Your mind experiencing its own memory/experience consolidation consciously and unintentionally. You can extract meaning from it but it's highly personal and unlikely to make much sense.

endless nightmares about school

I've spent a decent amount of time on the topic of lucid dreams and a bunch of semi related stuff

have you ever meditated? Or tried? You probably noticed that its surprisingly hard to actually stop thought and just focus on breathing or whatever your focus point was
My somewhat boring explanation to dreams is that the brain requires some form of stimulation for whatever reason, and when you sleep, at some point it just starts "daydreaming" on its own. Contrary to popular belief, everyone dreams every night, most people just don't remember it much in the similar way that you don't remember what you've had on your mind even 20 minutes ago.
Day dreaming isn't any different from sleep dreaming, both happen involuntarily unless you actively prevent it by focusing on the real world. The reason sleep dreams seem different is because your focus on the waking world is extremely limited (but not entirely, sounds and sensations from the waking world might affect your dreams). Without a "distraction", the dreams in your sleep are all that occupy your mind. Try to occasionally see if you remember your inner thoughts every once in a while, you might catch yourself having very similar "dreams" even during the day.

>>164164
I actually dreamed I had to go back to school this night. Not very pleasant

There's no purpose. You're looking for an ad hoc narrative of "what did mommy/daddy god/nature/soul meant by this? Is this part of the plan? Are nyantriots in control right now?" in a disorganized emergent process that you happen to get conscious glimpses of (exactly conscious, yes. You get the experiencing - you're being conscious, even if at a different rate of flow from wakefulness). If anything, the mechanism with intentions is the narrative-making that serves you something comprehensible on a silver platter. The only adaptations around this are pragmatic social signaling of "look what neurobiological structure and excess metabolism I have! I'm worthy to have as an ally!"; and the special status dreams have, like "I dreamt like I was raping anything I see" and people wouldn't exactly judge you as a rapist, because it's just what a dream imposed onto you, so it can make for good conversations. Unless they know you're into lucid dreaming you ecchi freak wwww

Freudian mind virus that is zealous of making a cool story out of the dreams is the same that would peddle IRL "wowziee, I just freakin' hit a kid with my truck! Now that's what I call archetypal libidinal mandala of phallic Saturn meets the Puer and castration-devours him a little teehee! This is just like when I made myself coffee this morning - I forgot the sugar! Quite the Oedipal synchronicity if I say so myself, officer, if you catch my truck?"

"Working through cognitive problems!" angle is mechanistical absurdity that can't account for the mind-body "system" to be of re-semi-overlapping "layers" that don't have any reliable communication protocol standards or APIs that pampered logics addicts got used to.
If dreaming was involved un processing, we wouldn't have that damn many mentally ill people, or any historical needs in drugs (including herbal stuffs like what hippies nowadays ended up using), religions, and subservience to consensus, including the scientific consensus, as coping mechanisms.
If there was an universal stable "comms protocol", even conscious people wouldn't fall into physical apathy, stupor, psychosis, et cetera.

If there's anything specific that dreams gave me, it's breadcrumbs into red herring synchronicities that deeply defy "statistics" on multiple steps only to waste my time, accurate predictions on nothingburger events, and also traumatization and retraumatization.

>>164179
To add food for thought: now, "dreamer phenotypes" might be real with different people's organisms trying to adapt the phenomenon for certain needs more often than for others. Including malignant autoimmune cancer teratoma-tier "needs" because systems don't care and just go through paths of biggest reinforcement and least resistance at face value.
Nobody says organical cancers and teratomas are smart mommy/daddy-given adaptation with deep archetypal purpose, for a reason.

>>164162
all those theories are true.
except the last one. the gods dont contact us anymore

>>164181
I'm right here, actually. You will have an almost-wet-dream tonight. You'll wake up right before the good part.

Traveling to other worlds.

And since this thread is here, I'm curious, how are all of your dreams in regards to their quality? Are they in black in white or full color? Are the worlds extremely detailed or fuzzy and low resolution?

>>164184
My dreams have always been 'full quality', I can't recall ever dreaming in black and white or somesuch.
I think the most consistent feature is large/weird architecture and a often a lack of people.

>>164185
>large/weird architecture and a often a lack of people.
Are your dreams animated by Shaft?

>>164184
full quality, including with smells and tastes, sometimes with proper text and calculations, sometimes sensations I've never felt in waking life, at all.
anime, hentai stuffs, urban explorations, j*b, sch*ol, horror, monsters, adventure of giant mountains with cave systems and castles, or casino and churches, or mecha and cyber viruses, or me hunting myself, or other psychological torture where even the power I want doesn't help against simple harsh odds

but what pisses me off is that the elements tend to be inconsistent. a certain person around me is an overlap of multiple people like it's the cat box, except that I may observe them and it's suddenly a different person like it was a different person all along. some girl is both a girl and a plain ice cream freezer of a supermarket. thankfully shabs are always consistent. maybe because I like shabs and don't like real people anyway

when i was a kid i had the most 4k ultra HD wet dreams about all the girls in my school and the occasional sleep paralysis bear then one day i had a dream i was spiderman and i peed in the shower and i havent dreamed since

>>164164
I've read there are people even older than 50 who STILL have reoccuring nightmares about writing exams.

>>164164
>>164166
So I'm not the only one here who has frequent nightmares about going to school again. They're not scary or anything but just so godawful boring. Reliving having to sit through one and a half hour of maths again is the worst.

Speaking of frequent dreams, being bound to a wheelchair is a theme that pops up now and then. I have never been in a wheelchair so I wonder why I get those dreams.

I often have dreams where I tell jokes that are really funny and then I either don't remember them when I wake up or they don't even make sense
My favorite dream ever was one in which I fought a bear with a coat rack

>>164162
Dreaming is the process of "you" rising up the planes.
Dreams take place on the higher planes. The exact locations are murky but at the very least they take place on the etheric plane.

It's a necessary evil. You're not supposed to rise back up. You're supposed to stay down here.
Given that you're a being from above you inevitably float back up. It's like trying to hold a buoyant object underwater. It will float back up, unless you anchor it.

Whether this anchor is a singular factor or a group of factors I don't know. I have to feel it out more.

The purpose of dreaming is to give me a good time.
Just this morning I had a wonderful dream about owning many, many cats in a big home. I was patting and hugging them and getting pawed at and snoofed. They meowed cutely. Some of them had odd coats, for examples there was a black/white/red/maroon cat whose coat pattern resembled what you see on a public transport bus seat, and there was also one who mostly looked normal but the fur on his head and paws was a really saturated blue. I laid in bed and really dragged that dream out.
There was also a part of it about going into a pocket dimension of spirits that was deteriorating and getting darker, and mining it for anything of value before it was entirely destroyed, while not letting any of the entities within escape.

Had another kuso dream about school. Is it because I'm a dropout or because I need to do th*rapy or get a head injury where I lose the memories of my beyond pathetic past self? I wake up humiliated (and not in a good way).

>>164292
ez, just lay down and wait for them to come to you, 50% of the time it works every time

>>164301
>dream about school
Thankfully, I don't remember most of my pathetic school days. It's like my brain is blocking all the memories. Won't remember them unless I think hard, which I don't plan on doing.

>>164304
they are trapped by the sunbeams

>>164292
dumb tw*tter engagement bait prison contributing author too braindead to "psstpsstpsst"

Had a dream where, during evacuation before my town gets nuked, I found a notebook full of old colored copy drawings I did to kill time in boring classee. I was so glad to make heartwarming illustrations of a character I like, as if I received appreciation from the character. Never felt this IRL even when I made cute stuff praised by others

So I guess dreams are experimental simulation testing grounds as a sort of potential fortune telling as to what you can experience that's irrelevant to the particular dream elements

>>165368
This sounds right, maybe that's why organisms that developed the ability to dream survived a lot more, wonder if it is an evolutionary thing.
It could probably be influenced by how, they could probably be dealing with their biggest worries at the moment, or a way to release stress, or make sure of whats to come.

My dream got me in a flow state, and I woke up extra relaxed and well rested.

Is it normal to be in a daydreaming state like at least half the day? By daydream I mean things like becoming completely invested into a story in my brain and start circling around a table like an ant.

>>165795
No, maladaptive daydreaming is bad for you unless you can afford it. When you can afford it it's just daydreaming as a hobby.

>>165795
Sounds like you could just do with a creative outlet of some sort

>>165797
When you're sufficiently far gone, even good and successful creative processes and results don't matter. Even masturbation loses appeal.

>>165795
Normal? No, but why make that your benchmark?
Fulfilling? Maybe, if you can manage to remember your daydreams and iterate on them later. If they're creative enough and you can commit to them enough, you might even be able to publish them.
>>165796
Having hobbies is a good thing. "Maladaptive" is just shorthand for "some people in your environment refuse to accept this". As long as it doesn't hurt them, that means they're inventing a problem that doesn't need to exist.

>>165814
>"Maladaptive" is just shorthand for
I see you haven't daydreamed so hard you neglected your own bodily functions...

>>165796
would without the contacts

>>165795
It is extremely difficult to get out of bed sometimes, because I'm daydreaming or maybe in a half-asleep state. The focus is usually cute girls.
Don't really do it during the day though, mind is occupied with other things.

>>165795
It's good if you could write them down with a pen on a notepad

>>165822
Same here, bust mostly before going to sleep, I need at least 1 hour to fall asleep, I never use my phone in bed btw. My brain goes into "this is boring" mode and starts generating shit, mostly fanfiction of whatever mango I last read.

ever since i got back from japan all my dreams have been about traveling all over the country