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To describe dreams is to deal with words, with consciousness. To describe them is to try to make sense of them, somehow - of the words, too. To speak them is to

To describe dreams is to deal with words, with consciousness. To describe them is to try to make sense of them, somehow - of the words, too. To speak them is to make those words material, real, to give them a sound you can hear. To share them is only thus being human.

akavi 3y ago
This comment feels like a deepity[0] to me. Saying anything at all is "to deal with words". Discussing anything at all about your internal state is "to deal with... consciousness". Yes, it is deeply human to put to words internal thoughts and share them with others (that's what I'm doing in this comment, after all). But there's nothing special about dreams in that regard. And unlike most ideas we attempt to communicate, dreams are by their nature fragmentary and illogical (or perhaps "pre-logical" is better phrasing). While humans love imputing meaning and profundity to obscurant musings (whole academic careers have been built on that fact), that doesn't mean they are actually meaningful and/or profound. [0]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:deepity https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:deepity
- gverrilla 3y ago
  I must admit I stopped abruptly. It's not a complete thought, and the last phrase was "aborted", for which I'm sorry: I lack the mastery I would want with English language to continue, considering the complexity of the subjects I tried to touch upon and my broad experience thinking, reading, writing and dialoging about them. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said, although it's "poor", but right now I'm not willing to debate. The best I can do is to point out to authors like S. Freud and the surrealists, so you can perhaps see deeper into my comment, and wish you the best! :)
- Lammy 3y ago
  What an awful anti-intellectual neologism. People on HN love to talk about rubber-ducking their code, but do it for your dreams and get made fun of. Unless you’re a famous writer :)
  - alexvoda 3y ago
    I do not agree at all that the word "deepity" is in any way anti-intellectual. It is an intellectual stance to try and filter what truly is profound from what merely appears to be or what merely elicits the same emotions. Unfortunately our current world is flooded with substance-less garbage that masquerades as something more. We are still in the age of gurus, of the blind leading the blind for profit, as we have always been since forming societies, but now we are in the epoch of web scalability, where the reach of any guru has been amplified to engulf the whole world. Training oneself to be able to recognise whether a message actually contains any knowledge or whether it is word salad that produces the same emotions is more important than ever.
markdestouches 3y ago
This is the kind of literary nonsense that has annoyed me ever since I turned 20. If you don't have anything to say, no one care if you're human, and no one should. I see zero virtue in making inspired noise, even if you're famous, more so if so.
- watwut 3y ago
  Good thing about written text is that absolutely nothing is forcing you to read it. It is not even like sound that you can't prevent to hear. Not every text have to be deeply virtuous. It is OK for them to be just about figuring things our and manipulating own head.
  - rat9988 3y ago
    Great, but it's ok to write it's not interesting too then?
    - watwut 3y ago
      There is difference between "I am not interested" and "no one should be interested and you should shut up you virtuosity projecting xxxx". I was reacting to the latter. If op stopped at "I do not like them" I would not be reacting. Not liking something or not being interested and going into angry burst because the thing exists are two different categories.
- tinideiznaimnou 3y ago
  >This is the kind of literary nonsense that has annoyed me ever since I turned 20. No one cares, buddy. >If you don't have anything to say, no one care if you're human, and no one should. This sentence left me speechless. Do reflect on what you just said. --- Such a clickbaity article, what is it even doing on HN? A minimum-effort paragraph of introduction regurgitating the bloody trope that "no one likes to listen to other people describe their dreams", then a copy-paste-powered compilation of a bunch of... quotes from some writers describing their dreams? To think that someone probably got paid for this article, and here we are worrying about ChatGPT lol Guess what, I couldn't bring myself to read any of that. But if an acquaintance of mine (or even you, @markdestouches) decided to tell me all about some dream they had the other night, I'd listen attentively, maybe play the game of ascribing meanings to it. Because why the fuck not? Sure, most people's dreams are boring nonsense, but so are their lives. What is more "useful" to talk about anyway - salaries? All the things we hate about JavaScript? The food you ate last week? "The economy"? A dream, on the other hand, is a piece of someone's mental activity that is completely detached from real-time sensory input, and I find that kind of shit positively fascinating! --- I'm reminded of a somewhat dream-like real life story about dreams: An ex-partner used to have these very long and vivid dreams that had more interesting imagery and symbolism than half of the sci-fi/fantasy films, books, all that genre fiction (of which I was an avid fan; and she much less so, but still somewhat immersed in that kind of media.) However, what I absolutely hated is that she always recounted her dream from last night in the evening as we went to bed. And, since they made for such nice bedtime stories, of course I would always drift off to sleep. Then she would ask, "are you sleeping?", and get really mad at me for dozing off while she was telling her dream. Which was obviously more important to her than letting her man get some rest at the end of the day. Okay, I get it, I see how this kind of experience (even if it's in a milder form, but compounded with other interpersonal frustrations) can make someone compulsively unreceptive to others telling them their dreams. (Especially if they're the superficial kind of person that comes to HN for the cultural content and life advice lol) And yeah, she was an abusive kind of b...person the rest of the time, too - I'm really glad that the only way I can ever meet her any more is... in the occasional nightmare. Now, here's the rub: I still remember the sheer vividness of her dreams. (It really was good stuff - could've worked as one of those abstract European movies; except it would probably take a bit more of a CGI budget than is par for the course.) But since it was >10 years ago, and she never bothered to write em down, I only remember their content very vaguely, as if in a dream: something something colors, something something a journey, etc. That is, I remember someone else's dreams from 10 years ago with the same level of detail as my own half-forgotten dream from last night. Inception, huh? Seekers of forbidden techniques, take note - I think this is the kind of stuff yall show up to bother me about every once in a while? See how easy it is to get me to spill the beans if you just do the opposite and leave me well alone? (And no, I don't think it works without the acute negative reinforcement, but yall already do that kind of crap for no reason whatsoever, so that's on you. By all means try it on someone, it's not going to help you with the predicament but I'm developing quite the taste for watching it backfire.) --- Just remembered another "cute" story about listening to others' dreams, as recently recounted by a friend. This one involves another classic trope: that of a woman getting mad at a man because she had an unpleasant dream about him. So they wake up, and she's really upset about the dream she's had and wants to know his opinion of what it all means. He listens to all the heartbreaking things he's been up to in her dream, considers the matter, and has the following realization: "oh, that's a dream about how you would feel if I started treating you like you've been treating me." This, paradoxically, calms her down. She is relieved to hear this. They take the matter no further. Soon after, they have a violent argument, and break up. What practical thing did I learn from this story? Dreams can be helpful when you have difficulty bringing some information to the threshold of your awareness; or others'.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

akavi 3y ago

This comment feels like a deepity[0] to me. Saying anything at all is "to deal with words". Discussing anything at all about your internal state is "to deal with... consciousness". Yes, it is deeply human to put to words internal thoughts and share them with others (that's what I'm doing in this comment, after all). But there's nothing special about dreams in that regard. And unlike most ideas we attempt to communicate, dreams are by their nature fragmentary and illogical (or perhaps "pre-logical" is better phrasing). While humans love imputing meaning and profundity to obscurant musings (whole academic careers have been built on that fact), that doesn't mean they are actually meaningful and/or profound. [0]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:deepity https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:deepity

gverrilla 3y ago
I must admit I stopped abruptly. It's not a complete thought, and the last phrase was "aborted", for which I'm sorry: I lack the mastery I would want with English language to continue, considering the complexity of the subjects I tried to touch upon and my broad experience thinking, reading, writing and dialoging about them. Nevertheless, I stand by what I said, although it's "poor", but right now I'm not willing to debate. The best I can do is to point out to authors like S. Freud and the surrealists, so you can perhaps see deeper into my comment, and wish you the best! :)
Lammy 3y ago
What an awful anti-intellectual neologism. People on HN love to talk about rubber-ducking their code, but do it for your dreams and get made fun of. Unless you’re a famous writer :)
- alexvoda 3y ago
  I do not agree at all that the word "deepity" is in any way anti-intellectual. It is an intellectual stance to try and filter what truly is profound from what merely appears to be or what merely elicits the same emotions. Unfortunately our current world is flooded with substance-less garbage that masquerades as something more. We are still in the age of gurus, of the blind leading the blind for profit, as we have always been since forming societies, but now we are in the epoch of web scalability, where the reach of any guru has been amplified to engulf the whole world. Training oneself to be able to recognise whether a message actually contains any knowledge or whether it is word salad that produces the same emotions is more important than ever.

markdestouches 3y ago

This is the kind of literary nonsense that has annoyed me ever since I turned 20. If you don't have anything to say, no one care if you're human, and no one should. I see zero virtue in making inspired noise, even if you're famous, more so if so.

watwut 3y ago
Good thing about written text is that absolutely nothing is forcing you to read it. It is not even like sound that you can't prevent to hear. Not every text have to be deeply virtuous. It is OK for them to be just about figuring things our and manipulating own head.
- rat9988 3y ago
  Great, but it's ok to write it's not interesting too then?
  - watwut 3y ago
    There is difference between "I am not interested" and "no one should be interested and you should shut up you virtuosity projecting xxxx". I was reacting to the latter. If op stopped at "I do not like them" I would not be reacting. Not liking something or not being interested and going into angry burst because the thing exists are two different categories.
tinideiznaimnou 3y ago
>This is the kind of literary nonsense that has annoyed me ever since I turned 20. No one cares, buddy. >If you don't have anything to say, no one care if you're human, and no one should. This sentence left me speechless. Do reflect on what you just said. --- Such a clickbaity article, what is it even doing on HN? A minimum-effort paragraph of introduction regurgitating the bloody trope that "no one likes to listen to other people describe their dreams", then a copy-paste-powered compilation of a bunch of... quotes from some writers describing their dreams? To think that someone probably got paid for this article, and here we are worrying about ChatGPT lol Guess what, I couldn't bring myself to read any of that. But if an acquaintance of mine (or even you, @markdestouches) decided to tell me all about some dream they had the other night, I'd listen attentively, maybe play the game of ascribing meanings to it. Because why the fuck not? Sure, most people's dreams are boring nonsense, but so are their lives. What is more "useful" to talk about anyway - salaries? All the things we hate about JavaScript? The food you ate last week? "The economy"? A dream, on the other hand, is a piece of someone's mental activity that is completely detached from real-time sensory input, and I find that kind of shit positively fascinating! --- I'm reminded of a somewhat dream-like real life story about dreams: An ex-partner used to have these very long and vivid dreams that had more interesting imagery and symbolism than half of the sci-fi/fantasy films, books, all that genre fiction (of which I was an avid fan; and she much less so, but still somewhat immersed in that kind of media.) However, what I absolutely hated is that she always recounted her dream from last night in the evening as we went to bed. And, since they made for such nice bedtime stories, of course I would always drift off to sleep. Then she would ask, "are you sleeping?", and get really mad at me for dozing off while she was telling her dream. Which was obviously more important to her than letting her man get some rest at the end of the day. Okay, I get it, I see how this kind of experience (even if it's in a milder form, but compounded with other interpersonal frustrations) can make someone compulsively unreceptive to others telling them their dreams. (Especially if they're the superficial kind of person that comes to HN for the cultural content and life advice lol) And yeah, she was an abusive kind of b...person the rest of the time, too - I'm really glad that the only way I can ever meet her any more is... in the occasional nightmare. Now, here's the rub: I still remember the sheer vividness of her dreams. (It really was good stuff - could've worked as one of those abstract European movies; except it would probably take a bit more of a CGI budget than is par for the course.) But since it was >10 years ago, and she never bothered to write em down, I only remember their content very vaguely, as if in a dream: something something colors, something something a journey, etc. That is, I remember someone else's dreams from 10 years ago with the same level of detail as my own half-forgotten dream from last night. Inception, huh? Seekers of forbidden techniques, take note - I think this is the kind of stuff yall show up to bother me about every once in a while? See how easy it is to get me to spill the beans if you just do the opposite and leave me well alone? (And no, I don't think it works without the acute negative reinforcement, but yall already do that kind of crap for no reason whatsoever, so that's on you. By all means try it on someone, it's not going to help you with the predicament but I'm developing quite the taste for watching it backfire.) --- Just remembered another "cute" story about listening to others' dreams, as recently recounted by a friend. This one involves another classic trope: that of a woman getting mad at a man because she had an unpleasant dream about him. So they wake up, and she's really upset about the dream she's had and wants to know his opinion of what it all means. He listens to all the heartbreaking things he's been up to in her dream, considers the matter, and has the following realization: "oh, that's a dream about how you would feel if I started treating you like you've been treating me." This, paradoxically, calms her down. She is relieved to hear this. They take the matter no further. Soon after, they have a violent argument, and break up. What practical thing did I learn from this story? Dreams can be helpful when you have difficulty bringing some information to the threshold of your awareness; or others'.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]