I’ve heard in several places that it’s impossible or at least unlikely to do a great amount of reading in any dream, but I find myself dreaming about reading often, with the words making absolute sense and not appearing to come from any external source. Most recently, I dreamt I was taking a test of some kind, in which I was handed an approximately ten-page packet to read. I got through about half of it before waking up, and it was definitely legible text that I’m certain I had never seen while awake. The content was rather dry–it was some kind of mix of history and historical fiction, about a girl in the Roman Empire who was attending some sort of dinner party. The point was that my mind seemed to be rapidly generating prose.
Has anybody else experienced something like this? Furthermore, can I somehow harness it to write papers for me?
I don’t think I have ever done that much reading in a dream. But some reading. It’s obviously an exaggeration that you can never read in dreams, but text can be very unstable. And i do think that the more you think about it the more likely it is to behave strangely. In my Lucid dreams text goes nuts sometimes and changes rapidly or just makes no sense. While in normal dreams if there is text it is not so bizarre. When lucid I expect the text to change. So. If you can make it write essays for you, It might, if you can remember the text. But it might take that you are lucid and, If you’re like me, it can make it harder to read it. I’ve read accounts of people who read in lucid dreams often so. It’s certainly possible.
I feel like I rambled, I’m tired.
Reading is a [RC], is it not? So if someone WAS reading in a dream, wouldn’t they have to instantly realize they were dreaming because… well, they are spending time actually reading something?
Fantasystar0822 To realise that you are dreaming by the reading in a dream you have to realise that it doesn’t make sense or whatever is wrong with the text. I’ve seen text change before my eyes but came up with excuses. Like it’s a new invention. So not only do you have to notice something strange with it, you must also have the presence of mind to realise it might just be a dream.
I don’t know whoever came up with that myth of not being able to read in a dream, because it couldn’t be more wrong. I read in dreams all the time - it’s very common! Not only this, but I’ve read countless dreams from other people who read in dreams as well.
Yes, quite often.
It’s theoretically possible, but I don’t think it would work in practice. Firstly, because you’d need to be able to memorise the entire paper word for word from your dream in order to be able to reproduce it in reality later, which is extremely unlikely (I couldn’t do that even in real life in real life’s clarity!). Secondly, the paper would have to make sense in the dream even if you could remember it.
Thirdly, it would have to be on the correct topic of your paper, and since it’s generated by your subconscious, it can’t miraculously do research for you - for the facts on it to be correct, you would have to have known them at least subconsciously already for them to turn up in your dream. This means you’d have to do the research anyway before going to sleep, or the facts in your dream paper could be totally wrong assumptions!
Fourthly, the amount of time and dedication it would take to train your brain to do any of these things… you know, it just isn’t worth it. It’s far easier and less time-consuming to simply write the paper yourself.
Not being able to read in a dream is a general misconception. People can read in their dreams but they can’t reread a text. People can read a text and make excellent sense out of it. I’ve done it a lot and I can say generally where the text was about after I read it. It goes wrong when you have to reread the text. If you want to reread a text the thing has to be exactly the same as it was before. Thus in the dream you have to remember exactly what the text looks like. I thought the part of your brain where you do this with is almost non-active when you’re sleeping. Therefore you won’t be able to reread properly.
