Sociopath Community

My only bizarre dreams were: 

a) If I'd never left California, while I was still a high schooler.

During the dream I lost all my memories of my time post-moving away and had it filled in with relevant context in it's place, such as what school I'd gone to who my friends were where I hung out with a skateboard and bike etc. It felt more fleshed out than my usual hazy cloth-like dreamscapes, and street names and pier numbers were relevant to actual locations. The dream was fairly mundane, and it was my first real hint that I'm subby based on the girl I was with in the dream. 

When I woke up I was still in the default set by the dream world, and it took some debriefing to get things back in the expected order. If not for this last part I'd probably have dismissed the dream. I also had some weird euphoric powders in the dream which I later in real life learned was 1-to-1 for the symptoms of MDMA. At that point in my life I'd never touched drugs, but I recognized that sensation the second I first tried it. 

b) A dream where I was multiple people, but they were unaware of their mutual connection with me. 

The dream was stylistic, featuring only black, white, blue, and yellow as it's color scheme. There were multiple people stuck on an island, simply trying to get along but struggling from differences in personality. I felt as if all of them, I could observe all their experiences simultaneously first person and the dream had actual smells in it, they felt as if 'me' talking to other people they were unaware of also being 'me'. 

The weirdest part was simultaneously witnessing more than one set of experiences at the same time. It was like being a minor god of existence, those ones who are the world but have chosen to be oblivious of themselves to preserve 'the magic' of living life as something within constraints, to gather experience as if unlike itself. I was merely a witness to them, yet they all felt like 'me'. I could feel them thinking, feeling, conversing with 'myself' as if not myself. 

Eventually a religious scientist type, their island's "Professor", began ranting about their connection as the dream went on. The others on the island found him to be nuts and tried to focus on more important matters like gathering food and cooperation. To prove his hypothesis, he killed everyone on the island with a handgun and then himself, prompting me to wake up as myself again. This professor-guy has shown up in a few dreams to try to inform me of the nature of dreaming, usually existing to burst whatever illusion the dream was once safekeeping. 

I usually lose my memories of most dreams I've had, but these two (and a few other less odd ones) stuck around. 

Turncoat said: 

My only bizarre dreams were: 

---

a) If I'd never left California, while I was still a high schooler.

During the dream I lost all my memories of my time post-moving away and had it filled in with relevant context in it's place, such as what school I'd gone to who my friends were where I hung out with a skateboard and bike etc. It felt more fleshed out than my usual hazy cloth-like dreamscapes, and street names and pier numbers were relevant to actual locations. The dream was fairly mundane, and it was my first real hint that I'm subby based on the girl I was with in the dream. 

When I woke up I was still in the default set by the dream world, and it took some debriefing to get things back in the expected order. If not for this last part I'd probably have dismissed the dream. I also had some weird euphoric powders in the dream which I later in real life learned was 1-to-1 for the symptoms of MDMA. At that point in my life I'd never touched drugs, but I recognized that sensation the second I first tried it.

Kind of like deja vu but you could recall where it was from? When did you try mdma? It's harder to explain these things when you experience something in a dream for the first time. Like how does your mind know what an MDMA trip feels like without having tried it.

Did that dream change your outlook on life?

---

b) A dream where I was multiple people, but they were unaware of their mutual connection with me. 

The dream was stylistic, featuring only black, white, blue, and yellow as it's color scheme. There were multiple people stuck on an island, simply trying to get along but struggling from differences in personality. I felt as if all of them, I could observe all their experiences simultaneously first person and the dream had actual smells in it, they felt as if 'me' talking to other people they were unaware of also being 'me'. 

The weirdest part was simultaneously witnessing more than one set of experiences at the same time. It was like being a minor god of existence, those ones who are the world but have chosen to be oblivious of themselves to preserve 'the magic' of living life as something within constraints, to gather experience as if unlike itself. I was merely a witness to them, yet they all felt like 'me'. I could feel them thinking, feeling, conversing with 'myself' as if not myself. 

So you could be yourself and not yourself at the same time. Ive had a loosely similar dream but without a Professor. I can't say for sure because I don't know how lucid your experience was, but I've had dreams where I was several people without understanding it. And sometimes they stop being me, like I no longer know what I'm saying and the character stops being me. I usually understand that I was multiple people only after I wake up.

Eventually a religious scientist type, their island's "Professor", began ranting about their connection as the dream went on. The others on the island found him to be nuts and tried to focus on more important matters like gathering food and cooperation. To prove his hypothesis, he killed everyone on the island with a handgun and then himself, prompting me to wake up as myself again. This professor-guy has shown up in a few dreams to try to inform me of the nature of dreaming, usually existing to burst whatever illusion the dream was once safekeeping. 

Have you ever visited the dream elevator? Next time you dream, ask the person next to you to take you to the dream center. It's a code word, it doesn't matter what character it is you ask. You can even ask a plant. They will summon a dream elevator that will take you to the dream center. Once there, you can choose your dream. Try it next time.

I usually lose my memories of most dreams I've had, but these two (and a few other less odd ones) stuck around. 

If we are talking about bizarre dreams then Ive a few more beyond the dream about my home. My earliest memory is a dream. I was looking at my house, thinking, so this is my house. I flew inside, thinking, so this is my room, and this is where I live. Then I woke up, and I saw my mom, and I thought, so this is my mom.

It's a memory from when I was 4 years old. It's the oldest memory I have, and I occasionally replay it because it felt important even when I was 4. The reason it was important is that I never remember "waking up" and going "of course I have parents, what a silly dream!" The part about waking up instead felt like part of the dream, which I'm still living in. I don't know to what extent memories are malleable and to what extent we can create fake memories, but this one convinced me for a long time that I'm Jesus, in primary school. I never really remember waking up, but instead I remember just acknowledging I came to my home magically, woke up, and I had parents. I didn't really question the fact that, as I remember, I recognized my parents for the first time. The crazy part of me thinks I came from somewhere else and took over this body when I was 4 years old. The rational part of me ofc has found an explanation and I had put this to rest until I had that weird dream around the time my grandpa died.

Have you ever seen that Professor appear IRL?

Jada said: 

Have you ever seen that Professor appear IRL?

No I haven't Philip K. Dick-ed the guy, he's basically just an archetype anyway. Lucid dreaming for me tends to work against me rather than for me, like becoming heavier if I thought about flying or being suddenly obvious to people if I'm trying to be unseen, and I think this thing represents that as if it had the goal of waking me up through forcing the realization that it's a dream through actively opposing it. 

Of course the guy is 'me', so the question isn't so much 'who is this dude' as much as it is 'what is this dude'. 

Jada said: 

Turncoat said: 

My only bizarre dreams were: 

---

a) If I'd never left California, while I was still a high schooler.

During the dream I lost all my memories of my time post-moving away and had it filled in with relevant context in it's place, such as what school I'd gone to who my friends were where I hung out with a skateboard and bike etc. It felt more fleshed out than my usual hazy cloth-like dreamscapes, and street names and pier numbers were relevant to actual locations. The dream was fairly mundane, and it was my first real hint that I'm subby based on the girl I was with in the dream. 

When I woke up I was still in the default set by the dream world, and it took some debriefing to get things back in the expected order. If not for this last part I'd probably have dismissed the dream. I also had some weird euphoric powders in the dream which I later in real life learned was 1-to-1 for the symptoms of MDMA. At that point in my life I'd never touched drugs, but I recognized that sensation the second I first tried it.

Kind of like deja vu but you could recall where it was from? When did you try mdma? It's harder to explain these things when you experience something in a dream for the first time. Like how does your mind know what an MDMA trip feels like without having tried it.

College, so enough time later (years) that the memory of a dream could be weaker and not useful data when it comes to factual comparisons. 

It felt like the same thing, or at the very least it feels like it felt like it. This very easily can be seen within variables of baseless post rationale rather than anything factual in that nothing else I've tried has been comparable in the same way. Maybe if I'd tried Meth instead at that point in my life I'd be saying that was what was in the dream, who knows? 

Did that dream change your outlook on life? 

It was moreso jarring having to re-establish my own real life canon afterwards.

It gave room to question if the current reality is real or simply an accepted element of automatic perceptions, just like how my memories were able to be substituted in the dream so too could that apply in this version of life.

The idea that an entirely new setting could be fed to me in the absence of what was once there, and that I'd begin going through the steps like it was always the case, was the eerie takeaway. It's given that much room to question my own experiences when filling in the blanks can grant enough context to feel real, and in turn see others as prone to the same things. 

Eventually a religious scientist type, their island's "Professor", began ranting about their connection as the dream went on. The others on the island found him to be nuts and tried to focus on more important matters like gathering food and cooperation. To prove his hypothesis, he killed everyone on the island with a handgun and then himself, prompting me to wake up as myself again. This professor-guy has shown up in a few dreams to try to inform me of the nature of dreaming, usually existing to burst whatever illusion the dream was once safekeeping. 

Have you ever visited the dream elevator? Next time you dream, ask the person next to you to take you to the dream center. It's a code word, it doesn't matter what character it is you ask. You can even ask a plant. They will summon a dream elevator that will take you to the dream center. Once there, you can choose your dream. Try it next time.

It'd break down probably, stuff in my dreams tends to invite the questions of function and consequence until it hits the point of jinxing it's function via overthinking it. If I need to be unseen, spending time thinking about how to do it has the dream become aware of the thought process which, in turn, improves the dream's understanding of causal elements alongside the brainstorm.

Effectively, thinking of stuff empowers the dream's means of opposing the idea from the person and the setting both being of one mind working against itself. Stuff in the real world has a way of working in spite of it's flaws sometimes, but the dreamscape's been a lot more literal about it from the expectation of failure becoming it's own constraints. 

It's a memory from when I was 4 years old. It's the oldest memory I have, and I occasionally replay it because it felt important even when I was 4.

How much do you figure the memory has mutated through sheer reinforcement? 

Each time something is recalled, you have the risk of contaminating the memory with whatever other thoughts you had next to it. If you were angry while recalling something, the nature of the memory could be returned to the vault with little crumbs and fingerprints over said anger to the point of mutating the memory of the experience. It's like how Nostalgia can mutate an experience. 

In a lot of ways, the environment you cultivate for yourself can reshape the way you think. 

The part about waking up instead felt like part of the dream, which I'm still living in.

Considering how in a dream the mind has the room to fill in factual needs with impressions, like assuming you see a color or assume you're reading a book over presuming that data rather than actually witnessing it, there is always room to question if the real world could be us making those very same presumptive impressions that then become our world. 

In a solipsist mindset, if the world is responding to your own thought patterns, then adding complexity to your own thinking would in turn add the same complexity to the world around you. 

I don't know to what extent memories are malleable and to what extent we can create fake memories

It's easier to recognize in other people than in ourselves, and written records or recordings can help with recognizing the deviations. Even there however if they can conjure an explanation of compromise between the imagined experience and the record, they could come out of it with a third conclusion. 

Turncoat said: 

Jada said:

Kind of like deja vu but you could recall where it was from? When did you try mdma? It's harder to explain these things when you experience something in a dream for the first time. Like how does your mind know what an MDMA trip feels like without having tried it.

College, so enough time later (years) that the memory of a dream could be weaker and not useful data when it comes to factual comparisons. 

It felt like the same thing, or at the very least it feels like it felt like it. This very easily can be seen within variables of baseless post rationale rather than anything factual in that nothing else I've tried has been comparable in the same way. Maybe if I'd tried Meth instead at that point in my life I'd be saying that was what was in the dream, who knows?

This is kind of how I viewed it not too long ago. There's a known pathway in our brain for making fake memories. Deja vu is one such brain fart.

However, suppose you had a dream today that a white truck was going to crash into your neighborhood supermarket, told the neighbor that you're worried something was going to happen, and then that day a white truck crashed into that supermarket. How would your world view change, if it did?

 

It was moreso jarring having to re-establish my own real life canon afterwards.

It gave room to question if the current reality is real or simply an accepted element of automatic perceptions, just like how my memories were able to be substituted in the dream so too could that apply in this version of life.

The idea that an entirely new setting could be fed to me in the absence of what was once there, and that I'd begin going through the steps like it was always the case, was the eerie takeaway. It's given that much room to question my own experiences when filling in the blanks can grant enough context to feel real, and in turn see others as prone to the same things.

That's interesting. Have you ever felt like the reality is a dream that we could wake up from if we wanted to? Do you ever feel like you've woken up before and now you're sleeping?

 

It's a memory from when I was 4 years old. It's the oldest memory I have, and I occasionally replay it because it felt important even when I was 4.

How much do you figure the memory has mutated through sheer reinforcement? 

I used to wonder about that. I think it hasn't. I feel like I can visualize what happened, but I don't have like a photograph to verify it. It was one of these memories that I kept playing on loop in childhood. It felt important, and I didn't want the memory to be taken away. Who's to say you didn't experience something similar and then forgot about it. Even as a kid, I was aware of how my brain worked. I spent a great deal of time trying to understand how my body and brain worked, it was like an obsession to me as a kid. So I understood even as a 5 year old that my memory was going to disappear if I didn't repeat it.

It's very difficult to remember what happened when you were 4 years old. It's these little things that stick because you play them over and over. My other old memory that I recall, not as clearly but I can recall it, was from when I was playing hide and seek after kindergarten with my dad. So one day I climbed up on the roof of an 8 storey building, and my father found me. He told me to jump and that he will catch me. I chickened out and climbed down the ladder. But did he really tell me to jump, did I hear him wrong, or is my memory fabricated? My mother remembers me climbing up on the roof of the building, but nobody has any record of what my dad told me. I think it's possible I heard him wrong. I remember clearly considering jumping after he told me something, this I'm sure of. But I'm not sure what his exact words were, even if I try to remember.

Each time something is recalled, you have the risk of contaminating the memory with whatever other thoughts you had next to it. If you were angry while recalling something, the nature of the memory could be returned to the vault with little crumbs and fingerprints over said anger to the point of mutating the memory of the experience. It's like how Nostalgia can mutate an experience. 

In a lot of ways, the environment you cultivate for yourself can reshape the way you think.

Who's to say what exactly happened in that case? Do you trust written records more than your memory? If you woke up one day and someone told you your life is entirely different from how you've perceived it to be your entire life, would you believe it over what you yourself knew?

I don't know to what extent memories are malleable and to what extent we can create fake memories

It's easier to recognize in other people than in ourselves, and written records or recordings can help with recognizing the deviations. Even there however if they can conjure an explanation of compromise between the imagined experience and the record, they could come out of it with a third conclusion.

Would you believe written records over your own experiences however, if it "came down to it"? I think you, like me, would choose to believe your own mind over what the evidence said. If the Matrix overlords exist, I think that's what they're afraid of, of us realising what's going on. Even as I say it tongue in cheek, I'm starting to believe.

How much do you reckon our memory is influenced by written record? How much do you truly remember about what happened, even today? What did you do? How did you end up where you are? Does it make sense? Of course it does, within the purview of routine. Elections are coming. I'm kept so busy I barely remember what I had for breakfast, and even less so who I am supposed to be. The modern society is so good at lulling you into a character you were never meant to be. Instead of understanding who you are, you become a pawn of the machine. We are so busy fighting staged fights for teams that don't hold any meaning that we don't observe the reality happening in front of our eyes.

Will you remember today?

Jada said:

However, suppose you had a dream today that a white truck was going to crash into your neighborhood supermarket, told the neighbor that you're worried something was going to happen, and then that day a white truck crashed into that supermarket. How would your world view change, if it did?

Coincidence, most trucks are white so the odds of that being the color of the one to crash into said supermarket is higher. This also doesn't factor how often this hypothetical me might dream of random catastrophe without anything corresponding to it in real life (see 'Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy'). 

Now if I dreamed of a hot pink truck within the same constraints that might be a bit more surreal to see happen later. 

That's interesting. Have you ever felt like the reality is a dream that we could wake up from if we wanted to? Do you ever feel like you've woken up before and now you're sleeping?

I tend to suspect that real life is too complex for it to have been dreamed up by myself. 

But of course that could be presumptive impression working as the foundational constraints that'd have me presume as such, and there's little to stop me from presuming the same things inside of a dream. Most of life's hoisted on the back of heuristics, we fill in the blanks all the time and fall into half-focused streamlining based on known knowns, so if anything could adjust those impressions we'd likely not ask questions over them without some sort of record. 

In that respect we only have faith to lean on, but that same faith had me believe the dream. 

 I used to wonder about that. I think it hasn't. I feel like I can visualize what happened, but I don't have like a photograph to verify it.

So do tons of other people with room to show how things mutated when corroborated by records of the past. 

It was one of these memories that I kept playing on loop in childhood. It felt important, and I didn't want the memory to be taken away. Who's to say you didn't experience something similar and then forgot about it. Even as a kid, I was aware of how my brain worked. I spent a great deal of time trying to understand how my body and brain worked, it was like an obsession to me as a kid. So I understood even as a 5 year old that my memory was going to disappear if I didn't repeat it.

How often does someone notice when the memory changed though? The very tool we use for recall and verification is the tool that mutates and changes to fit our current needs. 

We'd need at least two sources of record to make a comparison, which is what makes hard records so useful. Something written down won't mutate the same as it would in our minds, all that has room to be lost is the context within those records. 

It's very difficult to remember what happened when you were 4 years old. It's these little things that stick because you play them over and over. My other old memory that I recall, not as clearly but I can recall it, was from when I was playing hide and seek after kindergarten with my dad. So one day I climbed up on the roof of an 8 storey building, and my father found me. He told me to jump and that he will catch me. I chickened out and climbed down the ladder. But did he really tell me to jump, did I hear him wrong, or is my memory fabricated? My mother remembers me climbing up on the roof of the building, but nobody has any record of what my dad told me. I think it's possible I heard him wrong. I remember clearly considering jumping after he told me something, this I'm sure of. But I'm not sure what his exact words were, even if I try to remember.

There comes a point where the memory is moreso of yourself recalling it than it is of the experience itself. 

It's better than nothing, it's enough to work with when compared to an amnesiac, but it's difficult to verify when it comes to cases like a court of law. How a question is phrased doesn't just affect how others perceive the answer that follows, it can affect how the one recalling recalls the experience prior to answering the question. 

I've had many cases where I was uncertain if I was cobbling the memory together from existing fragments of a similar enough nature or if the memory is something canonically useful, and many I've seen don't even question the accuracy of these reinventions. Sometimes someone will bring up something they're convinced I was in attendance for just for me to effectively "recreate" the memory from their words, with vague sensory visuals and everything that could convince someone like myself that it potentially really happened when it didn't.
 

Who's to say what exactly happened in that case? Do you trust written records more than your memory? If you woke up one day and someone told you your life is entirely different from how you've perceived it to be your entire life, would you believe it over what you yourself knew?

I'd need a reason to believe said 'someone', and a reason to believe the records hadn't been tampered with. 

Typically when confronted with a hard record of something I have an easier time recalling lost fragments and correcting the memory, while if it doesn't read as an experience that I had it doesn't make for the same sense of recall. 

Alzheimer's must be frightening over recognizing one's own writing habits with no shred of memory over how it happened, like something out of Memento where you're stuck with blind faith as a messed up detective. 

Would you believe written records over your own experiences however, if it "came down to it"?

It tends to lend to a collaboration between the two, and it's closer to hard records being all we have to work with in lieu of the room to distrust our own believed experiences. If there's a direct contradiction with enough to work with in unraveling it, that serves as a point in time to see our own flaws in recollection. 

Considering how many people struggle to notice flaws of perception and recall over the very tool we're using being the one brought into question, it can be a jarring yet healthy experience to notice or at least question it. 

I think you, like me, would choose to believe your own mind over what the evidence said. If the Matrix overlords exist, I think that's what they're afraid of, of us realising what's going on. Even as I say it tongue in cheek, I'm starting to believe.

Not really, I'm aware of a lot of flaws in how the mind works for people in general. 

As a fellow person, I can't sit here and ignore how much others screw up in ways I could just as easily be doing. The only thing really seperating the two past a point is in how much the typical person trusts their experiences to be 100% real and genuine, or at least only afflicted by personal bias, rather than outright reinvention of scenarios that can have a group of ten people witnessing the same thing show wild deviations if given enough time to lose clarity. 

How much do you reckon our memory is influenced by written record?

That'd become a question of averages if it's not answered at the individual level, as it's varied rather than uniform. 

Some take more shortcuts than others. 

How much do you truly remember about what happened, even today? What did you do? How did you end up where you are? Does it make sense? Of course it does, within the purview of routine. 

Living a routine life full of repetitions makes it hard to forget, but it also makes it easier to blur the experiences together. 

Remembering what I ate for dinner the night before could be me recalling what I ate three nights ago for instance, and the only real difference between me and the proposed "them" in this case is my room to question and doubt the memory. 

Elections are coming. I'm kept so busy I barely remember what I had for breakfast, and even less so who I am supposed to be. The modern society is so good at lulling you into a character you were never meant to be. Instead of understanding who you are, you become a pawn of the machine. We are so busy fighting staged fights for teams that don't hold any meaning that we don't observe the reality happening in front of our eyes.

More likely there's only so many character archetypes, and a large series of traits have been sorted into only so many boxes. 

If you were not meant to 'be this person', you'd be a different statistic within the current constraints. It's a matter of sorting and appeasing needs, then giving that process a label based on how it's done per the individual. The only way to really be devoid of that is to be unlearned of politics, but even there you'll still see the tendencies that could have been sorted into a box playing out. 

People are sponges of receptivity, and the very same people appealing to us are themselves receptive too. This is moreso a feedback loop of humanity's natural symptoms when given these constraints, and within other constraints we'd see similar sublimations. 

Will you remember today? 

Seeing as it's one of my noneventful days, probably not. 

Turncoat said: 

Now if I dreamed of a hot pink truck within the same constraints that might be a bit more surreal to see happen later. 

I've had many cases where I was uncertain if I was cobbling the memory together from existing fragments of a similar enough nature or if the memory is something canonically useful, and many I've seen don't even question the accuracy of these reinventions. Sometimes someone will bring up something they're convinced I was in attendance for just for me to effectively "recreate" the memory from their words, with vague sensory visuals and everything that could convince someone like myself that it potentially really happened when it didn't.

Is what you're seeing now different? Because I think it's not. We're cobbling things together to fit things in our brain.

How much do you truly remember about what happened, even today? What did you do? How did you end up where you are? Does it make sense? Of course it does, within the purview of routine. 

Living a routine life full of repetitions makes it hard to forget, but it also makes it easier to blur the experiences together. 

Remembering what I ate for dinner the night before could be me recalling what I ate three nights ago for instance, and the only real difference between me and the proposed "them" in this case is my room to question and doubt the memory.

It makes it easier to forget everything. You simply assume you did it. But did you? Maybe, maybe not.

Elections are coming. I'm kept so busy I barely remember what I had for breakfast, and even less so who I am supposed to be. The modern society is so good at lulling you into a character you were never meant to be. Instead of understanding who you are, you become a pawn of the machine. We are so busy fighting staged fights for teams that don't hold any meaning that we don't observe the reality happening in front of our eyes.

More likely there's only so many character archetypes, and a large series of traits have been sorted into only so many boxes. 

If you were not meant to 'be this person', you'd be a different statistic within the current constraints. It's a matter of sorting and appeasing needs, then giving that process a label based on how it's done per the individual. The only way to really be devoid of that is to be unlearned of politics, but even there you'll still see the tendencies that could have been sorted into a box playing out. 

People are sponges of receptivity, and the very same people appealing to us are themselves receptive too. This is moreso a feedback loop of humanity's natural symptoms when given these constraints, and within other constraints we'd see similar sublimations.

You really believe that?

Will you remember today? 

Seeing as it's one of my noneventful days, probably not. 

I will remember today.