How do dreams fool you?

[JeffGerlitz]

I never understood how dreams can fool you into believing there real. Some of my dreams are SO FAR out there...space ships, other planets, flying cars etc...yet I never question it. I just believe it to be true. As most people do when they have a non-lucid dream. Someone told me it's because it's your Conscious that "reasons"...and when your asleep your conscious goes away and your sub-conscious it brought forth, which does not reason. So whatever its shown...it believes. So if you see flying pink shoes everywhere...you just except it. They said the same was also true with hypnosis. Is this correct? My dad has had only 1 full blown lucid dream in his day. It came naturally as he was driving down the road. Nothing out of the ordinary sparked him into lucidity. He was just driving on a sunny day and thought "maybe I should go over to Janes house" (which was his girlfriend at the time)...then he thought "wait...I am at janes house...I'm asleep...I'm dreaming right now." Unfortunely, he awoke within 10 seconds out of fear/excitment. I have the craziest most twisted dreams...yet I believe them and never get lucid...what's with that? Thanks in advance for all your replies and comments...they really do help me understand

[tapanojum]

Nearly every part of your brain becomes active during REM sleep..except the logical frontal lobe. Basically, your entire logic center shuts down while your imaginations take over. Which is why no matter how bizzare a dream is, it seems like nothing is out of the ordinary.

[JeffGerlitz]

that makes sense. so I would assume when you become lucid...this logical frontal lobe becomes active?....

[Lucid-Balloon]

When i dream i always seem to accept what i see as normal. Because last night i had a dream where i was in a futuristic city, in real life if i was in a futuristic setting i would do a reality check, but i accepted it as being normal when i was in the dream so i did not do a reality check.

[Underwaterer]

funny, I use a lot of logic and reasoning in all my dreams, whether lucid or not. It's just the level of awareness or naivety doesn't work so well

[Donran]

in DILDs the logic centre is still shut off right? That would mean that(in a DILD) even if you become lucid, a flying crocodile will seem pretty plausible.

[Maria92]

in DILDs the logic centre is still shut off right? That would mean that(in a DILD) even if you become lucid, a flying crocodile will seem pretty plausible. I'm pretty sure that once you realize you're lucid, the logic center wakes up a bit. Even in a WILD, lucidity can be lost and the logic centers shut down.

[FifthElement]

If it were not for the fact that were asleep we would be called crazy. Dreaming is like the onset of madness. We become so absorbed by the magic of the dream event, and acceptance of the event as being real. The imagery closer to dementia , psychosis then one's "normal" sane consciousness. We really lose the waking ability of the "critical" perspective, as in dreams it remains suspended & dormant.

[Serenity]

I'm sorry I can't provide full insight into this, because I just can't remember how my brain argued with me. But last night, I was dreaming along and came to the realization I was naked. That was a key indicator to me that I was very likely dreaming. I remember saying to myself, "Oh, I'm walking around in public, naked. This has to be a dream then." Then... this part is hard to describe, but it was like a voice from in my head - like my inner voice, but it sounded a bit different - tried to reason with me, to tell me that there was a perfectly logical explanation as to why I was walking around naked, yet it wasn't a dream. When I didn't buy my brain's false logic, and I tried to insist that I had to be dreaming, I woke up

[Dylan Tinning]

I have always thought about this and I have never got the reason... This is why I have never had a lucid dream because everything seems normal no matter how weird it is, so I don't get how people can look at something in there dream and think "ok now thats not real" and then remember to do a RC... In Real life when ever I see something weird I do a RC to train myself for when I have a dream, but then in the dream if I saw a hippo talking to me I would accept it therfore not needing to do a RC...

[Chaos Theory]

Are there certain things that (for lack of a better word) reboot the logic center? I'll give you an example; in one of my dreams, I asked for a telephone from a DC. Instead of giving me a phone, he begins to chew on his own arm, ripping and tearing at his own flesh, asking me if I wanted any. I didn't stop and go "Hey, that's strange." Yet, in another dream, I see my dead Grandmother walking around and this shocks me into lucidity.

[Serenity]

I have always thought about this and I have never got the reason... This is why I have never had a lucid dream because everything seems normal no matter how weird it is, so I don't get how people can look at something in there dream and think "ok now thats not real" and then remember to do a RC... In Real life when ever I see something weird I do a RC to train myself for when I have a dream, but then in the dream if I saw a hippo talking to me I would accept it therfore not needing to do a RC... I'm the same way. I could dream the weirdest thing and just accept it as completely normal. Lately, I go lucid from dream signs. I have a list of things that pop up every so often that when I see them (or in some cases, do them, like super powers) that I just know it has to be a dream. In these cases, I don't generally have to reality check. Once I get the realization I'm dreaming, everything else clicks into place. I don't recognize where I am, I can't remember how I got there, etc, etc. I would imagine though that if I stopped and took the time to RC, that I might have stronger control over my lucidity, or something.

[justme]

This is probaly wrong but at least its a somewhat different awnser...? Maybe we do know we are dreaming. I had dreams that I assumed were non-lucid then at the end I would think something, this is a strange dream, or one time I hear my mom coming up the stairs in my dream (external signs and stuff entering your dreams is a whole nother toic though) and in my dream I say I hope she doesn't wake me up just yet. Of course maybe I was just thinking random things in my dreams and it happens to be something about this being a dream, or maybe we just rather not take control.

[Citrusponge]

The impairment of memory must be a factor. We're all familiar with dream amnesia, and one could see the common logical impairment as, or partly due to, temporarily forgetting the norms and rules of waking life. Further complications are false memories, and dream-generated beliefs one just accepts without analysis, such as the feeling of a history and familarity with characters and scenes that have been recently dreamt into existence for the first time.

[alicexdoll]

The thing that drives me crazy is when I'm dreaming and I think, wow, this is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to me in a dream. Yet this never prompts me to do an RC! It happened to me last night, I even told a group of DCs that a particular scenario seemed "like something I would dream about." But I just assumed it was all reality. Sad.

[LWA]

The thing that drives me crazy is when I'm dreaming and I think, wow, this is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to me in a dream. Yet this never prompts me to do an RC! It happened to me last night, I even told a group of DCs that a particular scenario seemed "like something I would dream about." But I just assumed it was all reality. Sad. That is frustrating, BUT it's also what Patricia Garfield calls "a cooperative dream." The subject of dreaming itself is filtering into your dreams, and that is a very good sign!

[Serenity]

The thing that drives me crazy is when I'm dreaming and I think, wow, this is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to me in a dream. Yet this never prompts me to do an RC! It happened to me last night, I even told a group of DCs that a particular scenario seemed "like something I would dream about." But I just assumed it was all reality. Sad. Indeed, this is a great first step! Though I've had LDs before joining DV, it took about 3 weeks between when I joined and when I had my next one. In that 3 week period, I started getting the same thing. Those thoughts popping up, thinking about whether this is a dream or not, but not quite remembering what to do At this point (of two months being here/practicing), I've increased my LD's to about 1 a week, so it's slowly getting better

[Elem3nt0]

I wish some scientist would hurry up and figure out this stuff. It pisses me off that we are wired to not be lucid in dreams, our logic center is turned off, but whoever made us able to dream i wanna ask wtf is your problem guy? It almost enrages me, its like a dirty trick... "We give you the power to dream, in your own fantasy land but NO, FREE WILL IS A NO NO!"

[Alric]

I wouldn't say your logic is turned off, because there is still alot of logic involved. Though obviously it does suffer a bit. I would say your self awareness takes the biggest hit though. Which is why you can dream that you are someone totally different and even have fake memories and stuff and not notice. Heck you can have a dream and not even have a body. It kind of makes sense though. Since you are everything in your dream, it makes sense that you would spread your awareness between everything in the dream. When you put your awareness into just one dream character your actually limiting yourself a lot. Most dream signs and stuff that causes reality checks are based off recgonizing patterns, not off logic.

[yuriythebest]

While sometimes we may indeed become lucid by some innate revelation, mostly all these times you "use your great intellect to realize you're dreaming" are actually the result of the conditioning/techniques you use before sleep- think of pre-sleep and indeed the entire day as a test and sleep as the exam.

[TempletonEsquire]

Lately I've only gone lucid when the concept of God, gods, or some divinity mention is brought to my consciousness, sometimes purposefully as a RC. I'm not a religious or spiritual person, probably gravitating more towards atheism on a bad day, yet it seems to be the only thing I can not take for granted or explain to DCs and myself. I have yet to have the concept of divinity, when it comes to mind, not cause an LD. Although, because of this my dreams tend to avoid it.

[Conkt]

Last night I had a dream where I was in my house when a headcrab jumped out on my friend. I knocked it off of her, and it jumped into the air. It then landed and bit onto my hand. I managed to kill it after a bit of a struggle, and glanced at my hand. It had a small cut and the wrong number of fingers. I laughed, and said "This virtual reality system is pretty good, but there are still a few bugs to iron out" I was at lucidity's door when my brain intervened and said I was just playing a video game.

[Squaddle]

With Logic while you dream, that would totally kill the purpose of dreaming... you can't have logic, and have the anti-logic that encompasses dream at the same time while you're dreaming.... if you dream with logic, we wouldn't call it dreaming... nor would it be a dream at all.

[Dre4m3r]

In one of my lucid dreams... I had a feeling I was dreaming but I spawned garden gnomes around me just to make sure... At the time it seemed like a smart normal thing to do... Once I woke up I was so confused as to why that would sound normal at all.

[Taromon777]

Last night I breathed on an alien planet without any apparatus, got chased by a stegosaurus at my Granny's housing estate, and this creepy grinning woman gave me an expanding cat shaped cusion called a "Fat Cat Cusion". It all seemed logical at the time.