Something I've wondered for some time now. Are the dreams you have really just a form of virtual reality? I know there was this song that came out in the 70's by Gary Wright, called Dream Weaver, that touched on this a little. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZKuzwPOefs It is odd. Because as of late, I have had some pretty deep and insightful dreams. I dreamt they dug up my grandmother (she died when I was barely 3). And they found they could revive her. Then I got to know my grandma as an adult--something I never got the chance to do. And there is this restaurant that only exists in my dreams. When I am dreaming, I believe it is real, and wonder why I ever doubted that. But when I am awake, I realize it is all a dream. Then there are all the sexual dreams I have. As I said on another part of these boards, there is a sex shop that only exists in my dreams. Anyways, many people can't wait until we have fully-functional virtual reality some day--myself included. But I have to sometimes wonder, Maybe we have it already--in dreams. I know my dreams are often vivid, and real. In them, I don't even realize I am asleep, until I wake up. What virtual helmet, today at least, comes even close to that yet? What do the rest of you think?
In a sense I understand what you are getting at and dreams may very well have been a catalyst for VR technologies but I think what makes Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality, is that it is a "reality" that resides outside of your own environment, except for whatever contraption contains it. While dreams tend to produce surreal perceptions, they're still conjured up from your own biology. It probably boils down to semantics though and some who ascribe to the "Mind as a computer" theory might see it as an apt comparison.
Reality without dreams is just somebody's nightmare, while dreams without reality is a total contradiction. Stay awake long enough and you'll merely hallucinate, while reality will always catch up with you even in your dreams. The two are yin and yang or indivisible complimentary-opposites like up and down, back and front. Virtual just means almost or close to what is described and yin-yang fit that definition. You can think of them as digital and analog logic with the digital logic describing what we call real, while analog describes what we call dreams. Whether there is a machine behind all the weirdness is impossible for modern science to determine because it appears that if we do inhabit a simulation its running on a virtual program or operating system that isolates us from the machinery itself.
psionically linked mmo anyone? i'm not so sure they're any one thing but if they are, its our semi-randomly driven subconscous, in free running mode.
They are one thing in that they transform into one another in extreme contexts. The same is true for our conscious and unconscious minds which is why our unconscious thoughts can become conscious and vice versa.
