He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman â' how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed.
Sleeping confers a major evolutionary disadvantage - why would an animal make himself susceptible to predators and inactive for hours if he/she could avoid it? Thus, it must have an important function.
You sleep so your mind can process information. If you rest your mind
I thought it had to do with neurotransmitters and stuff.
Sleeping confers a major evolutionary disadvantage - why would an animal make himself susceptible to predators and inactive for hours if he/she could avoid it? Thus, it must have an important function.
It does have an important function. Your mind can't process all of the information you get in a day fast enough to store it into memory. Also, while you're asleep, your body's immune system is heightened and your body works faster to fixing any damage done to it. In a perfect world, you wouldn't need your body to fix itself, but that's not the case. Your body takes slight damage over time. Just walking hurts the cells in your feet, so imagine what damage we take doing all of the day-to-day stuff that's normal. On the other hand, if you just layed in bed all day, you wouldn't need to sleep as much. You wouldn't have as much damage done to your body, and you wouldn't be getting as much information into your brain for it to process.
I thought it had to do with neurotransmitters and stuff.
No, it has nothing to do with that. Neurotransmitters are broken down and destroyed as soon as they're used, I see no reason why you'd need to sleep for them, or why sleep would effect them at all.
Then how come I remember several of my dreams? Not just a handful, but almost all of them. I don't do any special training or anything like that, yet I was told by a monk that I acted like it or something. (I've heard certain monks do dream meditation or something like that. supposedly Zen monks I think, can anyone confirm?) Sometimes I slip in and out of conciousness during the dream, and could almost control my body with my subcouncious mind, what would cause or allow me to do that? I even read in my sleep once (an actual book in the real world) and bookmarked the new page, but only became aware of it the next morning. I became aware of it because after I "ut the book down", looked around and the walls of my room became warped and strange. Everything melted away into nothing and then I woke up shortly after, having been asleep the whole time. How is that possible? Is it neural, spiritual, or is there something else going on when I sleep? I can't even begin to fathom the number of times I have fallen in my dream, then awaken to feel a rush of energy surge through my body, as if I had fallen in real life, or times where I actually felt pain in my dreams. once in a dream I felt a sharp pain in my pelvis area and after I woke up, I could still feel it, as if someone had just kicked me in the groin. How can you bring pain out from a dream, that seems almost impossible, and there is a line between the illusion of pain and actually feeling pain. I actually felt pain, and it was caused by nothing as far as I could tell, how can that be, seriously? I ask again, HOW?! It seems to me like it has something to do with empathy, like some people can actually feel invisble energy coming from other people or things, and influencing your dreams. I can remember many times falling asleep, and a tv was playing, next thing I know, the tv show filters into your dream, and you wake up to see that the tv actually affected your dream. How many people who remember their dreams can honestly say that? Where does science play into the seemingly impossible things dreams are capable of?
I'm not going to explain everything, when you can easily find all of your answers if you did your own research. All of these will be answers to most or all of your questions.
I can't find answers for other questions, but I will answer them myself. Your subconcious is what causes dreams. When you're asleep, your subconcious mind is awake and rampant, thinking up random things, and these are your dreams. If you hear something while your subconcious is thinking up stuff, it'll think about it, and suddenly, bam, it's in your dream. Perfectly natural. Personal experience proves so. One morning, a dog was barking outside my window, suddenly, I'm being chased by a dog in my dream. Therefore, to your question of "How many people who remember their dreams can possibly say that", I say, "Plenty."
I don't think I found anything on sleep reading, though there should be a link up there about sleep walking. Same concept. Read up on that. It's a neural thing.
I'm afraid I can't supply the rest of the information right now, but if I get the chance, I'll put another response later on. Hope this helps. I found all of these by googling the question form of your statements. "Why do I read while I sleep" brought up "Sleepwalking" "Why do I feel pain in my sleep" "Why do real life sounds effect my dreams". Try it some time.
Hmmm, That answered a number of my questions, but an older friend of mine disagrees with a number of those points. He can also remember several vivid dreams and experiences some things in his sleep. He claims that when he is asleep, he can't tell the difference between his dreams and reality until the dream ends. Aside from that, he doesn't think you can feel pain from a dream or hear sounds and be influenced by them. He thinks sleepwalking is a definite possibility, but "sleep-reading" is not... He is rather smart, and I do not take what he says lightly, so that is why I asked the questions I did.
Well, friend, I'm glad you take your friend's opinion to heart, because for the most part he's correct. Most of the time you can't tell the difference between reality and dreams until the dreams end because your subconcious isn't trying to. If something happens in your dream, and you randomly think "Is this real?" You'll suddenly notice the things that make no sense. And all of a sudden, you're lucid dreaming! Go punch your boss, just make sure you can fly first.
As for feeling pain, I've never felt pain in a dream that felt real, so I can't speak for that, but as it's never happened for me, I say people over-react.
As for hearing something, tell him to really think about it. If you're thinking of something, while awake, and someone says something or you hear something, doesn't that effect what you were just thinking of? Think Daydreaming. Maybe it's never happened to him, but it's happened to me plenty of times. I'll be thinking of what I should fix for supper tonight, and suddenly someone says something about some kind of animal and I'm thinking about eating that animal. Since dreams are just your mind thinking, it's the exact same concept, except it's a different part of your brain doing the thinking.
