Extremely fascinating lecture. I am 74 born in 1950. I seem to dream sometimes in color and sometimes in black and white (grayish). I cannot say when or why, but sometimes the color is vivid and other times it is drabbish. And speaking of movies and not ducking when the bus is coming toward you, I went to the theater with a girlfriend in 1994 to watch FOREST GUMP. I had never seen the movie nor did I know any of its content. When the Vietnam ambush scene in that movie hit, having been a combat vet with 75th Infantry Hotel Company (71), what I remember was me yelling, "CONTACT FRONT" and diving on the floor, before I even knew what had happened. Damn that Classical Conditioning aspect of the brain. I never got another date with her. Hahaha!
Thank you for your service, sir. Conditioned responses saved lives. I'd rather this than shell shock or PTSD. I am sure that there is lasting mental stuff. I have not served -- life got in the way. But I appreciate that you were able to share this story with complete strangers and be okay knowing that there are your people out here that support and appreciate you. And I do. Thank you.
I'm 69, never been in combat, my son went into the Marines in '01, he went to war and my Dad died in '04, I suffered with debilitating nightmares riding with my son and watching him die in many bloody horrific ways while I bore no affect. I was waking drenched from head to toe in sweat, and grit my teeth so bad that I chewed 3 off and swallowed two of 'em. This went on for two years and found myself hollering to wake up, scaring the wife. I try like hell to forget them, the hundreds of them, but I'm still haunted by 2 of them. Thanks for serving, I died with my son over and over. Thank you. Now we need one patriotic Secret Service agent.
This information is only useful to me if most of your dreams come true. Because if you’re just counting the hits and ignoring the misses, then it’s nothing more than simply coincidence.
There are not a long list of RUclips videos which have given me a PERFECT puzzle piece which is so revealing, so predictive and explanatory...That I immediately place it front and center as the most credible, elegant and helpful idea which explains the world. This is certainly one.
I had a dream of the future. It was so vivid . when I awoke, I told my girl friend . The dream was about my brother Pete who at the time was living in Florida. In the dream, I was talking with my brother and another person. We were beside a gas station. I walked to the side of the gas station to look down a road with houses on both sides dark and somewhat messed up. The sky was windy with clouds.There was a lot of tension all around with people coming towards me and I went back to my brother and told him that I had to leave and went to where I would live... a couple of months later, I got a call from my brother Pete. He was in Charleston , South Carolina, Just after hurricane Hugo hit . That’s where I ended up . When my girlfriend came down to visit, I brought her to that gas station, showed her the road , the only way into Sullivan Island and where I was living. I believe we have memories of the past and future
If you haven't had some kind of experience like this then you'll almost certainly dismiss such stories as being the product of confused timelines and/or an overactive imagination. And if you _have_ had some experience like this then you'll almost certainly accept stories such as yours at face value. I've never had a premonition dream before (or not one that I remember, anyway), but I did have, just once, an extended period of deja vu that lasted for about 3-4 hours. It was absolutely wild! I mean, the funny thing with deja vu is that you think "I've dreamt of this _exact_ situation before!" but you can never pinpoint _exactly_ when it was you had the dream, or I can't, anyway. On this one day, though, which was an otherwise completely normal day during which otherwise completely normal things happened, the feeling of deja vu was so constant, and so strong, that I was able to predict, with complete accuracy, the banal events that were about to come. "The driver of that car is going to park on the other side of the road, get out, and go into that house over there" (I had a friend with me). Like I said, nothing remarkable happened whatsoever, but what _was_ remarkable was the _feeling_ that came with _knowing,_ not guessing, not being 99% sure, but _knowing_ what was just about to happen. I can only describe it as peaceful. I didn't even think of going and getting a lotto ticket or something, it was just so _relaxing,_ so _calming,_ knowing that nothing _terrible_ was about to happen! We never notice it, of course, but even when we think we're as chilled as we can be, there must still be a part of us that's subconsciously always worrying about some disaster that might suddenly befall us! Anyway, as I said, nothing remarkable happened, and, apart from being able to perfectly predict the future, it was a pretty normal day. So, yeah, when you say you dreamed of a time in the future that came perfectly true, well... I have _no problem_ believing you. No problem at all! Have a great (future) day!
@@simesaidhad several experiences like that one lasted for half-hour another one for an hour really really quite disturbing thought I was hallucinating but everything i did was there including trying to shake it off
@@simesaid It's very possible that you just didn't remember you dreamed it. I had tons of precognitive dreams, since childhood, some really detailed. And déjà-vus as well, when I remember the dream I had. One lately, that I dreamed 40 years ago. I told to a friend that there will appear a poodle... well, it was kind of a poodle, a bit larger. And mostly, people point out the differences. Or that dream when I was in a stadium, watching my team playing vs. a team of another league and a player got the second yellow card (meaning a red card) in the first half. Well, some weeks ago, there was a cup game vs. that team. And the player got a direct red card in the first half. And a friend pointed that out (it was a direct red, not two yellow). Like with human beings, instead of seeing the similarities pointing out the differences.
My precognitave dreams became so common... In high school, I was having so many dreams about the lunchroom conversations between my friends and I that I began experimenting. I knew what my response should be and what would be said in response. I began saying something different to see if reality would somehow bend back to my precognative dream. It did not. The future was completely changed. From this, I learned that we are, indeed, the creators of our lives. There is no force compelling a certain future.
@@moriel01 no macular degeneration began in her 70s. She's now in her 90s. Sometimes she dreams she has her blind stick with her but she can still see. I think its good she at least sees in her dreams.
I must be the exception because as my 60s progresses I dream more lucidly. My dream life is better than my waking life and sometimes I don't want to wake.
@@the_kombinatorthat happened to me once. I woke up crying because we were being separated and for the next couple of days, every time I thought about the person, I’d start crying again with the feeling of being heart broken. Wow. It was so trippy and didn’t know anyone or heard of anyone that’s experienced that until your comment so thank you for sharing that.
When I was little I dreamed in black and white and we had a black and white TV. When I was about 12 years old we got a color TV and by the time I was in college at age 17, I was dreaming mostly in color. At 69 I always dream in color. I have thought that my dreams were related to the TV ever since I began to dream in color. Part of this is that my parents said that they had always dreamed in black and white. My belief was that we must have gotten the color TV when I was young enough to switch to color but my parents were too old for their brains to make the switch. I remember asking them and both made an interesting remark that before they had TV they thought they dreamed in color but when they saw TV in black and white they both began dreaming in black and white. I wish they were still alive to explore this further with them because we loved thinking about things like this.
I always watch these dream explanation videos to see if I could find some answers for my dream experiences and I never do. As a child, I would dream all of the time and I would remember so many of them, still do, but because, of that I think, I developed an awareness that I was dreaming. When I would have scary dreams, I was able to wake myself up. As a teenager, I had a couple of sleep walk experiences and the dreams continued. As an adult, I was experiencing sleep paralysis on a regular basis and they were increasing in frequency. I was told that what I was experiencing were night terrors and that it was not normal because an adult rarely experiences this and that it was more common in children. They could not understand what the reasons were and they tried to give me medication that was meant to “help” me achieve normal sleep. I refused and I stopped asking doctors . Meanwhile, through my 20s and my 30s, the night terrors were getting worse but weirdly I was becoming even more aware while in my dreams and now, not only was I able to wake myself up from the dream, but I realized that I didn’t have to wake up, instead I could fly away from a dangerous situation. The it took a while but in the last 5 years about, I can count the amt of night terrors I’ve had on a hand and I rarely have “silly” dreams. I still remember many of my dreams and I have definitely read in one, I had a dream I was using a phone for the first time just recently and I dream about having convos with relatives in their apt and they’d seem so real. Oh… and now, I’m in flight mode whenever I get the chance. Those dreams are the best. I’ve seen places so beautiful and alien but they were so real. I will never understand how my brain would create landscapes like the ones I’ve seen while flying. Then the dreams that I can move things with my thoughts and waking up feeling like a super hero. I know for a fact that there is way more to and about dreams than we are being told. I don’t believe that all of my dreams were visualized or created by the brain. I don’t understand how my brain could just create total strangers and places I’ve never met or seen. Or I could feel the air and pressure if I fly too fast. I think that dreams are meant to awaken some hidden, lost powers and skills that have been lost through time while at the same time, they also allow us to experience consciousness somewhere that we aren’t bound by the the laws of physics. If I’ve gotten to this point, I’m even more excited to see how this may evolve as I get older .
I look forward to dreams. Practice waking slowly to recall as much as possible. I have recently dreamt I was dreaming in the dream, woke, discussed it, then woke in my bed. Outrageous crazy! Good stuff! Levels of consciousness, or connecting to it? Fascinating
I don't dream in B&W but the colors are really washed out, like watercolor, or even more bland. But then, I'm a musician and have always been very sound oriented, nevertheless, my dreams are always completely mute, since I can remember. There''s dialogue but no sound, no music, no drone sound..... nada. Again, Dr. Eagleman blowing my mind. Thanks for sharing .
I’m 77 now and have always been a prolific dreamer. When I was young I had many dreams about floating and being afraid that I might fall, but I can’t remember the last time I dreamed about it. Also, I used to dream about being chased and not being able to run fast enough. I don’t have that dream anymore. I used to have very science fiction dreams. And some of them recurred many many times. Some of these are still very prominent in my memory. The floating dreams I think many or most people have and so dreams seem to be caused by physical things going on in you, like being paralyzed when you are asleep. I had a bought of severe depression when I was 20 yrs old. During that time I had very bloody and violent dreams. During this time I learned how to control my dreams , the visual and outcome for me. When I was 5 or6 I had a dream about being in a tornado which caused me to be really frightened. When I woke up or maybe later I used my pastels to draw/ paint a picture of the landscape in my dream. The picture was very colorful with dead black trees and the atmosphere was all red and blue. I was very afraid of tornadoes 🌪️. Sometimes the dreams were wonderful and I loved them. I always feel disappointed when I wake up and they are over. I loved your presentation and want to listen to your other episodes. Thanks
Me either. I had many science fiction stories during the nights. I travel trough space.... Fights etc.... I can fly of course. If I am tried I am dreaming with seaside..... When I feel my life goes great I often dream I go for running and it goes well.
I’m convinced dreaming allows me to access my existences in parallel universes to solve especially difficult problems encountered in this universe, and visa versa.
I guess you never had one of those dreams where you are being chased and you can't get away from that person or you try to beat them up and it's like being underwater you can't get that actual punch in ... Lol
I have a severe mental illness, and sometimes, the line between reality and my dreams gets blurred. It can be VERY confusing! Sometimes, when my dreamscape is really intense, I will wake up with big emotions of sadness, loss and mourning about leaving a world behind that I feel I belong in... it also causes a sort of amnesia about this reality and it takes me a while before I am reoriented in myself and my life here. This can induce panic and anxiety. I wish I could have my brain fixed and not be so confused anymore.
If you don’t mind, do you know the diagnosis of your illness? What is it because I experience the same exact thing! I often have to check and look for signs to figure out if something happened in my dreams or reality . Or an event will feel like a memory from like a few days ago and then it’ll suddenly hit me that it never happened at least in reality
I have had dream inside dream many times. It was very interesting. Even more fun was when I knew I was dreaming, but it didn't wake me up. I just kept going and I could dictate the outcome of the dream. I could do whatever I wanted. It was fun.
Antidepressants increase my dreams and nightmares. Same as anti seizure medication increased my nightmares and seizures. Psilocybin has helped but it's still in the research stage. That is pushing me to finish my degree so I can partake in the research and study of the impacts of medication and plant medicine on the brain. Took decades of trauma to get me here. But I am pushing through to get into psychology, physics, and neuroscience to help make sense of it all. Path to my degree starts in a couple months. See you on the other side.....
Hello! Part four: During the 43 years of amazing dreams, I could have complex ones, during a cat-nap. Maybe I'd be sleep for 30 minutes or less, and I went to wild and faraway places. Most times I had them closer to when I was awakening. I had a few amazing "Lucid Dreams", where I saw myself lying in my bed, I was floating over myself,...looking down. I felt as if my eyes were open, yet I was dreaming at the same time. I have had many that were like De-ja-vu,....dreams, feeling I'd been there, somewhere, before. I've had a few dreams where I awoke, and I was paralyzed. I couldn't make myself move, or talk, or even grunt. IN REAL LIFE,....I survived a heart attack,....I live a few blocks from my hospital,.....and I was admitted to the heart hospital, & within a day of my heart attack symptoms. 24 hours later I was having open heart, double by-pass, surgery. It WAS extremely traumatic. I had tons of dreams, in the hours before the surgery,.....of course I was extremely worried I might die on the operating table. I was 47 at the time,.....and thank god,.....it has been 20 years later, and I'm still here,....though I have had many stents installed, along the way. I can't believe I am 70. Almost all my friends have already died,.....and I feel I am all alone, so often. I never made new friends with younger people. I had my core group of friends,.....we all went to college together, they lived in my town, some very close by.
I had a period of recurring dreams 40 years ago when I was in my mid teens. I ended up have the same dream somewhere between 4 and 6 times. In the dream I would visit various locations in my hometown but it was all set in the future. The dream was always the same, same order, same places. In the dream I was older, I had a beard and was heavier than anyone in my family had ever had a propensity to be. Not overweight, just heavy… my family are all very thin. The details in the dream were solidified in my mind by their repetition. The changes I saw in town were things that were specific and some were highly improbable to occur in a town as small as mine. In time, I moved away, but in the years to come each of the things that I had seen in my dream (that I’d even shared details of with others) began to happen. I would visit there and see them in person. It was astonishing. Now, 40 years on, and there is one last building from my dream that needs to change to complete the entire series of things from those dreams. All of that is strange enough but there is something else… there was this last event that always happened at the end of those dreams - I would find myself standing outside my childhood home at night and I would be looking up into the night sky only to see, from horizon to horizon, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of alien space craft filling the sky, hovering over our entire planet. They were every imaginable size and shape, some were unbelievably large, easily miles wide or long. Small craft and orbs and of light were swooping down and flying all over. People began coming out of their homes and joining me and watching. It felt like we were just an experiment, and this was our owners deciding this would be the moment they were going to make themselves known, open our tiny little box, and peering in on us. I can’t begin to describe how small I felt or how disorienting it felt. In the dream I become overwhelmed and walk over to a fence next to an alley and sit down… unsure of what comes next… and that is the end of my dream. I now resemble the ‘future me’ I was in that dream, one last building from my dream has to change (again, in ways that seem very unlikely) and these days the reality of the existence of UFOs or UAP are being discussed openly in congressional hearings. It not just woo woo anymore. I have literally DRAWN what this last building looks like after it is altered, like in my dream. I have people who still live there that I've asked to keep me updated should this change happen. If it does actually happen… what does all of it mean? How could I have seen all of this in advance? How many times have I lived this life? Is that what is happening - my life is being recycled over and over and over and somehow the memories are leaking out through this series of dreams, like a warning or something? What if what I saw is actually coming? There were other specific markers in my dream that make me think that this final event happens around July or August of 2026.
Had a dream that Prince approached me and said....so ...I heard you're a big fan ....then on same night...dreamed that I was telling my best friend about that great dream on meeting Prince....one my favorite dreams ever....
I have Parkinson’s disease, and I recently switched from taking pills to using a subcutaneous pump. This change has helped stabilize my dopamine levels. For the first time in four years, I can get six or seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. Before the pump, my sleep was so fragmented that I couldn’t remember my dreams. Now, with the pump, my "normal" dreams have returned, and I wake up feeling refreshed. However, if my pump fails during the night-usually due to a kink or a leak-my sweet dreams can quickly turn into nightmares, and I struggle to wake up.
I don't buy that we don't have access to our memories while we're dreaming. In fact often times, it's me actually retrieving a memory that pulls me out of the realism of the dream. One moment I'm picking my mom up from her orange stand in Florida like I do every Saturday. The next I have a very vivid memory or her laying in casket and everything followed. The best/worst part is knowing you're in a dream. The best/worst part is finding the door and deciding whether or not to use the key.
I first encountered Dr Eagleman on his documentary episodes "the brain with Dr David Eagleman" - watch it if you havent its mind blowing. The brain may be good at telling stories - and his brain certainly is! Phenomenal educator ❤
Twenty five years ago I had my own small business. I ended at least one day a week with some problem that seemed insurmountable as I went to bed. As I approached my nights rest I would meditate and pray to the creator that I be a grateful and compassionate person in the coming day. Each and every day I awoke to discover a clear and confident path through what seem to be an insurmountable problem the night before. I believe I was applying calm and impetus to my brain’s ability to realign facts and ideas. Anyway, it made every day better!
This was startlingly informative in unexpected ways-I literally laughed when he said that someone had a theory about threats and dreams. I have never had a single dream of being chased or any such thing ever. I don’t ever have threat dreams, never any appearing naked, none of those. I rarely do have sex dreams but they are fragmentary and very rare. When he mentioned aggressive dreams or aggression in dreams, I have never even had a single dream ever that even slightly felt that way. So that was the most absolutely astounding and astonishing thing to hear that people report dreams like that. 😮 But I am extremely high in psychological traits agreeableness 95th and openness 99th percentile. 🤷♀️🤔 which might be related.
I keep hearing that dreams only exist during rem sleep, this isn't how my brain works, if i can fall into a long detailed dream then wake up 5 mins after i lay my head down then i clealy dream without going into rem.
Ever fall back into one of several realities? Even if you haven't been there in years, you come back to each reality in time and it's like you never left.
I’m 61 and sometimes I do have a black and white only dream. Also when I was a child I used to have uncomfortable dreams such as finding myself naked in the middle of the crowded street I learnt to recognise this in the middle of my dreaming sleep state and either wake myself up or to change the narrative of my uncomfortable or scary dreams.
When I dream of classmates from childhood, they are still children, but while I’m interacting with them (as my adult self) they is no sense that something is amiss in our age differences.
I love that the title of so many of your videos start with “why?” or “what?” I feel like I’m programmed to be a “questioner” so these videos are really satisfying , scratching an itch-ish😊
I once had a dream in which someone I know told me information about someone else who I know who I hadn't seen or talked to in a couple of years including the name of another person who I don't know and had never heard of before. The dream wasn't about anything important and wasn't alarming but it was really vivid, so much so that it woke me up and I couldn't stop thinking about it, I messaged the person that the information was about and told her about it, she couldn't believe that it was a dream and thought that I had been physically talking to someone who knows her and was joking about the dream, the information was 100% correct including the name of the person that I don't know. The people in the dream all live in a different country than I do and I had no contact with any of them for a couple of years prior to this dream, including via social media which I don't have. I have no idea how or why that happened, the information wasn't anything important or relevant to me it was trivial, but how and/or why was it transmitted to me in a dream???
I mostly remember my dreams all day* ... If I remember them when I wake up, I tend to easily remember them for ages afterwards* If I _don't_ recall a dream when I first wake up, then the dream's details usually doesn't emerge later. I have had a sleep EEG which proved that in the deepest of sleeps, I can _hear_ what's going on within the room, plus nearby sounds or conversations going on outside the room where I'm sleeping. The 'sleep technician' said she was amazed at the level of sleep I had had for just twenty minutes _on less than half the dose of the caplet given to induce the necessary sleep_ for the test, (following the application of multiple sensors glued to my scalp!) I was also sleepy for the rest of that day, and it was as if I had had an epileptic seizure - which I had experienced frequently since I was six years old, after having a wooden chair fall from its stacked position on a table near where I was sitting in the floor, in Primary School. (I also had Meningitis when I was _seven_ years old, but I don't recall dreams from when I was asleep when I had that illness). My dreams have never given me images of falling, or of slipping on randomly positioned areas, my dreams have always appeared as 'real life' albeit in odd locations, such as either being where I grew up, or in places I have never been, and yet recognise as a dwelling or as a 'real place' ... I have never dreamed of falling, or chasing, or being chased, or of friends or family within my field of vision. I am aware of people I know, but I don't see them. I speak to them. Very rarely I have dreamed a friend was a famius person. Mostly I dream I am walking...but in waking life, I use a wheelchair now to get anywhere. I dont dream about driving, or riding a bicycle, or swimming and I _don't_ do those activities in waking real life. I did used to ride horses but I dont remember horseriding in my dreams, sadly. I wouldn't describe my dreams as "being in colour"!! I describe my dreams as being real life...and I never describe my real waking life as living life "in colour". I don't recall ever having dreamed un black and white, and I am 71 now, and never saw a television until I was six years old, listening to the radio only. My Mum took me to the doctor when I was younger than six, worried by my dreams and / or made up stories... The doctor just told her that I had an active imagination and would probably become an author when I grew up... (I'm not sure Mum was calmed by the notion!) I write poems and rhymes, but have never written a book. I wish I had! If I did, it might be either an autobiography, or a work of fiction... It might ( _now_ ) even have a title, of sorts...to do with dreams!! I dont worry that my dreams are understood, or whether or not they can be determined as having meaning. I either dream.p, or not, enjoy them, or not, and just live my life with my imagining brain "just doing its stuff"!! It is _not so unusual_ to dream 'lucid dreams' ... I've done it off and on for as long as I can remember... Doesnt everyone?! 🤔🏴❤️🇬🇧🙂🖖
After watching this video I had a dream filled with jump cut, after jump cut, after jump cut. It made completely no sense at all! It was so bad that I wanted to close my eyes. But I couldn't becasue they were already closed.
Amazing episode. I have been using VR for the last 8 months daily, and I have never seen a resemblance of such in my dreams, albeit I rarely dream or remember them.
A new medication has me dreaming where I'm barely even "me". Everything is smeared around and events are so random "I" just watch it all happen. I wake up stunned and confused. I plan on speaking with my doctor asap.
I recently had a very short lucid dream in which I realized I was dreaming by taking out my phone and noticing the clock on the phone was some weird, unintelligible symbols. Ever since then, my phone has been making regular appearances in my dreams.
No...the dreams I'm MEANT to remember, coz they're significant at the time, are really obvious and simple to analyse...like a tap on my shoulder from my higher self..and I remember each one, clearly, from 30 years ago when they started...they were meant to be specially for me...I have other normal dreams too..without messages for me...
Thank you Dr Eagleman. I have been experimenting with something new about my dreams in the past couple weeks. Everytime I sleep with my earphones in, listening to a book or classical music, I do not dreams. Or if I have a dream , it is something very light, nothing I can remember when I wake up. I don't know if anyone ever had that experience.
I’ve had a dream about a person and at the time of my dreams I had never met them but end up a year later meet them . I didn’t talk to them so I just seen them , thought it would be weird .
What's an idle brain to do while idling after all, dream. The big question is : why and how do we have the capacity to observe our brain dreaming, our capacity to think on idle! What's more how is it we have the capacity to reflect on the quality of our observations of our dreaming idle brain! That's the big deal !
The example of being at work...or school without clothes has always been my most common unpleasant dream. When I was younger, the school scenario was much more frequent but now they mostly involve work, for obvious reasons. I have always wondered if this was common. Anyone?
I think this is a fairly common dream - perhaps it says something about wanting to be seen for your genuine self. Everyone sees thremselves and others wearing their defensive masks. We are all fearful of revealing our true self to the world. This is part of the "human condition," it seems.
I have found that the specific scenerio of a dream is not relevant. What is relevant are the *emotions* generated by the dream. For example, in one dream I am naked, but it is perfectly normal in that unverse and it generates no emotion. If there is negative emotion, is ihe emotion embarassment, fear, guilt, or something else. The biggest fear in going to school is that you forgot something. You forget a book, or you forget a homework assignment. The dream of being without clothes may be simply the embodyment of the emotion of "having forgotten something". In this case - your clothes.
I'm 83 years old. Generally I don't remember black and white nor specific colors in my dreams, and I wundered about that. In the last year or two I've tryed to remember specific colors and once in a while I now do remember a color.
I enjoyed the episode about dreams. I would like to know how and why some people but not but not all people sleep walk and why do most people not get injured. Also what should we do if you see someone sleep walking.?????????
Once I was in the kitchen late at night reading a magazine. My brother came in and went over to the kitchen counter and made a peanut butter sandwich. He left the sandwich on the counter and returned to bed. The next day he did not remember it. Was he sleep walking??
I remember a series of dreams where I was solving quadratic equations. I woke up and wrote those down and then solved them; I got the same result awake as I remember getting in my sleep.
Lucid dreaming is not easy. While dreaming, it is not much hard to realize I am in dream, but continuing the dream with still knowing that I am in the middle of dreaming is so hard. I used to remember well what I dreamed and has been journaling my dream so long. I feel like the experiences in dream also could be good resources for me anyways, so that's the reason why i am quite interested in this subject. The colors or sounds i has experienced in dreams are quite valuable for me as much as i had gotten in real life.
I always wondered if I’m experiencing something that other people do as well. If I rub my eyes, I get a series of geographical shapes a lot of trapezoids lines that never ever makes sense to me, especially when I consider that during an accident I had in 2016. I was given a high dose of ketamine because my foot had been ripped off at the ankle. The geographic shapes that I typically see if I rub my eyes was exactly what I felt when I was going under with the Ketamine… way more intense.. but I remember being in a zone where I wasn’t conscious, but I could still think and I was telling myself “Did I just die? .. am I dead.? And a very real sense of fear and fright..
I could see dreams being evolutionarily advantageous because they help emotionally and mentally prepare you for potential situations. Almost like exposure therapy. So it produces the craziest, sometimes scary potential situations so that you’re better equipped to handle them while awake. Similar to how it’s been proven that athletes who visualize themselves winning a race end up performing better, because they visualized it beforehand. I think this in conjunction with dreams also being symbolic makes a lot of sense. Just my hypothesis and probably just one aspect of why dreaming exists. There are probably multiple explanations, not just one solid explanation.
I really appreciated the analogy of the "brain map". Somewhere in life, I came across the idea that, just like the growth of any physical map, as we consciously learn and prioritize new concepts and associate them with, evaluate and reevaluate what we experience, our brain is making new paths within itself and has to repeat certain routes in order to make them a permanent installation. What we see in dreams may just be part a means to physically produce or reproduce synaptic pathways not previously well established .
Sometimes I'm able to realize I'm dreaming in my dream. One way to tell is to look at something then look away then look back at it and it will be different and then you will know you're dreaming. One of my favorite things to do in a dream is to fly.
As a kid I used to have “fever” dreams when I got bad tonsillitis. They were always the same 3 dreams. Never had them again after I got my tonsils removed, until my covid fever. Haven’t had them since.
@froby2378: I had the same exact experience as a kid. My tonsillitis fevers usually hovered around 105. The fever dreams were so horrible and vivid that I was sure they were hallucinations. Haven't had those dreams since (60+ years), but I do think of them now and then. Those fevers sure did a number on the brain.
Hello! Avid dreamer here. Beginning in high school, in 1969, I began journaling my dreams. I had crazy complex dreams. So crazy, that I felt compelled to write them down. I have a massive collection of highly detailed dreams. Some people can't remember their's, or they are so vague, they aren't worth writing down. I was lucky to have created a life style for myself, where I had the time to write them down. I worked in the Arts and my wake up schedule was always relaxed. If I don't have the time, I write a kind of short hand version. Before computers and word processing,....I scribbled them down, in note pads. After I had my computer,....combined with my crazy good skills as a fast typist, I can write them up quite quickly and the auto-correct, fixes any mistakes. I type fast and don't worry about the typos. I have a formatted dream journal,....where I can plug in the time, the day, and a quick blurb,.....I write enough that I can go back later and fill in the details. I am strict with myself, and don't make up stuff, if I can't remember it. I also, make drawings of weird dream objects and dream invented things.
Love your channel. Fascinating theories. I'm 64. I've been dreaming for a long time. I have a theory why we dream what we dream based on my memories of past dreams. Most you forget but some you don't. I think dreams are combinations of memories that are created daily throughout your life's experiences but are also memories of imaginary scenario's that you create an your mind about your realife experience's. I think it's a way for your brain to purge memories. To deal with a past or upcoming reality that you're stressed over.
I don't dream very often but when I do it's fucking EPIC, it's like a metaphysical purge and your brain gets a reboot and you feel like you've actually slept...
Dream is just a word. The reconditioning of our brain happens in a way that we superficially experience as dreaming. Most of it we are not aware of at all. Imagine big cleanups, comparable to how our muscles get done. About one third of our life gets spent on that, such that we can make the most of the rest of our time.
Hello! Part three: When I did the bulk of my dreaming, they were complete stories with other people in them with first and last names, and they weren't people I knew from real life. I traveled to cities I have never been to. My dreams were very colorful,....sometimes they were neon colored. I was aware of different kinds of sunlight in each dream. The dreams were all different, there were no repeating dreams. I tried to take the many thousands of dreams and fit them into categories. I didn't like the results. Many have underlying depressing content, or are expressions of anger, or feelings I was hoodwinked. I preferred not analyzing them. That is some other person's job. I don't want to destroy their magical quality. I gave some to my therapist,...to read,....she never came up with any ideas, to explain them.
Another theory as to why the color property of TVs might influence dreams more than reality colorfulness: TV programs are designed to impact emotions way more than everyday life - or at least in terms of density and frequency of events that are otherwise pretty rare. (e.g. most of us rarely saw anyone being shot in real life). This can creates reminiscent patterns in the amygdala, which then feeds reasons to storytelling machinery.
As my daughter grew up I had the same consistent dream.. she was at an event, whatever it might be, I needed to pick her up and then something would happen where I couldn’t get her.. I’d lose my keys, couldn’t find my car, etc etc.. just panic that she’d be left wondering where I was.. thankfully this never actually happened but was a terrible recurring dream for sure.
Has anyone ever heard of "dreaming while awake" or maybe "conscious dreaming"? It happens sporadically, maybe ten times in the past ten years since it 1st started. It's not a thing I have any influence or control. I have been a longtime lucid dreamer; control and influence has never been an issue there. This is different and not at all pleasant. It happens when I'm particularly tired and just laying down. I want to note here I'm also a longtime practitioner of _autogenic training;_ so I completely empty mind and before I'm asleep, a dream will "jump" into my conscious mind. I recognize it as a dream immediately just as would if I were lucid dreaming...but this is conscious reality. That's the shocking part. _That my mind _*_all on its own_*_ initiated a dream without any warning or influence,_ while I was still awake. The best way to describe it, is the dream "jumped" into my waking mind. But they are short, fragmented snatches of familiar dreams and they last just a second or 2. Never a complete dream. It's kinda disturbing something is initiated without conscious influence. It's like there's 2 of me.
It's called simulating, - it's reallocating mental processes used to mentally simulate the reality you experience whilst awake to simulate other things as well, when not simulating much immediate reality (sleeping) they call it dreaming, but it's mental simulation.
One other question - why does taking Melatonin before sleeping, which helps your mind get into a sleeping state, make dreams so much more memorable. Does melatonin activate long term memory?
As someone with adhd and migraine I dream wild and vivid crazy dreams. I found this extremely interesting. Migraine is associated with increased neural sensitivity so maybe this explains my particularly crazy dreams when I'm having an attack. I also sometimes try and steer my dreams while I sleep...
The night after seeing this video I dreamed I was trying to phone text with someone and we just couldn't get it to work correctly. I was impressed after seeing the video that yes, I couldn't remember ever using a phone in a dream before. See what you did? Haha. Stop directing my dreaming!!
I actually RECENTLY had a dream I was texting someone and they were blue bubbles! I remember waking up and trying to remember if it really happened or not. My only memory was that the text bubbles were big, almost 3D and disproportionate in size. It was fuzzy. So a device made into my dream. 😭
Dreams are what our brains try to help our hearts to resolve its frustrations n other emotions. So when we wake we have done some clarifications of our many mental disturbances.
I frequently dream that I am watching the dream on my phone, and then find myself participating in it in person, and then commenting on it by typing as I am doing now.
Last night, I dreamt I was driving this big truck and crashed off the edge into water. I didn't realize that I was dreaming until, when I hit the water, I could not feel the cold water. Then I realized oh... it's just a dream. I can see in color in my dreams. Reading is sometimes difficult. But when I was pregnant I could easily read, "It's a girl, it's a girl." And yes, my dream was correct, I had a girl.
How could your body NOT know the gender of the fetus inside? I knew it was going to be a girl when I was pregnant, not from a dream that I recall but maybe 🤔
My idea is that consciousness locks our spirit (or essence) in one plane of the metaverse, when we are asleep or unconscious our spirit skips to other parts because the focus is released. It seems real, because it is real in that plane.
I am 60 years old and I can say 1. I always dream in color 2. if I remember a dream it comes true 100% of the time 3. Since I was very little I control (lucid) my dreams. Funny thing is I did not know until I was almost 50 that not everyone lucid dreamed. All my children lucid dream so to me and them, it was normal.
As an autistic, here's my thought; dreams serve one purpose, to distract the conscience & prevent it from constant disruptions of sleep, our consciousness can & does awaken sleep repetitively when not distracted
Uh, Jeff, your autism is not helping you here. Nice theory tho.Some dreams are triggered by a troubled conscience and your psyche or inner ego is trying to deny or justify it as an instinctive defensive reaction.
I know this is dumb but i do have a reoccurring dream for over 15 years that i have bubble gum stuck in-between my molars and i continue to pull it out like a long string that never ends until i wake up
Well, interesting, all the information is there. Now putting it together in a way that makes the most sense. It seems like if we use a ternary system we can certainly get a intuitive understanding of the process of most dreams.
Dreams with like in a movie an ongoing meticulous voiceover providing technical details I would never know….almost like being read a technical manual.🎭
So. I worked midnight shift for so long I had to see a sleep specialist when I went to dayshift. I still hold out hope that I can return to night shift but, in the meantime, I have a smart watch and I obsessively track my sleep. I deep sleep the longest. Light sleep is usually a fraction less, and then REM is generally about an hour or less. It's fascinating to me to watch my cycle improve thru time, but I'm going to be my own villain in this if midnight shift does become available again. 😅
I frequently have and always have had dreams while not in rem sleep. Also extrapolating meaning from or using dreams for reflecting on the desires , fears or ideas/behaviors/beliefs of the subconscious or preconscious parts of our psychology certainly has some merit to it. Edit( In my opinion.)
Extremely fascinating lecture. I am 74 born in 1950. I seem to dream sometimes in color and sometimes in black and white (grayish). I cannot say when or why, but sometimes the color is vivid and other times it is drabbish. And speaking of movies and not ducking when the bus is coming toward you, I went to the theater with a girlfriend in 1994 to watch FOREST GUMP. I had never seen the movie nor did I know any of its content. When the Vietnam ambush scene in that movie hit, having been a combat vet with 75th Infantry Hotel Company (71), what I remember was me yelling, "CONTACT FRONT" and diving on the floor, before I even knew what had happened. Damn that Classical Conditioning aspect of the brain. I never got another date with her. Hahaha!
Thank you for your sevice, her loss 😂
That was an amazing read. If that happened.. damn man. Thanks for your service sir.
Gotta love it. If conditioned right, we truly are Dogs of War. Good story!
Thank you for your service, sir. Conditioned responses saved lives. I'd rather this than shell shock or PTSD. I am sure that there is lasting mental stuff. I have not served -- life got in the way. But I appreciate that you were able to share this story with complete strangers and be okay knowing that there are your people out here that support and appreciate you. And I do. Thank you.
I'm 69, never been in combat, my son went into the Marines in '01, he went to war and my Dad died in '04, I suffered with debilitating nightmares riding with my son and watching him die in many bloody horrific ways while I bore no affect. I was waking drenched from head to toe in sweat, and grit my teeth so bad that I chewed 3 off and swallowed two of 'em. This went on for two years and found myself hollering to wake up, scaring the wife. I try like hell to forget them, the hundreds of them, but I'm still haunted by 2 of them.
Thanks for serving, I died with my son over and over. Thank you. Now we need one patriotic Secret Service agent.
I’ve had prophetic dreams that are so real and that have come to fruition that my friends and family members have said, “Please don’t dream about me.”
This information is only useful to me if most of your dreams come true. Because if you’re just counting the hits and ignoring the misses, then it’s nothing more than simply coincidence.
Has never failed to blow me away! Dr. Eagleman has given me more ponder than any other human I "know."
There are not a long list of RUclips videos which have given me a PERFECT puzzle piece which is so revealing, so predictive and explanatory...That I immediately place it front and center as the most credible, elegant and helpful idea which explains the world.
This is certainly one.
amazing episode thank you
I had a dream of the future. It was so vivid . when I awoke, I told my girl friend . The dream was about my brother Pete who at the time was living in Florida. In the dream, I was talking with my brother and another person. We were beside a gas station. I walked to the side of the gas station to look down a road with houses on both sides dark and somewhat messed up. The sky was windy with clouds.There was a lot of tension all around with people coming towards me and I went back to my brother and told him that I had to leave and went to where I would live... a couple of months later, I got a call from my brother Pete. He was in Charleston , South Carolina, Just after hurricane Hugo hit . That’s where I ended up . When my girlfriend came down to visit, I brought her to that gas station, showed her the road , the only way into Sullivan Island and where I was living. I believe we have memories of the past and future
If you haven't had some kind of experience like this then you'll almost certainly dismiss such stories as being the product of confused timelines and/or an overactive imagination. And if you _have_ had some experience like this then you'll almost certainly accept stories such as yours at face value. I've never had a premonition dream before (or not one that I remember, anyway), but I did have, just once, an extended period of deja vu that lasted for about 3-4 hours. It was absolutely wild! I mean, the funny thing with deja vu is that you think "I've dreamt of this _exact_ situation before!" but you can never pinpoint _exactly_ when it was you had the dream, or I can't, anyway. On this one day, though, which was an otherwise completely normal day during which otherwise completely normal things happened, the feeling of deja vu was so constant, and so strong, that I was able to predict, with complete accuracy, the banal events that were about to come. "The driver of that car is going to park on the other side of the road, get out, and go into that house over there" (I had a friend with me). Like I said, nothing remarkable happened whatsoever, but what _was_ remarkable was the _feeling_ that came with _knowing,_ not guessing, not being 99% sure, but _knowing_ what was just about to happen. I can only describe it as peaceful. I didn't even think of going and getting a lotto ticket or something, it was just so _relaxing,_ so _calming,_ knowing that nothing _terrible_ was about to happen! We never notice it, of course, but even when we think we're as chilled as we can be, there must still be a part of us that's subconsciously always worrying about some disaster that might suddenly befall us!
Anyway, as I said, nothing remarkable happened, and, apart from being able to perfectly predict the future, it was a pretty normal day. So, yeah, when you say you dreamed of a time in the future that came perfectly true, well... I have _no problem_ believing you. No problem at all!
Have a great (future) day!
@@simesaidhad several experiences like that one lasted for half-hour another one for an hour really really quite disturbing thought I was hallucinating but everything i did was there including trying to shake it off
@@simesaid It's very possible that you just didn't remember you dreamed it. I had tons of precognitive dreams, since childhood, some really detailed. And déjà-vus as well, when I remember the dream I had. One lately, that I dreamed 40 years ago. I told to a friend that there will appear a poodle... well, it was kind of a poodle, a bit larger. And mostly, people point out the differences. Or that dream when I was in a stadium, watching my team playing vs. a team of another league and a player got the second yellow card (meaning a red card) in the first half. Well, some weeks ago, there was a cup game vs. that team. And the player got a direct red card in the first half. And a friend pointed that out (it was a direct red, not two yellow). Like with human beings, instead of seeing the similarities pointing out the differences.
My precognitave dreams became so common...
In high school, I was having so many dreams about the lunchroom conversations between my friends and I that I began experimenting. I knew what my response should be and what would be said in response. I began saying something different to see if reality would somehow bend back to my precognative
dream. It did not. The future was completely changed. From this, I learned that we are, indeed, the creators of our lives. There is no force compelling a certain future.
I have been a prophetic dreamer all my life. I still struggle to understand how this is possible.
My mum is blind in one eye and almost blind in the other but her vision is always fine in her dreams
*_Interesting. Has she been blind since birth?_*
I had never thought about this before. I suppose if we were blind from birth, we wouldn't.
@@moriel01 no macular degeneration began in her 70s. She's now in her 90s. Sometimes she dreams she has her blind stick with her but she can still see. I think its good she at least sees in her dreams.
That's really sweet. I'm so happy for her.
I must be the exception because as my 60s progresses I dream more lucidly.
My dream life is better than my waking life and sometimes I don't want to wake.
Yes I know that feeling
All men are great, in their dreams. -Sigmund Freud
Sleeping is my favorite thing,Dreams are welcomed
Sometimes I wake up and I feel deeply in love with someone I've never met. It lasts for days sometimes....
@@the_kombinatorthat happened to me once. I woke up crying because we were being separated and for the next couple of days, every time I thought about the person, I’d start crying again with the feeling of being heart broken. Wow. It was so trippy and didn’t know anyone or heard of anyone that’s experienced that until your comment so thank you for sharing that.
When I was little I dreamed in black and white and we had a black and white TV. When I was about 12 years old we got a color TV and by the time I was in college at age 17, I was dreaming mostly in color. At 69 I always dream in color. I have thought that my dreams were related to the TV ever since I began to dream in color. Part of this is that my parents said that they had always dreamed in black and white. My belief was that we must have gotten the color TV when I was young enough to switch to color but my parents were too old for their brains to make the switch. I remember asking them and both made an interesting remark that before they had TV they thought they dreamed in color but when they saw TV in black and white they both began dreaming in black and white. I wish they were still alive to explore this further with them because we loved thinking about things like this.
This Doctor has done his homework with extra credit. Rarely do we see a video that is this accurate. Thanks!
I always watch these dream explanation videos to see if I could find some answers for my dream experiences and I never do. As a child, I would dream all of the time and I would remember so many of them, still do, but because, of that I think, I developed an awareness that I was dreaming. When I would have scary dreams, I was able to wake myself up. As a teenager, I had a couple of sleep walk experiences and the dreams continued. As an adult, I was experiencing sleep paralysis on a regular basis and they were increasing in frequency. I was told that what I was experiencing were night terrors and that it was not normal because an adult rarely experiences this and that it was more common in children. They could not understand what the reasons were and they tried to give me medication that was meant to “help” me achieve normal sleep. I refused and I stopped asking doctors . Meanwhile, through my 20s and my 30s, the night terrors were getting worse but weirdly I was becoming even more aware while in my dreams and now, not only was I able to wake myself up from the dream, but I realized that I didn’t have to wake up, instead I could fly away from a dangerous situation. The it took a while but in the last 5 years about, I can count the amt of night terrors I’ve had on a hand and I rarely have “silly” dreams. I still remember many of my dreams and I have definitely read in one, I had a dream I was using a phone for the first time just recently and I dream about having convos with relatives in their apt and they’d seem so real. Oh… and now, I’m in flight mode whenever I get the chance. Those dreams are the best. I’ve seen places so beautiful and alien but they were so real. I will never understand how my brain would create landscapes like the ones I’ve seen while flying. Then the dreams that I can move things with my thoughts and waking up feeling like a super hero. I know for a fact that there is way more to and about dreams than we are being told. I don’t believe that all of my dreams were visualized or created by the brain. I don’t understand how my brain could just create total strangers and places I’ve never met or seen. Or I could feel the air and pressure if I fly too fast. I think that dreams are meant to awaken some hidden, lost powers and skills that have been lost through time while at the same time, they also allow us to experience consciousness somewhere that we aren’t bound by the the laws of physics. If I’ve gotten to this point, I’m even more excited to see how this may evolve as I get older .
Wow, I thought I was rare in interactive dreaming.
I look forward to dreams. Practice waking slowly to recall as much as possible. I have recently dreamt I was dreaming in the dream, woke, discussed it, then woke in my bed. Outrageous crazy! Good stuff! Levels of consciousness, or connecting to it? Fascinating
I don't dream in B&W but the colors are really washed out, like watercolor, or even more bland. But then, I'm a musician and have always been very sound oriented, nevertheless, my dreams are always completely mute, since I can remember. There''s dialogue but no sound, no music, no drone sound..... nada. Again, Dr. Eagleman blowing my mind. Thanks for sharing .
I’m 77 now and have always been a prolific dreamer. When I was young I had many dreams about floating and being afraid that I might fall, but I can’t remember the last time I dreamed about it. Also, I used to dream about being chased and not being able to run fast enough. I don’t have that dream anymore. I used to have very science fiction dreams. And some of them recurred many many times. Some of these are still very prominent in my memory. The floating dreams I think many or most people have and so dreams seem to be caused by physical things going on in you, like being paralyzed when you are asleep. I had a bought of severe depression when I was 20 yrs old. During that time I had very bloody and violent dreams. During this time I learned how to control my dreams , the visual and outcome for me. When I was 5 or6 I had a dream about being in a tornado which caused me to be really frightened. When I woke up or maybe later I used my pastels to draw/ paint a picture of the landscape in my dream. The picture was very colorful with dead black trees and the atmosphere was all red and blue. I was very afraid of tornadoes 🌪️. Sometimes the dreams were wonderful and I loved them. I always feel disappointed when I wake up and they are over.
I loved your presentation and want to listen to your other episodes. Thanks
Me either. I had many science fiction stories during the nights. I travel trough space.... Fights etc....
I can fly of course.
If I am tried I am dreaming with seaside..... When I feel my life goes great I often dream I go for running and it goes well.
I’m convinced dreaming allows me to access my existences in parallel universes to solve especially difficult problems encountered in this universe, and visa versa.
I guess you never had one of those dreams where you are being chased and you can't get away from that person or you try to beat them up and it's like being underwater you can't get that actual punch in ... Lol
*_Had those when I was a kid, hehe_*
Sure we had them. When I was a kid I tried to fly away like swimming towards the sky and those who were after me tried to grab my legs. 😄
I have a severe mental illness, and sometimes, the line between reality and my dreams gets blurred. It can be VERY confusing!
Sometimes, when my dreamscape is really intense, I will wake up with big emotions of sadness, loss and mourning about leaving a world behind that I feel I belong in... it also causes a sort of amnesia about this reality and it takes me a while before I am reoriented in myself and my life here. This can induce panic and anxiety.
I wish I could have my brain fixed and not be so confused anymore.
If you don’t mind, do you know the diagnosis of your illness? What is it because I experience the same exact thing! I often have to check and look for signs to figure out if something happened in my dreams or reality . Or an event will feel like a memory from like a few days ago and then it’ll suddenly hit me that it never happened at least in reality
I have had dream inside dream many times. It was very interesting.
Even more fun was when I knew I was dreaming, but it didn't wake me up. I just kept going and I could dictate the outcome of the dream. I could do whatever I wanted. It was fun.
Antidepressants increase my dreams and nightmares. Same as anti seizure medication increased my nightmares and seizures. Psilocybin has helped but it's still in the research stage. That is pushing me to finish my degree so I can partake in the research and study of the impacts of medication and plant medicine on the brain. Took decades of trauma to get me here. But I am pushing through to get into psychology, physics, and neuroscience to help make sense of it all. Path to my degree starts in a couple months. See you on the other side.....
Inner Cosmos... really one of the best podcasts out there.
Hello! Part four: During the 43 years of amazing dreams, I could have complex ones, during a cat-nap. Maybe I'd be sleep for 30 minutes or less, and I went to wild and faraway places. Most times I had them closer to when I was awakening. I had a few amazing "Lucid Dreams", where I saw myself lying in my bed, I was floating over myself,...looking down. I felt as if my eyes were open, yet I was dreaming at the same time. I have had many that were like De-ja-vu,....dreams, feeling I'd been there, somewhere, before. I've had a few dreams where I awoke, and I was paralyzed. I couldn't make myself move, or talk, or even grunt. IN REAL LIFE,....I survived a heart attack,....I live a few blocks from my hospital,.....and I was admitted to the heart hospital, & within a day of my heart attack symptoms. 24 hours later I was having open heart, double by-pass, surgery. It WAS extremely traumatic. I had tons of dreams, in the hours before the surgery,.....of course I was extremely worried I might die on the operating table. I was 47 at the time,.....and thank god,.....it has been 20 years later, and I'm still here,....though I have had many stents installed, along the way. I can't believe I am 70. Almost all my friends have already died,.....and I feel I am all alone, so often. I never made new friends with younger people. I had my core group of friends,.....we all went to college together, they lived in my town, some very close by.
I'm experiencing an awakening!!!!
I had a period of recurring dreams 40 years ago when I was in my mid teens. I ended up have the same dream somewhere between 4 and 6 times. In the dream I would visit various locations in my hometown but it was all set in the future. The dream was always the same, same order, same places. In the dream I was older, I had a beard and was heavier than anyone in my family had ever had a propensity to be. Not overweight, just heavy… my family are all very thin.
The details in the dream were solidified in my mind by their repetition. The changes I saw in town were things that were specific and some were highly improbable to occur in a town as small as mine. In time, I moved away, but in the years to come each of the things that I had seen in my dream (that I’d even shared details of with others) began to happen. I would visit there and see them in person. It was astonishing. Now, 40 years on, and there is one last building from my dream that needs to change to complete the entire series of things from those dreams. All of that is strange enough but there is something else… there was this last event that always happened at the end of those dreams - I would find myself standing outside my childhood home at night and I would be looking up into the night sky only to see, from horizon to horizon, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of alien space craft filling the sky, hovering over our entire planet. They were every imaginable size and shape, some were unbelievably large, easily miles wide or long. Small craft and orbs and of light were swooping down and flying all over. People began coming out of their homes and joining me and watching. It felt like we were just an experiment, and this was our owners deciding this would be the moment they were going to make themselves known, open our tiny little box, and peering in on us. I can’t begin to describe how small I felt or how disorienting it felt.
In the dream I become overwhelmed and walk over to a fence next to an alley and sit down… unsure of what comes next… and that is the end of my dream.
I now resemble the ‘future me’ I was in that dream, one last building from my dream has to change (again, in ways that seem very unlikely) and these days the reality of the existence of UFOs or UAP are being discussed openly in congressional hearings. It not just woo woo anymore.
I have literally DRAWN what this last building looks like after it is altered, like in my dream. I have people who still live there that I've asked to keep me updated should this change happen. If it does actually happen… what does all of it mean? How could I have seen all of this in advance? How many times have I lived this life? Is that what is happening - my life is being recycled over and over and over and somehow the memories are leaking out through this series of dreams, like a warning or something? What if what I saw is actually coming? There were other specific markers in my dream that make me think that this final event happens around July or August of 2026.
Had a dream that Prince approached me and said....so ...I heard you're a big fan ....then on same night...dreamed that I was telling my best friend about that great dream on meeting Prince....one my favorite dreams ever....
I have Parkinson’s disease, and I recently switched from taking pills to using a subcutaneous pump. This change has helped stabilize my dopamine levels. For the first time in four years, I can get six or seven hours of uninterrupted sleep. Before the pump, my sleep was so fragmented that I couldn’t remember my dreams. Now, with the pump, my "normal" dreams have returned, and I wake up feeling refreshed. However, if my pump fails during the night-usually due to a kink or a leak-my sweet dreams can quickly turn into nightmares, and I struggle to wake up.
I've had dreams I'll never forget, dreams I finished decades later and dreams for months then no dreams at all.
I don't buy that we don't have access to our memories while we're dreaming. In fact often times, it's me actually retrieving a memory that pulls me out of the realism of the dream. One moment I'm picking my mom up from her orange stand in Florida like I do every Saturday. The next I have a very vivid memory or her laying in casket and everything followed. The best/worst part is knowing you're in a dream. The best/worst part is finding the door and deciding whether or not to use the key.
I think he meant those scenes created in dreams don’t always get stored in the long term memory
I first encountered Dr Eagleman on his documentary episodes "the brain with Dr David Eagleman" - watch it if you havent its mind blowing.
The brain may be good at telling stories - and his brain certainly is!
Phenomenal educator ❤
Twenty five years ago I had my own small business. I ended at least one day a week with some problem that seemed insurmountable as I went to bed. As I approached my nights rest I would meditate and pray to the creator that I be a grateful and compassionate person in the coming day. Each and every day I awoke to discover a clear and confident path through what seem to be an insurmountable problem the night before. I believe I was applying calm and impetus to my brain’s ability to realign facts and ideas. Anyway, it made every day better!
I listen to podcasts during sleep and they definitely cause related dreams. I was in Middle Earth recently during a dream and it was wild.
You had me at “like a meat robot that’s been switched off” 😂
This was startlingly informative in unexpected ways-I literally laughed when he said that someone had a theory about threats and dreams. I have never had a single dream of being chased or any such thing ever. I don’t ever have threat dreams, never any appearing naked, none of those. I rarely do have sex dreams but they are fragmentary and very rare. When he mentioned aggressive dreams or aggression in dreams, I have never even had a single dream ever that even slightly felt that way. So that was the most absolutely astounding and astonishing thing to hear that people report dreams like that. 😮 But I am extremely high in psychological traits agreeableness 95th and openness 99th percentile. 🤷♀️🤔 which might be related.
I keep hearing that dreams only exist during rem sleep, this isn't how my brain works, if i can fall into a long detailed dream then wake up 5 mins after i lay my head down then i clealy dream without going into rem.
he didn’t say they happen ONLY during rem. he said a majority of them do 👍
Yeah.. calm down mate.. go back to sleep
I totally agree with you.
What an absolute shower of shit What they tell us.
Ever fall back into one of several realities?
Even if you haven't been there in years, you come back to each reality in time and it's like you never left.
Omg this
I’m 61 and sometimes I do have a black and white only dream. Also when I was a child I used to have uncomfortable dreams such as finding myself naked in the middle of the crowded street I learnt to recognise this in the middle of my dreaming sleep state and either wake myself up or to change the narrative of my uncomfortable or scary dreams.
When I dream of classmates from childhood, they are still children, but while I’m interacting with them (as my adult self) they is no sense that something is amiss in our age differences.
I love that the title of so many of your videos start with “why?” or “what?” I feel like I’m programmed to be a “questioner” so these videos are really satisfying , scratching an itch-ish😊
I once had a dream in which someone I know told me information about someone else who I know who I hadn't seen or talked to in a couple of years including the name of another person who I don't know and had never heard of before. The dream wasn't about anything important and wasn't alarming but it was really vivid, so much so that it woke me up and I couldn't stop thinking about it, I messaged the person that the information was about and told her about it, she couldn't believe that it was a dream and thought that I had been physically talking to someone who knows her and was joking about the dream, the information was 100% correct including the name of the person that I don't know. The people in the dream all live in a different country than I do and I had no contact with any of them for a couple of years prior to this dream, including via social media which I don't have. I have no idea how or why that happened, the information wasn't anything important or relevant to me it was trivial, but how and/or why was it transmitted to me in a dream???
I mostly remember my dreams all day* ...
If I remember them when I wake up,
I tend to easily remember them for ages afterwards*
If I _don't_ recall a dream when I first wake up, then the dream's details usually doesn't emerge later.
I have had a sleep EEG which proved that in the deepest of sleeps, I can _hear_ what's going on within the room, plus nearby sounds or conversations going on outside the room where I'm sleeping.
The 'sleep technician' said she was amazed at the level of sleep I had had for just twenty minutes _on less than half the dose of the caplet given to induce the necessary sleep_ for the test, (following the application of multiple sensors glued to my scalp!)
I was also sleepy for the rest of that day, and it was as if I had had an epileptic seizure - which I had experienced frequently since I was six years old, after having a wooden chair fall from its stacked position on a table near where I was sitting in the floor, in Primary School.
(I also had Meningitis when I was _seven_ years old, but I don't recall dreams from when I was asleep when I had that illness).
My dreams have never given me images of falling, or of slipping on randomly positioned areas, my dreams have always appeared as 'real life' albeit in odd locations, such as either being where I grew up, or in places I have never been, and yet recognise as a dwelling or as a 'real place' ... I have never dreamed of falling, or chasing, or being chased, or of friends or family within my field of vision. I am aware of people I know, but I don't see them. I speak to them. Very rarely I have dreamed a friend was a famius person. Mostly I dream I am walking...but in waking life, I use a wheelchair now to get anywhere. I dont dream about driving, or riding a bicycle, or swimming and I _don't_ do those activities in waking real life. I did used to ride horses but I dont remember horseriding in my dreams, sadly.
I wouldn't describe my dreams as "being in colour"!! I describe my dreams as being real life...and I never describe my real waking life as living life "in colour".
I don't recall ever having dreamed un black and white, and I am 71 now, and never saw a television until I was six years old, listening to the radio only.
My Mum took me to the doctor when I was younger than six, worried by my dreams and / or made up stories... The doctor just told her that I had an active imagination and would probably become an author when I grew up... (I'm not sure Mum was calmed by the notion!)
I write poems and rhymes, but have never written a book. I wish I had! If I did, it might be either an autobiography, or a work of fiction... It might ( _now_ ) even have a title, of sorts...to do with dreams!!
I dont worry that my dreams are understood, or whether or not they can be determined as having meaning.
I either dream.p, or not, enjoy them, or not, and just live my life with my imagining brain "just doing its stuff"!!
It is _not so unusual_ to dream 'lucid dreams' ...
I've done it off and on for as long as I can remember...
Doesnt everyone?! 🤔🏴❤️🇬🇧🙂🖖
After watching this video I had a dream filled with jump cut, after jump cut, after jump cut. It made completely no sense at all! It was so bad that I wanted to close my eyes. But I couldn't becasue they were already closed.
Amazing episode. I have been using VR for the last 8 months daily, and I have never seen a resemblance of such in my dreams, albeit I rarely dream or remember them.
I just watched this channel's video on depression. Instant subscription. Thanks for such great content.
Fantastic content and communication skill.
A new medication has me dreaming where I'm barely even "me".
Everything is smeared around and events are so random "I" just watch it all happen.
I wake up stunned and confused.
I plan on speaking with my doctor asap.
I recently had a very short lucid dream in which I realized I was dreaming by taking out my phone and noticing the clock on the phone was some weird, unintelligible symbols. Ever since then, my phone has been making regular appearances in my dreams.
Outstanding presentation 😊😊
No...the dreams I'm MEANT to remember, coz they're significant at the time, are really obvious and simple to analyse...like a tap on my shoulder from my higher self..and I remember each one, clearly, from 30 years ago when they started...they were meant to be specially for me...I have other normal dreams too..without messages for me...
I am a combat disabled veteran with severe ptsd, and I never have threatening dreams.
Thank you Dr Eagleman. I have been experimenting with something new about my dreams in the past couple weeks. Everytime I sleep with my earphones in, listening to a book or classical music, I do not dreams. Or if I have a dream , it is something very light, nothing I can remember when I wake up. I don't know if anyone ever had that experience.
Extremely well explained, thank you.
I’ve had a dream about a person and at the time of my dreams I had never met them but end up a year later meet them . I didn’t talk to them so I just seen them , thought it would be weird .
What's an idle brain to do while idling after all, dream. The big question is : why and how do we have the capacity to observe our brain dreaming, our capacity to think on idle! What's more how is it we have the capacity to reflect on the quality of our observations of our dreaming idle brain! That's the big deal !
The example of being at work...or school without clothes has always been my most common unpleasant dream. When I was younger, the school scenario was much more frequent but now they mostly involve work, for obvious reasons. I have always wondered if this was common. Anyone?
I think this is a fairly common dream - perhaps it says something about wanting to be seen for your genuine self. Everyone sees thremselves and others wearing their defensive masks. We are all fearful of revealing our true self to the world. This is part of the "human condition," it seems.
I have found that the specific scenerio of a dream is not relevant. What is relevant are the *emotions* generated by the dream. For example, in one dream I am naked, but it is perfectly normal in that unverse and it generates no emotion. If there is negative emotion, is ihe emotion embarassment, fear, guilt, or something else. The biggest fear in going to school is that you forgot something. You forget a book, or you forget a homework assignment. The dream of being without clothes may be simply the embodyment of the emotion of "having forgotten something". In this case - your clothes.
I'm 83 years old. Generally I don't remember black and white nor specific colors in my dreams, and I wundered about that. In the last year or two I've tryed to remember specific colors and once in a while I now do remember a color.
How awful it must be to go blind ,your memories and past dreams must happen syill ? Waking up from them into darkness must break your heart
They just see while they sleep. It's just like you falling asleep and not being able to see your dark room. You are fine with your eyes closed right?
@@carissafisher7514 But sleeping in a dark room isn't comparable to living in a dark room ?
I enjoyed the episode about dreams. I would like to know how and why some people but not but not all people sleep walk and why do most people not get injured. Also what should we do if you see someone sleep walking.?????????
Once I was in the kitchen late at night reading a magazine. My brother came in and went over to the kitchen counter and made a peanut butter sandwich. He left the sandwich on the counter and returned to bed. The next day he did not remember it. Was he sleep walking??
See another experience and question further down.
The question asks the asker why it is the question? Retranslated title to third person omn. perspective: "Why do Dreams Brain?".
I remember a series of dreams where I was solving quadratic equations. I woke up and wrote those down and then solved them; I got the same result awake as I remember getting in my sleep.
Lucid dreaming is not easy. While dreaming, it is not much hard to realize I am in dream, but continuing the dream with still knowing that I am in the middle of dreaming is so hard. I used to remember well what I dreamed and has been journaling my dream so long. I feel like the experiences in dream also could be good resources for me anyways, so that's the reason why i am quite interested in this subject. The colors or sounds i has experienced in dreams are quite valuable for me as much as i had gotten in real life.
Whenever someone tells me they had a weird dream, I ask when they've had a dream that wasn't weird.
I always wondered if I’m experiencing something that other people do as well. If I rub my eyes, I get a series of geographical shapes a lot of trapezoids lines that never ever makes sense to me, especially when I consider that during an accident I had in 2016. I was given a high dose of ketamine because my foot had been ripped off at the ankle. The geographic shapes that I typically see if I rub my eyes was exactly what I felt when I was going under with the Ketamine… way more intense.. but I remember being in a zone where I wasn’t conscious, but I could still think and I was telling myself “Did I just die? .. am I dead.? And a very real sense of fear and fright..
I could see dreams being evolutionarily advantageous because they help emotionally and mentally prepare you for potential situations. Almost like exposure therapy. So it produces the craziest, sometimes scary potential situations so that you’re better equipped to handle them while awake. Similar to how it’s been proven that athletes who visualize themselves winning a race end up performing better, because they visualized it beforehand.
I think this in conjunction with dreams also being symbolic makes a lot of sense.
Just my hypothesis and probably just one aspect of why dreaming exists. There are probably multiple explanations, not just one solid explanation.
I really appreciated the analogy of the "brain map". Somewhere in life, I came across the idea that, just like the growth of any physical map, as we consciously learn and prioritize new concepts and associate them with, evaluate and reevaluate what we experience, our brain is making new paths within itself and has to repeat certain routes in order to make them a permanent installation. What we see in dreams may just be part a means to physically produce or reproduce synaptic pathways not previously well established .
I just remembered I read two of your books. Fascinating !
Sometimes I'm able to realize I'm dreaming in my dream. One way to tell is to look at something then look away then look back at it and it will be different and then you will know you're dreaming. One of my favorite things to do in a dream is to fly.
As a kid I used to have “fever” dreams when I got bad tonsillitis. They were always the same 3 dreams. Never had them again after I got my tonsils removed, until my covid fever. Haven’t had them since.
@froby2378: I had the same exact experience as a kid. My tonsillitis fevers usually hovered around 105. The fever dreams were so horrible and vivid that I was sure they were hallucinations. Haven't had those dreams since (60+ years), but I do think of them now and then. Those fevers sure did a number on the brain.
Hello! Avid dreamer here. Beginning in high school, in 1969, I began journaling my dreams. I had crazy complex dreams. So crazy, that I felt compelled to write them down. I have a massive collection of highly detailed dreams. Some people can't remember their's, or they are so vague, they aren't worth writing down. I was lucky to have created a life style for myself, where I had the time to write them down. I worked in the Arts and my wake up schedule was always relaxed. If I don't have the time, I write a kind of short hand version. Before computers and word processing,....I scribbled them down, in note pads. After I had my computer,....combined with my crazy good skills as a fast typist, I can write them up quite quickly and the auto-correct, fixes any mistakes. I type fast and don't worry about the typos. I have a formatted dream journal,....where I can plug in the time, the day, and a quick blurb,.....I write enough that I can go back later and fill in the details. I am strict with myself, and don't make up stuff, if I can't remember it. I also, make drawings of weird dream objects and dream invented things.
This is very interesting. I wonder what scientists equipped with an AI could do with a compilation like this.
Love your channel. Fascinating theories. I'm 64. I've been dreaming for a long time. I have a theory why we dream what we dream based on my memories of past dreams. Most you forget but some you don't. I think dreams are combinations of memories that are created daily throughout your life's experiences but are also memories of imaginary scenario's that you create an your mind about your realife experience's. I think it's a way for your brain to purge memories. To deal with a past or upcoming reality that you're stressed over.
I don't dream very often but when I do it's fucking EPIC, it's like a metaphysical purge and your brain gets a reboot and you feel like you've actually slept...
I had a dream where I was trying to take a photo on my phone but couldn’t do it, it was so frustrating because the view was gorgeous
This means there is going to be a celebration of which you are supposed to be a part of it but due to some circumstances, you wouldn't be there.
While waking, I am able to analyze the dream. Though the dream doesn't make it to long term memory, the analysis does
Dream is just a word. The reconditioning of our brain happens in a way that we superficially experience as dreaming. Most of it we are not aware of at all. Imagine big cleanups, comparable to how our muscles get done. About one third of our life gets spent on that, such that we can make the most of the rest of our time.
Hello! Part three: When I did the bulk of my dreaming, they were complete stories with other people in them with first and last names, and they weren't people I knew from real life. I traveled to cities I have never been to. My dreams were very colorful,....sometimes they were neon colored. I was aware of different kinds of sunlight in each dream. The dreams were all different, there were no repeating dreams. I tried to take the many thousands of dreams and fit them into categories. I didn't like the results. Many have underlying depressing content, or are expressions of anger, or feelings I was hoodwinked. I preferred not analyzing them. That is some other person's job. I don't want to destroy their magical quality. I gave some to my therapist,...to read,....she never came up with any ideas, to explain them.
Subscribed immediately. So cool
Thru' the episode David really lived in a dreamland and he has such dreamy eyes.
Another theory as to why the color property of TVs might influence dreams more than reality colorfulness: TV programs are designed to impact emotions way more than everyday life - or at least in terms of density and frequency of events that are otherwise pretty rare. (e.g. most of us rarely saw anyone being shot in real life). This can creates reminiscent patterns in the amygdala, which then feeds reasons to storytelling machinery.
I never had sensations of taste or smell in my dreams until a few years ago, and now it happens frequently.
Because we are boring and they need some excitement. "Finaly. He's asleep. Lets party."
As my daughter grew up I had the same consistent dream.. she was at an event, whatever it might be, I needed to pick her up and then something would happen where I couldn’t get her.. I’d lose my keys, couldn’t find my car, etc etc.. just panic that she’d be left wondering where I was.. thankfully this never actually happened but was a terrible recurring dream for sure.
Has anyone ever heard of "dreaming while awake" or maybe "conscious dreaming"? It happens sporadically, maybe ten times in the past ten years since it 1st started.
It's not a thing I have any influence or control. I have been a longtime lucid dreamer; control and influence has never been an issue there.
This is different and not at all pleasant.
It happens when I'm particularly tired and just laying down. I want to note here I'm also a longtime practitioner of _autogenic training;_ so I completely empty mind and before I'm asleep, a dream will "jump" into my conscious mind. I recognize it as a dream immediately just as would if I were lucid dreaming...but this is conscious reality.
That's the shocking part. _That my mind _*_all on its own_*_ initiated a dream without any warning or influence,_ while I was still awake. The best way to describe it, is the dream "jumped" into my waking mind. But they are short, fragmented snatches of familiar dreams and they last just a second or 2. Never a complete dream.
It's kinda disturbing something is initiated without conscious influence. It's like there's 2 of me.
Yes had hundreds of dreams where I know I'm dreaming. Can't control or predict when they're gonna happen
Yes. I recently began getting these where I was still awake or not fully sleeping and realized I was dreaming. It's a very strange experience.
It's called simulating, - it's reallocating mental processes used to mentally simulate the reality you experience whilst awake to simulate other things as well, when not simulating much immediate reality (sleeping) they call it dreaming, but it's mental simulation.
One other question - why does taking Melatonin before sleeping, which helps your mind get into a sleeping state, make dreams so much more memorable. Does melatonin activate long term memory?
As someone with adhd and migraine I dream wild and vivid crazy dreams. I found this extremely interesting. Migraine is associated with increased neural sensitivity so maybe this explains my particularly crazy dreams when I'm having an attack. I also sometimes try and steer my dreams while I sleep...
The night after seeing this video I dreamed I was trying to phone text with someone and we just couldn't get it to work correctly. I was impressed after seeing the video that yes, I couldn't remember ever using a phone in a dream before. See what you did? Haha.
Stop directing my dreaming!!
I actually RECENTLY had a dream I was texting someone and they were blue bubbles! I remember waking up and trying to remember if it really happened or not. My only memory was that the text bubbles were big, almost 3D and disproportionate in size. It was fuzzy. So a device made into my dream. 😭
Dreams are what our brains try to help our hearts to resolve its frustrations n other emotions. So when we wake we have done some clarifications of our many mental disturbances.
You are AMAZING. Congratulations. Please, let know when you are coming over Finland 👏
Back up systems.
Integrating short-term memory into long-term memory.
Brain cell regeneration & new programming for novel situations.
I frequently dream that I am watching the dream on my phone, and then find myself participating in it in person, and then commenting on it by typing as I am doing now.
Im 50, English and have never experienced audio in my dreams
Wow! I wake to loud music but its in my head.
Last night, I dreamt I was driving this big truck and crashed off the edge into water. I didn't realize that I was dreaming until, when I hit the water, I could not feel the cold water. Then I realized oh... it's just a dream. I can see in color in my dreams. Reading is sometimes difficult. But when I was pregnant I could easily read, "It's a girl, it's a girl." And yes, my dream was correct, I had a girl.
How could your body NOT know the gender of the fetus inside? I knew it was going to be a girl when I was pregnant, not from a dream that I recall but maybe 🤔
My idea is that consciousness locks our spirit (or essence) in one plane of the metaverse, when we are asleep or unconscious our spirit skips to other parts because the focus is released. It seems real, because it is real in that plane.
I am 60 years old and I can say 1. I always dream in color 2. if I remember a dream it comes true 100% of the time 3. Since I was very little I control (lucid) my dreams. Funny thing is I did not know until I was almost 50 that not everyone lucid dreamed. All my children lucid dream so to me and them, it was normal.
As an autistic, here's my thought; dreams serve one purpose, to distract the conscience & prevent it from constant disruptions of sleep, our consciousness can & does awaken sleep repetitively when not distracted
Uh, Jeff, your autism is not helping you here. Nice theory tho.Some dreams are triggered by a troubled conscience and your psyche or inner ego is trying to deny or justify it as an instinctive defensive reaction.
We dream because the brain wont shut up. Lol
I know this is dumb but i do have a reoccurring dream for over 15 years that i have bubble gum stuck in-between my molars and i continue to pull it out like a long string that never ends until i wake up
I too dream this more often than I like.
😅 i got something in my nose, i keep pulling some sort of string out, and it never ends. Its not a good feeling. 😅
Well, interesting, all the information is there. Now putting it together in a way that makes the most sense. It seems like if we use a ternary system we can certainly get a intuitive understanding of the process of most dreams.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom. - Richard W Jennings, author of Orwell's Luck (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2000).
What is the reason why I also dreams about things that happened many years back? Sometimes I dream of new things. But often it's from many years back.
Dreams with like in a movie an ongoing meticulous voiceover providing technical details I would never know….almost like being read a technical manual.🎭
I’ve had dreams that I was using my cell phone and I could never get through to whoever I was calling. Very stressful and scary
Me too.....ALL THE TIME. Or I can't text/can't open the contacts, can't find the number/can't dial the number. Super stressful.
So. I worked midnight shift for so long I had to see a sleep specialist when I went to dayshift. I still hold out hope that I can return to night shift but, in the meantime, I have a smart watch and I obsessively track my sleep. I deep sleep the longest. Light sleep is usually a fraction less, and then REM is generally about an hour or less. It's fascinating to me to watch my cycle improve thru time, but I'm going to be my own villain in this if midnight shift does become available again. 😅
I frequently have and always have had dreams while not in rem sleep. Also extrapolating meaning from or using dreams for reflecting on the desires , fears or ideas/behaviors/beliefs of the subconscious or preconscious parts of our psychology certainly has some merit to it.
Edit( In my opinion.)