system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How is it that we create dreams in our sleep of bizarre or extraordinary imagination, however conscious thought hardly achieves such imagination?

as I wake from a dream and think "how did my mind create such a detailed and imaginative narrative, but if I were to sit in front of a blank word doc all I would do for a while is stare at a blinking cursor,  struggling to think up something lol"
gpt
There is a part of your brain that tests the reality of what you perceive.  You see someone with three arms, and it goes "whoa, check again", so you look more closely and see there are really two people, one mostly blocked.

When you dream, this part of the brain runs at reduced capacity, and you are no longer as critical of things that don't make sense.  This does two things:

* allows you to think up bizarre and extraordinary things you otherwise might not
* makes stupid and nonsensical things seem extraordinary

The second is a lot like the story of someone getting high, and writing down these deep and proud thoughts.  The sober up and read them, and they wind up to be stuff like "trees are green" and "people should stop fighting".  They only seemed deep because you lacked the judgement to see they were not.