this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2025
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[–] DrivebyHaiku@lemmy.ca 8 points 55 minutes ago

People can dream of phones but the ability to read language while dreaming depends on where that language processing routes through the brain as it is different for different people. Most commonly people cannot read in dreams. Being able to write in dreams is even more rare.

[–] TomMasz@piefed.social 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

They feature in my dreams on an infrequent basis. They never work, though. I've never made a successful call on a cell phone in my dreams, ever. I suspect that means something, but I don't know what.

[–] FuckFascism@lemmy.world 1 points 11 minutes ago

Fat fingers

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 16 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes I dream that I have to call 112 but can't. I type 111... clear... 122... clear... 111... clear... 1112... clear... Brain definitely has issue with maintaining a consistent state of UI in dreams. Even watches don't work. Every time you check the time it will be different.

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 hours ago

I have had that one often even with landlines.

Last night I dreamt the icons on my home screen were scrambled. To make matters worse, there was a transparent vertical Windows style taskbar overlaid with its own icons and I could not find the icon/app I wanted.

Yes Windows and phone in the one nightmare! Could have been worse: a clippy AI 🤓

[–] Slovene@feddit.nl 10 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

I don't need a phone in my dreams. What I need is a god damn clean toilet so I can finally sit down and poop and pee!

[–] dgbbad@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

That's your brain trying to stop you from pissing/shitting the bed.

[–] aceshigh@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Iirc it means that you feel vulnerable irl

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 hours ago

I kinda like the ridiculously nasty bathrooms in Morphée's kingdom.

[–] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 17 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Because dreams don't exist anymore. I haven't had a dream in years, and since anything I experience is universal that means everyone else is just lying about having dreams, and that's why there aren't phones aren't in dreams.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 19 minutes ago

i think that's because of all the weed, but i could be wrong

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 4 hours ago

I literally dreamt about using a phone tonight

[–] urheber@discuss.tchncs.de 24 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 18 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

I have a recurring stress dream about needing to type a message urgently on my phone and the touch screen keyboard not registering any of the right letters.

I miss physical keyboards.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 7 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

It's similar for me too, but a bit broader. My brain apparently can't convincingly simulate any digital user interfaces. No PC, phone or anything else like that works correctly in my dreams.

It's actually one of the most consistent ways I have to figure out that I am currently dreaming.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 points 40 minutes ago

The parts of your brain involved in symbolic language are less active when you're asleep, and since interfaces like that are basically all symbols your brain has a hard time understanding any symbols it remembers or making sense of anything it can put together. The part that remembers stuff is still going strong though.
So basically you know what a computer is and how it should work, but you're trying to use an interface you've never used before in a language you don't speak that was designed by a person with uncertain notions about where icons and windows should go or how they move.

In most cases it's easier for the dream to just say "and then you clicked the button to do the thing", like it does with signs and stuff.

[–] turtlesareneat@discuss.online 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

My dreams managed to conjure my Mac login screen which, pretty impressive. Let me try to log in for quite a while as my panic increased.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Yeah, that's mostly what happens in my dreams. I need to call someone, but the keyboard of the phone doesn't work correctly, or only the last 1-2 digits stay on screen. Or I need to login and the keyboard doesn't work correctly.

I think, I just don't have enough space to keep that many things consistently in memory at the same time without forgetting something.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

A few days ago, there was a post about a BlackBerry with an Android OS coming to market.

[–] cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 1 points 32 minutes ago

You can already get a unihertz titan, it is what i'm typing on now. :)

[–] CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

Hey, I’ve seen this one before!

[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 5 points 4 hours ago

Phones aren't real.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 hours ago

Phones have become a transparent technology

[–] ThunderComplex@lemmy.today 17 points 7 hours ago (5 children)

Funny thing is that despite being on my PC all the time (literally, if I don’t eat, sleep or shit I am in front of my PC) I very rarely dream of computers.

Last dream I rember was me standing somewhere I don’t recognize and watching a bridge collapse lmao.

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 2 points 1 hour ago

I almost never dreamnof the computer but game dreams are common. Its like fully immersed with what's would be on screen without the computer being in the situation.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

There was a bridge I used to drive over on my way to and from work every day. It was a very tall bridge and I've always been terrified of heights. Every day when I drove over it, especially when traffic was bad enough that I'd be stuck in the middle of it and could feel it swaying, I'd just stick to the lane farthest from the sides and maintain a mantra of it's safe, it's huge, it's going to be here forever, don't be afraid. (Also there was a cool abandoned military base that was visible from it and I'd look at that to distract myself when my mantra wasn't enough.)

Anyway, I still have the same job but have moved hundreds of miles away from there. After I did so, a ship hit one of the supports for that bridge and caused several people to live through exactly the unlikely event I dreaded happening every day during my daily commute. Now I don't ever drive on a bridge over anything bigger than a small river or even creek and, though it's unrealistic to expect this to be fulfilled, hope never to again.

[–] AquaTofana@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Ah, the Key Bridge going to/from Dundalk, MD?

Man, I used to use that bridge all the fucking time. Got my first speeding ticket on that bridge.

Even though I don't live in MD anymore, it's still trippy to think about that just not existing anymore. Super tragic situation all around.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago

That's the one. Other than the speeding ticket part, every word of this could have been written by me.

(My first speeding ticket was on 40, coming from Delaware to Maryland)

[–] real_squids@sopuli.xyz 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I think it's because a PC is simply an interface, the stuff on screen is the bit that gets remembered. That and maybe the stuff shown is much more engaging for most brains.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Watching infrastructure fail is a daydream, not a real dream.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Daynightmare.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 0 points 3 hours ago

I have dreamt a few times about having majorly messed up something while putting my computer back together (it was implicitly dismantled before the dream started). Then I wake up in the night to realise that it was a dream and the PC is still in working condition.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 2 points 3 hours ago

I was a little kid when I dreamt of a translucent phone with buttons that could reposition (that was before I saw touchscreens) all over the front surface.

[–] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 28 points 8 hours ago (7 children)

My cell phone is in my dreams all the time. Usually I'm trying but failing to make or send text messages or phone calls.

It's when I succeed in my dream that I wake up in a panic and check my phone to make sure that I didn't actually carry it out in real life. So far so good.

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[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 67 points 12 hours ago

I don't personally spend much of my day thinking at all about my phone. It's an extension to get to what matters, like my family, or completing a task. I don't ever think "I'm looking at my smartphone" as much as "I'm talking to my sister" and "I'm using the Bank's app."

[–] nathan@piefed.alphapuggle.dev 52 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I get phones in my dreams all the time. Usually checking the time and being late to get up. Sometimes the horror of receiving an unexpected call

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[–] finitebanjo@piefed.world 16 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

Anything that involves dexterity or hand movements generally don't show up in dreams. Thats why fighting in your dreams feels like a numb slap fight.

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[–] astutemural@midwest.social 24 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Heard somewhere once that dreams have a hard time with details. It's all loose impressions that your brain rapidly confabulates into experiences. It's why (supposedly) light switches don't work in dreams. If any of this is true, the same probably applies to other devices.

[–] Peppr@sh.itjust.works 21 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

People say that dream states don't do well with text or numbers in particular.

I've read in lucid dreaming communities that trying to read the time on a clock, or small text (and failing to do so), is how some people manage to realize they're in a dream as a first step to taking control.

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[–] MudMan@fedia.io 36 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

I don't remember many dreams, but I also don't recall dreaming about computers or TV much.

Maybe brains just have a hard time hallucinating user interfaces.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 2 points 51 minutes ago

That just got me thinking - you know how you can't read in dreams? You might be able to glance at something and go "yeah that's Exit sign". But if you really try to concentrate on reading something it's just a bunch of jibberish.

We've always written this off as different parts of your brain being responsible for dreaming and reading. But now that we've advanced our technology enough, it seems like maybe our dreams are just being created by some shitty AI.

/s

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[–] PostaL@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I have dreams with phones all the time. I dream that I type something, I look at the keyboard for a second, and when I look back at the text box I realize I made a mistake and have to rewrite most of the text.

It helped me realize I already experienced a quirk of the brain while dreaming, that I found about some time after I started having this recurring dream: if you look at a text while dreaming, then you look away and then back at it, the text will change.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 3 hours ago

It's the same with watches. If you look at your watch twice the time will change.

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