I rewatched an episode of Batman: The Animated Series where Bruce realizes he is trapped in a dream world due to the fact he can't read any written text. He figures this out when he states that reading comprehension is on the right side of the brain while dreaming is on the left. (Anyone seen this episode?) Now I know fiction is fiction and I'm no expert in this field, but this concept doesn't make complete sense.

Is it true you don't actually "read" in dreams? I remember seeing written (blurry) text in some dreams, but I'm guessing that, before I can read a full sentence, I already know...what is being said? Anyone "read" anything while dreaming?

I haven't had enough sleep in over 7 months to even get a chance to dream. :-P

I don't sleep

That's rather funny because the major language areas of the brain are on the left side.

Yes. I'm just quoting what Bruce said.

Yeah, I remember that episode.

I don't recall ever reading in any of my dreams; not even billboards.

I remember the episode too, and I've thought about that myself..

I'm pretty sure that I've read stuff in dreams.

I checked the forums in a dream and read them and remembered what I read when I woke up (something about jedikirby attacking someone with a chainsaw).

So yes, you can read in dreams.

Don't they talk about this in Waking Life also?

You can read in dreams, but it's hard to read the same thing multiple times and have it read exactly the same. A few weeks ago I managed to get lucid after reading a house number twice and having the numbers change the second time. It's one of the "reality checks" you can do to get lucid, and from there you can do just about anything.

I read in the last dream that I can remember like a week ago. It was a newspaper or something.

That is one of the only episodes I do remember. That's awesome.

Darkjedibob hit it on the head.

The few times I've gone lucid, I've done it by looking at a clock, having it read one time, and then looking at it again and having it read something totally different. That sort of triggers the "oh i'm dreaming" realization.

But yeah. You can read things in dreams, but you can't always, sometimes it gives me headaches (real? dream headaches? I'm not sure), and it often says different things each time you read it.

Yeah, pretty much with Darkjedibob said. Sometimes when there is text in a dream I wont be able to read it because it's blurry, but I'll already know what it says because I can usually guess, or just make it up. Or already know, in some cases at least.

When you enter REM sleep (dream) your entire brain is very highly active.

Yeah...a few months ago I actually did the recommended one of looking at my hand and seeing six fingers, heh. Another time I opened the door to the third floor of my middle school (never mind that this wing only has one floor) and instead of the third floor, it was the roof of a parking garage.

Good topic.

Lucid dreaming has attracted my interest for some time now. Unfortunately, so has the internet and other distractions, which have kept me from achieving the correct conditions for lucid dreaming. Now that I think of it, I don't think I have ever seen text or even clocks in my dreams, clear or otherwise. However, there was one experience where I may have approached lucidity. I recall a dream where I directed a seemingly conscious effort to picking up an object in the dream, and did so. It was the closest I've ever gotten.

There have been tales told about the powerful nature of these experiences... One of my friends from home has said that through practice of lucid dreaming, one can learn things in their dreams that they are able to take back to the waking world. I have found nothing that give me cause to believe this yet, but the important thing is that I WANT to believe. Has anyone else heard such things?

This thread should be about how cool Batman the Animated Series is.

I believe it's entirely possible to learn things through dreams and recall them upon waking. There have been several times when I've had a problem on my mind and dreamt of a solution.

Also, I frequently realize I'm dreaming, and am able to control my actions. I can also imagine something and have it come true (ie. my dream self thinks about a table with a vase on it being behind me, I then turn around and it's there). The thinking about things and them materializing thing happens even when I don't realize I'm dreaming. This is especially common for me in nightmares. I'll think something like "damn, hope that guy doesn't cut off my hand" and then it'll of course happen. It kind of sucks, because in my experience during a nightmare I have a tendency to imagine the worst things possible, which makes them come true.

I know, I'm rambling, it's very late.

I most definitely read in my dreams. I even remember reading a different ending to LOTR.

I remember reading on dreams, but I actually don't remember if I've read clearly something or if I've just assumed in the dream that I've read something and then remembering that I've read them.

My dreams are usually too fast-paced for reading or getting a 2nd glance at much.

I did have a lucid dream once, I suddenly realised I was dreaming, and then jumped through a window.

Yeah, looking back I can't remember if I just "thought" I read something. For example, you see a red octagon-shaped sign with white text in the middle, you just assume the text says STOP.

I think I can remember text just being blurry.

When I'm at my best for lucid dreams, I can will people to appear and materialize objects in my hands. Doesn't happen a lot, but when I was younger I taught myself how to fly in my dreams, and from there I also learned how to breath underwater, and what I'm working on now is phasing through solid objects.

Good god, that is totally amazing. So how the hell do you do that?

I've been able to fly in my dreams, and have gotten better at it each time. It's been quite a long time since last it happened, and I really would like to do it again. Don't even care if I can't bring that skill back with me. Doing it in the dream-world is good enough.

EDIT: Okay, that didn't sound as coherent as I wanted. Let me be frank- Do you have any tips for creating favourable conditions for lucidity? I did some reading on a medical website and they reccomended such things as trying to remember to look at your hand or read some text while askng yourself if you are dreaming or not. (They reccomended doing this frequently during the day as well just to lock the pattern into your mind.) They also mentioned something that I have been doing for a couple years now, which is concentrating on a certain thought while falling asleep, in order to remember it during sleep. It works quite well on the occasions when I wish to wake up at a certain time, but doubt I will be able to do so.

Are these the sort of methods you tried yourself, or did your sharp child's mind concoct even more clever methods? (I try to make sure never to underestimate the cunning of the young.)

If you can, try stepping through a mirror. I did this once, and ended up in a place called the "dream forge". I don't remember what I saw very well, but I recall it looking like like a steel mill, but all the people were made of a silvery mirror-like substance (kind of like the T1000 in terminator). I also recall there being portals, like you see in video games like Quake 3 (where you can see into the area that the portal leads to). Presumably, these lead to other mirrors in the "real world".

I actually have a list of things that I try to keep in mind that are potential dream signs, mostly people that I know are several hundred miles away, and then there's reading, checking your short-term memory (if you can't remember 5 minutes ago, you might be dreaming) and the basic "wtf?" trigger, which is anything that's not possible in the real world. Really the best way to do it is to do these checks a lot while you're awakre, many, many times a day so it becomes second nature. If you start doing it automatically in real life, then the chances of you doing the checks in dreams go up, thus increasing the chance that you'll become lucid. There's other tricks and tips, and you can find those all over the web.

Oh, and keeping a dream journal helps quite a bit too. Right after you wake up, don't move and try to recall your dreams in bed. Start from the end and work backwards if you have to, then write/type it out and save it. Later when you have a bunch of them, you can look for trends that you personally can use as lucidity triggers.

When I was younger (elementary school) it was pretty much automatic that I could realize I was dreaming in most cases, and that's when I started teaching myself to fly and materializing stuff, because I knew physics didn't apply (omg Matrix ). Getting people to appear sometimes is as simple as thinking to yourself "I know they're right behind me" and then turn around.


I was trying to do a door, and I managed to get my palm in about an inch or so, but that was pressing hard, too. I haven't many opportunities to work on it.

The portals can also be another lucidity trigger if the doorway leads to someplace completely different, say and internal door in your house dumps you out on a highway somewhere, i've deon that before, too.

I hate you guys.

I've gotten lucid a few times in my dreams before, but that usually resulted in a LOSS of ability. It really sucked. Like, I was flying, and then I figured out I was dreaming, and I couldn't fly anymore.

And then one time I realized I was dreaming and I stopped being invincible (I was being shot at) and I died and woke up.

I've been keeping a journal (as well as I can) for about three years now. I think the "WTF trigger" should work best in my case- I'll keep the trigger system in mind and start working on that, say... now. As for other trends, I commonly see friends and other acquaintances in places that are familiar to me but are not the sort of place I'd expect to meet such a person. Another common theme is the decrepit, poorly lit, often night-time setting. In fact, almost all of my dreams are this way. I often find myself in dark buildings during night, and several of them have been grungy and in disrepair. However, as forboding as the atmosphere may seem, the dreams are always the opposite, and I never feel unsafe or afraid. It is as if the darkness is my element. Perhaps those of you with a bit more experience have something to say about that.

One thing that has really changed over time is the way in which I inhabit the dream world. When I first started recording them, (and for a long time beforehand) I would often have the sensation that I was viewing the dream through a camera, as if it were a movie. There were other times where I would view the dream through a character, seeing and feeling the same things they felt. It was rare that I would ever have any control over what these characters did. (I watched dreams through female characters a couple times... your center of balance feels weird, females.) Anyway, over this time, things have shifted completely. Now, I always dream as my own self, as opposed to only occasionally doing so. I also have complete control over what I do, it's just as if there's another part of me calling the shots.


Someone said they dreamed another ending of Lord of the Rings... Would you mind sharing that? Man, there was this one time that I dreamed that I was an Orcish extra for the films. (First Tolkien-themed dream after years of reading those books, gah.) I just remember looking at myself in the mirror and seeing this blue-hued one-eyed orc face staring back at me, and it was just about the coolest thing ever. Then I think I ended up hanging out with some other actors at the cafeteria or something. Hardly a climactic ending, but it was a lot of fun.

i had a dream last night that was part Heroes, part Jurassic Park 2, part Bones, and part...well, we wont get into that...

i was lucid for most of it, and enjoyed every minute. so much so that i slept in and was 2 hours late for work.

That's wierd, although I know that some people wake up after realizing they're lucid. That's another thing, I can force myself awake if I want to. I used to do that with nightmares when I was younger.