Lol, Religion

[ubernoob]

the success rate of dreams as a means of predicting the future spooks me

You are an idiot. The success rate of dreams at predicting the future is less than the success rate of asking someone what they think will happen in the future.

Does it spook you that when you ask people about the future they are sometimes correct and often not?

I've had a few times in my life where I have had the sensation of "I have dreamed this exact moment before many years ago. I did not understand what was going on then, but it was this exact moment."

Now, there's a specific name for that phenomenon in neuroscience somewhere, but since your brain basically makes dreams up the moment you wake up I know that rationally there is no way I could have possibly seen the future with my dream. That said, that very specific sense of intense deja vu is incredibly freaky.

[nockermensch]

the success rate of dreams as a means of predicting the future spooks me

You are an idiot. The success rate of dreams at predicting the future is less than the success rate of asking someone what they think will happen in the future.

Does it spook you that when you ask people about the future they are sometimes correct and often not?

I've had a few times in my life where I have had the sensation of "I have dreamed this exact moment before many years ago. I did not understand what was going on then, but it was this exact moment."

Now, there's a specific name for that phenomenon in neuroscience somewhere, but since your brain basically makes dreams up the moment you wake up I know that rationally there is no way I could have possibly seen the future with my dream. That said, that very specific sense of intense deja vu is incredibly freaky.

This is basically Deja Vu, and it's probably a bug in our pattern-matching machinery. We're so hardwired to recognize patterns that sometimes our sense misfires, causing feelings like these.

[Chamomile]

If people were able to explain future events with the same kind of extreme precision dreams do, yes that would spook me. There's no reason anyone should be able to predict specific, unlikely, but utterly mundane events before they happen. If someone were able to predict that I would almost get a specific thing that I wanted, but then not get that thing, and predict it the very same day I almost got it, that would be really weird. Nor can the dreams I'm thinking of have been deja vu, because I remembered the dreams before the events happened.

[Kaelik]

If people were able to explain future events with the same kind of extreme precision dreams do, yes that would spook me. There's no reason anyone should be able to predict specific, unlikely, but utterly mundane events before they happen. If someone were able to predict that I would almost get a specific thing that I wanted, but then not get that thing, and predict it the very same day I almost got it, that would be really weird. Nor can the dreams I'm thinking of have been deja vu, because I remembered the dreams before the events happened.

Congratulations, you are subject to confirmation bias and the fact that your memories of the past are modified by the present, just like every other human being. You are so stupid that you believe stupid superstitious things like most of them.

Continue on believing that you are predicting the future to an eerily accurate degree in your dreams and under no circumstances look into how your day can be predicted extremely accurately by a stranger with a computer with as little as where you live and work and your closest friends and a couple hobbies. And definitely don't look into how when you remember an event, the act of remembering it changes those memories, and those changes are related to your current situation.

No, you magic super predictor you. Keep dreaming those eerily accurate dream predictions that are in no way being remembered as more accurate then they are by faulty human memory, because you are above that sort of thing.

[erik]

Nor can the dreams I'm thinking of have been deja vu, because I remembered the dreams before the events happened.

Except that is a classic description on déjà vu.

[Chamomile]

Nor can the dreams I'm thinking of have been deja vu, because I remembered the dreams before the events happened.

Except that is a classic description on déjà vu.

I record dreams upon waking, because I've been told that helps have lucid dreams, which seems like a cool thing to do. I have an actual record of the dreams written immediately upon waking. I promise you this is not just a memory glitch.

[ubernoob]

Nor can the dreams I'm thinking of have been deja vu, because I remembered the dreams before the events happened.

Except that is a classic description on déjà vu.

I record dreams upon waking, because I've been told that helps have lucid dreams, which seems like a cool thing to do. I have an actual record of the dreams written immediately upon waking. I promise you this is not just a memory glitch.

Chamomile, I have experienced the same sensation. That said, [Citation Needed]. I simply refuse to believe that your dreams got every little detail correct. They may have been close, but as Kaelik linked, your memory basically cannot be trusted. This is not me talking about you, but the way memory works in actual test subjects time and time again.

[Chamomile]

Exactly what citation are you looking for, here? I mean, I could copy/paste stuff from a journal, but that wouldn't exactly be proof that I wrote it in advance, even leaving aside the fact that the journal is full of speculation about where the dream came from which is often extremely personal.

Also, exactly how many details does a prediction need to get right before it can be counted as being more than white noise? I had a dream which predicted an event I had no reason to believe would happen, and an immediate follow-up event which I likewise had no reason to believe would happen, and did so the night before both events happened. Are you going to make a big deal over how the box looked wrong? That'd be goddamn ridiculous considering I knew what the box looked like and it wouldn't have been notable at all if it showed up correctly in a dream.

I've had two other separate dreams which likewise predicted events the night before they occurred. I have an actual record of remembered dreams. They are rare. My dreams should not have been able to predict jack shit happening the day of through white noise alone.

I would not be surprised if there were a non-supernatural explanation as to how my subconscious was able to pick up on how these things would happen, but if such an explanation does exist I don't know what it is, and that doesn't sit well with me.

[OgreBattle]

I used to have dreams about being chased by a velociraptor as a kid.

When I went to college I had a dream where I saw a kid being chased by a raptor so I attacked the raptor, strangling it with a rear naked choke.

[RobbyPants]

My point is not that dreams are an effective means of predicting the future. My point is that, while still too low to be effective, the success rate of dreams as a means of predicting the future spooks me, because that success rate isn't explained by anything I can think of (including white noise occasionally mimicking reality; there aren't enough remembered dreams to hit the critical mass where you'd expect them to successfully predict future events by random chance).

Maybe it's a coincidence.

[ubernoob]

Exactly what citation are you looking for, here? I mean, I could copy/paste stuff from a journal, but that wouldn't exactly be proof that I wrote it in advance, even leaving aside the fact that the journal is full of speculation about where the dream came from which is often extremely personal.

Also, exactly how many details does a prediction need to get right before it can be counted as being more than white noise? I had a dream which predicted an event I had no reason to believe would happen, and an immediate follow-up event which I likewise had no reason to believe would happen, and did so the night before both events happened. Are you going to make a big deal over how the box looked wrong? That'd be goddamn ridiculous considering I knew what the box looked like and it wouldn't have been notable at all if it showed up correctly in a dream.

I've had two other separate dreams which likewise predicted events the night before they occurred. I have an actual record of remembered dreams. They are rare. My dreams should not have been able to predict jack shit happening the day of through white noise alone.

I would not be surprised if there were a non-supernatural explanation as to how my subconscious was able to pick up on how these things would happen, but if such an explanation does exist I don't know what it is, and that doesn't sit well with me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology#Effectiveness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

1) Is there any reason to believe that your dreams are more accurate than a horoscope?
2) Is there any reason to believe that your dreams are more accurate than Nostradamus?
3) Are your dreams accurate predictors a statistically significant amount of time?

As far as your theory of the subconscious picking up on things that might happen, that's probably a decent theory. For instance, in 2011 I had a very vivid dream of me being in basic training. At the time I outright hated the government, so that was an impossibility. On the other hand, I am a psychotically violent individual if you leave me sober long enough. I remember having a discussion with my roommate about the dream and how impossible it was, yet how vivid it was. Two years later I was in basic training in the army and experienced the deja vu of that exact dream. Then again, let's look at the facts.
1) I have a history of extreme violence.
2) I have seen enough war movies to have a mental image of what boot camp looks like.
3) Fuck yeah guns.

Does this mean that the dream predicted anything? Fuck no. This means that I remember that incident in particular because of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias

That's what I mean about [Citation needed].

[Neeeek]

Hmm. The only things my dreams ever do is make me spew incomprehensible word salad and occasionally sleepwalk. Actually, the word salad is comprehensible, it just lacks contexts that agrees with reality.

[Koumei]

My most common dreams involve me failing courses. I'm not actually studying (formally, that is), and haven't been for some time. But it's always the one I remember, amidst a massive conglomerate of other crap. I probably remember that one out of the issues where I still kind of feel stupid for not doing university.

[name_here]

My dreams are wildly incoherent and nonsensical. There was this one where I was fighting for the cthonic ruler of the world against her volcano goddess sister.

I'm fairly certain that wasn't an accurate prediction of the future.

[Kaelik]

I had a dream just this morning that a friend who is perpetually absurdly over nice all the time said something mean to me in class we had together being taught by a professor we had together in law school. The professor didn't teach that class, and the room had those desks that are per individual like in high school, even though our school had multiperson tables for desks.

Right this second I remember the memory with different desks in a room that looks specifically like a room in my middle school, even though the room didn't exist in the dream, just the desks and the two people.

But surely if I run into her tomorrow and she says something mean to me I will have predicted the future, and never mind that the desks look different, or that the professor didn't teach bankruptcy and that he won't be there when she says something mean. And never mind that I don't even remember precisely what mean thing she did say, but when she says it, I will suddenly remember her saying that in my dream.

[Grek]

And remember, the key number to keep track of here isn't "How many times does Chamomile remember dreaming about something before it happens?" but rather "What fraction of Chamomile's dream-based predictions come true?"

You'll find that, while the first one goes up if you remember your dreams more often than average, the second one does not.

[tussock]

You can't knock dreams too much, they are made in your brain after all. It's not that stupid.

Basically your brain builds some scenarios for itself to inspire emotions, allowing it to train various functions to complete while scared or angry or horny or whatever. It's not like you often get to practice "concentrating while socially embarrassed" when you're conscious, after all.

[JonSetanta]

I dream entire cartoon episodes or short fiction works.

[Ancient History]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_mahan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_folklore

According to Mormons, the Biblical Cain is an immortal with a Faustian pact with Satan, master of a great secret, head of an order of assassins, and responsible for bigfoot sightings.

[Maj]

You posted the links... Don't get confused between doctrine and folklore. Mormons are weird enough without the extra bullshit.

[Ancient History]

I know, I know. But let me have my fun.

[RobbyPants]

So, I wonder if the Mormon folklore updates when Official Mormon Doctrine(TM) gets updated, like it did last December to say that blacks skin no longer marks the curse of Cain.

[nockermensch]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritism - About 2% of Brazilians believe that "Ghost" is a faithful representation of what happens after you die.

Astral City: A Spiritual Journey - movie about one of the most famous spiritist books. Yet again, almost 4,000,000 people here, given the last census, believe that this movie is a truthful record of things that happened in the astral ethereal spiritual plane over Rio de Janeiro. I'm not even kidding. Actually, this number is much larger, since a big part of the 65% of brazilians who identify as roman catholics also have deep-seated spiritist beliefs that would make the Pope reach for the Holy InquisitionCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith phone. As for how large is that part, speaking from anecdotal evidence (ie: me asking friends and family), it's like 50%+, specially among older people.

Case in point, my parents: With some amusement, I see that they became roman catholic church goers, as it happens with a lot of people here when they get older. But both remain staunch believers in reincarnation and fail to see any problem with that.

[Maj]

So, I wonder if the Mormon folklore updates when Official Mormon Doctrine(TM) gets updated, like it did last December to say that blacks skin no longer marks the curse of Cain.

Mormon folklore is highly dependent upon audience - the greater the fear, the more likely you'll see this crap. In my church, mentioning something like that will get you some pretty harsh looks. But my congregation is relatively diverse. It's in all-white, isolated, world-phobic congregations where the folklore lives on.

[Sarandosil]

That reminds me... I had a friend become Mormon years ago. I attended his baptism, along with the family he was marrying into and on the way there one of them told me that I'd likely get a few people who will try to talk to me and proselytize, just a heads up sort of thing.

Not a single person said anything to me the entire time I was there.

On the way back I asked him why no one came up to talk to me. He admitted they don't try to convert Muslims. Haaa. For once being assumed to be Muslim actually worked in my favour.