Dreams

After intense, personal research on my own dreams I spout a claim:
They r nuthin but self-reflexion...you work through inner fears, past events...nothing magical about it...nothing predicting about it...

Now Veeky Forums.... prove me wrong/right with "real" science, please, I don't wanna accept what I think I found..

Plotinus thought that your dreams are simulations like the demiurge simulates you.

protip: gain lucidity in your dreams, then sit down and meditate in them. what you will see is life changing.

>nothing magical about it...
Sure.
>nothing predicting about it...
Yeah.
>self-reflexion
I disagree. Dreams are notable in how your self isn't there anymore. Insofar as my "self" is anything at all, it definitely includes the sense to recognize that if I'm encountering dead people or back in school despite being 30 years old or in a foreign country even though I'm a shut-in in real life, then what I'm encountering isn't real. But in dreams you're not really there. There are different mental processes running when they happen but it's not the same as when you're there and awake and have your wits about you. I think after the fact you might be inclined to reinterpret your dreams as having happened to "you" because that's what self-narration does is re-frame everything into a story about yourself, but I think it's mostly a selfless process unless you happen to attain lucidity and get into that in between status where you're aware like you're awake but having sensory experiences that aren't there like you're not awake.

lainchan /dreams/

Well, it could, to a degree, allow you to predict things you otherwise wouldn't, just by the random associations that result from the thought state. Not things like the next world war (save by pure lucky guess), but things like, "Will she say yes?" ...and, of course, your semi-conscious mind would be wrong much more often than not, and you'd focus on those instances when it was right, due to the astonishment. At the same time, bits of your mind that might otherwise prejudice you against the correct prediction may fail to come into play while dreaming.

Mostly it's reflection, but the mind is burning through everything it experienced that day and strengthening the relevant patterns. Thus, as some studies suggest, some tasks do improve if you dream about them, so it is ultimately part of the learning process. Fluidic self-testing, as it were.

It's also mostly the brain receiving a lot of random signals in a semi-unconscious state and assembling them into a story that makes sense based on previous experience. It isn't without value, and maybe a bit more than you "described", but yeah, folks tend to read too much into it.

bumperdreamo

>but the mind is burning through everything it experienced that day
i made the experience, that I dream about things that are a while ago, very rarely about things that happend on that specific day or even in that week. Mostly its things months, if not years ago!

>past fears
Sure
>going through last Events
Of course

But that definitely isn't all. While lucid, you basically can do what you want

I meant to say "burning off", or more accurately, trying to find how they fit with previous experience. FMRI suggests that, during sleep, a lot of newly formed neural connections are "washed out", while others are strengthened.

True, dreaming of the past, or including elements thereof, is usually the case, as those earlier patterns are the strongest, the ones that have been constantly reinforced over time (even if they may be warped to the point where they are no longer accurate). I, for instance, constantly have dreams where my dad is still alive, as he was around during all my childhood and the bulk of my adult life, and usually see him, and the rest of my family, as they were when I was young. Unless I'm lucid, or near so, there's no awareness of the inconsistency.

what if it's an analogically similar scenario