The first time I had a proper, photo-realistic dream with complete awareness that it was a dream it blew my fucking mind in a way that was almost religious. I could feel the sun on my face, and the texture of the sidewalk I was walking on. I couldn't stop looking at plants! It was incredible to see every leaf and twig with the realization that they were being entirely rendered by my brain in real time. TRUST ME, those experiences are completely possible, and the detail a brain can create is nothing short of ASTOUNDING.
Upon reflection, it makes perfect sense. EVERYTHING you conceive of or percieve in your waking life is a lie, essentially a hallucination of sorts. It is a mostly high-level construction and summary made by some part of your brain based on sensory input. It turns out, your brain is perfectly capable of synthesizing the high level construction without the fine-grained sensory input.
2. Keep a dream journal.
3. Do reality checking throughout the day.
4. Meditate before sleep. Do a relaxation exercise. There's 100s of them.
"Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life" is the definitive book on the topic that everyone copies. No one has additional information.
It haunted me for some time after because I never expected something like in the movie inception to be possible in real life.
A study to test this would be simple - test skills level at something (e.g. chess), and then have the study participant study "in their sleep" for a month. Test again. It has never been done. Not even close. As it has never been done, I strongly believe you are misinterpreting / over-stating your results.
I have managed to fly a few times, but the first couple of times I tried, I jumped and fell flat on my face! I don't really experience pain in my dreams though.
Back when I dabbled in extreme sleep deprivation I'd be forced into a sort of wakeful sleep where what I can only describe as "eye movies" would forcibly take over my vision center. They were entirely fabricated, and indistinguishable from normal vision. My eyes would still be open, in some cases I'd still be engaged in a demanding activity like riding a motorcycle (this was insane), but my mind was completely out to lunch and I'd be observing a completely different world than the one reflected on my retinas.
My conventional sleep dreams never had that amount of consciously-accessible fidelity, but I presume some people can access their dreams as well as my sleep deprivation experiences proved for me.
Some people can't access their dreams at all, why wouldn't variety in the other direction occur as well? I think we should assume it's a spectrum across the whole gamut.
The other reason I have a hard time believing this is that I know normal people can't visualize anything. Artists, really good artists, are able to visualize a face with some detail. Most can't visualize a circle and toggle its color, let alone anything complex.
To me, that is a strong argument to believe the mind can't generate clear worlds, as people claim.
What? I’m doing this right now. I can do it with a white tiger. I can see Barrack Obama in a marching band on Mars.
I have a friend who cannot picture anything in their mind, so it’s probably a spectrum. You might be projecting your experience onto others.
What do you mean ‘lost’ his ability? […] Shouldn’t we be amazed he ever had that ability?
We’ve heard from many people who have experienced a similar epiphany to Ross. They too were astonished to discover that their complete lack of ability to picture visual imagery was different from the norm.'
https://theconversation.com/blind-in-the-mind-why-some-peopl...
[0] https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/some-people-dont-have-...
This sounds like a perversion of synesthesia to me. This is like LSD.
Do these people have strange accents like people born deaf?
You aren't holding it if you can't draw from it. End of story.
That doesn't sound plausible.
In my personal case, I can maintain a clear image but be unable to translate it accurately to paper or to another medium (electronic or not) since it involves skill. The fidelity I am able to attain has improved as my skill has improved, and I can clearly see the frustrating differences between the image in my mind and what I then drew without yet being able to remedy it. If the proposition were correct neither of these things would be possible.
Aphantasia seems to be a defect in (or a difference in, I don't know) one portion of the brain whereas dreaming seems to use a separate portion of the brain. I can also see images when I'm between being awake and asleep, which seems to be related to dreaming. I've had a couple of dreams where I've successfully used the WILD technique (wake induced lucid dreaming) where you use hypnagogic imagery to create an environment and (if you're successful at it) go directly from being awake to being in a lucid dream. It's an experience that will lead you to believe that you do actually visually experience your dreams, since there was no apparent break between lying on your bed and entering a dream. I've also watched a dream fade before, and woke up immediately afterwards with no apparent loss in consciousness.
You don't have to believe me, of course, that's up to you. I'm as surprised as anyone that I can visualize while dreaming but not at all when I'm awake.
isn’t that exactly what the mind (or at least the brains visual cortex) is doing all day long?
I've been able to read magazines, have full conversations with multiple people, stare at a brick wall and notice all the little pits. It does not happen every day, but maybe a couple times a month. I used to have severe sleep apnea and those were the most intense dreams. So I don't think it's possible to extrapolate your own experience to others. The mind already constructs a model of reality, so why wouldn't it be able to in a dream state?
As far as your image - I still maintain that if you can "hold it", you can draw it, especially for simple geometric shapes like a star.
Everything I do makes me sweaty and winded, even walking.
It's a direct result of influencers selling a lifestyle. I work out, and have my entire life, but it definitely doesn't feel amazing - it's just a grind and you feel a bit better afterward.