# Written words in dreams **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 24, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243 "2012-07-24T15:06:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/21 "2012-07-25T03:41:34Z")
I really don’t think this has anything to do with how much you read, and am unsure of why that’s even coming up. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/22 "2012-07-25T03:50:13Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I really don’t think this has anything to do with how much you read, and am unsure of why that’s even coming up. I mentioned it because it came up a few times before me. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/23 "2012-07-25T04:01:21Z")
I wasn’t talking to just you. I am just confused by why the theme of this thread seems to be “Well I read a lot, and…” Yeah, so? What does that have to do with it? Unless it does have something to do with it, in which case I stand corrected, but it seems to be just one of those things. For some people, reading in dreams doesn’t work out. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/24 "2012-07-25T04:20:05Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I wasn’t talking to just you. I am just confused by why the theme of this thread seems to be “Well I read a lot, and…” Yeah, so? What does that have to do with it? Unless it does have something to do with it, in which case I stand corrected, but it seems to be just one of those things. For some people, reading in dreams doesn’t work out. Oh, I know. Perhaps people just think any additional information might be helpful. If there were any causal relationship to reading, I would expect it to be with the age at which one learned to read, rather than current reading habits. But my grasp of neurophysiology is outdated and I suspect very inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![Jilaad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jilaad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jilaad)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/25 "2012-07-25T04:39:32Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I’ve heard this too, and you wanna know where from? I was watching “Batman: The Animated Series”\* a long time ago, and at some point Batman realizes the bad guy was lying because he mentioned a sign he’d read in his dream. This, according to Batman, was impossible because the part of your brain that allows you to read isn’t active while you dream. I thought surely that cannot be true. I’ve read before in my dreams, right? Right? Well I can’t say if I had at the time, but I certainly have since. That bothered me so much (and it had to have been a good 20 years ago, so I should let this go) that I’ve explicitly remembered every time I’ve read in a dream since. OH MY GOD this is exactly what I was going to post. I went to play at a friend’s house and caught the very end of the episode. The cartoon presented this factoid as a Real Life Educational Tidbit, where they’ll try to slip something educational into the plot of a show so kids will learn without knowing they’re learning or something. It immediately struck me as bullshitty, because I was positive I’d read things in dreams before. But you could tell it was totally a Real Life Educational Tidbit, and shows never get those wrong, so it made me doubt myself. Every time I catch myself in a dream, even to this day 20ish years later, I will STILL check if I can read thing. I have know idea why that stupid “fact” seared itself in my mind. As far as what happens when I read in dreams, I can do it but it’s not always stable. It doesn’t degenerate into gobbledygook like in the OP. Nothing changes while I’m paying attention to it, but if I look away and look back then it will probably have changed to something different but with a similar meaning. So the gist of the text stays the same even though the words used have changed. Amusingly, this happens if I’m reading say a page in a book and go back to the start of the page when I get to the end. I guess the text near the top of the page gets out of focus enough for my brain to “reboot” it. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/26 "2012-07-25T04:50:43Z")
^^ Ha ha, YES! I love this post so much! I want to hold its hand and spoon it at night. I have no idea why this ridiculous bit of nonsense presented as fact in a cartoon has irritated me all these years either. It’s just one of those things that should be innocuous but bores into your brain. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/27 "2012-07-25T05:15:43Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > I’ve heard the part of the brain responsible for written language isn’t active during dreams, so it’s very hard to actually make out lengthy prose. Hm. A few months ago I had a dream about a quadratic equation, and I could make it out very clearly. Someone in the dream was more or less blackmailing me, because she claimed that this particular quadratic equation would describe ALL MY FAULTS, and she was threatening to reveal it to everyone. However, she wouldn’t say what those faults were. Upon waking I wrote the equation down, and even graphed it, but it was just a regular curve. Nothing scary; no skeletons in closets. Nada. It was kind of disappointing, actually. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/28 "2012-07-25T07:03:11Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I’ve heard this too, and you wanna know where from? I was watching “Batman: The Animated Series”\* a long time ago, and at some point Batman realizes the bad guy was lying because he mentioned a sign he’d read in his dream. This, according to Batman, was impossible because the part of your brain that allows you to read isn’t active while you dream. I thought surely that cannot be true. I’ve read before in my dreams, right? Right? Well I can’t say if I had at the time, but I certainly have since. That bothered me so much (and it had to have been a good 20 years ago, so I should let this go) that I’ve explicitly remembered every time I’ve read in a dream since. LOL, I remember that episode too. I loved B:TAS, but I always felt that episode was bullshit, because yes, I regularly encounter writing and text in dreams, and I can always “read” (understand?) it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8797f3/32.png) [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Universe_Lashes_Out)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/29 "2012-07-25T07:27:38Z")
Ctrl+F “batman” I actually get proud of myself when I do read something in a dream. Haha, stupid Batman. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/30 "2012-07-25T15:06:59Z")
Oh, excellent! I absolutely love that more than one person was thinking what I was. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/31 "2012-07-25T19:00:43Z")
Now I feel all inadequate an stuff. ::: sigh ::: ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/32 "2012-07-25T19:56:52Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I’ve heard this too, and you wanna know where from? I was watching “Batman: The Animated Series”\* a long time ago, and at some point Batman realizes the bad guy was lying because he mentioned a sign he’d read in his dream. This, according to Batman, was impossible because the part of your brain that allows you to read isn’t active while you dream. I thought surely that cannot be true. I’ve read before in my dreams, right? Right? Well I can’t say if I had at the time, but I certainly have since. That bothered me so much (and it had to have been a good 20 years ago, so I should let this go) that I’ve explicitly remembered every time I’ve read in a dream since. This information is true but somewhat mangled. You _can_ read it once. But if you try to go back and reread the same paragraph; you will not get the same result. For some folks, the second attempt the words are there, they’re just not telling the same story as the first time. For other folks, they recognize the letters but it basically just looks like a big pile of alphabet soup. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/33 "2012-07-25T20:36:26Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I don’t recall ever seeing a letter or number, let alone a word, in my dreams. Seems you and I suffer from the same affliction. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/34 "2012-07-25T20:59:20Z")
When I try to read a book or something, I get all frustrated because the words are all blurry and I can’t make them out. I have plenty of visual I’m-reading-a-book dreams, where I see what is happening and maybe act out the parts, but it doesn’t work for words. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/35 "2012-07-25T22:00:37Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > I wasn’t talking to just you. I am just confused by why the theme of this thread seems to be “Well I read a lot, and…” Yeah, so? What does that have to do with it? Unless it does have something to do with it, in which case I stand corrected, but it seems to be just one of those things. For some people, reading in dreams doesn’t work out. I was more-or-less addressing the idea that dyslexia had anything to do with this - i.e. I read just fine in real life, but can’t read in dreams. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/36 "2012-07-26T01:57:21Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Hm. A few months ago I had a dream about a quadratic equation, and I could make it out very clearly… > Upon waking I wrote the equation down, and even graphed it, but it was just a regular curve. Nothing scary; no skeletons in closets. Nada. It was kind of disappointing, actually. I wonder if different parts of the brain process symbols in different contexts? But, that you not only remembered, but graphed the equation? That in itself is a bit scary. Cool, but scary. > [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I was more-or-less addressing the idea that dyslexia had anything to do with this - i.e. I read just fine in real life, but can’t read in dreams. Well, adept readers typically do not read each word; they recognize a word as a whole symbol. Just as a runner does not think of each muscle flexion, the reader does not “see” each letter. So, a person who reads less, learned to read when their neurons were less plastic, or who must focus heavily on the letters because of dyslexia, MAY have the alphabet in a more accessible part of the brain. (Or, I could be talking out of my hat.) I wonder how this pattern plays out among people whose first language is written in “ideograms”? (That’s not the right word, I know.) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/37 "2012-07-27T01:15:08Z")
> [@j666](#): > > \ > Well, adept readers typically do not read each word; they recognize a word as a whole symbol. Just as a runner does not think of each muscle flexion, the reader does not “see” each letter. > > So, a person who reads less, learned to read when their neurons were less plastic, or who must focus heavily on the letters because of dyslexia, MAY have the alphabet in a more accessible part of the brain. (Or, I could be talking out of my hat.)\ Interesting idea. I didn’t realize that adept readers saw words as a whole symbol. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/38 "2012-07-27T01:39:40Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > This information is true but somewhat mangled. > > You _can_ read it once. But if you try to go back and reread the same paragraph; you will not get the same result. > > For some folks, the second attempt the words are there, they’re just not telling the same story as the first time. > > For other folks, they recognize the letters but it basically just looks like a big pile of alphabet soup. Source please? 😉 I regularly read text in my dreams. Sometimes it does shift when I re-read, but not always. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/39 "2012-07-27T04:28:31Z")
I would like to add that every time the subject of reading in dreams comes up I also always think of that Batman cartoon episode. I only remember the one scene where he opens a book and instead of normal text he sees a jumble of letters randomly scattered around each page. I’ve read in dreams before, but usually it turns into something different each time I look. I have had online conversations in dreams before, which would require reading I guess, but I wonder if I’m really reading or if I just think I am? It’s hard to tell, in dreams. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243/40 "2012-07-27T05:05:38Z")
Awesome sauce. So what do numbers count for? I just had a dream in which I needed to dial 911 on a touchtone phone repeatedly. The numbers didn’t get garbled up when I reached for the phone the second, third or fourth time. I had to keep redialing because I was getting a busy signal, and on my fourth try, it went to voicemail. 911, btw, uses Audix. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/written-words-in-dreams/629243.md?page=3)