What Can You Learn from Your Dreams?

[@katherinewolf2241]

I just want to compliment Brit on her excellent hosting. Love her conversational style....it's like she's telling a story instead of just reading her script. Lovely soothing voice too. Thank you!

[@DirtMankee]

Anyone else sometimes wakes up during sleep and then stays awake a lil bit and then sleeps again but still continues to dream the same dream? It has happend to me a couple of times.

[@twoheadedhead2095]

I'm Cheezy yeah

[@puzzles7413]

I'm Cheezy I remember having some dream of military ants or something where that happened to me.

[@petras01582]

I often find that happens if I wake up in the morning, but just stay in bed and fluctuate between sleeping and waking.

[@miloradvlaovic]

+I'm Cheezy it's a very common thing. Happens to me personally every now and then.

[@petras01582]

In that situation, I occasionally find it difficult to distinguish between dreams and reality. I've "woken up", read a text, realised that I wasn't holding my phone and "woken up" again, 3 times in a row.

[@BlielPol]

An episode on lucid dreaming would be awesome

[@aeron6747]

Biel Pol +

[@NigraXXL]

Came to ask for Lucid Dreaming videos but you beat me to it. More people need to know about them and hopefully practice them.

[@caradr4288]

for a moment I thought that I had already commented the video but that I didn't remember it, it scared me for a moment

[@brokenacoustic]

42ception lol But yes, video on lucid dreaming please.

[@SquintyGears]

Caradr42 it was all a dream

[@AmyLRichie]

I can vouch for the threat preparation theory - my dreams have helped me out a lot lately. A couple of months ago I was prepping for the job interview of my life in which I had to prepare a presentation. A couple of nights beforehand I dreamed that I turned up forgetting everything and had to make it through the presentation by winging it. When I woke up I made sure to back up everything - even on google drive - for my presentation. On the day my USB stick wouldn't work in their computer but luckily all I had to do was download it from google. It was a success. And I got the job :)

[@gubx42]

I had a more visceral example of this. I did some bungee jumping. A few days before it, I dreamed about it, and it was really scary. But after that, I felt ready for the real deal and much less nervous. Even though it wasn't like reality, I was prepared.

[@Azrage]

Amy Louise But... what if Confirmation Bias?

[@anevtuscrynis3954]

@@gubx42 I've died in my dreams more than I can count, now I'm ready for anything.

[@johnrickard8512]

I've based many "little known and never used" contingency plans on things that happened in dreams. Funny enough, I do find myself using them on very rare occasions.

[@theturniptress805]

I always have dreams like this! I dream the night before , say, a maths exam that I've forgotten my geometry stuff/rulers/etc. and then I wake up and remember to take it. Really useful!

[@sage5296]

"I'm just going to go comatose for a few hours and vividly hallucinate, then have amnesia about it. It's weird how casually we talk about sleep" -xkcd (Not an exact quote!)

[@aresjones4761]

Xkcd is awesome.

[@briannaschultz7420]

In elementary school, we were taught how to crochet. I couldnt rap my head around it during the class, but one of the nights after we started learning, i had a dream that I was crocheting. When i got back to school the next day, i was able to crochet without any issues. Super cool phenomena that your brain can basically unconsciously master tasks.

[@PsychoVdude13x]

Anyone have dreams where for the dream, you think you're someone else? Not anyone in particular, just not yourself.

[@theflashgirl2057]

All the time

[@faridahatim9864]

yes I am someone else and I can see myself as me

[@jaschabull2365]

Yep. I seem to remember one dream from my childhood in which I was Wanda from Magic School Bus :/

[@dutchik5107]

Vdude13x yes. actually last night a part of my dream was animated and I was Meg.

[@JoelFeila]

that's most of my dreams

[@simbadas1234]

threat simulation seems like a legit theory, tho it begs the question, why are the threats sometimes so unrealistic? like when i was dreaming of a car chasing me and that car could climb 1 meter tall obstacles.

[@FootysMaXeD]

Shenro Your brain is preparing you for the robot revolution that happens in 2056.

[@Rhobyn]

The simulation isn't really about specific threats, but rather your reaction to them. It's fight, flight or hide. And with a car (which is a potential threat), you best get out of it's sights quickly.

[@azraelexlibris4663]

Shenro change threat simulation into simulation of possibilities. like the said with the maze, in the first part of the streaming phase you rehearse what you learned in the day. in the second phase your brain starts to break the rules of it and fully plays. which can be used to explore threats but also to just explore in order to give your neurons more possibilities to connect.

[@gunnaryoung]

perhaps it's trying to prepare you for the worst case scenario, like your brain is unsure wether or not something like that could happen so it prepares you for it anyway, it could also be preparing you for a combination of multiple different threats.

[@gunnaryoung]

or maybe it wasn't a dream...

[@Whoaman555]

My cat that I loved everyday for 15 years passed a few months ago. Ever since then, it seems like I never have a dream where she's not there with me. I find it pretty comforting. Like she found her way into my dreams from the afterlife to keep me company :) Sometimes I even have these pseudo-lucid dreams where she's with me again and I can just pet her and play with her and trade kisses with her for a few minutes before I wake up. I wish dream-time wasn't so short in the real world.

[@Matty8282]

Wistianity this made me tear up. 😁

[@nand3kudasai]

This should be named "Psy-show"

[@hannahsutter3147]

I've thought the exact same thing!

[@eliannam.5700]

Jerónimo Barraco Mármol lol I thought it was! I had to go check.

[@olivierdussault3843]

Jerónimo Barraco Mármol The show should be called neuro-cognitive show, it doesn't represent psychology as a whole, it only shows one view on psychology.

[@MADPunkyHeartLESS]

Haha, so clever! :) *ba-dum, tss*

[@dankmemes-su5fk]

Clever, except not original because if you watched some of the first vids, those are some of the most prominent comments

[@googoogaga7175]

I usually don't remember my dreams, but I like analyzing them. They help me make sense of what I'm feeling. Like personally I think about why i dreamt something and what it could mean. It's quite helpful

[@googoogaga7175]

For example I once had a dream where I was wearing a skirt and the wind kept blowing it up and all that day I had been worrying about being pressured about sexuality? Idk if it made sense, but it's very therapeaudic being able to understand how I'm feeling, rather than feeling uneasy from a dream that i don't understand.

[@Semmelein]

Brit is such as great host. Thoughtful and empathic while making every topic sound really interesting. Great episode! Thank you Brit! ❤️

[@guillermojrboy3292]

As an IT person, dreams have helped me on a number of occasions with figuring out new ways to solve stuff.

[@TheNefari]

If deams do prepare me for real life, why am i dreaming of dragons?

[@twoheadedhead2095]

TheNefari sometimes I *imagine dragons*

[@emperortunalirius2753]

TheNefari zombie

[@PG-kc4de]

cuz skyrim is life

[@spotlightonCat]

To prepare for the targaryen restoration

[@TheLadyWhoLunches]

Dragons usually represent your inner strength. The more complex insights depend on the context.

[@heatherwanderer777]

I once dreamed that I could take an upward and sideways slip step and enter into a new dimension, one where I could interact with all our normal dimensions, but in the new one I could hover or walk on air, the effort was the exact same as normal walking, only I was doing it 3-5 feet above the ground. That dream was pretty cool.

[@kimbratton9620]

Wow really cool, I've had some amazing dreams myself!!

[@peurmartis641]

i once dreamt of Dr. House transplanting my liver and then drinking booze with me... mixed signals ya'll

[@saulo4302]

"We don't have any anesthetics, just drink some booze."

[@DigitalFumbles]

I find that most of my dreams are mildly-lucid and progressive in some way; I'm not exactly aware that I am dreaming, but I have a certain control of the direction the dreams go and they essentially pick up from where another left of. There was once a series of dreams I had that lasted for about 6+ months; hoping they continue someday, as I really loved 'em.

[@bethboppt]

Me too, and I never understood why people got upset when woken up in the middle of a good dream because I could wake up, get a drink of water, go back to sleep and continue the same dream.

[@dutchik5107]

DigitalFumbles yes that's a thing. you can make them follow up, by thinking, visualizing the last dream and then fall asleep.

[@merit4078]

NorthmanChael I often dream of the same world over and over again. One of my newest dream series is about this beautiful hotel with the many landscapes in it with those crazy plants and peaceful animals. I have dreamed of it twice now, hope to be there again :D I think I had about 5-10 in my entire life xD

[@Sparrow420]

Sooo... basically out brains make us sleep so they can play games and level up. They must hate the internet.

[@dutchik5107]

Sparrow yes and know. the games are better than the internet. a lot better. taste is better. things taste amazing, smells amazing etc.

[@wmdkitty]

@@dutchik5107 The graphics are awesome, but the gameplay...

[@dutchik5107]

@@wmdkitty Yeah. The gameplay is weird

[@horseenthusiast1250]

Oh, that contemporary dream idea makes sense! I always have multiple complex emotions going on at once, and my dreams are often chaotic, random and complex. Being quarantined and anxious about Corona virus has also been increasing the number of nightmares I have.

[@ryandupuis5860]

Lately, I've been having weird dreams where I'm holding things when the dream ends and I wake up trying to find where it went in the bed. : )

[@Mirandorl]

Graduated 13 years ago. STILL have the "forgot to revise for a final" dreams :)

[@ProtonCannon]

Riding robot llamas in the jungle must be the AWESOMEST dream ever!

[@Gryphonzwing]

sounds like a dream a Sim would have, the game devs love Llamas. XD

[@william41017]

I don't think any of these theories cancel the other. As if the brain just started firing neurons and depending how you're feeling atm those specific neurons will fire more often. It's like learning is just a side effect of those not so random neurons firing, like many things in evolution

[@johnrickard8512]

I'm pretty certain that most of these theories are correct and are tied to the "random neurons firing" thing.

[@zeromailss]

is it common to dream about waking up from a dream inside a dream ? I guess it's kinda similar to inception except that the dream doesnt last that long, I got it few times the last 2 years, it feel so weird when you wake up thinking it was a real world until you wake up again and thought that was a weird dream but then waking up again and starting to doubt your reality, although only for a few minutes as I soon remembered most of my dream and compare it with reality, oh and I could kinda feel pain inside of dream sometimes

[@miloradvlaovic]

False awakenings are actually a common thing. They are considered to be one of the parasomnia. I had those a good amount of times, and each time they felt horrific. Probably because after a couple of "awakenings" I'd realize what's going on, and then being unable to actually wake up scared the daylight out of me. Which is in accordance with the theory that the lucid dreams ensue these. Oh I for one was lucid alright, but it wasn't fun. In these dreams, I'd awake, eventually realizing I'm not actually awake but just dreaming of it, and would start hitting myself, trying to cut myself... but would not really feel any of that or wake up. Sometimes in such situation I'll pray and that'll do the trick, I'll be actually awake the very next moment, trying my best to forget the whole experience.

[@Samzillah]

I HATE those dreams. It's so terrifying. Cause once you realize you're dreaming you keep trying to move or wake up but sleep paralysis has kicked in and you're stuck. I never end up going back to sleep after those.

[@dutchik5107]

MeowAlien にゃあエイリアン yes you can feel pain. because your body can recreate all senses inception is based on lucid dreaming, and false awakenings are a large part of it. usually they aren't scary, or anything. you just wake up, do your morning routine, and such, then wake up. since you do it so often and are so used to it to do it after a dream. and yeah, you have multiple dreams a night. they are just annoying maybe a little confusing when you wake up, your normal morning routine isn't weird or scary, right?

[@TheLadyWhoLunches]

Sometimes those really suck and sometimes those are really cool. They suck if it's a typical false awakening, like what @Dutchik was describing, when you go through your morning routine. But if you have two different storylines, it can be really interesting. I've had dreams in which I've gone to sleep and had an entirely different dream, only to wake up and continue the first dream's storyline. This was quite pleasant when they were both nice dreams. It makes for especially traumatic nightmares, though. There was one time that I had _three nightmares_ within the same dream-I dreamt of going to sleep, having a nightmare, "waking," going back to sleep, having a worse nightmare, "waking," going to sleep, and having an even worse nightmare before I finally woke up for real. It was especially disconcerting because the dream-me kept waking up in my college dorm and the real me was actually at home for the summer.

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

meowalien, yes... it's relatively common... maybe more common for some than others. If you've only experienced it rarely you have a choice. You can pursue it for lucid dreaming (definitely worth it if you're strong enough personally) or ignore it and let it get generally more and more rare... That's up to you. FOR EVERYONE INTERESTED... Yes, the inception concept can have occasionally terrifying moments. However, if you practice a little meditation on the matter (directed or focused type meditations) particularly just before going to sleep, you can arrest control of the dreams (part of being a lucid dreamer) and enjoy the experiences... This is one variation of the "portal theme" as I've come to understand it... And there are others, like the more blunt and direct "doors" type of dream... I'd like to say that you could just ignore it and it will go away, but that wouldn't be entirely true. It will get more and more rare for you, but if you're prone to lucid dreaming (understanding your in a dream without waking up instantly) you are a lucid dreamer. Sometimes that's just how it's going to be. Sometimes, you will find yourself "stuck" dreaming, but by ignoring it, you will be less and less "plagued" over time. The key to it not ruining your night, is to remind yourself before sleep that it's just a dream and that you are only asleep. It's okay... Among the best ways to do that is "focused" or "directed" meditation. This kind of meditation is a little different from "standard stuff" because normally, in meditating, you're just seeking to quiet the chatter in your mind until it's completely quiet. "Seeking Nothingness", and focused meditations only seek to quiet everything BUT the thing you're focusing your mind on. In this case, you're focusing on being in control when your dreaming and remembering when your awake. (all part and parcel to lucid dreaming states)... Most effectively (in my experience) meditations on controlling inside the dream and remembering after are practiced just before actually going to sleep. This is probably because the idea, refined, focused, and forefront in mind is still "fresh" to you as you "drift off". It's not perfect, and admittedly even being in control in the dreamscape is somewhat limited (your mind has to "buy" into the control... so because "reality"...) BUT part of resting the control in the dream is being able to relax and accept that you are safe in your dreams. And just for the record... I have "died" in my dreams, and I'm still here. While it might be possible, your mind most likely won't actually literally kill you off. I've had a great many nightmares, even to the level of night terrors... BUT I wouldn't give up on lucid dreaming, even if I could at this point. :o)

[@nunu7797]

The threat simulation theory actually makes a lot of sense for Dreams like when someone is breaking into your house, or just general nightmares. Usually they are quite immersive and i actually mentally prepare for such situations during those Dreams.

[@cup_check_official]

The only thing that i learnt from my dreams is that i am a pervert. Thanks to all my weird wet dreams

[@EnzoDraws]

Tell Me This you know what's worse? having a wet dream and not remembering anything. That sucks.

[@m7trf07]

Enzo nah dude the worse is when your little man is in his work and a friend ring the phone or nack the door

[@xBrii333x]

Well this does kind of help explain my crazy nightmares as a kid. I still have them as an adult, but I can usually somewhat control the dream to shift it into something less frightening now as opposed to back then, when I would end up with horrible sleep paralysis and feel helpless the rest of the night. Sort of explains it, anyways. My dreams are always really vivid regardless of what's going on in my life but they DO tend to be worse if I play video games or watch tv before bed, so I've always attributed the somewhat normalish dreams to an overactive imagination. Its just the nightmares that get on my nerves and make me want an explanation.

[@MusiCaninesTheMusicalDogs]

I once dreamed Freud was a real honest scientist. Then I woke up. Freud was a fraud.

[@lukedarren2399]

L Galicki Lol. 😂😂

[@Sopotastic]

L Galicki c

[@ttaaddoo111]

Please do put the edgy comments away. Freud invented a treatment for the psychopaths (edit: those stricken by psychopathology) of his time, and by virtue of it working, (edit: I would say) he attained knowledge and therefore was a scientist in the term of "generator of knowledge". One could argue that he wasn't a particularly advanced scientist, but that is an entirely different claim.

[@MusiCaninesTheMusicalDogs]

Kasper Fabricius Laursen Until this very day there's no treatment for psychopathy, plus the concept of psychopathy took its shape in the 40s, when Freud was already dead. Freud did not follow the scientific method and psychoanalysis fails when it's scrutinized by the mentioned method. Fraud detected.

[@iamSkYliNeR]

It is true what you're saying. But you just can't say Freud was a fraud. That would involve that he invented things in sole purpose of becoming famous and rich, which is perfectly untrue. Freud created a theory, and went further and further trying to explain what happens in the human psyche following this theory. And what was the result ? he treated patients. By doing that, more and more people got into psychology and eventually an army of scientist popped up. Saying Freud is a fraud is like saying hippocrate is a fraud, Aristote is a fraud and many others, when these are just curious people who tried to understand what we did not at the time. At the time there were no scientific method to be applied to what Freud worked on. Also, I think Kasper was talking about psychopathology, not psychopathy, then he's right. I can say that you don't know enough about psychology to make a jugment about this man, at all, since some of his sayings got confirmed by today's scientific method and you seem to not know it. Even though there's not a lot of it, it does not say everything he said was wrong, or right, we just don't know. I think he achieved an incredible thing, even though I'm not into psychoanalysis for obvious reasons, what he did for our field is marvelous.

[@nanaminsleepy906]

I'm so glad I came across this channel, it's amazing, I love it.

[@thinker8682]

I like your dress.

[@maddy3852]

same it's really pretty

[@Trillin09]

Mohammed Yeah!

[@tinaflintstone8148]

Mohammed 😂

[@levoGAMES]

I tend to dream about stuff that I'm concerned with IRL, and I observed that others do too. My mom is doing her drivers license and she's been dreaming about driving a lot lately. Remembering your dreams and finding out why you have them can help you be more aware of your emotions and concerns in the real world.

[@aaminahasan6270]

This video! Good timing. I recently dreamt of my deceased grandfather. He was gardening and he promised me he would take me to the cafe and to the library. Then when I went to tell my grandmother he was alive he shouted at me. I wish I knew him better.

[@liamcullen3035]

A very interesting episode! Thanks to the team and the host! And I love your dress!

[@Teth47]

I feel like dreams themselves don't serve a purpose, but are more of an emergent property of the tasks our brains undertake while we sleep. Our conscious mind starts getting cognitive noise caused by the brain pruning and reinforcing connections, and attempts to connect that noise meaningfully like it learned to do with sensory input from reality. The result is something like a confused glimpse into the low-level functions of our brains. This also accounts for lucid dreaming, because the conscious mind, when aware of what it's doing, can exert control over what the rest of the brain focuses on, in effect letting you shape your dream. It's just a feedback loop between the high and low levels of consciousness.

[@owensmart2514]

1:10 look at her rhyming 'n spittin dem bars 'n' shiz

[@gregsun974]

My bet is that it's probably a mix of all these things.

[@purplefire2834]

Plus some more undiscovered stuff thrown in for good measure. Because psychology is never simple.

[@apcolleen]

I had a dream a monster waddled into a ladies public restroom with a Costco sized box of pads under its arm and was offering them to women.

[@theturniptress805]

well thats certainly interesting

[@ginnyjollykidd]

Keeping a dream journal has helped me write down more of my dreams including many I forget on waking. Putting pen to paper and writing, "I dreamed. I don't remember what." will many times cause a brain avalanche of dream information to return. Then the more I write, the more I remember. I use my dream journal to find patterns in my life and learn from them. And the more I do this, the more sense they make to me, and the more meaning I can find in them. At the same time, I write a diary entry about my waking life to anchor my life events to the dreams. And then I look for parallels. Sometimes I find I dream in visual puns.

[@thewolfofthestars1847]

I've noticed that whenever I'm going through a period of stress in my life, I'm more likely to have this one recurring dream/dream motif that interrupts other dreams. Basically, I get a terrible feeling in my chest, slowly look up, and see that a spider that fills a third of my vision is on the ceiling. Sometimes it's hanging over a doorway and literally blocking me into a room, keping me from getting out and getting on with my life. Always fun to wake up at 3 AM for that one. At least it's really obvious whenever I need to make myself stop and smell the flowers.

[@cameronstrommen1714]

the last 3 characters in this video's url looks like a sleeping face: w_w

[@gnanay8555]

:O Maybe you're dreaming..

[@aresjones4761]

I was just about to comment that...

[@MADPunkyHeartLESS]

I moved away from my family about a year ago, and I've been pretty homesick since then. I guess this explains why I'm always dreaming about them. Most of those dreams seem nostalgic, though, because they usually take place in my childhood home, my grandma's house, or at my old schools. And some of the dreams are ones that I've had as a kid, or they take place in the same environments from my childhood dreams.

[@Thaheadband33]

Could this suggest that studying a bunch before bed might actually be beneficial since the dreams would help solidify the information?

[@PaperParade]

One of my professors shared a study about that very thing, so yes.

[@nickfallon4378]

I write code all day, and the days I'm really focused on it, I start to dream about it. It actually does sometimes help me figure out problems. It's still annoying, though.

[@mangof.6054]

In my experience, if a certain part of your dream felt important enough to look up dream meanings, it's probably not wrong. Elements of my clearly ptsd related dreams actually did make sense when compared to those dream meaning articles while the other stuff didn't make sense. And looking to those sites made it easier to go back to sleep after having said dream, which was always a very, very messed up metaphor of how I felt. Thankfully I don't deal with those dreams anymore.

[@hamstsorkxxor]

Funny you mentioned dreaming about tornadoes. Seeing huge, tall, tornadoes looming towards me is a reoccurring dream I have. It started out as a nightmare, but over the years, my fear reflex during that dream has dulled significantly. Now I no longer wake up gasping, rather I watch with an eerie feeling that falls somewhere between awe and acceptance. Still, it is a dream I associate with stressful times.

[@peurmartis641]

why can we never remember the beginning of a dream?

[@WardOfSouls]

Peur Martis It may have to do with the different types of dreaming. The memory solidifying dreams are sometimes very mundane, but can lead into the more outlandish rem-sleep dreams. You don't really remember that part for the same reason most commonplace activities don't stick in your brain: they are mundane, almost like the background noise surrounding the brief interesting/emotional part of our lives.

[@wyllomygreene7700]

There probably isn't a 'beginning' for any dream

[@Teth47]

Dreams aren't stories. They don't have beginnings that establish anything, they just sort of start.

[@m7trf07]

Peur Martis casue it is boring trailers and commercials

[@Ikajo]

Teth47 Eh~ I have had some pretty intricate dreams with a clear narrative. Which I forget when I wake up all while remembering I found the story interesting. Quite frustrating since I'm a writer and like to tell stories.

[@SomniRespiratoryFlux]

The last dream I remember having was about all my teeth falling out and growing back in constantly. It was odd. It was quite possibly a stress-induced dream but I don't remember being stressed about it in said dream. Just kinda weirded out, but since they kept growing back in I didn't question it. I just more worried about that half the time I was missing a bunch of teeth, and wondered if that would make it hard to eat, or make people laugh at me. ...Which, actually, yeah, that's a stress dream.

[@NyoomMonster]

Dreams can also be a testing ground for ideas/creativity, like a way to make your brain more flexible. It could be some of the weird dreams are like intrusive thoughts playing out while we sleep, and they're a product of our imagination exercising itself. Imagination/creativity is very important in every day life, and we may not always get enough time to practice it while we're awake.

[@NotCreativeEnough3]

So these dreams when I drive a car along a highway at cosmic speed and without a steering wheel are probably a preparation to when I decide to learn to drive and get a license :) Thanks for this video, it was very interesting!

[@ayoo8302]

"Dreams can be boring" Patrick on the seahorse machine

[@lastshadow2542]

I often dream about one particular thing... Not able to walk upright when crossing a busy street. I and on the ground trying to get up but I do successfully cross the street without being flattened by dragging myself. I have no clue why I get these dreams since I'm not afraid of crossing a street or cars. :P

[@HesthervG]

The emotions theory makes sense! Whenever I'm stressed about something, I will have a very stressful dream too. Or if I'm feeling strongly about a person, he/she is usually in my dreams that day. Or could this just be dreaming about what you remember from your day?

[@HoudaOussous]

I dreamed once that I gave birth to a weird green snake and loved it as a real baby 😰

[@hannahsutter3147]

Last week I deemed I have birth to a baby and I loved him, and when I work up in the middle of the night I felt strangely sad to lose him. I'm too young, single, and not planning on having children any time soon. I don't know what's up with that.

[@AntonConstanti]

I love this dream.

[@aresjones4761]

So you're secretly Loki?

[@arquitect1966]

Your baby is going to be satan

[@elevenpoisons2484]

I had the same exact dream except it was a small lamb

[@eonguipagho5350]

I guess the nightmares explain my traumatic/abusive childhood, but wouldn't those go away by now? I'm 37, haven't talked to my family(parents) in almost 20yrs, I now live with a wonderful wife that I've been with for 2yrs and have a thriving career going for myself. So, what gives? Does my brain want me to keep remembering that childhood? I've drank enough beer in my life to possibly destroy all those memories, but I still have shitty dreams almost every night.

[@cloverly8050]

I know this was 2 years ago, but it sounds like you haven’t moved on from whatever happened. Traumatic memories don’t simply disappear, I’d recommend talking to a therapist if you haven’t already,

[@apteropith]

I once badly injured my right foot and could only hobble about slowly for a few days. The night after the injury, I dreamt I was backed into a corner by two geriatric cannibals with kitchen knives, slowly inching closer from along the walls, such that a limping escape trajectory would not get me clear before their shuffling (and Pythagoras) would bring them into striking range. These things are pretty ad-hoc.

[@BillandJennTraveling]

I came across your video channel when I was searching for Caisson addiction. I opened up one of the your videos about cheese and was Immediately captivated! Really enjoy the high energy you all have especially you Brooke? Sorry if I don't have your name correct. But have been watching a barrage of videos and I am really enjoying it. Thanks so much for doing these videos!! Best regards bill mccollum Twin Falls Idaho

[@BillandJennTraveling]

Britt not brook? Sorry about that

[@TaraDobbs]

My dreams help me with my writing. After working on a section of my novel or a bunch of notes for it, my dreams go through a full story sequence. The dream will have a beginning, middle and end. Most of the time the climax of the 'dream story' doesn't fully finish and I wake up just before it does. I love those types of dreams the most. Cause it shows I'm problem solving my work and that's when I know I'm dreaming most times.

[@sarahvunkannon1081]

Does anyone else have dreams where you receive physical signals from your body, so you feel in your dream that you are lying down or that your eyes are closed or a combination of those? It's not lucid dreaming or anything like that - my brain never makes the logical leap to "Oh, so I must be sleeping right now and this is a dream." No, it's just more like "I can see this with my eyes closed! I have superpowers!" or "I shouldn't be lying down with blankets on the bus! Busses aren't for sleeping!" The weird thing is, although I can feel that my body is lying down or has closed eyes, it doesn't translate into the dream. Like I said, I can see perfectly well while knowing that my eyes are closed, and I've had dreams where I was sitting on the toilet or standing in the kitchen in front of the stove while feeling as if my body was lying down. The result was...weird. Try to imagine lying horizontal, on top of a toilet. My brain just kind of merged the two. Sometimes I've also had dreams where I remembered something from a dream, inside the current dream. Like I remembered, "Oh yeah I dreamed about [event] once" while I am currently having a dream, and often the current dream is similar to the one I remember! So, uh, anyone else do this? I don't see anything in the comments regarding this. And what about recurring dreams, like dreams where I almost miss the bus? My dad says those are symbolic of feeling like it's taking longer than I thought to reach a goal. Could that be the case?

[@Tracks777]

Great! Keep it up!

[@wandering_poot]

I remember two dreams that I've had especially vividly for some reason. In one, I was being pulled under my brother's bed by a skeleton, but when I screamed nothing came out. In the other one, I was bouncing a couple dozen feet into the air like the Earth was a giant trampoline.

[@MilitantPeaceist]

Why does smoking pot effectively stop dreams & could this have something to do with lower memory retention in pot smokers?

[@DistortedBird]

Could you do a video on recurring dreams? The only videos I found on youtube were generally about dream interpretation and common dreams (like teeth falling out). I am interested in WHY some people can have a specific dream/nightmare over and over while others never have the same dream twice.

[@TBIhope]

The first three theories really explain what is going on in my brain. If I’m not processing the recent plunge I took off a cliff, maybe I’m dreaming about this stuff because I had a cancer scare, where the doctor thought it might have come back. Fascinating stuff! Now can you tell me why I don’t have many dreams after my traumatic brain injury?

[@Jynxedlove]

Another great episode, Her dress makes her look really great!

[@0mn1vore]

Brit's one of the few people who pronounces `exactly' exactly the way it's spelled. I don't, but I respect it.

[@Inertia888]

Look at the thumbs up/thumbs down ratio. Way to go dreams! You are killin' it!

[@colleen6440]

Earlier this year my brakes failed and I got into a car crash. It was scary in the moment, but I didn't feel traumatized or anything after the fact. However, several weeks later I started to have several dreams about driving and losing control of the breaks. In some of the dreams I just got scared, in some of them I got in trouble with the police, and in some of them I got the situation back under control and parked safely. It definitely felt like my brain was trying to resolve that memory, give it a 'better ending' than it had in real life so I could move on from it.

[@nesciovir7750]

what if you do feel pain in your dreams is that a weird thing that shouldnt happen or what?

[@shelbytimbrook2095]

I like to think of dreams as your brain playing a bunch of games of "What-If" running simulations to prepare you for those situations. I tend to do this consciously when doing something that doesn't require a lot of brain-effort (e.g. driving on the highway) though the conscious ones usually end in a much worse scenario than my dreams. My dreams quite often resemble things that happen in the future leading to many deja-vu moments.

[@michaelinglis8516]

Ive been on a medication the last few years that has made it to where i spend more time in R.E.M. sleep. Because of this ive gotten to the point where i know im dreaming about 80% of the time. I have different levels of consciousness each time for example sometimes i know im dreaming but think im still a kid or i know im dreaming but think im at my GF's house when im at my house(as in sleeping at my house, where my physical body is). In other words i know im dreaming but im not fully aware. I just know that i can "do" whatever i want and not worry about consequences. Like i can will myself to change the dream to where im flying etc. Sometimes ill be aware im dreaming for what seems like a long time and other times it will feel like a brief interlude of awareness in an otherwise normal dream. I started practicing lucid dreaming techniques as a teenager and im 29 now so im sure that helped. If you spend time during the day verifying to yourself whether or not your dreaming(i know it sounds weird) then you will inevitably ask yourself the same questions more or less when your sleeping. But more than anything its the medicine cause im deep enough asleep to dream but aware enough to know im not in the real world.

[@rachelmoody1520]

What's always fascinated me is how people always talk about their dream as if they could actually walk around and look at stuff. I can't do that, and I always know when I'm dreaming for one simple reason: in my dreams I'm blind. In real life I'm not. Also, I can't really feel myself moving around while dreaming. It's basically just like if I was imagining whatever the dream-scenario is during the day with my eyes closed. I sort of think "and then I do this, and that person reacts in x way"

[@shadowthetwisted]

I have't had a significant nightmare in years. The last real one that I felt fear in, I was standing in the middle of some lot, and black smoke was whirling around me, I felt immense dread, worse than I have ever felt. As the smoke started to form into an entity, I realized this must be a dream, and flew the hell out of there. Now, a nightmare to me involves being surrounded by spiders in a small enclosed space, literally the only sort of nightmare I have now.

[@hannahsutter3147]

Once during a lonely time in my life,I had a surprise of dreams where i would see one of my friends of in the distance and run up to them, but when I reached them they turned it to be a stranger. At one point, I actually did find my friend, but she said she had to go and left. When I'm feeling insufficient, I'll often have dreams where I accidentally cause some sort of disaster our completely forget about some huge responsibility I've been given. Those dreams definitely reflect my thoughts and desires at the time.

[@furrball]

What about flying? I often dream about it, and it’s always... peter-pan style. Just floating, no need to flap anything or leap high enough, nope, just weight-less directional flight, seeimgly driven by the mere idea of moving in a given direction.

[@johnrickard8512]

Pretty sure that's a common one. Personally I don't dream of flying in that sense, but I have had dreams where I was flying - in this case my hands were acting as telekinetic thrusters and I could control direction and speed accordingly

[@germainp]

When I dream that I'm flying, it is always in a precarious way: I shakily maintain altitude and attitude, like a young bird that is early in the learning process. I am surprised that I have never met anybody with that same uneasy experience of dream-flying. During those dreams, my heart pumps both because of the elation of being afloat and the fear of crashing down.

[@furrball]

@@germainp mines changed thru time, possibly reflecting a change in my own mental state through the years. When I was younger, I had "troublesome flight" dreams with fears of crashing and all (which usually resulted in effectively losing the ability to fly). In time, that fear went away.

[@germainp]

@@furrball It is interesting to learn of your similar experience. In my case as well this fear of crashing has not visited my dreams for some years. Your hypothesis that it is related to how mentally at-ease you are with your place in the world makes intuitive sense (I am guessing this is what you had in mind when you talked about your "mental state").

[@furrball]

@@germainp I'd say... more of being at ease with yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. 'cos I don't have much of a place, in the world. I'm a loner. :)

[@trulyinfamous]

No matter how hard you think of something before bed, you will never dream of it. Dreams capture your pure personality. You get placed into a random situation, and react like you would in real life. It is very hard to dream of something by thinking of it previously, because the thought itself isn't a core part of your personality.

[@FenryrGrey]

This makes sense. I dream a lot about the games I play more intensively like dota or the like, but only at the beginning or after a long break (months). I wish dreaming would have a similar effect on my studies :P

[@aaronyu2660]

Finally my theory is explained here, but say, sometimes dreams could be led by blind continuation of thought. Like the when your too stressed out all you can think about is one thing, it's the thing that distracts us that when we sleep, we seem to think about it without our logical consciousness controlling it when we dream, although our brain can think a little, most of us is still resting. Or like an aftereffect after watching something emotional where cathartic lasts for a while and once you think about it, it reminds you of all the events related to the cathartic emotions (like all the "good old times"), kind how dreams relate to how you dream

[@achmadmuslich5671]

The awsome part of dream is you will get new memory about something, someone, even place you never have been there before and yet you feel you already knew and experienced all of them. I have good memory of my dreams almost as good my memory about real life btw. Except the beginning of dreams of course, always missed it. Just feels like, in a blink of eye, I already there, or like enter a scene in game after loading black screen.

[@Likeomgitznich]

I agree with cognitive memory reactivation. I have legit solved full problems and has done as far as creating entire presentations in my dream state which I can then wake up and execute. It's was really weird at first but now I love it

[@hakoom7]

I did have many disasters dreams, like earthquakes and it felt so real and unlike other dreams where i usually wake up as soon as i fall, i didnt wake up i was so scared and it felt really amazing after i woke up of course. I felt like i experienced the horror of earthquake the whole building started to fall apart and the ground was so shaky i couldnt move or even see well, i could see myself in 2 perspectives, 1 where im me and seeing everything shaking and breaking, and 2 where im like a camera in a movie i could see myself what position im in how i was standing then falling into my knees struggling to move and then how the whole building fell and how it looked like after all that. I even felt myself dying for few seconds. When i woke up i was overwhelmed with emotion fear, confusion, excitement, sadness and happiness of course that its all over and im well and safe. I did feel like my brain was preparing me for something cause it felt so real, i never been in any earthquake even tho it doesn't take a genius to know its so hard to move in a shaking ground but i never thought about it, always thought il easily avoid getting hurt by running away from falling stuff or being swallowed by the ground but that dream made me realize how insignificant im and its not going to be under my control mostly so i better be ready for sudden death. There were many other natural disasters dreams that felt so real and honestly i feel lucky i got to experience them in a safe simulation. Oh and yes i did have many of those silly dreams where im being chased by someone and i cant run very fast, like running under water or on a very deep soft desert sand. But not being able to move in the earthquake dream felt so different and real.

[@MadJunkFiler]

Last night I had a dream that I was in a McDonalds in Stockholm. I've never been to Stockholm - not even close.

[@elin_]

Its definitely often connected to your current state of mind. I have anxiety and I dream a lot of nightmares.

[@thomas.02]

I sometimes dream about having a heated argument with someone, and in those cases I have to remind myself it’s a dream or I’d act all weird around them while I’m convinced I argued with them.

[@wytsewolf]

Make a video about psychedelics

[@Inertia888]

Tesseract wolf, if you have not already seen his work maybe take a look at Dr. Oliver Sacks. he is sometimes known as "the hallucination doctor"But he dives deep into the human unconscious mind

[@cOmAtOrAn]

Can we please get an episode "Freud was always wrong"? Please? It would be great.

[@theocaratic]

+

[@matthewlee4834]

Don't completely discredit the dude

[@hakoom7]

Sometimes i wake during my dream then after couple minutes i go back to sleep and continue the dream. But the even weirder is that sometimes i dream the same story but like different chapters in a very long period of time, like i dream something and after a year i continue the dream. Happened to me when i was a kid i dreamt about the same thing 4 times in 4 years. i remembered it cause i felt like i lived that life which was very different from my own, the 3rd and forth time i was even happy like when finally new episode come out of ur favorite show and ur like "yes finally gonna find out what happens" but the forth time i couldnt enjoy it much cause during half the dream i found out its a dream and things got ugly. You think when you find out its a dream you'll have fun but no, you become more afraid and confused and you end up waking up so fast

[@patrickmccurry1563]

But that doesn't explain why my nightmares, while horrifying at the time, are absurd and downright comical when I wake. Emotion is only loosely correlated at best to event.

[@WhimsicalPictures]

This is an interesting video :) I'm about to move to a new country, so a lot of my dreams have been related to that anxiety lately. But why do many antidepressants, including the one I take, make dreams more vivid and complicated?

[@typograf62]

I've spent years learning to fly. That is not in a plane or beating my arms, but floating. And I really was only able to fly backwards, like a nautilus. Then I learned to float forward. My ability to fly was then used to toss rotten fruit at pedestrians below. Then I began to study art in my dreams. I'm now able to get really close to se the grains of pigment and the brush strokes in detail. At the same time food began to taste of something in my dreams. Funny. Not so funny is that I seem to repeat danger-dreams about war, normally escalating into nuclear blasts. I have a pretty good idea as to why that motif has become so common. Sometimes dreams seem useful. I evolve a plot for a book or something, and a voice tells me to write it down. When I wake up the plot is terrible and best discarded. Other dreams seem to repeat the general plot with odd variations. Like having to move from one place to another resulting in chaos and conflicts and discussions with my dead father (who will not accept being dead). The odd thing is that the move being the basis of that type occured in 2003, without conflicts or troubles. I must have left something behind. Moving into a mud hut and having the garden occupied by dancing mormons was very funny.

[@lindemann316]

My favorite host!

[@MindWalker123]

SciShow PsychShow I love it!

[@rhys__piece]

My dreams will very often revolve around what's on my mind at the time. For example, if I'm obsessing over a new TV show then my dream will be related to that or contain those characters. If I had played a game a lot recently, the my dream will probably have similar mechanics. If I've been thinking about a friend a pot recently then they're probably in my dream. I usually don't think it's much more than my brain processing information.

[@Kyeian]

I used to dream in stories. I'd get full blown world setups with plots and come in on the high point of the action (I had to save a princess from a high tower at one point, in a world with air pirates and armies. I video-gamed my way up at least 10 of 100 floors before waking up)--granted, my favorite thing to do in the world is write, and I tend to plot stories all the time...but it was always fun. I've gotten really busy at work lately, though, so my dreams have gone mundane. Now I dream about work. It makes me a little sad, actually.

[@Rafael-oo8wh]

*Your Brain* 10:00PM: Okay, time to run some emotional diagnostics, ROBOT LLAMAS!!!! 1:30AM: Now, some battle simulations, THIS... IS... SPARTA!!!!! 3:55AM: Let's test our intelligence, Solve y=x-2b 6:55AM: Okay, time to actually get some sleep *Your Alarm* 7:00AM: WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!! WAKE UP!!!!!

[@ktvx.94]

I think dreams have multiple causes, but threat simulation is real. I had many nightmares of a terrible person I would run away from, resist, fight back and eventually lash out on and chase away, and when I finally confronted her irl I said everything in her face flawlessly. It was a gruesome but effective training method.

[@astra_music]

some recent dreams of mine that don't quite make sense to me: 1) someone removed the roof of my car and i was driving it around a mall 2) i was trapped in my local pharmacy for the night and spent the entire time sitting on the floor getting super drunk (i don't even like alcohol) 3) i was about to get a filling, but i fell asleep before the dentist could even give me the needle, and woke up in the middle of the procedure feel free to make of those what you will, for science

[@angelcarrillo980]

@SciShowPsych Has there been any tests/studies linking the locations adenosines 'drain' and those locations being activated the most when asleep / awake?

[@lumpyfishgravy]

I never have the same dream twice, but I have dream themes. There's the scary snake dream, the weird new car dream, the amazing new house dream, the train journey gone wrong dream, and the oversized public bathroom dream (yes, really).

[@Mononoke99]

A bit TMI but this morning I had a dream where I was out and got my period. And what do you know, I wake and got my period... Since when can dreams predict my future

[@Laura-qp9iw]

Teo Danielle my body always tells me when that's about to happen, you know common symptoms and such so maybe your brain picked those up and tried to warn you in your dreams. Pretty nice of it

[@jaschabull2365]

Sometimes things that happen to you while you're asleep get incorporated into your dream. I remember sometimes having dreams I was going to the bathroom only to realize I was actually in bed and it was a dream. And then I'd need new sheets.

[@johnrickard8512]

Same here except that the "new sheets" thing wasn't necessary. For some reason my body seems incapable of a passive urinary release while I'm sleeping and I don't know why. That being said, I remember at least once while I was still a young child where I woke up to go pee, but I didn't make it all of the way there. From that day on I slept on the bottom bunk so that it wouldn't take as long to get there.

[@leifioleif5946]

What about reoccurring dreams? Why do they happen around the same time of year? Why does the dream get slightly longer each time? Why do they usaully have a big fear element to them that cones and goes? Why does it the stop happening one you reach a certain age?

[@joelbell6275]

I love your face Brit!! :D