as for the psychological perspective, here's a quote from a psychology introductory textbook by henry glietman:

note that "bottom-up" processing involves the transformations from sensory stimuli to a perception to a concept, etc., while "top-down" processing is the simulataneous mental processes that also help to create comprehension but are based in beliefs, expectation, etc.

"in sum. our memory is neither wholly distorted nor wholly accurate. the tape recorder theory of memory is false. but so is the theory that everything we remember is changed and distorted by inference and reconstruction. in these regards, memory is again much like perception. both are affected by processes that work from the top down as well as by those that start from the bottom up. perception without any bottom-up proccessing (that is, without any reference to memory traces) would amount to perceptual delusion, a mere will-o'-the-wisp in which the remembered past is continually constructed and reconstructed to fit the schemes of the moment. both top-down and bottom-up processes operate in both cognitive domains. the use of schemas -- that is, top-down processing -- clearly has a cost, for it can lead to distortions of memory. but it also confers great benefits. our cognitive machinery is limited: there's only so much that we can encode, and store, and retrieve. as a result, we are forced to schematize and simplify so that we can impose order on the world we perceive and think about. but the very tools that help us to understand and remember occasionally backfire so that we misremember."

perhaps this supports the argument for spontaneous creative remembrances that are actually false rather than based in a previous dream experience.

in the realm of perception, dreaming is pretty extreme on the top-down processing: the only stimuli are coming from the resting body (such as digestive sensations, circulatory restrictions, temperature reactions, sexual stimulation -- all of which i think account for much dream content) and its environment (ambulance sirens and skunks); everything else is generated top-down.

if this also applies to the realm of memory, then dreaming would be somewhat of a "perpetual delusion".

so how accessible are various memory traces (stimuli)? well the memories encoded during waking experience are far from the tip-of-the-tongue usually, since current dream-world experience contains few good associations to those memories. but when something does trigger those memories then more will probably follow (the "spreading activation model" of memory, collins and loftus 1975). this is apparently when lucidity is possible, which is presumably why dr. laberge uses mnemonic techniques to make many associations with events that are likely to occur in dreams.

as for the encoding of dream experiences as memory, i'd say it's not done very well except for during lucidity. this may be because of such mental equipment alterations as the decrease in short-term ("working memory") capacity which would also explain how we manage to accept the instability that exists in dreams. an example of the use of working memory is that in order to remember a phone number i have to keep in on a metaphorical workbench while either rehearsing it (repeating mindlessly so that it stays in working memory until i stop repeating) or actively encoding it by associating the numbers with existing memories. some drugs have the effect of decreasing short-term memory which makes it difficult to hold conversation or remember your experiences later. the existance of this effect in dreams would explain their delicate status as memories which necessitates a dream journal.

however i find that lucid dreams are more memorable, so either lucidity restores some working memory or the main factor is association with waking memories (in which case maybe there does exist set(s) of real memories that were encoded while dreaming and are possibly more accessible for recall during dreaming) or these words represent my futile efforts to comprehend something of which i (or my mind at least) am just a part.

Hi,

I'm new to this discussion forum, having only just joined the Institute. But I must say that the topic of this discussion is exactly what I've been thinking over for some time. Actually, there are a couple of different points raised here that connect to issues I've been pondering:

1. Is it possible that we create memories during dreaming that are then accessed later during dreaming, so that there exist people, places, things, or events which are remembered, but only experienced during dreaming? To be more precise, such memories would NOT have been encoded during waking (e.g., excluding dream journal encoded memories) but only while dreaming, and would be remembered later in other dreams.

2. How are the perceptions experienced during dreaming put together in the brain from our memories of past experiences?

Both questions are, I believe, on the cutting edge of theory and research in dreaming. I have only read a pitifully small amount of research on dreaming, but I understand that people such as our very own Stephen LaBerge, and others such as Allan Hobson, have been working on theories to answer these questions.

A very simple exposition of part of Hobson's theory is given on p. 162 of his book, Sleep (1995): "How do the dream images arise? In REM sleep, the brainstem spontaneously generates signals, such as PGO waves, containing sensory information. In doing so, the brainstem is not responding to external stimuli as during waking but is activating istelf. The activation-systhesis hypothesis proposes that these signals are the source of dream images" To the extent that these signals stimulate sensory channels in the cortex in a way similar to stimulation during waking, we naturally elaborate perceptions from them. [[Footnote: Does the brainstem do the same thing in lucid dreaming? It is likely that Stephen Kosslyn's detailed theory of the brain mechanisms involved in mental imagery may explain much of the mental machinery involved in image generation in lucid dreaming. How does Hobson's theory mesh with Kosslyn's?]] This sensory mimicry explains the peculiar overrepresentation in my tango dream of certain modalities-especially vision and audition-and the underrepresentation of others-like taste, smell, and pain. Thus, I hallucinated the beach, the dancers, and the balloons because my visual system was kept activated and stimulated. I did not experience taste, smell, and pain apparently because these systems were not activated."

[[Footnote: In Strauch & Meier's 1996 book, In Search of Dreams, figure 10, they show that of 778 coded perceptions in 5 dreamer's dreams, 56% of sensory impressions were visual, 24% were auditory, 19% were bodily, and 0.5% were smell or taste. Thus, there indeed appears to be a prevalence of the visual and auditory modalities in dream perceptions. This is an interesting finding in and of itself, which needs to be explained by any theory explaining the generation of dreams. My hunch is that it is related to our attention, which is generally attuned to vision and audition during waking. I would guess that if you had people remember waking events from their day, and categorized the mode of perception involved, the percentages would be much the same as for dreaming.]]

In other words, according to Hobson, the brainstem somehow generates signals, which are turned into perceptions by the various perceptual centers of the brain. Note that in this theory, perception and memory are tied together. This is, in fact, supported by recent work looking at brain activation during visual perception, visual short term memory, visual mental imagery, dreams, and hallucinations (I'll forgo giving citations for all of these, but there are studies on each). The bottom line is that certain areas of the brain, for example the visual association areas (i.e., the temporal and parietal lobes) are active during all of these states of mind. These areas are somehow used to create the visual (and other sensory modality) perceptions of dreams, and, according to Hobson's theory, are activated by firing of the brain stem during dreams.

This, then, is a rather simple theory of the generation of dream perceptions from visual memories. But what about the question of whether memories can be generated during dreams? (BTW, although my discussion will primarily focus on vision, the arguments are assumed to apply more or less the same to other sensory modalities.) First, it is clear that activation of the visual association areas of the brain (which store codes based on prior visual experiences) results in the visual "perceptions" we have during dreams. Second, during waking perception, new visual memories (e.g., people, places, things) are encoded in these same areas of the brain. Both of these statements follow from the research cited above. The question remains, however, is it possible to add new visual memories to the visual association areas during dreaming? According to the logic above, this would involve not only the activation of prior visual memories but also the encoding of them into new visual memories.

Hobson (1995, p. 166) argues that we cannot create new memories during dreaming, because during dreaming the brain lacks "the molecules needed to convert our immediate or short-term memories into longer ones. The molecules would be the aminergic neurotransmitters that are cut off in REM sleep. When we awaken, the noradrenergic and serotonergic neurons turn on and give our brains a shot of these transmitters. If a dream experience is still encoded in activated networks of neurons, it can be reported, recorded and remembered." This jibes with the difficulty of remembering dreams unless one wakes up and immediately records them.

However, I would suggest that there are two problems with Hobson's argument. First, my own subjective experience suggests that I have memory for locations seen only in dreams. However, Hobson could probably argue that this is only possible if such locations were encoded into memory when I woke up. However, a second argument, which is more difficult to counter, is the fact that we can sometimes remember several extended dream episodes when we wake up. This suggests that quite extensive networks of memories can be held in some sort of abeyance until we wake. This abeyance would have to be what is called "long term memory" since what is called "short term memory" is generally limited to a few items (e.g., Miller's famous 7 +/- 2 items, though these may be "chunks," i.e., conglomerations of smaller items) and is generally only held for short periods of time, generally less than a minute. By either standard, remembering several dream episodes with multiple actors, objects, and actions would have to involve long term memory. Note however, that there is another distinction made between types of long term memory: recent and remote long term memory. I am arguing that it is at least possible for dreams to be held in recent long term memory without waking up. The question would then be, is it possible for dreams to be held in remote long term memory without waking? I think the answer is yes, but only based on my earlier subjective report of having memory for places only visited while dreaming. And I will admit that this is the weakest part of my argument.

I'm sorry for being so long winded and meandering. But I think that this all relates to your previous discussion of the issue of "false rememberances" and the creation of dream contents by the brain. In any case, I look forward to seeing what you think of it.

Best regards,

Lester

Hey Stephen!

Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate it. It is indeed reinforcing to get it! :)

I think you are right about the accumulation of "day residue" related to lucid dreaming helping to promote lucid dreams. Did Stephen LaBerge say something about that in one of his books too? I somehow recall reading that somewhere before (maybe it was the previous posting you referred to).

BTW, re. my e-mail address, I just checked, and it looks like you can access it by clicking on the blue lettered name at the top of the posted message. For my name, that takes you to my information sheet, which has another blue lettered e-mail address for me. If you click that, you get a message form to send to me.

Best regards,

Les

Re. Attention while dreaming & Memory across dreams

Hi Steve!

Thanks for taking the time to make such a thoughtful response to my previous posting! Your examples of dream perceptions of heat and odor are fascinating! I think the hypothesis of attention guiding perception and memory in dreams is gaining plausibility! Of course, it is well established that attention guides perception and memory during the waking state, but it is fascinating to think of the ways it could have similar effects during dreaming.

For example, in the waking state, the fact that we don't pay attention to a given percept, say a smell, and therefore do not perceive it, means that we are ignoring a stimulus which exists in our environment and which is therefore potentially perceptible. In the dream state, however, this need not necessarily be the case. Instead, it could be that only if we pay attention to something in a dream, does it come into existence at all. The alternative to this possibility is that the dream percept apparatus of the brain works in much the same way as the normal perceptual system. That is, the dream creation apparatus actually makes much more information available than we can use, and we pick and choose from among that information, via attention, much as we do in waking reality. However, I find it hard to believe that the brain would put so much work into producing information that was mostly going to be wasted. It would seem much more economical to make up percepts on the fly, so that only what was needed would be created, and nothing more. What do you think?

On the topic of dream memories, I think that I failed to clearly communicate at least one critical point in my last posting. Specifically, although I was discussing the possibility of creating memories encoded only during the dream state (not followed immediately by waking), I did not mean to say that they could never be recalled except while dreaming. In fact, whether such dream memories are recalled during the dream state, or during the waking state, is irrelevant to my argument, though the possibility of recalling dream memories during other dreams is extremely interesting. As you astutely pointed out, it seems quite likely that such memories could be recalled during the waking state if the appropriate memory cues were available (I believe I have done just that many times). However, I also agree with you that it is possible that we are better able to recall dream encoded memories while we are dreaming. (Actually, this was a possibility I hadn't thought of.) There is actually some good evidence for state dependent memory processes in a study done by Alan Baddeley, noted memory researcher. He found that information initially encoded during scuba diving was better recalled later during scuba diving than on land!

In fact, I am pretty sure that I have revisited dream locations, in multiple dreams separated by weeks, months, or perhaps years, that I have never visited in real life. It is possible, however, as you point out, that these are only false remembrances. Our non-lucid dreaming faculties of reasoning seem prone to believing all manner of cock-eyed things, as when we blithely explain away obviously bizarre occurrences (dream signs to the lucid dreamer). Indeed, I just read an interesting account of the way bizarre occurrences in dreams are rationalized by the mind in J. Allen Hobson's book, The Dreaming Brain (Chapter 14).

By the way, it is fascinating to see how like minds work in similar ways! Just as you noted, I too was thinking that one way to provide evidence for the reality of revisited dream locales would be through use of one's dream journal. One could note in it the recurrences of dream locales and find when one had actually noted the same locale previously (assuming that one's notes were detailed enough, and one's memory good enough to find the correct previous notes in the journal!). This could be used to support the claim that one had indeed revisited a dream location, and possibly also that that location did not actually exist in the real world, but only in one's dreams (especially if the location is bizarre). Again, however, as you note, someone like Hobson could argue that the memories for the dream location were created in each instance by the fact that one had woken up and noted the location in the dream journal. Thus, I think we are in agreement that there may be no clear way to support the contention that memories for revisited dream locations were encoded only while dreaming. This is kind of depressing, but it also points up the fascinating puzzles that one faces when trying to figure out how the dreaming mind/brain works!

As for the use of technical mumbo jumbo, sorry for if I sounded like I knew more than I do. When I quoted Hobson's theory, including the details of the types of neurotransmitters involved, I only did so in order to do justice to his theory, not because I understood it particularly well. But as our discussion is showing me very clearly, we are both thinking through this whole set of problems in similar ways using our personal experiences and logic. That seems to be the way people have tackled questions related to dreaming and the mind for centuries. It is just that these days modern technology is allowing us to get more and more specific details useful for testing particular hypotheses. But in the case of the specific questions we are discussing, I don't see any clear solutions. Perhaps I just don't know enough.

Best regards,

Lester

Sorry to jump into this discussion so late, but I only recently learned of this site. This thread is most interesting to me as this particular topic has long been a favorite of mine. However, I must admit to being unduly distracted throughout my reading. This is due to the fact that the proposed label, "false rememberance", effectively concludes the dialogue as to the significance of the memories themselves.

It seems that the term "false" unduly constrains the discussion from the outset, as it summarily refutes the legitimacy of the memories. Closing this door before one has an opportunity to peer into the void beyond severely limits the discussion space, and it is not clear that such limitation is justified. I wonder if ascertaining whether such limitations exist shouldn't be the guiding thrust of the discussion.

I understand the initial reluctance to use the term "dream memory", although I do not view the ambiguity which arises as justification for the leap to "false rememberance". The issue seems to be resolved if we somehow clarify the fact that the memory appears to occur only during dreams. This is accomplished by using either "dreaming memory" or "dreamed rememberance", and either term lacks the prejudice of the term "false".

Hi Scott,

No need to apologize for joining the discussion! I'm glad we can get more input and ideas on the topic!

I agree with your point about "false remembrance" clearly being a potential misnomer. I sort of ignored that and went on to propose my own thoughts on the matter, which were essentially that it is indeed quite possible that memories encoded during dreaming, and not when one awoke, could be recalled later while dreaming. Unfortunately, at this point I am inclined to think that this is a virtually untestable hypothesis. (See the above discussion for why I think so. Perhaps you will disagree and point out why it need not be so.)

One small but important point that I would disagree on (and which Stephen B. and I also discussed above) is that the recall of such dream encoded memories need not necessarily be limited to the dream state. That is, it seems imminently possible that such memories could also be recalled when awake as well. But, as Stephen B. and I also concurred, there are reasons to think that such memories might be most easily recalled in the dream state, since there is a tendency for recall to be enhanced if it occurs under circumstances similar to those in which the memory was encoded.

I hope to hear more of your ideas on this intriguing topic!

Best regards,

Les

Sorry to take so long to acknowledge your responses to my post. I've finally extricated myself from my latest round of overwhelming waking distraction, and have again asserted my interest in dreamland. After re-reading this thread, I must say you both (Stephen and Les) have some rather fascinating ideas on this topic. I can't really do them all justice here without writing an exposition (not an option, in my view) so I'll not address each point that I'd like to.

Rather, let me toss out a few thoughts of my own, and perhaps jumpstart the thread in the process. I should admit up front that I have little in the way of formal academic background on this topic. That said, I'd like to hit 2 high points. First, my intuitive notion has been that dreaming vs. waking memory subsystems are separate but complete systems, with some sort of barrier between them. By this, I mean that I currently believe that there is a dream memory infrastructure which is independent of my waking memory infrastructure.

I believe Les posited as much in one of his posts on this topic. I would add that we have at least some small amount of evidence for this, given (as one of you mentioned above) that a simple association can trigger a ripple effect (spreading activation, I think you said) which brings forth more of the dream. I have had this occur long after a dream (days, even) when a simple association brought forth a rather involved dream sequence, a 'whole dream', if you will.

This tends to support the notion that the whole memory is there, wherever 'there' is, yet it is inaccessible under ordinary circumstances. Given other research results regarding state-dependent memory, it seems reasonable to posit that this is a similar phenomenon. If that were true, then Les' notions regarding an enhanced ability to recall previously encoded dream memories while later dreaming would almost certainly follow without question. I have no difficulty leaning in this direction.

This would be consistent with the notion that dream memory becomes inaccessible (with respect to waking memory, that is) if the pathway to it is not quickly cemented, with the 'cementing' consisting in forcing a wedge into the path of the closing door between memory subsystems, whatever that process might actually be. This would follow naturally if we assume that the waking state of the mind (brain?) is significantly different than the dreaming state, but that there is some intermediate state via which we may gain access.

Jumping shamelessly and abruptly to the second high point I warned of above, I'll leave you with the following:

Given a contiguous group of dreamed memories which you cannot correlate with your own waking memory, consider this: what if the memories are not your own? That is, what if you are dreaming someone else's memories? Or, perhaps even more startling, what if you are remembering someone else's dreaming?!

:-)

Stephen,

I'll make this brief since I haven't read any of the postings after the first one. (too tired)

I have experienced many times when dreams that I've totally forgotten in my waking life, I can and do remember easily when I'm dreaming. So applying that to this discussion, when you walk through a neighborhood in a dream and it appears familiar, perhaps it's because you've already been there, in a dream, and then forgotten you'd ever been there.

Anyways, that's my two cents.

Quicksilver

Hey Friends!

I have finally made it back to the list long enough to reply to at least one thread! I must say that both Scott's and Stephen B' comments were exceptionally sharp! I will limit my own comments to two points: 1) the claim that there are two memory systems, one for dreaming, and one for waking, and 2) the claim that the feeling of remembering while dreaming may in fact be as false as many other dream contents.

Scott said:

Quote:

my intuitive notion has been that dreaming vs. waking memory subsystems are separate but complete systems, with some sort of barrier between them. By this, I mean that I currently believe that there is a dream memory infrastructure which is independent of my waking memory infrastructure. I believe Les posited as much in one of his posts on this topic.

Actually, if that is how my earlier posting was interpreted, I must apologize, because I didn't mean to give that impression. I would not want to posit a separate memory system for dreams and waking. However, what Scott may have interpreted as indicating that there is such a divide is the following fact: memories tend to be easiest to recall under circumstances most similar to their encoding. Thus, in the famous example I quoted earlier, scuba divers recalled information learned while scuba diving better when under water than while on land. The same could be true for material originally encoded while dreaming. That is, it may be easier to recall dream material while dreaming than while awake. However, even if this is true (and I hasten to mention that I have no proof that it is), that is not evidence that dreams have a separate memory subsystem from that of waking. If that were so, one might expect that there would be a separate memory subsystem for every conceivable mind state or situation (e.g., one for beer drinking, one for sex, one for scuba diving, one for motorcycle driving, one for sitting on the couch, etc.).

Instead, I think there is one memory system shared by the various mind states. This sharing of memory space would explain how day residues enter dreams, as well as the more basic fact that all of our previous waking experiences are available for incorporation in dreams (and, in fact, seem to be the "stuff" that dreams are "made of"). Furthermore, as we all know, dreams CAN be recalled while waking.

On the other hand, there is strong evidence for the fact that memories from different sensory modalities are stored in separate areas of the brain. Thus, visual memories are stored separately from auditory memories and olfactory memories. However, the distinctions between sensory modalities on the one hand, and between mind states on the other, is qualitatively large, and I know of no evidence for memories from different mind states being stored in different areas. After all, sensory modalities actually come equipped with entire regions of the brain (not to mention peripheral sensory organs) specialized for their processing. Dreaming, on the other hand, seems to use most of the same brain areas used while waking, only fewer of them. (Specifically, the primary sensory cortices (used for low level processing of sensory input) appear not to be very active while dreaming, which makes sense since we aren't taking in much sensory information.)

Scott also made the interesting subargument that:

Quote:

dream memory becomes inaccessible (with respect to waking memory, that is) if the pathway to it is not quickly cemented, with the 'cementing' consisting in forcing a wedge into the path of the closing door between memory subsystems, whatever that process might actually be. This would follow naturally if we assume that the waking state of the mind (brain?) is significantly different than the dreaming state, but that there is some intermediate state via which we may gain access.

While I don't buy the argument that there is a door between two memory systems, one for dreams, and one for waking, I think the point about difference between mind/brain states is important. In order for any given memory to be recalled, whether while waking or dreaming, it is necessary for there to be a "recall cue." The cue is what allows the spreading activation to get started. Some cues are more effective than others. The closer the cue is to the pattern of associations for the target memory, the better the recall. It is possible that mind/brain states (such as "dreaming" vs. "waking") may be encoded as a sort of a global encoding context along with other memory information associated with a particular memory. I think this more general framework can explain encoding context effects on recall, as well as the dream memory recall phenomena cited by Scott.

As for Scott's suggestion that it is possible to dream someone else's dreams, my only comment is that it certainly doesn't fit within any theory of mind that I know. However, I am sure that it is possible to come up with a metaphysical theory that would explain it. The problem would then be to come up with any sort of scientific (i.e., independently repeatable) evidence in support of it. However, I got the feeling from Scott's post that this was only a half-serious proposal anyway. So, I won't hold my breath for any research proposals designed to test for the existence of such dreams.

Stephen B. has come up with some more fascinating hypotheses as well. The most intriguing one for me was the idea that "rememberance" as a feeling is something that arises in dreams, and may in fact be just as false as many other dream contents. I think there has to be some truth to this idea. For example, in many of my dreams, I have met "friends" or "relatives" that I have no recollection of knowing when I woke up. And, often, these "friends" or "relatives" were together with real friends and relatives that I did know that knew when I woke up. So, these would seem to be false rememberances.

However, as Nelson/Quicksilver mentions, I have also had the experience of recalling a neighborhood in a dream that I had no recollection of in my waking life, that I was sure that I recalled from a previous dream. Indeed, I can visualize the rough layout of one such neighborhood even now, that I am quite sure I have visited only in my dreams. Still, as Stephen B. and I both agreed before, it seems impossible to prove that such a memory actually originated in a prior dream, and not from recalling the "second dream" when awakening from it. That is, I admit that Stephen could be right: a possible explanation for the sense that one has visited a dream location previously could be 1) a false feeling of "rememberance" while dreaming, and when awakening from that dream 2) a true memory of that dream. So, I don't think there is any way to resolve this particular part of the debate (the part that started the entire thread). Nevertheless, it is an extremely fascinating subject!

I'm glad we are getting more discussion of it!

Lucid dreams!

Les

Hi everyone,

Back to the future, and not a moment too soon :-)

I'm still thinking about Stephen B's reply to my last post, so I'll have to save a reply to that for next time. Regarding Les' reply, perhaps some clarification of my line of thought is required.

First, my comment that I intuitively think there are separate memory subsystems for dreaming vs waking was perhaps imprecise. The key here is my use of the term intuitively, which I guess I shouldn't have relied upon so heavily. I think I could also have said (1) memory encoding seems to be state dependent, (2) dreaming state is substantially different than waking state, and (3) memories encoded in 2 substantially different states may not normally be mutually and simultaneously accessible. I emphasize the use of the phrase "may not normally" in the previous statement.

I guess I could spend a lot more time on this, but I think we all know what I am saying. If not, let me know and I'll elaborate. We do seem to have consensus on the notion that dreams are really hard to remember while awake, and that waking memories are often inaccessible during dreams. We also seem to agree that if no significant effort is made to bring awareness of the dreamed experience into waking view (and vice versa), this probably will not occur - hence, the discussion of dream journal importance, techniques for enhancing dream recall, (the existence of this forum), etc.

My engineering background leads me to characterize this memory divide in terms of "subsystems", but please don't be confused by this. Regarding Les' comment that if these were different subsystems then there might be different ones for every conceivable mind state, I think the key here is in how we characterize the requisite state differences. I think that dreaming is significantly different than waking in many ways, not the least of which pertains to the fact that sensory input apparently originates from within rather than without. While I'm not offering formal criteria for determining when 2 states qualify as "different enough", I think the degree of distinction between dreaming and waking rules out the notion that "sitting on the couch" would qualify as being similarly different from waking.

I should also address the comment I tossed out earlier suggesting that uncorrelated memories might be someone else's. I added the smily emoticon because I recognized I was leading us off the well-marked trail, perhaps onto a slippery slope for a joyride. However, I did not mean to convey that I was joking.

This is dangerous territory for serious researchers, and unfortunately, pursuing such lines of inquiry may be damaging to one's reputation. This being the case, some participants here may not wish to touch this one with a ten foot pole. However, I'm not a psych researcher, so I am not constrained in this manner. I have no qualms about pursuing unconventional explanations, although I do try to avoid embracing whatever bit of fluff presents itself. I'm after the truth.

I believe I've read something regarding studies in the area of dream telepathy on this very site, so if anyone knows what I'm referring to, please jump in with a pointer or comments. The fact that telepathic experience is outside of the mainstream may make it ...unattractive as a theoretical construct, and indeed, its relatively subjective nature makes it very difficult to advance beyond hypothesis.

Nonetheless, such phenomena seem to have been demonstrated, and in any event, we have no way to either prove or disprove such occurrence beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, if we stand on such requirements for concrete proof in all of our inquiries, then I fear we will artificially restrict the extent of what's humanly knowable. There are aspects of reality which simply do not yield to the (current) scientific method.

Scott

Hi All,

This may or may not belong in this thread - if not, I guess we can move it elsewhere. A question struck me recently, and I'm interested in your thoughts on this: does improving our ability to remember dreamed experiences, thoughts, and intentions while awake simultaneously improve our ability to remember waking experiences, thoughts and intentions while dreaming?

Scott

Hi Scott,

To give you a quick response, I would think the answer is "Yes." This opinion is based on two things. First, the theory of dream memory that I've been proposing in this thread would have to predict that the quality of memory (good or bad) should be the same whether the brain is in the dreaming or waking state. That is because I'm proposing that there is a single memory system used for both dreaming and waking. Second, that seems to be the thinking that Dr. LaBerge is working under when he suggests doing prospective memory exercises to improve prospective memory while awake to improve it while dreaming.

In any case, I think it is a safe assumption for you to make, though I don't know of any concrete evidence yet that would strongly support it. I suppose one could look for correlations between, for example, recall scores on standard waking memory tests (e.g., number of idea units recalled from a written text), and, say, the number of words (or idea units) per dream recall. If the correlation were statistically significant, and positive, this would be pretty good evidence in support of the hypothesis. (I wonder if anyone has ever done this?)

Lucid dreams!

Les

Hi All,

In response to your response, Les, I guess I have to go back to an earlier topic for clarification. First, let me again emphasize that "separate subsystems" may have been an unfortunate choice for describing the relative inaccessibility of dreaming and waking memory, each from the opposite state. This seems to be a sticking point.

Another way to approach this might be to ask a question: how would you characterize the difficulty in accessing dreaming "reality" from waking "reality", and vice versa? It's qualitative affect on me is to give the impression of a wall or formidable barrier between the two, one which may be penetrated only under certain conditions. What is your impression? And for that matter, what are anyone else's impressions?

Scott

Hey Friends,

I agree with Scott that there is phenomenally a strong sense of a "barrier" to dream memory at times. I also think that Stephen's comments do an excellent job of explaining the reason behind this barrier to memory. His analogy to the difficulty in making sense of information encoded in different states of consciousness is very much to the point. Just in terms of the difference between dreaming and waking, I can say that I have often spent long REM periods working on some problem carried over from day residue, only to find on waking that the solution I came up with only works in terms of surrealist thinking (e.g., "The solution to the world population problem is to eat more omelets!"). I think the clearest way of stating this hypothesis is to say that the state of mind one is in when one encodes a memory is, itself, a cue that is maximally effective for retrieving that memory. Other states of mind are less effective recall cues for that memory.

Of course, another entirely different way of explaining the difficulty in remembering dreams when awake has been proposed by Allan Hobson. He argues that the dreaming brain is in short supply of the neurotransmitters needed to encode short term memories into long term memories. (I described this in more detail in an earlier posting in this thread.) I can't really evaluate the validity of this argument since I don't know enough about neurochemistry. But I tend to like the "state of mind at encoding and retrieval" hypothesis better because I think it fits pretty well with other well-accepted theories of memory. A problem with this hypothesis, however, is in determining the degree of match between different states of mind.

Best regards & lucid dreams!

Les

False Remembrance in Dreams

. . . I was walking down a street in my dream. I was thinking to myself, "I remember this neighborhood. I haven't been here since my childhood." Strong feelings of fond nostalgia accompanied the scene. I even knew what the next house on the block would look like before I reached it. When I awakened, I immediately realized that I have never been in such a neighborhood in my entire life. Yet my dream memory of it had been convincing.

It turns out that this strange phenomenon of experiencing seemingly authentic memories in dreams, only to discover that no true waking correlation exists, is not uncommon. Shortly after my dream documented above, I stumbled upon a posting in the newsgroup alt.dreams.lucid which questioned exactly the same perplexing phenomenon under the heading "Dream Memory." But before delving further into this topic, I first want to explain my preference for "false remembrance" as the established referent expression.

Whereas the expression "dream memory" would initially appear to be the most obvious and appropriate title for this subject, it is likely to be misleading. It can incorrectly be interpreted as referring to dream recall. For instance, your "dream memory" (i.e. your ability to remember your dreams) may be better than mine. This is not what we mean.

Another term I have seen used is "false memory." This one begs to be rejected because it has another established meaning in common parlance. It is used by psychiatrists and lawyers when questioning the validity of "recovered repressed memories" from alleged childhood sexual abuse. So again, with the likelihood of being misleading, we have another term for the tinder.

With the two most likely expressions ruled out, I was initially at a loss for an acceptable alternative. As luck would have it, I was perusing the Lucidity Institute's website and came across The Study of Dreams by Frederik van Eeden. This is the renowned article in which the word "lucid" was first coined as the definitive adjective for our conscious recognition that we are asleep and dreaming. To my surprise, in the very same article, van Eeden also made reference to "false remembrance" in dreams. I admired his insightful choice of the word "remembrance." The word "memory" often implies the person, place, thing or event remembered rather than the process involved in recalling it. "Remembrance," although it is also a noun, seems to have enough stretch for the word to be interpreted a bit like a verb, implying the process of remembering as well as the what. Either van Eeden had a masterly knack for choosing his words or he dreamed the future.

Having established to my own satisfaction that "false remembrance" is the most distinctive expression for the phenomenon under consideration, we now face the formidable task of explaining it. Not being a scientist and not having any fundamental understanding of how human memory functions from a neurological standpoint, my speculation skips this important aspect. My writing relies only on direct experience and its critical assessment, personally selected opinions and insights of others, intuitive guidance and subjective conclusions.

Trustworthy waking memory, playing its pivotal role in organizing experience, is critical to our survival. Faulty or false memory, I think we can conclude, would be detrimental to survival, and hence it shouldn't be surprising that false memories are not common in our waking life. Probably the closest parallel is the deja-vu experience, and its relatively rare occurrence doesn't seem to be problematical. In our dreams, even with rampant false remembrances and faulty logic, the dream continues, we are not diagnosed with mental illness or organic brain dysfunction, and no one is any the worse. Obviously, it is not important for our memories in dreams to be true. Indeed, in dream, it appears that memories are instantly conceived. I suspect that this process is the cohesive principle that dynamically creates a comprehensible dream from a seething cerebrum seeking equilibrium.

It is irresistible for me to speculate on how the dreaming mind can generate memories on the fly. As our dreams conjure up their nightly collage with images and experiences gathered from our sensory lifetime, I theorize that the original and true remembrance associated with each is stirred. In their blend, the resulting emergent memories, though uniquely new, are accurately perceived as having a prior referent and thus remembered. Let me clarify this with another example. One of the characters in one of my dreams was my best friend. Upon awakening, with his image still clearly in mind, I was intrigued to admit to myself that the character with whom I had just interacted was not my best friend, and in fact looked nothing like him. It is my theory that the person in my dream was a composite of many close corporeal acquaintances, and my true memory of each blended together caused the genuine feeling of an intimate bond.

There are simpler explanations. Diane Hamilton, in our original newsgroup discussion on the topic, claimed that her dream world has its own history and memories, and her waking world has its own history and memories - totally separate one from the other. In my dream of the neighborhood from my childhood that never existed in my waking reality, Diane would conclude that I had dreamed of the neighborhood before (and perhaps I even dreamed of it many years ago during my childhood). This would explain my vivid memory of it. This theory sounds plausible because our brains certainly retain memories from our past dreams, we sometimes experience recurrent dreams (or, more accurately, variations of the same dream), and anyone who keeps a dream journal soon begins to recognize commonly repeated elements or themes. But whereas our dreams may indeed contain memories from previous dreams, it is also possible that at least some of these perceptions of "true memories from our dream archive" may in fact be totally convincing "false remembrances."

The contribution which initiated this newsgroup topic was submitted by Ron Legere. Ron said that he only experiences false remembrance in his regular, non-lucid, dreams. In his lucid dreams, he has access to his "real waking memory." He commented, "It seems like each time I become lucid, it is only after I connect in some sense to my real memory. I will think - I don't remember this - Hey! I'm dreaming."

Permit me another example similar to Ron's from my own dream journal. I dreamed of a large "warehouse-like" building behind my home (which does not exist in waking reality). In my dream, I recognized the building. It had always been there (false remembrance). Inside the building was a large aquarium filled with bizarre species of fish. I believe it was this, by apparent association, that triggered the thought, "I keep our boat in the garage attached to our house (true waking memory). Why haven't I used this large building?" It didn't make sense. I became lucid.

In these two examples Ron and I realized that we were dreaming due to the intrusion of cognitive clarity. In fact, we became lucid. I understand lucidity to mean seeing things in their true perspective, being in possession of our faculties, to apprehend and subsequently comprehend. Once again, I admire Frederik van Eeden for his insightful choice of words. Some lucid dreamers object to the use of the word lucid, believing that "conscious" dreaming, not lucid dreaming, is more accurately descriptive of what we do. For a time I agreed. But, oneironaut that I am, experience and reflection ultimately prevail. In our lucid dreams, we are conscious of the fact that we are dreaming. In our non-lucid dreams, we are not conscious of the fact that we are dreaming. But that is not to say that we are not conscious. We are conscious of our dream world when asleep no less than we are conscious of the sensory world when awake. Thus I submit that "lucid" is a better term for knowing that we are dreaming. Somehow we see it. We apprehend a dream. We comprehend a world.

Well, I will have more to say on the implications of memory, much more on the positive consequences of lucid thought, and gratefully a little less on linguistics. /Stephen Berlin

Damien. Thank you for the thought-provoking follow-up. During DreamCamp98, Stephen LaBerge made the comment that "memory is a constructive process." I didn't know what he meant, and the topic shifted before I had the opportunity to ask. Now, thanks to your post, I have my answer. Along with my comments here, I am going to recap some of what you said which is my way of clarifying my own thinking on the subject and a means of making sure that I properly understand. Consequently, if I have misinterpreted or somewhat skewed some of what you were saying, please set me straight.

In my initial posting on false remembrance, I suggested that memories were generated on-the-fly in dreams and that they are somehow conceived. According to Gleitman: "in the absence of bottom-up processing, the remembered past is continually constructed and reconstructed to fit the schemes of the moment." As Damien points out, dreams meet this criteria. Both sensory input and waking memory (bottom-up processing) are significantly suppressed. Thus "the remembered past" is conceived on-the-fly to provide a perceived coherence to the dream or, as Gleitman more aptly put it, "to fit the schemes of the moment." The memories need not be valid, and unless lucid, are likely to be false.

In view of this model, false remembrance is not due to any mental aberration, but is the result of top-down processing doing its job so well. In order to organize our human experience into comprehensible patterns and plausible scenarios, top-down processing mandates that all elements which rise up into consciousness fit neatly into the moment's immutable template. This template is fashioned in some esoteric manner by beliefs and expectations from our personal psyche, and I strongly suspect from archetypes in our collective psyche as well. Whatever cognitive rudiments penetrate into our awareness during REM sleep, top-down processing astonishingly finds appropriate associations to instantly unite them into an acceptable perception. This apparently requires a simultaneous "filling in the gaps" with reasonable false remembrance to simulate linear time . . . yea, even unto a dream.

Whereas this explains why false remembrances are created (the influence of top-down processing which insists on comprehensibility in the absence of true waking memory), the model does not explain how false remembrances seem so remarkably true. I theorized in my first posting on this subject that "as our dreams conjure up their nightly collage with images and experiences gathered from our sensory lifetime . . . the original and true remembrance associated with each is stirred. In their blend, the resulting emergent memories, though uniquely new, are accurately perceived as having a prior referent and remembered." This still remains a valid postulate for our genuine "feeling of remembering" as top-down processing pulls a plausible story together.

Theory is fun, but lucid dreamers want practical applications. As Ron Legere noted and I quoted in my last posting, "It seems like each time I become lucid, it is only after I connect in some sense to my real memory." Damien arrived at the same conclusion when he said that the dream-world experience contains few good associations to waking memory, "but when something does trigger those memories then more will follow. This is apparently when lucidity is possible . . . and presumably why Dr. LaBerge uses mnemonic techniques to make many associations with events that are likely to occur in dreams." Thanks Damien. I am now finally privy to why Stephen LaB, Keelin and David Smith, with guileless good humor, scarletly lettered the memory morons at DreamCamp98. But alas, the foolish merry militants wore their shame with pride.

I don't want to close without mentioning Damien's astute observation that the influence of top-down processing, in the dearth of bottom-up, seems to stigmatize dreams "a perceptual delusion." Unfortunately, my intellect too easily tends to agree. I'll armchair some philosophy until I find a way to defeat this proposition. I believe my lucid dreams are real. No less real than the dream that you are reading this now. I'll do my best to prove it. /Stephen Berlin

Thanks, Les, for letting me know that the email address for each contributor to the LI Forum is just a click away. One must be blind to the obvious to discern the obscure.

I agree with your conclusion that the "over-representation" of visual and auditory modalities during dreaming simply reflects the degree that they dominate our attention in waking life. The percentages you cited for other sensory perceptions, from my own subjective experience, seem similarly on the mark. Perhaps it is worth pointing out while considering this aspect, for those who have no recollection of other sensory perceptions in their dreams - such as temperature, taste and smell - that these do indeed occur, and with absolute authenticity. In a recent episode of REM, I saw a plate loaded with lamb. I was concerned about how long it had been sitting out, so I did the intelligent thing. I grabbed a hunk and shoved it into my mouth. It was piping hot and I'm not lion. In another dream, a co-worker was coming out of the bathroom as I passed by in the hallway. I noticed in the waft an invidious vagrant of fruit. In each case, I was so astonished by my dream's skill in sensory cloning that it mandated a mention in my journal.

I have been pondering for the past week your speculation that we possibly encode memories in dreams that can only be accessed again when dreaming. I think that this is the default scenario for dreams that are followed by subsequent dreams without any awakenings between them. Most of us know how fleeting the details of a dream can be if not recorded or reflected upon immediately. Consequently, dreams that are sandwiched between other dreams are exceedingly unlikely to be remembered unless some random perception in our enviroment is precise enough to trigger a trace by association. Then and only then, thanks to the "spreading activation model" noted by Damien, do we have any probability of retrieving more of the forgotten dream. When we do seem to access an "old dream memory" during a "new dream," I don't think we can necessarily conclude that we would have been denied access to the same remembrance if presented with an equivalently precise stimulus when awake. In support of your hypothesis, though, I think it is highly probable that dream cues trigger past dream memories with considerably greater ease than waking cues. the Catch 22 (as I've said in an earlier posting) is the definite possibility that "our clear perception that we have dreamed something before" may in fact be a totally convincing false remembrance. As Damien's posting pointed out - allowing me some liberty with synonyms - "top-down processing" is a superb deceiver when it is forced to schematize to impose believability. Probably our best bet for clues in this matter is a detailed dream journal. If we can dig back a few years and find a reference to the same scene, it clearly was not a false remembrance. On the other hand, having recorded it in our dream journal originally, we encoded it securely into our waking memory as well. Holy smoke. I suddenly remember that I had completely forgotten that I never wanted to recall being beguiled by this memory mumbo-jumbo ever again!

I admire those of you whose intellects can fathom brainstem firings and other neurotechnic intricacies. I, however, have recognized and admitted my ineptitude in the cranial coliseum. I now bask in being booed when doing the slippery-sidestep to avoid the biochemistry of meaning. Fortunately though, lucid dreaming can and should be viewed from many essential vantages. By science, for its unyielding commitment to truth. By philosophy, for its eloquent will to convincingly understand. By religion, in its immediate need for a heaven. And by the Self which must sooner or later learn to face Its own creation.

Thus I leave thee bewildered in the inexplicably sublime mystery of what the last few sentences had to do with the subject. /Stephen Berlin

Scott. Thanks for your comments. This topic began with my concern about the terminology. I had to give it a title, so I gave it some thought, made a choice and explained why I decided on "False Remembrance." I thoroughly understand your perspective on the matter, realizing as you do that our perception is paramount and labeling it "false" may or may not be true. My intent was to provoke the discussion, and anyone who has experienced this phenomenon seems to immediately recognize it by this "maybe misnomer." False Remembrance has gleaned some deeply thoughtful responses, including your own.

Ultimately, you can count on me to choose my words with one motive in mind. I want readers who are new to lucid dreaming to think, "Hey, that happens in my dreams!" Hopefully they'll take the bait and get hooked on their meaningful life in sleep - which for so many years they mistakenly believed to be false. /Stephen Berlin

Thanks, Scott, for continuing this thread. It is one of my favorites. In re-reading what I have said in the past, I'm still not certain that I have adequately answered your concern about my preference for the term "false remembrance." I realize that I may be guilty of reinforcing a prejudice by using the word "false," but other options such as "dreamed remembrance" would have missed my whole point in starting the discussion. What fascinated me initially was the recognition in retrospect of a vividly authentic memory in a dream that turned out to have no waking correlation. Calling it false, at least at that point, clearly identified what was stimulating my curiosity. Of course, once we delve into the matter as we have in this thread, it turns out that false remembrance may not necessarily be false at all, at least from certain valid perspectives. Nevertheless, the apparent falseness of specific memories in a dream is what got our interest and got us here. I agree with Les that we will probably not be able to arrive at any indisputable conclusions on this subject, but we all obviously find it intriguing.

Your speculation that dreaming and waking memories are "complete and separate subsystems" is the most popular viewpoint, and there is plenty of subjective support for that conclusion. First, there are those cases in which we wake up from a dream and think, "Oh, I've dreamed of that place before," even though we know that such a place does not exist in waking reality. It seems logical to conclude from this that our dreaming mind accessed the memory of a prior dream from the "dream memory subsystem." And as we've discussed before, most of us have experienced a specific waking cue which triggers the memory of a forgotten dream. Again, it seems logical to conclude from this that the waking cue somehow managed to access the same "dream memory subsystem." I would probably side with this theory myself if I thoroughly trusted these apparent remembrances. Frankly, I'm not sure that I do. They could also be "false" and just seem remembered. If this is indeed the case, we have just walked around a big circle and are back where we started. I am playing the devil's advocate here, so please don't think that I am slighting your hypothesis.

I think it is worthwhile to ask ourselves if there could be other explanations for false remembrance in dreams? Earlier in the thread I proposed that since our dreams are created with "images and feelings" that we have experienced and gathered over our sensory lifetime, each dream scene does in fact actually have some connection to our waking past. Once we have seen our first lizard, any lizard-like creature in a dream should seem somewhat familiar. Stretching this to a conclusion, everything in a dream should seem remembered. The vividness of the memory might correlate with the degree of feeling which attended the imprinting of the imagery. I personally don't think that this is the explanation for false remembrance we are looking for, but the reasoning is not entirely unsound, and perhaps it does factor into the mix.

Another possibility has occurred to me. When I look at a sunrise, it stimulates a feeling within me that I label beauty. When a sociopathic patient spits in my face knowing that I have enough restraint not to spit back, I feel a flash of rage. When Dan Akroyd, John Goodman and Jim Belushi were jamming it up last Wednesday night with Buddy Guy about 25 feet from me at the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay, I felt elation. In the surprising unannounced appearance of Koko Taylor, I felt fulfillment in my good fortune of seeing "The Queen of the Blues" in the flesh. We give our feelings names, and when reading the words I selected for the experiences above, you probably got a pretty good sense of how I felt. You have had the very same feelings under different circumstances. They are common to us all.

I am heading to a point in all of this when I ask, do such easily identified feelings have "independent existence" like a dog or a tree? Dogs and trees, we know, might unexpectedly appear in our dreams in strange places. A dog might be roaming the halls of a hospital and a tree might be growing out of the kitchen floor. Now if feelings have an analogous independent existence, they may also unexpectedly appear in our dreams in strange places. We might feel genuine affection for a cockroach in a dream, or we might feel intense fear for our loving grandmother in a nightmare. My personal dream experience supports that this happens. I sometimes wake up disturbed by some inexplicable emotions toward a dream character that are totally contrary to my waking feelings. And once, locked in a dreamed dungeon, I suddenly perceived a strange beauty in the cold slabs that confined me. In hindsight, it seems that the feelings spontaneously "sprang up," and then the dream scene was forced to accommodate the contradiction.

So now let's consider the "feelings" of reminiscence and nostalgia. These are both aspects of remembrance defined to emphasize its affective quality. There can be no disputing that "remembering" is part and parcel of our waking life, and like the other "non-physical" qualities I have used for examples, it will certainly appear in our dreams. And since we do a lot more remembering than we do raging or laughing, it should appear a lot more often. I contend that it does. So whatever the scene in your dream, when remembrance arises, the dream will embrace it and the scene will seem remembered. Since it is not truly remembered, we have another plausible explanation for the phenomenon of false remembrance.

One of the most reliable reality checks for lucid dreamers is asking ourselves, "How did I get here?" If we are awake we will remember. If we are dreaming we will not. In our dreams we are constantly remembering people, places and things - yet we can't remember how we got to wherever we are. Either remembrance in dreams is generated on-the-fly as needed (making it false) or our "dream memory subsystem," not knowing where we were last, has a terrible memory.

I see more tangential strings here, but food for thought is like any meal, and for the moment I'm full. /Stephen Berlin

Hi everyone,

I've been lucid dreaming for several years, but haven't done much actual research on it until very recently. I just wanted to share some of the things I've noticed about memory and false remembrance in my dreams.

First, a common them running throughout many of my dreams is the concept that each dream world is a legitimate world, and that waking life itself is also just one of these worlds. I've had dreams where I've woken up in some town, and I remember an entire life history of how I grew up and worked there. In a few dreams, I have become lucid, and talked to a dream guide. One once said, "Each time you 'wake up' in a new world, an entire history is put into your mind to make you think you belong there, and the other histories of all the other worlds you've been to are hidden. Each time you wake up and decide you are actually in 'the real world', it is only because you are in a world slightly closer to the truth." I don't necessarily believe that, but it does explain a little bit how my perception of reality works between worlds.

I've found that rather than having one 'memory bank' for the real world and one for dreams, that i seem to have several different ones, one for the real world, and one for several dream worlds that i've revisited. For example, I can remember a dream in the real world by concentrating and recalling the details of the dream shortly after I wake up, thereby transferring it into my real world memory bank. If i do it too much, I fall back asleep into the dream. I can also transfer some details about the real world into a dream world if I concentrate and try to recall things, but if I do it too much, I wake up. Similarly, I can sometimes remember details from one dream world in a completely different dream world, but doing it too much makes me shift worlds or sometimes merges the two worlds together.

A second thing I've noticed about memory between worlds (different dream worlds and the real world), is that I tend to have different perception abilities in different worlds, which make much of the memory non-transferrable. One the one hand, some worlds are completely black and white with no sound or smell. Trying to recall details with those senses in such a world doesn't really make any sense. I've never tried it, because even becoming partially lucid in such a world, I generally don't remember something as intrinsically complex as "oh yes, i remember what sound is like" or "i remember what color looks like". On the other end of the spectrum, some dream worlds involve senses beyond what I have in the real world, and I have a lot of trouble remembering those things until I return to a similar dream world and regain those perceptive abilities. In some dreams, I have had 360 degree vision, or a strange sixth sense like an internal narrator letting me know what was going to happen, telepathic communication with people or objects, a completely non-linear flow of time, or the ability to feel or hear things at a distance, and other senses too bizarre to explain or remember. Things perceived in that manner are very hard to recall in the real world.

Tom,

Thanks for your post of Oct 6th.

I like how you brought up that you have more than one dream world, each with its own meaning/context, and that you described the nature of memory transfer between them. I especially liked that you referred in your last paragraph to different perception abilities in the different states and how these make much of the memory non-transferrable. (I would prefer to say 'difficult to transfer' leaving open the potential of developing the skill of translation, but that is a minor point.)

Have you by chance read "Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experiences" by SLB and DeGarcia, elsewhere on this site? Among other things, the article discusses stable contexts vs transient, competition and cooperation between contexts, and some about memory transfer.

Can you describe a little more your various dream environments? Like, how many do you count?

Again, thanks for your post. As for me, I have not been remembering LD's much (distracted by other pursuits) or else I would post the results to the forum. I am more of a lurker these days.