Mind model. How we are able to do anything in a dream.

I recently had a couple of discussions on dreams and stuff with 2 people. One was very intelligent and open minded (lenore the cute dead girl) and she has now joined the forum actually! The other was this guy who was very naive and would not accept anything. Talk about being narrow minded! More like CLOSED minded! Anyway…the conversation we had was rather interesting and I though some people might find it a good read so I thought I’d make this post. It aint the conversation itself…it’s a summary of what I was talking about! Here goes…

When I described lucid dreaming to someone and they said it sounded like day dreaming. It couldn’t be more far from the truth! Someone else said to me that dreaming is far more real than day dreaming and that its almost as real as waking life. That is wrong as well…dreaming is just as real as RL. The mind model proves that the dream world is as real to you as RL.

Everything I’m about to say is in relation to the real world. Do not assume anything about dreaming yet…

You cannot see.
You cannot smell.
You cannot taste.
You cannot touch.
You cannot hear.

See the computer in front of you right now? If you said yes then you are wrong. It might not really be there. It’s all about the “mind model”.

You don’t see…your eyes do. Your eyes are instruments used to detect light. Your eyes see the computer FIRST HAND then pass SECOND HAND data to your brain and your mind makes a model of the world using all the data from your senses. Everything you experience is actually in your head…you don’t experience the world. You experience a model of the world made in your mind…

Your mind model is perfect…perfectly models the real world. Your mind model includes all the physical objects that your eyes see in the real world. If they didn’t then you may walk into a tree which you somehow can’t see!

There is no human body part which is used as an instrument to detect radio waves. Therefore there is no data sent to the brain about radio waves…therefore they are not included in our mind model. Radio waves are as real as light and sound but we don’t experience them in our world due to the lack of information sent to our brains for the mind model.

OK. Hope people followed that. Read it again before complaining to me.

You experience the world in the exact same way when you dream. Using the exact same mind model. Only difference is where the data comes from…

Most of the senses are shut down during sleep so very little data is sent to be used in the mind model. Therefore we take extra data from our minds such as memories and wishes. It is important to understand that we feel the same as we do when we are awake…we feel like we are experiencing the real world.

When we become lucid we gain conscious control of the dream. Now… in RL it is possible to have good visualization skills…I can clearly make someone’s face appear in front of me. But it’s still imagination…it isn’t really in your vision right there in front of you. It’s impossible to change or edit the data being sent to us via our eyes and ears etc. But in a dream we don’t get the data from our eyes and ears… We get it from our minds.

A dream is made entirely by yourself. By your mind. You usually don’t realise this though and that’s why you “go with the flow” and think you are living the real world and get on with your life. By becoming lucid you realise that the whole world around you is created by your mind. Now…if the WHOLE mind model is created by you…then that means the WHOLE mind model is in your mind. Therefore you can change ANYTHING. Literally…if you can imagine it then you can do it. It is actually impossible to think of something that is impossible in a dream.

Sorry about that guys. It was quite badly written I’m sure and maybe a bit pointless but I felt like sharing it. The person I was talking to accepts how we experience the world through a mind model but will not accept that in a dream we can do anything. The fact that it’s in our mind is why anything can be done!

Anyway… one last thing. If you did not know about the mind model before reading this…then PLEASE stop sometimes and think about the world around you. Think about how everything you are experiencing is just a model based on reality. This will help your ability to become lucid if you can comprehend this.

Thanks for sharing, Pedro. :smile: I read your explanation of the mind model before in the VILD topic, but I didn’t quite understand it. Recently I bought EWLD, and it spoke of the same thing - and then it hit me! It’s so strange, but true… I realised that the mind model existed, and how it exists. First I thought it would disturb my sense of reality, but actually, the mind model is just logical. It’s how your mind works.

I’ll just quote the paragraph from EWLD that, combined with your earlier post about the mind model, caused this sudden realisation:

“Although the human brain is far more complex than that of the frog, it works on the same basic principles. Your brain accomplishes its word modeling task so well, that you ordinarily aren’t aware that it is modeling anything. You look with your eyes, and you see. The experience of visual perception seems as straightforward as looking out a window and simply seeing what is there. Nonetheless, seeing, hearing, feeling or perceiving through any other sense is a process of mental modeling, a simulation of reality. The contents of your consciousness, that is, your current experiences, are constructed and depend on your present purposes, what you are doing and what relevant information is currently available.”

Having read this, an example of the mind model, perhaps even proof for myself, came to mind.

You only consciously perceive what is relevant to you at the given moment. The keyword is consciously. Have you ever been busy with something, completely focused on it - like typing, reading or watching tv - so much that someone was talking to you but you didn’t hear what they were saying?

That’s it, you see. Your ears DO hear what they’re saying. Your brain DOES process the sensory input. It might even slightly process the sounds, recognise the language and begin to interpret the words. But because you are not focusing on that other person, because that is not relevant to what you’re currently experiencing, it is not placed into your conscious, aware model of reality. Thus, you think you didn’t hear what they were saying. You did hear it. You just weren’t aware of it. In this way, you might even respond with a standard phrase as a reflex, without you being aware of doing so.

This was pretty shocking to me. I got a feeling, both mentally and physically, that the world around me was like a computer game. That I was walking in virtual reality. I felt like I was looking at myself placed into a threedimensional movie that was the world around me. I realized I was like a machine with different functions, senses, that helped me to perceive the world around me. That they were tools. I imagined how without those senses the world around me disappeared and turned black first, then nothingness - no touch, no vision, no sound, no smell, no taste - NOTHING. And then I realised that this is the core of yourself, without senses, without a mind model and reality-bound prejudice. A black nothingness. It’s frightening… and strangely assuring. Because I realised that even without all my senses and my perceptions, I still existed.

I live my life daily not realising or practicing most of what I just said. It’s too difficult to stay so focused and aware every moment of the day. But the realisation is there - now if only I can implement it.

Thanks Pedro :3 (and thanks EWLD :smile:)

And to conclude with another EWLD quote:
“In short, to our brains, dreaming of doing something is equivalent to actually doing it. This finding explains why dreams seem so real. To the brain, they are real.”

Exactly. I do not need to say anymore :happy:

Nice post Ashvura :smile:

Firstly, I completely understand what you mean about the whole “mind model” idea. Secondly, can I point out that dreams are only as real as real life if you are thinking about it from a subjective point of view. If you took a completely objective point of view (which is sort of impossible, but that’s irrelevant for now) then you would know that dreams are just some neurological signals inside your brain, whereas real life is, well, real.

I’m not sure how well I explained that.

this has ben known for over 2000 years… it isn’t a new theory

“man is made in the image of god” man is basically a very complex brain, and that brain is a model of the universe… hmn

I didn’t say this was a new theory…just that some people don’t know it.

And dreams aint real. But they are real to you and you experience them the same way you experience the real world…through a mind model. If both worlds are experienced through a mind model then they should both be just as real…as far as you are concerned. When I say dreams are as real life I don’t mean the way you think…I know its in the brain and real life is…real. But I’m talking about how you experience these 2 worlds. I know the literal difference.

My newfound experience with WILDs even more confirms the mind model theory. When I enter into a dream consciously through WILD, I’m in my bedroom, and it’s dark - and everything looks just like it would look if I really was awake. It takes a reality check or two to be sure that I’m in a dream.

Why does the room look exactly like it would if I were to be awake? Why do FA’s seem so real, even to the point of you going to work or school and doing normal things fully believing that you’ve woken up and started your day? Your mind creates the perception of the world around based on your preconceptions and expectations of it. I expect the room to be dark when I wake up, and so it’s dark in a WILD. In the morning I expect to get out of bed, grab my clothes and head into the shower. I’ve done that routine a dozen times in a number of FA’s.

It all together brings up the question: what is reality? It’s a heckuva lot more stable than dreams, of course. But the reality you perceive is the mind model that you have of it, a simulation of reality constructed with all relevant factors. Like Pedro said, both the dream world and physical reality are perceived through the mind model. To your brain, both worlds are real. The experiences of both worlds are real. It’s no wonder that after a nightmare you may wake up paranoid, or after a happy dream you may wake up excited. It’s the same as having a bad or a good day.

You can probably establish the realness of this reality by its stability and your own selfawareness. But based on strictly sensory perception - how much do you know about reality?

pedro,
one question - where do you have in your mind model things that we’re not perceiving directly, but we consider its existence (like microwaves or particles)? Are they a part of mind model?

Great post Ashvura, and your right!

“Dreams are real while they are happening. Can we say anymore about life?”.

I’m glad you understand what you just said coz so many poepl don’t! Yes, we experience both “worlds” the exact same. Your post really summed up everything quite nicely…especially about the relevant factors…such as where we get the information from. It comes from different places but it’s still the same kind of data, used in the same model.

Hi Pav, could you please post again or edit that coz I found it hard to understand. I don’t think you fully uinderstand how the mind model works… Or what it is. Sorry if I’m wrong tho! :grin: We don’t experience the real world directly…we are given data on the real world…the data is sound, light and all the information we gather from the other 3 senses. This data is used to create a model which is everything you have ever experienced. Like, if your eyes somehow got it wrong, then you might walk into something that doesn’t seem to be there but really is in the real world… This is actually quite hard to write about lol. Running out of things to say that I haven’t said already!

I understand, you get data from your senses and build a mind model. But some things, like radio waves, cannot be seen directly. However, you can suppose they exist, for example using aparature that can detect them. You can’t perceive them directly, but you can know that they exist, like everything else.

Umm thats correct.

But using apparatus only changed your knowledge but not your mind model or the way you experience the world. You’d use an instrument…liek a radio or some kind of monitor. Then oyur eyes wold take the info from the monitor (or ears from the radio) then input it as light or sound into your mind like usual. So an apparatus does not actually directly do anything to your mind model. You just “know” sumthin…like “knowing” that your fave film is on 2moro or something. It would just be knowledge.