Ask Robert Anything: Why Don't I See My Phone In My Dreams?
A WOLD reader flagged this article for us recently and it got us thinking too.
I have my phone with me all the time in waking life. Why don't I see my phone in my dreams as well??
Here's Robert Waggoner's answer:
Dear Lucid dreamer,
When it comes to devices, I rarely see them in dreams — except in special situations where they malfunction or have strange properties!
I have seen my phone a few times in my dreams, but only when it doesn’t work or shows me something very strange. Similarly, I only notice my car when it has no brakes, but sometimes have become lucid when I notice that I don’t own a car like this!
What’s going on?
In general, dreams convey symbolic information and energy. Unless the dream needs to show whatever a cellphone or broken cellphone symbolizes (for example), it simply will not get expressed normally.
Now in a lucid dream, if you suddenly decide to use your cellphone, then normally it will be there (due to the Expectation Effect). In lucid dreams, you will normally experience what you ‘expect’.
But if you believe or expect that it will be missing, then you will not find it. To understand dreams and lucid dreams, it helps to observe your own mind (and your beliefs and expectations in that moment).
Best wishes on your lucid journeys!
Robert Waggoner
P.S. Check here for more common dream symbols.
P.P.S. Check out more of our Ask Robert Anything series on YouTube
About The Author
Past President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Robert Waggoner wrote the highly-acclaimed book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self, and more recently, Lucid Dreaming, Plain and Simple (co-authored with Caroline McCready). Robert frequently speaks at global conferences, universities and on radio talk shows about the subject of dreams and lucid dreaming. Robert successfully taught himself how to lucid dream in 1975, and since then, has logged more than one thousand lucid dreams.
About The Author
Rebecca Casale is a lucid dreamer and a science writer with a special interest in biology and the brain. She is the founder of World of Lucid Dreaming and Science Me.
