Mirrors

Discussion of Julian Jaynes's first hypothesis, that consciousness (as he carefully defines it) is based on language, specifically the subtopic of dreams, lucid dreams, and conscious vs. bicameral or visitation dreams as a way to gauge the development of consciousness in children and cultures.
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Soupdragon
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Mirrors

Post by Soupdragon »

Unfortunately I can only remember a few lucid dreams.

Being conscious of unconscious dreams reminds me of the hall of mirrors analogy in another thread on here.
Obdurately Conscious
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Unconscious Dreams entering Consciousness

Post by Obdurately Conscious »

Your comment about unconscious dreams points to a phenomenon I frequently experience throughout life, the feeling of suddenly remembering a present situation occurring in a dream from months past, a foretelling realization that lasts less than 15 seconds and cannot under any repeated circumstance be used further as such. I suggest that this inability to actually pick and choose random dreams from the past to predict future events that I am a part of must really be some kind of memory loop that is related in feeling to deja vu. Yet the experience always stops me in my tracks for a few seconds.
If you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it is most probably you.
Obdurately Conscious
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Re: Mirrors

Post by Obdurately Conscious »

Soupdragon wrote:Unfortunately I can only remember a few lucid dreams.

Being conscious of unconscious dreams reminds me of the hall of mirrors analogy in another thread on here.
Only a few? what were the contents of these dreams and how did you take advantage of the lucidity? I may have only had one in my life that I can not remember but do know the feeling of lucidity.
If you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it is most probably you.
chrsstms
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Post by chrsstms »

Greetings!

I, too, have had this phenomenon repeated times. I began thinking about the capriciousness of our memory filing system after awhile, because the idea that the feelings of "deja-vue" (which happen quite often) couldn't possibly be from that many "prophetic" dreams. (Well, possibly maybe, but I find the idea ludicrous.)

On another post I mentioned fear. I do not have nightmares (except when my blood temperature reached 105*). Is it nightmares that give people such angst that they need spooks in the sky to pat them on the head, perhaps?
Zoroaster
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Various

Post by Zoroaster »

On Lucidity

For those who may not know, this phenomenon is becoming very big in popular culture there are many books and websites about training yourself to "be lucid". Many fascinating discussions out there on sites dedicated to this. And there is a great film called Waking Life. I have had about 7 lucid dreams in my life that I recall. I usually use the opportunity to fly or go to a particular place or experiment with changing the world. Just because I realize I'm dreaming, however I don't always seem to be omnipotent, sometimes my changes don't work. The main thing to learn is not to wake up from the surprise feeling that you have when you realize that you're dreaming.

However, I don't see this phenomenon having much bearing on the Julian Jaynes discussion. Lucid or not, I am often conscious during my dreams in the Jaynesian sense. I can recall what I was thinking to myself, what I was visualizing, and having my actions planned in many of my dreams. I have noticed that in my dreams, I often have a different set of memories than in waking life. These memories are not consistent from dream to dream or perhaps even within the same dream. I also use a different sense of thinking and logic that makes no sense to my waking self. I also get the idea sometimes that my dreams have been intelligently planned out in advance with a plot in mind. I am a character acting in a play though I do not know the future, or my role, things seem to fall into a story line that I only see after waking up and recollecting the dream.

On Prophetic Dreams

The sense of Deja Vu, I believe, has been reproduced by stimulating certain areas of the brain. I have had this experience where everything seems like it has happened before but if I actually try to say what will happen next, I can't do it, yet each successive event strikes me as familiar so I might assume that I have dreamed it all and thus do not have good access to my memories of the prophetic dream. This may be what Obdurately Conscious and chrsstms are describing but there are also quite a few cases of actual prophetic dreams - of course, you always have to take the dreamers word for it. Michael Persinger who wrote the Foreword to Reflections... has a wild book out there about this and other apparently prophetic experiences called Space-Time Transients and Unusual Events. You may get lucky and find it at your library or find a used copy. I won't attempt to describe his theory because I would get it wrong.

Nightmares

chrsstms wrote,
On another post I mentioned fear. I do not have nightmares (except when my blood temperature reached 105*). Is it nightmares that give people such angst that they need spooks in the sky to pat them on the head, perhaps?
Well I think according to Jaynes, it would be the other way around. The gods, our bicameral voices invented nightmares and were often a little scarey themselves because fear is an effective means of control which is what they were interested in. Of course they were just as likely to appear as benevolent and loving when a gentle touch was needed or a zealous person was to be rewarded.
rheiman
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Re: Mirrors

Post by rheiman »

I've had lucid dreams - and one, in particular, that I actually wrote down in detail. Years later, and in unexpected ways, it came to pass. Only later did I realize that the dream foretold what had actually transpired. It's quite involved but I still have my original manuscript from that dream.
outofkur
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Re: Mirrors

Post by outofkur »

I actually pretty often have lucid dreams.
However, they are lucid only that I know I am dreaming. While there used to be more variety in my dreams when I was younger, as I've matured there have been several very prominent themes in my dreams. They always take place in a building on a body of land surrounded by water, by some coastline, or in a very urban area. The "places" all feel the same. I dream the same dream more than once (although it might be months apart) but I get a different perspective that second time around. I can go so far as "remember" (this is a sense of KNOWING i remember, and being able to recall although this part gets fuzzy) the previous dream's events and how I can improve the situation. I should note that all of these dreams are highly stressful, in that I am constantly anxious, aware, and almost scared.
I haven't been able to control anything. It's me in those dreams, but I do* before I can think* to do it.
Obdurately Conscious
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Re: Various

Post by Obdurately Conscious »

Zoroaster wrote:On Lucidity

On Prophetic Dreams

The sense of Deja Vu, I believe, has been reproduced by stimulating certain areas of the brain. I have had this experience where everything seems like it has happened before but if I actually try to say what will happen next, I can't do it, yet each successive event strikes me as familiar so I might assume that I have dreamed it all and thus do not have good access to my memories of the prophetic dream. This may be what Obdurately Conscious and chrsstms are describing but there are also quite a few cases of actual prophetic dreams - of course, you always have to take the dreamers word for it.
The assumption of having dreamt it is absolutely correct, except that at least once, maybe twice I had this experience and actually remembered that I indeed did dream the future in my past. I've had no better way to deal with that fact than to assimilate it into my behavioral normalcy.

Not quite all the way there, this happened: I recently had a dream, days ago, that I thought quite odd upon waking.

I was at a campsite near a lake in the Adirondack Mountains. I was with a girlfriend who was just behind the foliage while I stood on the shore of the lake in bright summer sunlight. A lone man began to approach in a canoe, a common sight while camping. As he got close, he turned toward the shore where I stood, as if he intended to come ashore and look for a place to set up camp himself. In my dream memory, I knew that I had intended to leave that day, and upon leaving anyone else would be able to use the campsite, and I began to mentally prepare for this. The man in the canoe greeted me, saying he was exhausted from traveling on canoe for the last 30 days. I asked him if he had been traveling through the Fingerlakes region, assuming it had been a long journey for him. He began to slowly sink below the water surface but continued to speak to me, and I to him. I remember thinking that I did not know this man, and I should take care not to leave my girlfriend here alone in his presence.

Today, I ran into an old friend who mentioned how he can't wait to get out of the city, and that he intends to take his canoe traveling through the Adirondacks alone. A few minutes later he mentioned the Fingerlakes region. I felt that he was the man in my dream, and I wonder why, if this was some kind of premonition, it happened, or maybe how, and what the significance of such a thing could be. I feel it could be coincidence, but it doesn't feel like it is simply a statistical random occurrence.
If you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it is most probably you.
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