Clearly my eyes aren’t* open and I cannot take in external visual stimuli in my dreams, however I experience them similar to the visual experience in my minds eye or imagination or whathaveyou. Similarly I feel like I experience something akin to touch or feel (like the occasional flying or falling dream, or the feel of grass or something).
I don’t recall having anything similar to smell or sound in a dream though (except occasionally hearing a real sound while waking up that wasn’t actually part of the dream) What’s your experience?
Yes to both, and I can also read in my dreams as well, which is popularly thought to be impossible. It’s not gibberish either but cohesive headlines in a newspaper or something. I am most likely abnormal in this sense since I also appear to have hyperphantasia, so what applies to me may not extrapolate to the general population!
I can read to, but the text changes each time I read it.
I’ve recently been trying to train myself to lucid dream frequently. The first thing anyone will tell you is to keep a dream journal, and holy shit does it help. Started journaling them on the 2nd of January, and even just a week later I started having very vivid dreams every night. All senses included; and as of a couple days ago, fairly critical thinking (mental math). I haven’t managed to have a “lucid dream” yet, but I’ll get there.
For the sake of completeness, a lucid dream is a dream in which you’ve become aware that you are dreaming. Whether you can control the dream or feel that it’s vivid is a separate concern.
Pretty cool stuff.
I have never thought about it for smell and sound but I cannot see in my dreams and feel like my eyes are glued shut. Sometimes during a dream I will try really hard to open my eyes and it causes me to wake up. I have aphantasia so it is probably related. I think my dreams are mostly in concepts
I’m sure on everything except smell. I was surprised too.
Smell, not that I remember. Sound, all the time. I’ll have conversations or hear people saying things, sometimes in different languages. Sometimes a word comes to mind that seems totally real, but usually it’s not. Some of the more detailed dreams have had storms, sirens, earthquakes (that eerie rumbling they have). Or even music.
Sound yes smell no
In the past I only remembered having dreams about 3-6 times a year and very little what they were about. I only needed 6,5 hours of sleep.
Then I had COVID something broke.
Now I dream almost every night and remember more what they are about. Compared to the previous it’s like whole another reality with all the bells and whistles. Now I need 7,5 hours of sleep.
I’m actually happy with the change.
Are you able to picture things in your imagination normally in your waking hours? For example, if I said picture a ball, how deeply could you describe it? Could you see the colors? Could you see the reflections? What is the material made of?
You mean do I have aphantasia? No. On the contrary. My parents parents tested me as a child, because I was a really introverted, emotionally calm and had trouble with writing. They were afraid that I was on the autism spectrum.
Turns out that I was just a calm kid with severe case of dysgraphic dyslexia with high average IQ. Only thing I was gifted in was spatial perception.
So yes, I can visualuze things in my minds eye and do 3D-sculpting, however I don’t think the reflection are really reflections. Just something I fool myself with. I can do some reflective designing if I focus, but something simple and nowhere in the “raytracing” level.
Dreams however tend to be more on a conceptual level, even graphically. You just don’t mind because your consciousness level is lowered. When you reminisce your dreams after you’re awake, you automatically reconstruct it and fill the blanks to make it more compatible with your awakened state.
It’s different for different people. This is a “Do you have an internal monologue?” question.
