Second Life & The Forum Causing Strange Dreams

[Luna Bliss]

Does SL & the forum manifest in your dreams too?

I had another strange dream, last night... in the dream I was in the SL forum discussing how the brain operates.
I've long had an interest in hacking the brain to achieve new insights, primarily through meditation, VR, and also through recent developments in the guided use of hallucinogens by researchers which cause us to change our thinking ruts (patterned thinking that becomes stuck and so not open to new insight over time).

Anyway, in this most recent dream @Madelaine McMasters said a new study advised people to go into a managed coma in order to emerge with a new brain that is less influenced by past ways of thinking. I was like "no way, this is dangerous, or I must not be aware of current and safer coma management techniques". I was also shocked that Madelaine would like such a technique, as she (while interested in how the brain operates) had seemed in the past quite wary of techniques that alter the brain (like VR). 
Unfortunately I woke up and so didn't discover the reasoning behind coma induction.
This dream may have been prompted from a comment by @Love Zhaoying regarding acid flashbacks.
Or was it inspired by a strange psychedelic-type statue I encountered inworld recently?

So how has SL and/or the forum manifested in your dreams? I know people have spoken of being in SL in their dreams...did this only happen as a new person encountering SL or does it continue?

Edited August 11, 2022 by Luna Bliss

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

This dream may have been prompted from a comment by @Love Zhaoying regarding acid flashbacks.

I don't know a better word, but almost anything can trigger those flashbacks!

(I apologize to those who do not approve of the word "trigger", but here is a place where no other word applies or can be used as appropriately.)

Personally - I fall asleep lately thinking about my scripting projects - brainstorming as the brain goes to sleep.  In that context, I probably dream about the Forum a  lot, and forget about it.  (I've read  before that you really don't recall most of your dreams.)

Edited August 11, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Personally - I fall asleep lately thinking about my scripting projects - brainstorming as the brain goes to sleep.  In that context, I probably dream about the Forum a  lot, and forget about it.

Yes!  I have discovered answers to projects in SL I was seeking a solution for, in my dreams.  Often I had been severely stuck and didn't know how I should proceed. Most notably the answers have occurred just as I was waking up from a dream, and so in that liminal state of being somewhat asleep and dreaming and partially awake.

[Madelaine McMasters]

35 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Does SL & the forum manifest in your dreams too?

I had another strange dream, last night... in the dream I was in the SL forum discussing how the brain operates.
I've long had an interest in hacking the brain to achieve new insights, primarily through meditation, VR, and also through recent developments in the guided use of hallucinogens by researchers which cause us to change our thinking ruts (patterned thinking that becomes stuck and so not open to new insight over time).

Anyway, in this most recent dream @Madelaine McMasters said a new study advised people to go into a managed coma in order to emerge with a new brain that is less influenced by past ways of thinking. I was like "no way, this is dangerous, or I must not be aware of current and safer coma management techniques". I was also shocked that Madelaine would like such a technique, as she (while interested in how the brain operates) had seemed in the past quite wary of techniques that alter the brain (like VR). 
Unfortunately I woke up and so didn't discover the reasoning behind coma induction.
This dream may have been prompted from a comment by @Love Zhaoying regarding acid flashbacks.
Or was it inspired by a strange psychedelic-type statue I encountered inworld recently?

So how has SL and/or the forum manifested in your dreams? I know people have spoken of being in SL in their dreams...did this only happen as a new person encountering SL or does it continue?

Though I am certainly quite interested in how the brain operates, and am wary of any technique that alters it (including formal education), I wouldn't say I don't like such techniques. I'm a huge fan of formal education! I'd also be willing to enter a well constructed clinical trial of psilocybin. My optometrist, sharing my endless curiosity about the brain, has (only half jokingly) asked if I'd be his clinical trial buddy if such an opportunity presented itself. I accepted.

Many years ago (20 at least) I read of the case of a young California man who'd spent excessive time playing a headset immersive VR game,. He eventually developed cognitive problems that interfered with his daily life. A subsequent examination revealed he was having "flashbacks" similar to those experienced by those who'd taken "acid trips". Since then, evidence has grown that exposure to hallucinogenic imagery, whether via immersive computer visuals or drugs, causes the brain to wire new neural pathways as it attempts to make sense of the stimuli. Perhaps first named "The Tetris Effect" it's now referred to as "Game Transfer Phenomena". It's worth keeping this in mind as we stand at the leading edge of a potential VR age.

I've been commingling SL and RL memories for years and would be cautious about immersing more deeply in VR. Still, I can imagine very much liking that immersion. Education, VR, psychoactive drugs - if you add daily living to the mix, that's four methods of brain alteration that I'm wary about and interested in, three of which I have and continue to enjoy.

I don't recall my dreams, so don't know if SL presents in them. I do know that my SL and RL memories do commingle, not to any worrisome extent, but enough for me to remain wary.

Edited August 11, 2022 by Madelaine McMasters
Expanding my punctuation toolbox, probably incorrectly.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Though I am certainly quite interested in how the brain operates, and am wary of any technique that alters it (including formal education), I wouldn't say I don't like such techniques. I'm a huge fan of formal education! I'd also be willing to enter a well constructed clinical trial of psilocybin. My optometrist, knowing my endless curiosity about the brain, has (only half jokingly) asked if I'd be his clinical trial buddy if such an opportunity presented itself. I accepted.

I wish that I could...change your mind!

 

2 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Many years ago (20 at least) I read of the case of a young California man who'd spent excessive time playing a headset immersive VR game,. He eventually developed cognitive problems that interfered with his daily life. A subsequent examination revealed he was having "flashbacks" similar to those experienced by those who'd taken "acid trips". Since then, evidence has grown that exposure to hallucinogenic imagery, whether via immersive computer visuals or drugs, causes the brain to wire new neural pathways as it attempts to make sense of the stimuli. Perhaps first named "The Tetris Effect" it's now referred to as "Game Transfer Phenomena". It's worth keeping this in mind as we stand at the leading edge of a potential VR age.

Based on some things I have learned first-hand and been taught, this makes sense:

- In high school Science class, we watched a film about a man who wore "upside-down" glasses - they flipped everything. Eventually his brain compensated, which is very cool. Unfortunately, when he stopped wearing the glasses, his brain was not happy - at all - and his sanity was impacted.

- In my own current vision problems, the eye specialist said, "your brain will adjust to ignore" the current artifacts.  Which is interesting until it happens to you!

Edited August 11, 2022 by Love Zhaoying
More info - did not create another post for once!

[Seicher Rae]

14 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

(I apologize to those who do not approve of the word "trigger", but here is a place where no other word applies or can be used as appropriately.)

oy oy oy... I've complained when the term is used frivolously, incorrectly, and often dismissively... NOT when it is used appropriately... ffs

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

remain wary

It's wise to be cautious, as we can push awareness beyond what we are ready for.

So why in the heck did you recommend managed comas?  LOL

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I wish that I could...change your mind!

To some extent, isn't your wish my command?

Doesn't that hold true for everyone I meet?

[Madelaine McMasters]

Just now, Luna Bliss said:

It's wise to be cautious, as we can push awareness beyond what we are ready for.

So why in the heck did you recommend managed comas?  LOL

Projection!

Or a reasonable extrapolation of my curiosity into the absurd, which is where I love to play.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

To some extent, isn't your wish my command?

Doesn't that hold true for everyone I meet?

Yes.

Sorry, I added more info to my post before you may have gotten a chance to see. Hopefully interesting bits (to you, at least).

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

oy oy oy... I've complained when the term is used frivolously, incorrectly, and often dismissively... NOT when it is used appropriately... ffs

It was someone else who told me to "stop using that word". *hugs*

[Luna Bliss]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

- In high school Science class, we watched a film about a man who wore "upside-down" glasses - they flipped everything. Eventually his brain compensated, which is very cool. Unfortunately, when he stopped wearing the glasses, his brain was not happy - at all - and his sanity was impacted.

- In my own current vision problems, the eye specialist said, "your brain will adjust to ignore" the current artifacts.  Which is interesting until it happens to you!

I have first-hand experience of a similar experience where my brain adjusted.

A couple months ago I began to be horribly dizzy and the room was spinning when sitting up or walking. I could not even stand up as I'd fall to the ground, and it was dangerous to walk. Eventually, I adjusted and could even walk although the room was spinning -- my brain adjusted and ignored the faulty input of a spinning room.

After a couple weeks it all stopped, and I traced my dizziness to a food I was terribly allergic to (I had been sneezing a lot, and so that clued me in on a possible allergy as the source, affecting my inner ear).

[Madelaine McMasters]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Based on some things I have learned first-hand and been taught, this makes sense:

- In high school Science class, we watched a film about a man who wore "upside-down" glasses - they flipped everything. Eventually his brain compensated, which is very cool. Unfortunately, when he stopped wearing the glasses, his brain was not happy - at all - and his sanity was impacted.

- In my own current vision problems, the eye specialist said, "your brain will adjust to ignore" the current artifacts.  Which is interesting until it happens to you!

I don't have time to go digging at the moment, but I learned about an "upside down" research project (Russian, I think?) when I was a child. IIRC, students were provided with inversion glasses, which they wore continuously. For the first couple/several days, they were severely disoriented, managing navigation by touch. There was no gradual improvement during the day, but on the fourth (making that number up) day, they awoke to find their vision had return to normal. Their brains had "rewired" overnight. Upon removing the glasses, they were once again disoriented and the "fix" was again implemented overnight.

This is consistent with the experience of a colleague who suffered a detached retina, which was repaired via laser "welding". The day after his surgery, he described a severely warped world, in which "right angles no longer exist". This was the result of his retina being distorted during reattachment. He was told that the distortion would eventually correct, but with no additional detail. I theorized that he would go to sleep in the next few days, worrying that improvement was not coming, then wake to discover everything was fine.

That's precisely what happened.

[Luna Bliss]

I had a dream spawned from the thread where we discussed the new telescope, and we delved into spacetime a bit.

In my dream I existed for a few second without this human distortion which apprehends the universe in a way that is comprehensible. The experience was similar to what I've experienced in a rare meditation.  Did I really experience this in the dream (an apprehension of the universe that is outside the way our brains were constructed to conceptualize it) or was it just my notion of what it would be like without typical human distortions?

Edited August 11, 2022 by Luna Bliss

[JeromFranzic]

The forum? Not really, but SL and Open Sim, sure. I've had my avis from both realms disrupt or enchant my RL self (the bored IT guy) while I snooze.

In one dream, I hooked up with my Open Sim avi. We enslaved my RL self... forced him to do all the housework and deprived him of his RL friends for a weekend. And other stuff I can't mention here... safe to say it's X rated/BDSM material LOL. Much worse than the stuff I've posted on my flickr and newTumbl pages...

Another dream was about RL me dating my mature female alt at a bistro. It was nice, we talked about her garden at home and her card playing buddies in the neighborhood. I didn't want that dream to end... it happened after a very stressful day at work in RL. *sigh* We were snuggling at her house in the sprawling living room sofa, and after another conversation and half a bottle of chardonnay was imbibed between us... she asked me to carry her upstairs to her bedroom. And that's when the dream ended... F. Too soon, d@mn (maybe that was the appropriate ending).

[Luna Bliss]

29 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't recall my dreams, so don't know if SL presents in them.

Do you remember if you recalled your dreams as a child?  I stopped recalling them for awhile (years), but am going through a period where I recall them frequently.

[Love Zhaoying]

13 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't have time to go digging at the moment, but I learned about an "upside down" research project (Russian, I think?) when I was a child. IIRC, students were provided with inversion glasses, which they wore continuously. For the first couple/several days, they were severely disoriented, managing navigation by touch. There was no gradual improvement during the day, but on the fourth (making that number up) day, they awoke to find their vision had return to normal. Their brains had "rewired" overnight. Upon removing the glasses, they were once again disoriented and the "fix" was again implemented overnight.

This is consistent with the experience of a colleague who suffered a detached retina, which was repaired via laser "welding". The day after his surgery, he described a severely warped world, in which "right angles no longer exist". This was the result of his retina being distorted during reattachment. He was told that the distortion would eventually correct, but with no additional detail. I theorized that he would go to sleep in the next few days, worrying that improvement was not coming, then wake to discover everything was fine.

That's precisely what happened.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

31 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't recall my dreams, so don't know if SL presents in them.

Oh...then you're probably dreaming right now.  And we are in your dream. (A scenario my Guru talked about a lot.)

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, JeromFranzic said:

And that's when the dream ended

Yes, it seems quite often dreams end at a time I think they should not!  Wonder what this means...

[Madelaine McMasters]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Do you remember if you recalled your dreams as a child?  I stopped recalling them for awhile (years), but am going through a period where I recall them frequently.

I recall my childhood friends describing the seemingly ubiquitous "being chased by monsters, in slow motion" dreams. I have no such recollections.

I did, in my twenties, recall a single vivid dream in which I had to roll up the cuff of my jeans three times instead of the usual two. I'm a short rural girl, so rolling up cuffs is de-rigueur. I reasoned that the third roll was an expression of my concern over growing shorter (which I'm doing at this very moment).

One benefit of wearing high heels is that I don't have to cuff my jeans. That must be why I still keep a few pairs in my RL wardrobe.

[Madelaine McMasters]

12 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Yes, it seems quite often dreams end at a time I think they should not!  Wonder what this means...

You're drinking liquids too close to bedtime?

[Madelaine McMasters]

21 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

 

[Brightstar7777]

I couldn't decide if Second Life itself is significant to the meta in the way that first life is. My intuitive conclusion after experimentally building spiritual spaces in world is that the universe seems to consider virtual construction to be as real as material construction, which was quite interesting to discover. Looking at all these seemingly abandoned builds in-world, is it like a haunted house whose walls absorbed the lifeforce energy of its residents and are now full of episodic memories of intense moments that leave indelible marks hidden in the topology of a space for sensitive others to feel or find? Did an egregore form naturally, or was one or more created by the users? Ever get a strange gothic vibe walking around parts of an old region, say Grignano, which was built in front of you by your now-missing friends, structures now frozen forever in time like they're waiting for the return of their owners into perpetuity, a last memorial that once they too existed in our world? Do you ever feel parts of your old friends stir, alive, within you long after the material relationship ended? Have you ever been divided from a friend whose spirit within you is bewildered as to why and how their material counterpart has now gone and damaged the integrity of reality's continuity? I also get this spooky vibe around the Ivory Tower of Prims, it feels lively despite being lonely when I visit. And yet these ghosts are so close, you can reach and touch them.

Isn't it strange how oftentimes the virtual land never reverts, it's never turned back over to the market, like the spirit of this place is preserving the spot for them because they're alive and occupying Second Life in some parallel Earth's Timeline that spookily shares assets on the grid or something, separated beyond reach from this 'now' by an infinitely thin veil of space-time. 

Who's the spooky lady in grey, made of many faces in a spire-like structure centered in a room with living walls? Who's the British-sounding lady who looks like she was constructed from magazine photo cutouts of eyes, torn paper edges around each, and the well-dressed man with the scissors? Who's the big lion (usually in the sunlit sky, perhaps even the sun itself), or the mecha-spider centaur girl doll, the big teddy bear, and so forth. There are higher entities here, proximate, but it often feels like the causal connection between things that happen in-world or on the forums and these visions is a little ambiguous. Maybe some of these critters are from discord, but not all.

What hidden things or entities have you noticed in your time here?

Edited August 11, 2022 by Brightstar7777

[Coffee Pancake]

Our minds are built on a number of fundamental assumptions about the world they operate in .. one key assumption is that there is only the one real world.

So all worlds are equally real, all that varies when it comes to virtual spaces is the immersion and intensity of the experience.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

I'm gonna take a stab at it and say, the new forum changes probably helped in triggering you dream. That's my guess if you haven't had one in a while or ever about the forums.

My dreams don't mess with me anymore like they used to when I was younger.. I started to realize I was in a dream which change things like a nightmare into what ever was chasing me or scaring me, into  standing up and taking control.. Slow motion running away and not getting anywhere into, turning around and not running away.

I remember the first time I could tell I was in a dream.. one second I was on the road, the next I was running from someone on the road but really slow and didn't know how far back they were and ran even harder and harder..Then somehow  we were instantly in the barn and the next moment instantly in one of the stalls.

I think what triggered me realizing it was a dream was all the in between moments missing, then realizing this is a dream.. It was kind of like a, wait a minute moment.. I'm dreaming..

I turned around and I still didn't see his face, but seen this big man in a long rider.. Then just pushed at him and he flew through the stall wall. then i woke up..But the difference was I always woke up running away once i got in the stall.. This time I turned around and pushed him..

I woke up and was like, omg  I told myself to do that in my dream! Rather than waking up freaking out and it messing with my head all day, I felt really really good and couldn't wait to dream again..

Falling dreams turn into stopping or flying or floating, but I don't really have those kind of dreams or any nightmares anymore.

A lot of times when I knew I was in a dream I would wake up, but more and more could realize it sooner and sooner where I didn't..

There is like this really thin line of knowing and not knowing you are in a dream..

I'm at the point that if something is out of place in my house, I know it's a dream or anything really wild it's like, oh I'm dreaming.. Sometimes I'll even be like, trying not to interrupt them with me knowing.. Like I'll start to know and then tell myself to back off. Sometimes it's too late and I just wake up.

I think what happened was, I just got so tired of having nightmares and such similar ones and so tired of running in terror, that I just recognized they were dreams. It's such a fine thin line of knowing and not knowing. like plastic wrap thin is about the best way i can say it feels like..