When you close your eyes, what do you see? Are your dreams rich with color, detail and emotion? Are they filled with memories of the past or adventures of the far-off future? Or are they just light. Light is the simplest answer to a question; it is the only “dream” one can claim may be nothing more than mere imagination. But psychologist Julian Jaynes believed something completely contrary to this. He considered dreams rich in content and even perceived consciousness.
In a 2001 paper by Dresler and colleagues, subjects who imagined actions performed by others showed significant cerebral activity in regions involved in motor preparation. In contrast, imagining actions performed by oneself did not evoke similar brain activation. The results suggest that motor imagery of unfamiliar movements involves the activation of higher-level planning centers, despite the fact that patients with ideational apraxia typically refer to themselves in the third person.
Can You Dream About Something You Have Never Experienced
One of the first things most people do after waking up from a dream is to tell it to their partner, friends or colleagues. It is a natural impulse we all experience. We even sometimes wake up our sleeping partners just to share our dream experience with them. This makes sense when you think about it: dreams seem so real at the time, yet they are not.
Can You Dream About Something You Have Never Experienced
The answer is yes. You can dream about anything, whether or not it has happened to you. Dreams are not bound by the laws of time and space and are therefore free to contain anything, no matter how farfetched or impossible it may seem.
A good example of this is the case of a young boy named Robert who dreamed about his friend being eaten by a giant spider. The next day he told his mother about what he had seen in his dream, only for her to tell him that his friend was fine and hadn’t been eaten by any such creature. This confused Robert as much as anyone else who hears this story—how could he have dreamed up something that didn’t exist?
The answer is simple: dreams don’t have to be based on reality; they can just as easily be based on imagination or pure fantasy. As long as there’s no logical connection between what happens in the dream and what happens in real life (for example, if your dream featured an alien invasion), then it doesn’t matter whether or not it actually exists!
The short answer is yes, but it’s not easy. There are a lot of factors that go into dreaming, and one of them is your ability to create an entire world in your mind that feels real. This is called “imagination,” and it’s a skill—like playing the piano or speaking another language—that you can improve with practice.
So, how can you improve your imagination so that you can dream about things you’ve never experienced? The first thing to do is think about what types of things interest you most. What do you want to learn about? What experiences do you want to have? What stories do you find yourself drawn to over and over again?
Once you’ve identified some topics of interest, start reading books and watching movies that relate to those topics. If there are any books by authors who inspire your work (like if they’re your favorite writers), read those too! Reading books that relate to your interests will help fuel those interests even more, which will make them easier for your brain to access when trying to dream up new ideas.
The next step is simple: keep thinking about these subjects while sleeping
Several times in my life, starting when I was young, I’ve dreamt about places I’ve never been nor seen in photos, and then recalled the dreams later when I DID find myself in those places. I’ll give two examples:
When I was about 8, I had a dream about drowning in an indoor swimming pool. Being a scary dream, it stuck with me. A couple of years later, I was invited to a birthday pool-party at a high school in a neighboring town. (Where we lived, h.s. pools were used by the towns’ rec departments for swimming lessons and such.) When I entered the pool area with my mom, I gasped—it was the pool in my dream. Every detail about it—the tile, the width of the pool decks, the things on the walls (not just ubiquitous pool equipment)—everything was EXACTLY as it had been in my dream. I turned to my mom and asked her, “Have we ever been here before?” and she looked at me funny, “No….Why?” In fact, I had had the dream before we even moved to that area, about 90 miles away. I don’t know how I could’ve “known” that pool before.
Another memorable childhood dream was a good one. I dreamt about being on a field trip/fun day out with my classmates. We were running and playing tag and hide-and-seek in the field around an octagonal-shaped barn. I had the sense that this was an epically wonderful day—the most fun ever. And I remember thinking how odd the barn was.
A few years later, I was in the car with my family, driving home from a day trip we’d taken. (As I mentioned above, we had moved to a new city in recent years, so we were exploring a new place.) My dad had taken a side road instead of the highway. Well, lo and behold—there along the road appeared the octagonal barn, in the exact same field, the exact distance from the road, same trees, everything. And I asked my mom, “Have we ever driven down this road before?” Nope.
To clarify, both of these stories happened in the 80s. Pre-internet.
Most of the dream/deja-vu episodes I have like this are about situations I’m in and triggered by words I hear coming out of my mouth or another’s, not about places. Whenever it happens, it stops me in my tracks and makes me think, Wow, I guess I’m right where I’m supposed to be. I chalk it up to wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. A space-time reality beyond my comprehension.
Can You Dream Of Strangers
Been dreaming about strangers recently? Maybe they’re trying to get into your house, or maybe they’re occupying half of a relationship — partner or best friend — that’s usually filled by someone you know and love. Dreams about strangers are common. In fact, according to Psychology Today, a whopping 50 to 80 percent of the people in our dreams are ones we’ve never met. The key to interpreting them isn’t to think about who these strangers are. It’s to think about who you are.
Dream expert Jesamine notes on her blog, “Strangers in our dreams are actually images for the unknown – the strange – parts of our own personalities” (via Real Dream Interpretation). These strangers are often “shadow figures,” who are showing us “everything we have rejected, denied, or never knew about ourselves.” So pay attention to how you feel about these strangers. Are you afraid of them? Do they excite you? Do you hate them? They might be trying to teach you something new about yourself.
If the strangers in your dream are your new best friend, notice what you’re drawn to about that person. They might have qualities that you’ve been looking for in your own life. If you’re dreaming of people breaking into your house, they may represent the thoughts and feelings you’ve been trying to keep out of your brain. If you’re dreaming about a lover you don’t know in real life, that qualities of that person may represent the qualities in yourself to which you feel most connected.
Sex matters when you dream about strangers
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You might want to pay attention to the strangers’ sex. Neuroscientist Patrick McNamara noted that most dream strangers are male. And these male strangers may represent your inner aggressive impulses (via Psychology Today). In other words, they might be teaching you about your own darker feelings. Female dream strangers, on the other hand, are more likely to be friendly with less aggression or confrontation.
According to Everyday Health, dreaming about having sex with a stranger could mean a couple things. For one, it could indicate the qualities that you want in a future partner or the ones you’re looking for in your current partner. Alternately, your subconscious could be trying to tell you about a hidden talent you have. So pay attention to those dream strangers, because have something to teach you — they’re trying to introduce you to the stranger in you.