[orbsycli]

the way i see it,
everything that is, is.
we perceive it and create our own space with it within [mind]. although, matter is defined, we do not know all the counter-parts and parameters to every single thing occuring at all times. (as civilians)
now, i simply just want to state how i am realizing that more and more, my perception taking over my reality.
the more i experience, the more i know. the more i live, the more i learn.
this broadens my perspective and allows me to reach potential perceptions i've never sensed before.

i find absolutely no difference between old memories and things i can not distinguish between dreams and reality. that's because there isn't any.
(that i am not positive of, neurologically. i am just talking about what is tangible and noticeable)
therefore, i have been toying with the thought of using strange perceptions in every day life.
and this is where i've found bliss.
everything can be everything because i can create it in my head.
make-believe. i feel like such a kid. and it feels really good.

i really don't have a question, i don't even know why i started writing. if you can relate, say so. just ramble, such as i did above.
does anybody else do this?

[CraigD]

My memories of dreams are certainly important to me, and have shaped my life in many ways as strongly as memories of waking life. I have, on occasion, confused a particularly vivid and realistic dream memory with a waking memory. Upon reflection, however, I’ve never been unable to resolve this confusion – that is, I have no memory that I can’t confidently ascribe to waking life, a dream, or a daydream/fantasy.

The reason I can distinguish dream and waking reality is simply context. Just as I can distinguish if a memory is of an event that occurred during day or night, indoors or out, I’m able to recognize in a memory the context of a dream, with its characteristic not-quite-realism.

What I’m not sure of, is the distinction between objective reality, as I infer it through the process of thought, and purely mental phenomena – “mind”. This is a hard idea for me to articulate, but I descends from a comment Marvin Minsky made concerning the difficulty of defining consciousness, in which he proposed that the term cousciousness is a “semantic null”, a term for something that does not actually exist, either in an objective or a formal sense. Consider the phrase “A torus with a Jordan Curve”. Although it’s a grammatically correct phrase, it’s existence doesn’t imply the existence of the thing it describes. Minsky proposed that “consciousness” is the same. Because we have a word for it, discuss and puzzle over it, doesn’t mean it actually exists. Thus, the difficulty in defining it stems from the presumption that, because the word exists, so must the thing it describes.

[UncleAl]

i find absolutely no difference between old memories and things i can not distinguish between dreams and reality. that's because there isn't any.

Try walking off a roof. Dreams and reality are not interchangeable. If you disagree, make it a tall building. If you lack cajones for your hypothesis re the roof, don't eat for a week or two. See how it works out for you, objective reality vs. subjective reality. Dream about banquets.

[orbsycli]

yes, i know there's a huge difference from that. i didn't put enough detail into what i was saying (like always)
i have just random memories of things that happened but i don't know if they did or not. i am not saying i can do anything i can do in reality that i can do within a dream. that's something idiotic and matrix-like.
simple things like falling out of a car and scraping my knee and seeing the flesh hang off my leg for the first time as blood squirted out all over the concrete.
or a box of rice flying over my head that my mom through at my dad when i was probably 3 or so years old.
obviously this is something i should have just kept to myself. thanks for your time.

[Lilac]

Ah, no, I know what you mean - in ways both concrete and philosophical.

Concrete - I have very vivid dreams, and sometimes a day or two later will recall a snippet - say, a conversation I dreamt I had with my husband - and sometimes I actually have to verify with him whether we actually talked about it or I dreamt it.

Philosophical - these very vivid dreams can sometimes have a tremendous impact on me - they might bring some idea out of my subconscious, or have an emotional impact - I never consciously realized before how deeply a certain small incident affected me. If the dream - which felt sooo real - helped me in dealing with that incident, why is it any less real than the actual incident that spawned it? And why should it make a difference?

[Gurdur]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

Try walking off a roof. Dreams and reality are not interchangeable. If you disagree, make it a tall building. If you lack cajones for your hypothesis re the roof, don't eat for a week or two. See how it works out for you, objective reality vs. subjective reality. Dream about banquets.

Or how about another test ?

If you have the cojones for it, create and maintain a postive, optimistic attitude. Note that absolutely nothing has changed in the external, "objective" world, only your attitude.
And the stats show that not only will you have a good chance that your health will improve, but also more good things will happen to you in that outside, "external" world.

Ooooer, or we can talk about the proven succcess of the placebo effect under certain conditions.

Reality is a complex thing, and not amenable to simple slogans.

[Lilac]

Good one, Gurdur! In other forums, when the topic of "life advice" comes up, my best advice is always the old saying: "attitude is everything". It really is. Example from my military days: if you go to a new base thinking it will be great, lots of opportunities, new places and people and food, fun things to do, etc etc, then hey presto! you'll have a great tour. If you go to it thinking it's going to suck, then no matter what happens, it's going to suck.

We shape our own reality.

And we shape our own past, as well. What is our past except our memories of it? And memories aren't simply stark recordings of events, they are shaded and manipulated by emotions, hidden fears, perceptions, other information before or after, mental filters, a thousand and one different things. Dreams are merely different data. They are the bits and pieces of our subconscious, scraps of memories and tv shows and other data, thrown up at random at a million bits per second, and formed into a semi-coherent narrative by our poor struggling sleeping [insert the part of the brain I'm not familiar enough with to guess at] brain.

Why is this any less "real" than our warped, filtered, multi-influenced, emotion-laden memories of "real" past events?