I had a dream recently where I was guiding a civilisation over multiple thousands of years. Att the end of the dream when they had finally overcome their problems, one of them said to me ‘being a person, when really you’re just a blob of goo, is the most profound thing you could ever do.’
And it hit me so hard. All I am is a bunch of cells held together in a skin bag. And yet I’m a person with feelings and experiences and desires. And I did that, I live it. It makes us all so valuable.
Have your dreams ever had effects on you like that?
Many years ago, a friend of mine passed away and I saw him in a dream a few months later. He had always talked about having lucid dreams while I, on the other hand, had only ever had one lucid dream before. Perhaps this is why I realized I was dreaming and it became lucid.
In the dream, we were in what seemed like the captain’s cabin on a pirate ship. That’s not too weird because we had been playing DnD together for decades so it would probably have been more weird if we were in some mundane location. When I realized that it was a dream I also remembered that he had died. Needless to say, I had had the afterlife on my mind for those months since his death. In addition, some people had talked about the concept of dead people visiting the living in their dreams.
I sort of wondered if maybe he could really be visiting me in my dream. I asked him to tell me what the afterlife was like. He just made a face and the dream abruptly started to end. It didn’t just fade to black, though. The scene kind of rushed away from me. Or more like I was rushing backwards down a dark tunnel away from the scene. I screamed, “No!” and mentally grabbed unto the dream and pulled myself back. It was like my sense of motion just kind of stopped as I willed it to and then I rushed back forward back into the ship’s cabin. My friend was still there and I said, “Please, Answer me!”
He shook his head. He seemed to be sad maybe, or maybe a bit angry or something, and told me, “You have all the answers you’re ever going to get.” and I was instantly awake. Dream over.
I don’t really believe the dead visit us in our sleep, but it’s a pleasant fantasy to think so. He’s appeared in my dreams more than a few times since then, but never again was there a dream like that. I’ve also never had another lucid dream. His words have really stuck with me. I’ve pondered them many times and I just wonder…
I don’t really believe the dead visit us in our sleep…
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” - Dumbledore
I’ve had some truly memorable ones before. I can’t ever figure out how to influence them though.
Lately I’ll dream that I’m stressed at some ex-job again, with surreal situations (like a restaurant cut in two, but the kitchen was far from the seating area, so I had to run a tray like 100 meters across the open desert in the middle of the night from side to side and people were pissed)
I’m sad that when I see my late dad in my dreams he’s usually a bit angry at me over something.
But a lot of the time it’s just a random cacophony of random fleeting things that felt like 3 seconds and suddenly my alarm is going off. :(
I do miss my weird not-nightmare dreams…
One time I remembered where my missing $5 was after finding it in a dream
I was dating a very nice e-girl in a dream
I think the wisdom is “I like the e-girl aesthetic”? Which…feels true.
Mine is kinda heavy but I used to struggle with suicidal ideation alot. Then one night I had a vivid dream that one of my had died by suicide.
Seeing how that impacted me and all my coworkers in the drram was painful, but really helped hive me a better perspective on the impact and connection we have on others.
Have your dreams ever had effects on you like that?
Not like that, no. But I had a dream once about a specific coding/logic issue where in my dream I came up with a solution that actually worked in reality.
I have the feeling all software devs had that happen to them once, me included.
I made the mistake of admitting it though. Someone asked me how I came up with that interesting idea, and I said I saw it in a dream. They just stared at me as if I said I smoke weed in the corporate bathroom and perform seances as a side hustle 😂
Seance coding is the new vibe coding. Get the ouija board out! Add stickers to add a few characters like ±();&?!|.
Ok grandpa, how do we fix the bug?
Tap for seance
C U R L - S H T T P : / /Ok stop, this isn’t grandpa, we accidentally channeled a daemon again
If I remember right, the trick that makes sewing machines work came to the inventor in a dream.
The inventor was exploring the jungle or something like that in his dream, and got attacked by spear-wielding savages. The spears all had a hole near the tip. Which was what he was missing to make the sewing machine work - he’d been trying to make it work with the hole in the back, like a regular sewing needle.
Didn’t the guy who discovered carbocycles dream of a serpent biting its tail rolling around chasing him and the next day he was like, shit, hydrocarbons can probably loop around too.
Ah, I hadn’t heard about that one!
We all pray to the machine god, brother
Yeah. Not the code specifics itself, but definitely the method or code structure.
That makes four of us… at least.
When I was in college I was super stuck on a calculus homework problem. I worked on it futilely for hours before giving up and deciding to email my instructor about it in the morning. That night I solved the problem in my dream, and when I woke up I actually remembered the dream and it was the correct solution. My instructor thought it was hilarious when I told him about it in class.
I remember a dream study that found if you’re working on a skill within something like half an hour of going to sleep, you’re markedly faster at learning the skill. I think they measured it using a skiing video game or something like that
A large part of me really wants to believe that skiing video game was SkiFree 95.
… Because I probably had bad dreams about that yeti as a kid LOL
Hah! I remember the game, but I don’t think that was it.
I saw it on a Discovery documentary or something in high school, as I recall. There were a few shots of the test subject playing a sports skiing console game of some sort
Yes, I’ve had this happen many times. Go to bed thinking about a software problem, wake up thinking “what if…” and then I go implement it and it works
Oh yeah i have dreams like this when i leave engineering coursework too late but, despite having dream insights that solve my problems, i’ve decided it’s more efficient to just never ever leave those things too late again
ha, i was going to post exactly this… its happened a few times
I used to think I had great ideas on my dreams. Even created full complex stories once. I would wake up thinking “man that was a complete story arc with character development and everything, how did I come up with all that on my sleep”.
One day I decided to write it down as I was still half asleep so I could maybe use it later. The result was something like: “David Tennant was one of the Friends. On a fight with Rachel he said 'you want an emotion, I’ll give you an emotion: putting your head against the window on a rainy day”
that’s pretty cool too
Fax me some halibut?
Closest I had was advice I habe never needed. Basically, the backstory is my dad did something he’d never do to me in a dream and the dream moved onto me in a ride with my mother and oldest brother. They basically told me to have a stern talk with him and if needed, just cut contact.
Like I said, advice I have never needed, but good advice in case I need. Though, it’s not even new advice considering I’ve seen so many entitled parent videos from people like The Click.
I think dreams are bleed throughs from other dimensions. Same with deja vu.
When my friend came out as trans to me years ago, I reacted poorly at first. A few days after that, I had a dream about accepting her as she is. I guess it was just the result of me feeling guilty but it made me really think it through. Then I apologized and our relationship was great ever since.
Not sure about wisdom but I definitely have creative ideas in my dreams sometimes. Music, art, writing, etc. Which I then do nothing with so it’s a complete waste.
My dreams only remind me on the regular how much i would have loved to fucking murder my father.
I used to work on exercise sheets until late at night when I was still in university. It happened a few times that after I went to bed I would dream about unsolved math problems and actually came up with a solution. The hard part was trying to recall everything crucial after waking up the next day.
More than anything, I find that dreams remind me that I may not truly get over certain things, or in the very least haven’t finished processing something that’s stuck with me.
I rarely remember my dreams, and when I do, they’re normally just boring everyday stuff. Nothing profound to be found
