Are Dreams a Window into the Future? Exploring the Mysteries of Dreaming

[quddusaliquddus]

no offence - it sounds liek something out of X-Men

 

[Overdose]

no offence - it sounds liek something out of X-Men

none taken :rofl:

 

[quddusaliquddus]

What does it mean, if dreams can tell the future? I just realized that it could have big implications on our abilities while awake - does this mean we can influence the future? What's the point if any, of seein the future? How does it helps us evolution or otherwise? How in the world does such a thing develop in our heads via evolution? Why humans ? - there are other animals with larger brains for example. Hundreds more question. ...

 

[loseyourname]

Are you honestly asking if you can influence the future? Every single action you ever take influences the future.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Lol ... you missed the point ... there's a difference between influencing it from foreknowledge of events and your everyday actions. It's like saying that if you knew the formulae for a falling object then you could influence it ... now we influence falling objects everyday e.g. footballs, but if you have forrmulae i.e. insight into its future course - then you can adjust its height weight etc ... to change the nature of its fall to the ground.
Using that as an analogy - can this be done with dreams?

 

[theamazingTWOeyedman]

We don't know enough about dreams or the mind in general to determine if they can "predict the future". Though my guess is no since most dreams are just about things you've been thinking about recently... I find I only remember dreams during the school year, when I wake up during a dream (because of my alarm). If I'm allowed to come out of REM naturally I do not remember them. I think the best explanation of dreams would be that you're kinda "defragging" to put it in computer terms... That would explain why if you think about something a lot that's the dream you'll remember, because it takes longer to store away. But as of now all we have are theories, nothing rock solid.

This howstuffworks article has some good stuff in it about dreams:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/sleep.htm

 

[russ_watters]

... there's a difference between influencing it from foreknowledge of events and your everyday actions. It's like saying that if you knew the formulae for a falling object then you could influence it ... now we influence falling objects everyday e.g. footballs, but if you have forrmulae i.e. insight into its future course - then you can adjust its height weight etc ... to change the nature of its fall to the ground.
Using that as an analogy - can this be done with dreams?

I already covered this, but a lot of you are operating on the belief that some dreams are, in fact, a snapshot of the future. They aren't. The belief that they are is simply the human propensity for pattern recognition latching on to a dream about a common event, followed by an experience of a similar event.

Sorry guys, but its just a coincidence.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Have you ever experienced such coincedences? Do tell us about your experiences

 

[loseyourname]

This isn't a personal experience forum. Anecdotal evidence is hardly worth anything.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

When it comes to dreams - it's worth more than nothing.

 

[loseyourname]

Thank you for bringing it to my attention that hardly anything is more than nothing.

 

[BoulderHead]

Did anyone have a dream come true - So true that it's just plain weird? ... maybe even beyond explanation?

I've had a lot of dreams, few I can recall now, but I'm fairly certain none of them came true. Something more the opposite has happened though; events have occurred which seemed to me dreamlike.

 

[Overdose]

I already covered this, but a lot of you are operating on the belief that some dreams are, in fact, a snapshot of the future. They aren't. The belief that they are is simply the human propensity for pattern recognition latching on to a dream about a common event, followed by an experience of a similar event.

Sorry guys, but its just a coincidence.

Your right in a sense, i could dream of the two towers being struck by 2 areoplanes a week before 9/11 and given all the dreams going on and all the people in the world. Yes it could just be an astronomical coinicidence, and that's the problem with this kind of thing there never comes a point where 'it definitely isn't a coindence'. Wether or not you interpret this kind of thing as future predictions or random coindicences really depends on your biases of what the human mind is capable of and what is possible.
I think dreams can predict the future...

 

[Overdose]

This isn't a personal experience forum. Anecdotal evidence is hardly worth anything.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

[quddusaliquddus]

russ: To deny something outright without any evidence (or to believe in something) even though there's a chance it might be true isn't right. Can u not hold out the possiblity?

 

[loseyourname]

I think Russ would like for you to propose some mechanism by which the unconscious human mind would be theoretically capable of predicting the future. You run into an awful dilemma here in that the future hasn't happened yet. How can one have knowledge of that which does not exist?

My guess would be that the human mind is capable of threading together past and present events in such way that it can construct a very highly probable model of what the future will bring, but if the model turns out to be correct, it was nothing more than a lucky guess. A very highly educated and impressive guess, but lucky nonetheless.

One example I can think of is that I once dreamed of the exact circumstances and manner in which a girlfriend broke up with me, three months before it happened. I don't think of myself as clairvoyant. It is likely that I had simply seen signs pointing the way without actually realizing what I was seeing, and it took the dream to bring it to my attention.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Yes. Then the prediction is a prediction. Was it possible for you to have considered the possibility consciously that this might happen at that time - jus before ouy had the dream? If not then I'd put it into the category of prediction. I understand that as a science forum - mechanisms and controlled tests are everything. But there is at the moment no plausible theory on this other than your model-genrator theory or the time-travelling theory (on this forum anyway). I just want to see if people actually believe its more than a coincedence no matter what mechanisms they explain it with - again this may not interest sum people.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Thank you for bringing it to my attention that hardly anything is more than nothing.

You are welcome.

 

[loseyourname]

But there is at the moment no plausible theory on this other than your model-genrator theory or the time-travelling theory (on this forum anyway).

When you take into consideration the fact that time travel violates the laws of physics as they are currently known, one hypothesis (neither is quite a theory) is a tad more plausible than the other.

 

[russ_watters]

Loseyourname covered it pretty well, but...

When it comes to dreams - it's worth more than nothing.

Well that's just it - it is nothing.

russ: To deny something outright without any evidence (or to believe in something) even though there's a chance it might be true isn't right. Can u not hold out the possiblity?

To believe it without evidence is worse. Sorry, I use the scientific method. That ain't it.

In that abstract, anything is possible. But I'd bet my birthday on a lottery ticket before betting on a number I saw in a dream (and I don't do lotteries). Things I know, on the other hand, come from science. To even consider the possibility (without scientific evidence) that dreams are predictions is foolish - more foolish than betting on the lottery.

 

[TENYEARS]

Russ, foolishness is a constant. It is the human condition. Science is not a thing, it is a bandwagon of human beings. Yes men/women with a degree to shake and nod ones head. So, you would place the knowledge of others, things outside yourself, unknowns and make that truth? It reminds me of the move "The Deer Hunter" as he yells for more bullets. If a human wants the truth, they will find it, they will realize it.

What you have no clue of haunts me all the time. I have seen the future of humanity. You will not need shades. My visions come to pass and I know the ones that will. I call them out before hand boldly when I know, and I keep my mouth shut when I don't.

The continual unconscious acts of young and old without the responsbility for what we must do. Ah, another movie. "Thing", end of the movie "lets just sit here and wait."

 

[hypnagogue]

Scientific evidence demands reproducibility. If we cannot reliably reproduce a phenomenon, does it automatically entail that it doesn't exist? Maybe we just don't know how to reproduce it. If we humans weren't as bright as we are, perhaps we would never figure out how to reproduce static shocks. But our failure to reproduce the phenomenon would be a shortcoming on our part, not good evidence against the phenomenon in question.

 

[confutatis]

Russ, foolishness is a constant. It is the human condition. Science is not a thing, it is a bandwagon of human beings ... If a human wants the truth, they will find it, they will realize it ... What you have no clue of haunts me all the time. I have seen the future of humanity...

A little off-the-topic but I want to share it. I checked the forum this morning and the main page said the last post on this thread was by Hypnagogue. Since I like to read Hypnagogue's writings I decided to check it out, but when I clicked on the thread I was taken to Tenyears' post instead. So I started to read his post thinking it was Hypnagogue's, and the thought that came to my mind was, "oh my, is Hypnagogue playing with LSD again?"

(this is a private joke , if you don't get it nevermind)

 

[TENYEARS]

Like I said before, confused us was never enlighted. Bad choice of name, it is not that he could not have been, it is just that during his life, from what he expressed, it indicated nada. Expression though is not a requirement, so I guess I am talking out my hat or maybe I am giving you food for thought. Do you have a stomach to digest it or are you not hungry, the question is self answering, but the posting can produce hunger.

 

[Overdose]

wtf...

 

[quddusaliquddus]

Tenyears might be the one playing with LSD
;D
Tenyears: show us the path that goes to the peak of the mountain of enlightenment - that we may follow there and then kick you off ;D

Joke

 

[killerinstinct]

Dreams seem to be mysterious for a long time. In the ancient time, it is related to the message from God, however, modern research has proved that it is related to our unconscious mind.

 

[killerinstinct]

lollolololololololololol

 

[loseyourname]

Scientific evidence demands reproducibility. If we cannot reliably reproduce a phenomenon, does it automatically entail that it doesn't exist? Maybe we just don't know how to reproduce it. If we humans weren't as bright as we are, perhaps we would never figure out how to reproduce static shocks. But our failure to reproduce the phenomenon would be a shortcoming on our part, not good evidence against the phenomenon in question.

Science demand that you document carefully all of the steps you took to produce the phenomenon in the first place. If someone paid careful attention to how they produced a static shock, then another scientist conducting the same experiment, using exactly the same method, should attain exactly the same results. All that science is saying is that physical laws are the same in all spatial and temporal coordinates. Without reproducibility, you have no way of knowing whether or not the experimenter in question is simply lying.

 

[hypnagogue]

Without reproducibility, you have no way of knowing whether or not the experimenter in question is simply lying.

True, but this is hardly negative evidence. If anything, it is lack of evidence. More accurately, it is lack of a particularly rigorous kind of evidence. So while we can't confidently say that the phenomenon is 'for real,' we can't assert the converse with absolute confidence either.

 

[loseyourname]

I'm not sure what type of discovery you're thinking of here, but when it comes to that which science deals with, I'm going to have to stick with the crowd here in saying that reproducibility is a pretty decent indicator. Again, if all of the steps and variables in an experiment are described in detail, any person performing that experiment should get the same results. If no one is able to reproduce the claims of a given experimenter, then that is good evidence that the experimenter is either lying or unintentionally leaving something out (perhaps even something that he/she didn't realize effected the results). Can you think of a scientific experiment in which this would not be the case?

 

[hypnagogue]

Think of the strangest state of mind you've ever had. Can you readily reproduce it? If not, does that mean that you never really had it?

 

[loseyourname]

See, that is not within the realm of science. That's why I wanted you to provide an example, and I thank you for doing so. You don't know all of the factors that go into creating a certain state of mind. All that the scientific method states is that if you knew every single factor that goes into producing a given mindstate, then you should be able to reproduce that mindstate. Can you think of any reason to believe otherwise?

 

[hypnagogue]

I'm not challenging that idea. All I'm saying is that our failure to reproduce 'prophetic' dreams (or most psi phenomena in general) does not amount to evidence against such phenomena, just a lack of a certain kind of evidence for them.

 

[loseyourname]

That wasn't my argument against prognosticatory dreams anyway. My argument against it was that the future does not exist and we cannot possibly have knowledge of that which does not exist. At the very least, granting the possibility would require a huge overhaul of our understanding of the nature of time. I don't know how much you know about Bayesian probability analysis, but given our background knowledge and the available evidence, one hypothesis is almost infinitely more probable than the other. The equation is always open to new evidence, but until such evidence comes, it would be utter foolhardiness to conclude that clairvoyant prognostication is taking place, or even that the prospects are anywhere near equal for each hypothesis.