I been sitting here for the last few hours thinking about how to define a dream. I looked for a definition of the word and came up with the following.A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. - answers.com
A succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep. - dictionary.com
A series of mental images and emotions occurring during sleep - Google define:dream
I have sat here thinking over and over and thinking how I would personally define a dream. So here I am posting a topic and seeing how others might define a dream themself. I would love to hear you thoughts and also personally I think the definitions above don’t seem to describe it right.
Well, maybe I’m just not in the right “mode” to answer this right now, but I think the dictionary definitions work just fine.
In a sense, though, I agree with you. They don’t seem to fit, but I think that’s mostly because dreams aren’t something that can really be summed up in strictly informational terms…
What exactly is it about these definitions that you don’t like?
Unfortunately, I have nothing better to offer! I’ll be interested to see what other people post here!
Personally the word images is used. I can’t seem to process how a dream is just a series of images or involuntarily happening , it just doesn’t make sense. I think the definition explain it in a very broad term which in my personal experience that doesn’t fit at all.
Dreams are my other life! Everything I dream feels normal, I am me, I act and talk basically the same, maybe a bit less inhibited, but I think and feel too. I do not sense that scenes jump from one moment to another, so it feels real, just like our waking life. This is mainly the reason why I am so groggy in the morning, it’s hard to switch from one life to another. I definitely have more fun and experiences in my dream then in RL, so RL would be really boring if I didn’t have my dreamlife.
Lucid dreaming however is me rising above my RL or dream existence. it’s like being for real.
I agree with you in saying that a dream is certainly not, by definition, involuntary. Lucidity proves that. When lucid, people can wake themselves up or keep themselves asleep as they choose. Also, I find the whole “in the mind” thing redundant. Everything is in our mind, whether it is “real” or not. No matter how hard you try, you can never truly be present in the physical realm; every experience you have ever had is entirely in your head, a recreation of what the sensory organs perceive. In this way, both dreams and reality are both “in the mind.”
Here I agree again with you in saying that dreams are more than mere images. They’re complete experiences, with a full range of sensory input. Now, if I was to give my own definition, it would be something like this:
[center]“A series of experiences that occur during sleep and typically form a story.”[/center]
Glad to hear you enjoy dreaming so much and I agree dreams feel real(not images) and real life is not boring, it just take a lot of effort to make it exciting since you just run and fly.
I glad to see you don’t agree with the involuntary statement or alot of people would be wrong. I also please to see that you understand the the a dream can’t be just a series or set of images. As for your definition I can’t agree or disagree but to say they are experiences is a good way to think what dreams are. Personally I think a dream is a experience but when the word image is used I can’t seem to think how a image can tell make me experience sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste when it just a image.
My connection right now is too fickle to let me look up the etymology of the word image, but in poetry class I was told that imagery also includes details of smell, taste, texture, and sound. Imagination, which I guess should share a root word with image and imagery, certainly isn’t purely visual.
From what I look up the etymology term for image is “artificial representation that looks like a person or thing”. So I think is clearly say ‘look like’ which is basically say a image is of sight. I look up imagery and get the definitions:
[color=darkblue]The formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images collectively figurative description or illustration;
Figurative description or illustration;
The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas.
The use of expressive or evocative images in art, literature, or music.
A group or body of related images, as in a painting or poem.
The art of making such images.
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So basically from the information above it telling me that a image is in fact just an image. So an image can evoke senses but it take me or someone imaging the sense and result in not experiencing the sense at all. A dream on the other hand is not me thinking of a sense at all but instead I experience them as I have experience them in IRL. In a dream when I reach to touch something I’m not actively thinking what the object going to feel like but instead I reach out and my mind for me replicate the feeling for me the best it can. A image instead actively take me to think of what that I ‘might’ think the object going to feel like but I have to do it which in a dream don’t have too. So this leave me again saying that a dream can’t be just a image. Hell, you can’t even reach out in a image!
I tried with that, it certainly doesn’t help with gaining lucidity, and with vividness, either, so I discarded it.
I returned back to the old definition, ‘A sensory hallucination/“experience” that takes place while the body is asleep’, and I’ve gotta say it works pretty good, it teaches you to notice the sensory details instead of being trapped in the story, and also reminds you that a dream is first and foremost images, sounds, touch, smell and taste, and [size=92]NOT[/size] the plot going on. This way I managed to keep some LD’s going on for the longest
Besides, any definition regarding the content of dreams are limiting them, so it’s best to provide a broad definition; and yes, the ‘sensory hallucination’ is limiting too, there are easily tons of reports of dreams taking place without any of the ordinary 5 sensory channels open. (of course there was still something going on - or the dream would have been made of nothing )
How to answer to your post in quite a task, so for your definition “A sensory hallucination/“experience” that takes place while the body is asleep” is a better definition since the word hallucination share a characteristics of a dream but more definitions point out that hallucination is a delusion or illusion and many other things. I agree that a dream is delusive but that just a normal dream, a lucid dream break the term and become what? As for saying that a dream is and I quote “a dream is first and foremost images, sounds, touch, smell and taste” simply I repeat myself evoke without active thought of any senses at all? I agree that dream are hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling but I can’t figure out I can alter a image or move about a image if it just ‘visual representation’ by definition.
Example of my theory:
Say I’m looking a image of the ocean and in the image there a person standing by the water edge with the waves slight running over there foot. So to experience what I looking I have to actively think about how this would feel or how would that sound then I would imagine what happen next. In a dream I don’t to partake for these things to happen, a dream seamlessly put it all together without thought. A image take a active person to make it continue on to the next image where as dream happen entirely on it own which in my mind does make it not a image.
Last, I think a broad definition is fine but the definition does fit the bill and can you post links to reports where dreams have happen without any of the ordinary 5 sensory channels open? Sorry for the messy writing I’m really tried but can’t sleep it so it affecting me.
Not only that dreams are not a series of images, or necessarily involuntary (lucid dreaming)…it’s too…how should I put it…abstract?
If someone asked you what dreams are, and if you responded with ''A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. ‘’, I don’t they would get it really.
I’d maybe go with…
A dream is:
‘‘A voluntary or involuntary sensory experience that occurs during sleep’’
Well, hallucinations may be delusional, but that’s just a secondary property to them, because that’s one reason for which they can happen, delusions. I use hallucinations in its prime meaning, that is, “sensory experience that is not directly inputted by our waking senses”; and yes, visualization/visual thoughts fit this definition, too, but that’s fine because I don’t see hallucination with this meaning as a bad thing
At first glance, the dream may be composed of effectual objects, places and people, but what the conscious receives from that is primarily sensory, from which it abstracts back all events.
You may say the guy on the beach does possess a proper existence, independent from your observation. Yet, I could look away and look back, and the guy could just have disappeared, like anything in a dream can do; in fact, one reliable way to make things completely disappear from your dream is just ignore them; you can have a deeper read into this in Cusp’s Dream control theory.
Anyway, all of this has led me to the conclusion: in dreams, objects behind your scope of attention don’t really exist at all. Anything in dreams is related to the focus the Dreamer dedicates to them, to the point the dream itself needs focus on it to stay; and of course, keeping the sensory flowing is the most obvious way to keep in contact with a dream.
To day, the only way I can lose a dream by waking up is when I lose contact with the dream sensory, mainly by thinking too much and shifting my attention outside of the dream events.
Besides, I guess you’ll have noticed I admit I did not provide a completely true definition, since a dream can scope well beyond what I give it credit for with that. But I noticed the definition I use helps me in understanding the fabric of dreams better, and gives me more and longer LD’s, so I decided to use it. In the spirit of NLP, I don’t go with what’s true, because we’re far from discovering the truth about such a complicated matter. Rather, I go with what works, and serves me in my journey to understanding.
Examples of dreams without ordinary sensory can be found in Laberge’s and Waggoner’s experiences that I know of, particularly when a dream scene collapsed and the Dreamer was left in a black void, a single point of consciousness waiting for its body to reappear and the dream scene to form around him. It is part of a technique in itself, the no-body WILD, described in EWLD.
I agree a dream is like a hallucination if using your term "sensory experience but a dream and a hallucination are entirely on two different things.
I agree that you don’t something attention is can cease to exist but that just one aspect of a dream. I don’t think there would be a true definition since everyone perceive a dream differently like you said your definition of a dream help you while to me is just halt my understanding of what it always is. Thank for the feedback.
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