The Reddit Lamp Story: A Deep Dive

[@donutchan8114]

When i was young id spend several days severely disoriented because i didnt understand what dreams were, and struggled to diferentiate between when i was awake and when i wasnt (doesnt help i dream in 4k), and while i never had a dream that lasted what seemed like years i have had some that lasted months, and id wake up extremely depressed because i lost something that never existed. When i first read the lamp story it sort of felt like vindication because there are people that undergo this special kind of hell thats very difficult to empathize with (as many redittors doubted something like this was possible) and ive had people dismiss my more troubling dreams as nothing more, rather than it being the closest one can be to a hyperbolic time chamber in an alternate reality.

[@NopeNoPerson702]

I've had dreams that lasted days, but then I'd open my eyes and not even an hour had passed.

[@leithramage1785]

It doesn't happen often with me but I've dreams that have felt like months. Once I began grieving my brother's death only to wake up and realised he was still alive and with us. When I'm very unwell I need to call someone to make sure I'm awake because dreams feel so real.

[@holnrew]

When I was 3 or 4 I dreamt I could fly all the time, and one day in real life I threw myself down the stairs

[@inquisitorinluzifera3406]

"I dream in 4k" this made my day :,D

[@raventripp6181]

I've had dreams that have lasted for centuries. Where I've taught people how to fly using their minds using psychic capabilities and I wake up and none of it was real.

[@jennarhodes2724]

I had a dream I was deeply in love with an acquaintance and was heartsick for like a week after waking up. I figured I'd better ask him out to dispel the false perception... we've been dating for 2+ years now

[@SpookyPancakes]

Telepathic game

[@digdogbulldogdog]

Based, you schizo’ed your way into a loving relationship

[@ThatGuyRNA]

The brain knows what the brain wants

[@thethirdchimpanzee]

I have had dreams where I am deeply in love with a person in the dream, and then woken up and been *heartbroken* DEEPLY that the person was gone...and I have been depressed about it for days, weeks even. (I am divorced, single now, lonely...all my kids are adults. I am good friends with my ex - we even had dinner tonight - and she isn't seeing anyone either...but I don't feel that way about her now. It the dream the feelings are insense and *raw*.)

[@fellix7531]

That's so cool! Lol. I've had a couple of dreams where I'm in a relationship/in love with someone. But the most intense was with this girl, dreamt of her twice. The second dream was sort of a continuation of the last, which were probably a few years apart. I felt heartbroken after waking up both times.

[@SatinFoxx]

As someone who has lived livetimes in dreams, it SUCKS. Days afterword you are dazed and thinking about people who cared about you, hurt you, your job, your hobbies, and no way to get them back. The worst part for me is all of them have been ended by death, not some glitch in the world, and it sucks. Ive had a fear of death and reality not being real since I was a little kid, and those dreams are the reason.

[@raventripp6181]

Most of my dreams end with me feeling tired, and I have to go back to sleep😢

[@evecates2232]

Reminds me of " the long dream " by junji ito

[@raventripp6181]

@evecates2232 That's how most of my are. The best dreams I ever have are normally the ones where I die. Because then I could wake up quicker and wake up sooner. Because I was taught Drunken Monkey style of fighting so I calmed myself to a fight or battle. So I choose not to feel fear when a fight arrives.

[@Elmayoneso22]

Sounds like torture

[@raventripp6181]

@mclovin8794 It is more or less a form of paranoid schizophrenia. Your mind has mind pops as you sleep in your subconscious and you just have to calm yourself to them and work them out as they come along. And then you can fight them as if it's reality and deal with them before you wake up and when you do wake up you feel calmer and happier because you were able to resolve your issues. In your dream.

[@xan8867]

I had a dream that lasted for years in the dream too. It haunts me to this point. I keep thinking about it. I have more memories from it than from most of my real life. It's incredibly unnerving to wake up and find out the last few years did not happen. I feel like I'm much older than I truly am and have memories of things that never happened. It's insane. Every time i see someone that looks like someone from my dream i get nauseous. It's been three years since i woke up from that dream and i still remember it as if it's true.

[@SlizMaster]

Well unless I am dreaming myself, or I am a construct in YOUR dream, I can guarantee that you are awake now. Don't worry

[@troncrash7912]

You think you woke up

[@Josuh]

Nah im fr im the most brainrotted person of earth im sure your mind wouldn't come up with the sigma rizz ohio i possess so don't worry

[@florencebutterfly]

Reminds me of one of Ito Junji's manga about this

[@OuredFoster]

the reason why you see real people in your dreams is because your mind is incapable of making a face of a nonexistant person from scratch, so it takes your memories of random people even bystanders out on the street and inserts them inside your dream.

[@darkjaden-fe]

I remember once my friend told me about a dream he had where he was fully aware that he was dreaming. And he kept trying to tell his friends that it was a dream, and he was dealing with like, the existential crisis of "if this is a dream what happens to them when they wake up" but his friends eventually were like "dude we know it's a dream that's why we're trying to spend as much time with you as we can before you wake up"

[@crazygamer646]

Even though they were about to vanish from existence they still wanted to make him happy as long as they could that’s heart warming and sad at the same time they were some good friends

[@hottopiccowboy]

a few years ago i had gotten into lucid dreaming big time i had fallen asleep and realized i was lucid. i was so lucid. probably the most powerful id ever felt in a dream. i could fly summon whoever i wanted whenever do whatever i wanted be wherever i wanted. for what felt like days i had lots of fun. finally i decided its time to wake up. so i began trying to wake up like i typically did. i had started to get worried. i couldnt wake up. i found myself walking along a giant grandfather clock that was laying face up. i walked along the hands of time itself as i had a conversation with god. he told me i died. that the reality of limbo between life and death is a seemingly endless lucid dream and i was soon going to enter the afterlife. i spent days struggling to comprehend i was dead. i begged god for more chances. i wanted to see my fiance and my parents and pets and friends one last time. i begged for another chance. i got angry at god, then sad, i still tried to wake myself up thinking if i tried hard enough id wake up. finally after a very long time i sat at the edge of the clock. still ticking, never stopping. i looked into the endless void of sky and clouds that surrounded the clock and i realized theres no changing what happened to me. god told me i finally understood to accept his plans for me and i woke up. i think about this often. i woke up crying, in a cold sweat. like i hadnt taken a breath in years. like i hadnt seen my family in years. like id been gone for a lifetime. i still remember so vividly how it felt to hear that i was dead. a week or so later i got diagnosed with lymphoma. im now cancer free as of a year if im remembering correctly. ive had a lot of bizarre dreams like this. ive honestly considered making short stories out of the dreams i have and posting them tho i find it hard to have time to dedicate to that right now

[@TGT30]

The only lucid dream I ever had, I was stuck in a low poly field of grass with low poly tanks. It was quite small and claustrophobic. I could not wake up, so I had to intentionally think of scary things to wake up. Not really anything in particular, just the concept of fear, and I would always wake up to a dream recreation of my room, and after a while I woke up. This wasn’t the first time I got stuck in a recursive bedroom dream before either.

[@vampp9]

Happy you are cancer free !

[@Harudodo]

If it helps in the future, for some reason closing my eyes in my dream helps me to wake up. I’ve done it a few times during nightmares or lucid dreams. Maybe that’ll help?

[@TGT30]

@@Harudodo I have the ability to instantly awaken from any dream, by making the motion to open my eyes when they are already open, it instantly wakes me up. Of course this doesn’t work for lucid dreams.

[@Demonetization_Symbol]

That's mean of Him. Accept what he wants instead of what you want. That's abusive.

[@underdog9475]

The weird thing about dreams for me at least is that my mind is still the same, like i still hear the same voice in my head when I'm awake and when I'm dreaming, i also think the same too

[@Josuh]

Bro got a dream+ subscription

[@xbackwitit2899]

Same im almost always aware im dreaming n act how i would normally

[@Notjust-T]

wait isn't this normal tho??? /gen

[@underdog9475]

@@xbackwitit2899 ohhh that doesn't happen to me ngl

[@underdog9475]

@Notjust-T doesn't it debunk the whole *omg what if I'm dreaming rn* stuff? So I don't think so

[@texrobles]

This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife

[@goofparty420]

Talking heads!

[@m00nbeams42]

no fr thats what i was thinking too

[@floofyyote]

Grim adventures

[@lucyinchat]

The Actual Definition of Nihilism! “Nothing Matters, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore reality.”

[@n0etic_f0x]

True, this is why it tends to lead you to another aspect of how to see reality that then becomes your primary lens. For me, it is both absurdism and pragmatism. Is our existence absurd? Okay, yeah I agree. How can we change that? Wait... why do we want to?

[@Forcoy]

Isn't that Absurdism Nihilism is inherently nihilistic. It's only the first part of that sentence

[@n0etic_f0x]

@@Forcoy many nihilists became absurdist but remain nihilist when they do.

[@Forcoy]

@@n0etic_f0x If you believe in the second part of the sentence: you are an absurdist. If you do not believe in the second part: you are a nihilist.

[@n0etic_f0x]

@@Forcoy If you believe in both?

[@foogriffy]

you can experience the inverted 3D effect of the lamp if you can cross your eyes! you know those magic eye posters? they work by having you relax your eyes until the focal point of your vision is behind the image. this gives a 3D effect and causes the illusion of a shape to pop out of the messy background. there's a similar effect called crossview (and a corrosponding subreddit worth checking out). these are regular images, sometimes 3D renders, taken from two perspectives. when you cross your eyes and align the images, it becomes 3D. the effect is very striking and fun. it works the opposite way, by putting your focal point in front of the image. so, if you use crossview to view a magic eye poster, instead of popping forward the hidden image will pop inward. just like the lamp. the same effect could probably be achieved with crossview images viewed using the magic eye poster technique, known as parallel view. i'm not great with parallel view, so i haven't been able to confirm this, but given that crossview images are actual pictures, i imagine it would be really trippy and exactly like the lamp in the story.

[@Jxllen.]

im ngl, the way you pulled me in for a literal deep dive on the concept of the story instead of just reading it legitimately pulled me in, interested me, and entertained me, easy sub by me

[@MrsSanguisa]

The greeks had other names for describing the sky and ocean. Light, dark, various shades of green and grey, shining, shaded, dark wine color (nearly black), and it makes sense, since the color of both sky and sea heavily depends on weather and time (at sunrise the sky isn't blue) and well a day sky IS bright. The color blue only became important and got a name, when humans made blue paint and had a use case for it. The Egyptians had blue paint - and a separate name for blue color/paint. The greeks however, did not and used different words - but they still MEAN blue and you would translate a "wine red, dark sea" as "dark blue nearly black and stormy sea". A similar occurence is "brown" or "orange" as it is just "dark yellow" or "reddish yellow". You can see this in artists too btw, as they regularly use a bunch of names for slightly different shades of a color and differentiate between teal and blue, between cerulean and blue, while others just call all three "blue". They still see the difference. They just don't have a name for the difference. And like greeks they use other words to describe them: a dark, greenish blue, a light sky blue and so on. Generally: if it is not important to us, we don't name it, but we still perceive it.

[@user-ck7tg1dq9y]

I just want to add, this wasn't unique to the Greeks. The Mayans traditionally didn't differentiate between green and blue, until Spanish influence.

[@quicksilvertaint]

Stories like this fascinating to me because they're things I can't relate to because I'm never the me in my dreams that I am awake. The majority of time that I dream, I'm other people, different genders, different ages, with different families and friends. I have wild adventures or am in such unrealistic scenarios that even though it all feels plenty real in the moment, when I wake up I'm just like "lol what the hell." The times I have dreams where my dream self matches my awake self is when I'm having stress or grief dreams and I'm seeing people I lost or am dealing with work. I also don't really experience that time dilation others mentioned - even if days pass in my dream, the days each feel like minutes. There is no lingering there.

[@meth_raccoon]

Wow, same. A lot of my dreams are like movies where I'm seeing things happen but I'm not actually there. Sometimes I dream up fake scenes or even entire episodes of series that I'm into. Or I'm a completely different person. I've also had many dreams where I was someone with a family that's nothing like mine who lives in a place I've never been to.

[@quicksilvertaint]

@@meth_raccoon haha speaking of movies (but same, i know what you mean) when I was a kid my dreams would frequently start entirely in black and white, iirc just black with white outlines like an animation, with me sitting in the audience looking at a stage. The curtains would open and there would be be a giant gameshow spinner with the labels good and bad. The host would give it a spin and I got a good dream or a nightmare depending on what it landed on. The dream would be in full normal color/realism, it was just that weird intro that wasn’t.

[@Leonagraphy]

This is exactly my dreams, I even often view them from outside the person/people I’m dreaming as

[@rowandunning6877]

10:23 counterpoint: phantom limb syndrome, people sometimes feel itchy on their arm that has been cut off

[@stormtroopertheskitmaker2043]

that’s because they previously had a limb. but you don’t feel an itch on a third arm, which you never had. a blind person doesn’t see black because they don’t know what seeing is. you probably experience the absence of a sense none of us have, but you wouldn’t know because we have no idea what the experiences of that sense is.

[@trippyyaf_2310]

I got a third arm 🤷🏽‍♂️😉

[@autodisaster6374]

@@stormtroopertheskitmaker2043 supernumerary phantom limbs exist! It's when you experience a phantom limb you never had :) tails are a common one, but so are extra arms/legs

[@stormtroopertheskitmaker2043]

@@autodisaster6374 wow interesting! i didn’t know that

[@craftbox9276]

(TL;DR at the bottom) I'll start of that I have aphantasia which to an extent explains my different experience with this topic. When I close my eyes I only perceive void, no images or anything. My imagination works on feeling shapes, space and concepts. It's somewhat comparable to wireframe from a cad program (without visuals, you just know the shapes) and something like, when you are sitting in a chair, you are aware where the backrest is and what shape it has even when you aren't looking at it. From that comes the way I experience dream, though I rarely dream. It always seems to be there some kind of a barier between my mind and the dream itself, it feels like a watching a movie in vr (or more like a braindance from cyberpunk). It kinda has a "pressure" on perception and mind itself. The "perspective" of a "viewer" is always aware that it's a dream and I feel it like a knowledge in the back of my mind or more aware subconscious. The "actor" and their actions feel like my actions but at the same time I feel I am not in control of them, like I am in the backseat and driver seat at the same time, it isn't confusing in that moment though. Also the environments in the dreams more or less match up in the way I imagine stuff. They have shapes and take up space, but colors and certain details just don't exist, the "viewer" is aware of that, though it doesn't feel wrong, but kinda keeps me "grounded" in knowing that's a dream. Few times I was able to take control of the action, but only for a short amount of time, because soon after I wake up. So in conclusion I don't really fear or dread that I may be dreaming now, my experience of sleeping is too distinct from how I perceive reality. And if it's a simulation, why I was made with aphantasia, I sometimes would like to imagine colors and images. Also I skimmed and didn't mention some details about how my imagination and dreams work that weren't relevant to my conclusion, but some may find interesting, so I'll be happy to answer any questions about it. TL;DR I have an aphantasia and my perception of dreams is too different from reality to experience the dread of "am I sleeping?".

[@alptraum7644]

this was really interesting to read. i have the opposite where i've got hyperphantasia, about a 4-5 on the scale i keep seeing floating around, so i was wondering what having aphantasia would be like! thank you for writing this up!

[@foogriffy]

i have aphantasia too, and my dreamspace is dark by default. most of my dreams have a dim and eerie vibe to them. you should consider dream journaling. it's often that we feel like we don't dream often because we just don't remember our dreams, and dream journaling is a proven way to increase our dream recall. for me, it also made my dreams deeper and more vivid, and i started occasionally lucid dreaming. i find the distinction between dream and reality easy because i know the logical consistencies of dreams. i know that the events of dreams are mostly intention based, as in whatever you expect to happen will happen. but i know the exceptions to that rule too. with both of those in mind i can always reliably answer whether i'm dreaming or not. if it isn't actually reliable and i'm in a dream right now that i can't detect... well, i don't think it matters that much to me.

[@crimsonrosellas]

I have aphantasia aswell! This is a really relatable post, haha. You described the feeling really well.

[@benbarltrop2006]

I also have aphantasia and I can always tell when I'm dreaming because mine are always from perspectives that aren't first person. I'll know who and where I am but see it from either a third person view or a multitude of camera angles like it's a show.

[@Josuh]

Minecraft Xbox pfp, damn

[@Bigbean2999]

As someone who was in a mild car crash with my mom and got knocked out i can say its a crazy experience. While i was out i remember i was waking up in the car and my mom was driving i told her "yo mom i had a crazy dream that we got in a crash" and she told me "stop playing" thats when my head started to hurt and i was back in the car all beat up. Ever since i try to double check if im awake from time to time

[@travistreadway3180]

A got jumped one time and my memory was fucked from it, I have memories of things that I remember happening but barely anyone does too only a few close friends remember but they don’t for some of it cause I remember being in the hospital and the news came and it overwhelmed me so much I just snapped but no one remembers that it’s weird..it’s been 7 years and I can’t help but think of it from time to time

[@ianvelazquez2093]

This is one of the most terrifying concepts for me. Every once in a while I wonder if I'm real and end up fearing im not, and in the moment I wake up I'll lose everything I ever knew. Sometimes it's scary and sometimes is exciting thinking about what real life could be. I know I'm real, but those moments of doubt have made me depressed for months

[@beansworth5694]

That occasional doubt is a comfort rather than a frightening thing to me. It implies that there's more than one story for me to tell, and that the one I'm in isn't all I have to live and die in.

[@MyFedora]

Use your fingers to block your nose, and try to breathe through your nose. If you can breathe, you're dreaming because you're only blocking your nose in a dream. If you can't breathe, you're awake because you're blocking your nose in real life.

[@Halfendymion]

I can always tell when I'm NOT in a dream because my dream self doesn't have the capacity to question if he's in a dream It would be way more useful to tell when I AM in a dream, since then I could lucid dream...

[@DarwinskiYT]

I once had a dream where I became self aware and said “wait a minute, this isn’t real. Get me out of here” and a laugh track played and I woke up

[@jameswaterson3883]

That’s straight up horror

[@Halfendymion]

@@jameswaterson3883 It is?

[@thesageofspringrollsoup]

Finding this at 1am before making dinner was probably the best thing Finishing this video eating on my kitchen floor off a cooking pan Really like your narrating and wouldn’t mind hearing more of them before your analysis

[@IshidaSado]

I’m autistic and ever since I was a child I’ve lived life through my dolls, action figures and favorite characters in roleplay. I’m firmly of the belief that we’ll never know the true nature of reality and that it only ruins lives if we try to disover the truth. My life lived as hundreds of different characters was more enjoyable than the “real” life I was born into. All of my nostalgia is literally places on video games. Balamb Garden in Final Fantasy 8 felt like a place I’ve lived the first time I played the game. Oddly nostalgic for a place I supposedly never seen, calling me home. Our reality is what we make of it. When my mom makes fun of me for being so infatuated with my fav characters, I always say “they’re real to me” and I think that’s very important. Even if happiness isn’t real, do you at least think you feel it? If so, that’s where your reality is.

[@oscarjames3777]

Also, your philosophical outlook on this is so gooood! I agree with it almost entirely! Personally, I would totally give up reality if I could have everything I love *and* experience a world of bliss in a dream. That being said, what happens if you realise you're in a dream but can't wake up, and then begin mourning the things you cherished from real life?

[@Speed001]

19:15 I don't believe OP. Granted he had head trauma, so who knows. I've noticed more time passes in reality than in my dreams. Logically, your brain suddenly processing 10 years of information in an instant would probably kill you. Like a lightning bolt through your cpu. Even 10 years in 8 hours? 87,659.99/8~=11,000 times the regular amount of information you would receive. *But think of it this way.* You likely don't remember what you ate 284 days ago. You don't remember more than maybe you were following a routine or something special happened on that day. If that is what was remembered, or rather hallucinated, then it would make sense. Your routine is a small amount of information that can be extrapolated for 10 years, *resulting in a feeling that you did something for 10 years.* Also there's information you don't know. OP doesn't mention the cost of going to the hospital for his kids births, whether the nurses did a c-section or what his kids looked like when born, that pasty/vaseline-like substance. Did OP suddenly have the skills of someone who worked at, say an accounting firm for a decade? Or does OP now have the faculties to suddenly be a parent for two children? Either case is doubtful. In any case, I thusly conclude, OP got 'the universe was created last Tuesday'-ed by his brain. Just giving the resulting feeling required to believe that, not all the actual experience. (assuming op is truthful)

[@Jesse78]

The brain is an organ we are only just starting to understand a little bit. I'm thinking he had a strong (probably focal but pretty widespread) seizure at the parts of the brain working with time perception, sensory processing, personality, sensory modulation, imagination and maybe even the parts regarding basic emotions and responses. I had a recent health scare, almost died (15% survival rate) and my mom played a comforting song for me. I was nearly fully comatose but I heard the song and I was transported into an empty looking football field with flashing white lights and it was like God was personally playing it for me all around me, I float around the stadium and briefly relive key positive moments of my life. I'm thinking my brain shut down and the parts with emotions and memory (and yes, time perception) we're still active and possibly overactive. They were near full reliving of these moments, older positive family moments, great sunsets, meeting previous loves, achievements in school and overall it's possible I spent the equivalent of what would be nearly 12 hours of beauty in what was a 7 minute song.

[@aeaeeaoiauea]

this isnt really important for the rest of the video but the things said in 11:22-12:30 are wrong, you can search it up for yourself. greeks being unable to see blue is debunked, the minoans, for example, had blue art and stuff everywhere. the himba tribe color perception experiment was extremely exaggerated by the news, they can see it the same as we do, they just had a slower reaction time. and mantis shrimps don't actually see more than we do, in fact they see much less, mantis shrimps can only see exactly those 11 colors, unlike us who can see any combination of the 3 colors.

[@darwinduper9430]

I love you're analysis of the reddit lamp story. Interesting if narratives like hauntology and lost futures would have similar areas to Serial Experiments Lain. Boards Of Canada kind of have similar dreamcore to Yume Nikki and Yearning tapestry.Aphex Twin probobly has heard of some of these reddit stories.

[@themoongateofficial]

16:12 bro is really trying to fuck with me giving me that existential crisis

[@kennedypaiuk6847]

i hope you grow so fast man, this channel is crazy good

[@federicoricca2512]

I also had an existential crisis as a child, and I can absolutely agree on your point here. Excellent video

[@maxwellli7057]

The thing with my dreams and my inner eye as a whole is that I am very blurry. Basically my dreams have never looked or felt anything like real life. If I dreamed about a swan, I wouldn't see a swam or the earthy smell of the pond it was in, it would just be like thinking about a swan while awake. Alongside waking myself up at various stages of falling asleep, I have been able to determine exactly when I begin dreaming (but not in a way that allows me to lucid dream and actually control things)

[@austincalhoun1752]

Yeah same I do dream about some things that are familiar but something isn’t right like it’s not the same place something like it’s in a slightly different

[@nutellatubby1943]

One of my most vivid dreams was about a week after my grandma passed or maybe less than a week after her funeral, this was 2015 so my memory of the exact time is a bit hazy. In this dream I woke up and me and her were going out for lunch celebrating something, I never really found out what we were celebrating but it was just us two, and we went to her favorite restaurant funny enough being Red Lobster (I still love those cheddar butter biscuits). We talked about so many things in that dream that I wont go into and when she kissed me on the forehead it felt so real. Towards the end of my dream we were walking together just on the sidewalk and we stopped in front of her house, but it wasn’t the house she had when she died, it was the house I spent so much of my childhood in and the one I lived in when I first moved down at 2 years old. She looked at me smiling at said, “You know this isn’t real -my name-…this is a dream and it’s time to wake up baby” and I remember just feeling like my reality was just crushed because I wanted it so badly to be real but I knew it wasn’t so I just said, “I know”. She then hugged me tight and it felt so real. She kissed me on my forehead and said, “take care of your mother for me you know shes taking this very hard, I love you.” I woke up before I could say it back. I know it was a dream but I want so badly for it to have any sort of meaning that isn’t just my brain finding a way to cope so I chose to believe she visited me one last time because that was the last and only dream I had about my grandma.

[@47Jonesy]

I've always wondered something about dreams: Why when you realize its a dream does the dream seemingly try and oust you harder and harder until you wake up? I sometimes feel like there are hidden secrets in dreams about reality (or even our inner selves) but reality does'nt want us to ever know it and created a sort of failsafe to prevent the finding of that knowledge.

[@magentalizard1250]

I once had a dream where I lived an entire life back when I was a kid I woke up crying hysterically

[@1leon000]

It wouldn't matter to me if life were a dream. I just don't want to wake up too soon.

[@stromharlan5187]

For a couple of years when i was in my forties I had a spate of dreams where I lived several hours in an entirely other life. Not only were my memories of life replaced with new ones that I myself had never actually experienced (stuff that happened in high school, challenges and transitions over the course of a career, entire multi-year personal relationships), but everything about the way I thought had changed. I had a whole different set of coping mechanisms. I had a entirely different set of experiences and assumptions that I compared my experiences to as I passed through time and encountered new things. All of this would happen in the space of a single night. Then I would wake up back in my world. These dreams happened about two or three times a month for a few years. Secretly, I worried that I was losing my mind or was possessed or something. Those dreams eventually stopped happening. But they were enough to make me understand how easily other people come to question reality.

[@TheMaskedRucksie]

Woke up from a dream where there was this guy. Don’t remember his name but his face is burnt into my mind, always on the look out

[@shadw4701]

Asking yourself "am I dreaming" is actually one of the main things you do when practicing for lucid dreaming

[@Vic-mj4ts]

The way this is kind of comforting in your worst moments. I've been going, hmmmm at least it might not be real maybe I'm actually 10 years old in a cryo sleep somewhere and I DO have time to try again.

[@evalinova]

I thought this vid was going to be just a reading of the story, which i was familiar with. I was surprised and enjoyed a lot the small rabbit hole of perception and reality you added to it. My comment got accidentally sent halfway, but the other thing i wanted to say, i've had very vivid dreams that took place on what i perceived to be an extensive period of time, not a lifespan long, but long. So i do believe too the lamp story could have happened. If not as fully presented then to some extent at least.

[@rhm54]

Thank you so much for this content! The story was great, but your philosophical interpretation was what I enjoyed the most.

[@MicrowavedGoober]

This is my biggest fear

[@Autismspokesperson]

Astrei, I love your narration, voice, accent, and script. You have a way of conveying things in a simpler way and still sounding smart. Thank you for creating such a thought provoking video. I hope you and everyone else in this comment section has a wonderful day!

[@madmaverick]

Excellent analysis and video! Personally, I have very realistic nightmares that take time to "come down" from. I have to think hard to convince myself that they're not real and I'm not in danger. I also wake up with false memories of events, especially conversations on the internet, that I'll recall hours after waking up before slowly realizing that they never happened. It frightens me that memory is so impressionable, and it makes me doubt what I even think are real memories because no one else can verify them. Every time you recall something, little changes are subconsciously made to the story, which is why a person's first testimony after a crime is the most reliable. It's very easy to dissociate from reality when I start thinking about these topics, which is why I don't believe real life is just a dream. While I sit there questioning everything, the world goes on around me unchanged. When I'm dreaming, the plot constantly changes to accommodate my thoughts and actions because I'm the main character in my own head. In the real world, I don't have that power. Events happen logically and in order, time runs consistently, and everyone else has their own agency.

[@oscarjames3777]

I remember this story!!! Thank you for covering it!!

[@Tears_In_Drowned]

I always have only 1 type of dreams (which I am aware of): very vivid ones. I HATE THEM. They fill me with much confusion, as mentioned in this video with butterfly dream. It's possible I dream of utter bullshit, but I don't acknowledge them. Usually I either dream of vivid stuff or feel that I've dreamt of just blank black space (funfact: when I was younger dreaming of black space was foreshadowing one of my teeth falling out). I had that weird vivid dream a few years back, during a horse riding camp, that one particular horse started to limp and was unavailable to ride during camp. What do I know, when I arrived to camp next day, the same particular horse started to limp and could not be ridden. I had this vivid dream today, when I met with some nice cute guy that I don't know (could not remember a name after the dream) but closely resembling someone I know. The name was different than this real life person, that I am sure of. We had a nice time, then I woke up (still in a dream) and turns out I slept from midnight up to 6 PM. I freaked out, checked the time many times on my phone and even got up to ask my mum what time is it, she said I slept until 6 PM, not bothered at all. I was embarassed. And then I woke up in real life, it was only 8:30 AM. I had an alarm at 8 AM, but decided to oversleep a few minutes. So that whole dream during 30 minutes just confused me even more. Another funfact at the end: I am aware that I don't see things or people I see in my dreams when I wake up. I know that people are just black figures, manequinn like and just wear resemblances to particular people during a dream itself. I have it like that since I was young. I remember a very vivid dream from my childhood, I was like probably 7 years old. My younger sister was 3. I was so sure she got attacked by some monster (dream) that I woke up panicking in cold sweat, and became very protective about her from that day on. Maybe it was some sick foreshadowing of an accident few years later, now when I think about it. She was playing around in my aunts' garden when she bounced into her dog, Afghan Hound named Daisy. Daisy acted on instinct and protected herself, by opening her mouth. She bit my sister on her face. I remember this well because I was playing with my cousin in a little hut next to their house. My aunt came to us crying and screaming that my sis got hurt. They needed to take her to hospital ASAP, she needed to get 17 stitches. Mostly it's healed now, but the scar was left - just a spot above the upper lip, there are slight traces of stitches. Maybe that was foreshadowed by my dream, who knows? I love this video, I read this Reddit post some time ago and it shook me deeply. Also, it awakened my memories, as can be seen from my entire essay above 😅 Great job! ❤️

[@le96g]

This story makes me think of the idea of multiple universes, or lives. The moment he was blacked out, his soul was transported to his other life. Like the show OA. Or maybe we do this in dream? I had a dream I had a beautiful baby son, I felt my love for him, it felt so real. When I woke up I missed him so much. I still miss him. Maybe it was another life!

[@nobodytheowl]

"This is not my beautiful house! This is not ny beautiful wife!" "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was!"

[@lacitrees8527]

I woke up in someone else's body once. Didn't know it at first, just got up off the floor & started going about my day, thinking my surroundings felt a bit odd and certainly messier than i would have left them... Then I heard a disembodied female voice say, "Hey! This is MY body! You shouldn't be here." I disagreed. I believed that it was mine. We debated a bit. The girl asked what I believe I look like, so i described myself: blond hair, blue eyes, fair skin. She asked me to go look in the mirror. The body had wild red hair and lots of freckles. Not mine. Sorry, my mistake. I decided to leave. ...and woke up. Again. Looked in the mirror: me this time. My bed, my apartment. Wtf? Apparently waking up isnt always waking up. Or I just did it wrong, lol.. Also, i would LOVE to know if that girl is on this physical plane. :) P.S. When i was a teen, my friends & i all believed that if you woke up on the floor (but you dont usually) then you were most likely visited by a ghost. Looks like my astral form was the ghost. And i accidentally started using the wrong body.

[@lacitrees8527]

Her voice was also inside that body's head, by the way, but I had motor control.

[@veracrow1126]

There was one day that I had multiple dreams inside each other and I’d wake up and then go back to sleep inside of a dream and the wake up in a new dream just to have another dream. I had a hard time thinking I was real for a week to two weeks. The dreams weren’t even realistic and made zero sense, but at the time it was. Then there are dreams where I become aware I’m dreaming mid dream and forget the plot and freak out bc I don’t know what’s happening and can’t remember anything.

[@Vichroma]

the part where you explain how waking up from reality feels like is very relatable to me on a dissociative level. often times i'll wake up detached from my body, my face, my surroundings, and the memories i carry within me. i need to be tested for DID soon, whoops :/

[@edgarallanpoelagusmarjorita]

this is the first video i've seen from you, but i am greatly charmed by your analysis and perspectives :) this video is so well-structured and edited, i'm excited to see more from you!

[@PinkHairPluto]

"Get some popcorn and get comfy" dawg the video is 20 minutes

[@FacundoGabrielMartinez]

Lore accurate Scout youtube comment

[@Prots0392]

This channel is fucking underrated Hope you grow fast Subscribed!

[@FairLadySpiny]

When I first read this story in like middle school I had such a bad existential crisis. I’m not sure I ever recovered lol

[@HogTime]

Im living an alternate life in my dreams. Every night for the last two years my dreams have taken place in the same house in the same desert town doing mundane, everyday things. Sometimes i go into town or go to a lake but i usually just take care of rabbits and horses around the house. I dont have any control over these dreams and i struggle to remember them when i wake up. I get flashbacks to the dreams when im awake and theyre so vivid they feel like memories but none if it was ever real

[@magicfishhobo381]

I think you're channeling visions of your life in an alternate universe.

[@HogTime]

@@magicfishhobo381 I was wondering the same thing. It's super weird how vivid the dreams are while still being realistic and grounded

[@shadw4701]

This is what's known in the lucid dreaming community as a "persistent realm"

[@HogTime]

@@shadw4701 I wasn't aware of this term but that sounds pretty spot on, I'll look into it. Thank you!!

[@smolmoru]

I had a dissociative episode once. don't know for how long, but one moment I was at work cleaning up after the breakfast buffet was over. the kitchen had windows facing north btw. next moment I was dozing in what felt and sounded like a moving train. I could even feel the sunshine through the window on my face and someone next to me who tried to wake me up. before I could open my eyes I was back in that kitchen, dishes in my hands, staring at the wall like I was consciously there, but still in a slight foggy state. it never happened again, but that was one of a couple of situations I had that made me reconsider my anti-theist stance. I do believe that there is more out there. even that this isn't my first round of being a living creature, but I refuse the existence of any kind of deity or hierarchy when it comes to spirituality. the universe is an unpredictable, chaotic mess after all. btw about that. I know this might seem contradictory. or not, because of my defiance of deities and the whole chaos thing. I don't think we're given a purpose or meaning to live. like life literally has no meaning and well existentialists can make their own meaning all they want. I just think that's as absurd as life itself. sounds like nihilism, but I'm not that pessimistic. I'm more for living and enjoying life in spite of it being utterly meaningless, because why not? why let the abyss intimidate you when you could just stare uncomfortably at it? or rather why miss out on life searching for a meaning and confine yourself to whatever meaning you chose for yourself when you could just embrace the absurdness of life itself and live in the now. there is only so much time in life, so why waste it on planning big life goals when you can't even be sure things will turn out the way you planned? btw what I'm talking about is absurdism. not to confuse with existentialism. the latter seeks meaning, the former doesn't need one to enjoy life. real or fake

[@SimoneMattioli-zi1gm]

First video of this channel i see, and it's AWESOME It also made me think about that time i had a similar experience; i was in burnout from last year highschool 's exams, and that dream was identical to real life: i lived in another house complex, wore a blue and white jacket (wich i dont have, but i really liked) , walked under the trees of a street i never was to when i was awake. I felt like 1 month passed inside that "dream". It was strange waking up, and i was shaking for a few hours, but in tje afternoon everything was normal, felt like a normal routine obce more. P. S. hope to see other videos of yours, this was awesome (≧∇≦)/

[@Nickle5020]

The atoms and coding comparison is scarily good

[@Iatecheese934]

I did NOT expect to have an existential crisis today

[@gaiushka]

Lately I've been having mostly nightmares, so the mere idea of going through days worth of them sounds horrifying. Cool video though :D

[@olphausmegaletor8835]

This Story has been doing the rounds for at least 5 years at this point, it a good story. I think he had a very vivid dream.

[@hydraneo]

ive had dreams about obscure bugs yearly now, always a bug that i havent seen in my life in person. first year were a flock of moths, then the second year it were big unknown beatles in an abandonned house in a field set in nowhere. third year it was a bee's nest filled with ants. its been going on since i was 3, and it keeps getting more interesting.

[@nono-nt8je]

I once saw a man get either beaten to death or fall to his death in a dream, I only “virtually” remember it, but the vivid image of a man’s bone being crushed by blunt force is still somewhat in my memory

[@PaulGaither]

I saved this story for last night [Friday night] to listen to at around 1am, which was fitting given the times mentioned in the videos.

[@UrbanQhoul]

Tripped on this video don't normally comment on stuff but I really enjoyed this vid and I wanna help another small creator get pushed by the youtube algorithm so HERE I AM COMMENTING GOOD VIDEO GOT THE BRAIN JUICES GOIN

[@Chi-Drumming]

I do not relate to not being able to identify that a dream is not real

[@dragonproductions236]

"The Iliad doesn't mention blue despite being by the sea" Except it does describe the sea, it describes it as the color of wine, which is an accurate description of the Aegean particularly during storms (which are a major part of the story), it's also dark blue/red. The way Homer describes colors is also in relation to other things not stand alone because that's just what ancient greek does, the whole theory basically is saying "People don't describe metal as yellow, but only golden. The 21st century man can't see yellow".

[@hilarymendiola5609]

About a year ago when I started dating my boyfriend, I had a dream that he cheated on me with another girl that he had a past with. I woke myself up because I had already been crying in my sleep and I had felt the tears fall on my face. I got up and went to my mom’s room and I could not stop crying no matter how I tried. It felt so real.

[@jmgajda8071]

This was a fabulous analysis of a wonderfully complex topic. I loved the conclusion you came to, that whether it's atoms or ones & zeros, it doesn't matter because it's still constructing a reality we can experience. Impressive! I too hope the OP is doing well. I've been fascinated by their story for years now & it's implications regarding himan consciousness. It's also a heartbreaking story, especially since it's an experience most of us can't relate to. Great video!!!

[@calebcollins7482]

Last year i was put on risperidone, an antipsychotic, for my tics, but the way i explain what i experienced during that time is it felt like the meds were searching so hard for psychotic thoughts but since there were none, they decided ALL of my thoughts were psychotic. I'd lose time- id be standing in my dorm and suddenly it'd be 20 minutes later. And i was constantly afraid i would suddenly find my lamp and my reality would just melt away. I also started shedding super bad like chunks of hair so... Not fun times😅

[@godlesssnowshoe]

you deserve way more subs! i put this on as bg noise while drawing and it was way more interesting than i expected to the point where it distracted me lol- ive heard this story before but never anyone discuss it this way!

[@phoenixikki2641]

I always think about places or people in my dreams that i loved but weren't even real and how it upsets me I'll never see them again. Can't imagine that same feeling for something that has stretched on for 10 YEARS...

[@uppishcub1617]

If I woke up and found out my entire life were a dream, I wouldn't be that upset, because compared to my real life, my dream life would be insignificant. I'd probably be very confused and a bit disoriented, but as soon as I remembered who I am I'd be fine. I'd just get on with my day like I always had. Likely just adding the dream to the list of cool dreams I've had.

[@lebadass]

You being so lovely made me subscribe. Good luck with this channel ❤

[@DullyDust]

I like the way you are working through these big questions. I remember going through the thinking times too, i never really stopped to be honest. i know you will get far. From someone that made it to 38: Enjoy the journey, let the chaos give you peace rather than unease and no matter what, keep growing and everything will be fine. You are still early in the travels of your innermost and you will only find more answers by following your nose. Have fun

[@KaijuGal-rb9ek]

I once had a dream that was a regular day in everything except i had left 4 dead 1 in my steam library

[@nono-nt8je]

This is the kind of dream I get

[@hikikomori5917]

I remember stumbling across this years ago. Always thought it was pretty similar to Matrix's Goliath short story.

[@Tiana_atr]

To go along with the simulation theory, what if we're all just in some multi-layered dream of some entity. Much like if we simulate reality that we're unlikely to be the original reality and not just a simulation, we *know* our brains are capable of conjuring up new realities and universes in dream so rather than a simulation, we're just the dream of something else

[@shakirashakira7893]

this is my exact gripe with the simulation idea

[@scifibri2376]

When I was about 9 years old in the early 1980s way before movies like The Matrix, The 13th Floor and Dark City etc, I was in the kitchen looking at my grandmother and I swear to you she looked like she had matt lines (spelling?) around her. For those of you who don't know matt lines are something present when you use blue or green screen. I was aware of this from TV and how weatherman would have those lines around them and the background of green was swapped out for a weather map or a traffic scene etc. Of course movies like Star Wars used this too. Looking at my grandmother and seeing a faint greyish line around her made me ponder the idea that she was being projected from another reality into this one. And if she was, everyone was, including myself. I began to speculate about the nature of reality and the motivation for this. Could our complex bodies and other forms of life be too difficult for God or "higher being" to create so maybe a way to cheat it like a special effect but for reality not a movie was what was going on? I wondered that to myself. I went on to imagine perhaps we are lower more simplistic creatures like slugs on a big glowing white disk with some sort of special ray producing lamp similar to what they have in the O.R. in hospitals. Could this ray be beaming a desired reality created by this "higher being" or "higher beings" directly to our slug like bodies? Did this provide an illusion of 3D space to operate in with bodies that matched the creators similar to the Bible stories I heard about? And when we eat in the simulation in reality we are eating whatever these slug like beings eat and all nutrients are provided by those in control? That in a nutshell was my 9 year old self's pondering hypothesis. As I got older I learned of the philosopher Decades and felt vindicated that I wasn't crazy and that other people smarter than I have pondered these questions long before me albeit differently than I did but along similar lines. And even if none of this was true; nevertheless others have wondered this also. Later on other concepts I did not have the proper vocabulary to articulate-such as the multiverse- I would discover quantum physicist and philosophical Sci-fi writers would have also have came up of these same concepts. What I thought of in the abstract, Stephen Hawking, and Michio Kaku would describe with mathematics and using words like hyperdimensional geometry etc. And all of this can be tied into simulation theory. Because there could be multilayered simulations going on at once separated only by the vibration of atoms being at different frequencies. Our minds while awake can only observe one at a time, but while dreaming or in an altered state can perhaps observe and experience different ones. In dreams we seem to change locations as fast as changing channels or websites etc

[@sootish]

you just put my thoughts about reality into words, oh my gods. thank you. reality is what we believe it to be, reality is what we perceive it as. reality isnt one continuous thing.

[@MaryGen-xo6zf]

This story has always reminded me of the butterfly dream. A man dreamt that he was a butterfly dreaming it was a man.

[@the_danger_in_the_night]

it's so mind boggling to realize that something as simple as dreams can mess someone up LMAO. logically speaking its really just our brain going against us or whatever. tho i like to think dreams exist out there somewhere idk. i believe that once someone thinks of an idea, that idea essentially just _exists_. as a memory or whatever. ive had a lot of dreams atp where I've had people close to me, and after those dreams i get a sense of longing for them, even if they might have never been real in the world i live in. letting go of dreamlives have gotten easier over time tho, or at least for me. im just happy i got to live lmao, even for a night (still, what op went through was horrible. imagine losing an entire life you spent your effort into, with people you cared about so much! i'd be depressed too)

[@kyatisback12]

Does somebody know the background music at 10:30?

[@thecoolaxolotlnova8523]

14:30 i would argue you can very much tell when youre dreaming, your senses and perception feel incredibly off.

[@ushiocheng]

I also had a similar idea since I as the observer must exist and my feelings matters. On that basis if people around me feel bad or the situation I lived in is bad I would feel bad, which means those things matters to me as well and whether they are as real as me (as arrogant as that sounds) doesn’t matter to me. Also have mixed dream with reality myself I actually had a strict definition of what is real. I put it asd which ever continuous state of mind with most complex information and dynamic is the real-est since a world cannot possibly contain another world with more information/compute.

[@shin7974]

the persona music is fire

[@dedhour6033]

the roof in my living room is literally non-linear. it raises half way but theres no line you can see when sitting down thats where it bends.

[@Silaan]

As someone who regularly has lucid and semi lucid dreams, which can be incredibly vivid, to the point of feeling more vivid than waking life: I really don't get this. Dreams are so different from reality on a qualitative level that they just aren't comparable. Sure, during the dream, it may feel real, but the second I wake up, I simply know I'm awake and was just dreaming (if I didn't already know while dreaming) Also, just in general, dreams can be incredibly whacky. Being multiple people at once, going down a flight of stairs in the basement to come up into the first floor with a large window showing the ground level outside, a 2 dimensional, grey, featureless, metal sphere that you just know is staring at you before exploding into a slow motion wall of fire engulfing the entirety of the dream-reality before reaching you and waking you up in a quite violent fashion... hell, a green door that feels red, or an impossible song that is more perfectly moving to you than any music in reality ever did or ever will. Dreams are bloody weird.

[@rogaldorn5486]

I belive this story, i had a few dreams that where similar on nature, a whole live for log periodes, i even went to sleep im the dreams and did awake people stuff like working and meeting friends just to wake up later, some times i think back and i still miss those people

[@TheYippeeCalle]

One time when I woke up, I could remember nothing from my dream except for an argument I was having with my friend towards the end. I was half asleep and the dream was still going on. It was like half of my mind was invested on continuing to argue, thinking it was still asleep, and the other half was confused, realizing it was awake. I randomly shouted my friend's name out in anger, and that woke me up and I completely forgot about the entire argument and what it was about.

[@travistreadway3180]

The story where the dude on the bike fell and was in a coma world? Man I feel like I’m here too dammit

[@Asuraph]

Superman and his encounter with the Black Mercy.

[@quirinoguy8665]

Actually had a dream like this recently, it was not a year, only lasted for a week, and all it rewarded me in the end is one of the most bitter feelings I've had in a long time. I don't want to go much into detail, just thinking about it hurts, but I was in love with a girl, one-sided unfortunately, and well I never ever stood a chance with her anyways, always played second fiddle, and in that dream things went differently than what actually happened, It went so well in that dream all the wildest and most romantically affectionate things I've dreamed off, the places I wanted to take her, the memories I wanted to share, it was the whole package, felt like the real deal, I was happy, and my God I was actually happy and not miserable for once in a long time, but you know what ended that dream? Just my natural skepticism, eventually that dream has made me reach a point to realize that things were off, some of the memories I've had in real life of what actually happened bitterly crossed my mind, I simply stopped, started thinking and doubting, and then, it was just blank, it was gone, then I woke up, yeah anti-climatic as hell but nevertheless it absolutely left one of the most bitter and depressing holes in my heart, how utterly heartbroken I was to know that it was all fake, that the reality I lived in is the bitter one all along, I hate it, thinking about it while writing/typing it down genuinely makes my heart ache with both anger and sorrow, like let me brash and say this; fuck you brain!

[@richarddeese1087]

They had a life-affirming dream. Also, The Inner Light. tavi.

[@SinNombre-_-]

1:58 thank you for the amazing videos!

[@WithManyVoices]

Not really dream but I was stuck in a memory loop nightmare because of severe hypoglycemia once.

[@Jesse78]

I kind of believe him but only because the brain is an organ we are only just starting to understand a little bit. I had a recent health scare, almost died (15% survival rate) and my mom played a comforting song for me. I was nearly fully comatose but I heard the song and I was transported into an empty looking football field with flashing white lights and it was like God was personally playing it for me all around me, I float around the stadium and briefly relive key positive moments of my life. I'm thinking my brain shut down and the parts with emotions and memory (and yes, time perception) we're still active and possibly overactive. They were near full reliving of these moments, older positive family moments, great sunsets, meeting previous loves, achievements in school and overall it's possible I spent the equivalent of what would be nearly 12 hours of beauty in what was a 7 minute song. I'm thinking he had a strong (probably focal but pretty widespread) seizure at the parts of the brain working with time perception, sensory processing, personality, sensory modulation, imagination and maybe even the parts regarding basic emotions and responses

[@47Jonesy]

You should watch the british shows Life on Mars\Ashes to Ashes. It asks very much the questions youre asking about what reality is and what should be appreciated in life. edit: the book 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland' by Murakami also does a fantastic job of this.

[@aselmao]

Yeah you're definetly overthinking everything a lot LMAO I don't wanna seem close minded or anything like that but here's everything you may need to know: -Dreams are just dreams simply for the fact that we all understand them and recognize them as what they are, things that your brain likes to imagine while you're sleeping to keep itself active before waking up, you can perfectly tell the differece between actual reality and dreams because dreams are never the same each time, nor like reality -The reddit lamp story is just a really well written creepypasta -Glitches in the matrix are natural stuff that can happen but we just can't understand because we're not advanced enough, same with any type of paranormal experience It's absolutely not bad to feel philosophical sometimes but man wtf

[@anvypieender5804]

For 10 years I've had dreams of an old crush. They started out pleasant but as time passed, the boy I fell in love with started hurting me. He would stare at me in a creepy way. Make fun of me with his friends. Completely ignore me when I would call to him. He was evil and I knew it wasnt him. I couldn't stand it anymore in one dream and i decided to stab him in the chest. It was a way of representing that I didn't want to dream about him anymore. It worked for a while, until it didnt. And when he came back I soon decided that he would be my dream slave. Now when he shows up in my dreams I know Im dreaming and I use my time to make sure he behaves. Dreaming can be very powerful. And so can you.

[@Kayo4Iife]

This was pretty cool :) Good job!