Purely amazing scientific discovery.  Cuttlefish seem to have REM sleep, just as mammals do, and they sometimes "talk" in their sleep.  Of course "talking" for a cuttlefish is a purely visual process:

http://www.science20.com/squid_day/do_cuttlefish_dream_aquatic_sheep-92540  

Be sure to look at the two videos linked from the article. 

This is a challenge to animated materials makers................  Can you create patterns like that?

If everyone could see my dreams...I'd be in deep doo-doo. ;)

Laurie

Interesting.

Quote - If everyone could see my dreams...I'd be in deep doo-doo. ;)

Laurie

Beat me to it. I was going to say I'd get arrested...

Quote - > Quote - If everyone could see my dreams...I'd be in deep doo-doo. ;)

Laurie

Beat me to it. I was going to say I'd get arrested...

Quote - Interesting.

I did not mean literally...lmao

Laurie

If everyone could see my dreams, they'd have the shit scared right out of them.  No kidding.  Most of my dreams are weird, many are very unpleasant and a great number  are outright terrifying.

Odd thing is, there's a kind of continuity running through most of them.  I could draw a map of the place I live in when I dream.  Maybe I should write some stories.  I did a render once but it didn't really get to the heart of things. 

Quote - If everyone could see my dreams, they'd have the shit scared right out of them.  No kidding.  Most of my dreams are weird, many are very unpleasant and a great number  are outright terrifying.

Odd thing is, there's a kind of continuity running through most of them.  I could draw a map of the place I live in when I dream.  Maybe I should write some stories.  I did a render once but it didn't really get to the heart of things. 

I see you getting famous for an online comic of your dreams, then lose it all because exercising your demons made them go away...

Quote - Odd thing is, there's a kind of continuity running through most of them.  I could draw a map of the place I live in when I dream.  Maybe I should write some stories.  I did a render once but it didn't really get to the heart of things.

Chapters 3 and 4 :p

http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=1293

Never really thought about it but are nightmares considered dreams?  Either way, I wouldn't wish them on anyone else.  Besides sleeping is overrated. 

Quote - > Quote - If everyone could see my dreams, they'd have the shit scared right out of them.  No kidding.  Most of my dreams are weird, many are very unpleasant and a great number  are outright terrifying.

Odd thing is, there's a kind of continuity running through most of them.  I could draw a map of the place I live in when I dream.  Maybe I should write some stories.  I did a render once but it didn't really get to the heart of things. 

I see you getting famous for an online comic of your dreams, then lose it all because exercising your demons made them go away...

That's probably correct. They'd get in shape and then could probably run away ... to join up with mine, which are numerous - like in heap plenty many ... and not so much weird as silly and disrespectful ... most of the times. All that together would probably exorcise them.

No disrespect intended.

Very interesting thread, BTW.

Dreams have always fascinated me. Nightmares usually come when you haven't had much rem sleep in a while. But there are many things that can set them off. Trauma and meds are the first two that come to mind.

if you thought Hellraiser was bad, stay away from 50% of my dreams. the other 50% we won't discuss.

Most of my dreams are either utterly unintelligible or quite banal. They often involve me wandering around discovering extra rooms in my house (so very Jungian) or some such.

Decades after university, I still occasionally get the "It's final exam day and I haven't attended a single day of class" nightmares.  But by now I've figured out that it's because I've been procrastinating on something that needs to get dealt with. As soon as I've taken care of things, those dreams stop.

When I smoked, I never dreamt about smoking. But after I quit, it became a subject for dreams.  When I diet, I eat all the forbidden stuff in dreams.  When I don't swim for a while, I swim in dreams. When I don't run for a while, I run in dreams.

a couple of times, i dreamt whole conversations that happened a few months later.  totally freakazoid deja vu.  no, i'm not on any kind of medication. lol  unless chocolate martinis count as medicinal.

Chocolate in general counts as medicinal. I'm constantly self-medicating. Dove squares will cure damn near anything.

Laurie

I can fly in my dreams, it sometimes felt so real, I tried it when I was awake and fell flat on my face.

I'm acrophobic, seriouly acrophobic. Even in dreams. So when I fly in dreams, I do it upright (like a fairy) and hover just about a foot above the ground. Lame, I know.

 Ockham! Great post! The dreaming Cuttlefish is an interesting story

t. There was a Philip K. Dick story called "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" made into the Ridley Scott movie- "Blade Runner."  "Do Cuttlefish Dream of Swimming Sheep?"

What if we started a render thread-so everyone COULD see your dreams?

 Sam

The continuity aspect is interesting! It would be interesting if you were to write it down. You've inspired me! A thead with rendered dreams is a cool idea.

I just work up-so some of my dreams are still in my memory. I can't quite see how to make the following into a coherent story though. :-)

My dreams tend towards Supernatural and SciFi themes. Most recently (this AM) I was watching someone inside a walled garden when an Eye on a flexible metal stalk protruded from the wall-and disintegrated the other person-I was then running for my life (the eye was shooting beams at me) -jumped in a nearlby parked spaceship- and ended up shooting down a bunch of enemy ships that the "eye" sent after me.

SWITCH

Then I was late for an interview at a biotech company which was on "tenth street"-unfortunately. I could not find tenth in my car-so I levitated myself and floated over the buildings in the way.When I got there-instead of going into a usual office building I had to enter an enormous metal hatch...but I had to hack into a computer and figure out the code to get the door to open- a little like the game "Fallout". The interview went well-except all of my data sheets fell on the floor and the order got scrambled.

In real life I am a scientist in a biotech - (although so far) I have not been able to levitate! :-)

 The only recurring them I have is that when I am levitating/flying no one can usually SEE me. Although I did finally get some people to notice.

My dreams are almost always weird-but rarely frightening.

Quote - If everyone could see my dreams, they'd have the shit scared right out of them.  No kidding.  Most of my dreams are weird, many are very unpleasant and a great number  are outright terrifying.

Odd thing is, there's a kind of continuity running through most of them.  I could draw a map of the place I live in when I dream.  Maybe I should write some stories.  I did a render once but it didn't really get to the heart of things. 

Rokket

There is something to that. When I was a teen I was having lots of nightmares- I ended up with "lucid dreaming"- i.e., becoming aware that I was dreaming while dreaming-I then turned around and started chasing the creatures. It put an end to the nightmares.

I see you getting famous for an online comic of your dreams, then lose it all because exercising your demons made them go away...

 HAHA! Laurie- you are indeed an INTERESTING person-and I mean that in a good way.

:-)

Eric

Quote - If everyone could see my dreams...I'd be in deep doo-doo. ;)

Laurie

My dreams are always rather vivid and abstract, not always disturbing but when they are they really are. The part I hate is when I can't remember if a conversation or event actually took place or if i just dreamed it. I've had to ask people before if this or that really happened. Obviously not right away, but weeks/months/years later. There are some things I still don't know if they actually happened or if I just dreamed it. Probably never will know. It can get confusing at times. Doesn't happen a whole lot tho, thankfully. Sometimes I dream about people from my past that I haven't even thought of for years, but the dream is so real that I wake up missing them and the rest of the day is completely depressing due to events in the dream.

~Shane

 MistyLaraP

HAha! I've had precog events myself. I had a friend in grammar school-and we used to walk around talking about SciFi and related topics- a friend who hung out with us once said we seemed to carry on whole conversations with only a few words-like we were telepathic. It freaked him out. My friend moved away- and I'd not seen or heard anything from him (no internet) for a few years-then I was taking a shower-and I rushed to get dressed because I knew he was coming.  I told my Mom- "Roger is coming!" I rushed outside and his father was driving him up our driveway. My Mom wondered HOW I knew-since there had been no phone call.

A Chocolate Martini sounds great btw!

Quote - a couple of times, i dreamt whole conversations that happened a few months later.  totally freakazoid deja vu.  no, i'm not on any kind of medication. lol  unless chocolate martinis count as medicinal.

 Moriador

I'm not acrophobic but I used to do that too. In recent years I've "figured out" how to hover upright-but up to 100 feet (30 meters) up.  It was "lucid dreaming"-but the extra height seems to have carried over to my normal dreams.

Maybe with some "work" you can increase your altitude! :-)

Quote - I'm acrophobic, seriouly acrophobic. Even in dreams. So when I fly in dreams, I do it upright (like a fairy) and hover just about a foot above the ground. Lame, I know.

 HAHA!

Quote - I can fly in my dreams, it sometimes felt so real, I tried it when I was awake and fell flat on my face.

 

film and music and pretty much any other art would get a whoooole damned lot cooler

(fan of surrealism myself)

and we might be a little less intolerant of each other.

I have a recurring nightmare that I am made of chocolate...

I also get that still at university type dream that Moriador mentions... its usually that I have been unable to ever graduate because I am still trying to get my final dissertation finished...

I guess it's because I generally, always, have such a lot of different projects in progress at once, both at work, and in my own time... and never feel like I'm ever going to finish any of them... due to the constraints of time... and gravity.

Sure, I do finish many of them, eventually... the ones that are worth finishing... after a fashion at least.

But then I'm probably never content that anything is truly finished.

Plus I work, largely, developing software... which is, ultimately, by it's fundamental, I suppose evolutionary, constantly adapting nature (least with the stuff I work on) an unfinishable task...

A couple years ago I stumbled in to "lucid dreaming" by accident.  I'm an engineering type and don't have much truck for kooky new age stuff.  But as it turns out lucid dreaming is very simple and sensible.  A lucid dream is just a dream in which you are conscious that you're dreaming.  That's all there is to it . . . a dream in which you are conscious that you're dreaming.  Well, as it turns out it's an ability that can be improved if one wants to do the work.  There are some excellent practical how-to books available at Amazon, particularly "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming".  It can open new worlds to the practitioner.  I wish I had learned about it thirty years ago.  There are also a few books where the authors go off on oddball new-agey stuff, which is fine if that's what you're after, but don't let those scare you off.  Lucid dreaming is truly a wonderful experience and I recommend it highly to anyone who might be interested.

I've managed to create lucid dreams on a few occasions.  For me though, it's difficult to stay asleep when I fall asleep concentrating on having a lucid dream.  But they are fun.  :)  (I have whole episode like dreams)

Yes.  Staying asleep when you realize you're having a lucid dream is hard for most people, including me.  We get excited when we realize we're having a lucid dream which makes us wake up.  lol.  There are several very simple little tricks to improve ones chances of staying asleep though, and, like anything else, we get better at it the more we work on it.

I have an uncanny ability to wake myself up from a bad dream by making an audible noise (moan, cry, whatever) which invariably wakes me up when I hear it...lol. It's rather weird actually and only a recent development in the last 4 years or so ;).

Laurie

Haha.  Cool.  An interesting 'side effect' of developing a little proficiency with lucid dreaming is that you can usually shut down nightmares fairly easily.  In fact, you can take total control over everything that happens in your dream.  It's lots of fun and can be very therapeutic.  Most of us can't get lucid 'every time', but that's ok.  We can learn how to improve our chances a lot and that's good enough.

Quote - I have an uncanny ability to wake myself up from a bad dream by making an audible noise (moan, cry, whatever) which invariably wakes me up when I hear it...lol. It's rather weird actually and only a recent development in the last 4 years or so ;).

Laurie

I do this too, sometimes.

I also make a noise when I fall asleep. I'm in trouble when that keeps waking me up. I didn't realize I did this until the last year or so, when I started waking to my own noises, and I thought it was a new development, too.  But when I asked hubby, he told me I'd been doing it for as long as he'd known me. Hmmm.

I guess I'm a loud sleeper. I used to grind my teeth, too. But luckily that stopped when I quit smoking.

Cool. The book sounds interesting. I know the trick is that Lucid dreaming is closer to the conscious state-which is why it easily leads to waking up.

I sometimes found myself
awake" whple still in sleep paralysis-then I would focus on moving a finger-once I did-I was able to wake up completely.

Hmm.  I don't think I'd characterize it as any "tricks" involved really.  If there's a trick to it it's staying asleep when you realize you're lucid.  One common way of dealing with it when you feel yourself starting to waken is to spin . . . spin like a top in your dream.  Isn't that odd?  Shrug.  But, that little technique effectively prevents waking and prolongs the lucid dream for a lot of people.

There is a medical documentary on netflix about how they are working on mapping human thoughts and dreams.  There may have been a Through The Wormhole episode on that subject as well.

My husband gets a little annoyed that I will only watch non-fiction stuff.... But now I can at least say I talked about what I did watch today :)

Documentaries rule, network television drools...lol.

I think I was the only one in science class as a kid who said "YAY!" when we had to watch a film...the rest groaned ;).

Laurie

lol ^^ agreed!!!

Tunesy

I left out a sentence. I meant that I also have been in situations where I wanted to wake up-and was briefly "stuck" in sleep paralysis.

I'll have to give the spinning a spin-so to speak! :=}

Quote - Hmm.  I don't think I'd characterize it as any "tricks" involved really.  If there's a trick to it it's staying asleep when you realize you're lucid.  One common way of dealing with it when you feel yourself starting to waken is to spin . . . spin like a top in your dream.  Isn't that odd?  Shrug.  But, that little technique effectively prevents waking and prolongs the lucid dream for a lot of people.

Lucid Dreaming eh? Interesting stuff

Do you try, or are you ever able to fly in a lucid dreaming state?

Or... are you ever able to travel somewhere or to someone, that you imagine (or know) to be in real time / space, relative to your sleeping body?

"I also have been in situations where I wanted to wake up-and was briefly "stuck" in sleep paralysis."  That's fairly common, although it's never happened to me.  It's perfectly harmless, but people report that it can be quite unnerving.

"Do you try, or are you ever able to fly in a lucid dreaming state?"  Yes.  Flying/travel in general is a common activity of lucid dreamers.

"are you ever able to travel somewhere or to someone, that you imagine (or know) to be in real time / space, relative to your sleeping body?"  Yes.

I picked up an old copy of this book,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Projection-Astral-Body-Sylvan-Muldoon/dp/190662111X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343737227&sr=8-1

in a second hand bookshop, years ago, when I was a student. It fascinated me...

...I guess it's a kind of extension of, or at least related to lucid dreaming?

I've had some experience of attaining lucid dreaming states, occasionally, over the years, I guess... and I can more often than not take control over any nightmares, I find... at least as far as I remember them.

But yeah, never yet got anywhere really with actually trying to more deliberately get into a lucid dream state... and a lot of the time these days I dont recall my dreams even, due to being busy... caught up thinking about daytime things from the moment I wake up, until I hit the sack.

I think it might be a hobby to try to take up more into retirement...

The "astral projection" stuff starts to veer off in to kooky-new-agey for me, but, now that I have a good laymans understanding of lucid dreaming I might be able to read a title like that with better understanding.  For anyone who wants to develop the ability to lucid dream I'd strongly suggest starting off with the down-to-earth how-to books, especially Stephen LaBerge's "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreams".  A lot of the other books out there are pure fluff and not at all helpful for someone who starts out sceptical like me.

"I've had some experience of attaining lucid dreaming states, occasionally, over the years . . ."  Most people have had lucid dreams.  They'll happen naturally and by accident sometimes.  But it's cool that we can learn to do it on purpose and get better at it with practice.

That book is quite unique, in that it isn't really, in the least new-agey...

It was first published in 1929 and is as much just a biographical, and very objectively formatted, I'd say, "account" of the author's own experimentation, as it is a kind of attempt at writing a sort of "manual" for projecting the old ka onto the "astral plane"...

...certainly I found it an interesting and entirely novel bit of reading...

Ok.  You sold me.  Just ordered it :)

He he... hope you enjoy it then Tunesy

I actually got a copy of that reprint from Amazon myself not long ago... as I'd lost, or lent the original copy I had from my student days (which I think was a 1950s republication).

I'd say it's definitely an interesting read, even if nothing else... and, if you've actually got to grips with the lucid dreaming techniques you've been describing, then, who knows, I expect you might find more practical insight in it too, perhaps, than I managed... so far.

Personally I'm a devout sceptic as far as anything more "metaphysical" goes. But that doesn't mean I'm closed minded about... well anything really... I just prefer to "believe it when I experience it"... and even then I guess my instincts are those of a scientist. I prefer to think of any explanation I might form, about a phenomenon I witness, as just a hypothesis or theory, pending a better one.

Cheers

I would imagine there are many techniques but the few times I've been able to do it on purpose I would fall asleep concentrating on an object.  In my case a necklace that I wore to bed.  For whatever reason, concentrating on it brought it out in my dream and reminded me that I was dreaming.    I tend to have dreams about rooms and once I took off flying through them.  Another time I managed to have anything I looked at in the room change if I closed my eyes.  

There is a danger to lucid dreaming though.  If you get really good at it and do it a lot, they say you could experience the inability to differentiate between dreaming and reality.  Personally I think thats a bit of a stretch but I suppose it could happen.  

Wow.  What you have done is right out of the play book, Kendra :)  I bet you'd like that book.  It's a fun read even if one doesn't want to bother working on it.

The thing about 'not being able to differentiate between dreaming and reality' only applies to people who are already nut-cases in the first place :)  There's no risk of that happening for normal people.

I've certainly had the problem of distinguishing between the two in the past. I would wake up after a nightmare about crashing my car and leaving the scene, and be in a sweat wondering when I'd be caught. It would take me several minutes to realize that I'd dreamt the whole thing. After a few of these, I made a rule that if I were wondering whether I had dreamt something or not, if I was lying in bed when I was wondering about it, it was pretty certain I'd dreamt it.

It sounds crazy.  But I was also working nights and over 100 hour weeks at the time, and I was extremely sleep deprived.

Even mild sleep deprivation does some remarkable things to cognition. Severe sleep loss does make you a bit irrational at times.

ETA: For the lucid dreamers, isn't that why you need to carry your "token" (as in Inception) with you? ;)

That doesn't sound crazy at all, moriador.  Dreams usually do feel "real" right when we wake up from one.  Taking a few minutes to get ones sea legs back is normal.

Quote - That doesn't sound crazy at all, moriador.  Dreams usually do feel "real" right when we wake up from one.  Taking a few minutes to get ones sea legs back is normal.

When I think about it, I recall that I had to make the rule, though, because at the time, the notion that what I'd dreamt might be real would sometimes stay with me for hours (not minutes as I originally said).  It was enough of a problem, at any rate, that I felt I needed some way to convince myself other than going through the process of actually investigating my recent past for evidence of weird events (for instance, waking up and searching through my papers for a speeding ticket which, in reality, I never got because I no longer owned a car -- which IS nuts!). The "rule" dispelled it quickly and allowed me to go on with the rest of my sleep deprived day without panicking.