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A dream within a dream within a dream within a dream.

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited March 2011 in Ten Forward
Inception has nothing compared to me.

Have you ever had a dream within a dream? I have.
Sometimes when I realize I'm dreaming I decide to wake up. It's no easy matter sometimes. It can be like lifting a heavy bolder and might require heavy amounts of trying (though often you wake up easily).

A while back I was having a dream. I realized it was a dream. I fought to wake up because it was a boring dream (I was at SCHOOL of all things... LEARNING).
I woke up. I then went on my normal routine. I got ready and went to school for real this time. Things seemed off and I realized I was still dreaming.
I forced myself to wake up. I then went through my routine again... only to realize I was still dreaming.

This went on for quiet a while and I was probably dreaming within like 8 dreams or so. Eventually I really woke up only to start my routine again and go to school and... learn (ew!)... only this time it was real. :(
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Haha Inception came ot my midn when I saw this.

    But to be honest, not going ot lie....I had something very similar happen to me a few months ago...I woke saying "Goddamnit that was anoying" :p

    Haha it was like: first I was dreaming, then "woke up" to my alarm, only to realize seconds later I was still dreaming, then I woke up for real, looked around, and decided it was actually reality.....but what truely is reality? :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I've trained myself to be pretty good at lucid dreaming and can often redirect my dreams to something I like or wake myself out of something stupid. I have had a couple of dream within a dream scenarios before, but never 8 dreams in like you said. That's freaky.

    The freakiest thing I've ever experienced involving sleep has only happened to me once. You know how even when you can't remember dreams you're having, you're usually aware of just being in darkness and are aware that you're asleep and can feel a sense of time passing? Well once that didn't happen, one minute I was sitting in bed thinking about something, and the next it was morning. No sense of time passing, not a single dream, nothing. It was freaky to say the least. It makes you feel like you were abducted by an alien and had your memory erased or something.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Nested dreams can't happen, it was just one dream where the dream made you think you were dreaming, but it was just the dream. Pesky dreams always doing their dream things.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    You don't have to get overly technical about it. :p

    Of course there's no such thing as a real dream within a dream. It's just still dreaming. But I say it that was because it sounds more interesting. ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I am Jack's destroyer of nice things.

    Yes, I am that reason you can't have them.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Actually there is a mechanism to lucid dreaming where that can happen. It's about becoming self-aware in your dream. It's really complex because there are multiple parts of the brain involved in being self-aware that want to shut down when you go to sleep, and I can't explain it all properly because I'm not a brain surgeon.

    Basically you can become self-aware in a dream, but the brain doesn't want you to be self-aware in your dream because its trying to rest, so it tries to trick you into "going with the flow" of the dream. One problem that can happen with becoming self-aware in a dream is that if you want to wake up, and try to wake up, the brain will try to trick you into thinking you woke up, to make you "go with the flow" of the dream, and let go of your self-awareness, so it turns into a normal dream again.

    That there becomes a problem if you are studying lucid dreaming, and are learning "cues" which make you realize you are dreaming. Cues are are a little complicated too, and can be environmental or self-induced. Environmental cues are things like seeing garbled text in a book, or looking in a mirror and seeing a distorted face (both of which happen in dreams) self-induced cues are generally reality checks, such as pinching yourself or looking at your hand (this is a case where right before you drift off to sleep you tell yourself "I will look at my hand and know I am dreaming" over and over)

    So there is the problem: your brain does try to trick you a lot in your dreams, especially if you are self-aware. I know it sounds stupid, but it can try to make a self-aware lucid dreamer think he woke up, just to make him let go of his self-awareness so it can continue normal sleep. But if he recognizes a cue and realizes he is still asleep, the process can happen all over again.

    It's really complicated because self-aware lucid dreaming is still something that isn't completely understood, (as far as I know). I have seen documentaries where there are sleep labs that run brain scans (like MRI's or something similar) that look at brain activity while people are lucid dreaming. They show differences in activity from people who are soundly asleep, but I don't know, and I don't think even professionals know, the exact mechanics behind it all.

    Sorry if I can't explain it well. There are a lot of websites that teach lucid dreaming techniques if you are interested.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I think that's a misuse of the term "self aware" (at least how I like to define the term). I'm always self aware in my dreams even if I don't realize it's a dream.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Oh sorry. When I say "self aware" in regards to dreaming, it means you know you are dreaming and can take your own independent actions.

    When I say "lucid dreaming" I mean dreams that seem REAL, with vivid colors and sounds and you remember them like they happened yesterday, but you don't necessarily have to be self-aware to lucid dream.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Lucid dreams are by definition just dreams you realize you're dreaming. You don't have to have control or anything else. But I get what you're saying despite the word usage you used (I usually say lucid dreams are both ones you know you're dreaming and can control but am wrong). :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Without relying on terms, due to the confusion over the terms in the thread, these are the kinds of dreams I've trained myself to have:

    Generally, my dreams are vivid, they often seem real, and I can usually remember them quite well as long as I think about them shortly after waking up to kind of lock the memories in place before they slip away. I'm usually self-aware in that I know it's a dream, though at times I fail and don't realize I'm dreaming. I've trained myself to be able to have any dream that I want with a pretty decent success rate by thinking about the subject I want intensely before falling asleep (this works far better if you wake up in the morning and decide to sleep in and think about the subject while trying to get back to sleep. It doesn't work as well if you think about a subject before going to sleep at night). I've noticed that repeating the name of a person/place/or topic you want to dream about in your mind works better than simply thinking about it. Also, when I force myself into this type of dream, I'm usually in full control of the dream. For instance, I've been able to force myself into several dreams where I could fly and be in full control of my body while flying (Oddly, I've never been able to force myself into a Star Trek dream, where I was in command of a ship, despite trying several times).

    It's kind of funny that we're discussing this since there's a Star Trek episode about lucid dreaming.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I didn't find Inception hard to understand at all. Apparently some people did... like my parents. :P
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Inception has nothing

    Fixed that for ya.
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