Clearly my eyes aren’t* open and I cannot take in external visual stimuli in my dreams, however I experience them similar to the visual experience in my minds eye or imagination or whathaveyou. Similarly I feel like I experience something akin to touch or feel (like the occasional flying or falling dream, or the feel of grass or something).
I don’t recall having anything similar to smell or sound in a dream though (except occasionally hearing a real sound while waking up that wasn’t actually part of the dream) What’s your experience?
I’ve recently been trying to train myself to lucid dream frequently. The first thing anyone will tell you is to keep a dream journal, and holy shit does it help. Started journaling them on the 2nd of January, and even just a week later I started having very vivid dreams every night. All senses included; and as of a couple days ago, fairly critical thinking (mental math). I haven’t managed to have a “lucid dream” yet, but I’ll get there.
For the sake of completeness, a lucid dream is a dream in which you’ve become aware that you are dreaming. Whether you can control the dream or feel that it’s vivid is a separate concern.
Pretty cool stuff.