[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

Donald has been pondering what the answer to this question could be.

"Vivid dreams are experientially quite profoundly convincingly "real", much more so than standard dreams (by definition).  What is happening to be so detailed and convincing that upon awakening, it is difficult to readily dismiss as "just a dream" because it is qualitatively different?"

Discuss your thoughts in the comments below...

[evan_au]

Dreams lack continuity - when you realise this, it is called lucid dreaming. Some people can then control the narrative of their dreams.

For me as a teenager, I would spend a lot of time reading. So my dreams also involved reading. But the dream process seems unable to maintain a consistent narrative while dreaming, so I often detected that I was dreaming through reading the same passage twice, and coming up with totally different statements.

The movie Inception was based around the concept of lucid dreaming, hence the cliffhanger in the last second of the movie....
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream 

[puppypower]

Dreams appear to propagate very similar to how we surf the web. While web surfing, we can be reading an article, and come to a hyperlink that can give us additional meaning. We may click it  and detour to a new web page. As we read that, instead of going back, we may click an advertisement, which will then divert us to somewhere else.

This non-linear propagation of data, while web surfing, is often based on unconscious impulse stemming from one's own bias, desires and fears. Much of the web; social media, is like a dream in the sense, it lacks basis in tangible reality. It is often based on opinions and propaganda, where the true intent of the author is not fully conscious, even if it satisfies one's bias. This state of affairs; copy the propagation of dreams, may not be coincidental. One can see how this can move herd down irrational paths.

Dreams are a natural output from the brain. They are used to help lower potential within the brain due to repressions; dams, within the natural instinctive; DNA based, flow of neural energy. Repressions, both individual and collective, will increase the brain potential, by damming up the natural flow of neural energy. This occurs due to the will and choice of the ego.

The affect is like damming up a river. A pool  of potential energy will appear behind it and spread out horizontally. Water will seek a way around the dam, over the dam, and even under the dam. These new side streams, as they flow toward lower potential, may touch odd combinations of neural memory, as they step down the potential; new data stream.

Lucid dreaming occurs when you become conscious within these dynamics. In lucid dreams one can become both the scientist and the experiment, at the same time. The enhanced awareness, by being more conscious, reinforces the details and makes the dream details stick out more, so the ego; conscious mind can remember and participate. One can back trace where this water is coming from, based on the symbols connected due to the triggered memory combinations.

A nightmare is a unique form of dreaming in that the dynamics is so strong the ego can be made afraid. Fear implies the highest energy balancing dynamics of the brain. Nightmares tend to represent a fatal fracture in a dam, with a catastrophic result. Unfortunately the ego may not understand the up side of this. It may decide to repress the nightmare and start to rebuild the dam the next day and put the repression back into play. This often has to do wth the bias of traditions calling the unconscious mind the sub-conscious as though the ego knows better than the main frame parts of the brain. It may also be due to group dynamics and what needs to done by the ego to run with the herd and be accepted; participate in a reinforcing group repression. Nightmares are signals that the pressure is getting to high and needs to be vented and the repression dam needs to be destroyed. But will and choice of the ego may not see this or the pitfalls ahead by rebuilding the dam.

My most memorable lucid nightmare occurred, way back when, when I was a few years into exploring my unconscious mind by analyze dreams. I had learned to become conscious in dreams to collect better dream detail data. I would make it a point to sense as much detail as possible with my sensory equivalent within dreams. One can see, hear, smell, touch and even taste in dreams while asleep. This, well meaning research has the affect of dissociating the natural integration of the unconscious mind; too many side new stream around dams. It created a potential, which got higher and higher as I progressed in my analysis. The line between dream and consciousness also got fuzzy, even during the day. It was one thing to be conscious in dreams as you sleep, but I also became conscious of background dreams; day dreams. But to me it was more data to analyze.

This reached a peak when I started to feel the need to stop differentiating the unconscious and reintegrate all the pieces, that I had been able to differentiate. This had caused a huge repression of the natural flow of energy for my ego. A nightmare appeared to break the dam and change the direction of research.

In this nightmare, I saw a horizontally orientated ring of fire and light that was spinning counter clockwise. All these details had a meaning. As I watched, a man; prince, and then women; princess, jumped into the ring of light and fire and merged with it. I was stunned as they merged and disappeared. I then sensed a sinister presence that said to me. "when you have entered the ring of light and fire, it will be done."

At that point I sensed my animal body panic; instinctive panic, so I woke myself out of layer and layer of dreams, only to find the walls of my bedroom breathing and the sinister presence about to enter my apartment.  Part of me was panicked; animal side, but another part of me; rational mind, was trying to stay calm and analyze this as a symbol. But it would not stop, nor could I stop the fear. Eventually I remembered the power of prayer; shield, and the evil presence and fear left me.

For three days I felt like my personality was shattered. An interesting meaningful coincidence that occurred was large green beetle landed above the door to my apartment and stayed there during the three days of blandness. If this was a dream symbol is would be a symbol of protection. After three days I was back to normal and as I left for work I saw my beetle protector flap his wings and fly away. I then and understood what my next path was to be. I had to merge with unconscious content; marriage ring of integration. I also understood I had no need to fear, since I had a shield; prayer and a sword; reason. I was ready to continue.

The imagery came to mind was the alchemical mystical symbolism of the Knight with his sword and shield having to battle the dragon. The dragon was a symbol of a wall of fear that separates the ego from the inner self and collective unconscious. This wall is there since the ego is not supposed to crossed this line, with the fear symbol placed there to scare the ego away. The ego can mess us the operating system of the brain by unknowingly planting bugs.

What it turned out to be was not the classic knight and dragon battle, I was a natural healing and reintegration process from the unconscious; inner self. It would induce scenarios which were like puzzles; ring of light and fire. I needed to analyze and merge with the puzzle and analysis; male was intellectual assessment and female was emotional assessment. I was the scientist and the experiment having to maintain my cool while allowing myself to merge with the full expression of the ring. When I got the answer correct, I would get a pleasant dose of endorphins. This would make me feel timelessness. This was a carrot on the string. But this euphoric buzz was short lived until another scenario would begin. In classic mystical philosophy this process was called the 1000-fold distillation, with the puzzle scenarios getting more and more complex. Some had as many as seven things playing together. These would also occur both night and day, even while at work. I was fortunate, since I was a development chemical engineer and often worked alone in my lab or pilot plant test areas. I could control my time. In the end, I was exhausted and was spit out and felt back to normal, like before I started the research 2-3 years earlier. The difference was that I now had developed an interactive translation link to the unconscious mind. I guess, to be able to solve all the puzzles, I needed to understand inner self's intent which made me fluent in a new 3-D language of thought and feeling.

After I was back to normal, it all felt anti-climatic. I was going to stop all research at first, but as I rest and recovered, I decided to take the next logical step in the research, which was applying this interactive rapport to seeing what would happen if I repressed myself, with questions about the mysteries of knowledge. Would the inner self synthesize a new solution, as a way to lower the potential? And could I successfully translate this if it did? This new beginning became the source of my current creativity and my unique take on the mysteries of knowledge. The turn-around time is much faster today, than way back when. It also has the benefit of thousand of passes through the same questions, with the iterations having reached a steady state.

There is more to dreaming that just watching. It is a portal to deeper parts of the human psyche; one can explore the operating system of the brain. This is the last frontier since it requires science that can explore itself.