Do we dream less as we get older?

What Dreams Are Like When You’re Blind
By Cari Romm
In New York magazine

There’s a part of me that reacts, “Yeah, I think I know what he means”. But another part – the bigger part – still has no real sense of how a dream like that would be experienced. My brain is just too engrained in connecting all of the others senses to the world as I see it.

Sure, if it was a dream that revolved almost entirely around me listening to music, sound would predominate. In fact I’ve had dreams where my brain actually created songs I had never heard. I’d wake up thinking, “what a great song!”

Again, the mind-boggling mystery of dreaming itself.

Or a dream where I am preparing a meal in the kitchen, smells would predominate. But the bulk of my dreams are rarely of that nature. And I can only assume that if I did lose my sight, eventually my dreams would catch up with this new reality. Then I might get a little closer to dreams in which the visual was just not a significant factor.

In other words, we are all basically the same…until we’re not. We all experience content and emotion in the waking world so we all experience the same in our dreams. And then, it seems, it can only come down to the gaps between us rooted either in our sense perceptions [from birth or otherwise] or in the thing that most fascinates me: the embodiment of dasein.

The content and emotion in your life…in your dreams. The content and emotion in my life…in my dreams. And then figuring out the least dysfunctional manner in which to communicate it. Which, as this thread seems to indicate, is often easier said than done.

Steve Miller Band “Journey To Eden” youtu.be/xJALQcCHuF0
Steve Miller Band “Song For Our Ancestors” youtu.be/Lw27fX-NYck

What Dreams Are Like When You’re Blind
By Cari Romm
In New York magazine

All this of course will probably be understood by most as just commonsense. Yes, this is exactly what one would expect, right? But: the more ineffable aspects would seem to revolve instead around the manner in which those blind from birth expereince the other four senses in a heightened manner…or in a qualitatively different way. It’s one thing to hear, touch, smell and taste when you do have vision to connect them to the world around you. But what if you don’t? How does that impact your understanding the world in ways that you don’t even think about consciously?

Here we are able to grasp just how futile it can become to discuss this without taking into consideration that there are so many different contexts that any particular blind person might be embedded in. Still, it’s no less fascinating to imagine how dreams change over time the longer that someone who was once sighted has been blind.

Just as it is telling how, blind or sighted, your dreams are going to change given any number of abrupt or momentous changes in the life that you live. It’s not like anyone can pin down how we ought to dream. Even if the dreams themselves are in so many mysterious ways beyond out control.

Dreams are no less rooted subjectively in dasein. Thus to the extent that those like Freud or Jung or others fail to take that into account in regard to either blind or sighted people is the extent to which they are failing to grasp what can play a crucial role in interpreting them.

And then the dreams of those who are deaf: lingvano.com/asl/blog/how-d … ple-dream/

Which is why, as I noted to Maia, it would be fascinating to listen in on a discussion between those who were blind from birth and those who were deaf from birth discussing things like dreams. How they might connect and how they might not. Then the part where the discussion shifted to the dreams of those were not born either blind or deaf. What could or could not be shared here.

Then the dreams of those like Helen Keller. Which I will explore if it’s out there.

I’m sorry but I’m finding all this a little bit creepy and obsessive. I offered to answer any questions that you have, but you told me that you didn’t have any.

That’s fine, of course, but why keep posting links to songs, or links to articles about blindness?

I explained that.

You were the one who triggered my interest in blindness. And through the human-all-too-human reality of dreams. Something that has always fascinated me. You made me aware of just how prejudiced and ignorant my own reactions to it were. Now that I’m interested in it, it becomes one more facet of my own exploration into the manner in which I construe human identity as an existential manifestation of dasein. As with all the other subjects on all of the other threads I have begun here at ILP. And since I have created many, many posts on this thread in which to further that exploration, it never occurred to me to start a whole other thread.

As for the music, I have always been addicted to sharing it with others. But if that creeps you out, I’ll stop. At least on this thread.

You should simply ignore my posts. And I can absolutely assure you that I am not obsessed with you. As others here can attest, when I get “hooked” on something I make every attempt to explore it out in the deep end of the pool. Philosophically and otherwise.

Anyway, getting back to where I would like to see this thread go: connecting the dots existentially between sense deprivation [congenital or otherwise], dasein and the manner in which human interaction often revolves around what we struggle to understand about and communicate to each other.

Also, the exploration of dreams themselves.

As for the first consideration, here I always come back to the time I first saw Children of a Lesser God. In a very profound and powerful way it drew me into the lives of two people who, while sharing the same world here and now, had lived lives that were very, very different. That which I construe to be the embodiment in dasein. One was born deaf while the other was not deaf but spent his life teaching the deaf to better interact with the hearing world.

But: because of the gaps in their lives, their communication would often breakdown. And that’s what always draws me in here. The need to create compromises when important parts of your understanding of the world are different.

Consider:

[b]James: I really just came to ask one question. What happened when Sarah tried to speak?
Mrs: Norman: What happened? She looked awful. She sounded awful. People made fun of her. What do you think?

Sarah [to James]: Hearing boys? They could never be bothered to learn my language. I was always expected to learn to speak. Well, I don’t speak. Sex was always something I could do as well as hearing girls. Better! At first, I let them have me because they wanted to. Before long, the boys were lined up on a waiting list my sister kept for me. No introduction, no talk. Just went to a dark place and fucked. They didn’t even take me out for a Coke first.

Sarah [to James]: I don’t do anything I can’t do well.

James: Sarah…what do you want?
Sarah: You.
James: You got me. What else?
Sarah: Children. I want deaf children.
James: What do you want me to say, that I want deaf children? No, I don’t. But if they were, that would be fine.

James: You know I haven’t turned on my hi-fi since you…Hold it. That sounds like…like I’m blaming you for me not listening to music…Thank you. I will. I’ll rest my hands nd listen to something beautiful.
[Bach Plays]
James: I can’t enjoy it. I can’t, because you can’t.

James: What do you hear? I mean, is it just silence
Sarah: No one has ever gotten in there to find out.
James: Will you ever let me in?

Sarah: You don’t want to help anybody. You just want to change and control them. I think that you want me to speak. And I just want to be me.
James: Well, who the hell are you?!

Sarah: …you think for me, think for Sarah. As though there were no “I.” I will be with you, quit my job, learn how to play poker, leave Orin’s party, learn how to speak." That’s all you, not me. Until you let me be an “I” the way you are, you can never come inside my silence and know me. And I can’t let myself know you.
James: Well…that’s all very moving. But how are you going to manage? You can lock yourself back in your precious silent castle…I heard. I heard every word, goddamn it. I translated for myself. It went from your hands into my brain and out my mouth. And you know what? I think you’re lying. I don’t think that you think being deaf is so goddamn wonderful. I think that you’re scared to death to try. I think it’s nothing but stupid pride that’s keeping you from speaking right. You want to be on your own. You don’t want to be pitied. Then you learn to read my lips and use your mouth for something besides showing me you’re better than hearing girls in bed. Read my lips. What am I saying? You want to talk to me, then you learn my language. Did you understand that? Of course you did. You’ve probably been reading lips for years. But that’s the great control game, isn’t it? I’m the controller? What a fucking joke. Now, come on! Speak to me! Speak! Speak to me!
Sarah [all but screaming]: Aah! See my mouth! Aah! Hear my voice! I’m not afraid!

Mother: I sent you away because I didn’t know how to take care of you. Your father couldn’t accept you. He felt he’d failed…You’re right. I hated you for driving him away. Please forgive me.

Sarah: I have been angry since I was a little girl. I didn’t want to hurt again, so I used my anger to push you away. I’m sorry.
James: I’m sorry…for hurting you.
Sarah: But I learned from you. I learned that I can hurt…and I won’t shrivel up and blow away.
James: I don’t want to be without you, either. Do you think that we could find a place where we can meet not in silence and not in sound?[/b]

That’s what happens when you become involved with anyone in which there are big differences in how you see yourself out in the world. Sometimes this revolves around biological [genetic] differences and other times around social and political [memetic] differences.

Then it comes down once again to…

1] might makes right — the one with the most power gets to call the shots.
2] right makes might — you can both agree on an ideal solution
3] moderation, negotiation and compromise — you meet somewhere in a murky and ever shifting middle

And all of the many different, complex, ever shifting combinations of both.

I’ve already asked you once to stop posting on my thread. If you want to talk about that stuff, start your own.

And just to make it very clear, the reason I stopped talking to you was because of your quite shocking reaction, as if I had wronged you in some way, when I informed you that I wanted to continue our conversation wholly in private, by email (which I don’t any more, by the way).

Furthermore, since you have no actual questions, what’s the point of going on about it, going round in circles?

As I noted above…

So, no, I’m not going to start a new thread. That, from my frame of mind, would be ridiculous.

Look, if you want, contact Carleas and ask him to lock the thread. That way I would be unable to respond further with my own insights here. Again, there are just so many things in this world that can become “beyond my control”.

Also, ask yourself what prompts you to react to my posts as you do. I have my own suspicions, but I will keep them to myself.

Do you still have nightmares about your desk job in Saigon?

And how do you feel about killing people trying to defend their country against a foreign invader?

Have you ever been back?

And do you accept that the US lost that war?

There was a time, a few weeks ago, when I was considering inviting other blind people to this forum, and this thread, to give you more perspectives. But definitely not any more, not after your reaction.

What you want, as you have said above, is for a whole bunch of blind people to describe their dreams and experiences to you, presumably every day, and if they ever stopped doing so, you would get angry, and fling accusations at them, as you did with me. But since you have no actual questions, it would be up to them to come up with something interesting each time, while you contributed nothing.

I call that voyeuristic, perhaps even fetishistic, and certainly obsessive. And the fact that you had no interest in pursuing our conversation in private, shows just how much you actually valued any “virtual friendship” with me.

So, if you have any common decency, I ask again, stop posting in my thread.

I can’t even begin to describe just how surreal this has all become to me given my own reaction to our exchange. From my frame of mind it was your enthsuiasm that allowed it to blossum into something more than just an exchange of ideas.

You invited me to exchange e-mails. You trusted me enough to share such personal information as your real name, your e-mail address, where you lived, even where you could be found every morning. So surreal in fact that I actually felt the need to email this to you:

“Since my posts at ILP are actually creeping you out, I just wanted to assure you in turn you that none of the personal information that you gave me will ever get beyond me. You have absolutely nothing to be concerned about in that regard. And you certainly don’t have to be worried about me. I will not contact you again. And I apologize for anything that upset you.”

All you have to do is to ignore my posts here. And all I can do is try to explain why I am not inclined to start from scratch in sustaining an examination of the existential relationship between sense deprivation, dasein, and human identity. Again the irony being that in regard to blindness, it was you who prompted me to explore it far more seriously than I ever have before. For me, the biological/medical dimension embodied in “I” had never been something I gave much thought to at all.

Again, contact Carleas. Explain to him why it is in the best interest of ILP lock the thread down. If he chooses to, I will respect his decision and go about the laborious task of sifting through my posts here and creating a new thread in which our own exchange above will become as though it had never even existed at all.

All I can say is that your whole frame of mind now only makes sense to me given all of my past experiences whereby I began to share with others my own fractured and fragmented self in a world that I construe to be essentially meaningless. A world lacking in any overarching purpose. But: how that can be construed in a constructive and positive light.

Yeah, I get why most react to that as they do. I just thought that you might be different.

And there you go, doing it again. Accusing me of withdrawing from this thread because of your “fractured and fragmented self” as you choose to call it.

How many times do I have to repeat myself? I withdrew from this thread with the intention of continuing our conversation by email, to cover more private matters.

But you chose instead to get angry, and start flinging accsations at me, as you are still doing.

And now, you are not even respecting my wishes to stop posting on my thread.

Iambiguous can’t accept that the plain truth that what people like yourself tell him directly about how he is offending them is actually the case, because it would deflate his narcissistic self-image. Ironically, his psychological defense against this, is the fantasy that people cannot handle the profound truths that he tells.

To the best of my ability – openly, honestly, introspectively – I have attempted to explain to you my reaction to our exchange. After all, I cannot not think and feel about it other than as I do. Now, I’m not arguing that the way I reacted to it is the way that you should. Or that you are wrong to react to it as you do. That’s not how “I” works here for me. We take out of things like this what we first put into them: ourselves. Based on the life that we have lived and the experiences we have had.

There is no Right Way to assess it, to interpret it, to judge it.

Also, if you insist on accusing me of accusing you of this or that on this thread, doesn’t it just draw more attention to it? Isn’t that what you least want?

What makes the most sense here to me doesn’t make the most sense to you. But: that’s perfectly normal to me given the nature of the exchange itself.

I have invested a lot of time and commitment here in exploring relationships I had never really thought about before. It all fascinates me now. As I explained above. If the thread is locked and I have to start again on a new thread, well, that is beyond my control. But I can’t just not be intrigued by it all in the manner in which “I” have unfolded here so far.

He was just embarrassed and try to bury it under a bunch of meaningless links and quotes.

Unbelievable.

The plain truth? So, what are you suggesting…that anyone who does not react as you do here to me is now “one of them”. Is no longer “one of us”, those who grasp the objective truth about iambiguous?

A Stooge and an objectivist?

And what’s ironic here is that one of the things that drew me to Maia is the assumption that she was not an objectivist herself. Yes, she believed in an “ism” that was completely alien to me. But she made it clear that her beliefs were not embedded in any “my way or the highway” mentality. She noted how within the Pagan community there was no attempt to judge others as being right or wrong in their beliefs. Why? Because those beliefs were not based on a philosophy or an ideology. Instead, they were based on the behaviors that they shared…behaviors rooted profoundly in nature itself. Communing with nature in a way that our modern world has virtually eliminated altogether.

Now, anytime you want to take your own accusations against me and explore them substantively, contextually as felix dakat, you start the thread.

Note to others:

Meet Curly-Joe. Along with Shemp, another of my burgeoning collection of Stooges.

Or, hmm, maybe he’s Shemp.

As I have told you before, there’s no point entering a substantive dialogue with you because you dismiss other people’s ideas as contraptions without providing arguments for how you arrived at that conclusion. And that’s just the first of many hostile practices in your style of discourse. These have been pointed out to you ad nauseam by many members here on ILP. You have deflected all that feedback and haven’t changed a bit. So, while you do post some interesting subject matter which I appreciate, I continue to think that dialogue with you would be a waste of time. Your discussion with Maia was interesting for a while until violated her boundaries. Not cool, bro.

And as I have told you just above: unbelievable.

Yet again, you merely iterate much the same accusations regarding me…as though repeating them really makes them true objectively.

Oh, and just out of curiosity, please pin down the point in my exchange with Maia above where I violated her boundaries. Assuming for example that I have the capacity to be her and understand beyond all doubt what those boundaries were.

Also, out of curiosity, do you have anything to contribute in regard to the points I raise pertaining to the existential relationship between sense deprivation [congenital or otherwise], dasein and human identity.

Only this time as felix dakat.

If not then might I suggest that you stick to your “general description spiritual contraptions” on other threads.