Can you dream in a language you don't know?

Originally Posted by LDG

I wonder if there are different "degrees" of dyslexia? Because Gary doesn't really seem to be affected much by it other than of course the word forensic, and we do have the problem with left and right, and when on the Internet together, we have the problem with him saying "go up" when he means for me to scroll down and vice versa.

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I am sure there are people who are only mildly dyslexic and others who are far more affected.
I am really good at pronouncing words and although I learned English when I was 12 years old I have no accent- well I have an American accent- what you would hear on CNN or other national news channel though nothing regional. Some of my friends learned English far younger and they still have a heavy eastern european accent...I am not sure what part of the brain controls the sounds and how well you can make out what you hear but it is indeed very fascinating. For me though, languages are definitely what I'm best at- but I don't consider math my strongest subject at all even though I am at georgia tech and did well (got and A and B) in my calculus classes- which for here is considered a big deal because you come from high school and go straight into calculus unlike at the more liberal arts oriented schools, and there is no class on linear algebra- you just learn it during the first few weeks of multivariable calculus. I enjoyed calculus and higher level math but I am terrible at algebra and geometry and the more basic math...I enjoy learning facts and something I can read and then recall in my memory far more than any mathy stuff though!! And I'm good at languages so if you ask me that theory about language and math being closely related doesn't apply to me..

A lot of times I feel like the way your brain is wired is not all just genetics it depends on what you first began learning as a kid. Like, I didn't go to kindergarten because I had a bad experience- my teacher threatened to put me in a basement ...soo yea my parents complained and nothing happened so they took me out of kindergarden. So the only learning I've had before first grade was when my mom read to me, and she did that a lot cuz she was not busy, it got to the point where I couldn't really read but I memorized what's on each page of the books. And I couldn't read until I was 7 years old. But I always had trouble with school at that early age because all of the kids had gone to kindergarden and of course the dyslexia..I feel like that sort of affected what I'm most comfortable learning though, specifically being most comfortable with learning facts and listening and understanding and remembering information...

Originally Posted by ut0pia

A lot of times I feel like the way your brain is wired is not all just genetics it depends on what you first began learning as a kid. Like, I didn't go to kindergarten because I had a bad experience- my teacher threatened to put me in a basement ...soo yea my parents complained and nothing happened so they took me out of kindergarden.

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That's terrible! What is it with crazy kindergarten teachers? DH's would hit and kick him, and mine did a lot of verbal bullying towards me - other kids she would hit, or make them stick out their tongues so she could slap their jaw shut on it (punishment for talking).

I didn't start kindergarten till I was 7, too. That had to due with behavior towards others (not interacting), not wanting to do things exactly as the teacher said - I would offer multiple possibilities on how to do an activity, and just general social skills.
Probably why she bullied me so much when I did have her.

I taught myself to read, and some basic addition and subtraction before kindergarten. By the time I was seven I was already doing things like sewing, painting, various crafts and such. I was ok until math started involving multiple steps. So I'm not sure how being or not being taught by anyone to do a lot of stuff would have any affect on my issues with math.

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To sort of bring it back on topic ( ) -
Supposedly people are not supposed to be able to read in dreams. the opposite side of the brain being responsible for dreaming than is for reading is cited, but reading ability is more spread out than that with specific parts of the brain being more responsible for specific functions in reading. Varies slightly per individual how much and how well the "wiring" is.
So it is very much false, and people can dream text - but supposedly the brain does random recall and just fills the space with whatever, that the part of your brain that handles specific letters and letter forms isn't active and that it changes during the dream?

Has anyone seen text in their dream? Read it? Could you tell what language it was in? Did your's change if you looked away from it in the dream and looked back?

I've dream read a lot of stuff. I don't recall the text changing at all in my dreams, and can even recall the sort of fonts used. A lot of text tends to be odd phrases though, suggesting this or that or just stuff like signs. Pretty sure it's usually English, though I have seen kanji in my dreams. But the interesting part is that often when I read something and actually think in the dream "hey, I'm reading this" I wake up (hence why am awake right now )
I was dreaming I was in a music shop looking through everything, and upon more closely inspecting a record I read it and thought "that's in the wrong spot! and I just read that".

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Has anyone seen text in their dream? Read it? Could you tell what language it was in? Did your's change if you looked away from it in the dream and looked back?

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I have received several postcards and letters in my dreams and been able to read them. Sometimes the font/handwriting does change when I look to somewhere else and then look back at the text, but the actual 'message' doesn't change. Usually these texts are from someone who I haven't seen in a looooong time and I've been wondering how they are doing, and sometimes I don't know who the 'sender' is.

I've also had dreams in other languages besides Finnish. The weirdest was propably a Japanese dream with Spanish subtitles... Some dreams have been total gibberish but I was speaking that language myself in the dreams too, so I did understand it even though it wasn't even a real language.

A subtitled dream?! I think that's a new one!

"total gibberish" reminded me of an incident a few years ago. Some friends and I have always hung out in a chatroom in some form or another (server and client wise). A Hungarian friend and a Finnish friend were goofing around and seeing how much of each other's languages they could understand. Another person, who was German, came in during the middle of this and said something like "oO You guys are speaking alien, again" and then left.

I used to be heavily into collecting and trading certain Japanese files online years ago (tv stuff from 80s and 90s mostly). I started having dreams that I was at my computer watching the trades and messaging the people - in Japanese.

Originally Posted by strange_wings

That's terrible! What is it with crazy kindergarten teachers? DH's would hit and kick him, and mine did a lot of verbal bullying towards me - other kids she would hit, or make them stick out their tongues so she could slap their jaw shut on it (punishment for talking).

I didn't start kindergarten till I was 7, too. That had to due with behavior towards others (not interacting), not wanting to do things exactly as the teacher said - I would offer multiple possibilities on how to do an activity, and just general social skills.
Probably why she bullied me so much when I did have her.

I taught myself to read, and some basic addition and subtraction before kindergarten. By the time I was seven I was already doing things like sewing, painting, various crafts and such. I was ok until math started involving multiple steps. So I'm not sure how being or not being taught by anyone to do a lot of stuff would have any affect on my issues with math.

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Well have you heard of "feral" children, where they can't learn to even speak and don't even possess the most basic intelligence?? I honestly think it's all about how you're socialized and the way your brain is wired doesn't make the majority of the difference. And I think sometimes we dont' really realize how much one thing has influenced our mental growth. I am extremely introspective, I literally sit down and think about why I do this and that, what sort of experiences have made me the way I am and whether my behavior is sometimes compensating for something that's lacking emotionally or if I have certain complexes, etc..this is stuff that is constantly occupying my mind especially since I've had a lot of issues and spent a great deal of time in therapy with a psychiatrist, but it's also just because it's how I am.
I'm rambling soooo much but I guess I was just trying to say that I don't think most people find connections between past experiences and present behaviors and abilities as much as I do because I'm just weird like that..
regarding the original topic and your question: I've seen text in my dreams but I've never been able to read it and when others speak in my dreams it is always gibberish but somehow I know what they are saying. It almost feels like when I'm dreaming I am clairvoyant, I need no language at all.. I dunno if it is just me but it must be because other people mention they talk in their dreams...

Hmmm that is interesting! lol Yah I think it has something to do with what you have learned in the past, what you are expsoed to. There are parts of the brain that we dont use and it could be possible that when you are asleep you could be using them? It is amazing what people dream about, I dont know how many dreams I have had that I seriously thought happened in real life....it was that real!

A subtitled dream? That is wild!

That is REALLY interesting about reading in dreams! Reading and writing are SO much a part of my life - and yet I honestly don't remember reading in dreams. Nothing jumps out in my memory about this at all. I'm gonna have to pay attention to that now!

^You don't see signs or anything really basic in your dreams?

JuneBug - lots of parts of the brain is active when we sleep. It's not really understood why we even need to sleep, yet, but one thing it aids in is learning. Recent events are replayed until we learn whatever we were supposed to learn. Which probably explains work dreams...

Maybe dreaming in another language is our subconscious' way of trying to make us learn another language?

Originally Posted by ut0pia

Well have you heard of "feral" children, where they can't learn to even speak and don't even possess the most basic intelligence??

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Sure, but that is because they weren't spoken to or interacted with from a very young age. As a normal brain develops it must be stimulated in order for the right neuron paths to grow. What isn't used, is done away with at various developmental stages. And the children do have basic intelligence, but some skills are much harder for them to learn. Just because someone can't speak, or speak well, doesn't mean they're completely lacking intelligence.
This is very very different from learning disabilities and developmental disorders. In people with these the changes in the brain are either already set before birth or later caused by a brain injury. It was a very very poor theory for a while that parents being cold/emotionally neglectful caused disorders like autism. Unfortunately that theory caught on and some still believe environment causes these even today.

Basically, what I'm saying is that you were born dyslexic. It's just the way you are (nothing wrong with it, either!). Your parents gave you the genes that help bring it about, but they didn't directly cause it and neither did you by any behavior.
My parents didn't cause or participate in my hyperlexia - they barely read. Though my uncle, who shared many of the same traits I have, did make sure I had books. I have no memory of any family members reading to me, so I suspect they stopped doing so by the time I was three.

Oh, I wasn't saying that disorders are influenced by socialization. I just meant that people who are good at certain things such as people who are good at math or who are very visual and certain patterns of learning are more easily comprehended by certain people- that is what I think is influenced by socialization. Like, I'm sure if I was born with the same brain but played different games in childhood or had people teach me different things, I might be very good with math and have very bad verbal skills when in fact right now the opposite is true..
Like with the feral children, they are an example of extreme lack of interaction and lack of stimulation of their brain- but there is a whole spectrum where normal individuals fall in in terms of how much they were stimulated as children and what kinds of activities they did as children.
I don't know much about hyperplexia, in fact I've never heard of that before- but for me being dyslexic is not at all just about reading. It's about a lot of things like how well I can remember things and I dunno, not being able to learn to read as easily is just one of the few ways that dyslexics are affected IMO but for some reason the name of the disorder literally means "difficult reading". And all of that has little to do with what sorts of things I'm good at..I don't think it has to do with my level intelligence at all actually, it is just a pain in the butt to have to deal with but when you learn how to- it becomes a lot easier. I didn't mean to make it sound like my dyslexia was connected to me having been read to a lot, lol I think I rambled on beyond the lever where what I'm saying is comprehensible.

Originally Posted by LDG

A subtitled dream? That is wild!

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It happens quite often actually, propably because I watch a lot of movies with english subtitles which isn't my native language. And in the movie theatres we have finnish and swedish subtitles one upon the other and some times it's a bit confusing.. (Swedish is our another official language besides finnish).

And about dreaming another language.. I forgot to mention that my friend oftens talks in her sleep, she has spoken english and french, but then again she knows how to speak them.
I've been told I've spoken swedish and german when I've been very VERY drunk, but 'in real life' I only understand few words of those languages.. Apparently I have hidden skills that only appear when I'm wasted.

^

Originally Posted by ut0pia

I don't know much about hyperplexia, in fact I've never heard of that before

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It's sort of considered the true opposite of dyslexia. But there's usually social problems in children with it.
I don't think being raised by a separate set of parents would have changed that. It would have helped had I been taken to be evaluated as a child as was suggested to my parents (my father refused to spend money on anything ) to see what the full scope of my issues were. I could have had more help with some things but it wouldn't have fixed my problems with not seeing social cues properly or with empathy. All it would have done is taught me to fake it better.

From the way you've described your parents, it sounds like you were raised in a good home and didn't lack anything.



I wonder if the detail oriented aspect of my nature is why I have very detailed dreams? And the reading bit is why my dreams will have text or books in them. Maybe other people's nature, what they're good at, plays more heavily into their dreams - if you like chatting and socializing maybe dreaming about speaking another language would be more common? (vs me seeing it more in text)

What an interesting topic! I love the way minds work in dreams.

To answer the original question... I don't know about dreaming in a language I don't know, but I do know I often time dream in Japanese (a language I have learned very well, but not fluently), and I know for a fact that I say things and understand things that I don't actually know in real life. It's like I say it and understand it magically. Sometimes I remember the words I use / hear and what it was supposed to mean in my dream, and looking it up, it's not real or at least not right.

Also, using that "magic language", I can dream and not know what language it is in. Sometimes it uses both Japanese and English and I don't know what parts are what. Interestingly, my memory often works that way, too. I can recall facts and conversations, but when I try to remember what language we had the discussion in, I often can't, or have to remember by who I was talking to (my host mom for example only knows Japanese, so any conversation with her was in Japanese!).

Originally Posted by strange_wings

Supposedly people are not supposed to be able to read in dreams. the opposite side of the brain being responsible for dreaming than is for reading is cited, but reading ability is more spread out than that with specific parts of the brain being more responsible for specific functions in reading. Varies slightly per individual how much and how well the "wiring" is.
So it is very much false, and people can dream text - but supposedly the brain does random recall and just fills the space with whatever, that the part of your brain that handles specific letters and letter forms isn't active and that it changes during the dream?

Has anyone seen text in their dream? Read it? Could you tell what language it was in? Did your's change if you looked away from it in the dream and looked back?

I've dream read a lot of stuff. I don't recall the text changing at all in my dreams, and can even recall the sort of fonts used. A lot of text tends to be odd phrases though, suggesting this or that or just stuff like signs. Pretty sure it's usually English, though I have seen kanji in my dreams. But the interesting part is that often when I read something and actually think in the dream "hey, I'm reading this" I wake up (hence why am awake right now

)
I was dreaming I was in a music shop looking through everything, and upon more closely inspecting a record I read it and thought "that's in the wrong spot! and I just read that".

Click to expand...

I like to say I'm dyslexic in my dreams. I can't "read" as the basic definition. I've even had times when I had to use the phone and every time I hit the button, it dialed the wrong number. Took me about 5 mins to dial 911 in one dream.

The version of "reading" that I can do is, once I know what it says. That gets back to my "magic language" and omnipotence (is that the right word? I'm more asleep than awake! ). If I look at something that is written before I know what it says, I can see the text, even the font like you, but it doesn't make sense. Once I know what it says, either magically or someone else tells me, then I can read it.

To answer the rest of your questions, yes, once I know what it says, I can tell what language it is, I can read it, and it doesn't change. Well, only phone key pads apparantly, and that's after I hit the button.

Don't think I've ever read or even seen Japanese writing in any of my dreams... Which is interesting considering I just had a fully Japanese dream a few nights ago and we were at a museum like place. You'd think that would have had writing!

Well, Not that I did not already know it but even in my dreams I am weird ... I read constantly in them ... I do have multi lingual dreams but to me that is normal by the time I went to school I knew parts of 9 languages because of Grandma and Papa ... To make it more intresting I am dyslexic and dyspraxia with some lobe issues... I once calculated a number for my IQ but I always got verbal and non verbal in percentages, one is on the border of genius the other is average...