this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (4 children)

They said the same about clocks/watches, but I've seen the time a couple of times already in a dream. Yeah, NOT the real time, but a realistic one.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Also about reading words. I've read plenty of stuff in my dreams. The problem is that the words aren't stable. Like they change when you look away.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

For me I can read fine in my dreams, but if I become the tiniest bit lucid I realize that it doesn't actually say what I thought it said, it's just gibberish. Also my brain will sometimes go "The thing you thought it said makes no sense. It'd make a lot more sense if it said this." Then the words change and I go "Oh, my mistake."

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Around 3 years ago I dreamed I overslept and woke up at 6:31. I have to leave home around 6:10 to be on time for work.

That morning I woke up on time, but when I got in my car its clock showed it was 6:31. I didn't understand how it could be that late and checked the time on my phone. Turned out the car was showing the wrong time, which happened to be the same time as in my dream.

Last month I overslept and woke up at 6:31.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

You wanna dream up some lottery numbers for me friend?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The trick is to look away and look back and see if the time changed.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

Same with books. Try to read it. Now try again

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Nah, best to check if your dream kettle will boil.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I like to lay down and try to nap. If I can't then I might already be asleep and should be wary.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

My thought has always been that it's not that things like that can't work in dreams, but dreams are mostly symbolic and you're more likely to dream about using a phone or something if you have an issue with what it symbolizes. For instance, I personally often dream about trying to call or text my wife, but either the phone doesn't work, I can't see the screen, she can't hear me, or something like that. My guess is that the dream is about my frustration when I can't communicate well with my wife.

I've also had dreams where I was stuck or trapped in something and couldn't get my phone to work, couldn't make my voice work to yell, or anything like that, and I figure that it's because I have real issues asking anyone else for help.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I have this recurring dream where I try to show a youtube video to someone but keep misspelling the name on the search bar and got increasingly annoyed by it until I wake up with bad mood.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Ah this sounds ao familiar. I always press the wrong buttons in dreams.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

You know I'm not sure I've ever had a dream with a phone in it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Only payphones in those matrix dreams

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Yea... dreams..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Digital watches and clocks also don't work, they show garbage

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I never understood this. In my dreams phones, tablets, and clocks all work. Like last night I pulled up a world map and zoomed in on Europe on a tablet, and not only did my brain fill in all the countries and even major cities (totally incorrectly as I'm in the US and not that familiar with European geography), but the website even had pop up ads that I needed to close out of to view the map without distractions. I could also Google where vikings originated and pull up a totally normal appearing Wikipedia page. Tech always works just fine in my dreams

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I was just realizing this, too. I've had plenty of dreams where I'm driving a car or something, but never ones where I'm using my phone.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Best reality check is to pinch your nose shut with your fingers and then try to inhale. You can always inhale with a pinched nose in dreams

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

This one never worked for me. My reality check is to count my fingers. In dreams i have a lot more than usual.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

I bet the dream phones are all malfunctioning because some joker set the font size to a thousand pixels per letter.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It's like our dreams are AI generated. Words and times are nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Need to count the fingers next time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Well, they've definitely been created by a neural network.

My belief is that it's the animal that underpins the conscious mind. The same animal we start out as at birth, but grow beyond (some more than others). Dreams are it's way of interpreting the sea of sensory input we absorb, but being an animal - a ball of instinct wrapped around a pattern matching algorithm - it can't read, or count, it doesn't really understand any of it at all, it just recognises how things are usually related (not entirely unlike the AI image generators) on an instinctual level. Occasionally, on waking, the conscious mind will catch a glimpse of what's happening and try to contextualise it, applying more complex, learned thought processes to fill in the blanks and explain the nonsense, but dreams rarely make sense in their raw form.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I have this recurring thing where I notice things like this when I'm dreaming, and it causes me to wake up in the middle of the night. Except I didn't wake up. I dreamt that I woke up. Then I often fall back asleep again. I don't wake up until something's strong enough to wake me up twice.

Except sometimes when my body really doesn't want to be awake, I'll wake up a second time, then a third, then a fourth, and it just goes on forever until I've really overslept.

[–] dukk 2 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

False awakenings are nuts

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Reality check I developed is rolling eyes far up. If you close your eyelids and then roll the eyes, you can notice how it lifts them (the eyelids) up a little.

While in REM and actually seeing dreams, you retain eye control, so by rolling your eyes you open them up and effectively wake up.

This allows me to escape most nightmares, good stuff

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

ok but how do you manage to remember this when dreaming?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

There is no way to "remember" it per-say, you could only somehow train it to be a subconscious habit, these transfer into dreams. Not sure how I did it with mine, I had developed it in childhood, but I do use this trick even in irl when I'm scared, as a reality check.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yup. I too have these dreams.

Usually I'm about to call someone but I keep pressing the wrong buttons.

Or I'm driving a car and I keep driving off the road.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Dreams are what happens if your brain is able to hallucinate without any feed back from reality.

In reality your phone works because there is a living board and software keeping the interaction confined to it's inner possibilities. Your brain doesn't have ways to allow for this internal logic and therefore interactions with software never go well.

Notice that is only slightly better in simulating other people. Faces are never consistent, but generally people logic is easier to stimulate, so other people are more convincing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I indeed had a dream lately where my phone wouldn't work properly. Nobody was nice enough to come and tell me though.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

In your next dream, Nic Cage will be coming around the corner to help you out.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

D'oh -- every year I mess this up!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My wife has this issue all the time and she says it's her tell for when she's dreaming. She often uses it as a que to help her lucid dream

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I wish my stupid self would relise that as I'm being pissed off about my phone not working in the dream world.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

My wife has this issue all the time and she says it’s her tell for when she’s dreaming. She often uses it as a que to help her lucid dream

my tell is when i snap the rubber bands i usually wear on my wrists.. in dreams, i feel nothing when the band snaps against the skin

i had one recently and i tried to make myself fly after realizing it was lucid, but couldn't lol.. i also thought about jumping off a cliff but my brain still said no that's still a bad idea.. my sub-concious is trained i guess

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Holy shit, Bob the Angry Flower is still alive and kicking! It's been on the Internet for like 3 decades. I remember reading these on dialup modems.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So, pieces of bark actually talk like cavemen! I had no idea. Phones no work in dreams, bob!

Unfortunately this is reality for some of us who are technologically challenged. I gave up trying to get my smart phone to work years ago. My new android TV is now trying to download something, says there isn't enough memory even though there's nothing "saved" on the TV, and now locks up every time I try to use it.

So guess who gets to go buy ANOTHER new tv. I had to throw that one out, and it isn't even six months old yet.

The newer the technology, the less user friendly and the less able to work well. Of course a big part of it is me - i just don't know how to deal with this crap, and the cell phone TV and computer know it. AARRGH.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The tv thing is not your fault. They sell you shitty products so you'll have to throw them out soon.

The best thing is probably a dumb tv and a seperate device for android stuff that can easily be replaced if it starts acting up.

Oh and smart phones are a great way to waste time and spend less time with your family and friends. So you're probably better off without one. More time to read, watch movies, or enjoy your hobbies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

You're right about that, they plan for the product to break within a few months. That I'm sure of.

Finally my TV somehow downloaded whatever update it was trying so hard and struggling with. And now it's installed, it's much less easy to use than ever. Slower than molasses going uphill. I click on a channel and 13 minutes later it MIGHT come up.

SIGH. Well I my smart phone was actually a dumb phone from the very start. I don't like talking on the phone, so I rarely used it, and it was too underpowered to really use for gaming or for texting. Two texts and it started acting overloaded and it broke down.

SO, yes, I have rediscovered my love of reading (but I do have a kindle, which works about 50 percent of the time).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago