Where do dreams come from?

[Atlas]

Epepke, You agreed with Schneibster: That's the classical view.
Perhaps it's a modern scientific classical view but for most of human history dreams carried meaning, or a warning, for the dreamer or for the people the dreamer lived amongst. Wasn't Daniel, of Bible fame, a dream interpreter?

... but one thing immediately caught my attention you say "I have taken great effort not to reconstruct details here but limit it only to what I directly remember."

To Darat's observation I found this dream rememberence of your's interesting.
The office was in a room, longer east-west than north-south.It's always seemed strange to me that even inside a dream, inside an unknown building, we can often feel certain of the unknowable distinctions like these directions. You could have said "longer front to back than side to side". Did you "feel" these directions or was Darat correct in that some details are enhanced during the recollection and retelling.
Back to "dream interpretation" vs "daily sensory input reshuffling"...

All four desks were made of that grey-painted steel with a dimple finish that was so popular in the early 60's.

The "office" is a symbol of employment and the desk is something symbolic you "own" - something with the appearence of solid permanence.
After the punchline you notice something different about it.

I went over and thanked Sam, and it was at this point that the ever-present punchline came. I actually wasn't being paid by them, and so I decided to go. I looked for my personal books to take home. They were under the desk. There were no drawers on the desk, but there were two shelves, made of thin sheet steel

Suddenly your solid symbol of employment is really very airy. It's not solid at all. The drawers where you might have kept stuff for your work was really pretty empty.

Neither shelf was full, so books were slouched over (to the left). I recognized one book, which was an Oracle manual, about 9 cm thick and 8 1/2 by 11, a paperback, but the logo was not the usual one, but rather something in a square, patterned in red, blue, and black. I took that one and another paperback, thinner but the same paper size, and left.

Oracle means something to a database programmer, but of course if it has a different logo it may relate to a secondary meaning of the word. The Oracle is who you'd seek if you needed to know about your future. So you take it along with the book of the unknown name and contents. The book is yours, of course (your unknown future?). Not much substance there... thin, paperback, the size and shape of blank paper.

Ok, there are probably a hundred interpretations. I tend to think that the brain is merely doing concept reshuffling as its primary function and the dream is a sideshow. This type of dream maybe offering you clues to how your brain is rewiring that which seems solid to something more ephemeral. If the walls of the office disappear next time it will be just more of the same.

I've had recurring dreams before. One I call my Navy dream. In the Navy we were always supposed to operate as a well oiled machine - everybody knows their job. In my dream I'm given a task for which I'm incompetent. Strangely, I'm not punished or ridiculed - I just feel like I'm letting everyone down or that I'm really irrelevant. Perhaps stress at work or in my marriage triggered it - I never analyzed why I got it each time - I was interested in the how the dream gave me a new landscape to celebrate my inferiority in. Sometimes the ship was different so I couldn't find my way to the emergency. Sometimes different people would stop me to help them but I needed to hurry. Sometimes I'd look into the repair locker and wouldn't recognize the equipment when other sailors would reach in, grab something and put it on and hurry away. Still, though it was always different, it was always easy to recognize it as the same dream. I was in the Navy for 4 years but that dream replayed itself every 6 months or so for 20 years. I obviously had some strong associations that kept being matched in whatever shuffling routines were happening at dream time.
The funniest "detail" I ever dreamed was when I was a kid with my new bike. I didn't know how to ride it yet. It was a little to big for me but something I could grow into. I learned how to peddle and ride straight but each time I tried to turn a corner, to take it around the block, I'd fall. Several days of road rash left me stressed and I had a dream. In the dream I saw my street clearly. I was on my bike and coming up to dead man's curve, which was really the corner of Third and Oak or something. In my dream I took the corner perfectly in a dreamspace that perfectly matched the real world. The next day I took the corner for real. I had learned perfect cornering balance from that dream. So, like boeingJr...

I do remember playing a computer game on Commodore 64 (Monty on the run), and I was severly stuck, often. On two occations I had very detailed game dreams, dreamt of a solution, tried it, and it worked!! Yay!

I found the answer to a problem in a dream.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, take a nap... grab the thin paperback that you left the office with, open it up and have SoapySam read it to you.

 

[Iacchus]

The same place our identities come from ... "the id."

 

[EdipisReks]

i remember that the night after i saw the movie Waking Life i had a dream where i tried to use a light switch to see if i was dreaming or not. the light switch worked, and i said, in my dream "what a bunch of bull$h!t". that was fun.

 

[EdipisReks]

The same place our identities come from ... "the id."

you have been playing way too many computer games, methinks.

 

[epepke]

Epepke, You agreed with Schneibster: That's the classical view.
Perhaps it's a modern scientific classical view but for most of human history dreams carried meaning, or a warning, for the dreamer or for the people the dreamer lived amongst.

Yes, but that's fairly trivial. I've done dreamwork in the past, and that's fine, as far as it goes. I already know why I'm dreaming about offices, and the punchline, as I mentioned in the OP.

ETA: In any event, it's unrelated to what I'm wondering about here. What I'm wondering about here is the detail in dreams.

 

[Roboramma]

I found this link to a Nature review regarding the importance of sleep on the Loom:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7063/full/nature04285.html

I haven't had a chance to look through it yet (it seems pretty heavy), but what I read of it seems interesting.

I don't know that really goes to the OP, but interesting anyway.

Theories of REM sleep function
REM sleep, the state in which our most vivid dreams occur, has inspired a multitude of functional theories. The identification of the 'dream state' as a periodic physiological process during sleep has encouraged the addition of physiological and psychological theories to the more mystical theories of the ancients.

REM sleep is 'paradoxical' in the sense that although an animal in REM sleep is behaviourally asleep, brain metabolic and neuronal activity are high, respiration and heart rate are variable, rapid eye movements and twitches of the extremities occur and males frequently develop erections72. These phenomena and the vivid dreams that humans report upon awakening from REM sleep have made the function of this state particularly mysterious and intriguing. Although behavioural immobility and reduced overall body metabolic rate relative to active waking are maintained, why has this state evolved when continued NREM sleep, with its reduction in brain metabolic activity, would seem to be more efficient at achieving the recuperative and energy-saving effects of sleep?

 

[Soapy Sam]

I don't recall smelling anything in dreams. Touch , hearing and sight yes.

As well as the visual hyperclarity, I'm impressed and puzzled by the emotional intensity. I have been far more frightened in dreams than awake- I frequently wake up, terrified, sweating, screaming and yelling.
(How to make friends and influence people). Often the apparent dream cause of this is something relatively innocuous- something which in real life would engender curiosity rather than fear- a table lamp , floating an inch above the table, for instance.
Dreadful sadness, sometimes mysterious happiness . The emotional overtones may linger all day, long after the content is forgotten- which it usually is in an hour or two, unless I write it down.

Brains. Can't live with 'em. Can't think without 'em.

 

[epepke]

To Darat's observation I found this dream rememberence of your's interesting.
The office was in a room, longer east-west than north-south.It's always seemed strange to me that even inside a dream, inside an unknown building, we can often feel certain of the unknowable distinctions like these directions. You could have said "longer front to back than side to side". Did you "feel" these directions or was Darat correct in that some details are enhanced during the recollection and retelling.

Sorry; I missed this question the first time.

That part of the dream was probably "templated," because I once worked in a trailer that was wider east-west than north-south and had a desk in approximately the same place. Of course, a trailer isn't exactly a room, and the rest of the layout was different, but that's probably where that detail came from.

But there are details that I knew in the context of the dream that I did not see. For example, I knew what the woman who usually delivered the mail looked like, even though I didn't see it. In the dream, I had the experience of remembering her, when I first saw the wine box on the desk.

Anyway, whether it's original or reconstruction, a lot of stuff goes on, and it goes on in an area where I have relatively little skill. If I could get that kind of thing happening while awake (for instance, for video game level design), it would be quite a useful skill to have.

 

[epepke]

I don't recall smelling anything in dreams. Touch , hearing and sight yes.

Some of the earliest dreams I remember involved strong smells.

As well as the visual hyperclarity, I'm impressed and puzzled by the emotional intensity. I have been far more frightened in dreams than awake- I frequently wake up, terrified, sweating, screaming and yelling.
(How to make friends and influence people). Often the apparent dream cause of this is something relatively innocuous- something which in real life would engender curiosity rather than fear- a table lamp , floating an inch above the table, for instance.

I don't want to get too far into this, because it's not what I was asking in the OP, but it seems to me that, when dreaming, the history of one's memories, and the distinction between adult and child, is blurred. So, sometimes one reacts in a dream as a child would, and I think that people usually forget how it is sometimes terrifying to be a child.

I ran into this a lot when I did dreamwork to overcome shyness. Reactions and fears that are not appropriate for an adult came up in dreams. They helped me understand why I had panic reactions in social situations; they were parts of my brain that had been trained long ago, that I consciously remember but looked at with the perceptions of an adult. But those portions of my brain had not been properly trained to be adult.

Dreadful sadness, sometimes mysterious happiness . The emotional overtones may linger all day, long after the content is forgotten- which it usually is in an hour or two, unless I write it down.

Yeah, I've been wiped out for a day by a dream. Sometimes elated.

 

[I less than three logic]

I found this thread pretty interesting, so I think I’ll add my two cents. Although, I don’t know useful you’ll find it.

My experience with dreams seems to be the opposite of what most of you describe. In fact, I haven’t been able to recall a single detail of a dream for many years. I remember dreaming when I was younger, and I can’t recall the exact age when I was unable to remember my dreams. I remember a dream very distinctly from my childhood. It was a dream where I could fly (pretty common I believe), however I could only fly up and the only way to descend was to fall. It was quite scary as I remember it. Until I learned, in the dream, that I could fall for a while then fly back up a short distance and start to fall again. By the end of the dream I would make it back to the ground with a sequence of controlled falls, but each fall gave my that uncomfortable feeling in my stomach like on a rollercoaster.

For the last ten years at least I haven’t been able to remember anything about my dreams. My nights go something like this. I’m lying in bed getting more and more tired, then I close my eyes. What feels like less than a second later the alarm is going off. The whole 8 hour is gone just like that. I do feel refreshed like I got some sleep, well because I did I guess, but the whole experience just feels like missing time. This probably explains why I feel sleep is an unavoidable waste of time.

I do, however, get the sensation that I was dreaming. When I get woken up early I sometimes have the distinct feeling that I was going something, but I can’t remember what. It feels a lot like when you open you browser to check what time a movie is playing. You just get the browser open to the home page when the phone rings. You go answer it and talk for a while, and when you come back to the computer you can’t remember why you opened the browser. The harder you try the less it feels you’ll be able to remember. So you just go to the JREF forums. It feels like that, only without the original reason for opening your browser popping into your head after you’re late for the show.

 

[Schneibster]

This is one area I have often thought over. That and why do some foods seemingly create nightmares when eaten late at night?

NEVER will I forget eating many hot dogs with mustard and having dreams all night about FIRE and LIGHTNING and so forth... heh.

 

[Schneibster]

Some of the earliest dreams I remember involved strong smells.

Smells work on some of the oldest portions of the mammal brain; the earliest mammals are believed to have had as their advantage over the dinosaurs not only homeostatic thermodynamics and chemistry, but very advanced senses of smell and taste beyond anything that the reptiles or birds had developed.

The link between smell and memory, and smell and various sorts of brain activity, is well documented in the literature, to such an extent that some varieties of psychomotor epilepsy have seizures that have been documented to begin with a characteristic smell.

 

[Marc L]

Wasn't Daniel, of Bible fame, a dream interpreter?

While I seem to remember Daniel interpreting at least one dream, it was Joseph who was known for it.

I have to agree with the original poster-a lot of my dreams contain some original things (as in things I haven't encountered in the real world, or at least not within a short period of time prior to the dream). I also have had dreams about things that aren't possible in the real world. (Unfortunately the only thing I can thing of right now is pretty graphic).

The weirdest thing about my dreams, though is that I don't hear in them. Not that I'm deaf in my dreams, mind you, just that I don't hear sounds. I know when someone is talking, and I know what they said, but I didn't actually *hear* the words being spoken. Seeing and touch, however, operate as normal.

Marc

 

[Mercutio]

It's all Queen Mab.

Trust me on this.

 

[Atlas]

It's all Queen Mab.

Trust me on this.

Tootin yer own horn agin, eh?

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio jests with Romeo, musing that Mab, the bringer of dreams, has visited his lovesick friend:

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone (60)
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, (65)
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm (70)
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night... (1.4.58-100)

Shakespeare's reference to Queen Mab, the well-known fairy in Celtic (Irish) folklore famous centuries before Shakespeare, was the first known reference to her in English literature.

 

[epepke]

Smells work on some of the oldest portions of the mammal brain; the earliest mammals are believed to have had as their advantage over the dinosaurs not only homeostatic thermodynamics and chemistry, but very advanced senses of smell and taste beyond anything that the reptiles or birds had developed.

The link between smell and memory, and smell and various sorts of brain activity, is well documented in the literature, to such an extent that some varieties of psychomotor epilepsy have seizures that have been documented to begin with a characteristic smell.

Yes, but I've also heard the claim that it is impossible to smell in dreams.

Smells seem so deeply connected to emotion and memory that I wonder if the sensation of smells provided a step in the neurological hierarchy that eventually built up.

 

[luchog]

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I suffer from severe primary insomnia (insomnia for which there is no known cause)

Wow, sucks to be you.

I recently went through that whole sleep-study thing to get my chronic insomnia figured out, and i get the verdict tomorrow. So far none of the medications i've been on have done squat to help me sleep; so they've resorted to giving me stimulants (specifically modafinil) to keep me awake when I'm supposed to be. Hopefully the results of my study will yield more useful results. I'm not holding my breath, though.

I do dream when I sleep (what little sleep i get). Intensely. Not nightmares, though, oddly. I can count on the fingers of one hand the total number of actual nightmares I've had since I was in my early teens. But my dreams tend to be very intense. Not necessarily active or emotional, just extremely vivid and strong -- everything's more saturated, more sharply defined, higher volume, more present.

My dreams also rarely have anything resembling a coherent narrative. Mostly they're just loose associations of unrelated scenes that just sort of flow into each other, and which I rarely remember anything from. Occasionally I'll have an especially vivid, narrative dream; which follows one of three different common themes -- the most common involving a search for some person or thing.

There is one dream, however, that was completely unique. It didn't fit any pattern or style of any dream I have ever had before or since. It was one of the most vivid I've ever had, and felt completely alien even while I was dreaming. I remember thinking, when I woke, that it felt like it wasn't actually my dream, like I was intruding on someone else's dream. I wrote it down immediately upon awakening, so I wouldnt lose it; but I still remember it in clear detail. So clear that when I go back and check my original notes, I find my current memory unchanged from what I'd written, so there's none of the embellishment that usually happens over time.

I'm really curious as to what caused that dream, and why it was so different from anything else I've ever experienced.

 

[YoPopa]

"You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?"
From Happy Talk song, South Pacific.

IIRC there was study done recently showing how sleep improves learning by giving us a chance to sort out successful behaviors and send them to some center of the brain where they are kept in a more long term storage area. Short term memories can be easily lost, perhaps "overwritten" by new short term memories if this reorganization fails to happen.

The study involved subjects playing Tetris or something of the sort very intensely before sleep. Most of the subjects had vivid dreams of the game but the ones who showed the most progress in learning the game had gotten to the deepest level of sleep.

So if your "dream" is to be a better Tetris player then you need to have a Tetris dream. Bloody Mary knew what she was singing about!