Several weeks ago I had a dream in which I noticed a movie marque. My dream ego wanted to know what movie was playing and focused attention on the marque. The lettering was incomprehensible, merely a suggestion of letters. When my dream attention was not focused on the marque, it seemed to have intelligible block letters forming words.

I am a person who reads a lot: Fiction, newspapers, bridge books, scientific literature. My dream ego never seems to read anything. I have tried to exert control over my dreams to see if I could read a newspaper or a book, but have had no success so far.

When I was a child and had nightmares my father gave me good advice which worked. He said that while I was awake I should prepare myself for the next nightmare. I was to imagine some heroic figure coming to my rescue. He said that if I prepared for it, my mind would recognize the unreality of a nightmare and allow me to request magic or a mythical hero to save me.

His idea worked, so I know that a person can have some level of control over dreams. I am sure that if I again dream about seeing some written material, my dream ego will focus attention on it and see if it is legible. I am betting that it will not be readable.

Has any of you ever read anything in your dreams? I think I have read very short items like an advertisement on a billboard. I do not have any specific memory of such dreams, so I cannot be sure.

It's wierd, I know what I'm reading, but not the content. At the same time though I can read individual letters and once in awhile words, but not sentances.

I read somewhere that its impossible to read in your dreams and that one way to tell that you're dreaming is to try and read something. Can't remember where I read it though....

i've heard that you can find out if you're dreaming by pinching yourself...but it's weird because i piched myself in a dream just to check if i was dreaming and i didnt wake up...how weird is that?

The pinch thing isn't very consistant. Sometimes you feel the pain and wake up from the 'shock' while other times you don't 'feel' anything.

Checking your watch twice every hour or so is good training for lucid dreaming. You'll notice 'something' wrong with you watch; usually inconsistant times.

I find that I can know things in dreams that I couldn't know in real life such as seeing writing and knowing what it says without reading it. Thats dreams for you.

Originally posted by jps
I read somewhere that its impossible to read in your dreams and that one way to tell that you're dreaming is to try and read something. Can't remember where I read it though.... I saw that in a Batman cartoon. They had an odd tendency to research stuff like that, so I suspect that it might be true.

If you die in your dreams you die in real life! Anyone heard of this or know if it's true?

It's not true. You just generally wake up first, although not always.

I'll believe you for now Persol but privately I'll retain my belief so if it conclusively looks like it's true then you are wrong ok? ;)

Lol... fine with me.

Originally posted by Charles Fleming
If you die in your dreams you die in real life! Anyone heard of this or know if it's true? Yes, it is absolutely 100% true. If you die in a dream, you will also die in real life. You just don't know when. If you don't die in a dream, you will still die in real life.

LMAO. Never thought about it that way:)

i can usually read in my dreams

icOn612: What do you read in your dreams? Can you provide a bit of context?

I have dreams in which there is written material which seems to be readable. When I focus on the material, I discover that it conveys no information.

I read a lot in real life, and have occasionally dreamt about reading a book. I have never remembered what I read in a dream, nor did I have a memory of bring focused on the pages of the book.

BTW: One of my pet peeves is that reed is not the present tense of read, and red is not the past tense.

i've been able to read signs and books and whatnot.but occasionally the text will change if i try to reread it after a few seconds, which i believe happens to most people who can read int heir dreams. that is what got me lucid once, when i tried to reread soemthin and it kept changing.

I remember that episode of Batman as well :)

I often read stuff in my dreams. I once drempt I was reading a book. I actually, in the dream, read the *entire* book (about 150 pages). It was a book that doesn't exsist, though, so I was actually writing the book as I went :D cool stuff. It was a Hardy Boys adventure - had a pretty good plot too. I kick myself now for not writing it all down when I woke up. it happened about 16 years ago, and I forget the story now.


signs, newspaper, etc. I also can smell in my dreams, and they are usually in color. I have have died a number of times in my dreams over the years.


#1 rule about dreams- all the rules you know about dreams are probably not correct.


[edit]: I've had that issue where each time something is read, it changes, too. Always found that really interesting...

But did you actually 'read' the book?
I can open a book and start going thru the story, but if I focus on the page it is usually jeberish. If I focus on the story I'm fine though.

Persol: That seems to be the way it works for me. Focus on the text and it is not legible.

Originally posted by Persol
But did you actually 'read' the book?
I can open a book and start going thru the story, but if I focus on the page it is usually jeberish. If I focus on the story I'm fine though.

actually a good question. I really can't say for sure now. I remeber having the book in front of me, seeing my hands turning a page every minute or so, and as I went, the story unfolding. but I can't say I actually remember individual words pop up.

I have had words in other dreams be clear, though. lisence plates, newpaper headlines, etc. clear to the point that when writing the dream down, I could even remeber the font of the text.

I think it varies person to person. I remember being able to read a newspaper the other night, and last night i had an odd dream about.. oddly enough, sciforums, where i was reading threads, but it had been right before i went to bed that i had been reading the forum itself, so that may have played a role

I've read all kinds of things in my dreams. In fact, in one of my dreams there was a paragraph out of a book i had read that i partickler liked, and it read itself to me. I've seen signs, newspaper headings, (depending on the dream of course) then again, i'm partially insane and pretty weird. Oh well.

One thing is though, my dreams are like video games. For instance, I must achieve something inorder to have a certain ability.
ie: must get puffy white thing in order to fly short distance

Once I would run around, looking for puffy white things, and I would find one, I could fly a little. At that time in my life though, I didn't play any vid games, so its unlikely that I was obsessed.
I made a movie in my dreams. Several dreams actually. I think I'll talk to speilburg about it (how DO you spell his name?)