I very rarely recall any dreams, but I do remember one time, during a summer I spent playing a lot of MUD (Internet text-based game, primitive ancestor to World of Warcraft), that I had a dream in text.
I’ve dreamed in scrolling text before due to extensive MUD playing.
So have I. Which MUD, out of interest?
I spent spent literally years playing WOTmud, playing the Gaidin Wedrifid, from whom I took this name. (By ‘years’ I refer to actual logged in hours that can be measured in years, not years passing during which I played MUD.) I ask because ‘Rain’ was also a prominent character on that MUD—a wolfbrother or something impressive like that—I think he stabbed folks a lot.
I played WOT only a little; I even had a wolfbrother; but I was not Rain.
I primarily played on Sojourn / TorilMUD, where Brad McQuaid also played before creating EverQuest. Others I’ve played: Realms of Despair, various God Wars, Vampire Wars, Dark and Shattered Lands, The Last Sunrise, CoreMUD, RetroMUD, Shadowrun: Denver, Shadowrun: Detroit, and Metro: Toronto by Night.
May I ask for more details? For example, do you recall whether you were observing text on a screen, or if you were looking at a visual field with just text, or some combination of imagining typing while visualizing what was being described, or the like?
It has been more than a decade since then. All I have left are the less-reliable memories-of-memories of the dream. Having said that, I recall the dream being of text coloured like the MUD I was playing, but I am pretty sure that there was only the text.
I don’t even recall anything that happened in the dream or if I previously did and have forgotten.
I’m able both to read and to type in “day residue” dreams: those that are primarily based on prior events while awake. I’ve often had dreams which involve me reading and posting to internet message boards.
For dreams occurring on a deeper, more symbolic level, I haven’t had the same experience, though I couldn’t say whether that means I can’t read in those dreams, or only that I haven’t remembered doing so.
Perhaps individual circumstances matter. I was hyperlexic in childhood and to this day my preferred learning style consists of reading and/or rote copying, which I’ve learned is unusual.
I am not sure about reading, but writing is impossible for me, in dreams. When I write something, and I read it again, I see that I actually wrote something else. So I try to correct it, and again it is wrong; and that is very frustrating. Doing calculations, even as simple as counting my fingers, is also impossible.
From what I read online on topic of lucid dreaming, different people have different “abilities” and “disabilities” in dreams, but some of them are rather common (for example the inability to count one’s fingers). If you make a habit of testing these skills a few times a day, it may help you notice when you are dreaming.
I very rarely recall any dreams, but I do remember one time, during a summer I spent playing a lot of MUD (Internet text-based game, primitive ancestor to World of Warcraft), that I had a dream in text.
I’ve dreamed in scrolling text before due to extensive MUD playing. I even wrote an essay about it, though it’s a bit embarrassing to read now.
So have I. Which MUD, out of interest?
I spent spent literally years playing WOTmud, playing the Gaidin Wedrifid, from whom I took this name. (By ‘years’ I refer to actual logged in hours that can be measured in years, not years passing during which I played MUD.) I ask because ‘Rain’ was also a prominent character on that MUD—a wolfbrother or something impressive like that—I think he stabbed folks a lot.
I played WOT only a little; I even had a wolfbrother; but I was not Rain.
I primarily played on Sojourn / TorilMUD, where Brad McQuaid also played before creating EverQuest. Others I’ve played: Realms of Despair, various God Wars, Vampire Wars, Dark and Shattered Lands, The Last Sunrise, CoreMUD, RetroMUD, Shadowrun: Denver, Shadowrun: Detroit, and Metro: Toronto by Night.
May I ask for more details? For example, do you recall whether you were observing text on a screen, or if you were looking at a visual field with just text, or some combination of imagining typing while visualizing what was being described, or the like?
It has been more than a decade since then. All I have left are the less-reliable memories-of-memories of the dream. Having said that, I recall the dream being of text coloured like the MUD I was playing, but I am pretty sure that there was only the text. I don’t even recall anything that happened in the dream or if I previously did and have forgotten.
Isn’t it normally hard to read in dreams? How did that work out?
I’m able both to read and to type in “day residue” dreams: those that are primarily based on prior events while awake. I’ve often had dreams which involve me reading and posting to internet message boards.
For dreams occurring on a deeper, more symbolic level, I haven’t had the same experience, though I couldn’t say whether that means I can’t read in those dreams, or only that I haven’t remembered doing so.
Perhaps individual circumstances matter. I was hyperlexic in childhood and to this day my preferred learning style consists of reading and/or rote copying, which I’ve learned is unusual.
I am not sure about reading, but writing is impossible for me, in dreams. When I write something, and I read it again, I see that I actually wrote something else. So I try to correct it, and again it is wrong; and that is very frustrating. Doing calculations, even as simple as counting my fingers, is also impossible.
From what I read online on topic of lucid dreaming, different people have different “abilities” and “disabilities” in dreams, but some of them are rather common (for example the inability to count one’s fingers). If you make a habit of testing these skills a few times a day, it may help you notice when you are dreaming.
I can’t help you there. Not enough detail has survived the years.
That’s a very common claim; but it runs counter to my own experience in dreaming.