Okay so I had a dream about a month ago that this happened to me:

Warning: Image is fucking gross

Now I'm wondering...what? What on earth did this guy do? Why does it look all crystallized and stuff?

And knowing that my dream from a month ago was real is totally bugging me out...

That image looks 'shopped to me, and I've seen more than a few pixels in my time...

[EDIT]

These are commonly photoshopped onto pictures of body parts to look like alien diseases

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but you have the mouthparts of moray eels on those fingers.

Its fake because its not necrotic. Usually dead skin is black and purplish. In fact a wound like that would require amputation if it was infected.

They remind me of headcrabs... Definitely looks photoshopped.

I was hoping this was a thread about "dreaming about the future". Mind tricks or whatever, I occasionally have moments where I seem to know exactly what people are going to say and do before they do, as if I've seen and heard it (third-person) before. It's quite a fun feeling, but I can't explain it.

I once dreamed this forum turned into a generic PHP board.

Well, I had been browsing the old posts way too much that day, and decided to don't touch a computer for the next day. It really freaked me out.

I was expecting that too. Actually, I had some situations like blargmob's one, something that I dreamed visually, came to reality similarly.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/gruesome/fingers.asp

Also, I've had the same "dream come true" experience.

It has a name you know...
(BTW, have you ever had a dèjá vu of a dèjá vu? Now that's a mindfuck)

It's kind of like looking into parallel mirrors, isn't it?

It's kind of like something just changed in the matrix.

I was wondering if anyone else knew what dèjá vu was
And yes, a few weeks ago or last week I had dèjá vu.
Some generic event happened in my house.

I once felt I had experience the same dèjá vu about a dèjá vu earlier.

Thank You! It's good to know shit like that isn't real

There are fungal infections which resemble those however.

Now that will be stuck in my head

I still remember my "dream come true" experience. I had a very vivid dream about me, my sister, and two friends hanging out in the living room talking. It was very distinct and I remembered it clearly, but I didn't think anything of it until the next day about halfway through the afternoon, when I realized I was looking at the exact scene from my dream. Same body posture while sitting for everyone, same seats, same clothes, exact same actions and body language. It friggin' weirded me out, let me tell you.

Interesting. I recently dreamed that you would dream about you, your sister, and two friends hanging out in the living room talking, and then later experience the exact thing the next day about halfway through the afternoon.

Well this is strange. I recently had a dream, that Matthew would dream, that you would dream about you, your sister, and two friends hanging out in the living room talking, and then later experience the exact thing the next day about halfway through the afternoon.

I had a dream that came true once. My mom had given away a kitten which I had grown attached to, and that night I dreamed that the woman she gave it to returned the kitten*. The next day the woman returned the kitten.

_{* Interesting side note, when I saw the kitten in the dream I remembered that it had been given away. I immediately realized I was dreaming and was able to explore the dream while knowing it was a dream. This is the only time I've been able to do this. The fact that the kitten DID come back the next day makes me wonder if I'm still dreaming. Does this mean I get a do-over on the last fifteen years of my life?}

You were given a super dream, and all you decided to do was get your kitten back? You wasted a grand opportunity.

`Deja vu of Deja vu of Deja vu of Deja vu`^[1] ... is the best. (and no, don't limit your imagination to 4 levels, I've had it go much deeper down the rabbit hole).

Damn! One night I dreamed I flipped a coin and it came up heads! So when I woke up I flipped a coin and it almost came up heads! Spooky!

Lucid dreaming is awesome. Next time, go flying.

When I was about 7 yrs old my older brother woke me at around 3am in the morning, shouting 'potatoes'....

....turns out he was on his knees shaking his pillow, dreaming of working on a market stall under some kind of occupation.

I find those fish just as disturbing as the Photoshop image.
My life story:

According to some study, the most popular activity during a lucid dream is flying. On third place comes being a super hero.

What? You don't know what comes on second place?!?!?

Well, the lamprey mouth could have been gimped onto some other body part, too.

Who said you can't have all three things at the same time?

The second most common lucid dream involves knowing what the second most common lucid dream is.

It's probably banging your neighbor's daughter or murdering your boss or something else people don't want to admit to.

I've been working on lucid dreaming since I took up hypnosis; so far I've been able to remember my dreams at all (which I haven't for years). I can induce the ability to lucid dream in other people though, which is such a gyp ...

It is awesome, unfortunately I can't do it. At least, not willfully. It was just that one time where it happened accidentally.

No, the kitten coming back is what triggered my knowledge that I was dreaming. It happened before I had control.

I sometimes have non-lucid dreams that I'm flying, but I'm too much of a wussy to climb more than 4 meters altitude. And it makes my arms tired, even though all I have to do is hold them out sideways.

I have some reseach from a while back about interfacing with the section of video memory used to draw the dream images that we see in are head.

edit:
it would be sweet if i could make an allegro plug-in

Some researchers already have a dream recorder.

@Thomas Fjellstrom
<quote> <\quote>
last i looked In those dream recorder document they where only "sniff" the bus signals i was looking into reading and wrighting to the actual memory location.

doing it there was they would have to use 5 sence stimulance to alter the images. there is a better was to doo this. example temparely overriding one of 5 sence and use the and a interface to the memory location

Why not just use the Allegro 5 mind-control interface?

With Java it would be possible to stimulate the senses.

Nah, they are actually starting to get pictures and video. Its far from clear and crisp, but its a start.

As for writing, keep your machine away from me

<quote>

As for writing, keep your machine away from me

<\quote>

I heard sony has a few patents on this. They must be the ones funding the research you saw. they must have made a better or finetuned the decriping algorithin and data base palet there were using.

Really? Care to provide a link? The only thing I could find was when a man saw a shape and they were able to scan what he saw by scanning the visual cortex. Even with primitive symbols like + and O the images were very blurry... So yeah, kind of hard to believe they have a dream recorder.

Link

The site says the research results were in the December issue of Neuron. Since WKU's library has that journal, I think I'll pop in later when I have time and read up on it.

Thats what I saw in a video. Scanning the visual cortex and recognizing letters (look how blurry they are) is very far from dream recording.

I've been able to have a few lucid dreams here and there, but it's very hit and miss. My daily mindset just isn't geared toward that sort of thing, so even though I generally remember 2-3 dreams per night, I don't have the overall awareness to realize I'm dreaming. Right now I'm averaging one lucid dream every two months.

I only went flying once. Usually I just summon a few friends and go hang out in a random location and goof off until I wake up. Once I get better at it I'll move on to more... inspired scenarios.

piccolo, use / instead of \ in the quote tags.

I remember my dreams almost every night. It's interesting to note that even if I did have control I'd probably do pretty much the same thing as what normally goes on. My dreams tend to be very interesting.

I'm still doubtful about lucid dreaming.

I've had it frequenty, and emotionally I'd swear that I was fully conscious. However, when I later reflect on how illogically I acted, it becomes clear that I was far from my actual self. Possibly you're just dreaming that you're conscious of the dream, which is far from actually being there.

Does anyone else have sleep paralysis (or whatever it's called)? It's where you're aware that you're asleep, but you can't move or wake up. It's an absolutely horrendous experience. It most frequently occurs if I sleep during the day. Hence I now never sleep during the day in fear of it.

Another thing that I often "experience" in dreams are other-worldly emotions. For example, an intense emotional sense of something being ancient, or vast, or tragic. Sometimes they're so intense that I wake up feeling that reality is subdued, insignificant even. luckily the feelings never last longer than a few minutes though.

There are differences between lucid dreams. You can become lucid in a dream or enter a dream conscious. The one you had was the former and these are most of the time like you described. You were probably lucid only for a few seconds and then forgot all about it or were just not focused enough (common problem). I like to say there are more levels of lucidity.

You can also practice a method called WILD (Wake-initiated-lucid-dream). With this method you wake up and lie down again allowing your body to fall asleep (going into sleep paralysis) while keeping your mind fully awake (by doing math, counting sheep) and as such are able to pass into a dream fully conscious. But this takes a lot of time and effort as it involves a lot of trial and error.

In Popular Science magazine they had an article about how they were retrieving images from a man's brain and lower quality video too.

I've had one lucid dream that I remember, but all I did was fly. Funny thing is, I was flying in Super Mario 64's bonus level where you fly with the winged cap around castle towers. Apparently I'm hard to please (Although that kind of flying isn't exactly common) because I remember being completely ecstatic. By the time I was like (Hey I need to dream about something else) I either woke up or losed consciousness.

Also, if you ever lucid dream, do not ever look into a mirror. Your face can be horrifically distorted, turning your dream into a nightmare and/or losing lucidness.

They sell machines that beep and show a light when you have entered REM sleep, you can consciously recognize these to restore consciousness in a dream making it lucid.

Sleep paralysis is freaky. It's only happened to me a few times.

I dream every night. Usually they are bizarre and uncontrolled. However, I am aware that I'm dreaming.

The worst ones are those that are illogical. I encounter some paradox and then back up and try again (and again...). I tell myself, "You are dreaming--wake up, you fool!" When I finally awake, I'm exhausted and hate myself a little bit more.

I also have recurring dreams where I cannot find my car (or some other item) and I spend all night looking for it, hopelessly trying to wake myself up before I go crazy.

Nested dreams are good fun too. After waking from the inner dream, I think I'm back to reality. Then I wonder what I'm still doing in Bizarro World.

Lucid dreaming sounds fucking awesome. I've just never been able to do it

Most of my dreams are short, stupid, and completely pointless; 'cept for once I had a dream that my dad shot me 6 times in the chest with a handgun

sorry
I often have dreams where I have some significant loss or gain and wake up to reality either seriously disappointed or seriously relieved.

Also a side note:
The earliest nightmare I can remember is seeing some gum laying on the sidewalk as a toddler/young child and I went to investigate and got 'eaten' by it. It sucked me in

The most exhaustive dreams for me are code-based ones (generally UNIX-y). These usually occur after a night or two of working on the command line for long periods of time. The dream takes place as normal (strange things happening, various ideas flowing into one another), except that I'm convinced that I "control" everything with commands. I end up exhausting myself trying to figure out the command to go and find somebody, for example. Or the command to open a door, etc. They can be Vim-themed as well. It's very exhausting, but also quite pleasant. I always wake up and try to remember what "command" I last had in mind (because I'm sure it'll work), but I never can. I'm sure they're not commands at all, but incomprehensible ideas.

I've had numerous lucid dreams. Flying is pretty normal. I've also had the opportunity to meet friends in dreams while lucid. I'd often find myself trying to find her and when I become lucid I am better able to do it (when I'm not lucid I generally have a hard time keeping up with her). Even though it's a dream, it still feels good to just see her again. Any dream with her in it is usually heartbreaking when it ends (or I lose her in the dream).

I seem to have a lot of nightmares lately. Not like clown nightmares. Everyday life nightmares. For example, people I love leave or die, or I hurt them in some way. Sometimes they're enjoyable nightmares, similar to how it feels good when a horror movie is truly terrifying.

I occasionally have dreams where I play the "hero". Not Superman, but selfless suicidal citizen that takes on the gunmen single-handedly, etc. Those are some of the funnest dreams, especially when lucid.

I'm not one to be afraid of dying in my dreams. I often get shot or stabbed or otherwise maimed (slow, painful deaths terrify me though). I've had people in dreams put a gun to my head and threaten me and (unaware it's a dream) tell them to go ahead and pull the trigger.

Felix-The-Ghost, I know what you mean about the seriously disappointed or seriously relieved. Most of my dreams probably end that way.

Not that it's happened before, but if I was lucid I'd do it and dodge the bullet Matrix/Albert Wesker style

The worst dreams I've recently been having is when I spend the night at a friends house and end up playing certain games until exhaustion and have dreams of tactically playing (Usually dying and learning endlessly from our mistakes) but I dream that I am awake and hallucinating (Or I am) and am trying to fall asleep like 'Just give me peace! I'm tired of getting pwned by this boss!'

Also I'm weary of 'Endless Roller Coaster' dreams of going up and down so much. I usually wake up and throw up from these. (When they occur) I had food poisoning from Burger King last month and before that I don't know the last time I vomitted. I had forgotten just how horrible the feeling is.

I'm invulnerable in my dreams. I've been shot, fallen off a cliff, and eaten by zombies, but I've never died in a dream. Take that, Freddy Kreuger.

There is an immeasurable difference between possibly being lucid and actually being in that state. For me, that moment when I achieve lucidity is always very pronounced. Everything in the dream comes into focus, whereas normally much of the dreamscape is blurry and indistinct when you really stop to think about it. The entire area is razor sharp and amazingly detailed... it just seems to snap into focus. This is probably more noticeable as my vision is deteriorating slightly as I get older. In a dream, however, my vision is 20/20 or better.

I should also note it is possible to dream about being lucid, without actually being so. One easy way to tell is to try using a "power", such as flying or telekinesis. If it works, you're lucid. If you're not fully lucid your dream powers won't work. I have these events fairly often.

If you're ever lucid in a dream and can't figure out how to do something, ask another character in the dream for help. As long as you're not a total dick they will do whatever you ask. This is useful during your first few dreams when you might not be able to do things like summoning people/items, or changing scenes.

My worst example: I dream like if it was weekend, I wake up and find out that it's one of those 5 horrible days(Tuesday mostly).

I wonder if any of you ever had some weird apocalyptic dream. I dreamed one day that a freaking volcano appeared out of nowhere near I live.

Also, I'm curious what you mean with conscious dreaming. You mean you can have some control over other stuff in the dream(time, people, objects), or just what you do? I think I've been close to something like that, but most of the time they get interrupted by the alarm clock.

You're being sarcastic right? Or you're able to do that much when you dream lucidly?

Lucid dreaming is pretty much you're conscious mind (The thinker and observer) coexists with the subconscious mind (The creative part) in which physics and the like do not apply at all. (Unless, you want them to, or default to having them) Usually the subconscious rules in doing things you're accustomed to doing over and over and observing very little detail (basically anything recognized by subconscious), a 'passive dream' Whereas in an 'active' lucid dream you are master of your dream world in which you may command any aspect, since the whole dream merely exists in your imagination. You can do anything you want. I'm thinking about buying one of the machines I mentioned to induce lucid dreams. It truly is an alternate dimension -- dreamland. You need to come the the part of realizing you can master your dream to do what you want. Doesn't always happen. He suggested taking routes that seem more normal to 'learn' how to be abnormal

Pretty much in subconscious dreams things passively 'happen' to you whereas in a conscious (lucid) dream you decide what happens.

I'm being completely serious. When I say lucid, I mean 100% conscious, with no discernible difference between that and reality aside from the fact that you're in a weird place and have full control over the dream. It's exactly like being awake, only you're not, and the rules of ordinary life no longer apply if you don't want them to

These are the rules of lucid dreaming:

Rule #1 - You can do anything you imagine as long as you believe you can.
Rule #2 - If you can't do something, reread rule #1.

Initially you might have trouble doing stuff because it seems totally real, so things that would endanger your life... such as walking off a cliff or jumping through a wall, will fall into the "I can't do THAT" category. And as I mentioned above, if you don't believe you can do it, chances are you won't! That's where dream characters come in. Usually you're not alone in the dream, right? Well, walk up to the nearest person and ask them for something. Anything. No request is too weird. Ask an old lady for a rocket launcher, or tell your taxi driver to drop you off on the ISS. I routinely ask people to open doors to different locations, since I'm not too good at teleporting yet.

Heh, when you put it that way, it sounds that if lucid dreaming was easy to do in the future, it could get addictive. If real life isn't good, go and make your own dreamland? I mean, a personal playground where you can do whatever the hell you please? Sounds like the perfect form of entertainment, but a dangerous one too IMO.

So it's basically The Matrix? Sounds awesome.

EDIT: BTW, sorry about thinking you were being sarcastic, it just sounded like you were practicing some Lucid dreaming secret art.

Heh, no problem! It's just that we're familiar with how to get what we want. If you follow rules 1 & 2 you'll be just fine. Some people naturally have lucid dreams on a regular basis, and others (like myself, unfortunately) have them rarely and have to work hard to achieve the few that we have. I gotta keep working at it!

Go here if you want to know more about lucid dreams. It's... a pretty hefty subject!

Wow, that's kind of freaky, but thanks for the link! I don't know if I could ever achieve something like this(my dreams are normally an unorganized mess, and I tend to have tons of them in 1 night, I only remember if something REALLY prominent happens on them), but it's interesting that they novelize them. Though I wonder if they make up some parts of them just to give it a flow. :X

That's what I do.

My dreams often play like complete movies, complete with plot, foreshadowing, and character development. But if I don't write them down, I forget them later in the day. And I usually don't feel like writing them down in the middle of the night.

I read that you can consciously enter a lucid dreaming state by laying on your back and resisting the urge to roll over. Apparently your brain tests whether you're still awake by telling you to roll over, and if you don't roll over then it starts super happy dream time. (Also sleep paralysis.)

I tried it last night; I definitely experienced part of sleep that I had never experienced before, but I completely failed the test and jolted awake as soon as I felt the urge to roll over.

Yeah, that's referred to as WILD (wake induced lucid dream), and I've tried it exactly once... by accident. I was trying to sleep off a migraine, and was resting in bed just trying to let my mind wander. After about thirty minutes or so I started feeling very odd, and got racked by a series of powerful full-body trembles. I realized what was going on (I was starting to slip into sleep paralysis) but couldn't control my breathing, got terribly nervous, and after about a minute of that I snapped out of it. From what I've read, if you get the technique down pat it's a 100% guaranteed method of achieving a lucid dream.

If you remain still and stay calm, you'll pass into sleep paralysis, and then you can supposedly get up out of bed and walk into a dream, which is possible as your mind is awake, while your body is asleep. Again, never quite got that far. Gotta try again one day.

I'm more of a DILD (dream induced lucid dream) guy myself, so I rely on realizing that I'm dreaming to get into the proper state. It's less reliable, but doesn't require pretending to fall asleep for 20-30 minutes. I'm no good at that anyway!

To the original post... High voltage, like that from a neon sign transformer can burn the skin like that. I was messing around with an old lightning ball a long time ago and I was suddenly getting in arc onto the edge of my hand... It didn't hurt but it burned the skin pretty well. Crazy as I am, I took it apart and continued to poke the edge of the main wire with my finger tip until you could no longer make out my fingerprint. I had to stop because the smell of vaporized flesh is not pleasant... I don't recommend trying it.

[edit] Now that I'm logged in that picture looks a lot bigger... It does look like altered... Or maybe it's some kind of wart like infection...

The freakiest thing thats ever happened to me asleep is being aware that I needed to wake up, but I couldn't (very easily). I had to force myself to move, to break the sleep paralysis in order to wake myself up. I can do it occasionally. But its like lifting a couple tons.

@Ron Novy: It's photoshopped/potatochopped with the mouth of a lamprey.

For those who get sleep paralysis

You don't have much to worry about in sleep unless you're Joseph Stalin (Paranoid guy, slept in a different room every night with identical looks)

I used to have sleep paralysis. Do you ever feel the decreasing consciousness of falling asleep? I'd do that, but suddenly I'd have a "wet blanket" dropped on me sort of a feeling. I'd have to concentrate especially hard to get myself to move, and when I did, the "wet blanket" feeling would leave. It makes for a long night when you don't fall entirely asleep, and you wonder about every little bump in the night.

As far as dreams, mine have been entirely boring lately, like I'm idly moving chess pieces around a board just for something to do. Although the last 6 months or so as I fall asleep I dream I'm on a 100 meter ladder or cliff and just decide to step off for some reason. I wake up feeling dreadful. It's not the usual "falling" dream, for those I dream I'm walking through tall grass and trip on something, so I'll throw my arms out to catch myself, but actually jerk myself up off the mattress.

I frequently wake up under the effects of sleep paralysis . The worst part is that, most of the time, it feels like I can't breathe, and it seems to take an eternity to be able to move again.

Regarding lucid dreaming, I don't believe I've ever experienced such a thing.

I've never had sleep paralysis. The worst that ever happens to me is an odd sensation of falling and I suddenly jerk awake. That hasn't happened since I was a kid, though.

I like to pinch my nose shut and try to breathe. In a dream you have no problem breathing. Its the most fool proof method I have encountered. Clocks are not always blurry. The same goes for faces in mirrors. I also frequently feel pain in dreams, so the nose thing works best.

I rarely actually dream as me. These days I'm sure I do sometimes. But used to be that I wouldn't ever actually be me. Or if I was, it was a sort of 3rd person view from behind like a crappy FPS.

No joke. I had a dream that was comparable to Call of Duty. The guy I was looking at was like dying on the floor in front of me and a noobie player poked around the corner caustiously, slowly walked to him and his pistol was like a freakin handcannon. It shot rapidly and when it did all the colors inverted and the [screen?] shook. I had to wake up cause I was scared. That was right when I was falling asleep -- 'Oh snap I'm dreaming!' But this is bad! So I woke myself up (Not fully aware that I was fine)