Thread: Think about early humans...

Actually an interesting thought. If you think the first time a human race saw a dream... That would have been quite... spectacular feeling. I wonder too if the fear was the main feeling there or if the human back then was even able to remember the dream afterwards.

Nice thing to be pondered.

Came up with it when I was... "intoxicated" on a certain type of tobacco.... lol. But yea... maybe they were really intrigued... Also, could this have anything to do with the creation of religion? Maybe someone had a dream of some heavenly figure or angel and thought it was absolutely real and simply didn't have the intelligence to know it was a dream...

Very likely. Sounds so humanlike. See something you cannot understand and start to worship it, discarding a rational thinking.

But as for dreaming.. it is very old tradition and certainly one of the first spiritual/religious experiences humans have had. Seers and shamans, the eldest of spiritual guides, operated very much through dreams.

To dream is to be free of a physical body. What if the reality that we think we live in while were awake was the result of the subconsious explorations that we take part in when we dream, in other words we could have dreamed our way into this reality.

every creature dreams- from humans to monkeys to dogs to fish.
the notion of "first human to dream" is meaningless

Still the difference between human and dog dreaming is that human is more capable of translating and evaluating of what he has dreamt of. I think we agree on this one.

Do you think planctons dream?

If you don't, then when was the point creatures started dreaming?

I still find it quite interesting.

Originally Posted by yuriythebest

every creature dreams- from humans to monkeys to dogs to fish.
the notion of "first human to dream" is meaningless

Okay... I understand where you're coming from... but to say it's meaningless is just ignorant. How do you know that dreams didn't greatly contribute to the creation of God or religion? Because if they did, that would mean dreams could be responsible for the very foundation of morals.... Or maybe dreams led to the first conversation, or attempted, because maybe an early human was so intrigued by what he experienced that he needed to tell someone... Who knows?

I think our ancestors had LD's way more than us. Science was never necessary for LD's.

They lived in nature, and did simple things without a lot of the mental clutter we receive from the media.

I think they were way more aware of their dreams.

i often think about animals dreaming like cats and dogs and that and how there is noone to explain it to them so they just would wonder hey like wtf is going on?? xD

I have a question though, if we are speaking of the people who first began to dream wouldn't they have always had the capability to dream? It's not like we suddenly evolved one day into being able to sleep and dream, and for that matter dogs dream, cats dream, perhaps we have always dreamed.

Anyway, my point is, if we have always dreamed why then would it be scary to us? I suppose the only explanation for that is recognition that your dreams cannot hurt you, so I suppose the question changes to "When did we begin to realize our dreams were simply extended mirages in our minds?" Did it simple come WITH dreaming?

Originally Posted by The Rhino

I have a question though, if we are speaking of the people who first began to dream wouldn't they have always had the capability to dream? It's not like we suddenly evolved one day into being able to sleep and dream, and for that matter dogs dream, cats dream, perhaps we have always dreamed.

Anyway, my point is, if we have always dreamed why then would it be scary to us? I suppose the only explanation for that is recognition that your dreams cannot hurt you, so I suppose the question changes to "When did we begin to realize our dreams were simply extended mirages in our minds?" Did it simple come WITH dreaming?

Well... I get what you're sayin. But, I'm just asking, think about how scary dreams could have been for early humans... I'm not saying that's when dreams STARTED, but regardless they had to of been scary for some of the early humans or even animals.

maybe dreams are just a random design flaw on humans..

maybe prior to developing the sleep paralysis during sleep
our first dream beta testing period - we ran all around sleep walking/

running all around & scaring the hell out of other early humans.

I don't think dreams are a flaw... I view them as a part of the human brain. It's been said that dreams and sleeping are the ultimate forms of stress release, supposedly keeping us sane.

I thought dreams are more like a way for the brain to absorb memories, and yes from a part of the human brain - somewhere.

Still I wonder how all those memories of a lifetime fit in an average person's physical brain?

If you think something is a flaw you aren't looking hard enough.

I think about this a TON.

They've figured out that most animals don't have much in the way of dream recall. Understanding what dreams are requires communication, as we learn what dreams are when we tell crazy stories from our dreams, and then people around us tell us that we were sleeping the whole time. Without knowing what dreams are, they would be easy to mistake for reality, which would obviously be dangerous. Therefore, any creatures without language can't remember their dreams except very rarely.

Dreams are possessed by every mammal (and to a limited degree, some simpler creatures), but dream recall probably gradually developed along with language.

apocalypse: I suspect sleep paralysis is far older than dreams, after all, you don't need dreams to move in your sleep. They've found that dreams have a lot of benefits, but the biggest one is in learning new skills. After you've practiced a skill, you don't actually improve at it until you've been through a couple of REM periods. Also, the've found that in cultures that aren't exposed to as much fiction as ours, dreams are almost always about dangerous things that could actually happen to the dreamer (animal attacks, being lost), and they give people a chance to practice responding to danger without risking injury.