Proof that humans can get used to pretty much anything

just wanted to point out that most people don't have a lifetime of nightly nightmares, and your could be eased with some therapy, or at least mushrooms and puppies.

and if you LIKE nightmares and want more, slap on a nicotine patch right before you go to bed.

I subscribe to the idea that dreams are a byproduct of your brain defragmenting itself, or priming its neural-net with images trained during the daytime.

To remember the byproduct might undermine this process, in the same way that feeding a NN its own output might produce garbage output later.

Being able to become lucid in your dreams means you can also have a certain level of control and face whatever it is that causes that fear, and get over it

It's probably safe. The very reason I started getting into lucid dreaming was to control my nightmares.

I have never heard of it being dangerous before, but if I had to speculate I'd say it probably depends on how you use it: You might be able to take command to end the nightmare but I'm not a doctor or psychiatrist but maybe in avoiding the nightmares altogether you're denying yourself some sort of personal growth or insight?

The real answer is probably: More research needs to be done.

On rare occasion I’ve taken control of nightmares in a Lucid dream state - typically waiking up momentarily and then going back to sleep.

I’m just not sure if the psychic cost of having these types of intense dreams encoded in memory is healthier than just sleeping and not remembering.

A bit plagued by my dreams ( thereby my subconscious ) if I can remember them.

That was the question I guess, I hear the idea I should engage more to remember dreams, but not sure if that is healthy for people to do who have vivid and disturbing dreams regularly (eg. Under attack, people I love getting hurt ect…)

No idea about that, it never interfered with my sleep but I also didn't do it frequently. These days I don't even remember my dreams the majority of the time and I've kind of lost interest in the whole thing, takes discipline to accomplish in the first place and I kinda lost interest TBH.

You can always stop trying to distinguish between dreams and reality and just accept whatever you're experiencing as a sort of superposition of both.

Lucid dreaming literally means you're aware you're in a dream.

IDK about that, but I've only done it a few times. Mostly I just used to to fly around my neighborhood like they'd do in old Kung Fu movies.

I've tried it when I was younger (20s). I don't really remember my dreams now. It is something like a muscle you need to keep using. Write down sentences, draw pics, doodle anything that will help you remember when you wake up.

I didn't have problems distinguishing from reality, but I did want to sleep a lot more.

Yeah, that was my thought too, though it is possible they came up with it independently. Or forgot they read that xkcd which came out 18 years ago (fuck!).

It has happened to Randall himself before (see the header)

And clothes are restrictive anyway

I boiled down the complex neurological system of organic memory in living beings down to a paragraph, of course there is room for a lot of nuance and sophistry.

Also: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0375-9.epdf

Some tissues live a lot longer than others but as a general statement it holds true.

EDIT: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0375-9.epdf

That's one of my favorite parts of weed, I want to sleep, not have to watch some shitty movie I'm not able to control or interact with.

I've always heard that weed smokers have less dreams, but as someone who kinda started doing it more regularly within the last year, I haven't experienced that? Honestly I think I tend to have more vivid and weird dreams when I've smoked before bed. Do some people not get the REM suppression?

Alcohol does it too. I've heard people say that's what dts are. Your brain dreaming while you're awake.

I used to smoke weed, but that was 20 years ago and I hadn’t ever been a big smoker.

My understanding is you get less rem tho and less rest as a side effect.

Double sided sword, or whatever

White noise is critical and underrated.

I have slept many nights, on average about once a day for many years. In my experience, it's the routine that has the most effect. I know it's super difficult to maintain but going to bed and waking up same time everyday is the key.

This concept is known as "sleep hygiene" if anyone wants to read further.

What does your poor dog have to do with this?

Ear plugs have been a life saver for me. I can't sleep without them now, fortunately they sell them in huge containers so I only have to buy them like every year and half.

no way. sleep is great but sleeping in is glorious.

Don't have children

My 100% BS conjectures are:

• to save energy versus committing the dream to long term memory

• to facilitate childhood/adolescent development, as object permanence is learned you need the external world to be the consistent one. You can't waste energy learning to adapt to the worlds in your dreams in later childhood.

• as adults dream amnesia can help avoid relived or newly generated trauma incurred as the begin processes your external experience.

Idk, there's lots of possible benefits. In not about to do the research paper deep dive. But the wild part is that dreaming developed and the mechanism for not remembering the dreams also developed and there was a selective pressure for that to be the case.

Everyone dreams every night

Really doesn't seem to be the case for me, there's a pretty noticeable difference between 'I had a dream but quickly forget what it was about' and not dreaming at all

I mean if we want to get technical...

Don’t give the MBAs any ideas.

I will always shill Mack's Ultra Soft for sleeping

I think the commonly accepted theory is that your brain is sorting through the day, through problems, through life. Even just playing. This makes sense seeing as how quickly humans fall apart without sleep.

I was so tired once, that all I could hear was The Spice Girls Wannabe, and just the chorus because I never actually listened to their music, just the repetition of:

YO, I'ᒪᒪ TEᒪᒪ YOᑌ ᗯᕼᗩT I ᗯᗩᑎT ᗯᕼᗩT I ᖇEᗩᒪᒪY, ᖇEᗩᒪᒪY ᗯᗩᑎT
SO TEᒪᒪ ᗰE ᗯᕼᗩT YOᑌ ᗯᗩᑎT, ᗯᕼᗩT YOᑌ ᖇEᗩᒪᒪY, ᖇEᗩᒪᒪY ᗯᗩᑎT

I tend to only remember a dream for a minute or two if I have any.

But, well actually there's one thing that I always remember - that most of them are fucked up. I don't remember why, though.