A philosophical thought to ponder

in my last post i mentioned my gran,who was of romany stock.
this incident happened one night when we were all asleep.my gran lived with us.she slept in the room next to my room. in my room,i say my room,but two of my brothers slept in the same room .i slept with my elder brother,who was a big lad. during the night i remember, i could not breath ,i was struggling to breath,then i could breath!. it all happened so quick i was not fully awake and just rolled over in a deep sleep.
it was the next morning all was revealed. my gran had awoke with a startle.
she new there was something wrong,she jumped out her bed ,rushed into the
room and she saw my big brother laying on his back sprawled out across the bed (with the top of his arm across my mouth/nose!.as i said he was a big muscular lad. my gran dragged his arm off my face and woke him up,and gave him hell. its a strange old world!!. my gran knew something was wrong with me. i was only about 7 yrs old music.

 

Dreams...endless possibilities.......

 

The ATM aspect of it was probably just because you were subconsciously remembering that we'd been chatting about ATM scams on here recently. It will have just been a convenient symbol.

I'm no expert (and to be honest I don't see how anyone could be, as everyone is different so we can't possibly accurately say what's going on in someone's subconscious) but here's my assessment. Dr Clueless1 is now in session

You set fire to an ATM outside a police station then went in to confess. Perhaps you were making a bold statement that you reject the way your life is governed by pretty much everyone apart from you. We are tied to banks, in that these days you can't do a great deal with a bank. Every aspect of our life is policed. We are tied to so many material things, computers, mobile phones, increasingly complex cars that need increasingly expensive maintenance, ever increasing peer pressure influencing how we must behave. I once read of a concept called 'future shock' where technological advances were moving faster than our brains could adapt, resulting in increasing stress. There was some mention that we typically take in as much info in one day as someone 100 years ago would have took in in their whole life. Perhaps subconsciously you are saying enough is enough, and you want to simplify things a bit and break free of all the trappings of modern life.

 

Sorry I'm so late catching up again!

This is really interesting. Yes, way too much info going on in our brains even when we're trying to sleep. I used to have a dream (not very often as you will tell) when I was going to be ill as a youngster. As soon as I told someone, it didn't happen anymore.

Luckily not too many illnesses!

But I know I suffer from brain strain - not working out problems, just thinking of things way, way too much. I can't stop them! Anything like this is bound to come out in dreams. In all sorts of weird ways. Are there people that can interpret these & help? I don't know. But hopefully, by even talking on here, we can 'relieve the pressure'.

cheers

 

Me too Borrowers! I understand that completely.
Going back to the original question I found this from a very interesting article on dreaming.

Why do dream images not really make sense or seem so bizarre?

This is due to the lack of the main rational centre, which is deactivated during our dream sleep, and the chemical changes that go on while we are dreaming.

Because we are only relying on internal perceptions and memories, we only have certain information to work with to convey the images we are seeing.

For example, when we are awake we can look around and know where we are and what is in front of us, we can reality check. When we are dreaming we cannot do this. The reality check is the dream itself.

So because of the changes in the brain our dreams just unfold for us without us controlling them, unless you know how to lucid dream we cannot decide how the dream unfolds.

Because of the areas that are active in the brain while we dream anything can happen in our dreams and the brain becomes hyper-associative. This means we are more able to think outside the box than in waking life.

 

That opens up another interesting thought. Especially the second sentence I quoted.

When we are awake, our perception of reality is based exclusively on five senses, which in humans are not particularly good truth be told. Our vision is not the best, and our field of vision is fairly narrow, and we have a blind spot right in the centre of our field of vision that is 'filled in' by the part of our brain responsible for vision. Our hearing is among the worst in the animal kingdom, sense of smell is almost pointless, but our sense of smell is the only one that stays active while we sleep so we can't count that anyway. Taste only applies in the small percentage of wake time when we're eating or drinking, and as for touch, we wear so much clothing that that's not going to tell us a great deal neither.

So with all our senses being flawed, and our brains making the best of what it is picking up from them and filling in the gaps, all the while our brain is whatever the opposite of 'hyper-associative' is, I wonder how we can take a 'reality check' while we're awake. How do we know we are not just still dreaming?

Ok, before you say I'm mad, I know when I'm awake, but my point is it seems to me that our brains are less capable when we are awake than when we are asleep, probably because when we are awake our brains have to work so hard just to fill in the gaps from our less than perfect senses, whereas when we sleep our brains are free to analyse all the information we've gathered up over a very long period of time.

I once tried to read the English translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The only bit I even came close to thinking I understood was a bit that said that 'reality is only a product of our imagination'.

 

hi STRAWMAN. QUOTE> some dreams have been so exciting that you didnt want to wake up! WAS SHE :TALL, BLONDE,WALKING OUT OF THE SEA DRIPPING WITH WATER,HOLDING A SEASHELL IN HER HAND ,SINGING??? FUNNY I HAVE HAD THAT DREAM OFTEN !!! WE MUST HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON????. WE MIGHT BE COUSINS???? :yho::hehe::gnthb: MUSIC.

 

To my great disappointment I stopped having flying dreams a long time ago-a teenager. I have a lot of dreams where I am able to breathe under water. And I can "feel" the water gently pushing along my sides as I go along.

 

those are the differences between the unconscious and the conscious mind. and never the twain shall meet!

 

One night last week I woke about 4am having had a very vivid dream that I had been broken into. I knew it was a dream but couldn't settle without getting up to check that all was alright. It was of course BUT I did find that I hadn't locked the door! My subconscious mind knew clearly even though I could have sworn I had locked it.

 

I have dreams occasionally, but they are always only about one thing.
Work!

Now I took early retirement eleven years ago, so why do I dream about work?
The dream is always about some sort of work "problem."

I'll digress here, as with many companies, you always get some idiot in HR or whatever, trying to justify their existence by saying; "You must not think of it as a problem, but as an opportunity." I've never heard such a load of codswallop in my life. Problems are problems, the skill is being able to find a solution.
My boss tried that nonsense on me once, in response to my "We've got a problem" to which I replied, "Well this opportunity is a bloody problem."

When I explained the situation, he replied; "Bloody hell! You are right, it is a problem."

Anyway back to the dreams, I usually manage to solve the "problem," but if it continues to go pear-shaped, I have the ability though asleep to recognise I'm in a silly situation, it's a dream and either stop dreaming or wake up. I'm not conscious of feeling particularly stressed by the experience.
But this leads me to my theory. As a species, man has always had to face stressful situations from time to time. So I believe to an extent we thrive on stress and if we've had none for a while, we'll manufacture it.
This is born out by conversations over lunch with my golfing friends when we talk about really trivial problems we've had with hobbies or what have you, when in our working lives we'd dismiss them.

 

If I had a pound for every time I've left my car unlocked on the drive overnight....

 

maybe you miss problem solving now you're retired? maybe you need a hobby which taxes your brain a bit?