Why we dream during sleep | Matt Walker and Lex Fridman
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- čas přidán 23. 06. 2024
- Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Matt Walker: Sleep | L...
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Matt Walker is a sleep scientist at Berkley, author of Why We Sleep, and the host of a new podcast called The Matt Walker Podcast.
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I had no idea Chuck Norris knew so much about dreams
😅
How would he not?
Chuck Norris once won a stare contest against the sun! He knows everything!
Lol!... yeah from 40 years ago!
Walker dream ranger
Sometimes I remember that I remembered a dream but can’t actually remember the dream.
& the more you try to remember it, the more it fades away
So true!!
@Joshua Bojos THC suppresses REM sleep & that’s where all the magic (dreams) happens. If you smoke 3-4 hours before bed, you have a better chance of catching a dream, but 2 hours & under or with any edibles ingested, chances are it won’t happen.
Dream recall. You can strengthen it. Dream journals help.
True
I have a recurring dream about my best friend who passed away. In my dream I can’t understand how he’s alive and I always say “but I thought you died” and he always responds with “nah… I’m definitely still here and tells me not to worry”. Always good to see him.
My little brother died & I'd freak tf out if I saw him in a dream
Same with my father. At first I hated it but then I realized that these are the only time I'll see him again so they're now my favorite dreams, the most impactful. And mine are the exact same way, he won't bring it up, but we'll have a good time. The only times I truly laugh in a dream is with him.
Mine is exact same. I see ppl that have passed like my dad, grandpa, and a couple different friends in dreams. I told my grandpa that "this isn't real, you died." He said "it is real and don't worry." Everything will work out. It felt so real. It's my favorite dreams. But also it's weird that in dreams you can travel thru TIME and SPACE instantly. I can be 15yrs old in Florida and the next second be in present day "40yrs old" in Kentucky. It's also weird when I see people I never met but it's like we always known each other.
I dream that my parents are still alive. I started asking what year it is realizing they were no longer living. my dad seemed upset with me because of this and I haven't dreamed of them being yet alive much since. I'm sorry to disappoint you dad. That wasn't my goal.
Was he an objectively decent guy? Dreams have interpretations. That's all beyond the reach of science.
I have seen many dreams that came true. I'd even get warnings!
Hence the phrase "sleep on it " in relation to dreams as a mechanism for resolving and healing problems and painful experiences during dreams
Exactly. Jung talked about the significance of dreams over 50 years ago. Old news
@@sloaiza81Oh please! Carl Jung barely got things rolling in the dream department.
Dreams are such a beautiful thing, lucid dreaming was a huge thing for me as a kid and I can remember soooo many good, bad, weird dreams I could talk for hours, a lot of which were very vivid and could physically feel all the surroundings I was in
Do you still lucid dream? I always wanted to do that, i've tried keeping a dream journal and stuff like that, tried all the different methods. One of the reasons I wear a watch (regular analog watch) is because I wanted to get in the habit of looking at it so i could notice if i was dreaming (they say in dreams, things like watches are all screwed up and make no sense, if you notice that it can be a trigger for a lucid dream) but nothing's worked for me so far so i gave up on it. I even got very close a few times with the WILD method, i could feel my mind going into sleep mode, i heard what sounded like a static droning sound and started to see white lights but I could never fully enter dream world
I’ve had 3 lucid dreams and they were the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. Absolute control only limitation is the imagination
yea it’s definitly a struggle I sadly can’t do it as much now cause I don’t get as much sleep but it’s still possible,I was about 8 when I was mainly active in lucid dreams and through high school but you should never force it to happen but be aware that you can make it happen,and a really nice exercise you can do, it can feel scary at a certain point but it helps if you get past it, but you lay in bed on your back and don’t move a single muscle the whole time, but you have to trick your body to go to sleep before your brain, almost like sleep paralysis, when laying you’re gonna “fall asleep” but you’ll have your eyes closed stay aware of being awake don’t fall asleep completely make your body start to fall asleep first and will send you signals like an itch somewhere or a sudden impulse to move a muscle just fight it and don’t move, eventually your body will fall asleep, you might feel weight to your chest, that from everything going into sleep, and you’ll end up being in a weird state of conscience/non conscienceness, like asleep but awake, could hear random noises from everywhere cause your brain starts to dig into dreaming and gets confused with reality, and then you just pass out completely, it makes it more likely to happen cause your brain is active while your body put you in rem sleep and I believe a lot of good can come out of dreaming, I get a lot more deja vu now like constantly, and when that moment would happen I’d be able to play it out exactly how I saw it.
@@dthwsh9781 yeah i've tried it that way and got very close a few times. My hands and feet started going numb and i heard sound like muffled rain. But I guess i got nervous and i snapped myself out of it. I wasn't really scared, it was just like "ooh man its about to happen!" and I couldn't stay calm.
I thought I was the only one that could lucid dream until my early 20s. It was kinda like a super power lol
The part about spending energy having a reason, makes a lot of sense
This is so true.. I just went through a rough break up and I’ve been having the wildest dreams since then. As time is passing I wake up thinking WOW what a hell of a dream, related to the topic. But I can never put my finger on what I’m feeling, do I call it peace, healing, idk so strange but this video caught me at the right time with what I’m going through in life.
A dream is your subconscious mind in a conscious state.
Read Carl Jung. Dreams are messages from the unconcious in a symbolistic way
Me too, man
@@AlexGamer-df1ig Have, and have it. The subconscious bridges the conscious mind with the unconscious.
Ong
An aspect of dreaming I find significant (maybe) is that I am always in the present and fully involved in the scenario. no past or future
Lack of awareness
Holy shot you’re right. Plus, time is a concept
I know im dreaming. I am in a body when i dream.it feels like me allthoughi never see me. I am just taking part in whatever happends with all my emotions intact terrified or just having a blast.. i wake up laughing every now and then. Especially when im on my back and are at the end of my Rem cycles.
I been smoking weed for over 20 years and I tried to quit and I'd have 10 to 15 different dreams a night it was consistent and left me feeling extremely exhausted.
have you quit yet? me , ive been for 17 years or so. planing on quiting too, ive cutt down alot first befor i kick the habbit. im kinda worried about these crazy dreams tho.
@@Seraphim190. no, hard for me to even slow down much less quit but I'll try once more soon. If I had a guarantee the dreams would become less of a drain over time I might have already tried. Some people don't seem to get an influx in dreams even heavy long term smokers maybe you'll be one of those, good luck.
@@zetacentari2547 i partake 4 days a week and 3 days off. 2 fitness/sleep rings show me have a huge rebound of rem/dreams when on those days off. on the 4 nights on, almost no rem sleep is registered but a LOT of deep sleep is. it's interesting to say the least
@@daveywave it's more destabilizing to me than interesting but that's probably because I'm the patient and observer.
@@zetacentari2547 I definitely understand that. However on that third night off my rem and deep sleep stabilized and sleep latency falls back in the normal range. It may take longer and you’ll have plenty of restless and exhausting nights, but I’m sure you’ll stabilize in time
Studying Computer programming made me notice that each time I struggled with a concept, I seemed to dream about it just before achieving understanding. I remember trying to understand "lists" and dreamt of a giant train and each train compartment held something I needed, so I "iterated" my way down each train compartment taking out what I needed. When I was studying Pointers, I dreamt of being in the mail room of a large apartment complex.
Bro …. Could you explain this a little bit more for a person who’s computer illiterate?
I love the example of a pointer and a mail room lol I can’t particularly remember a dream having the same impact on my understanding of a topic but when I do loads of math hw or programming my brain will literally dream about trying to solve the problem even though I don’t have access to the answer in my brain. I’ll spend hrs dreaming in an infinite loop trying to solve something I just can’t solve over and over again.
I didn't dream about pointers but I remember working all night on projects like ... pallendroms. I would dream about it when I would struggle with it. If I struggled with it before I went to sleep. This happened a number of times. A couple times either my dream or more so just my Brian empty of thoughts right before sleep I would figure it out.
Happen to me too, when I think to a problem
fuck pointers I have nightmares from them
I absolutely love Matt Walker and his take on sleep. Helped me tremendously.
The idea that dreaming actually acts as a therapy- is such an amazing idea. Thank you for this. Learned an invaluable lesson today.
A dream is an alternate life. My pets literally sleep all day and dream so heavily making all sorts of noises. Sometimes I think they would rather dream than be awake. I'm often the same way. I dream a lot and almost never have bad dreams. To me it's just another form of reality we are able to slightly experience.
Tell that to the vets with PTSD. Dreaming doesn’t seem to be a “soothing balm” for many of these people.
Conveniently leaves out nightmares as they dont fit.
He did mention that it works in the negative sense as well with the stress from divorce example.
@@digdug23 Nightmare's are just your fears and anxieties call it the hades condition. Just your subconscious mind presenting you a reality based on your deepest fears.
@@Rabittsfoot1 they definitely arent my deepest fears
Ever heard of exposure therapy.....
Sometimes I feel like I’m in a past lifetime when I dream, or another dimension or reality. It’s so amazing!! 😃✌🏻
this is such an interesting conversation on the subject of dreams! a lot of knowledge to grasp! 😁
There's also the idea that sleep is used to forget things, and being able to forget things is really important to maintain the brain. What if there are memories that the brain can't figure out if it should forget them or not because of the way they're associated with other concepts, so during sleep it tries to re-categorise them. If it can, then the memories/concepts could be resolved and forgotten (compressed/categorised/archived), otherwise they remain unresolved and cause stress and inefficiency, a bit like fragmented disk space on a HDD, or a database that can't be normalised because of a few abberant bits of data.
Matt is so clear and concise! I learned a lot thanks Lex 🙏👍
About five times I’ve had dreams of myself dreaming. In them I wake up and realize I’ve just been dreaming and then there’s still a lingering strangeness and I question if I’m dreaming still and then I wake up for real. I always think of that Poe line “all we see or seem is but a dream within a dream,” when it happens.
Fascinating indeed Lex! ;) I went through a period in my life where I was a practicing Lucid Dreamer. Keeping a dream journal (very necessary) and focusing my intent constantly on becoming lucid every night. It took constant determination to become lucid only two to three times a week. It's a fascinating practice, but actually a pretty exhaustive lifestyle. Needless to say, I gave it up, but always flirt with the idea of starting it up again.
I'm surprised you guys didn't talk about lucid dreams. Maybe another entire segment on them? Lucid dreams are a phenomenon. So many interesting things happen, with such a rich history in many cultures regarding Lucid Dreaming. No feeling is like it on earth. The moment you become lucid, it's like Neo stepping out of the Matrix for the first time. And it's really interesting to feel the 'brain' fight this activity--we are not meant to be here, the brain says, and pulls you out. It takes legitimate practice to just remain lucid for more than a few moments...but when you can, it's unlike any feeling. I could go on and on. Stephen LaBerge has the best book on the subject.
Thanks Lex and Matt!
I had my first genuine lucid dream a few weeks ago. Honestly ? Pretty over rated.. it's nice to be enveloped in your own fantasy world but I think just submitting to sleep and being a passenger is much more restful.
@@ashcosmo3854 Yes, Lucid Dreams aren't as restful, but as long as you aren't trying to do it every night all night, you'll get enough Delta sleep to feel rested. The trick is to really exploit lucidity, that's when it becomes magical. You can sit down and consciously work on a piece of music on the piano, wake up, and be better at playing it. That's one example. Side note, most people who think they had a 'lucid' dream, are really in a state of what I call 'pre-lucidity'...if you feel lucid, but are afraid to jump out a window and fly away, you are pre-lucid. Full lucidity is a different thing. Anyway. If you became lucid and it was overrated, either you didn't do it fully, utilize it at all, or it's just not for you. Cheers.
@@thehermitman822 Ya, that's usually the case. It's almost harder to remain lucid than to spark it. There are techniques to keep you lucid, like looking at your hands in the dream..bunch of stuff. But yes, your brain wants to wake you up the instant you cross the threshold.
I focused on lucid dreaming for a while a few years ago, and now thoroughly enjoy the odd lucid dream that occurs. It's just a lovely sensation of waking up within your own creation. One thing that really blew me away in one of my first lucid dream experiences, was the fact that I could see every individual blade of grass and the wonder of it being completely 'real' in my experience... Made me realise that 'reality' is entirely a matter of perception.
Recently learned how to throw a frisbee in my dreams.went down to the park and I think both tee offs were pretty good for never doing throwing before
I’ve written songs from music I’ve heard in my dreams. It’s crazy. There’s definitely a major reason as to why we dream.
Right, I can't count how many times I've woken up with absolutely amazing songs in my head that I dreamed up but alas I'm not a songwriter so they never get transcribed into any other medium and are forgotten..
Ohhh I wish I could do that! I often dream of music, and the music in the dreams is Always Amazing, almost a transcendental experience it sounds so good in my dreams. But I can never recall how the songs sounded when I wake up.
@@SouthernOregonOrgani Yep! Sometimes you’ll be very lucky and wake up right as you’ve dreamt the song and you will for a few moments remember it. These moments are crucial. Pull out your phone, use voice record and just hum the melody!
We need more Matt Walker content he’s brilliant
i can verbally have a conversation very clear and remember everything in detail as if its real when i wake up, its extreme.
Dreaming feels like practicing living. I usually learn from my dreams, especially since I started keeping a detailed journal. I use lucid dreaming to sharpen skills which i would like to improve in.
That sounds interesting, so like this guy said, you try to think about doing the skill you want to improve and you spend all of the dream doing that specific "task" ? I was skeptical of lucid dreaming for that very reason, like what if it's better to let brain give us dreams but you saying it makes lucid dreaming pretty useful
@@Akaki1999 it depends on what you’re practicing. You can be like Paz here and practice what I can only assume are all totally useful and not arbitrary skills while dreaming (that has some sarcasm as I think any Lucid Dreamer can relate to getting carried away). Or you can be like me and practice things that are absolutely 100% arbitrary in waking life, like flying. Or using the Infinity Gauntlet or turning Super Saiyan- the list is endless. Just depends on the skills themselves. Like most human activity, context decides if it’s good or bad.
@@Akaki1999 lucid dreams are kot just being able to do what you want in a dream its if you have any knowledge that your dreaming in the dream thats lucid and the lore lucid you become the shorter the dream because that's your concession which is turned on when we are awake. If you would let to try getting more into lucid dreaming you need something as in a object or person or whatever to use as a trigger so when you see it in your dream them yo u will know
Last night I had a dream about a young Chuck Norris as Neo from The Matrix. Probably means nothing.
Excellent conversation!
I've literally built these worlds that I come back to time to time . It really is therapeutic but no control over it and seems I dream less and less as time goes on. Mostly just darkness but once in awhile I'll have a dream
What bothers me is that most of the time I have no control of the dream. Something else is creating the dream and I'm just watching it unfold or trying to survive it.
If you practice being aware in waking life it’ll help you be more aware in your dreams and you’ll be able to control a few of them to some extent.
@@battlesofantiquity7449 Exactly, it can be learned, but takes some time to also control lucid dreams. There some are caveats like sleep paralysis for example.
Yes because we do not create our dreams. They're created by the Psyche (the soul).
@@charlesaustin566 take your meds
@@jimbo5276 educate yourself instead of putting down others
You just blew my mind ……
I haven’t got the patience or words to describe how truly relieved I am to finally find a view I thought so obscure that I originated, omg thank you for confirming it! I’m 31, dreamt vividly and Murillo things a night and have always found a connection to my reality. I knew it!
Excellent! Investigating the dream with a desire to understand is deeply enriching. We should learn that from the beginning.
Dreams are very powerful and can lead to some profound realizations...
I once had a dream where I was in a classroom setting and the student sitting next to me asked "did you do the homework?". I sincerely replied "what homework?". As soon as I replied though, I suddenly had this awful feeling in my stomach because I suddenly"remembered" that we DID have homework and I forgot to do it. All these memories of course were false because I was only dreaming. The fact that we can't prove that we are not dreaming, and the very fact that false memories exist, illustrates that all of our waking memories could also be false, and therefore all the memories that we rely on to ascertain truth cannot be relied on with certainty.
I've also had numerous dreams where I'm undergoing processes that seem totally real, natural and logical. To my dismay though, I soon as I wake up I realize that the processes were totally unreal, unnatural, and completely illogical. So not only can our "waking" memories be false, the very logic that we use and make up those dreams can also be wrong! This further shows how 100% certain knowledge is unattainable and is really, well, just a dream 🙂
In addition to that profound realization (just by analyzing dreams), notice that the very fact that it's ALREADY possible to have our OWN conciousness relocated from its "real" world, and placed in an entirely foreign, "unreal" setting (this is EXACTLY what happens in a dream) substantially raises the probability that we are in a simulation (and also the probability of an afterlife). After all, if fundamentally all we are is information, it is easy to imagine superior intelligent beings taking the information that makes up our conciousness and placing it in a different computing system to undergo a different experience.
Now with that said, go have fun sleeping at night kids! 🙂😉
As we learn more and more its becoming more and more likely that we are indeed in a simulation. One has to ask ourselves if i can create anything in my brain&go on all these crazy adventures,how real is actual life? I lucid dream every night, I can feel the sensation of wind brushing against my face as i fly through the universe and earth. The brain is extremely powerful. I have tricked myself through meditation many times. I had an outer body other worldy experience before. I tricked my brain that i was spinning,rotating clockwise super fast in a deep meditation.Then all of a sudden, I then heard what sounded like a piano playing a winding tune.This was very strange, i was hearing a melody inside my head while i have tricked my brain into thinking i was spinning super fast. After the melody finished I entered a state of pure love. I felt overwhelming love and acceptance. I felt like i was connected to all the information in the world. I also was outside of my body.It was extremely profound&i immediately ran to my computer to transcribe immediately what i experienced. We all have the light inside of us.
@@skee8721 I have heard a something profound connected to thus experience you just had. I am an Indian and a Hindu and all ancient text are filled with affirmations of versions of what you just described. Like "whole universe is filled with consciousness" "God is omnipresent, and we are one with him".
Recently though, I heard a theory that blew my mind. All of these texts are based on a false interpretation of these experiences that you had. Hindu sages who "invented" all these religions texts used to practice meditation a lot. And these experiences are simply because through meditation you were able to turn off/manipulate parts of the brain that create the illusion of you. The parts of the brain that work out the boundaries of your physical body. If you turn that off, the rest of the parts of the brain now suddenly will think that your body has no boundaries and you are now spread across the whole universe. If you keep your mind focused on "god" you might feel like God has occupied the whole universe. And these experiences are repeatable and teachable, so you also get the sense that it might be true. BTW, you can take shortcuts too, using certain mushrooms.
In summary, these experiences are just theme park attractions and people have misinterpreted them, and created whole religions out of it.
Astral travel can happen during vivid dreaming, or so I’ve heard.
Nice read 👍
@@KyleReeseCel2029 And what's your brain made out of??...Information. Information is not bound to its original substrate.
Could more REM sleep be a large part of how humans became so intelligent? As our ability to survive grew, our fears lessened and that lead the earliest of humans to develop more REM sleep, in turn dream deeper for longer periods of time, and that let us be more creative as human beings?
Dunno, I know a lot of stupid people who sleep much.
@@dragonmartijn lol pretty funny ngl. But today you can wake up at 2pm and still survive. Idk if that would work in a different time period
@@dragonmartijn lmao
They should make a movie based on this concept lol
The stages before Rem is where your brain is processing your memories
I need to start my dream journal again, it was actually quite fun because it helped me remember my dreams more frequently
I hear people say you only dream during r.e.m. but I always start dreaming very quickly. Sometimes within minutes of closing my eyes I will be woken up with a clear dream started. Can anyone relate?
You're right, I have that often too! Even with afternoon 20 min. powernaps!
You are very right! As soon as I close my eyes I dream but most often don't remember what the dreams are all about. But during the REM stage, I will remember most dreams and 1 or 2 of those dreams will come to reality. Once I dream it and remember it, it will definitely happen real life, that to me defies any scientific explanations.
I wouldn't describe many of my dreams as 'nocturnal soothing balms'! Why does there have to be only one purpose for dreaming? I strongly suspect it has multiple benefits and roles to play. I see a lot of my dreams as practice for difficulties I may encounter while awake - stress rehearsals. This fits in with an evo-psych interpretation - our ancestors would have been vulnerable to predators while asleep, and those more prepared and ready to react to dangers while sleeping would have had increased fitness.
@@axeman7509-tf2kf Yeah I understood the point Walker was making, I just found it an interesting and funny choice of words.
This is wild! When I was in my chemistry classes in post-secondary I really enjoyed it to the point where I would dream about chemistry calculations the nights before a big exam. I always ended up getting great grades and I wonder if there is a correlation between this like Matt mentions!
I think there absolutely is. I’m a programmer and sometimes I’ll be stuck on an issue during the day, go home and sleep, and then wake up the next day with a solution
When I’m not dealing with something during my awake time, I start dreaming about it. Exactly what Matt is describing. I understand it better now, TY
This was on point
There has been a few times that I was in a dream and new I was in a dream. I could control my dream through my thoughts for a short period of time and then i would wake up. I couldn't stay in the dream once I realized I was dreaming. Crazy
Look into lucid dreaming
Great video❤️👍. I am a lucid dreamer. I have noticed the characters in my dreams are aspects of my subconscious and my physical body. Some of them are active and some of them are NPC’s. I have literally woken up a different personality a couple of times just by communicating with these different aspects of my subconscious mind. I mean like more patience than before, aspects like this in my personality. There is also an all knowing presence in this realm watching. (Maybe the all seeing eye?) I would say be loving and nice to everything in your dreams even the scary ones they are the most important. You change those guys. You change your life.
That is crazy stuff! How did you manage to wake an person in a dream like are you having normal conversation with them like they should just be an like an imagination this sounds pretty cool like to try it myself and to hear more about this
Truly fascinating discussion.
Fascinating!
Over they years I’ve noticed that I had the same dream like 5 times now(I still do not remember the dream) but it’s creeping me out every time it happens
Go see a shrink man
I constantly have dreams about being in shark infested water...everything from falling from planes into the deep sea, to swimming in pools with sharks in certain areas, to walking by the edge of water with sharks that can jump out. I think there is some deeper meaning because I'm not even really scared of sharks, I find them fascinating actually. Dreams are weird indeed.
I had the same dream like 3 times last week and don't remember much but felt like a 3x repeat
@@xSayPleasex in your 40's? Jaws.
Was it a nightmare?
We dream because our minds are always working, even at rest or while sleeping. I dream almost every single day, usually REM sleep between 2AM and 7AM. It is interesting how I speak and interact in a dream with my deceased parents, my living friends and family, and complete strangers, holding conversations as if in real life. I dream about some of the dogs I once had as pets, and these events make me happy to see them again. In my dreams, sometimes I am lost in a strange city, or lost my car, not remembering where I had parked it.
Once in awhile I have a nightmare, but seems seldom compare to when I was a child. The whole reason for dreams, and how the mind constructs them, is fascinating. I think it can represent our longings, fears, and subconscious desires. Only God knows why we dream.
What they said about dreams helping with depression makes so much sense, one night I had a dream that I walked out into my backyard and saw money trees all over with beautiful heavenly bright light shining behind them, I was blown away by how beautiful it was but in that same moment felt a rush of anxiety take over my body and I ran back inside. At the time I was struggling with really bad anxiety and felt like I could never enjoy a fun or beautiful moment anymore, and after that dream things just seemed to get better.
Ive been obsessed with dreams ever since i chose it as the topic of my first speech back in middle school. I still remember most of it to this day.
What I love about dreams is you have no limits and no handcuffs holding you back, for example i suffer with anxiety and depression that constantly hold me back in real life, but when I dream I no longer feel depressed and anxious and I feel like I can just be me with nothing holding me back. Which is a feeling I wish I could have in real life.
Then face your Angst, take control of your life. Sounds simple, but needs courage. Because you are holding yourself back. Why? You can tell.
@@skjelm6363 My anxiety and fear holds me back and I feel handcuffed, I suffer with Agoraphobia (fear of public spaces).
It’s the feeling that holds me back from actually taking control.
While when I dream those feelings aren’t there and I don’t have to feel worried. I just wish those uncomfortable feelings weren’t there in real life.
@@nu-metalfan2654 Get some help, don't seek it in the internet, tell someone who really can help you, like a therapist or something. i mean that, you are not alone. But seek some guidance through that.
You will. I had agoraphobia for years but in my dreams I was alone, exploring unknown cities, walking after dark, being afraid BUT pushing through despite fear. Eventually IRL I conquered that fear, quite spontaneously. Not saying dreaming will cure you too, but know that it does help.
The key is to analyze the origins, triggers and factors behind and around your mental struggle, educate yourself on the subject, and then try different things without pressuring them to work. For me it was a combo of being brave and having big obligations in everyday life so I cannot focus on my fears (a distraction and way to exhaust physical energy). Experiencing satisfaction through physical and mental everyday work is a tremendous help.
Because your brain doesn't produce the chemical that causes anxiety while in its dream state. But do you ever have it right when you wake up?
Most psychologists acknowledge that humans most of the time operate using our subconscious minds, in that its our subconscious that really controls the conscious. And so it makes sense that dreaming is a way for our subconscious to work through certain beliefs and emotional states we hold.
Or maybe dreams are constructed while we sleep to keep are brain stimulated.
this guy always blows me away .
Now this, I could get into!
Dreams are codes, like a puzzle or a mystery. You examine your dreams looking for clues (i.e. a clock, bird, oar, knife, flood, etc) then you play connect the dots as you translate each bold item in your dream. From there you then look for common elements to tell you an answer. Most often it's anxiety dreams, sometimes it's a possible future event other times it's a message your subconscious is trying to tell you. (i.e. stop drinking so much, or it's time to quit smoking, etc.)
After each translation, I end up with an old wise tale. Example: Don't cry over spilled milk. Thanks to a simple formula.
During sleep, the spinal cord produces random impulses that travel UP to the brain. It impacts parts of the brain - many of them are well traveled pathways, so the common things you are thinking of when awake are retriggered. There are also random impacts that produce vintage or distant memories that mix with your dream state. Your mind tries to make a story out of these weirdly random pieces which is why dreams seem so normal and realistic yet surreal. This was from a European study a few years ago when they found the spinal cord producing random nerve impulses that travel into the brain. It's like a Rorschach test, it is random but the way you interpret it can give you clues to your way of thinking. But it's not a true story that your brain has produced during sleep.
My brain was working overtime on this one, xD
fascinating!
Love the explanation.! Pls do add more clips Lex. So we can get more exposed in the limited time available .! Thanks.!
This question is the epitome of Lex Fridman in a nutshell.
This realm of creating archetypes is the realm of artists. As an artist I have long been fascinated with how our minds interpret pretty well the difference between male and female representations 🤯
Thank you.
I have had insane dreams since my deployment. That also brought back childhood trauma and some fears I have overcome.
Does anyone else here lucid dream almost every night? I can vividly recall large portions of hundreds and hundreds of dreams ive had over the last 15 years.
@@devonbarton9012 Ive literally said that before. I have almost a second life when i sleep at night. The most beautiful moments and incredible things ive seen in my life have been during sleep.
@@8JFJK8 Same here. I’ve had lots of premonitions too, definitely more to dreams than what meets the eye.
@@8JFJK8 +1
Yes. I do live another life when I dream. It’s the happiest life, especially because some of my most loved ones that have passed are in it. And mostly it’s just a normal life, doing normal everyday stuff, like going shopping with my mom and I’m just happy.
I think dreaming also involves keeping electrical activity going in the brain...you never completely shut down a powerplant...starting things back up from zero is not good...bad for conductors....like keeping electrical impulses stable.....a lot of conflict resolution as well
It might be that dreams just keep our minds stimulated while we sleep.
About a year ago, for about a month, I suddenly started remembering lots of dreams that I had throughout my life. I’d be hit with these flashbacks throughout the day. I was actually daydreaming about past dreams. It was oddly satisfying remembering a dream that happened a long time ago.
Dreams r a gateway to the metaphysical world a place where conciseness resides
Freakiest thing, I wonce dreamed that I was sleeping and had a dream within my dream. When I woke up I just looked around the room silent and thoughtless not knowing that I was actually awake and not just dreaming that my dream ended. Once I properly woke up and knew I was concious I quickly ran to the wife to tell her, it was SO FREAKY!!!
Has happened to me loads of times. Its pretty scary when it happens i agree.
One time when i was living in the basement portion i dreamt that i woke up from a dream, exactly where i was actually sleeping. And then a hand broke through the wall behind me and tried to reach for me and i shrieked and tried to get away and then woke up again.
Obviously i instantly looked at the wall behind me but there was nothing there. Fast forward a few months and i found out that whole sector of our city was made on top of a graveyard.
@@Shtriga_34 Holy crap! That's insane, being in a basement just adds to the terror.
@@Senninha1960 haha i know. I would also hear ppl whispering in the middle of the night. Glad we moved out of that house 😅
@@Shtriga_34 yup.... fark that!!
My question is "where does the light come from?"
We don't have a projector in our heads so how the heck can we see images in there with no light. In dreams as well as psychedelic hallucinations, where is that light coming from that allows us to see the images and what is the image being projected on and what is seeing the image?
good question right there
That is a really good question. Never thought about that.
Well the blind can see in their dreams sooo
Your entire experience as a human is an electrical hallucination. It's all electricity. A show about being a person taken from your sensory materials, converted into an electrical signal, then regurgitated as more electricity in experience. So, you already do this the entire time you're alive.
@@bswantner2 well I'm shocked no pun intended
I’ve never heard it put so correct ! Wow 😯
Just watching this guy makes me sleepy not in a bad way
It's insane how dream state can make things seem so real. And while you are awake, you cannot create such real visions.
I always wonder why? It can't be that our subconscious mind is so much more advanced than conscious mind.
I think it has to do with the fact that there are no constraints. He talks about how the prefrontal cortex is not activated which is the rational part - the “constraining” part that deals with physics, how you would normally react to things, how you logically process things, etc.
Without that part of your brain to stop your thoughts from going in a certain direction (I.e. “ahh that wouldn’t happen - why am I thinking this”), your brain just keeps going down that rabbit hole.
No your subconscious picks everything you see in a day and stores it I'd you know it or not like every person in your dream that has a face is someone you ha seen in real life even if it was for a split second in a store or whatever. Your subconscious can't not make things up it doesn't know fake from truth really
@@ferguson8143 In theory your point sounds about right.
But there’s more to it. If you succeed in tapping into your own subconscious (for example using hypnosis/meditation), it can create things you have never thought you could see in real life.
This might sound crazy, but even after experiencing some of subconscious “tricks”, you might not have words to describe what you’ve experienced.
@@coolemur976 my favorite is my superman dreams and over the years it all limited down to I love to fly and even more tk fly through everything buildings and house what ever I can before it's over and even over my parents that have passed on along with my grandparents that I have conversations with but they can't tell me anything I already don't know because it's my brain that's makeing up the conversation
@@ferguson8143 Well, I had some dreams, when for example specific location is mentioned, which I have never hear or seen before. You can always say that subconcious added up some things together and vuala. Because for things like dreams or non material things (spiritual) there will never be a scientific proof. This is more about experience. Another example OBE. You will never understand what it’s like until you experience it yourself. But even then you won’t believe in your own experience because it’s other-world’ish (and here I’m talking about conscious experience which might feel more real than reality itself). There are things people just can’t explain. There are things some physicists can’t understand and say “we dont know why its like that”.
I had an extremely lucid dream last night with Lex playing a huge role in the final portion (what felt like ~2 hrs in real time). And today, I see this video.
Yeah.........right
@@2paceinstein512 thanks for your contribution
I've started emdr therapy. It's basically working through those traumas like dreaming at night. It's amazing and swear by it
Chucks metaphor game is on point
Any one else ever had a dream and it happened to come reality? I guess you can call it dejavu?
Yes and it was something simple like sitting at a table with strangers.
Feels like it happens often to me lol
@@Yo_LBC13 it happens to me almost every time, like seeing d future
“dreaming is more metabolically ....” I need Walker to elaborate much more. I need scientific study references presented to back up what Walker is saying. I dream like a freak the weirdest dreams that you could ever imagine. I believe that it is a way to help unravel the stresses and trauma in the past and in daily life. I’m only up to the first five minutes of the video, but I want to hear the basis for his conclusions.
Same. My dreams are more stressful than not and I rarely feel rested even with a sleep schedule. Not necessarily nightmares that's scares me. But stresses me or draining me from energy
Here’s a thought.
Maybe fundamental reality IS what we call experience and it’s not actually objective in any way. It constantly transforms in an infinite void to produce structure in the understanding of itself, but the essence that IS is simply experience itself. Reality structures itself to better understand itself, now through humans, using concepts to categorize patterns of its own form/structure and representing the concepts with symbols.
What we would call our own individual experience is simply a small unit/aperture in which the universe focuses its awareness. (Experience requires sensation, body-environment relationship) “structuring”.
The 3D structure of the world unites into units to build complexity, perhaps that is what the “soul” is as well, the universe understanding itself at a complex level as a unit.
Maybe dreams are these soul/units falling away from the desire to seek objectivity and understanding and entering the realm of impossibility to the greater perpetual flow of objectivity.
Only a few months back, I learned that our dreams are metaphorical, and after learning that, I go on to a dream interpreter and it is so true about myself!
Just remember even though it's pretty accurate, some people have different adjectives per noun. A dog to you may be a positive experience, but a dog to someone who was attacked by a dog may be a negative experience.
@@gloomordoom indeed, subjective
I live to dream! Every night is strangely a different experience, it’s incredible as a person who has never tried any psychedelics, my dreams at night give me the experience of something godly
And a plus…you can’t fly or move shit with your mind on drugs in dreams you can lol lucid dreaming is therapeutic
Oh no you can
I mean you haven't tried it so 🤷
I highly recommend mushrooms
I always go back to sleep for 30 minutes after I wake because I’ll continue to dream. It’s like entertainment.
What about premonition type of dreaming? I’ve often dreamt about certain scenarios only to have them happen almost exactly to a tee sometime down the line.
My theory on that is that it is retroactive memory insertion. The same way that when your eyes move your memory puts the most recent image in place of the the time it took your eyes to move from one image to the next. I had a dream once of a phone ringing and then woke up and my phone rang. I think the memory was retroactively inserted, so it appeared that I dreamed of it before it happened. In reality it was probably just placed there after the phone actually rang.
@@lukes125 but what about when you have a dream and a memory of it for years before it happens?
And how many dreams have you had that never did happen?
@@lukes125 "retroactive memory insertion" is a very clunky idea.
@@danielwalley6554 OK but premonitions are cool
Dreaming is an emotional experience......so, so true.
I will remember past dreams from years before and then have to question wether or not it was a dream or my brain has associated it with something out of my imagination.
Recurring dreams are extremely interesting, I had 2 recurring dreams when I was younger but have not have them in years. Also, what about dreaming about a person (woman) that does not exist in the real world (to your knowledge) or dreaming a "feeling", anybody has experienced that?
Great question and in regards to the 2 dreams....I have had the same experience throughout my 40+ yrs. Yet I have not had either of the 2 recurring dreams in at least 29-32 years (ballpark figure)
That's so crazy. And yes, one of the two was very specific and it involved anxiety and fear.
This woman and I have dreams of each other all the time. We’re not a couple, not in love, have no real IRL connection. Just constantly meeting in dreams.
@@dialatedmcd that is pretty wild.
Same here. Sitting on the edge of a large rock lined "well", starting to crumble, but never fell into the dark hole.
I got a few weird dream things I deal with lol I dream about my ex gf of seven years ago more than I’d like lol. Sometimes in those dreams I’m able to be aware of my emotions or what I’m feeling If that makes sense. Same thing happens when I have these recurring plot dreams about being behind in school or missing an assignment. I can feel myself uncomfortable or nervous. Hard to explain but I know I feel something and when I wake up it takes me like 2-3 minutes to shake that feeling outta me. My whole life I’ve had dreams where I end up needing to pee, so I do only to wake up and find out I wet the bed. They still happen to me to this day and I’m 27 years old. I’d say once or twice a year, not as often as they used to happen. Maybe they’d occur more but I’ve had to train myself over the years to not drink any fluids before bed, anytime I wake up In the night I instinctively get outta bed and just go use the bathroom right away. It definitely makes me second guess being drunk and sharing a bed with someone lmao. I’ve had a dream where my alarm clock was going off but for some reason I didn’t wake up but I could hear the alarm in my dream and I was doing all kinds of things to try and turn the sound off with no luck. I’m positive I’ve cried in a dream when I was younger because I woke up with my eyes shut from what I believe to be dried tears cuz I wasn’t sick and I did dream about my grandfather passing. One last one that stands out is a dream where I had a hard time discerning if it was a dream or reality. I had gotten into trouble and put on probation and wasn’t supposed to drinking or smoking. Well one night I had this dream where I smoked a joint with my brother and when I woke up I was sorta freaking out because it felt real. Like the memory of it felt real. So much that I had to ask my brother if I smoked with him yesterday.
This guy knows as much about why we dream as the experts know about consciousness
Does he know more about dreaming than you know though? Probably :)
"Dream....dream dream dream.......dream".....love that Everly brothers song!
This is interesting. I generally do not remember my dreams or at least they fade quickly after I wake up. The exceptions are when I'm grieving over the loss of a loved one. Weeks or months later I'll have a dream that seems like reality with the loved one setting my mind at ease and telling me that they are alright. I remember these dreams in detail. It's just weird because I don't know if I have some answers or if my brain is just using dreams to help me heal.
That's why when you dream it feels real. To learn, your brain needs it to feel like it has real world consequences.
Dreams are your conscious mind tapping into your subconscious through remembering the dreams. Remembering these subconscious echoes from your conscious back into your conscious when you wake is wisdom learning. It provides mental therapy, solves problems, and wires the brain for constant creativity.
Prove your theory, any data to back up this up?
@@MCGguitar698 Yeah, life. All you have to do is do it yourself.
@@MCGguitar698 That’s the first thing I thought. The fact that something makes sense doesn’t mean it’s true. He sounds like Freud
I wish I had fun experiences in the dream world. You must be a happy person Lex.
So interesting
I've seen the future 3 different times while dreaming. I think I'm on to something.
Expand.
"Dreaming is a virtual reality test-space that is largely consequence free. What an incredible gift to give a conscious mind each and every night" Beautiful!
I find them overbearing and exhausting
fascinating fact
amazing - dreams help automatically figure out amazingly difficult problems
I’ve always wondered if consciousness is just “heat” from our brain
You might be onto something..
Consciousness is interference the wave length and the body is the atom like in the double slit experiment
Well that's one thing that can be said is false lol consciousness IS the thing that was selected for. No one is debating that fact
Chuck Norris and Steve Irwin had a love child
I had a dream last night about a coworker I didn’t like normally. In the dream we were friends. We helped each other out and got along well. Dreams help you solve problems in daily life
This man is full of it! Many people have nightmares, there is nothing soothing about those, it's actually traumatic, resolution is not always achieved.....he had zero data to back this up.
…he resembles a young Chuck Norris 😂
There's a book by jw Dunn, called An experiment with time. Dunn believed, through years of research that everyone who keeps a dream journal beside their bed, to immediately write their dreams down, would have at least some accounts occur later in life. This has happened to me twice.
I've always had premonition dreams. More profound in my early years. Mostly about locations that I had never seen before. I would come across them weeks, months and sometimes years later. Way too many specifics to just be coincidence.
Dreams are past present and future information. Many times I have a dream before I meet someone or go into a new city that reveals information in regards to the spiritual or emotional issues in that city. My dreams are very different when I am in another country versus when I am in my home. The difficult thing is figuring out is the dream a metaphor or literal. Also over the years I write them all own and have been able to discern what the dreams were communicating which helps me when I have new ones.
Dreams are very underrated. People tend to underestimate how important and amazing dreams are. I highly recommend getting into lucid dreaming, theres quite a few benefits anyone can gain from it
What are the main benefits ? I was skeptical of lucid dreaming for this very reason, like what if it's better to let brain give us dreams and resolve things on its own like what if lucid dreaming interferes with that process but does it actually ? or it can be more beneficial than normal dreaming ?
@@Akaki1999 Lucid dreaming doesn't interfere with anything, it's just dreaming but you know you're dreaming. Often what people are referring to is dream control which is is often mistaken with lucid dreaming because they're used together so people tend to lump them together. You can control the dream, let it play out, experiment, mess with your senses or any number of things.
A list of benefits include:
Higher self awareness
Euphoria
Using it to practice other skills
Getting inspiration
Facing fears
Getting rid of a recurring nightmare
Improving mental health
Problem solving
Learning about yourself ect. Idk if I can list them all but that should give you a good idea of what to expect.
If you want to get into lucid dreaming keep a dream journal and do reality checks, everything else is optional and what works best for someone else may not work for you, it also takes a different amount of time for everyone. Though I highly recommend it, some of the best points in my life have been in my dreams.
I recommend lucid dream portal and giz edwards, they're some of the best lucid dreaming chanbels on CZcams and often debunk misinformation about it.
Also lucid dreaming is scientifically proven and so are some of the benefits so its nothing to worry about wasting time on
Lucid dreaming took me to a spiritual world (evil) that I wasn't supposed to be in..basically lucid dreaming was giving the demon little control of my body little at a time...haven't done it since
@@NatronFatumallafalla That wasn't evil, it was your own subconscious mind. Any demons you see you can kill. I kill every demon I see. They're just thoughts in the most physical form possible
@@shadw4701 yeah jt was weird he said I can fly if I give some of myself to him...so I tried flying and jt felt amazing but immediately after I felt him come into my body and the more I flew the more he entered me...he was trying to get full control of me so I stopped