Clearly my eyes aren’t* open and I cannot take in external visual stimuli in my dreams, however I experience them similar to the visual experience in my minds eye or imagination or whathaveyou. Similarly I feel like I experience something akin to touch or feel (like the occasional flying or falling dream, or the feel of grass or something).
I don’t recall having anything similar to smell or sound in a dream though (except occasionally hearing a real sound while waking up that wasn’t actually part of the dream) What’s your experience?
I’ve had the odd dream where I’ve vividly smelt something putrid, but I’d say every dream I have includes sound. I’ve had a couple of dreams where the world ended suddenly and I remember the almighty rushing noise and the sound of my never-ending sigh. I’ve dreamt a good few times about people I know speaking other languages they wouldn’t normally speak, too.
Can’t experience smell on dreams or IRL and I cannot recall a time where I’ve experienced sounds from around me outside of the dream, so I’m gonna have to say no. Definitely do have sounds in the dream, but they most certainly aren’t related to the real world at all. Touch also isn’t something I can ever recall feeling in a dream, so couldn’t say I’ve had that morph my dreams either.
Though I definitely have had those little dream like thoughts from when you are about to fall asleep and end up jerking your body plenty of times, even a few when I’ve been awake in the middle of the night. Not fun to have when your phone is held in hand and it just suddenly jumps into the air and you know you can’t catch it.
I have never thought about it for smell and sound but I cannot see in my dreams and feel like my eyes are glued shut. Sometimes during a dream I will try really hard to open my eyes and it causes me to wake up. I have aphantasia so it is probably related. I think my dreams are mostly in concepts
Very interesting! What about others sensations like falling or feeling a surface?
As a kid I’d have nightmares about falling off a cliff and definitely remember feeling it. I haven’t had a dream like that in a while though
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Yes, smell and sound.
All of my senses are as functional in dreams as they are awake.
I sure do! Just last night I woke up from a dream in which my downstairs neighbors were yelling only to discover they were actually yelling.
I don’t dream much, but I have definitely had sound involved when I do. Never had smell in a dream that I can recall.
A couple nights ago Jeff Jarrett gave me a large freezer sized Ziploc bag full of cocaine in order to help pay my rent.
I opened it up to make sure it was real and sneezed into it, getting all over me and my shirt.
Taste and smell were profound.
Yes for sound. But the times I remember, the sound usually is something real that was integrated in the dream.
I don’t smell but there is sound and feeling, and the visual experience is generally very realistic like if I were going about my day to day life, I can imagine fine but the visualizations in my dreams are often like ray tracing on ultra graphics. One that especially comes to mind, I dreamt I was in a dog fight and doing a bombing run in a space ship, and I looked behind me and watched each bomb explode in vivid detail one after the other. It was like better detail than in a movie in a way.
It’s different for different people. This is a “Do you have an internal monologue?” question.
That’s why I asked, wanted to hear people’s varied experiences
In the past I only remembered having dreams about 3-6 times a year and very little what they were about. I only needed 6,5 hours of sleep.
Then I had COVID something broke.
Now I dream almost every night and remember more what they are about. Compared to the previous it’s like whole another reality with all the bells and whistles. Now I need 7,5 hours of sleep.
I’m actually happy with the change.
Are you able to picture things in your imagination normally in your waking hours? For example, if I said picture a ball, how deeply could you describe it? Could you see the colors? Could you see the reflections? What is the material made of?
Smell, not that I remember. Sound, all the time. I’ll have conversations or hear people saying things, sometimes in different languages. Sometimes a word comes to mind that seems totally real, but usually it’s not. Some of the more detailed dreams have had storms, sirens, earthquakes (that eerie rumbling they have). Or even music.
No smell in dreams for myself but yes sounds, although if being honest most the times the sounds are from voices ( not always).
Visuals are always there, and I don’t say sight because I sometimes see my dreams in 3rd person.
I’ve experienced touch but it’s selective, often more some kind of proprioception while I fall, fly, swim etc.
I’ve tasted things in dreams though, very few times but it’s there.
