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How real are your dreams? And how real can halluciations be?
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| Lira |
As usual, I was talking to a friend and, as we talked about dreams, the problem of solipsism came up, along with the infamous brain in a vat hypothesis. I told her these are not defensible hypotheses, along with the most popular objections, and compared the external world with the internal reality we experience in dreams.
I don't really feel pain when I'm dreaming (unless something is inflicting pain on my body and my brain tries to make sense of it), I don't "hear" my inner thoughts (and I've never been able to think about thinking in a dream), I've never learnt anything exceptionally new in a dream (such as a new language), and I've never had any novel experience. I feel some sense of agency, but in a lesser degree compared to what I feel right now. Films such as "Inception" feel ludicrous to me because I usually know I'm dreaming, though my awareness is seriously impaired by my rather limited sense of agency (I feel "compelled" to do things in dream, and am not really sure whether I can "veto" any of my own actions. Plus, I can't remember the last time I just chilled sitting in a sofa watching TV shows while I was asleep).
My friend promptly said that she's had very real dreams, and I've had them too. Who's never dreamed of doing something you were supposed to do that day and, much to your dismay, you wake up and find out it is still undone? However, doing something in a dream and actually doing it later feel very different.
As for the hallucinations, I've never had one. According to Daniel Dennett in "Consciousness Explained", the more vivid a hallucination is, the less control you have over it (so much for the awesome non-existent characters in "A Beautiful Mind"). Feel free to touch a person sitting next to you, but I dare you ride a horse you're hallucinating. However, I'm curious as to what it feels like to hallucinate - is it like dreaming, in a sense? I can barely count on fiction to get this one.
Thoughts?
Edit: Typo. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| long time pot abuser = no dreaming. but when i do, its almost always lucid. so im like neo, which suits my ego i suppose. |
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| shaw |
| Unfortunately, my lone instance of psychic ability only prevented me from stepping in vomit. :mad: |
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| Meat187 |
Certainly my dreams are less real than Christopher Nolan's. God, they sucked in Inception. How could that dick waste all those possibilities. you, Christopher Nolan and Leo DiCuntrio, I hope I dream about you two burning in a fire this night. :mad: :mad:
That being said, you think WWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY to much about pointless stuff, Lira. :) |
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| Sushipunk |
| Hallucinations can be pretty powerful and feel very, very real at the time. With the right drugs, anyway :p |
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| Meat187 |
| I need to do some hallucinogenic drugs. I heard some native tribes lick frogs in order to get high from their poison. Does the same work with birds, Sushi? Have you tried it already? Don't lie, I know you have. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
Hallucinations can be pretty powerful and feel very, very real at the time. With the right drugs, anyway :p |
Can you tell me about the hallucinations you and/or your friends had? How real are they? "Someone's really talking to me and I can see them move their lips in front of me and whatnot even though I'm alone in the room" real? Or "I know there isn't anyone in the room with me but it feels like there is a spirit somewhere trying to talk to me" sort of real? |
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| Lilith |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
I need to do some hallucinogenic drugs. I heard some native tribes lick frogs in order to get high from their poison. Does the same work with birds, Sushi? Have you tried it already? Don't lie, I know you have. |
He jerks the turkey a bit. |
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| Jake Benson |
| I don't understand this thread. I know a lot about dreaming on a personal and neurological basis, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say here....!?? Are we just telling stories? |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Can you tell me about the hallucinations you and/or your friends had? How real are they? "Someone's really talking to me and I can see them move their lips in front of me and whatnot even though I'm alone in the room" real? Or "I know there isn't anyone in the room with me but it feels like there is a spirit somewhere trying to talk to me" sort of real? |
On LSD:
I've had conversations with people that simply weren't there. I walked around outside of the room, and out into the yard, and they would walk with me, still conversing.
I've walked into a room, to see (and somehow completely understand, at the time) that the room was alive, and I could see the wall breathing as it inhaled/exhaled, and when I put my hand against the wall, I could feel the movement of it breathing in and out.
I've watched small plants fully bloom into flower, right in front of my eyes, but when I reached to pick them, the plant shied away from me, so I couldn't grab them, but I was so sure it was real.
Once, after smoking a lot of weed while coming down from 5 or 6 [ecstasy] pills, I saw my friend next to me turn greenish, and he grew little 'feelers' out of his head, like kids cartoons depict aliens. I started laughing really hard, and tried to grab them (which kind of freaked him out, lol).
There have been many, many more :p They feel very real, at the time. |
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| Jake Benson |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
On LSD:
I've had conversations with people that simply weren't there. |
Oh weird! That's me on pot. Thoughts in my head are as vivid as talking to someone. I can differentiate between the two but it's hard, and I'm slow at it. After five minutes (oh who knows maybe it's an hour) I'm like "OH MY GOD WE WEREN'T TALKING AT ALL BUT I WAS THINKING WE WERE THE ENTIRE ING TIME!!!" |
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| netroM |
"I hardly, if ever, dream."
Shouldn't it be: "I hardly, if ever, remember my dreams." ?
Everyone dreams, don't they? It's just that they don't remember them? :conf: |
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