That Dreamy feeling...

[Husky]

Have you ever wondered how easy it is for us to know we are awake, yet find it challenging to convince ourselves we’re dreaming while in a dream?

I’ve started thinking about this recently, and can’t get over the idea of just how easy it is for us to quickly and effectively, without error, convince ourselves every morning we have woken up, yet take longer to get ourselves around the idea that we’re dreaming when in a dream. Many times we’ve read that you should always do a reality check when waking up to make sure you have indeed woken up to “real life” and not miss an opportunity that would allow us to continue lucid dreaming. But is such action even necessary? Upon closer observation of my actions when waking up I found out that, even before I do anything else, I know for sure that I’m awake. There’s just a very familiar feeling to being awake that immediately assures me I have indeed woken up. It isn’t even a formulated thought or anything related, you just know you’re awake. We have grown so accustomed to such feeling that it has become second nature. But where does this feeling come from, and why is it harder to replicate in a dream?

I don’t know if any of you dreamers out there have noticed (I think you do), but once you start paying attention to your dreams (because you’re trying to get lucid), you start noticing there’s something different about the dream experience that just doesn’t relate to the waking state. That, no matter how real the dream gets, it still looks different, and it even feels different, like there’s something in the air that makes it unique. More and more have I noticed such a “dreamy” feeling, though I can’t seem to explain what is so dreamy about it.

Now, I don’t know if this “intuition” is what finally gets us to ask when dreaming: “Am I dreaming?” and then proceed to confirm our thoughts through the many techniques out there we can use. But, just as before, what is it about the dream that gives it a “dreamy” feeling and how does it compare to the waking state? Is there any way we can improve this sense of familiarity to a point we can easily convince ourselves every night that we’re dreaming, just as we do so every morning when waking up?

Do people who normally lucid dream daily or several times a week have gotten to such instance where they no longer need the use of techniques, but just inherently know for sure they’re dreaming while dreaming?

Why do you think this happens, and how does one train it? At first I thought experience might be the answer, however I believe there’s more to it. There are people out there who have practiced for months or years, and still have trouble getting the hang of lucid dreaming. Just the same, there are people who get the idea very quickly, just a couple of nights or weeks of practice and the number of lucid dreams increase like magic.

Eager to see what you people think about this.

[0neironaut]

I can’t say I agree there’s such a quality to dreams/wakefulness, but I think I understand what you’re getting at, because I’ve had the same (or a similar) thought before. The way I see it, dreams only seem very much like they have this ineffable, distinguishing trait because of the often hazy and discontinuous memory through which we look back on dreams after waking up. Assuming we could have 100% perfect, photographic recall, I believe we would find the dream state to be (at least mentally) quite similar to waking life. Additionally, provided we weren’t lucid, what we recall of a dream consists of decisions we didn’t actually make. Consequently, after we’ve woken up, the qualia of dreaming – that is, the conscious feelings that can only be conveyed through first-hand experience – are being viewed objectively rather than subjectively, skewing our perception of what it was really like to be in the dream.

This is not to say there’s nothing “fishy” about the dream state. At first glance, it seems like there’s something we should notice straight away, but the problem is, when we aren’t lucid, we’re just as much a part of the dream as anything else in it. Therefore, our judgment can be bent to believe it, just as rules, logic, space, and time can be bent. It’s only when we wake up that we are released from this hold and can see that what we just experienced wasn’t real. So, regardless of whether the “dreamy feeling” actually exists, we cannot “just know” whether we’re truly awake just by the presence or absence of some ethereal quality, because a dream can always replicate such a quality, or at least convince us that it has been replicated. To clarify, while it may seem possible to know instinctively that we are awake, a dream could easily fool us into believing the “waking feeling” is present, and/or that the “dreamy feeling” is not.

[Cornelia_Xaos]

I agree with bits and pieces from both your question, Husky, and your response, Oneironaut. Still, there’s something I’d like to add.

Husky, one good explanation for why it is so hard to tell that one is dreaming in the same manner as one wakes up and “knows” one is awake is just that: our brains have come to possess some sort of mechanism that lets us “know” when we are awake. Because of this, there is no need for a mechanism that tells us “we’re asleep”. A good part of learning to lucid dream is training such a mechanism to exist and to work. That is sort of the primary goal of reality checks, awareness checks, etc. They strive to make you think lucidly, if that makes any sense.

The big thing I have to contest in your “dreamy feeling” theory runs parallel to some of what Oneironaut spoke of: there is no “dreamy feeling” (perhaps). Instead, it is the lack of perfect recall and being “displaced from that situation” that reduces our memories of dreams to “feeling like dreams” and having that “Dreamy Feeling”. As Oneironaut said, when we awake we view our memories of our dreams objectively, not subjectively; i.e. from outside of them instead of inside of them.

When one is awake and when one is lucid in a dream, both realities are being viewed both objectively and subjectively. (I like to think of dreams as just a separate reality and not something only “happening in your head” because even though they are only happening in your head they still are a separate reality. One which only you can experience.) The conscious part of your brain allows you to perceive the situation for what it is whereas the subconscious part continues to process the environment around you. Notice, for example, how when awake and viewing your reality you focus consciously on one thing (usually) at a time. You’re reading this at this moment. Yet, did you lose an awareness of being inside of your room / office / on-a-bus / etc. ? You still “feel” present in this reality, and that is, in part, due to subjectively being aware of it.

When we awaken our dreams are pushed out of the subjective and can only be relived in the past. Curiously enough, I wonder if anyone else has noticed how dream-like waking life past memories seem to be. The more I record my dreams and the more I try to recall past WL events the more I realize the memories of the two seem superbly identical in terms of how they feel. As I said, dreams are merely another reality we can experience, but back onto the main topic.

Husky: as to your question, “Can we be trained to recognize this feeling?”, I say yes. But in a roundabout kind of way. Everything we do to become better lucid dreamers, be it DJing; doing RCs; doing ACs; SSILD; WILD; etc., aims to make us more aware of our current reality. We are not training ourselves to notice a “Dreamy Feeling” but to notice that “existing feeling”, if you will. We train ourselves to be aware of the world around us so that we may, in turn, be aware of our dreaming / not-dreaming state.

That’s how I view the whole “Dreamy Feeling” phenomenon, anyways. Hope that made sense, and if you have any questions do ask!

[Husky]

Both of you do bring an important aspect I had not previously considered, and that is in relation to how we describe the dream from different points of view. I understand our perception may get distorted as we are discussing the “dreamy” feeling as it appears through the lens of our waking state. So, let us bring then the remaining pieces of the puzzle, and consider now the dream while it’s happening, as well as when we achieve lucidity. Does the same “dreamy” feeling persist during the time we find ourselves dreaming, and most importantly, after we have become lucid in it?

I remember one of my lucid dreams took place at the kitchen in my house. It was dark inside, as night had already settled in. The place was quiet, not a sound had been made, and a small amount of moon light poured in from one of the windows. As I remember, the whole place resembled pretty much the one in waking reality, aside from a couple of things out of place I didn’t noticed initially.

Now, I remember (and I’m telling you this as how I experienced it while the dream took place) that, even though the dream appeared as “almost” identical to that of waking life, a part of me deep down in my subconscious grabbed on to the idea that there was just something “odd” about the whole situation. The sensation was very minimal, yet it bothered me for a bit, and as I kept dreaming I couldn’t shake off this feeling that things were simply a little weird from what they looked like. I mean, the dream looked very vivid, but it was just, you know, a little bit “too” vivid. As if the clarity and detail of the visuals had been pumped up to levels I hadn’t seen before. (You would argue still that the experience I’m describing right now is still being recalled from outside the dream and not while in it. But, you can go and check what I mean next time you’re dreaming.)

So, long story short, I soon got lucid in the dream, and soon after that happened, I remember being amazed at how the whole area looked incredibly real, maybe even far more real than what I had in mind it would be.

It’s interesting that the way people normally describe their lucid experiences to others, the illustration of the event normally goes by it being: “out of the ordinary,” “unique,” or “INCREDIBLY vivid,” “ALMOST identical as real life,” and even “MORE vivid than real life.” I mean, it’s funny how the dream sometimes tries to portray a depiction of the world that resembles waking reality, yet we unconsciously know or feel there’s something inexplicably unique about it that still makes it different. The experience feels almost like real life, yet almost is still not the same as identical, meaning there’s still something about the dream that the waking reality appears to lack.

Now, both of you addressed the fact that dreams can and will many times fool us into believing things that may not be really there at all. As Oneironaut puts it, “when we aren’t lucid, we’re just as much a part of the dream as anything else in it.” Yet, if the “dreamy” feeling still persists after one has become lucid, then does that mean such feeling does exist and is not only a product of the dream’s doings? After all, if the “dreamy” feeling is being created by the very dream while we are non-lucid, then it should disappear as soon as lucidity strikes in, right?

To sum things up, there are some core characteristics about the dream world itself that are unique in comparison to waking reality. Such characteristics may ultimately help dreamers focus and become familiar of what the dream world feels like, and how it differs from what being awake feels like. That way, a distinction can be made between both worlds, between both experiences. Therefore, the same way we intuitively know we’re awake when we’re awake may also reach out into our dreams so that, every time we fall asleep we’re familiar with the dream experience and intuitively know we’re dreaming when we’re dreaming.

What do you think are the characteristics or principles of the dream world that gives us that feeling that we might be dreaming? We know what happens in dreams, and the many things we can do in them are almost entirely unreal compared to waking reality. However, we’re many times not aware of such things non-lucidly, so, there must be something about the dream that ultimately raises the question: Am I dreaming?

[Gerwa]

Husky, i have send you a PM about this topic.
Just to make sure you see it

[Cornelia_Xaos]

You make some interesting points, Husky, but it still seems to me that there isn’t a “Dreamy Feeling” or very specific characteristics of dreams that induce such a feeling. It still seems to me to be aspects of awareness that cause feelings of “being in a dream” or surreal feelings.

For example, that feeling of things being odd or off that you mentioned, I’ve had it in Waking Life as well. Therefore, I don’t see it as solely being attached to the dreaming state. This doesn’t mean you couldn’t use such a feeling as a trigger for lucidity; the majority of my lucid dreams have begun by something feeling off, and, in fact, my first lucid dream was caused by that feeling of “wrongness”.

As to the surreal quality of non-lucid and lucid dreams, I think this comes from the fact that your brain is able to avoid the input steps of processing data. To put it simply, you don’t need your eyes to see, your nose to smell, your hands to touch, etc. Your brain generates the dream, and, as such, you already know everything in the dream before you experience it. Perhaps you don’t know it consciously, but you certainly know it subconsciously as it is your brain creating the dream. This is one good explanation for how you can anticipate things happening in the dream.

All-in-all I think it still boils down to how aware one is of the reality one is experiencing. If one is not aware or distracted the details seem to diminish… As soon as one starts to pay attention little things start to pop out and cause a feeling of surrealness to appear. It’s when you start paying attention to your dreams that they start to have a feeling of oddness about them.

[Husky]

I’ve been giving this a bit more thought, and, you know what, you do make some valid points Scipio Xaos, and I agree with some of them. I can’t negate the fact that oddities do happen outside of dreams as well that make us question reality for a bit. However, such cases don’t normally occur in the everyday of our lives. Also, such instances we normally call odd, are unpredictable, and it’s that unpredictability the cause of our raise in awareness regarding the situation present, and what finally leads to the response of feeling “odd.”

On that note, last night I was pondering on the subject of unpredictability, and it seems to me dreams do tend to fall into that end of the spectrum. Sure, “real” life itself is filled with unpredictability as well. Still, as creatures of habit, we strive for predictability in our lives, and It’s that predictability the root that may generate the overall familiar feeling of being awake. That is because predictability is safe, “normal,” comfortable, and it’s what we’re used to; unpredictability is exciting, surreal, “unique”, maybe even scary, “odd”, and dangerous.

The reason waking reality feels familiar may arise from the fact that as we go to bed every night we unconsciously predict or “expect” everything to be the same when we wake up. Then, when we do wake up our expectations are met subconsciously by the signals our brain receives from waking reality. In other words, every time I go to sleep I unconsciously know for sure I’m going to wake up at the same place in the morning, in my bed, and everything will look the same as I remember. Furthermore, I can predict the events of the next day, maybe not specifically, but I have a general idea of what I’ll do. Such things may include: whether or not I’m going to school or work, the people I might see (friends, family, etc.). I also unconsciously know the personality of those close to me, and how they act because I’m used to such behavior. We even expect things to go about a little different and thus, if what I considered doing doesn’t necessarily happen as I thought, it’s still normal because we know things like this do occur.

On the other hand, If you take a look at dreams, unpredictability seems to be the bedrock for everything that happens in them. We might find ourselves initially in one place (which could be somewhere entirely random), and the next second we might be in a completely different spot altogether. In addition, you might be used to the overall behavior of the people you have met in waking reality, yet in dreams such people oftentimes act totally different! Even us, our very beings change in dreams as well. And just as you might be able to predict what it is you’re going to do tomorrow, you aren’t that sure as to predict a simple thing as where you’re going to be next time you’re dreaming, or what you’ll be even doing. All that depends on the overall plot of the dream for that particular night, plot which could be completely different the very next night, hell, the very next dream you have in the same night! Every time we dream we find ourselves upon an unpredictable experience, whereas back home in waking reality we aim for keeping things predictable and habitual.

So, yeah, a “dreamy” feeling can be replicated in waking reality the same way it happens in dreams, but, the cases of it happening in waking reality normally are low when compared to dreams. Unpredictable situations might be what eventually bring about a “dreamy” feeling or odd sensation both in waking reality and dreams. It’s intriguing though, but, much of what we do to get lucid in our dreams relates to our desire of control in the dream world. Paradoxically speaking, we seek predictability in the overall unpredictable nature of dreams.

Say, for example, how we practice reality checks based on “common” or “usual” activity that happens inside a dream, like the behavior of a clock or what happens when we try to breathe in through a plugged nose. Many times we record our dreams to search for recurrent characters or situations in order for us to plan ahead our actions and anticipate the next time such events appear in our next dream.

I agree with you though, awareness is the key to notice the unpredictable nature of dreams. Without it, the oddness or “dreamy” feeling of the dream world would pass unnoticed, and our ability to become lucid every night would diminish. Still, the level of awareness we initially start with in dreams and our sensitization to the unpredictable nature of them is very low. Despite that, we are able to hold on to a little bit of such awareness that at least allows us to feel if even the slightest sense of a “dreamy” feeling. It’s also interesting how the WHAT that happens in dreams (no matter how unpredictable) pass by unnoticed, yet the subtlest of things like HOW a dream feels or HOW a dream looks like is able to stimulate our awareness.

All things considered, a “dreamy” feeling might not exist as something entirely distinctive of a dream. However, such a feeling does tend to be a recurrent experience when in a dream, even though it can be felt outside the dream world.

BTW Gerwa I saw your PM. I appreciate the input, thanks!