Dream Time

[Michael McMahon]

Rage is a very tricky emotion to learn to control. To practice getting angry just to see if you can tame it is very risky because you could act on the emotion towards others. In a non-lucid dream I was getting a lift with a relative to a professional tennis match I had later that day. Yet the relative was stalling and chatting with neighbours instead of focusing on the drive. I got angry and told the the relative that they implied that they were going to get me there on time. Furthermore if they were going to be late then they should've told me to get the train instead. I briefly tried taking the steering wheel myself but my driving lessons in real life are incomplete and so in the dream I only managed to get to the end of the estate. A missed deadline is a typical source of stress that could escalate into anger. Playing against a professional tennis player upped the stakes of my general routine. Getting angry at my relative might have even resembled John McEnroe's outbursts at the chair umpire. Strangely enough when I awoke from the dream I felt calmer than the previous day. The dream exaggerated a specific form of frustration and urgency in a way that I could learn from.

 

[Michael McMahon]

Last night I'd a short dream in which I was touring an adventure island. Yet it was an artificial construct with fake mountains and rock climbing facilities. There were various sections of the island for different tourist nationalities. For example there was a sand dune part for Egypt and a steep ridge for Russians. It was a very informal dream and I didn't think too hard about it during the day. Yet in the evening I began musing about the dream's resemblance to the artificial islands in Dubai. What would be our interpretation of religion if everyone lived on an artificial landscape? Maybe the idea of a transcendent God is helped by the natural wonders of planet Earth. By contrast the solar system is too mysterious for us to understand and might be interpreted as physically rather than deistically created.

 

[Michael McMahon]

A risk of lucid dreaming is that it can make you feel tired in the morning and occasionally hard to get out of bed. People might of thought I was relaxing by sleeping in and not realising that I was in fact busy at work! As it happens I got a compliment from someone at my accommodation who was amazed that I was able to sleep through so much noise in the morning! When I was 22 I used to feel exhaustion and a mild headache on most mornings where I'd be very late for my course each day even though I was always trying hard to get up. It'd feel like I was too tired to either get up or go back to sleep where I'd lie down with my eyes closed for awhile after waking up. The content is usually safe but it can infrequently be disturbing. For anyone unaccustomed to lucidity it can be unsettling at first to have a feeling of temporal continuity between a freakish dream and waking up. If you were sensitive it could make you feel like your perception is different from before you had went to bed or that your entire memory is fake and was just created when you awoke. There’s a slight chance of disorientation. You can already feel half awake in a dream before you wake in your room. It doesn’t even have to take the form of a false awakening in a dream for it to be confusing. It can be eerie if you feel yourself breathing when you enter a lucid dream soon after falling asleep or as you’re getting out of a dream to awaken. I sometimes try to wake up as quickly as I can instead of prolonging the dream if I feel fatigued. It can take time to escape a lucid dream which might make you feel trapped. This could be momentarily frightening if you can't feel your body or your head so to speak even when you want to leave a lucid dream. In all my lucid dreams so far I’ve awoken immediately after the lucid dream instead of falling back asleep unconscious during a lucid dream. If I briefly become lucid as I'm drifting off to sleep then I'd wake up for 30 seconds before trying to sleep again. I'm not sure how safe it'd be to return to a state of unconsciousness after having become lucid without ever leaving the dream. This wouldn't be something that I want to risk experimenting with. There’s also a risk of an irregular sleeping pattern where you either don’t feel tired at night or you suddenly feel very sleepy. Lucid dreaming isn't too suitable for those who have to work 9-5 because it wreaks havoc on your morning enthusiasm. It can be very difficult to commit to an abbreviated few hours sleep since there's a risk you could oversleep and miss your appointment where you'd almost have to wait to do a full rest on the following night. Once you have one lucid dream it might be difficult to stop. It’s like a spiral effect where vivid dreams can produce yet more lucid dreams. Try not to have a lucid dream during anaesthesia or you’ll awake during surgery! Excessive lucid dreaming might turn you into a werewolf! Before my first lucid experiences as a young teenager my only sleep problem would be that very rarely I'd awake during the night a bit breathless. As an older teenager there may have been brief periods of sleep-deprivation due to study or recreation. It's possible to delude yourself out of sleep-induced delusions and so perhaps you should always ground yourself in a shared model of reality. Sometimes caffeine might not solve your sleepy mindset. It's possible to relax through other means but this might create even more problems in the long term. A risk of watching porn is that in the future you might one day feel compelled to publicly confess to every lewd thought. Then you'd be able to lessen the extremeness of paranormal phenomenon and reassure fearful people that everything is OK! Much like how people have died from drug overdoses I think it is theoretically possible though extremely unlikely to die from a lucid dream. For example I once experienced a momentary image of vomiting on a sea surface surrounded by fins. I was so used to lucid dreaming that these chaotic scenes simply don't faze me. Yet if you misinterpreted the scene into an actual event then it'd be so psychotic that you might not be physically able to cope. However this thoughtline of the sea was literally over in a second such that I wasn't harmed by it. The brain is finite and so you need not fear being "possessed" by such immense scenes; perhaps you'd just get sick or die unfortunately! One self-deprecating way to think of lucid dreaming is as a memory disorder. For example some people can remember every day of their adult life. It's speculated that one contributing factor is that they personally attach a lot of importance to phone numbers and so forth. Yet it's still clear that our subconscious can spiral these beliefs such that it becomes hard to break. Viewing the unconscious mind as larger than yourself isn't a form of idolatry simply because the threat of nightmares prevents you over-relying on dreams for spiritual guidance. It's possible to rarely mix up mental imagery with memories if you overdo lucid dreaming over many years. For example I was out walking and momentarily visualised a car trip to a relative's house which then reminded me of my parents' old silver and red cars. Yet this sequence was from my early childhood and shocked me into how much my life had changed since then. There might be a risk of psychosis if you accidentally retrieved memories from childhood amnesia. Perhaps a dream about primary school can make you check whether your childhood self would be happy at how you turned out.

 

[Robert Urbanek]

A risk of lucid dreaming is that it can make you feel tired in the morning and occasionally hard to get out of bed. People might of thought I was relaxing by sleeping in and not realising that I was in fact busy at work! As it happens I got a compliment from someone at my accommodation who was amazed that I was able to sleep through so much noise in the morning! When I was 22 I used to feel exhaustion and a mild headache on most mornings where I'd be very late for my course each day even though I was always trying hard to get up. It'd feel like I was too tired to either get up or go back to sleep where I'd lie down with my eyes closed for awhile after waking up. The content is usually safe but it can infrequently be disturbing. For anyone unaccustomed to lucidity it can be unsettling at first to have a feeling of temporal continuity between a freakish dream and waking up. If you were sensitive it could make you feel like your perception is different from before you had went to bed or that your entire memory is fake and was just created when you awoke. There’s a slight chance of disorientation. You can already feel half awake in a dream before you wake in your room. It doesn’t even have to take the form of a false awakening in a dream for it to be confusing. It can be eerie if you feel yourself breathing when you enter a lucid dream soon after falling asleep or as you’re getting out of a dream to awaken. I sometimes try to wake up as quickly as I can instead of prolonging the dream if I feel fatigued. It can take time to escape a lucid dream which might make you feel trapped. This could be momentarily frightening if you can't feel your body or your head so to speak even when you want to leave a lucid dream. In all my lucid dreams so far I’ve awoken immediately after the lucid dream instead of falling back asleep unconscious during a lucid dream. If I briefly become lucid as I'm drifting off to sleep then I'd wake up for 30 seconds before trying to sleep again. I'm not sure how safe it'd be to return to a state of unconsciousness after having become lucid without ever leaving the dream. This wouldn't be something that I want to risk experimenting with. There’s also a risk of an irregular sleeping pattern where you either don’t feel tired at night or you suddenly feel very sleepy. Lucid dreaming isn't too suitable for those who have to work 9-5 because it wreaks havoc on your morning enthusiasm. It can be very difficult to commit to an abbreviated few hours sleep since there's a risk you could oversleep and miss your appointment where you'd almost have to wait to do a full rest on the following night. Once you have one lucid dream it might be difficult to stop. It’s like a spiral effect where vivid dreams can produce yet more lucid dreams. Try not to have a lucid dream during anaesthesia or you’ll awake during surgery! Excessive lucid dreaming might turn you into a werewolf! Before my first lucid experiences as a young teenager my only sleep problem would be that very rarely I'd awake during the night a bit breathless. As an older teenager there may have been brief periods of sleep-deprivation due to study or recreation. It's possible to delude yourself out of sleep-induced delusions and so perhaps you should always ground yourself in a shared model of reality. Sometimes caffeine might not solve your sleepy mindset. It's possible to relax through other means but this might create even more problems in the long term. A risk of watching porn is that in the future you might one day feel compelled to publicly confess to every lewd thought. Then you'd be able to lessen the extremeness of paranormal phenomenon and reassure fearful people that everything is OK! Much like how people have died from drug overdoses I think it is theoretically possible though extremely unlikely to die from a lucid dream. For example I once experienced a momentary image of vomiting on a sea surface surrounded by fins. I was so used to lucid dreaming that these chaotic scenes simply don't faze me. Yet if you misinterpreted the scene into an actual event then it'd be so psychotic that you might not be physically able to cope. However this thoughtline of the sea was literally over in a second such that I wasn't harmed by it. The brain is finite and so you need not fear being "possessed" by such immense scenes; perhaps you'd just get sick or die unfortunately! One self-deprecating way to think of lucid dreaming is as a memory disorder. For example some people can remember every day of their adult life. It's speculated that one contributing factor is that they personally attach a lot of importance to phone numbers and so forth. Yet it's still clear that our subconscious can spiral these beliefs such that it becomes hard to break. Viewing the unconscious mind as larger than yourself isn't a form of idolatry simply because the threat of nightmares prevents you over-relying on dreams for spiritual guidance. It's possible to rarely mix up mental imagery with memories if you overdo lucid dreaming over many years. For example I was out walking and momentarily visualised a car trip to a relative's house which then reminded me of my parents' old silver and red cars. Yet this sequence was from my early childhood and shocked me into how much my life had changed since then. There might be a risk of psychosis if you accidentally retrieved memories from childhood amnesia. Perhaps a dream about primary school can make you check whether your childhood self would be happy at how you turned out.

You might want to break up your longer posts into several paragraphs, which will make them more readable.

 

[Michael McMahon]

Dreams resemble the emotional extremes of dreams and so listening to music is almost like dreaming before falling asleep. Hence an excess of music might interfere with circadian rhythms. In other words you might have already used up some of your dreaming energy. Yet music might also help in dream interpretation and communication where we can relate a night's dream in terms of rhythms if we were in a dream group. Music is like a shared dream for all of the listeners. A lot of food can taste good while you eat it but sluggish a few minutes afterwards. By contrast music can give you adrenaline that lasts a few minutes after the song is over. You might only feel the aftereffects of listening to lots of music in the morning to be later in the evening by feeling sleepier than usual. Music addiction might only be noticeable in a belated way after a few days of continuous music recreation. Long periods of exposure to background music in shops can mimic the fatiguing sensation of oversleeping and lying in.

"People who experience earworms regularly at night -- one or more times per week -- are six times as likely to have poor sleep quality compared to people who rarely experience earworms. Surprisingly, the study found that some instrumental music is more likely to lead to earworms and disrupt sleep quality than lyrical music...
Knowing that earworms negatively affect sleep, Scullin recommends first trying to moderate music listening or taking occasional breaks if bothered by earworms. Timing of music also is important -- try to avoid it before bed."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610162348.htm

 

[Robert Urbanek]

Dreams resemble the emotional extremes of dreams and so listening to music is almost like dreaming before falling asleep. Hence an excess of music might interfere with circadian rhythms. In other words you might have already used up some of your dreaming energy. Yet music might also help in dream interpretation and communication where we can relate a night's dream in terms of rhythms if we were in a dream group. Music is like a shared dream for all of the listeners. A lot of food can taste good while you eat it but sluggish a few minutes afterwards. By contrast music can give you adrenaline that lasts a few minutes after the song is over. You might only feel the aftereffects of listening to lots of music in the morning to be later in the evening by feeling sleepier than usual. Music addiction might only be noticeable in a belated way after a few days of continuous music recreation. Long periods of exposure to background music in shops can mimic the fatiguing sensation of oversleeping and lying in.

"People who experience earworms regularly at night -- one or more times per week -- are six times as likely to have poor sleep quality compared to people who rarely experience earworms. Surprisingly, the study found that some instrumental music is more likely to lead to earworms and disrupt sleep quality than lyrical music...
Knowing that earworms negatively affect sleep, Scullin recommends first trying to moderate music listening or taking occasional breaks if bothered by earworms. Timing of music also is important -- try to avoid it before bed."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610162348.htm

From my observations, dreams last about three minutes or less, the same length as most pop songs. I wonder if dreams condition us to accept the short narratives of popular music.

 

[Michael McMahon]

From my observations, dreams last about three minutes or less, the same length as most pop songs. I wonder if dreams condition us to accept the short narratives of popular music.

I'd a momentary lucid dream early last night where I was leaving my body and swore that I heard a line "when the love takes over" from a Kelly Rowland song. I'm not sure if they were the exact words but the vibe of the dream matched that beat. My vision was almost pitch black without any phosphenes at all. For a second I thought I was dying. Having a song played after death might be an atheistic version of a pleasant afterlife. Hearing a song in a dream can allow you to absorb the emotions in the rhythms much better. Awakening from the dream forced my to confront the lack of happiness in previous days and to try to be less stressed.

Cold Mountain script:
INT. FIELD HOSPITAL. NIGHT

Inman sits on the ground beside Oakley's cot. Around them, the wounded are certainly dying, makeshift care, oil lights, groans.

OAKLEY
I'd like to hear some music while I go.

EXT. CONFEDERATE LINES. NIGHT

Inman walks around the campfires. He hears some fiddle music.
It's Stobrod.

Stobrod sees Inman. Inman stares, his expression an
instruction, the turns and walks away.

INT. FIELD HOSPITAL. NIGHT

Stobrod stands over Oakley. Consults with Inman.

STOBROD
What about Bonaparte's Retreat? That's one I play.

OAKLEY
Play me something sweet. Like a girl's waiting for me. Stobrod looks at Inman, confused.

OAKLEY
Play me something like there's nothing to fear from a merciful Lord.

INMAN
(to Stobrod)
You heard him.

STOBROD
(nervous)
I only know a couple of tunes.

OAKLEY
Like when you're thirsty up at
Bishop's Creek and the water is so cool.

Inman glares at Stobrod. And Stobrod starts to play.

Hesitant, then with gathering confidence, improvising,
increasingly expansive, as if he's as surprised as everyone
else. Oakley's lips move. A whisper. Inman leans in.

OAKLEY
I'm reaching Cold Mountain before you.

Stobrod plays. It's wrenching. Oakley stills. Inman abruptly
puts his hand on the neck of the fiddle, stopping Stobrod.
The boy is dead. Inman gets to his feet and walks away.

David Guetta Feat. Kelly Rowland - When Love Takes Over

 

[Michael McMahon]

One reason people might not believe in lucid dreaming is that they don't fully empathise with the mindset of ancient people. Many modern religions might have an amoral part to them even if they're mostly ethical. However ancient religions often had themes of outright evil. As such the life of an ancient person might have resembled a long lucid nightmare. I did classical studies in secondary school where we factually learned about the religions of Ancient Greece and Rome. However to relate to their qualitative experience of worshipping evil we'd have to ignore our own religion temporarily! Ancient people might have had a more oneiric self-awareness without having the language to describe their subjective experience of life. Underclad women in the ancient world might have made everyone more dreamy!

The Mummy (1/10) Movie CLIP - The Pharaoh is Killed (1999)

 

[Michael McMahon]

I didn't get to sleep last night and nonetheless found printing scores of envelopes very easy in the morning. Perhaps the repetitive nature of the task made it more deterministic. This might be helped by a temporary reduction in my free will through a lack of sleep.

 

[Michael McMahon]

If your life is more confusing then a dream then maybe you'll become conscious in a dream because from the brain's perspective the dream makes more sense than your life!

 

[Michael McMahon]

REM sleep likely creates currents in the vitreous humour which is the liquid part of the inner eye. Perhaps these fluid currents activate the retina in an irregular manner that might create phosphenes for dreams. The unpredictability of such rotating fluids might help give rise to free will when our unconscious mind tries to interpret the resulting chaos.

 

[Michael McMahon]

The dark brown-black eyes of a polar bear might be a symbol of its dreamy night-time existence.

 

[Michael McMahon]

I'd a momentary lucid dream in which my breathing stopped and I waited until my breathing restarted and woke up after my first breath. I moved the blankets and went to sleep when another lucid dream occurred. The visuals were blank again and my breathing had slowed until I was breathless again. However in this dream my audio thoughts pre-empted my self-awareness and suggested that Christianity was a mere story. Yet again I awoke after my first passive breath. It was a simulated fear of a vague near-death experience that forced me to confront the most apathetic outcome of a potential afterlife.

 

[Michael McMahon]

I've awoken from a short lucid dream in which I was in a shop of some kind. A person was on the phone and gave directions to someone to meet us at the shop. It sounded like King's St. or High St.. Apparently this was a change of plan where the person coming to meet us was meant to be at a different place. I became self-aware in a state of panic. I began exclaiming I love God in my mind a few times and woke up safe and sound!

 

[Michael McMahon]

Perhaps a problem with the general public's relaxed interpretation of free will is as a biological or computational phenomenon rather than a physics one. That is to say physics is so coldly objective that there's very little room for idle recreation in creating a mind with free will. Maybe we're so humble as sentient beings that we forget the brain isn't humble and is willing to inflict involuntary pain on us. The precise manner in which we try to alleviate a headache from lying down in bed to strolling around our garden is a manifestion of a serious form of free will. For example any type of happiness is also an opportunity cost for another happy experience we missed out on. Hence pain management is an indirect form of free will for how we distract our mind during times of stress to pass the time.

 

[Michael McMahon]

It's much easier to criticise someone else than it is to be self-critical. Hence dreams where we insult other people might actually be an indirect way for us to harshly criticise similar actions undertaken by ourselves in real life. If a fellow dream character made a childish mistake then maybe we might interpret a past action of ours as childish the following morning.

 

[Michael McMahon]

Animals are unconscious and dreamy in their existence relative to humans. Some animal sounds like a dog barking reflect a visceral and nightmarish rage far beyond what humans are capable of. By contrast the chirping of birds reflects how melodic these negligibly conscious agents can be. As such the dreams of humans might be analogous to the meditative vibe of bird songs.

 

[Michael McMahon]

For all we know the genetic vestiges of nightmares might not only reflect the harshness of early human societies but even the horrific poverty and warfare of pre-human neanderthal societies. After all if neandarthals weren't very self-aware then perhaps they might have reflected dreamy vibes.

 

[Michael McMahon]

Perhaps lucid dreaming is easier for incels seeing as they prefer their own unconscious rather than sleeping with another unconscious being!

 

[Michael McMahon]

Lately I'd a non-lucid dream in which there was green mould on a few mushrooms after I had cooked them. I was unsure whether it was the natural colour of such mushrooms or whether I had cooked them with mud still on them. I felt very upset with others for not providing me with a better mushroom supply. This mirrors real life frustrations with those I was dependent on. Another dream was where a bus driver reversed all the way down the public road to the destination. This reminds me of my own attempt to learn to drive and reassures me of the ease of driving a car compared to a bus.