Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

[Feba]

This came up in a discussion between a friend and myself once.

I do have an opinion, but I'm rather biased, so I want to see what other people say first without my persuading them in one direction or another.

[Kitalrez]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

Yes, damn it, I miss "Angelina Jolie from 7 years ago"!

If a dream is your subconscious mind reorganizing things and applying what you've learned today, then it would make sense that dream characters are "real" to you. They were "real" parts of your mind, it makes sense that you miss that part when you've moved on to whoever you became. I miss being 5, I had a lot less to worry about then. People don't consider you nuts for missing your childhood, though.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?



Anyways, I don't think it's all too strange at all, myself, but I don't clearly remember any dreams where I woke up missing somebody (or very many at all). However, knowing myself, that isn't entirely beyond me.

[DakAttack]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

When last I was interested in dreams I believe people were determining that they were random neurons firing off in the brain during sleep to keep it active. I'll have to find my sources again, but if is true whatever character you have in mind is most likely a visual representation of a single or multiple neurons. Whatever concept/idea/memory/whatever those neurons contained is most likely what you're missing.

Take this post lightly, because my memory is probably faulty and I most likely wont go back for my sources unless asked. All I'm really trying to stress is the implications of the brain's physiological process on what you experience during a dream, and that it's most likely not a person you're missing, but, unconcsiously, what it is that person represents.

[Jarre]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

Alyson Hannigan, say no more (then she got married) <cry>

[Feba]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

That's interesting, but it doesn't really explain lucid dreams, which is sorta my requirement for considering a theory concerning dreams plausible or not. Interpreting the electrical pattern of the brain and trying to convert it into something that makes sense? Sure. But then wouldn't lucid dreaming imply that you are capable of controlling your brain's electrical patterns, at least during sleep? Would that not also imply that, if the safety measures that keep us from confusing imagined and remembered sensations with real ones are off when we sleep, other ones would likely be too? That would mean that it would be possible, at least in theory, to cause brain damage in a lucid dream, which seems very unlikely.

And to take anything in the human brain as it is and call it "random" seems very presumptuous. We're just now starting to grasp it in "big" terms, to start judging the actions of individual cogs in the machine would be premature.

But, to be frank, it very much is the person. You might not lucid dream, but if you do (or even if you just remember dreams vividly) it's not that uncommon to encounter someone with all the features of a real person. Except, of course, that pesky reality bit. Somewhat like AI and some NPCs; even if they aren't ACTUALLY intelligent, they can very much appear to be so. Hell, I wouldn't even be very surprised to find out that your brain also acts as the other person, and then just disregards it in favor of 'your' perspective.

There is no way you can look at a human, talk to it, hear it's feelings, and then wake up and think "Oh, that must be what Dr. Pepper tastes like. If the flavor could talk."
______________________________
Jarre: FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It’s Alyson Hannigan | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

So, does this include dreams about loved ones we've lost or is it just fictional dream characters? I dream of my father quite often and usually wake up crying and missing him terribly. If its fictional characters, only once did I have a set of dreams about a very handsome and romantic man that made me wish he were real. LOL The funny side effect was that I was a bit b***hy to my husband for a few days because oh my dream guy. (Hubby has 0% in the romance department.) Poor guy didn't know what the hell was going on. LOL

[Murphie]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

I'm not sure exactly what you'd be persuading me of. But it's not weird and I've felt that way.

[Feba]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

Fictional dream characters. Ones that are based on people you don't know or people that themselves are fictional are kinda grey area. But definitely not ones based on people you have known in real life; that's just missing them by proxy. Although I can definitely relate to painful dreams like that, it's not what I was talking about.

I'm more wondering if people think it's strange to form deeper connections to fictional characters from dreams than from things like video games. They're both fictional, but one of them is significantly more 'real'.

[Murphie]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

I'd form a connection to someone created by my own imagination far sooner than someone in a video game.

[DakAttack]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

That's interesting, but it doesn't really explain lucid dreams, which is sorta my requirement for considering a theory concerning dreams plausible or not. Interpreting the electrical pattern of the brain and trying to convert it into something that makes sense? Sure. But then wouldn't lucid dreaming imply that you are capable of controlling your brain's electrical patterns, at least during sleep? Would that not also imply that, if the safety measures that keep us from confusing imagined and remembered sensations with real ones are off when we sleep, other ones would likely be too? That would mean that it would be possible, at least in theory, to cause brain damage in a lucid dream, which seems very unlikely.

And to take anything in the human brain as it is and call it "random" seems very presumptuous. We're just now starting to grasp it in "big" terms, to start judging the actions of individual cogs in the machine would be premature.

But, to be frank, it very much is the person. You might not lucid dream, but if you do (or even if you just remember dreams vividly) it's not that uncommon to encounter someone with all the features of a real person. Except, of course, that pesky reality bit. Somewhat like AI and some NPCs; even if they aren't ACTUALLY intelligent, they can very much appear to be so. Hell, I wouldn't even be very surprised to find out that your brain also acts as the other person, and then just disregards it in favor of 'your' perspective.

There is no way you can look at a human, talk to it, hear it's feelings, and then wake up and think "Oh, that must be what Dr. Pepper tastes like. If the flavor could talk."
______________________________
Jarre: FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It’s Alyson Hannigan | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

I think you took what I said and ran with it a bit.

A problem I see with random neurons firing off in the brain is that something would have to assimilate them into a meaningful experience. Anybody who sleeps can tell you that dreams mimic aspects of both recent and past events. This would seemingly require a seperate function. This is all conjecture on my part.

The only thing I feelI can be sure of is that there's a function recalling sensory memories from the brain and assimilating or projecting them into your unconcsious. I'm a firm believer that nothing can be seen, felt, heard, tasted, or whatever, in a dream unless you have a corresponding memory from an actual experience. If this were a shared function, something related to your consciousness and/or imagination, that would help explain lucid dreaming as an awakening of the consciousness in a sleep state while your imagination takes the weight of the dream.

I guess I would need to do a little defining and a bit more reflecting on my own experiences. If your imagination did seamlessly continue your dream while you become concsious, I suppose it would be possible to sense new and unfamiliar things; things that dont correspond with an existing memory.

I'll try to organize my thoughts more clearly next time.

[Feba]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

Well, arguing about how they can seem just as real as actual people, at least until you wake up and such. Which is very much true. I mean, I don't think I'd persuade you either way, but I wanted to see what other people's opinions were.

I'm kinda surprised that none of the people who haven't felt this don't think it's weird, while people that have do, though.

[Murphie]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

I think some people just randomly click on a poll.

[Feba]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

Well, Dak, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree. I've had plenty of dreams in locations that are unlike anywhere I've ever been. I've also felt sensations (a tingling sensation during flight, for example) unlike anything that I've ever felt in real life.

One dream, for example, I was in a subway, in ragged clothes. I've never had ragged clothes (at least, nothing like that), and the subways I've been on were entirely different. Awhile later, I was in a building which was very large, and unlike any place I had ever been. The closest thing I could think of is the nearby union station, and even that is EXTREMELY different. And that was all before I became lucid.

The dream I had earlier (which sparked this discussion) at one point had something like an HP indicator spring up. Now, obviously we've all played video games with health bars and such, but this was somewhat different from any video game I've played, and certainly very different from any I can remember. Even if we assume that it is based on things I've already seen, it is combining different elements into something new, which is pretty much what imagination is. If you can imagine that within a dream, I see no reason you can't imagine a new sensation.

A few notes on the above:

1- I really hate dealing with the concept of 'you' when talking about dreaming. There are so many different parts of a person involved-- your body and brain, your conscious thoughts, and whatever reality synthesizer it is that creates the dream world and it's characters. And that's at the very least.

2- That guy was freaking cheap. I mean he regenerated from 61% to 66% to 81% WITHIN A COUPLE SECONDS. And this is WHILE I WAS CHOKING HIM. Bastard.

3- That GUI was pretty sweet. When you didn't need it, it wasn't there. When you did, it was barely noticable. Not in the way at all.

[DakAttack]

Re: Is it strange to miss people from dreams?

I don't want to get into philosophy here, but what would a sensation that you've never felt before feel like? Technically, it would be impossible for your brain to simply conjure up these sensations. From where would they come from? Even the most imaginative stories are grounded in some aspect of reality.

We know dreaming is a physiological, meaning it's based in some respect on the body and brain. It can be affected by both external, physical stimuli, as well as internal stimuli.

We don't agree on the what and why.

Like I said earlier it's a physiological process that recalls various sensory aspects of various memories and assembles them into meaningful sensations and experiences while you're asleep. I'm inclined to believe it's simply an idle process.

This idle process isn't all that different from your active process, and can be affected in similar manners. The major difference is in its independence from will and intent. It runs on its own until you begin consciously/lucidly dreaming.

I'm not sure if I lucid dream much. I know I have passing realizations that I'm dreaming, but they only ever cause me to wake if they don't pass fast enough. Sometimes they lead into paralysis and/or hypnagogia. As far as I can tell it's an intermittent injection of consciousness that will interupt the dream if not removed. A continuation of the dream may be created in the imagination as it's interupted by consciousness without actually waking the person. Though, from what I understand there is usually no control of the enviroment and if the imagination came into play I would definately expect control of that.

Now, I'd like to quickly differentiate between what could be actual conscious control, and what is only a sensation of conscious control. This is an important consideration.

The content of your dream seems to be more of a concoction of the physiological cultivation of memories. Though you might have never been in that particular subway before, or have ever worn ragged clothing, you've no doubt been in a subway and have seen ragged clothing. Same for the GUI, and the aforemention choking. The brain is so complex that I'm inclined to consider that dreams may be a cultivation of associations. There may be some sort of starting point where associations are drawn from, translated, and assimilated into a dream.

There was an example in the into psych class I took years ago about a woman who dreamt she was sitting naked in a doorless bathroom stall in a crowded bathroom. I'm sure she had never sat naked in a crowded bathroom, ever, but the experience must have been a representation of the anxiety she admitted to feeling. She felt the anxiety, consciously or unconsciously, which manifested in her dream.

Finally, I believe the specific content of your dream is determined near the end of the process. Conscious or unconscious feelings influences what associatations are cultivated. Those associations are then translated into the meaningful end-product experience using concrete memories of actual experiences. For why I believe they must be concrete memories you can refer to the first part.


Or, I could be so far off the deep end... I didn't get a lot of sleep last night...