Thread: Best thing to do when lucid? Nothing.

Originally Posted by Expatasapien

This is exactly what I mean. But you have missed it on a certain point, all we know is not from the senses, and the senses are not the only path to knowledge, they are merely inputs. the mind cross references everything that comes from them and analyzes the patterns which share common structures in search for symmetry.

this is called pattern recognition. Much of what we call "comprehension" is part of a latent effect of understanding what our senses do.

you see in order for the brain to interpret anything that comes from the senses it MUST comprehend what they are doing, why , and what it's function must be in relation to this. the brain's job is to interpret symmetries in variable contexts, so this latent ability may also be applied to self pattern recognition, what this means is that the brain understands what the purpose of the sense is well enough to actually model them with greater clarity than the senses themselves can ever produce. The result (if you are not locked into experiential preconceptions) can be a steep increase in total resolution of experience within a lucid dream.

get it?

I think I do. I understand the brain's capabilities in striving for recognition and modeling realistic mental constructs. Obviously this helps to cut down on processing times, and therefore decreases recognition and comprehension latencies. Understandably, if this did not occur, then it would be like incessantly perceiving the world as a new born child. However, this model that it constructs is not, therefore, real. It seems that what you're saying, is that the brain attempts to make things that are perceived more 'perfect' (symmetrical, logical, patterned, aligned), and thus not more realistic? Am I far off? lol.

So, in a dream these 'perfect' constructs are projected to define the fabric of the dream world. Ultimately then, the dreams are not more 'real' so to speak, but just more 'perfect'.

I could just be chatting a load of crap. But I'm interested in your reply.

Originally Posted by Expatasapien

Lucid Dreaming can get more real than waking life. I always talk about it in terms of resolution, thats essentially what it is. and the resolution can expand beyond the threshold of regular experience...as for why? My best hunch is that it is because all the sens data bypasses a need for input. Imagine for instance watching a streaming film on a low bandwidth connection Vs. watching a film that resides on your computer HDD. The one on your HDD will run more easily, and because it doesn't need to be piped through a bottlenecked channel of input it can run at a higher resolution.Similarly I think that because the sense data comes direct and doesn't need to be piped through the natural input pathways it is no longer limited to the constraints of those input channels. ....which is interesting because it suggests that the brain has greater ability to experience than the senses can provide for.

Yes, I have thought this as well, although obviously have not fully experienced it yet.

It is interesting if you think of the brain in terms of muscle control. If you never really use your muscles, coordinating large amounts of muscle activity at once is difficult for the brain. If, however, you train at this, over time your ability to coordinate many muscles and send commands increases significantly, basically allowing you to increase the nuance and complexity of your activity as well as the throughput of your brain-muscle control. It's possible the same could happen between the various parts of the brain involved in the experience of the physical world, and that they could come to have a higher processing rate than the senses could possibly deliver on... yet (cybernetics, of course, could change this).



What's just as interesting as the resolution is the reality or coherence of the experience. Again, at first this could be very weak - the spatial aspect of the dream and its level of simulation might constantly shift of be inappropriate - but over time it also could be expanded and improved upon, to the point of nearly mimicking reality. It seems obvious that the brain can at least mimic the vividness and clarity of sensation, but getting it to mimic the more subtle but basic aspects of "objectivity" would be interesting, just to see how close to reality it could get in that sense.