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New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

newyorker.com

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Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#121

Post by JumpCrisscross »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #15
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sort of just happened to me a few years ago. It’s neat—flying is fun. (As is the opposite, when it just doesn’t work and I wake up sort of laughing at myself for having spent, presumably, hours jumping around in my dream.) But at least for me, the price was dreams, the moment I go lucid, ceasing to be self directed. I get that I’m in a movie, and I have to always create the next step. Nothing surprises or horrifie…

Yep, same. The dream gets incredibly boring after you get control of it.

> dream gets incredibly boring after you get control of it

Wouldn’t go that far. But you have to consciously make it interesting by creating the weirdness.

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#122

Post by silentkat »

I regularly have abstract dreams I have trouble remembering. I wake up feeling like I understand problems better but I can't articulate why. However, I can indeed tackle problems from the day before more easily.

It's pretty fascinating. What's even more fascinating is often times when I do remember the dream, a lot of it is nonsense. And yet I'm doing better at the things I dreamt about.

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#123

Post by varispeed »

My favourite part of coding is going to the park, sit on the bench and dream the problem. After a while, some times it needs several visits I write any code.

Unfortunately most employers see this as slacking. It cannot be done in a noisy open plan office.

At one place few other devs were into this. We would be spending most of the working day in the park. Managers were not happy, but work was delivered always.

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#124

Post by hatthew »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #87

This is why I would smash my head against a wall trying to beat a boss in Dark Souls for an entire evening, then wake up the next day and beat them on my first or second attempt. Very common phenomena that is discussed frequently in the souls community.

I experience similar, but I'm pretty sure it's just rest and a fresh mind, not overnight learning/thinking. When I'm bashing my head against a wall, I'm stuck in a local optimum, and sleeping lets me reset and try something new that often works better (and I execute it better since I'm not as tired).

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#125

Post by subhobroto »

vanviegen wrote: post #63

I once solved a particularly nasty bug, causing a c++ server to segfault in production about once a week, in a dream! The eureka adrenaline woke me up, and I rushed to my laptop to find the insight was real. I had been trying to comprehend that segfault for several long days. It wasn't the most restful night though.

> in a dream! The eureka adrenaline woke me up

YES! I have never told anyone this (because it feels so random) but it's great to know I'm not the only one. I pretty much expect this when I am in depths of an issue I cant somehow consciously resolve, so much that I keep a pen and writing pad next to me, before I sleep, because the code I saw in my dream often gets lost by the time I go to my office and resume the laptop.

I even figured out a hack - I just force myself to go to sleep if I can't consciously resolve it for more than an hour. It's as if my brain gets an otherwise untapped firepower.

That said, this absolutely destroys my sleep cycle for the next day or two and spikes my BP for the rest of the day to the point where I feel sick.

Although in theory I'm sleeping more than the 8h, I feel horribly mentally exhausted. I can work out, physically just fine but my brain is on empty - because of this, I limit this to critical blockers.

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#127

Post by 8note »

"communicate" seems like the really interesting part of this, but gets a one-off mention only.

like, how does this communication work? how does one sleeping person communicate skills to another sleeping person?

have we found the mechanism? was it awake poeple communicating to sleeping people? the reverse?

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#128

Post by ahimthedream »

mr-wendel wrote: post #111

I was at my first real software job and we had an in-house system to provide automated installers for common open-source applications for our end-users. After I started getting familiar with it I had a dream one night that certain input fields (which were very common) could be rather easily exploited to inject shell commands with root access. I woke up convinced that it was a real bug, went to work the next day, and…

Did you try to harness this power again? I.e. seed your dreams to solve problems?

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#129

Post by timcobb »

dwoldrich wrote: post #104
ml_basics wrote: post #33

During my time at university studying pure mathematics I had an interesting experience of doing a challenging sheet of combinatorics problems during a vacation. Every day I attempted one question and got stuck on it. Then the next morning I woke up knowing the solution. It was a recurring thing: this happened every day for about 2 weeks until I had solved all the problems. For me this a big eye opener about the impor…

In my 40's I could go to bed with a complex software design or implementation problem I was wrestling with. Consciously word a cogent and succinct question that I needed answered, sleep on it, and then in the morning, I would be still and mentally ask, "well?" Not meditating or anything, just be quiet then and listen. And, in very deadpan style, after a few seconds (as if to choose one's words carefully), some answer…

What about before your 40s?

Re: New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming

#130

Post by djeastm »

chrz wrote: post #43
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, same. The dream gets incredibly boring after you get control of it.

but but, you can do whatever you want?

Well, yeah. But it's what you want in the moment which can be very unpredictable even when you're "guiding" the dream. The subconscious is still in the driver's seat there and can go to some weird, wacky places.
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