this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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There's a theory that dreams serve as a sort of simulation mechanism for our brain to think through how to respond to various potential situations. It argues that is why natural disaster nightmares are so prevalent, and why our dreams are so weird (monkey brain does not understand modern society).
Anyways, good for them, I'm glad their brain figured out what to do about hypothetical McWeird.
So if a monster chases me in real life, instead of running I’ll crouch, grab the ground, and launch myself forward to get away (because I can’t run in dreams).
Sounds legit. The monster was probably expecting you to run, and ready to punish it like an elden ring boss punishes dodging backwards.
But in all seriousness, like any theory out of evolutionary psychology it's of very questionable utility insofar as it is unfalsifiable. I just find it fun to think about and mentally give my brain a "you tried" sticker after a weird dream.
If you have a good imagination and a strong application you can fly in dreams too. But i think only a specific few can fly or control their dreams.
It's called lucid dreaming. I've read that it can be trained.
It is extremely difficult to train, however, I've found that even the act of trying to lucid dream has made me incredibly good at falling asleep no matter what the circumstances are, and yet to date, I've only managed to do it like 3 times of the 14 years I've known about it.
I have up rather easily, having a dream journal is just not something my adhd brain can handle. But it's still been a nice skill to atleast practice when I remember it.
How did it make you better at falling asleep? I'm not particularly interested in lucid dreaming but being able to fall asleep
I learned how to "W.I.L.D" or wake induced lucid dream, which requires you to stay perfectly still, and to allow your mind to slowly drift off into stories that you want to tell or to dream about, almost like teaching yourself to meditate honestly. Well after learning how to sit still perfectly for 45 minutes in bed and to drift perfectly into sleep makes it easy to fall asleep when ever you want, as long as you have the patience lol.
How about if you drink some mugwort tea before going to bed? I'm sure there are other herbs that enhance dreams and may be useful to attempt lucid dreaming.
Never heard of it! I know kratom has given me some crazy dreams. Quitting weed was the best thing I could have done for dreaming.
Not so much that I can't have crazy or fun dreams, it's just that even if I repeat them aloud after waking up they fade very very quickly. To get good at lucid dreaming you basically need to have incredible memory, or the strength to keep a dream journal that you do every night.
You very much have to train yourself to remember dreams, as well as a way to know you're in a dream. (Counting your fingers when crossing any door, when meeting or talking to people, finding something you do often in dreams that you can relate and instill a habit in the waking world, and then also training yourself to notice and understand what having 7 or 4 fingers actually means in a dream). There are many ways to train yourself, and to find your own "trigger" mine specifically is just looking at my hands and counting my fingers.
Man, when I was a kid I had dreams where I could jump over houses and sometimes fly, but I haven’t had dreams like that in like 25 years 😞
I was able to do it in teens and lost it growing up…
No way... I thought everyone flew in their dreams (like, it was a normal thing we all did), and most could control their dreams (once they learned to discriminate between reality and dreamland). Is this not the case??
Someone on reddit commented to the effect that dreams are our brain's combat simulators. Had just a touch of PTSD at the time and that really, really hit home.
Wow! Guess the commenter wasn't as original as I thought. Took a poke at finding the original and Gemini spit up a reference to threat simulation theory (TST), which turns out to be a real thing!
That's an interesting take. Simulation for dealing with life.