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by stonesixone 3302 days ago
If you've ever experienced lucid dreaming, I believe your hypothesis can be considered refuted _while_ you are in a lucid dream (for the same reason that the phrase "I think therefore I am" carries any weight). After the fact though, it doesn't seem possible to distinguish between a real memory of a lucid dream and your idea of a created memory of a lucid dream.

Another possible argument against is if a partner next to you observes you tossing and turning and possibly speaking in your sleep over time, and then you wake up and describe a dream you were experiencing consistent with what they saw. How would you explain the tossing and turning and talking in one's sleep in your hypothesis?
2 comments
pbhjpbhj 3302 days ago
I considered lucid dreaming, indeed that was the spur that drove me to this hypothesis - your suggested counter argument was my thought there, one can't tell if one constructed a dream with a lucid characteristic after waking rather than actually having a lucid dream experience extending through the time you were asleep.

See however the sibling comment.

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gpderetta 3302 days ago
People have been able to communicate to the outside when lucid dreaming (via eye movement mostly), during controlled experiments.

So at the very least lucid dreams happen in 'real time'.

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pbhjpbhj 3302 days ago
I've not heard of this phenomenon, communicating with a person in a dream state: could you cite it?

People saying things could be like the images appearing in the visual cortex that I tried to address in brief. They can appear, be processed, provide external output and such without necessarily being part of a dream experience happening at that time.

Back to my analogy, the magic secretary plays back some sound files, which maybe someone in a different office hears and attributes to you being present, but which you aren't "there" to experience. When you start to wake to consciousness you see the files and infer you were working on them, your partner mentions utterances consistent with one file and your brain meshes that in to part of the "story" it is writing of the dream experience (a la deja-vu).

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gpderetta 3301 days ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24171230
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