Title says it all I guess. I remember hearing as a child that a person is unable to read while in a dream, some flimflam about different sides of the brain. I regularly have dreams in which I can read something. Am I crazy, or is this BS? Both?
I don’t know, but there was an episode of the old Batman Animated series where he is dreaming and this is how he figures it out. He can’t read any books.
Well, seeing as how I just had a dream the other night in which I was reading a letter a guy I liked had sent me, I don’t think this is true. I could just be an oddball, though (ya think?).
i can’t remember ever having a dream where i SAW the words i was reading… heck, for that matter, i’m not sure i’ve ever read anything in a dream… but definately, i’ve never had a dream, where I mentally recongized any particular words.
I remember that episode. It made no sense to me at the time, as I thought I could read while dreaming.
However, another Doper (I can’t recall who or in what thread) pointed out that even if you get actual words, those words tend to be grouped in ways which make no sense, and any text changes whenever your attention is focused on something else.
I also remember this episode. I just figured I’d be mocked mercilessly if I mentioned it.
Dunno about most people, but I read in dreams all the time. Usually, the words make perfect sense (grammatically, that is – the meaning can be rather odd). In fact, the only time I remember them not making sense, I was reading in Spanish, which I’d only studied for about a year at the time.
When I was learning Greek I kept dreaming that I was reading perfectly in Greek and then I’d realize it was still the English alphabet and that’s why it was so easy. I would think, “woo this is so easy I’m readin’ Greek!” and then feel let down when I’d realize it was English.
IME, if reading is necessary for the “plot” of the dream, then I can read just fine. But if it’s not central to the dream, I can make out words just fine–but they’re just random words, and not structured into coherent sentences. (It might be something like “and but giraffe however plant a though paper not”–a string of valid words, but meaningless when put together.)
I can read while I dream - I just can’t read the exact same thing twice…
So the first time I read the sign it will say “Sale Today!” then I’ll look back at it and read “50% off everything!” or “Bargains!” It is always the same idea, just not the exact wording.
I once had a dream where I had to read someone’s phone number off of a piece of paper and dial it. And every time I punched in a few numbers and looked back down, the numbers changed. It was horrible and frustrating and turned what had been a perfectly nice dream into a nightmare because I couldn’t use the phone.
I also saw the Batman Episode
I know that I can read in dreams, and have sentences that make sense. I’ve done it for books that I’m reading IRL, and everything makes sense… except for what’s actually happening. Things that wouldn’t happen in the book. Like “Harry then told Ron ‘Shut the fuck up! Can’t you see that I am trying to cast a spell here?’ Harry then stabbed Ron in the eye, and Hermione laughed.
‘Ron, you suck.’”
This is just an example. I wish I could remember some specific things that I’ve read before.
I’ve had dreams that would allow me to ‘save the world’ – find a cure for cancer, bring peace to the Middle East, that sor of stuff. Or dreams that will bring me great wealth. All I have to do is follow some written instructions. As soon as I start to read, or after the first line or so, I become dyslexic. The harder I try to read, the more jumbled the words become until they are swimming around on the page. I get so frustrated that I wake up.
My reading experiences in dreams have been pretty strange, to say the least. Whenever I read a book in a dream, the words on the page are always some incomprehensible mish-mash of random letters jumbled up in what appear to be words. I usually then try to read it out loud in order to understand it, but to no avail. However, if I’m reading a sign on the wall or something, it makes perfect sense (in terms of actual words, anyway. My dreams never make sense 
). What’s weird is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve pretty much stopped having dreams where I’m reading from the Book of Nonsense. More of my dreams now have the readeable signs in them.
Thats what happened to Batman! Dude! Wake up! You’re being kept in suspended animation in a lab by some criminal genius!
I have very vivid intense dreams. I have even had a very real dream in which I
“Woke up” from a bad dream and went about my day. My “day” abruptly ended
when my alarm went off right in the middle of the lunch rush and found I was still
at home in bed. It was 6 a.m. I have had other lucid dreams where I have tried to read something and could not. This is usually the tip-off that I am dreaming.
Other times I can read something at first but on closer inspection it makes no sense. I like to think of this as “gif vs. text”. Imagine a txt. file of the preamble of the constitution. You can read it and your computer can parse it. Now imagine a gif or bmp of the preamble. You can read it but your computer can’t parse it. In a dream it is like a gif. You can read the preamble because you know it is the preamble. Before a dream becomes lucid you are following a kind of script. The script calls for you to read “WE the People…” and you read “WE the People…” . When a dream becomes lucid and you examine the document you might know it is supposed to be "WE the People…"but your brain can’t “parse” it.
I hate those dreams where I just go about my day as normal. Like when you go to work, everything’s as it should be… and then you wake up. Then you have to go back to work. I always feel shafted for not getting paid in my dreams.
I can read while dreaming.
And I remember the Batman episode too.
I’ve been able to read entire sentences, understand them, and go back to the beginning to read them again. They didn’t change.
I remember this pretty vividly, because I saw that same Batman episode, and thought it was impossible.
Just last night I was having a back at school dream. The teacher gave me a piece of scruffy paper and asked me to “find the numbers” on it. Well I could find numbers but never the same ones twice nor make sense of the accompanying text. The two sleek girls I was meant to be working with were having no trouble at all with their bits of paper of course, which meant I was going to fail all my exams. I woke up just as I decided to go back to the teacher and scream at her that “it was all gibberish”. I think the effort of remembering a word like gibberish was what woke me . Oh and by the way, I’m nearly 48 and would like to know when I can stop dreaming about school.
I’ve had entire dreams in text.
Comes from MUDing too much.