the US, at least other countries play with different storytelling techniques. France with their 85 plots in a single story and Korea with their strong single plot driven by the main character's emotion. Plus, thankfully Japan's entertainment industry is going strong by having the different mangas compete with each other until the most interesting stories get adapted into an anime.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#55

Post by gchamonlive »

mjh2539 wrote: post #53

Be careful what you wish for. When you have incredibly vivid, realistic dreams, and you have good dream recall, it becomes difficult distinguishing between what actually happened in the past and what just happened in a dream.

It's a good thing dreams are really surreal then. I can separate my dreams nicely because I can't for the life of me jump 3 stores high and parkour to the edge of a glass dome while being chased.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#56

Post by tluyben2 »

sammalloy wrote: post #52

I have this ability, and it’s not as wonderful as it sounds. I think I might have posted about it before. The thing is, it’s sometimes better to forget than to remember. I am sometimes haunted by my dream memories because they are too vivid, too real, and interfere with my other memories. I have intense memories of dreams stretching back many, many years, and it’s not beneficial to me. It’s more nightmarish than crea…

Also posted before by me; you can train to control some aspects of the dream. For me dreaming is like living different lives and movies ‘for real’. Sometimes I dream of things so realistic that months later I believe it really happened. Like someone told me about some software and where to get it; turns out this software does not exist, I dreamt it.

Control part, for instance, was dreaming about being on vacation on some island which contained zombies and, although first trying to defend and hide from them, I thought ‘it is just a dream, let’s see what happens if I get bitten’ and so I had one of them bite me. I turned into a zombie and noticed I could still think and thought maybe the others can too. They could, so now my friends and me were immortal and ready to cure the world of everything. So nightmare turned into an excellent thing.

But yes, I trained lucid dreaming since I was about 17-18, which is 30 years ago. I can just either let a dream play out or change things or wake up. I can also often make dreams continue after I wake up.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#57

Post by neilv »

armchairhacker wrote: post #6

I don't get particularly vivid dreams but I sometimes get dreams of really interesting stories. The dream itself is like a movie, I'm not the main character but I'm just kind of watching it unfold. What's really interesting is that these "dream movies" always have a half-decent plot. IMO a lot of movie plots are really bad and stick to typical tropes and lessons. My dreams don't stick to these tropes and have actual…

I recall dreams seeming to follow movie-like structure sometimes. At least once, there was an additional thing: it seemed I was aware I was an observer of some story directed by someone else, and I was critically aware of tropes and artistic choices the creator was making.

(Maybe I'd been watching a lot of movies or TV shows at the time, not very immersed, and some of that audience mode was just getting tickled by the GC cycle?)

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#58

Post by tluyben2 »

gchamonlive wrote: post #55
mjh2539 wrote: post #53

Be careful what you wish for. When you have incredibly vivid, realistic dreams, and you have good dream recall, it becomes difficult distinguishing between what actually happened in the past and what just happened in a dream.

It's a good thing dreams are really surreal then. I can separate my dreams nicely because I can't for the life of me jump 3 stores high and parkour to the edge of a glass dome while being chased.

I sometimes have dreams where I am just watching tv with some friends, or where I am programming or reading something online. And indeed, months later usually, it feels like that actually happened.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#59

Post by tluyben2 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #30
janeerie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what you consider to be the bad consequences of recalling your dreams? I remember at least one dream every night and enjoy going back over any of them. I especially like that I can identify a dream as the cause if I wake up in a weird mood. I worry that if I didn't have this recall, I might wake up just being vaguely pissed at my husband (because he was being a jerk in a dream).

Nightmares are a thing. This can get particularly bad if you relive traumatic events.

But lucid dreamers can often control the nightmares. I can anyway; if I don’t like the dream, I just change it a bit. I enjoy nightmares usually though, but probably because I know I can change them or wake up at will.

Re: Heightened dream recall ability linked to increased creativity, connectivity

#60

Post by sammalloy »

tluyben2 wrote: post #56
sammalloy wrote: post #52

I have this ability, and it’s not as wonderful as it sounds. I think I might have posted about it before. The thing is, it’s sometimes better to forget than to remember. I am sometimes haunted by my dream memories because they are too vivid, too real, and interfere with my other memories. I have intense memories of dreams stretching back many, many years, and it’s not beneficial to me. It’s more nightmarish than crea…

Also posted before by me; you can train to control some aspects of the dream. For me dreaming is like living different lives and movies ‘for real’. Sometimes I dream of things so realistic that months later I believe it really happened. Like someone told me about some software and where to get it; turns out this software does not exist, I dreamt it. Control part, for instance, was dreaming about being on vacation on…

> Sometimes I dream of things so realistic that months later I believe it really happened. Like someone told me about some software and where to get it; turns out this software does not exist, I dreamt it.

Yes, that’s the exact problem I’m talking about. It’s not good. It feels like it’s bordering on delusion. I’ve met other people like this in RL. I know one woman who believes in things that only happened in her dreams. I don’t think that’s all that healthy. And of course, you’ve got an entire Reddit community devoted to these things.

Post reply on HN