A few more thoughts, I'll try to keep this one shorter so I don't keep torturing you guys....

I looked a little more into the way natural REM generation works during sleep. I've known for a while that it's mainly activated by a cluster of different areas in the brainstem, which is also involved in REM atonia (sleep paralysis). It seems that areas known as pre-locus coeruleus and medial parabrachial nucleus, which are located in the same area as the pons which is usually studied for REM sleep, project to the medial septal nucleus. This last one and the hippocampus actually have reciprocal GABA and acetylcholine connections, and so activation of the medial septal nucleus like this causes theta wave activity to begin during REM sleep due to these projections, and is involved in it during waking states as well. The neurons which begin this process in the brainstem areas seem to be glutamatergic in nature, and both glutamate and acetylcholine neurons in brainsteam have been known for a while to be REM-on switches, while serotonin neurons there are REM-off. This whole process would be I think so far the most likely explanation for how the brain could cause the excitatory GABA action during regular REM sleep dreams.

Aside from dreams, another thing that recently came to mind is sex. Hallucinations can sometimes occur during "regular" sex, but are much more likely during practices such as BDSM and activities to awaken kundalini, in which phenomena such as out-of-body experiences and psychedelic alterations in perception of self can occur. The last two of these both involve heavy focus on sensual pleasures to get the most you possibly can out of the experience, and this should cause releases in oxytocin and vasopressin. I actually found a study last night that suggests that these two together may cause a GABA switch from inhibitory to excitatory during hyperosmotic stress, but even without that, what I'm interested in is the fact that oxytocin releases GABA in both the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. The latter could be responsible for some of the psychedelic identity distortions of sex, but the former would of course be significant for the out-of-body experiences. Oxytocin is released from physical touch as a pro-social hormone, and is involved in the feelings of trust, connection, and euphoria from sexual activity. It would make sense that in someone particularly sensitive to it it could have stronger effects potentially leading to hallucinations from regular sex, but as the BDSM and kundalini practices are actually focused on pushing it as far as possible, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they get their effects that way.

Lastly, I've been thinking more about the connection between anticholinergic deliriants and dreams. In certain psychonaut communities it's becoming more well-known of a practice to mix small amounts of tropane deliriants, like datura seeds, with plants that contain a chemical called scopoletin. This causes the hallucinations to come out at a much lower dose at relatively full strength, without any of the normally-associated delirium or toxic symptoms of use. Scopoletin is actually remarkably similar to galantamine in the way it works, the two have actually been compared in scientific literature before, and I can't help but relate this in mind to galantamine enhancing dreams. Most importantly for us here, it works as an acetylcholinesterase and either an agonist or a positive allosteric modulator of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. This always amazed me, because why in the world would a compound with raises acetylcholine, which is known to be used for anticholinergic overdose reversal, be able to enhance the hallucinations of an anticholinergic drug? But, I think I have a possible solution for it now. In the hippocampus, muscarinic M2 receptors serve as acetylcholine autoreceptors, which are that same kind of flood control working, too much acetylcholine begins to inhibit its own release. It's known that anticholinergic block this autoreceptor, because they actually cause a release of acetylcholine this way. However, those presynaptic M2 receptors are also known to be the most direct method of acetylcholine's GABA flood control as well. My main thought here would be that scopoletin causes reactivation of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, but if the dose of a deliriant is small enough to only significantly block those presynaptic M2 receptors without yet hitting the postsynaptic ones, it may shift this activity both so that acetylcholine levels stay high and keep you lucid but the ratio of GABA to acetylcholine is higher than normal. And because those acetylcholine levels have gone up, it may be worth considering that the already-increased GABA will begin to shift even more toward excitatory due to the downstream inhibition of carbonic anhydrase I mentioned before, which could cause the hallucinations to become more likely without dosing high as to adversely effect cognition.

So that's what I've been thinking about since I last posted. I'm really hoping that if I can get a really solid framework for this down then I'll be able to get a lot more out it, hopefully in areas such as here with time dilation.

Quote Originally Posted by Lucidpotential View Post
I also have been thinking about other apparent time dilation events in hopes of improving my expectation for them in LDs. I spoke at length with a guy who survived a plane crash and claimed that he had one of those near death experiences. When you Google "life flashed before my eyes" there are many examples of people who saw their entire lives flash before their eyes in the couple of seconds it took for a car crash to happen. Seems to me that if these "life review" accounts are true ??? then obviously our brains have the capacity to process a whole lifetime of events in a few seconds. I can't see why we can't dream a whole lifetime of events in a few seconds.
I've had this in mind, too.... However, I have to point out that it probably wasn't literally his whole life that flashed before his eyes, or anyone else's. I would bet that if you asked him deeper questions about it would mostly relate to important events in his life, which would obviously be on your mind at the time, and I think could relate to how I said that the hallucinations your brain makes will just depend on your state of mind as they would in regular levels of imagination. For instance, I'm sure he saw the things that mattered the most to him because he was worried about losing them, but I would bet money that he didn't relive every meal, shower, and bathroom break he ever experienced.