I’ve had dreams about reading and posting to the SDMB. I suspect that only the words that I was reading at the time were clear, but then that’s true of everything in a dream. You can’t go around looking at every detail in a dream because they would be just blurs, but (in my case, anyway) that’s not really useful as a way of telling if you’re in a dream. It just doesn’t occur to me to check the details.
Another interesting thing happens if I’m lying on the couch reading and drifting in and out of sleep. I will read a short passage and then find myself making up a short passage not in the book. Then I will find myself suddenly snapping awake again and rereading the passage to find the part that I imagined.
:: snort :: I dreamed I was reading the FAQs on J. K. Rowling’s web site once. The questions were perfectly reasonable; what tipped me off that I was dreaming was that the answers were bizarre. The only example I can remember was along the lines of: Q: What was the hardest thing Sirius Black ever had to do? A: Make a chocolate souffle. (Well, gee, I’ve never tried to make a chocolate souffle myself, but if it’s harder than doing twelve years in Azkaban and learning how to turn into a dog, I don’t think I ever shall. )
While reading this thread I was thinking I’d never had a dream before in which I’ve had text to read, but upon reading Johnny’s post, I definitely remember dreams about me mudding :(. And though I remember the idea that the text of something should change when you look away from it in a dream, I don’t know that that happened in my dreams about mudding.
I had a dream where I was reading a book once. It was a really AWESOME book! I was so into it, it was the perfect book ever, I was getting the most amazing visuals from the words and I just could not put it down.
Then I woke up. Dammit! But I had a vague memory of the name of the author so I went to the library to look it up. Nothing. I looked for it on the internet and, lo and behold, there it was! So I went back to the library and got it on inter-library loan.
I took the book home and started reading it. And damn, it was the best book I had ever read! The characters, the plot, the adventure! It was perfect!
Then I woke up for real. It had all been a dream. I was so pissed.
I’ve had a lot of experience with this, as I’ve asked myself the same question and then, fortuitously, investigated the phenomenon immediately thereafter in a dream.
I’ve experienced a lot of what people here have: jumbled, unreadable words; phone numbers that can’t be looked at more than once, etc.
But I’ve also gone lucid in dreams where I’ve tried to read. I’ve gotten whole sentences that stuck to the page for a few seconds. I’ve gotten weird, shifting symbols. I have gotten some text that was amazingly crisp and clear, but not long-lasting.
One interesting thing I read: People under hypnosis can be asked to do a lot of things, but thing that doesn’t work is asking them to pick up an imaginary book and read. They just go blank, undoubtedly for reasons similar to why reading in dreams doesn’t really work.
I think the “can’t read in dreams” phenomenon can be useful for testing the validity of NDEs and OBEs. As it turns out, an NDE research I had asked said he had asked about reading on a questionnaire and a high percentage of NDErs said that they could read. But much more research is called for, I think. Obviously, people would have to be believed or not believed, but if people say that they can read clear, solid, unwavering text in their OBEs/NDEs, that would be a big piece of evidence that these experiences are in some way different from dreams.
Of course you can’t, because your eyes are closed!
But seriously, I get the thing where words change when you look away. It’s not generally a restatement, though, like amarinth’s “Sale” and “50% off”. More often, it’s a continuation of the same thread of thought, or silly sentences (with proper spelling and grammar, but absurd meanings). I have, on occasion, used this (both while asleep and awake) as a test of whether I’m dreaming (just confirmed, by the way, and I’m currently awake).
That’s all for things like signs and labels, though. Often, when I’m reading a book in bed, and sometimes even when I’m not, I’ll continue the book while asleep. The plot generally goes off in some completely screwey direction, and often incorporates elements from other books. Of course, since it’s a dream, I tend to shift back and forth between reading the book and experiencing it (being “in” the book). A couple of times the dream continuation was actually better than the real course of the book (I think this mostly happened with Piers Anthony).
I’ve had the same experience Raz had. I’ve dreamt that I’m reading a book, and it’s really awesome - incredible plot, well-written, and so forth, and then I wake up. I’m always terribly disappointed that I won’t find out the ending.
It’s strange, usually I’m aware that it’s me making up the story as I go along, but I’m not really consciously thinking about it, so finding out what I make up next is interesting. But when I wake up, even though I still remember the story and what might happen next, it’s not interesting to keep thinking about it because it’s no longer a surprise.
Also, when this happens, usually the entire contents of my dream are just pages floating in space in front of me, on a black background.
A long time ago in Omni magazione they had an article that taught people how to control their dreams. The first “trick” is to realize while dreaming that you are in fact dreaming. After that you can exert some control over the dream and have more fun (like fly for instance).
The way they said to have the realization you are dreaming is to get in the habit of randomly reading something during your normal day, look away for 10 seconds or so and read what you just read again. In theory this habit should carry over to your dream and you will do the same thing. The difference here however is that in a dream you will not read the same thing twice (there’ll be different words there). This should then prompt you to realize you are dreaming and get on with flying in your dream (or whatever).
I remember reading books about royalty, sex, and Chinese characterrs in my dreams. Can’t say whether the text changes every time I look at the page, however.
I have that thing where I can’t read the same thing the same way twice in a dream. It will be something different. Or page numbers won’t be in the correct order, so I can’t find the page number I’m looking for.
I dreamed of standing in total blackness. Then a hand reached upward from beneath my feet and handed me a folded white note. I opened it and could read the word written on it. It said: SUBCONSCIOUS.
(I had actually gone to sleep concentrating on asking for a message from my subconscious, but I think my dream came closer to daybreak. So much for that bright idea.)
I’ve tried to grade students’ essays in my sleep, but they didn’t make sense. I hate such realistic dreams.
Last night I dreamed I was using a gasoline pump labeled with the Chinese character for “pour” but it actually was a character that doesn’t exist. And I have no idea if Chinese or Japanese gas pumps are even labeled with the “pour” character. (IANA native speaker, if anyone can prove me wrong, the nonexistent character was “water” + “speak”).
Another time I dreamed I was enjoying a cup of tea and I was trying to read the label on the tin, but it read “Wame Woo.” Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to be… makes no sense in any language that I know.
I seem to remember that if the dream is about reading, I can read. But if my brain throws out a scenario where reading just “happens” to come up, gibberish comes out. I suppose the tiny fiction writer in my head needs ample warning to come up with good copy.
I’m still waiting for my Concert to kick in, so I don’t know if this has been mentioned—since I can’t actually read any posts right now but only pick up a few lines here & there—but I’ll offer the following:
When lucid dreaming became all the rage, I recall one reference asserting that one can tell if one is dreaming by attempting to read the same thing twice. If the text is not the same both times through, then one is indeed dreaming. Perhaps the Straight Dope on this question will be under a search for “lucid dreaming.”
I once had a dream where I found a person who had gone missing and was the subject of a nationwide search, and then woke up. Apart from the fact that on my phone was a text from them saying they needed help. I then spent a frantic half hour trying to decide if I was awake and should let someone know or asleep and trying to get out of the dream.
Yes. I had a dream that I was at work nekkid. I saw a poster on the wall and thought “The Straight Dope says you can’t read in dreams. If I can read this, I’m not dreaming.” The poster had the words to “Forbidden Hollywood’s” verson of Evita’s “Buenos Aires.” So I figured I was at work nekkid.
I have been able to read in dreams although there are occassions when I am trying to read and it’s as though my eyes won’t focus on the words or a thin veil is covering the words so that I can see that there are words but I cannot make out what they are.
One “reading” dream that has stuck with me was when I was in high school. I had been studying all evening for a geometry exam (IRL) I was having difficulty in the class and had been tutored but was stuck on a series of proofs that I could not, for the life of me, get right. I went to bed and began dreaming of the text book and of the proofs that were giving me fits. I ended up dreaming I was working on the proofs. I woke up realizing I had figured out the problems and much to my dismay, I received an “A” on the exam. Too bad I didn’t have those dreams before every geometry exam.
Crap! For the second time in three days (including naps) I just woke up from a dream in which I really believed I had already woken up and was going about my life. I could read just fine, even could read the same thing twice!, which I actually remembered in my dream from the SDMB. THis is one key reason I actually believed I was awake. I only woke up both times when things got really (REALLY) weird all of a sudden and I thought: Fuck! I’m dreaming! And then I woke up. What a mindjob.
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