I’m posting this because I want to see if something that I experience happens to anyone else.
Lets begin with a brief introduction to text and the brain. Its in the left brain that text and numbers are processed. You dream with your right brain and nobody can read in a dream so says science anyway. I once had a dream where I was trying to type and it came out as nonsense, unrecognisable shapes. The only thing I can liken it to is the time I was on some trippy stuff years ago and I would notice something that wasn’t there but knew it was going to turn into something in a second. But the dream text wasn’t turning into anything. It was orange text on a black background about an inch high and there was some yellow behind it for the record.
So people use their left brain for text in Photoshop too.
But the question marks came out fine. Maybe some of you will have got it by now.
Art and spatial reasoning go on in the right brain.
There is no artist on RB that hasn’t used a question mark for something visual over the years. (If there is prove me wrong.)
What I’m on about exactly is when I’m doing a poster or something simple like this
We’ve all done something for someone we know. It happened doing this as it happens for everything else. You’re trying to pick a font and you have thousands so its a case of going through them to see how your word looks in each one. So I’m left braining it but then I try to look at it from a right brain point of view.
It can happen as soon as fifty fonts in, the image in front of me crosses over to my right brain and becomes an image and not text. Therefore the artifact loses its special “tag” as it were to make it part of language.
The effect on me is for the word to gradually lose all meaning and I can find myself thinking things like _
“Is that how you spell that?”
or
“is that really a word?”
The good news is that it always goes back to the left again. I don’t think its caused me to forget a word completely yet.
Has anyone any thoughts on this?
butchart, 3 months ago
i hear you… sometimes in my dreams i try to read words on a page.. or write words… and it disturbs me that all i see is garbledeegook…............ your premise and argument makes perfect sense…........... you are one smart yeller feller….............................b
theyellowfury in reply to butchart’s comment, 3 months ago
I thought it was important to get it out there. Thanks man.
butchart, 3 months ago
brain food is always important… so thank you…........b
Janine Peterson, 3 months ago
My annoying dream is always with numbers, ....I’m always trying to call some one and the numbers get all mixed up, I think maybe it depends on strength of each side. I can write clearly in my dreams, but numbers are always a mess. Ohh..the intrigue!:)
theyellowfury in reply to Janine Peterson’s comment, 3 months ago
You can write in dreams?
You must have extra brain.
Janine Peterson, 3 months ago
Ya think? ..........I am woman:) We all come with extra brain;)
Tokuri, 3 months ago
I’ve experienced this MANY times.
theyellowfury in reply to Tokuri’s comment, 3 months ago
Well done. You win.
Tokuri, 3 months ago
Yay! What’s my prize?
theyellowfury in reply to Tokuri’s comment, 3 months ago
Some stat pumping.
Anne van Alkemade
,
3 months ago
the left vs the right hemispheres has fascinated me for ages and I did not know this re writing recognisable language – I can’t remember ever trying. Mostly my dreams are about flying, falling, swimming (all movement) or really bad conversations. I can’t remember a single one where I have tried to write and being that I am a writer, I find that a little odd. But in my waking state, I have had days where words have not made any sense to me at all and I just can’t think how to spell anything – a right-brainer day?
Love this journal, yellow. It all makes sense to be me now.
theyellowfury in reply to Anne van Alkemade’s comment, 3 months ago
Thank you. I had a right brain day myself and drew something. Then I went for a sleep because I had a headache for want of it. Then I woke up and my mate who owns the scanner was gone to bed and its in his room and I can’t upload it. So I have more time to scan it with my right brain for possible improvements.
margpie, 3 months ago
I was thinking about this for ages, I never dream in numbers I hate the bloody things as I am rubbish at maths, I reckon if I did I would be convinced it was the lottery numbers! I often dream I am finishing a drawing or painting I am working on and the other night I spent my whole dream taking a photo but, cant remember what it was a photo of the next day! This is a really great – your writing really made me think….
theyellowfury in reply to margpie’s comment, 3 months ago
Thanks M. Race-subcomsciousness needs to know I’m onto it now.
ENaLu, 2 months ago
hey check this out, this is really an amazing story!
here
theyellowfury in reply to ENaLu’s comment, 2 months ago
That’s absolutely amazing. Now I’ll know what to do. Thanks.
ENaLu, 2 months ago
I think I cried when I first saw it! there are people I know that didn’t survive what she did SO much more poignant for me….... I thought you would get it! your very very welcome ….
theyellowfury, 2 months ago
I got a swell of emotion at the end myself. I love Ted.
SamusFairchild, 2 months ago
This may not be entirely related to your journal, but it brought it to mind so i thought I’d share…
I’ve heard, and experienced, a way to use the attempt at reading in dreams to force yourself into a lucid dream where you have, basically, complete control. You carry a note card, a piece of paper, an engraved piece of jewelry, or something of the sort, with the phrase “Am I Dreaming?” on it (or something similar, its really up to preference). Get yourself used to pulling it out at regular intervals and reading it while your awake, then checking it again a short time later to see if it says the same thing. Somehow, if you’re used to doing this while your awake, you will end up with the same tendencies in your dream. If the card reads differently the second time (or doesn’t read at all), its supposed to indicate your dreaming, then you move to the lucid dream state. Its really weird, but it works.
theyellowfury in reply to SamusFairchild’s comment, 2 months ago
Thanks. I might try that.
LetThemEatArt, 2 months ago
Mmm…some interesting points raised here. I always think of text and image working together, or in fact, text AS image. I think in doing so maybe I’m considering the shapes of the letters in a particular font, and how they relate to the rest of the image in a visual sense, rather than seeing the text purely as ‘writing’.Then, once I’ve decided on a particular font, relevant to the image, I mess around with point size and tracking/kerning to get the right look, without worrying too much about what the words say (I’ve usually made my mind up first what I’m going to put). I’m as interested in the shapes of letters as the rest of the visual elements within the image. Sometimes I find myself mentally ‘doodling’ words, whilst doing something else, like whilst watching TV. I trace the shapes of letters in my mind sort of habitually, subconsciously quite often, and I notice fonts on signs everywhere I go, like in pubs, or shops, or again on TV. As for dreams, I don’t think I’ve ever written anything in a dream, or read anything, so far as I can recall. Some people say you don’t dream in colour, but that’s bollocks, I do. As for lucid dreams, there are many ways to initiate that state by using some ‘trigger’. You can do it by deliberately leaving something undone, that you normally do before sleeping, like leave a window open, or a door ajar, or a cup unwashed, whatever. Personally, though, I don’t have lucid dreams, just O.O.B.E.s !
theyellowfury in reply to LetThemEatArt’s comment, 2 months ago
Interesting yourself. I generally have criteria for a font, I decide what I want the text to say and how to represent that best.
For example Copperplate Gothic means I’m not fucking around.
I’ve had this notion that dreams aren’t really dreams as we perceive them. When you talk about leaving something undone I’m reminded of something I’ve said in the past that unprocessed thoughts will always come up in a dream.
Say you had to pick up somebody that you don’t like at the airport on short notice, already busy and it’s an issue with you. Five minutes later you get another call saying you don’t have to after all.
In those five minutes you’ve been planning how to go about your task and thinking about the person and what to do etc. You can bet your ass that your dream that night will have something in it from that chain of thoughts.
The other thing I’ve thought of before is that dreaming is just the brain backflushing everything from the day that is still “in the pipes” on the way into your brain from the outside world in the form of sensory data.
There’s never been a scientifically measured dream longer than eight seconds. I believe the passage of time in a dream is completely irrelevant to what is actually going on and I can see a very good case for them happening in reverse time.
I wonder where dreams go when they’re dreamt. It’s data after all isn’t it?
LetThemEatArt, 2 months ago
Aha, yes, I agree that dreams are often (or mostly) data “in the pipes” as you say, the workings of the subconscious, of travels/encounters in other dimensions of reality, on other planes of existence, such as primarily the Astral Plane, and in some cases they are fleeting memories (as we are only left with the recall of the experience once awake) of visits to Higher Dimensions. The Astral is the closest Dimension to Physical 3-Dimensional (or 3rd Density) Reality, and so we recall it more readily. I have on occasion, however, been able to fully recall visits to Higher states of reality/awareness/existence. A couple of months ago I had a very unusual experience in which just at the point of awakening I was aware that I was out-of-body and in another place and time. I was viewing very ancient Egypt, at first floating and looking from above. The view was wider than normal field of vision (as I was o.o.b. and not viewing through the physical eye), I could see the landscape, which was green, lush & fertile. The climate was very different to Egypt today, temperate rather than baking hot. I could ‘taste’ the air, the freshest air I’d ever ‘breathed’. I slowly descended to ground level where I saw temples that were pristine, white, and new looking. There was a man standing slightly in front of me & slightly to my right, but I could see all around him at the same time. He wore a knee-length white sleeveless tunic, with a gold band around each upper-arm, and a white head-dress, nothing fancy or elaborate but plain & simple. He also had hairy arms, I noted, and was not dark-skinned but had a fair complexion, and his facial features appeared to be of some definite racial type, though what race I do not know! He was looking at me, and beaming with absolute joy, & had a look of complete & immense satisfaction, not proud or smug, just joyous contentment. This had a very heightened emotional effect on me, I could feel the love emanating from this man. Then the scene faded, and I awoke in bed! But this experience was unlike a dream, it felt most ‘real’, as though I was awake & there.
During such experiences, whether subconscious ‘Astral’ dreams, or genuine out-of-body journeys, we are not subject to time as time does not exist outside of 3-Dimensional Physical Reality. As to where dreams go once they are dreamt, this data is what makes up the Astral Plane, a dimension of thought, that is why it is so important to gain control over our own mind, in order not to give birth to negative thought-forms, which may have to be navigated through at a later point in our existence – hence the Book of the Dead, recited by ancient Egyptians (& Tibetans) for a certain period of time following someone’s exit from the physical. Tim Leary applied this to LSD tripping, as a means of safely navigating through the thought-forms created & encountered during an acid trip.
I didn’t intend to write so much…I’ll leave it there.