Seeing Unknown Clear Faces While Dreaming: A Portal To A Parallel World?
Why do we dream?
There are several hypotheses and concepts as to why we dream.
Possible explanations for why we dream include:
- To represent unconscious desires and wishes
- To interpret random signals from the brain and body during sleep
- To consolidate and and process information that might have been gathered during the day
- Work as part of a psychotherapy (perhaps)
When I was young, I used to have a lot of nightmares.
If this has influenced me in my adult life is unknown, but to say that I had a troubled life is an understatement.
I also had a lot of lucid dreams, it is kind of cool to know you are half awake and can pace the unconscious dream with you consciousness.
Lucid dreams:
Lucid dreaming is a state of sleep where the dreamer knows they are dreaming. As a result, the dreamer may have some measure of control over their dream.
The measure of control a dreamer has can vary from lucid dream to lucid dream. They often occur in the middle of a regular dream when the sleeping person realizes suddenly that they are dreaming.
Some people experience lucid dreaming at random while other people are able to increase their capacity to affect how their dreams unfold.
Recently, my dreams have changed somewhat:
I am able to see a lot of crystal clear faces while dreaming.
The faces are always characters in the dream itself, and they are just normal human faces like you and me; nothing strange or scary about them at all.
But, I cannot remember to have seen them at all.
They are mostly men. Apparently, men mostly dream about other men. While women dream about men and women equally. I do not know why.
What do we know about characters in dreams?
There is at least one study that have look into characters while dreaming:
D. Kahn et al. Journal of Sleep Research 2000 JSR, 2000
Character identification
Subjects dreamt about all three character identification categories: people known to them in their waking life, people identified only generically and people unknown to them. The proportions in each category are shown in Table 1.
Most characters that appear in a person's dream are known and can be named by the dreamer.
Interesting findings, but the results still not explain where the unknown characters come from.
What puzzles me about seeing unknown faces in my dreams are the following:
✒ Are these faces of persons I have met?
I cannot remember seeing those faces at all, so why can I see them while dreaming, but not recall them while I am awake?
I do have an extreme good memory for faces in real life.
✒ If I have not met these persons, then my brain is able to create perfect individual faces in my dreams of people that do not exist. If so, that is an extremely interesting (terrifying) finding. Because, then I cannot trust what I see as reality at all.
✒ The last possibility, is that seeing these faces are just a glimpse into a parallel universe, which is supposedly likely according to the multiple world interpretation (MWI) of quantum phenomena.
Patrick McNamera wrote an interesting article about MWI and QM Psychology Today
I think most of the time the people in our dreams are people that we have seen before. We may not clearly know who they are but our subjective kicks in and maybe generates someone who you once walked past of the street or a barista at a coffee place.
I guess if you think about it, it could in a sense be a portal to another dimension. I dimension that you simulate and dictate but also you are immersed in it and everything feels so real. I haven't lucid dreamed much but it is a truly amazing phenomenon.
Yes, the interpretation that the unknown persons in our dreams are persons we have met, but we cannot recall consciously, but appear in our dreams is perhaps the most logical one. Somehow, I do not believe that so much. But we cannot really trust our interpretation of reality at all, it is highly subjective.
Dreaming is an interesting topic indeed. I haven't had too much lucid dreams, heck I can't even remember them most of the time. But for all I know I haven't got any nightmares since I was a kid... As for ur perfectly unknown faces, the simplest thought is that it might not be that strange, since u can create entire landscapes in ur dreams without ever having seen them before... So u might be overthinking this one. Though that being said I do think it's very likely we live in a simulation ^.^ And if I were to start philosophizing about your dream I could come with some other "possible" meanings to it.
since u can create entire landscapes in ur dreams without ever having seen them before...Good point!
A human face is so specific, not even the best computers can give identity to a new face. Very true, you can always get possible meaning to thinks. Perhaps better to focus on the real world.
But then again, maybe our real world is just mere a dream ;)
Even the cause of dreams ultimately remains a mystery, there have been a great number of theories on why we might dream.
One theory is that dreamers are dealing with stress, strains and concerns from the previous day.
Another theory suggests that dreaming may be linked to the way that humans learn and process memories during sleep.
Everyone has experienced trying to remember what happened in a happy dream or a disturbing nightmare.
But the reason why we dream remains a puzzling mystery that has baffled experts, scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists for centuries.
Yes, it might be due to processing of memories and neuroplasticity (LTP).
I mostly dream of people that I have seen before but I have also sometimes dreamt of faces that I do not recognize. I've always thought that they either represent people I've seen but do not remember or then that it's a mix of different faces that I've seen.
I also lucid dream every now and then, it's really cool even though it sometimes can be a bit scary. Last year I had a phase where I used to lucid dream that I was talking with my friends, and I remember saying to them in my dreams "isn't it strange that we can have a perfectly fine conversation even though I'm actually laying asleep in my bed?". But every time I said it the dream turned really strange, the other person would disappear and I would wake up. I think it happened because saying it made me realize that the other person wasn't really there and I was actually talking to an aspect of myself.
Anyhow, really great post and the subject is fascinating! :)
Like Thomas Jefferson once said. "I like the dreams of the future better then the history of the past."
I also belive it kind of a parralel reality where the strangest things can happen with other physical laws etc... But it scares me a little to think this all finds place somewhere somehow...
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
you are a great commentator
@janusface,
Some experts says we dreamed only for few secs! But I don't know... because some dreams were looks like real and it looks like a long time running film! And those experts says dreams are black and white! But I never saw a dream in those two colors! (Actually once I saw Charlie Chaplin in a colored movie - talking about a dream)
This is a deep subject to discuss! And you are doing it well! Really appreciate your effort my dear friend! And thank you very much for sharing with us!
Cheers~
Thanks for a good comment. Certainly, our understanding of time could be changed a lot while dreaming.
@janusface,
Yep don't know what's actually happening :D Anyway sometimes I like those dreams :D
Cheers~
Nice post @janusface sir, i mostly dreams what i do through out my day and i also see mostly familiar faces but one strange thing i find out in my dreams that the scenes which i saw in my dreams mostly becomes reality after some days or weeks, i don't know why but it happens.
I finally figured out why we sleep... because the world spins and it's dark half the time! it's an evolutionary response to save energy. there's nothing to do in the dark! (well, not much at least)