I ask because it’s considered common knowledge that you can’t but I regularly have dreams where I continue books I’m reading irl (they usually devolve into naritive nonsense over time and then sometimes to blank pages, but the actual text is definitely deciferable), text messages, computer screens, and road signs, in both lucid and regular dreams. Am I the odd man out or is it actually just something people say?
it’s considered common knowledge that you can’t
I’ve never heard that before. What I have heard several times is that text is not static, so if you read something, look away, and then read it again, it’ll say something different. That I can corroborate, along with the idea that this is how you realize you’re in a dream and induce lucid dreaming.
Yep that’s it for me
It’s also hard to tell if I can “read” something, or if I look at an object and just know what it says. Same with mirrors, supposedly you can’t see your reflection in a dream but I might look at one and ‘know’ that I see myself
No. Everything just looks like complete nonsense.
A good way to tell if you are in a dream is to look at your hands. For some reason, your brain while dreaming is a lot like a diffusion model in that it’s hard for it to comprehend what a hand looks like.
I once tried to read a license plate and couldnt read it multiple times until the car was gone.
Normally this is a good Lucid Dreaming trigger.
One of the few times I’ve been able to do it was when saw a billboard (ordinary) and remembered “Hey written text is supposed to be nonsense in dreams, I wonder if I can take control?” and it worked!
Nice. I am way too unconscious for that.
I think the key is to be aware and undistracted while awake, as its way harder when sleeping
I’ve seen billboards, street signs, addresses written on curbs, numbers on apartment doors. Once was in a city reading a chalkboard menu for Mexican food, amazed at prices, wondering if I could speak Spanish well enough to ask questions.
Reading is never main focus though. More vaguely in background.
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.
you can read in dreams but there’s no “continuity” of what you’ve read – within the dreamscape, you think (or you tell yourself) you’re continuing to read a book you’ve read in real life
this lack of “continuity” is one of the main tricks of lucid dreaming – read something twice (ex. time on a digital watch (not an analog watch)) – if the content changes, you’re dreaming – the secret of lucid dreaming is if that change triggers enough frisson for you to “wake up” inside the dream without kicking you out of the dream completely
