Do you need to get up if your dreams are better than reality? Why dreams seem real. Dream Interpretation - Reality, ex-girlfriend, window

In one of the earliest experiments our research group conducted, we tested the traditional idea that the perception of time in dreams is different from the perception of time in reality. According to the technique we developed, we asked subjects to make an eye movement during a lucid dream, then after a 10-second pause (counting: one thousand one, one thousand two, etc.) to make a second eye movement. We found that in all cases the estimate of the time interval in the lucid dream coincided within a few seconds with its estimate in the waking state and was thus quite close to the real time between signals. From this it was concluded that the estimate of time in lucid dreams is very close to real ones, that is, it takes almost the same amount of time to perform any action in them as in the waking state.

This conclusion may come as a surprise, since many of you may have lived years and even lifetimes in a dream. I believe that this effect is achieved in dreams by the same stage trick that creates the illusion of the passage of time in the cinema or theater. If the lights go out on a screen, on a stage, or in a dream, and the clock strikes midnight, and a few moments later the bright morning sun shines through the window and the alarm clock rings, we assume (we pretend without realizing that we are pretending) that many hours have passed, even if "we know" that it only took a few seconds.

The method of using the eyes to signal a person in a state of lucid dreaming has demonstrated a strict correspondence between the change in direction of gaze during sleep and the actual movement of the eyes under closed eyelids. Researchers who did not use lucid dreamers in their experiments had to rely on the likelihood of a correspondence between the subjects' eye movements and their reported sleep actions. As a result, they tended to obtain only weak correlations between eye movements during sleep and during waking hours. The reason for the strong connection between eye movements during sleep and the waking state is that we use the same visual system in our body to observe both the dream world and the real world. One of the most striking examples of the connection between physiology and sleep activities is sexual activity during sleep. In 1983, we undertook a study to determine the extent to which sexual activity during lucid REM dreaming was reflected in physiological parameters.

A woman was chosen for the experiment because women were more likely to report orgasm in their dreams. She observed various physiological indicators that are usually affected by sexual arousal: breathing, heart rate, vaginal muscle tone and amplitude of vaginal pulsations. In the experiment, she was required to give a special signal with her eyes in the following situations: when she realized that she was sleeping, when sexual activity began (in her sleep), and when she had an orgasm.

According to her, she fulfilled the conditions of the task exactly. Analysis of the recordings revealed a significant correlation between what she did in the dream and all but one physiological indicator. During the 15 seconds that she defined as orgasm, her vaginal muscle activity, vaginal pulsation amplitude, and respiratory rate reached their highest levels of the entire night, and were significantly higher than during the rest of the REM period. The heart rate, contrary to expectations, increased very slightly.

After this, we conducted similar experiments with two men. In both cases there was a sharp increase in breathing, but again no significant changes in heart rate. It is noteworthy that although both dreamers reported intense orgasm in their lucid dreams, neither experienced ejaculation, unlike the common adolescent wet dreams that are often not accompanied by erotic dreams.

Activities during sleep directly affect the brain and body

From the experiments described above, it follows that the events in which you become a participant in a dream have an effect on your brain (and, to a lesser extent, on your body) that is in many ways similar to that of similar events in reality. Additional research supports this conclusion. When lucid dreamers hold their breath or breathe faster during sleep, this is directly reflected in their real breathing. Moreover, the changes in brain activity caused by the transition from singing to counting (singing uses the right hemisphere to a greater extent, and counting uses the left hemisphere) in the waking state are almost exactly reproduced in lucid dreams. That is, for our brain it makes no difference whether this or that action is performed in a dream or in reality. This finding explains why dreams seem so real. To the brain they are indeed real.

We continue to study the relationships between human dream activity and physiology, with the goal of obtaining a detailed framework of mind-body interactions during dreaming for all measurable physiological systems. Such a scheme could provide great support to experimental sleep psychology and psychosomatic medicine. Indeed, the direct influence of dream activity on physiology makes it possible to use lucid dreaming to improve immune system function. In any case, the physiological effects caused by dreams show that we cannot distance ourselves from them as the bastard children of our imagination. And although our culture tries to ignore dreams, the events experienced in them are just as real as in real life. And if we want to improve our lives, it would be right to do this with our dreams.

Social values ​​and lucid dreams

You often hear people interested in lucid dreaming complain about being isolated because, as one writes, “I can’t talk to anyone about it: everyone thinks I’m crazy and looks at me like I’m crazy when I try to talk about it.” what I do in my sleep." Our culture does not provide any social support for those exploring different states of consciousness. This aversion is probably rooted in the behaviorist approach to psychology, which views all animals, including humans, as “black boxes” whose actions are entirely dependent on external influences. The contents of an animal’s “consciousness” are considered immeasurable, and thus not subject to scientific research.

Dr. Robert Stickgold, one of the experts in the field of dreams, believes that such dreams are the brain's attempt to sort through various memories in search of connections between them. Thus, the memory of a dog is compared with memories of a trainer and a trip to a restaurant. The brain looks for cross connections that sometimes coincide with reality, sometimes not.

At the same time, other studies have shown that "strange" dreams arise from increased activity in the right amygdala, which is also responsible for the formation of memories. Apparently, the more difficult it is for the brain to find connections between different memories, the more bizarre the content of our dreams.

In the 1960s, Maimonides Medical Center in New York City decided to test whether dreams could predict the future. During the experiment, participants were divided into two groups: members of one of them were awake, concentrating on a specific image, and members of the second were asleep at that time.

After waking up volunteers from the second group while they were in REM sleep, the researchers asked them to report the content of their dreams. It turned out that the majority saw in their dreams the images that the subjects from the first group contemplated!

According to some researchers, so-called “prophetic” dreams are nothing more than coincidences. We simply see a combination of different images in our dreams, they say, and sometimes this coincides with reality.

But, on the other hand, very often the number of such coincidences exceeds the probability percentage. For example, people often see in their dreams various tragic events that are about to happen.

On October 21, 1966, a coal mudflow hit the mountain village of Aberfan in Great Britain, burying and destroying many houses and public buildings, including a school. The day before, nine-year-old Eril Jones dreamed that she was going to school, and instead of the school building there was some kind of black mass. Eryl died along with other children who came to class that fateful day...

But other people hundreds of kilometers from these places also had dreams predicting a terrible catastrophe in Aberfan. One woman dreamed that a child was running along an unfamiliar street, and a black stream was rolling behind him, another dreamed of a child screaming in horror in a telephone booth, which was being overwhelmed by an avalanche of dirt. To some person - a herd of black horses racing from the mountains to the village. Another simply heard the word “Aberfan” in a dream, although at the time he did not even know what it meant. A certain Miss Milden watched in a dream as diggers pulled out the bodies of dead children from under the rubble. Three days later she saw the episode on TV. A resident of Kent received information during his sleep about the date of the upcoming terrible catastrophe. True, he did not know what exactly was going to happen...

In some cases, it is possible to give such phenomena a rational explanation. According to psychologists, our subconscious is capable of capturing and “accumulating” various factors that are not recorded by consciousness. Thus, our brain is able to subconsciously record visual or auditory information and draw conclusions. In a dream, they can transform into “ready-made” events. Let's say we can subconsciously detect a malfunction in a car, say, a change in the sound of the engine, but this does not reach our consciousness. But at night we dream that the car has broken down, and soon there will actually be a breakdown or an accident...

Various natural disasters have their own signs, such as atmospheric changes, animal behavior, and so on. Particularly sensitive people again perceive them on a subconscious level...

Although, of course, the content of “prophetic” dreams cannot always be explained by the work of the subconscious. Still, there are still many mysteries in our psyche that are still inaccessible to scientific understanding.

Tell us what you dream about at night and we will tell you who you are. This is how we can roughly describe the meaning of dreams. Because dreams are an essential part of our life. By the way, they can heal and show you the right path. In a dream, the transmission of subtle matters occurs. "God created dreams to show the way to the sleeper whose eyes are in darkness."

The turn of the millennium became a turning point in the history of the world. The collapse of the USSR, the Internet, computers, mobile communications... Nowadays, the virtual component of life (dreams, daydreams, memories, projects) is 80 percent, and the real component - actions, actions - 20 percent. Time hid in dreams. They are like street cleaners, sweeping the streets of our soul so that it is cleaner in the morning.

Dreams are as familiar as breathing, so we do not value them, although they occupy a special place in the structure of human wealth. “It is not surprising that in dreams everything happens to people that they do in life, that they think about, care about, and see and do and plan while they are awake.” (Cicero, “On Divination” I, 22). Alexander Pushkin wrote down his dreams in which he composed poetry. Mendeleev “saw” his famous table of elements in a dream.

On the Internet, when you click “Dreams of Philosophers, Poets, Artists,” “God Ex Machina” returns hundreds of thousands of pages. Dreams are a concentration of a person’s creative abilities. Magicians consider dreaming to be the art of hardening the human energy body. They are convinced that in a dream a certain volatile part leaves the body to travel in the noosphere, arosphere, and overcome time and space. One day I dreamed of England. An international dream competition was announced there.

The world's best dreams were shown on special dream screens. Therefore, I propose organizing a dream competition among readers. This will also have therapeutic value. Even those who suffer from insomnia will be able to concentrate and remember their “sleepy series”. In the near future, Russian sanatoriums will offer therapeutic dreams and “custom-made dreams.”

Mikhail Gorbachev once admitted that his wife Raisa Maksimovna had such vivid dreams every night, each of which could become a story or novel. You cannot know yourself without knowing your dreams, for they are God’s pointers.

Creativity, as Marina Tsvetaeva said, is a controlled dream, and poets differ from each other only in the plots of their dreams and their verbal embodiment... For her, sleep was one of the embodiments of life and at the same time a mystical connection between life and death. The dream opened the door to the other world, to immortality. A dream is a fulfillment of desires.

Imitating Marina Tsvetaeva, I write down many “flights in dreams and in reality” in a diary called PM - “Paradoxical Muse”. Dozens of PM notebooks, filled with notes over fifty years, store test dreams, construction dreams, road dreams, erotic dreams... PM are my cosmodromes for launching rockets into “parallel space.” Sometimes I see “from there” invisible connections between people and phenomena. God created dreams to show the way to the sleeper whose eyes are in darkness (ancient Egyptian text).

Dreams keep the secret of time! They burn years in a minute. The world survived because he fell asleep on time and dreamed. Philosophical dream: During a snowstorm, the prophet speaks to me mysterious words: “The time that has passed is coming, and the time that is coming has already passed.” I wanted to know the truth. I found out, but forgot - I woke up and can’t remember. It's a pity! Sleep is the builder, teacher and doctor of the human soul. In our dreams we “repair the roof” and restore Time. Dreams are excursions into the Past, which we transform into the Present and the Future.

The work of our subconscious

Our consciousness, which we sometimes consider our “I,” is only a small part of the work of the brain as a whole. Awareness of oneself as a person is only a small part of the brain’s work; most other processes occurring in the head are processed without the involvement of consciousness. These are not only automated reactions such as breathing, controlling the heart, and muscles when walking, but also more complex ones: pattern recognition, the formation of a three-dimensional surrounding reality. The brain, in fact, at a preliminary level chooses what to show to consciousness and what to omit. Some actions are performed so automatically that the consciousness is not notified of the work being performed.

Quite by accident, I recently found out that I have published new books: “Conscious exits from the body. Experience of traveling to other worlds" and "Controlled dreams. Controlled reality." They came out from a certain publishing house IPL in 2016. It turns out that this also happens, the author himself does not know that he has new books coming out.

They renamed the book in their own way and released it as a new product from the author. I have no idea what kind of publishing house this is, but after reading the reviews of the books, we can conclude: this is my first and second book published by the Ves publishing house under the titles: “Wanderer of Dreams. Part 1. The beginning of the journey" and "Wanderer of dreams. Part 2. New Millennium.”

Essentially these are the same books. If you have previously read the Dream Traveler series, then there is no point in buying new books.

Why do you dream about rats?

So, to find out from which side to expect a rat bite, analyze your dream.

Let's sort it out how a thought can have power. How thoughts can generally interact with the universe, cause events not related to our direct actions. What laws of the universe allow us to fulfill our mental desires. How can our brain have the gift of seeing at a distance or sensing events happening somewhere far away that we have no idea about.

Let's assume that our body, and our brain in particular, is a machine. Complex, to some extent incomprehensible, but still a device that perceives and transmits signals to the outside. Let's make another assumption that we are somewhat similar to a modern computer. Lately, our brains have been compared more and more to electronic devices, so we will not deviate from this tradition. Thus, our thoughts are a kind of program, with cycles and functions that perform certain tasks. Some thoughts are initial data, but some have power - these are programs built according to the laws of the universe.

Over the past month I have encountered several people trying to change their past. Then someone talked about memories of a non-existent past.

Most people believe that changing the past is impossible, and there is no exact description of how to change the past. But, one way or another, I come across mysterious stories that cannot be confirmed or refuted. Any change in the past leads to everyone around remembering a new story. Thus, we cannot confidently say that such a story is not the author’s invention. Only some individuals retain memories of an alternate present. Sometimes it’s not even a memory, but only a feeling of the wrongness of the current moment; sometimes there are flashes of déjà vu, or false memories in the head of some moments that never actually happened, but for some reason are stored in the memory as memories.

Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming Stephen Laberge

Why dreams seem real: the relationship between the psyche, brain and body in sleep

In one of the earliest experiments our research group conducted, we tested the traditional idea that the perception of time in dreams is different from the perception of time in reality. According to the technique we developed, we asked subjects to make an eye movement during a lucid dream, then after a 10-second pause (counting: one thousand one, one thousand two, etc.) to make a second eye movement. We found that in all cases the estimate of the time interval in the lucid dream coincided within a few seconds with its estimate in the waking state and was thus quite close to the real time between signals. From this it was concluded that the estimate of time in lucid dreams is very close to real ones, that is, it takes almost the same amount of time to perform any action in them as in the waking state.

This conclusion may come as a surprise, since many of you may have lived years or even lifetimes in the dream. I believe that this effect is achieved in dreams by the same stage trick that creates the illusion of the passage of time in the cinema or theater. If the lights go out on a screen, on a stage, or in a dream, and the clock strikes midnight, and a few moments later the bright morning sun shines through the window and the alarm clock rings, we assume (we pretend without realizing that we are pretending) that many hours have passed, even if "we know" that it only took a few seconds.

The method of using the eyes to signal a person in a state of lucid dreaming has demonstrated a strict correspondence between the change in direction of gaze during sleep and the actual movement of the eyes under closed eyelids. Researchers who did not use lucid dreamers in their experiments had to rely on the likelihood of a correspondence between the subjects' eye movements and their reported sleep actions. As a result, they tended to obtain only weak correlations between eye movements during sleep and during waking hours. The reason for the strong connection between eye movements during sleep and the waking state is that we use the same visual system in our body to observe both the dream world and the real world. One of the most striking examples of the connection between physiology and sleep activities is sexual activity during sleep. In 1983, we undertook a study to determine the extent to which sexual activity during lucid REM dreaming was reflected in physiological parameters.

A woman was chosen for the experiment because women were more likely to report orgasm in their dreams. She observed various physiological indicators that are usually affected by sexual arousal: breathing, heart rate, vaginal muscle tone and amplitude of vaginal pulsations. In the experiment, she was required to give a special signal with her eyes in the following situations: when she realized that she was sleeping, when sexual activity began (in her sleep), and when she had an orgasm.

According to her, she fulfilled the conditions of the task exactly. Analysis of the recordings revealed a significant correlation between what she did in the dream and all but one physiological indicator. During the 15 seconds that she defined as orgasm, her vaginal muscle activity, vaginal pulsation amplitude, and respiratory rate reached their highest levels of the entire night, and were significantly higher than during the rest of the REM period. The heart rate, contrary to expectations, increased very slightly.

After this, we conducted similar experiments with two men. In both cases there was a sharp increase in breathing, but again no significant changes in heart rate. It is noteworthy that although both oneironauts reported intense orgasm in their lucid dreams, neither of them ejaculated, unlike the common "wet dreams" of adolescents, which are often not accompanied by erotic dreams.