Instant Pre-Cognition in Dreams

[Alloverthemap]

i apologize if I'm posting in the wrong forum, but I signed up just a matter of moments ago and didn't see an obvious candidate to post this in.

What I'm going to describe, I have to believe, is commonplace. Yet I've never heard -- or sought -- an answer for it. Perhaps others can provide insight. This concerns what I describe in the title as instant pre-cognition while in a dream state. I'll give you the example which sparked my participation here. It occurred ten minutes ago at the end of a dream, so I have no doubt that I'm reporting it as I experienced it.

First off, I was in the show "Game of Thrones" which was enormously exciting. It was a longish, multi-set dream, but here's how it concluded. I was in a barren room with another character from the show (likely the one portrayed by Pete Dinklage, as I do recall him being by my side for some of the dream). All of a sudden a pile of dirt pours out of the walls and onto the floor. I ask, "Where is all that dirt coming from?" He replies, "That's not dirt. That's sawdust from all the bullet holes those guns are sending into the side of the building."

I have "a-ha!" moments like this frequently in dreams, where, I as the protagonist, experience something I can't explain, only for the meaning of the event to be explained to me moments later by an accompanying character. Is this not "pre-cognition." I mean, how could I not know what was happening since my mind is creating the action of the dream? When I get the explanation from that second character, I always have an emotional reaction in my dream -- as though a great revelation has been shared with me.

I realize I'm having a hard time here making a good analogy between this phenomenon and pre-cognition, but I feel there is a common dynamic. But more than that, I'm really curious whether the dynamic I'm describing is a common curiosity of dreams and what explanations might account for it. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have a suggestion for a better place to post it (assuming this was the wrong choice) please don't hesitate to suggest it.

 

[Area54]

34 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

I have "a-ha!" moments like this frequently in dreams, where, I as the protagonist, experience something I can't explain, only for the meaning of the event to be explained to me moments later by an accompanying character. Is this not "pre-cognition." I mean, how could I not know what was happening since my mind is creating the action of the dream? When I get the explanation from that second character, I always have an emotional reaction in my dream -- as though a great revelation has been shared with me.

Three thoughts occur to me:

You speak as if pre-cognition is a real thing. There is no substantive evidence for its existence and no plausible mechanism to account for it.

The internal dynamics of a dream have only passing relations to the real world. Extrapolating from one to the other only makes sense in terms of neuroscience, psychology and such.

You have essentially described a three step process. First, an event occurs. Two, "you (POV)" express puzzlement at the event. Three, "you (other character)" provide an explanation. There is no reason to think that step three must have been determined prior to steps one and two. Even if it does it, it lies at a deeper level of the subconscious. Thus, nothing approaching pre-cognition is present.

Anyway, welcome to the forum.

[Alloverthemap]

That's a really good point. The sequence of revelation has been confused by the roles of the people in the dream. If they had been reversed, then there would be no sense of pre-cognition whatsoever. Just one character asking for an explanation of an event, with the other providing it. What confuses the issue, as I stated originally, is that ostensibly the POV in the dream and the "scripter" of the dream are one in the same. But that shouldn't be a given, I suppose. And if it's not, it does explain why I experience this phenomenon with some frequency.

Thanks for taking the time to think about it and provide an excellent answer.

 

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Alloverthemap said:

I have "a-ha!" moments like this frequently in dreams, where, I as the protagonist, experience something I can't explain, only for the meaning of the event to be explained to me moments later by an accompanying character. Is this not "pre-cognition." I mean, how could I not know what was happening since my mind is creating the action of the dream? When I get the explanation from that second character, I always have an emotional reaction in my dream -- as though a great revelation has been shared with me.

Because it is a dream, your brain has created the situation, created the other character, and also created the sense of surprise/revelation that you feel. I can't see anything mysterious here. 

I thought this was going to be about the much more interesting way the brain can (apparently) set up a situation in advance so an external stimulus (e.g. the alarm clock) is incorporated seamlessly into the dream (for example, as telephone ringing).

[Phi for All]

22 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

What confuses the issue, as I stated originally, is that ostensibly the POV in the dream and the "scripter" of the dream are one in the same.

It shouldn't be confusing at all, if I understand what you're saying. It's a classic storytelling/teaching/training pattern, and one your resting brain might make use of to help you interpret and make sense of something you've experienced.

7 minutes ago, Strange said:

I thought this was going to be about the much more interesting way the brain can (apparently) set up a situation in advance so an external stimulus (e.g. the alarm clock) is incorporated seamlessly into the dream (for example, as telephone ringing).

Now THAT seems to be almost pre-cognitive at times. But it shouldn't, seeing as how the brain has everything you ever experienced to work with in order to make reality and the dream mesh up like that, and whatever your mind comes up with is going to seem perfect, or at least eerily intuitive. 

[Strange]

5 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Now THAT seems to be almost pre-cognitive at times. But it shouldn't, seeing as how the brain has everything you ever experienced to work with in order to make reality and the dream mesh up like that, and whatever your mind comes up with is going to seem perfect, or at least eerily intuitive. 

And our waking consciousness is already "behind" the stimuli the brain receives anyway. So playing timey-wimey tricks on us is the brains forte!

[Alloverthemap]

OK. I think you guys have provided satisfactory clarity about how this odd "you created the answer, yet you don't know the answer" sequence can occur. 

Another thing I find perplexing is how the "sets" for dreams can be so detailed -- and indeed evolve to follow the action -- and yet be presented in real time. When there's movement in a dream, as experienced by the POV, everything in the frame changes in perfect synchroncity with the observer's movements. As I stress, this happens in real time. This is not possible in a waking state. The foreground of your thought inevitably becomes the focal point and the background pretty much disappears. But in a dream, no favor is given to either. You're experiencing the entire tableau as though watching a movie and quite unlike what a conscious rendering of a moving scene would produce in your imagination. I'm wondering if the dream literature addresses this significant dichotomy.

 

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by Alloverthemap

[Strange]

1 minute ago, Alloverthemap said:

Another thing I find perplexing is how the "sets" for dreams can be so detailed -- and indeed evolve to follow the action -- and yet be presented in real time. When there's movement in a dream, as experienced by the POV, everything in the frame changes in perfect synchroncity with the observer's movements. As I stress, this happens in real time. This is not possible in a waking state.

I disagree (with the last sentence).

We appear to see a detailed, full colour, continuous view of everything around us. But only a tiny part of our field of view is in colour. Only the the thing we are actually looking at is in focus. Our eyes keep moving about, and every time they move the brain blanks out the input from the eyes (so we don't get dizzy) and then fills in the blanks afterwards.

So almost everything we think we see is created by the brain from low quality, fragmentary information. So what happens in brans is not really a stretch at all.

Also, you remember dreams as being as complex as you say. But that memory is created by your brain as well. (For example, we often think we have had a dream that took place over hours, or even days, but the actual time dreaming is actually just minutes.)

Basically, you can't rely on anything you remember about a dream as being an accurate description of what happened in the dream.

[Alloverthemap]

Sorry, I meant not to compare the dreamscape to what we observe around us, but to what we might imagine if we we closed our eyes and plotted something fantastical in our mind. I guarantee you everything would not stay in place as the figuative "frames" proceeded through the projector. But in dreams, the background doesn't get blurred as you move through the dream -- again, it's as though you're watching it unfold frame-by-frame.

As far as reporting accurately on dreams goes, I think that might be up to the individual. I care enough about mine not to hype them. If I can't remember a connector or a conclusion . . . well, too bad. But I do believe that which I do recall is what I was experiencing in the dream state.

 

[Strange]

23 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

Sorry, I meant not to compare the dreamscape to what we observe around us, but to what we might imagine if we we closed our eyes and plotted something fantastical in our mind. I guarantee you everything would not stay in place as the figuative "frames" proceeded through the projector. But in dreams, the background doesn't get blurred as you move through the dream -- again, it's as though you're watching it unfold frame-by-frame.

Ok, I see what you mean. But the brain is definitely in a "altered state" when dreaming. Similarly effects can be achieved through chemical means(*), that also disrupt the brain's normal behaviour.

(*) apparently 😐

[Alloverthemap]

I've got a "furthermore" on this subject. I grew up hearing that you can only dream in black and white. Has anyone else heard this? I have a follow-up point if this was once a common conception.

 

[Strange]

7 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

I've got a "furthermore" on this subject. I grew up hearing that you can only dream in black and white. Has anyone else heard this? I have a follow-up point if this was once a common conception.

 

Someone else mentioned it on the forum a while ago. I had never heard it before. Maybe some dream in colour and others don’t?

[DrmDoc]

6 hours ago, Alloverthemap said:

i apologize if I'm posting in the wrong forum, but I signed up just a matter of moments ago and didn't see an obvious candidate to post this in.

What I'm going to describe, I have to believe, is commonplace. Yet I've never heard -- or sought -- an answer for it. Perhaps others can provide insight. This concerns what I describe in the title as instant pre-cognition while in a dream state. I'll give you the example which sparked my participation here. It occurred ten minutes ago at the end of a dream, so I have no doubt that I'm reporting it as I experienced it.

First off, I was in the show "Game of Thrones" which was enormously exciting. It was a longish, multi-set dream, but here's how it concluded. I was in a barren room with another character from the show (likely the one portrayed by Pete Dinklage, as I do recall him being by my side for some of the dream). All of a sudden a pile of dirt pours out of the walls and onto the floor. I ask, "Where is all that dirt coming from?" He replies, "That's not dirt. That's sawdust from all the bullet holes those guns are sending into the side of the building."

I have "a-ha!" moments like this frequently in dreams, where, I as the protagonist, experience something I can't explain, only for the meaning of the event to be explained to me moments later by an accompanying character. Is this not "pre-cognition." I mean, how could I not know what was happening since my mind is creating the action of the dream? When I get the explanation from that second character, I always have an emotional reaction in my dream -- as though a great revelation has been shared with me.

I realize I'm having a hard time here making a good analogy between this phenomenon and pre-cognition, but I feel there is a common dynamic. But more than that, I'm really curious whether the dynamic I'm describing is a common curiosity of dreams and what explanations might account for it. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have a suggestion for a better place to post it (assuming this was the wrong choice) please don't hesitate to suggest it.

 

If I understand you correctly, If I'm not too late to this discussion, you experienced something in a dream you didn't understand that was later explained to you by another, more knowledgeable character in your dream.  Because your dreams emerge from what appears to be the recesses of your own mind, you presumed this experience to be precognitive in that a character of your mind's creation revealed an insight before or beyond your initial understanding in the dream.  First, this is definitively not an example of dream precognition.  A clearer example would involve dream imagery and experiences of future events in your life before they occurred that you could not possibility have known would occur.  An example might involve dreaming about a series of lottery numbers and then witnessing those exact numbers being drawn in an actual, subsequent lottery--which is something many, including myself, have often experienced. The mechanism for this kind of unconscious precognition involves the cyclical nature of life experience and our unconscious mind's extraordinary ability to detect and integrate the past and current presentment of those cyclical experience into a forecast of probable future events--it's like standing on a mountain and forecasting the arrival of a storm from the clouds we see in the distance.

Dreaming is a byproduct of activations in the brain arising from its metabolic processes amid sleep.  At about 5% of body mass, our brain consumes about 20% of our body's overall energy uptake. During sleep, our brain's metabolic need persist and that persistent need causes the arousal that initiates dreaming.  Dreaming is our brain's interpretive response to the stimuli it perceives during its arousal process amid sleep as it engages its metabolic needs.  Your dream recall interprets something your brain believes it experienced while in your unconscious state of sleep.  Your dream appears to interpret your unconscious experience of something ordinary (dirt imagery) from which you would learn something more substantial (sawdust/bullet hole imagery) from a more knowledgeable individual (knowledgeable character imagery).  I hope this helps.

[Alloverthemap]

Thanks. It does help. I still find it a little curious that we can spontaneously fill in all the background details as our dreams unfold "frame-by-frame" to create a lush tableau all the while propelling the action forward. I mean, these are big production numbers we're talking about. It would take a day and a half to get those sets put up and looking just right on a movie set -- and many hours just to conceive of all the details and proper scaling in the first place? And here we are in our dreams, creating it all on the fly, with everything in place. Ever notice that? The production details are impeccable. If you're climbing a hill on your bike, it's not just you and the road. There is a horizon and everything is filled in on the flanks. All this is mysterious to me -- and a tad suspicious.

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by Alloverthemap

[DrmDoc]

12 hours ago, Alloverthemap said:

Thanks. It does help. I still find it a little curious that we can spontaneously fill in all the background details as our dreams unfold "frame-by-frame" to create a lush tableau all the while propelling the action forward. I mean, these are big production numbers we're talking about. It would take a day and a half to get those sets put up and looking just right on a movie set -- and many hours just to conceive of all the details and proper scaling in the first place? And here we are in our dreams, creating it all on the fly, with everything in place. Ever notice that? The production details are impeccable. If you're climbing a hill on your bike, it's not just you and the road. There is a horizon and everything is filled in on the flanks. All this is mysterious to me -- and a tad suspicious.

 

Those spontaneous, frame-by-frame dream depictions are merely a perceptual illusion, which our brain's unconscious interpretive processes create. Although not very well understood by most, our dreams are interpretations of stimuli or influence.  As interpretations, dreams are akin to a type of language wherein perceptual references and experiences convey meaning rather than words alone.   Ours dreams are not creations from our unconscious mind's recesses, they're references our dreaming brain extrapolates using our memory store of life experiences to interpret or understand what are essentially the mental effects of being unconsciously active and stimulated. Dreams are interpretive responses to stimuli that is quite like our responses to spoken languages.  Our dreams seemingly seamless perceptual experiences are like the flow of our perception and understanding as someone speaks to us in our native language.

Edited August 19, 2020 by DrmDoc

[Area54]

13 hours ago, Alloverthemap said:

I still find it a little curious that we can spontaneously fill in all the background details as our dreams unfold "frame-by-frame" to create a lush tableau all the while propelling the action forward. I mean, these are big production numbers we're talking about. It would take a day and a half to get those sets put up and looking just right on a movie set -- and many hours just to conceive of all the details and proper scaling in the first place? And here we are in our dreams, creating it all on the fly, with everything in place. Ever notice that? The production details are impeccable. If you're climbing a hill on your bike, it's not just you and the road. There is a horizon and everything is filled in on the flanks. All this is mysterious to me -- and a tad suspicious.

Come on now! In the space of ten seconds, with my eyes close, I just "created" the view of Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building,  a panorama on Mars, a view down Singapore's Orchard Road and a ferry crossing to a Scottish Island. Lot's of detail in each of them, but possible because my brain can pull material together from memory.

[Strange]

10 minutes ago, Area54 said:

Come on now! In the space of ten seconds, with my eyes close, I just "created" the view of Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building,  a panorama on Mars, a view down Singapore's Orchard Road and a ferry crossing to a Scottish Island. Lot's of detail in each of them, but possible because my brain can pull material together from memory.

People vary enormously in the ability to visualise things in their "mind's eye". I am not completely aphantasic, but I certainly can't conjure up a detailed view of things like that in my imagination.

However, when I remember a dream, I remember it being a complete and vivd realisation. However, I have no way of knowing if that is because my dreaming brain is able to do things that my conscious brain cannot, or if I just think it was that detailed after the event (in the same way that I dream about speaking fluently in a second language, that I know I couldn't do; or saying something hilariously funny that isn't funny at all when I wake up). Our impressions about what our dreams were like are even more unreliable than eye witness testimony of things that actually happened (which are pretty unreliable to start with).

[Alloverthemap]

3 hours ago, Strange said:

People vary enormously in the ability to visualise things in their "mind's eye". I am not completely aphantasic, but I certainly can't conjure up a detailed view of things like that in my imagination.

However, when I remember a dream, I remember it being a complete and vivd realisation. However, I have no way of knowing if that is because my dreaming brain is able to do things that my conscious brain cannot, or if I just think it was that detailed after the event (in the same way that I dream about speaking fluently in a second language, that I know I couldn't do; or saying something hilariously funny that isn't funny at all when I wake up). Our impressions about what our dreams were like are even more unreliable than eye witness testimony of things that actually happened (which are pretty unreliable to start with).

I don't believe there is any deception at work here. My confidence stems from my experience in creating music in my dreams. I have none of this ability in a conscious state, but for many years was convinced that I was composing melodies I'd never heard before while awake. Finally I started recording them vocally immediately after awakening to be sure I wasn't "dreaming". And yes, the melodies when I would play them back the next morning stood up just as I'd perceived they did when recording them following the dream. They were good and they were original. Therefore I do not believe there is a translation error from dream to conscious state when trying to recapture what you believe you've dreamt.

 

3 hours ago, Area54 said:

Come on now! In the space of ten seconds, with my eyes close, I just "created" the view of Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building,  a panorama on Mars, a view down Singapore's Orchard Road and a ferry crossing to a Scottish Island. Lot's of detail in each of them, but possible because my brain can pull material together from memory.

Yes. I think there's a distinction here that has a difference. With the possible exception of Mars, your tableaus were mimicking what you are already familiar with. But in dreams something very different is at work. The scenes are largely unprecedented to your experience. I just had one that illustrates my point. In the middle of some fantastical dream, I was all of a sudden playing golf. I'm escorted to the tee box by someone who I've now forgotten, but take to be a new acquaintance. The hole looks very narrow -- treacherous. Then, as though I'm viewing it on TV, I see an aerial shot and learn that the reason it's so narrow is that there is a sloping hillside just off the left of the thin fairway and then water on the right. But no ordinary water. It's an ocean. In vivid detail I can see all the trees and marine canyons that constitute the severe slope dropping hundreds of feet down to the water. And the view is in motion, taking me from tee to green, where we meet up with a golfer surveying a tree right by the side of the green. He is Doc Gooden and he's dubious that he can shape his shot to avoid that tree if he aims for it from the tee and tries to draw it inside of its trunk. I'm observing from the side of the green closest to the cliffs. In the background -- and very distinct -- is that same sloping hillside that provides the claustrophobia from the tee.

This perfectly illustrates my mystification and suspicion about dreams. The scene is created from scratch in real time. It has movement where the perspective and scaling are impeccable in their dimensions. And finally, the integrity of the entire construct is upheld by the second view from beside the green, where the hillside is as daunting as it appeared earlier. In short, nothing is sacrificed for expediency in the dream. The entire setting is exactly as it would be if viewed with multiple cameras on television. This is way too much to create in real time, with your eyes closed and your mind striving to do so. 

 

4 hours ago, DrmDoc said:

Those spontaneous, frame-by-frame dream depictions are merely a perceptual illusion, which our brain's unconscious interpretive processes create. Although not very well understood by most, our dreams are interpretations of stimuli or influence.  As interpretations, dreams are akin to a type of language wherein perceptual references and experiences convey meaning rather than words alone.   Ours dreams are not creations from our unconscious mind's recesses, they're references our dreaming brain extrapolates using our memory store of life experiences to interpret or understand what are essentially the mental effects of being unconsciously active and stimulated. Dreams are interpretive responses to stimuli that is quite like our responses to spoken languages.  Our dreams seemingly seamless perceptual experiences are like the flow of our perception and understanding as someone speaks to us in our native language.

I think there's a lot of truth in what you say, but what I'm hung up on is how we stitch these stories together so effortlessly -- both visually and narratively -- instantaneously. But, you make a good point about how -- unlike machines ever will, let's say -- we can home in on precise shadings of meaning and attribute values with exactitude to them. Though I don't find that to be a miracle necessarily, it does speak to your idea that our minds involuntarily process very complicated material and render it instantly -- and accurately -- comprehensible.

 

[Strange]

50 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

I don't believe there is any deception at work here. My confidence stems from my experience in creating music in my dreams. I have none of this ability in a conscious state, but for many years was convinced that I was composing melodies I'd never heard before while awake. Finally I started recording them vocally immediately after awakening to be sure I wasn't "dreaming". And yes, the melodies when I would play them back the next morning stood up just as I'd perceived they did when recording them following the dream. They were good and they were original. Therefore I do not believe there is a translation error from dream to conscious state when trying to recapture what you believe you've dreamt.

Just because some things can be recalled accurately from dreams does not mean everything is.

[DrmDoc]

59 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

I think there's a lot of truth in what you say, but what I'm hung up on is how we stitch these stories together so effortlessly -- both visually and narratively -- instantaneously. But, you make a good point about how -- unlike machines ever will, let's say -- we can home in on precise shadings of meaning and attribute values with exactitude to them. Though I don't find that to be a miracle necessarily, it does speak to your idea that our minds involuntarily process very complicated material and render it instantly -- and accurately -- comprehensible.

 

I agree, dreaming isn't any more miraculous than how we might perceive a bike ride in the park.  While bike riding, our perception of our experiences and surrounding is instantaneous.  We immediately know that the trees we see are trees, the flower we smell are flowers, and the birds we hear are birds.  While dreaming, the distinction that's not well understood is that the entire scenario of riding a bike, seeing trees, flowers, and hearing birds is an interpretation of an experience or stimuli with meaning beyond mere appearance.  Perhaps more simply, the entire scenario describes a mental experience, which is something immaterial understood through material references. Our brain isn't creating data when we dream, it's presenting an interpretation of data.  Perhaps the best way to understand dreams is to think of them in figurative terms.  For example, a dream about running describes a mental action.

[Alloverthemap]

I agree that dreams are representational, though I can never figure out why certain people to whom I have absolutely no connection to, nor do they have any connection to the subject matter at hand -- Doc Gooden for instance -- pop in for these cameo appearances.

 

[Charles 3781]

On 8/18/2020 at 12:12 AM, Strange said:

Someone else mentioned it on the forum a while ago. I had never heard it before. Maybe some dream in colour and others don’t?

Dreaming in black and and white is probably  a temporary phenomenon .

Caused by the  black and white televisions that we used to be continually exposed to, when of a certain age.

I mean, our human eyes perceive colours. Therefore our perceptions in dreams should also be in colours.

To confirm this, please try remembering any colours in a dream, on waking up.

 

[Alloverthemap]

41 minutes ago, Charles 3781 said:

Dreaming in black and and white is probably  a temporary phenomenon .

Caused by the  black and white televisions that we used to be continually exposed to, when of a certain age.

I mean, our human eyes perceive colours. Therefore our perceptions in dreams should also be in colours.

To confirm this, please try remembering any colours in a dream, on waking up.

 

This was exactly what I was thinking. When I was young I was under the impression that when you dream you dream in black and white. Then I had a dream in color and it was a major surprise. I remember that well. I'm of a generation that didn't get a color TV until I was 7 years old. Of course, movies were in color, but I hadn't seen many of those in the theaters at that age. I do wonder if we could examine dream studies from the pre-color media era if we would find that everyone dreamt in monochrome. And if that's the case, then have we only learned to dream as elaborately as we now can because of the advent of the moving picture?

 

[Strange]

4 minutes ago, Alloverthemap said:

I do wonder if we could examine dream studies from the pre-color media era if we would find that everyone dreamt in monochrome.

You do know the world was in colour back then? 🙂

[Alloverthemap]

Not to everyone . . . which leads us to another interesting thought. Can the color-blind dream in color. I think the ramifications of this, if they can, are profound.