Thread: How can you feel stuff in your dreams ?

i've never had a lucid dream were i got the chance to touch something yet,
but i was wondering .. how can you actually feel a desk when your dreaming it ?
Or how can you feel the wind ? Is it true that you ACTUALLY can feel those sensations in the first place ?

Well in my regular dreams when swimming, I can feel the water and sensation I get when water goes up my nose. I guess your mind uses it knowledge of what things feel like in the real world and use then for lucid dreaming. Just a guess.

yeah that's what my guess is too,
just curious if anyone knows how it works
and how the sensations are created

I've felt things many times in dreams; a few nights ago in a lucid, I felt acceleration and wind in my face as I flew across a road. I've also felt stucco on houses, bricks, carpet, objects, and even felt grass. Not to mention various objects. It's very realistic.

For me, as long as the dream is quite vivid, touching things feels very realistic.
It sometimes feels different compared to real life, but realistic nonetheless.
The best example would be if I rub my hands to stabilize my dream, it never feels exactly like in real life, but the sensation is quite strong.

I recently had the opportunity to drink a cup of champagne in a dream, and it tasted exactly like it's real world counterpart.
I could even clearly feel the bubbles in my throat as I was drinking, it was quite an interesting experience since it was the first time I drank something in a dream.

All of your senses in waking life occur because of your brain. Your brain is still working while you're asleep. Certain parts of the brain are at rest, but in general, theres isn't a feeling in waking life that wouldn't be able to be simulated in a dream. To understand how all of those things specifically operate, just look into information on how the brain works.

Since it's easy to say that a lot is processed in the brain, your mind can recreate sensations and redirect them to the appropriate senses. I used to have two cats, who would unfortunately scratch me on occasion.
Around a week or two ago, I was scratched by a tiger in my dream, and I could feel the pain; the interesting thing was that it didn't feel like a cat scratch, my brain understood it was a big cat and magnified the pain.
Since the brain is in control, it seems like it is intelligent enough (weird to say a brain is intelligent) to recreate scenarios based on your own former experiences. However it should still be stated that in the end, this is all just recreation, therefore the chance of an oddity still exists.

Your eyes sense light, but they don't provide you your vision. Your ears detect sound but they don't provide you your hearing. It is your brain that assembles the information they provide into perception. The only difference between your waking perceptions and ones in a dream is the source of the input. The perceptions themselves function in the exact same way. The fact is that your brain is always synthesizing these perceptions. We don't have direct access to reality, we only see it through the filter of our perceptions. What you see, hear and feel is your brain's "map" it has drawn based on the information it has received from your sensory organs. A "map" can be drawn from sensory input as well as from imagination.

Originally Posted by Mark75

Your eyes sense light, but they don't provide you your vision. Your ears detect sound but they don't provide you your hearing. It is your brain that assembles the information they provide into perception. The only difference between your waking perceptions and ones in a dream is the source of the input. The perceptions themselves function in the exact same way. The fact is that your brain is always synthesizing these perceptions. We don't have direct access to reality, we only see it through the filter of our perceptions. What you see, hear and feel is your brain's "map" it has drawn based on the information it has received from your sensory organs. A "map" can be drawn from sensory input as well as from imagination.

This was the best explanation I have read for the subject, specially for people who are not familiar enough with lucid dream.

Originally Posted by Mark75

Your eyes sense light, but they don't provide you your vision. Your ears detect sound but they don't provide you your hearing. It is your brain that assembles the information they provide into perception. The only difference between your waking perceptions and ones in a dream is the source of the input. The perceptions themselves function in the exact same way. The fact is that your brain is always synthesizing these perceptions. We don't have direct access to reality, we only see it through the filter of our perceptions. What you see, hear and feel is your brain's "map" it has drawn based on the information it has received from your sensory organs. A "map" can be drawn from sensory input as well as from imagination.

Absolutely fantastic explanation! Definitely the most easily comprehensible I have ever seen.

The human brain really is powerful and amazing !

Originally Posted by Mark75

Your eyes sense light, but they don't provide you your vision. Your ears detect sound but they don't provide you your hearing. It is your brain that assembles the information they provide into perception. The only difference between your waking perceptions and ones in a dream is the source of the input. The perceptions themselves function in the exact same way. The fact is that your brain is always synthesizing these perceptions. We don't have direct access to reality, we only see it through the filter of our perceptions. What you see, hear and feel is your brain's "map" it has drawn based on the information it has received from your sensory organs. A "map" can be drawn from sensory input as well as from imagination.

Yes, this is really the one that explains it the best, thanks !

Akono put it very well. You have to almost look at it like this:

What is waking life? It is just you being conscious and aware of what is going on around you. Right? Everything gets fed through your senses, your brain, and from there your body/mind reacts accordingly. It stands to reason that inside of a lucid dream your brain is reacting as if it were "waking life" in that things will feel how the brain expects them to feel. Nothing is external, to a point. It's all in your head.

The absolute realism that is possible in LDs is one of the things that is so exhilerating for me. When I first become lucid in a dream I try to anchor by looking, touching, listening etc. Getting down on my knees and rubbing my hand across the grass and having it feel totally real but knowing it is my mind creating it is a mind-blowing experience.

Those are some excellent explanations up there guys. I really like how Mark said that the brain can create reality while recieving imput from your senses or your imagination. Makes me wonder, what really is the difference?

Personally I have felt a chair in a LD a few weeks ago and it felt scratchy. Just as one would have in real life. What if there really is no difference? *brain melts again*.