Am I a completely different person when I am asleep, from when I am awake? — Metaphysician Undercover

My view is that you are the same person when asleep or awake, but your mental abilities and cognitive processes are very much different. Have you heard of the Hobson's AIM model of consciousness and his work on the neuroscience of dreams? I first head about it while reading Andy Clark's brilliant paper "The twisted matrix: Dream, simulation, or hybrid?" I've had a discussion with Claude about Hobson's model in connection with the phenomenology of dreams and how they compare to (and differ from) LLM hallucinations.

Innate world building capability? Imagine that the nucleus of the dream is some emotion, which surrounds itself with an event to explain the emotion. The event balloons out into a setting. What flips me out is that when my dream involves a social setting, there will be these weird customs that the people do, as if obligations are fundamentally arbitrary.

The subconscious mind creates what the conscious mind perceives whether what is perceived by the conscious mind is a dream or a simulation of reality.

A dream isn't a distinct and inconsistent reality, it's a phenomenology with different patterns of content and association of content typified in it. You can tell that because it's always a human which dreams, and their sensorimotor capabilities and memories which inform the dreamscape. A dream is business as usual for the senses without the world modulating them through constant fairly reliable input in fairly stable conditions.

How do you tell what is real while awake? Lets use sight. Light floods into your eye, hits a nerve, which sends electrical signals to your brain. Your brain constructs a visual reality for you. You don't actually see reality, you envision reality. Meaning you have the capacity in your brain to think something is real when its just a representation.

That's all dreams are. That partial construction and exercise of the brains ability to construct a conscious reality. Its not another dimension, and its not real outside of your own image. If you doubt this, go to a science forum. Philosophy that does not address the science of its day in its musings is not philosophy, but ignorance masquerading as profoundness.

If you doubt this, go to a science forum — Philosophim

Would a science forum assure me that I'm not peeping into another universe when I'm asleep?

Would a science forum assure me that I'm not peeping into another universe when I'm asleep? — frank

If its a good one, yes. :)

If its a good one, yes. — Philosophim

How would it rule that out?

If its a good one, yes.
— Philosophim

How would it rule that out? — frank

Make sure it avoids conspiracy theories and has standards for posting.

Make sure it avoids conspiracy theories and has standards for posting. — Philosophim

I think they just need to hang out at a philosophy forum and learn what "rule out" means. :grin:

What allows the mind to create for itself, a multitude of distinct and completely inconsistent realities at different times. How is it possible for me to believe, when I am asleep, that something is real, which is completely distinct from, and inconsistent with, what I believe is real when I am awake? Am I a completely different person when I am asleep, from when I am awake? — Metaphysician Undercover

You still need a biological body and functional brain to be able to have dream. Therefore could dreams reflect the state of your body and brain? The perceptual functions of brain might be dormant during sleep.

But some brain functions such as imagination could still be active, which triggers all sort of images and activities happening in random manner, and feeding the created information into the dormant perceptual and memory functions?

Hence dreams can be the operations of your imagination while the other parts of your brain functions are dormant.

What allows the mind to create for itself, a multitude of distinct and completely inconsistent realities at different times. — Metaphysician Undercover

The mind creates mental phenomena, not realities.

For me, the straight answer to this is that, with more restriction and more direction, this is what's happening in waking life anyway. There are those who would reject this on the basis of the difference between perceiving 'actual things' and perceiving say 'ideas' or 'memories'. I don't see as much of one there.
Perhaps the question of how this occurs, in either case, is the real question - and one that seems, hitherto, unable to even be approached reasonably by intellect.

How is this possible, that my mind can allow itself to go into a completely distinct reality (which is not reality, yet I believe it to be reality at the time)? How is it possible, — Metaphysician Undercover

The closer one gets to lucid dreaming the more pronounced this effect. I've commented before on Castaneda's Art of Dreaming, and how the process leads to an awakening into an alternate form of reality, more vivid and compelling than normal, allowing one to become pure will.

The key to accessing this experience is summoning a form of consciousness while in the hypnagogic state. Perhaps this is a portal through which one can exert some control of elements of the subconscious, for the subconscious interprets sensory input.

How is it possible, that my mind can deceive itself, by creating such a fiction, and so thoroughly deceive itself, with it's own fictional creation, that it actually believes that its own fictional creation is real? That's totally absurd. — Metaphysician Undercover

Seems all of a piece for how minds operate. (Just woke from a dream where I was in a room with some other people and we were discussing some eucalyptus saplings that had been planted on the street outside. A girl asked me what kind of ‘vegetative animal’ a tree was, to which I replied, ‘a plant’. Several people laughed. )

:up:

My view is that you are the same person when asleep or awake, but your mental abilities and cognitive processes are very much different. — Pierre-Normand

How can the two be the same person, when the things believed by the sleeping person are completely inconsistent with the things believed by the awake person.

Imagine that the nucleus of the dream is some emotion, which surrounds itself with an event to explain the emotion. — frank

I find that my dreams start out as essentially emotionless, then certain emotions are stirred. So the emotion is caused by the event, which is the dream, not vise versa. When I was young I'd have a recurring dream of falling. The fear intensified until the emotion was so intense that it would wake me up. The dreams would start emotionless, then the emotion intensified to the point of being so intense that it actually woke me.

The subconscious mind creates what the conscious mind perceives whether what is perceived by the conscious mind is a dream or a simulation of reality. — MoK

This is on the right track of where the op is pointing. But the question is, how can the subconscious so thoroughly deceive the conscious, so that the conscious doesn't even know that it's not awake when the subconscious is producing dreams. Maybe there is no conscious mind when a person is dreaming, maybe it's all subconscious, and that's why the conscious doesn't know that it's just a dream, because the consciousness is completely absent. But then where is the consciousness at this time, and how can we account for the discontinuity?

How can the two be the same person, when the things believed by the sleeping person are completely inconsistent with the things believed by the awake person. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's because your ability to track your own beliefs, and to detect inconsistencies between them, is greatly diminished when you are asleep and dreaming. Also, the set of the beliefs (or apparent perceptual experiences) that you acquire when dreaming, many of which are ephemeral and transient, aren't just inconsistent with the stable beliefs that you hold and are able to express or entertain when awake. They are internally inconsistent as well. So, if you would identify selves, or persons, with owners of sets of mutually consistent beliefs, then there would be either no person when you sleep, or as many transient persons as there are new inconsistent beliefs that occur unnoticed.

But the question is, how can the subconscious so thoroughly deceive the conscious, so that the conscious doesn't even know that it's not awake when the subconscious is producing dreams — Metaphysician Undercover

In the sort of lucid dream I described, one realizes exactly what is happening. I remember testing the state by knocking on a table while strolling by, feeling the fibers of the carpet beneath my feet.

I think the vivacity of dreams is a shifting ground of dream experiences not easily compared. The peculiarities of my own development must be a critical factor. I have a knack for imagining situations through models but have a poor memory of my chronology. I know people who can recall small details of their early life and the order in which events occurred. For me, it is all a shuffled deck of flash cards with few names attached.

With these differences in mind, it is interesting how we can refer to our dreaming as shared experience. Poetry and literature refer to the activity in ways that prompt recognition of the way it creates its own logic and physics. But it is no simple thing. The tension between the awakened and dreamt events emerges in different ways.

Rilke uses the gap to uncover what escapes perception without guidance:

As if escaping the creatures of a dream
engendered in the throes of anguish
the next day rises; so the vaulting ribs
spring from the tangled capital.

and leave that chaos of densely intertwined,
mysteriously winged creations:
their hesitance and the suddenness of the heads
and those strong leaves, whose sap

mounts like rising anger, finally spilling over
in a quick gesture that clenches
and thrusts out----: driving everything up

that always with darkness coldly
falls back again, like rain bearing worry
to keep this old growth alive. — Rilke, The Capital, translated by Edward Snow

In The Trial, by Kafka, the gap is seemingly infinite. All the particular struggles K takes on to defend himself do not reach up to a higher order of judgement where the "real" gets on. It seems to me that a lot of dreams are like that. We are dropped into a maze from which to escape but the design is changed when we start figuring some of it out.

If both sides of gap are necessary for either one to appear, then the question changes. I think of Borges in Borges and I which starts with:

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. — Borges

and ends with:

I do not know which of us has written this page. — ibid.

he perceptual functions of brain might be dormant during sleep.

But some brain functions such as imagination could still be active, — Corvus

Aren't the perceptual functions and imaginative functions pretty much the same though?

It's because your ability to track your own beliefs, and to detect inconsistencies between them, is greatly diminished when you are asleep and dreaming. — Pierre-Normand

Are you saying that when a person is asleep one cannot think rationally yet they are still thinking? I don't know if that type of brain activity, dreaming, can qualify as thinking. But then what is it?

Also, the set of the beliefs (or apparent perceptual experiences) that you acquire when dreaming, many of which are ephemeral and transient, aren't just inconsistent with the stable beliefs that you hold and are able to express or entertain when awake. They are internally inconsistent as well. So, if you would identify selves, or persons, with owners of sets of mutually consistent beliefs, then there would be either no person when you sleep, or as many transient persons as there are new inconsistent beliefs that occur unnoticed. — Pierre-Normand

OK, so then a "self" has no inherent consistency within one's mind, always drifting off into sleep where things get really confused.

What about the self-deception though? Why do things appear to be consistent and believable to the self in the dream state, when they are so far out of synch with what would be necessary for being consistent to the rational awake self? How can it do this to itself, to disconnect itself from all those rational capacities, and leave itself completely vulnerable to be so easily and completely deceived?

In the sort of lucid dream I described, one realizes exactly what is happening. I remember testing the state by knocking on a table while strolling by, feeling the fibers of the carpet beneath my feet. — jgill

But is this really a dream though? It doesn't sound like you were even asleep, if you noticed yourself strolling by a table, and you could even knock on the table to confirm that you were not asleep.

I have a knack for imagining situations through models but have a poor memory of my chronology. I know people who can recall small details of their early life and the order in which events occurred. For me, it is all a shuffled deck of flash cards with few names attached. — Paine

I guess I am sort of the opposite to you then. From a young age I would put effort into putting my memories into chronological order. It's not something that really comes naturally, reflecting on what happened and putting the memories in order, more like a skill to be developed. I believe the ambition to do that was derived from the desire to explain it to someone else. There's a similarity here, to waking up after a dream, and trying to remember what happened in the dream, to explain it to yourself. The big difference is that the order of events in the dream doesn't need to make any sense, whereas in establishing chronological order to past memories, making sense out of it all, facilitates putting them in order.

Rilke uses the gap to uncover what escapes perception without guidance: — Paine

I would assume that there is two sides to this, two directions to be looking across the gap. If perception must be guided by some kind of rationality, the rationality is also guided by perception. So for instance, when I try to order my past memories, perception gives me guidance by telling me what makes sense. However, the strangeness of my dreams indicates that perception itself must be guided in order for it to make sense.

Maybe this type of guidance is what @jgill is getting at with lucid dreaming.

But is this really a dream though? It doesn't sound like you were even asleep, if you noticed yourself strolling by a table, and you could even knock on the table to confirm that you were not asleep. — Metaphysician Undercover

Guess where I was walking? In the bedroom towards the closed door - which I walked through, like moving through a panel of smoke. I was fully conscious. (delightful experience, by the way)

How is it possible for me to believe, when I am asleep, that something is real, which is completely distinct from, and inconsistent with, what I believe is real when I am awake? — Metaphysician Undercover

A simple explanation is amnesia; ordinarily, you cannot remember your waking life when dreaming. Hence the reason why wannabe lucid dreamers habitually question whether they are dreaming during their waking lives, in the hope that their habitual questioning will continue when they are dreaming.

I think an interesting philosophical question is whether lucid dreams should be regarded as being a distinct category of dreams, or whether lucid-dreams should be considered to be an oxymoron that consists of tradeoff between awareness and dreaming, or even whether lucid dreams should be regarded as ordinary dreams in which one merely dreams that one is lucid.

As Stephen LaBerge famously established, there is at least a behavioural distinction between lucid dreamers and ordinary dreamers, in that dreamers who are lucid can communicate with the outside world during REM sleep. This is coherent with the idea that lucid dreams are a trade-off between dreamfull sleep and wakefulness. Certainly my own lucid dreams are never as creative or as believable as my non-lucid dreams, and I much prefer a creative and inspiring non-lucid dream in which I have no awareness that I am dreaming, over a boring and predictable lucid dream in which I am vigilantly aware that I am dreaming. (Doesn't the "dream AI" always suck in a lucid dream in comparison to an ordinary non lucid dream?)

However, this behavioural distinction isn't available to the dreamer himself, for the dreamer doesn't have external access to his own physical body from the outside - whether asleep or awake. So in spite of the lucid/non-lucid dream distinction having objective scientific validity, this does not in itself imply that the lucid dreaming/non-lucid dreaming distinction has subjective validity. For all that is available to the dreamer is dream content. So upon waking up from a lucid dream, one is right to ask whether their lucid dream involved actual wakefulness when dreaming, or whether their lucid dream was merely a dream of wakefulness.

This is on the right track of where the op is pointing. But the question is, how can the subconscious so thoroughly deceive the conscious, so that the conscious doesn't even know that it's not awake when the subconscious is producing dreams. — Metaphysician Undercover

The conscious mind just experiences a simulation created by the subconscious mind. It takes the experience granted to be real in the dream since it cannot analyze whether the dream represents something real or not. We can however have lucid dreams in which we are aware that what we experiencing is a dream. We can even have control over our actions in lucid dreams. I have lucid dreams from time to time.

Maybe there is no conscious mind when a person is dreaming, maybe it's all subconscious, and that's why the conscious doesn't know that it's just a dream, because the consciousness is completely absent. But then where is the consciousness at this time, and how can we account for the discontinuity? — Metaphysician Undercover

The conscious mind has very limited memory. This memory is also temporary. Anything that the conscious mind experiences therefore must be registered in the subconscious mind to recall it later. So, either the subconscious mind playing a game with the conscious mind, or the dream is a supernatural phenomenon in which we, the conscious and subconscious minds, are immersed within.

If I understand correctly, what you are saying is that lucid dreaming doesn't really solve the issue of inconsistency between dreaming and awake realities, but it removes the "distinct" aspect by blurring the boundary. When the boundary is blurred by lucidity, we can't really say whether the lucid dreamer is partly awake, or there is an awake person who is dreaming. Therefore lucid dreaming doesn't resolve the absurd self-deception I referred to in the op, it just increases the absurdity by allowing the conscious mind to take part in the self-deception.

So when says "I remember testing the state by knocking on a table while strolling by", this "test" is an act which confirms that the conscious mind has allowed itself to partake of the self-deceptive dream state. Instead of the conscious mind intentionally staying out of the deceptive dream state, because it cannot make any sense of what is going on, so it just stays out and lets the inconsistency and deception proceed in its own way, the conscious mind willfully allows itself to be drawn into the self-deception, ignoring the deceptive nature, and the absurdities involved.

The conscious mind just experiences a simulation created by the subconscious mind. It takes the experience granted to be real in the dream since it cannot analyze whether the dream represents something real or not. We can however have lucid dreams in which we are aware that what we experiencing is a dream. We can even have control over our actions in lucid dreams. I have lucid dreams from time to time. — MoK

From considering the evidence, I don't think it's possible for this to be a one way causation, of the subconscious causing, or granting, what is experienced by the conscious. As demonstrated by the randomness of dreams, the subconscious could present the conscious with almost any possible experience. However, the consciousness normally rejects the inconsistent absurd presentations, allowing them only in times of sleep. This means that in times of being awake, the conscious mind must be actively suppressing the subconscious, and exercising causal control over it, to ensure that it provides only presentations which make sense to it.

This cannot be merely a filtering of the subconscious presentations, the conscious part must be actively controlling the way that the subconscious formulates its presentations, to ensure that whatever is "granted" from the subconscious is coherent and consistent with the way that the conscious understands things. Otherwise the subconscious would be continually slipping into incoherent, and inconsistent presentations, like it does in dreaming. So this effort which the conscious part of the mind must make, in order to exercise control over what the subconscious is presenting it with, manifests as the effort of staying awake when a person gets sleepy. In general, this would be the essence of tiredness, weakening of the capacity to exercise that control.

The conscious mind has very limited memory. This memory is also temporary. Anything that the conscious mind experiences therefore must be registered in the subconscious mind to recall it later. So, either the subconscious mind playing a game with the conscious mind, or the dream is a supernatural phenomenon in which we, the conscious and subconscious minds, are immersed within. — MoK

I've heard speculations, that actually everything anyone ever experiences is put into one's memory. And, all the problems we have with memory are due to our ability to retrieve what is there in the memory. Have you ever heard of "Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory" or hyperthymesia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia

since this form of self-deception only seems to occur to this absolute degree when I am asleep. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not really true. If you take psychedelics you will be aware of the hallucinations being fake until a point you start to believe in it. It's similar to what happens when we dream.

The closest we are to define what dreams are is that the mind, in the wake state, operates on a prediction process in which every perception we have of reality around us is a construct in our brain based on it predicting the next instance of time. Through out senses our brain "ground" our experience as a form of anchor by constantly verifying our predictions with reality around us.

There are tons of psychological experiments that verify this and how easy it is to disturb our perception through manipulation of these verification sensory inputs. The famous fake-hand experiment is one such example. When our minds prediction function gets hacked by this process, it predicts pain and gets into a confused state when the hammer is slammed on the fake hand.

What happens when we dream or take psychedelics? It's basically cutting off or disrupting the sensory ability to verify predictions. Psychedelic visual hallucinations disturbs the verification process so much that the prediction process cannot get accurate verification, and so its scrambled.

It basically makes your brain trying to predict something based on the new conditions its in, and the new conditions are scrambled. This is why we soon start to believe in them, because its not our brain generating it directly, its that our verification of them tells our brain that yes, this is true.

"I can't believe what I see" is a phrase people say when they see something they have no previous experience of. The dissonance between what they see and the brain trying to predict the reality that is fed to it through sensory data. But since the sensory data is there to verify, people quickly accept the reality they witness, however unlikely it is for the brain.

So, when we sleep, the main thing that happens is that the brain shuts off the stream of sensory input that is used to verify what the brain is predicting. The only thing that's left is the internal scrambled mess of short term memory. The physical thing that happens during sleep is that the body and brain gets rid of waste products. Its a clean-up process and part of it is to flush the short term memory and fine-tune the prediction processes for the next day.

It does this because that's our evolutionary trait that we evolved into. Our ability to predict highly advanced situations in nature relies on constantly reshaping the prediction model of the world around us and it needs the brain to operate quickly in moment to moment situations. In order for it to do so, it needs to form better neural paths that prepare the brain to act on this in automatic actions. So the short term memory stores data that is used to transform the long term memory and automatic functions. It goes through these short term experiences and finding relations to long term memories in order to optimize in what way it should predict reality in the next waking state.

This is why we learn things better when we sleep better. Just "learning" during our waking state is irrelevant if we don't get a good sleep that transfers that data into a relation to the larger prediction model of reality.

So the logical reason for why we dream and why we believe the dream we have when we experience it, is because we don't have a verification process during this phase. It's only meant to find verification or correlations with long term memory so the experience we have is pure memory data consolidating itself into a new state. We believe in it, because there's no actual reality that verifies anything, only other memories. The prediction process of our brain has no grounding and so it has no other way than to accept whatever verification that exists, which is just itself a scrambled stream of memories.

This is why dreams after intensive life experiences can be extreme. Because the brains consolidation of this short term memory is so loaded with warning signs that "this emotional overload defines this experience as extremely important for survival". And the intensity of it forms such strong neural connections in the brain that it can lead to PTST, in which the smallest verification from reality (triggers) can trigger these emotional states as the brain predicts that a similar event will happen again.

We experience triggers all the time. It's the basic function of the prediction process. Everything triggers a predictive calculation of what comes next. But the emotional levels attached to these predictions is what can cause a normal mundane automatic reaction, like when we "zone out" doing something, or have an extreme PTST reaction in which we feel like we're about to die.

So extreme experiences becomes extreme dreams as the brain tries to consolidate the level of importance that this experience has for survival.

During the process, it tests the short term memory against the long term memories, testing it out. Like someone holding up a scribbled drawing comparing it to a fine drawing on the wall. If it "kinda matches" it consolidates it into a synthesis of the fine drawing on the wall with the scribbled drawing based on how emotionally important it was registered.

This process is why dream experiences often consist of a fusion between new emotional experiences and older memory, in which our experience of the dreams have this surreal mix between old memories and new experiences.

But the main thing about believing in the dreams as we experience them, is because the verification process used in the awake state, isn't "on". Or rather, it is tuned over to verify from old memories; the long term memories and deeper subconscious parts of our mind. Our new experiences in our short term memory doesn't get verification from our senses, but rather from our subconscious instead, and so we get confused as the verification process is there telling us that the feedback loop between prediction and verification works fine.

This is the closest I can get to an explanation based on what I know about neuroscience and psychology. Some of this is verified by experiments, but the overall conclusions haven't been as of yet, although the reasoning is based on the most up to date theories of the mind and sleep.

From considering the evidence, I don't think it's possible for this to be a one way causation, of the subconscious causing, or granting, what is experienced by the conscious. As demonstrated by the randomness of dreams, the subconscious could present the conscious with almost any possible experience. However, the consciousness normally rejects the inconsistent absurd presentations, allowing them only in times of sleep. This means that in times of being awake, the conscious mind must be actively suppressing the subconscious, and exercising causal control over it, to ensure that it provides only presentations which make sense to it.

This cannot be merely a filtering of the subconscious presentations, the conscious part must be actively controlling the way that the subconscious formulates its presentations, to ensure that whatever is "granted" from the subconscious is coherent and consistent with the way that the conscious understands things. Otherwise the subconscious would be continually slipping into incoherent, and inconsistent presentations, like it does in dreaming. So this effort which the conscious part of the mind must make, in order to exercise control over what the subconscious is presenting it with, manifests as the effort of staying awake when a person gets sleepy. In general, this would be the essence of tiredness, weakening of the capacity to exercise that control. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think that the conscious mind has such a causal power. I experience hallucinations all the time. I see things and hear things that other people cannot see or hear. People say that I have schizophrenia but they cannot explain the phenomenon at all. It is also well known that hallucinatory substances such as LSD and magic mushrooms cause hallucinations. People who use such substances see things differently. I had a friend who reported that he could see the motion of water in a tree when he was using LSD. So either what the conscious mind experiences is filtered in our daily life when we are in a normal state and reality looks different from what we experience or there is no way to explain the hallucinations such as the one my friend and others have when they are under the influence of LSD for example.

I've heard speculations, that actually everything anyone ever experiences is put into one's memory. — Metaphysician Undercover

You need a substance to put memory into it.

And, all the problems we have with memory are due to our ability to retrieve what is there in the memory. — Metaphysician Undercover

If that is true then the memory should be registered in a substance that is not physical because we are aware of the shortage of physical memory and problems related to memory loss due to brain damage.

Have you ever heard of "Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory" or hyperthymesia? — Metaphysician Undercover

Therefore, such a memory must be registered in another substance other than physical. Perhaps soul! Who knows?

Not really true. If you take psychedelics you will be aware of the hallucinations being fake until a point you start to believe in it. It's similar to what happens when we dream. — Christoffer

I've taken a lot of psychedelics, and I don't think it's at all similar to dreaming.

The closest we are to define what dreams are is that the mind, in the wake state, operates on a prediction process in which every perception we have of reality around us is a construct in our brain based on it predicting the next instance of time. Through out senses our brain "ground" our experience as a form of anchor by constantly verifying our predictions with reality around us. — Christoffer

I can agree that this prediction process, is an important aspect of consciousness, but I do not really agree with the verification aspect you are suggesting.

What happens when we dream or take psychedelics? It's basically cutting off or disrupting the sensory ability to verify predictions. Psychedelic visual hallucinations disturbs the verification process so much that the prediction process cannot get accurate verification, and so its scrambled. — Christoffer

I think you have this reversed, the predictions require sense perception as the basis of the prediction, what the prediction is derived from. To know what comes next requires sensing what just happened. Therefore, when sense perception is not there, in the dream, predictions simply cannot be made. This implies that what is produced in the dream state is something other than predictions.

It basically makes your brain trying to predict something based on the new conditions its in, and the new conditions are scrambled. This is why we soon start to believe in them, because its not our brain generating it directly, its that our verification of them tells our brain that yes, this is true. — Christoffer

In a dream, all of the so-called "conditions" are created by the dreaming mind. Therefore it is the brain generating the conditions directly, and the person dreaming believes them regardless of how scrambled they are. Verification is irrelevant, unless perhaps the person is lucid dreaming and has purposedly forced the desire for verification to become part of the dream.

So, when we sleep, the main thing that happens is that the brain shuts off the stream of sensory input that is used to verify what the brain is predicting. — Christoffer

You are neglecting the fact that a stream of sensory data is required to produce a prediction in the first place. And this is not available to the dreamer. Therefore the dream does not consist of predictions.

So the logical reason for why we dream and why we believe the dream we have when we experience it, is because we don't have a verification process during this phase. — Christoffer

As explained above, dreams are not predictions, and verification is irrelevant. So I think the rest of your post is derived from false premises.

I don't think that the conscious mind has such a causal power. I experience hallucinations all the time. I see things and hear things that other people cannot see or hear. — MoK

Have you ever considered that perhaps your mind might be somewhat lacking in this causal power which other people have with their minds, and this is why they say that you have schizophrenia?

People say that I have schizophrenia but they cannot explain the phenomenon at all. — MoK

Isn't what I said, 'a deficiency in that causal power', actually an explanation of the phenomenon? You do not accept that explanation, for whatever reason, but that doesn't negate it as an explanation. It just means that you do not believe it as an explanation.

If that is true then the memory should be registered in a substance that is not physical because we are aware of the shortage of physical memory and problems related to memory loss due to brain damage. — MoK

If I understand correctly, a specific memory consists of a specific pattern of neural activity. To remember something exactly as it was experienced, requires an exact recreation of that specific neural activity. Theoretically, therefore, we could remember everything experienced, by reproducing the necessary neural activity.

Therefore, such a memory must be registered in another substance other than physical. Perhaps soul! Who knows? — MoK

The issue of memory then, is not a matter of substance, but a matter of repeating neuronal activity. But this produces the further question of what it is that is performing this repetition, on demand, as remembering. Is it the soul which does this?

Have you ever considered that perhaps your mind might be somewhat lacking in this causal power which other people have with their minds, and this is why they say that you have schizophrenia? — Metaphysician Undercover

The conscious mind is very passive. Its function depends on the constant flow of information from the subconscious mind since it has very little memory. The conscious mind's main duty is to think and learn different tasks. What is learned for example a thought is then registered in the subconscious mind. I also think that the subconscious mind is intelligent since it knows what kind of information the conscious mind lacks to produce a thought. It is through this collaboration that we can think, learn different tasks, etc.

Isn't what I said, 'a deficiency in that causal power', actually an explanation of the phenomenon? You do not accept that explanation, for whatever reason, but that doesn't negate it as an explanation. It just means that you do not believe it as an explanation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I just perceive things unconditionally. My conscious mind does not have any power to even complete a sentence without collaboration with the subconscious mind. I cannot think either without the help of the subconscious mind as I illustrated above. So I don't understand which kind of causal power I have over the subconscious mind. Do you mind elaborating?

If I understand correctly, a specific memory consists of a specific pattern of neural activity. To remember something exactly as it was experienced, requires an exact recreation of that specific neural activity. Theoretically, therefore, we could remember everything experienced, by reproducing the necessary neural activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

We cannot remember everything that we experienced in the past since that information is huge. When it comes to memorizing the subconscious mind is very selective and just memorizes things that are necessary for the future. Anyhow, regarding remembering past life, I am arguing that this memory should be registered in another substance since people who report such memories do not have the same body.

The issue of memory then, is not a matter of substance, but a matter of repeating neuronal activity. But this produces the further question of what it is that is performing this repetition, on demand, as remembering. Is it the soul which does this? — Metaphysician Undercover

If we accept reporting past life as a fact then we have to accept that this memory is stored in a substance such as soul since such individuals do not own the same body.

So I don't understand which kind of causal power I have over the subconscious mind. Do you mind elaborating? — MoK

I think I explained this already. The conscious part of your mind must have the ability to cause the subconscious part to present things to it in a sensible, rational way, or else the subconscious would be doing it in a random way like when we dream. So it is the ability to think rationally, and in a more general sense the ability to stay awake, which is the conscious mind exercising causal power over the subconscious.

For instance, you say that what is learned is registered in the subconscious. Let's call this a memory, and we'll say that the subconscious has a whole lot of memories. When the conscious mind thinks in a rational way, it needs to recall memories from the subconscious which it uses in that activity. Therefore it must have causal power over the subconscious, to cause the subconscious to present these memories to it in a way which makes sense. If the conscious did not have causal power over the subconscious, the subconscious would be presenting things in a random way, like in a dream.

We cannot remember everything that we experienced in the past since that information is huge. When it comes to memorizing the subconscious mind is very selective and just memorizes things that are necessary for the future. Anyhow, regarding remembering past life, I am arguing that this memory should be registered in another substance since people who report such memories do not have the same body. — MoK

I consider "memorizing" to be an activity of the conscious mind, not the subconscious. It is a repetitive practise of recollection.