I have vivid dreams every night. They feel completely real up until I wake up and have to remember everything that just happened really didn't. I've always had periods of my life where I would dream for a bit, then stop. But it's really picked up this year, possibly because of me smoking more and dropping mushrooms a few times (i mean have you ever wondered if psychedelics change the way you dream? I've had dreams that will feel like a trip, or i'll decide to trip in my dream and everything'll get fucking CRAZY, like a trip within a trip) Unfortunately there are no definite answers; science has proven nothing. Explaining such complex things is like trying to solve the cosmos...when we've hardly dipped our feet in the cosmic ocean a million years later. It could be another million years before anyone discovers anything significant. So in the meantime: tell us what you think is going on in that head of yours while you sleep. Personally, I feel like dreams are the key component in learning. Think back to the Matrix when Neo was a complete tard and needed fast training. They programmed his brain to do all the fancy shmancy moves that made the movie a hit. I think the state of dreaming is kinda've like your brain's own private matrix where it can explore and experiment with whatever questions it may have. Ever have those "falling dreams"? This could be your brain programming you to fear heights, which I do (thanks you useless organ). Or take a more complex example: Learning how to interact socially. Have you ever stopped and looked at the kind of person you are? What transitioned you from that self-centered child you were so long ago to the you today? Sleeping gives you time to think and reflect while dreams fill your world with emotion. You encounter embarrassment &rejection in dreams just as you do in the real world. But when you wake up, you can think to yourself "that didn't really happen" and learn from it as if it were a mistake. Basically, your subconscious plays your imagination like a videogame and learns from it.
Psychedelics, for many people, open doors to different areas of the mind. Dreams are a totally different experience to explore, the body completely shuts down when we dream... It's almost like we go to another place. We kinda do. Theories can be made on that place, people can try to explain it. But I like to think of it as simply a place, a totally kickass ass place! Without getting to into it that's all I am gonna say while using this iPod You lucid dream or astral project? There is so much to dreams it's just nuts.
I believe we take in millions of stimuli a day on a conscious, sub-conscious and non-conscious level. When we dream our mind files these things into long term and short term memory and discards what is not useful to be stored into a 'recycling bin'. Meditation and atral projection are interesting too but I consider that separate from dreaming and more about exploring the mind through other means.
I did not mean that dreams and astral projection are the same but they are so similar that when talking about theories on dreams I need to mention them. For me there was a time that every time I went to sleep I would start dreaming, wake up... be in sleep paralysis then jump out of my body. For me they are more closely related then for others
I didn't mean to imply that you meant they were the same, . Lucid dreaming obviously involves that. I'm often more conscious in my dream than I'm not. Whereas astral projection is usually achieved through meditation. I've seen people attempt to lucid dream with meditation prior to sleep too. Both are very interesting and literally involve exploring the mind. The way I was talking about dreaming was in a psychological sense. What I wrote was very brief though, I could easily write a full paper about it and not cover everything I wanted to.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqVV2u_1ADA]Spirit Science 9 - Astral Projection - YouTube[/ame] the end is a bit lame
I know the feeling, the internet is not an easy way to get points across, especially on a forum where the goal is generally to keep things as short as possible... lol.
my theory on dreams? listen to what your nightmares are trying to tell you... regular dreams can be about just dreaming stuff or they can teach you something about yourself or your surroundings but your nightmares will tell you directly. nightmares prey on your fears, if you know your fears then you can take steps to combat them and learn to overcome them.
Dreams are just memories/thoughts and whatnot that your brain is producing while your pineal gland shoots tons of dmt into your brain.