Since i started working on dream recall again i have run into a little problem: Some things in my dreams are just not describable in normal language. I feel that after i have put a dream into words the description i come up with is never close enough to how the dream itself was. It is more like a bad waking life interpretation of a dream. I think that you need a whole set of words for things that appear in dreams to describe them properly. Words could probably increase our awareness of dreams in genereal since abstraction always speed up thinking and leaves room for the big picture.
The things im concerned with are all these things that you just know in the dream. Like for example in one dream i was shopping with a girl that i knew in my dream (but that i don’t know in reality because she does not exist). We were buying flour to make some kind of bread. This bread does not exist IRL but nevertheless i knew exactly what it was and what kind of ingredients it needed (ingredients that don’t exist IRL either, of course!). This dream girl made all sorts of stupid suggestions about what kind of flour we should get, but since i knew everything about baking and about flour i told her why each suggestion she made was wrong and what kind of bread that kind of flour was used to make. (I mean i never bake anything IRL.)
Is there a word for this phenomenon of knowledges, skills, friends, things, places - stuff that you know in that dream only? Like “dream-familiarities”. Are there any other “things” that you would like to have a word for?
I don’t know of a word for that phenomenon, perhaps we should invent one. The problem with words and language is that they are just symbols - they are dead. They often fall short of capturing something’s essence. That’s why many people say Truth is unspeakable, it has to be experienced. You can’t just read it.
Do you remember the recipe for that bread you were wanting to make? Maybe it was for ‘lembas’ bread? That would be great if we could get that recipe! And you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about unless you’re a Lord of the Rings fanatic like I am.
Is that like the tune that you know in the dream but never heard of it IRL? Or the people you know in the dream but again have never seen them IRL?
I sometimes wonder if these familiar people, places, music etc could possibly be memories/experiences from a past life and we remember them only in our dreams.
Learjet: Exactly, that is what i mean. Doesn’t really matter what causes it - we could still use a word to reffer to it easily.
Sage: The word “dream” does not capture the essence of dreaming in itself, but it is still good to have so that you don’t have to say: “i had one of those faked realities in my sleep the other night where you think you are awake and experience weird things”. Instead you just say “i had a dream lastnight”.
I need a good word like that for this “dream-familiar-stuff”
Another thing i just read a few threads down is this phenomenon where things change into other things but still stays, if you know what i mean. Like when one person turns into another but is still doing the same thing, filling the same role in the dream. Would be useful to have a word for that too.
I get this quite a lot. Something seems so familiar, it’s just routine.
When I wake up it’s absurdly odd.
[b]There is a scientific word for this phenomena.
I just can’t remember what it is.[/b]
It was mentioned in an article about dreaming, in reference to experiments to see whether studying certain dream phenomena could help in the development of treatments for mentally ill people who experience the same things in real life.
It would be weird to see new places and people as old and familiar in waking life though I do have that mildly now and then. Like I’ve just come to university where I don’t know anyone, yet I get a strong feeling of having met some people before. I suppose in certain situations it would be called Deja Vu.
If you ask me it sounds like innate knowledge.
You know you put the tv on the food network and go on the computer and you don’t realize it but you pick up the info on how to make some food.
Is this some form of “tacit knowledge”? LaBerge mentions this in EWLD. I think it’s implicit knowledge, knowledge you possess but you don’t know about it. For instance, you’ve definitely seen the eye-colour of your teacher from 1st grade but it’s quite impossible now to remember which colour it was. However this knowledge is still available in your sub/un-consciousness, which can be more easily accessed through dreams. I could be wrong ofcourse…
Yes but that is a completely different thing. They say you remember everything you have ever seen (or that it is still in your brain in some way). It has happened once or twice to me that i recall things in dreams that i have almost forgotten in real life, but then when i wake up the memory is still there. I mean i can dream about my 2:nd grade teacher but then i will still know who she is when i wake up.
But these things in my dreams are things that i know for sure when i wake up never existed in reality. For example in a dream tonight i had another dream-friend that i knew. She does not exist in real life. But yet i felt i knew her and knew how to talk to her etc…
Yes, I have sat around a table talking to some very close friends in a lucid dream. I actually knew them as if we were old buddies. They don’t exist IRL.
I can’t imagine how one could conjure up something like that by listening to the radio or TV.
Maybe we should call them our imaginary friends (IF) but they seem more than that…
I’d just be careful about who you’re around when mentioning the imaginary friends that you hold conversations with. The men in white coats might come for you…
Strangely, last night I dreamed of a daughter that I don’t have IRL. She was very familiar to me - as familiar as a daughter (but was not like anyone I know IRL).
Our brains are so complex that I believe that we are creating these characters on the fly. In my dreams I can play the piano perfectly, in reality, I have only passed my grade one many years ago, and haven’t touched a piano for years.
clarkkent: Yeah but some familiar dc’s are familiar from real life. And it is not just people. It is familiar possesions, places, skills, anything you can think of that is not familiar or does not even exist IRL. It is that phenomenon i’m talking about. DC’s is just one example of it.
On many times i have troubles turning the dream content into words.Sometimes explanation of the event would take a page of writing:(
Dont5 know how to help it except one idea,unfortunately totally unavailable for me-drawing(or drawing with words-comic book like)-i guess it would be the best way to keep my dream diary but im sooo bad when it comes to draw just anything:(
