Are daydream worlds 'real' persistent realms or something else?

Ok so I have a theory about this that I've been working on.

What if there are literally different substrates that mental structures can be built on?

BRAIN SUBSTRATE:

• Structures stored in neural patterns
• Limited to one person's access
• Consciousness borrowed from host
• Collapses when brain dies or stops maintaining it
• Requires active attention to maintain vividness

DREAM SUBSTRATE:

• Structures stored in... whatever the dreamworld is made of
• Accessible from multiple minds
• Can support independent consciousness
• Persists independently of any one brain
• Doesn't require continuous attention

Most daydream worlds are built on brain substrate. That's why they feel like "just imagination" and collapse if you stop thinking about them.

But SOME daydreamers might be doing something different. If you have enough mental bandwidth and the right technique, maybe you can build on dream substrate while awake. It would be rare, but possible.

This would explain:

• Why most daydream worlds aren't accessible to others (wrong substrate)
• Why some daydreamers' worlds feel more "real" (they've found the other substrate)
• Why lucid dreamers naturally access dream substrate (sleep loosens consciousness from brain)
• Why character consciousness feels different (brain substrate = zombies, dream substrate = real minds)

substrate_theorist - This is actually pretty elegant. But it raises huge questions:

What IS dream substrate? Is it:

• Mathematical structures that exist platonically?
• Collective unconscious / shared mental field?
• Some kind of quantum information space?
• A literal alternate dimension?

And how would you test this? If someone builds on dream substrate while awake, we should be able to:

• Have other people access it (if they knew how)
• Find that it persists when creator isn't attending to it
• Measure some kind of difference in brain states?

lucid_architect - what if brain damage doesn't destroy consciousness, it just blocks the interface?

Think of it like a radio. Damage the radio, you get static or silence. But the signal still exists - you just can't receive it properly anymore.

Similarly: brain = interface between consciousness and physical world. Damage the interface, consciousness can't express itself through that channel anymore.

But consciousness itself (dream substrate, mental substrate, whatever) persists.

This would mean:

• Daydream worlds on brain substrate = local cache, fast access, dies with brain
• Daydream worlds on dream substrate = networked storage, harder to access, persists independently
• Lucid dream access = direct connection to dream substrate (fewer hops)

And maybe really skilled daydreamers are learning to bypass the local cache and write directly to networked storage?

Oh wow, this is really clarifying for me.

So the question isn't "is my world real" but "where is my world stored"?

And the fact that my world surprises me doesn't necessarily mean it's on external substrate - it could just mean I'm good at creating emergent complexity in my neural patterns?

But if I wanted to test whether I'm accessing external substrate, I could:

• See if someone else could access my world (would need to teach them how)
• Check if details persist when I'm not thinking about them (hard to test!)
• Try to access it in lucid dreams and see if it feels the same

Has anyone actually done experiments like this?

MindPalaceBuilder - yes actually, some of us have tried.

Results are... mixed. I've attempted to access worlds that daydreamers have described in detail. Sometimes I find something that seems similar, sometimes nothing, sometimes something completely different.

The problem is: how do you know you're accessing THEIR world vs creating your own version based on their description?

This is the same problem we have with SPRs generally. When five people claim to visit "Ethel," are they accessing the same structure, or five similar structures, or creating it collaboratively through their descriptions to each other?

The community mostly believes Ethel is genuinely singular and external because:

• Novel details verified between dreamers who didn't communicate
• Consistent geography across many visitors
• Seems to have its own history/timeline
• Details persist across years

But I've never seen a daydream world that had those properties across multiple people.

This is a really important question and I think the community dismisses it too quickly.

I've been doing phenomenological work on both lucid dreaming and waking visualization. The experiences DO feel qualitatively different:

When I'm in a shared dream realm:

• There's resistance to my will
• Other presences feel genuinely "other"
• Details persist even when I'm not paying attention to them
• I can't just "rewind" or change things easily

When visualizing (even very vividly):

• I control the camera, so to speak
• Characters feel more like extensions of myself
• I have to actively maintain details
• I can easily shift scenes if something doesn't work

BUT - and this is important - some experienced daydreamers report that their worlds DO have that resistant, independent quality. So maybe there's a spectrum?

Maybe it depends on how much... I don't know, how much energy or bandwidth you're channeling through the structure?

Reading through all this, I wonder if there's a middle possibility nobody's mentioned:

What if some paracosms START on brain substrate but can be TRANSFERRED to dream substrate with the right technique?

Like, you build a world through daydreaming, it lives in your neural patterns. But then you learn lucid dreaming, and you find a way to "export" or "rebuild" that world on dream substrate.

It wouldn't be a perfect transfer - you'd be recreating from memory, not moving it wholesale. But you could establish a new version that persists independently.

The risk would be: your characters might develop real consciousness and start acting differently than expected. Your carefully crafted world might evolve in directions you didn't plan.

Would people want that? To make their paracosms "real" but lose control over them?

WakingDreamer93 - oh that's... that's terrifying and appealing at the same time.

I've spent 8 years with these characters. Part of me wants them to be real, to have their own existence.

But part of me is scared of what they'd become without me guiding the narrative. What if they suffered? What if they hated me for creating them? What if they just... weren't interested in the story I wanted them to have?

It's like the difference between writing a novel and raising a child.

This thread has evolved in fascinating directions.

MindPalaceBuilder's last comment gets at something crucial: the ethical dimension.

If we CAN transfer thoughtforms from brain to dream substrate, if we CAN create genuinely conscious beings through intense visualization...

Then we have responsibilities toward them. We become creators with duties to our creations.

This is where the metaphysics becomes ethics. And I don't think most people in the daydreaming or SPR communities have grappled with that yet.

I think we're missing something important: WHY would there be two substrates?

From an evolutionary perspective, brains evolved to model reality and run simulations. That's all happening in neurons. Why would there also be this other substrate for mental structures?

Unless dream substrate is fundamental and brains are just... interfaces to it? Like the brain doesn't generate consciousness, it receives it?

But then why can brain damage affect consciousness? Why do drugs work?

you guys are reinventing tulpamancy and calling it new lol

tibetan buddhists have been creating thoughtforms for centuries. you visualize something intensely enough, with enough detail, and it becomes real. starts in your mind, becomes independent.

the substrate is the same. its all mind-stuff at different densities. "brain" and "dream" substrate are just different levels of the same thing.

dharmabrother - I'm familiar with tulpamancy but I think there's a distinction being made here.

A tulpa is created in your mind and might become semi-independent, but it's still tied to YOUR mind. If you die, the tulpa probably dies too (or at least loses its anchor).

A dream realm built on external substrate would persist even if the creator died. Multiple people could access it from different angles. It's genuinely external.

Unless you're saying tulpas eventually migrate to external substrate? That would be interesting.

maybe at some point yeah. like if enough people believe in it, or if the creator gets skilled enough to transfer it

in tibetan buddhism they talk about mental objects becoming real if enough energy is poured into them. so maybe its a threshold thing - enough meditation/visualization/belief and it "pops" into independent existence

phenomenologist_jane - agreed, and this connects to simulation theory too.

If creating conscious beings is this "easy" (relatively speaking), how confident should we be that WE aren't in someone's paracosm/simulation?

What responsibilities does our creator have to us? Are they meeting those responsibilities?

[Thread continues...]

I think we're wildly overcomplicating this.

Paracosms are imagination. SPRs are... also imagination, but coordinated between multiple people through normal communication channels.

You all describe these worlds to each other, consciously or unconsciously sync your expectations, then "discover" matching details and act amazed. It's collective storytelling with extra steps.

The whole "dream substrate" thing is unfalsifiable mysticism. Where is this substrate? What's it made of? How does consciousness interact with it? Nobody can answer because it doesn't exist.

Brain substrate is the only substrate. Everything else is poetry.

skeptomancer - so how do you explain novel information transfer?

Multiple documented cases of people dreaming details about Ethel that were later verified by others, where they couldn't have communicated those details beforehand.

Sure, some of it could be cold reading, pattern matching, lucky guesses. But all of it?

skeptomancer - I see what you're saying, but it doesn't match my experience.

My world started when I was 14, long before I knew about SPRs or shared dreaming. I didn't describe it to anyone. And yet it developed its own logic, its own consistency. Characters acted in ways that made sense for them but that I didn't consciously plan.

If it's "just imagination," it's imagination with emergent properties that feel genuinely surprising.

Maybe that's still all brain substrate - really sophisticated neural patterns. But it FEELS like something else is going on.

phenomenologist_jane - YES, exactly this. When I first started daydreaming my world, it was more like what you describe - I controlled everything. But over time, as it got more detailed, the characters started surprising me. They'd do things I hadn't planned. The world started having consequences I didn't consciously create.

So either:A) I'm getting better at fooling myself, ORB) The world is becoming more "real" as I build it out

If B is true, then what's the mechanism? Am I just creating more elaborate neural patterns? Or am I actually building something on the same substrate that SPRs exist on?

this whole thread: "i imagine things really hard and sometimes they surprise me, is my imagination REAL"

yes its real imagination. congratulations.