Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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Michael McMahon
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

Post by Michael McMahon »

"When something allows no light to pass through, it is opaque. When something allows some light to pass through, it is translucent. If it allows all light to pass through, it is transparent." (writingexplained org)

Our usual visual imagination might be 90% transparent. The imagery in a semi-lucid or half-conscious dream could be described as translucent. A lucid dream can produce a mixture of opaque and translucent oneiric hallucinations.
Michael McMahon
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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A lucid dreamer can recognise the dream as perceptually real but in a way that's internal to their own mind.
"A pseudohallucination is an involuntary sensory experience vivid enough to be regarded as a hallucination, but which is recognised by the person experiencing it as being subjective and unreal. By contrast, a "true" hallucination is perceived as entirely real by the person experiencing it."
For example I don't expect to meet other lucid dreamers in my nightly dream. However we could interpret our shared waking reality differently as if there were 7 billion participants in "God's" lucid dream!
"Mutual dreaming is the idea that two or more people can share the same dream environment."
https://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com ... aming.html
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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This was a messy dream I just experienced. I was in a high hotel room. I looked out the window and saw a woman shouting on the ground outside. She was being forcibly driven away by someone. Next thing I was attacked as I walked into the hallway. I grabbed my tennis racket and hit back. What was so strange were the characters; an anthropomorphised bag of sweets, a former friend and another man. I won the battle and showed no mercy to the living bag of sweets by throwing them to their death out the window for their insults. The man was injured and I put him out the door and locked it so that he couldn't return. My erstwhile friend was crying that he was pressurised into attacking me by the others. I realised how much I'd injured and cried with him. I told him it was OK.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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A dream I had not too long ago put me in a restaurant at first. I was ordering fish to take away when my friend accidentally touched the meat on sale. We were then forced to buy it but the friend kindly payed for me. When I ate it I was surprised how tasty it was and thanked him. As I walked out of the restaurant I noticed I was at a local hospital. I remarked how much it had changed with the extra cafés and shops. Next thing I was weighing up my travel plans and decided to go to an island. In the next scene I was climbing up a mountain with a large group. We were stuck crossing a few boulders when I noticed waves beside me. The island disappeared and everyone was floating. I didn't mind at first because the water felt warm. However there were a lot of trucks that were floating towards us. I heard people say it was a "trap". I swam underwater to duck under a truck and I very quickly woke up.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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This dream of late was 20% conscious or one could also say 80% unconscious. I wasn't self-aware but had an extra amount of emotionality and intentionality. I returned to work in an old job I had over a year ago. I reported to duty on the top floor of the office block. Afterwards I avoided a giant spider on my way back to the ground floor by jumping around it. Reprising an old role made me think of my progression through life since I last left the job. I was surprised the job was still available. I was going to be an intern for the first few days and then resume full employment afterwards. Part of me was disappointed at returning to square one and another part of me was content to have a routine again. The dream moved on and now I was getting a taxi to restaurant. The driver didn't read the map properly and I was dropped off at a shopping centre. I looked around the different floors and when I didn't see it I tried to get a lift the ground floor. The lift was stuck and I noticed the shopping centre had an unusual feature. The walkways in the centre of each floor would themselves descend or rise to the other floors. The railings would often disappear during the motion and reappear when we landed at a new floor. I rechecked the map and saw the restaurant was actually near a park and that's when dream was about to end.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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Moving an an upper floor's walkway would usually be too expensive in real life but of course dreams aren't financially limited!

[yid=uFvizAQHJz8[/yid]
Moving Stairs Scene - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Michael McMahon
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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I forgot to add the second bracket in the video link:
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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Finding a function of sleep presupposes that waking life is more important than dreaming. Viewing life as a dream however might imply that we live just to find more exciting content in our nightly dreams! If you live just to sleep then you've got problems!
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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A dream fresh in my memory had me visiting someone at their home who was visited by a nurse. The nurse exclaimed that this is how he felt in his reality, as if the source of the anxiety was invisible to others due to our metaphysical separation. This reminds me of how a vetinarian technically has a harder job than a doctor because a pet animal can't speak about their symptoms! There were a few other tidbits in the dream. I admired skyscrapers from the roof of my hotel much like I was on the outskirts of New York. I took photos of the nightscape and sent them to relatives. I also went walking to a shoreline with a guard dog.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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Veterinarian!
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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The camera position in a movie can instantly relocate because the viewer is seeing an edited version. Similarly we might be able to teleport our eyes to a different viewing perspective in a dream.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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Michael McMahon wrote: June 24th, 2022, 6:43 pm Finding a function of sleep presupposes that waking life is more important than dreaming. Viewing life as a dream however might imply that we live just to find more exciting content in our nightly dreams!
For me, this recalls the Taoist story:
Of all the famous Taoist parables attributed to Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) (369 BCE to 286 BCE), few are more famous than the story of the butterfly dream, which serves as an articulation of Taoism's challenge toward definitions of reality vs. illusion. The story has had a substantial impact on later philosophies, both Eastern and Western.

The story, as translated by Lin Yutang, goes like this:

"Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things."

This short story points to some exciting and much-explored philosophical issues, stemming from the relationship between the waking state and the dream-state, or between illusion and reality:

How do we know when we’re dreaming, and when we’re awake?
How do we know if what we’re perceiving is “real” or a mere “illusion” or “fantasy”?
Is the “me” of various dream-characters the same as or different from the “me” of my waking world?
How do I know, when I experience something I call “waking up,” that it is a waking up to “reality” as opposed to merely waking up into another level of dream?
Text 👆 quoted from here.

What is the difference between dreaming and 'waking' life? Charles Tart has done a lot of work in this general area.



Full disclosure: I haven't read the whole thread, and could be adding ideas that have already been thoroughly considered here in this topic.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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We know being a butterfly was a dream when we awake because when we awake we get our information, not from memories as in the dream, but from the outer environment including the needs of our bodies.
When we awake we have to be active and make active choices, not flit around looking beautiful and drinking nectar.
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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Belindi wrote: July 4th, 2022, 8:09 am We know being a butterfly was a dream when we awake because when we awake we get our information, not from memories as in the dream, but from the outer environment including the needs of our bodies.
When we awake we have to be active and make active choices, not flit around looking beautiful and drinking nectar.
Interesting. I think the point is that when we're dreaming, we don't realise we're dreaming. And therefore, by implication, what we call "being awake" could also, conceivably, be a different dreaming state?
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Re: Is Dreaming an Encryption Procedure?

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Belindi wrote: July 4th, 2022, 8:09 am We know being a butterfly was a dream when we awake because when we awake we get our information, not from memories as in the dream, but from the outer environment including the needs of our bodies.
Perhaps seeing an animal in a dream would be like you were watching a nature documentary. Unless animals can have rational thoughts like yourself but lack the oral mechanisms to communicate them! Or perhaps you could be rewatching one of your past lives!
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