My Senior Project about Dreaming

[Francium]

At my high school, seniors have the option of completing a senior project in their last month of school, dropping any number of classes in the process. These projects can be about anything from academic passions to something totally unrelated to school. I have taken up the opportunity and plan to do my project on the subject of dreaming, a subject that I wish schools had classes on (well mine doesn't at least). That is one major motivation of my project: the fact that dreaming, something that has existed since the dawn of human kind, has not received the attention that I for one believe it deserves. In reality, dreams do not receive much attention at all, at least in the western mainstream society. Besides the spontaneously intense and meaningful dreams that people have from time to time, some people aren't even aware that they dream every night. I have lost count of the number of times that my peers at school have told me that they don't dream. At the same time, there is a significant portion of the world that gives attention to dreams. It's places like Dreamviews that give me hope. My dream (pun intended? ) is to spread interest in dreams to all. I think the benefits would be endless for the world as a whole if dreams were a subject that parents regularly discussed with their kids and that is talked about at school. This project is the first step for me to help make that happen . I think that a large part of the problem is that the world as a whole has become very scientific-based, which in the grand scheme of things is certainly not a bad thing. However, without a way to record dreams as they happen, the dreaming world lacks the credibility that science requires. Oneirologists like Stephen LaBerge have certainly made important breakthroughs in studying dreams scientifically though through analyzing the brain externally which has laid the ground work for what is to come in the next few decades. But it could be years before dream recording devices (or brain-computer interfaces in general) could be fully developed; there must be other ways of spreading the wonder of dreams in the meantime. I think the solution lies within the same way that religion is able to prosper throughout the world without any real tangible proof: personal exploration. While people may read about or hear of the benefits of giving attention to dreaming, they might not believe it unless they've experienced it themselves. That is my overarching goal for my project: to encourage personal exploration of the world of dreaming through showing how I have explored and how I am exploring it myself. For the project I will continue recording dreams, however, now I will be able to fully devote the time I need to record all the dreams from the night. I will spend some time analyzing these dreams as well especially over a weekly view. I will begin practicing WILD and will record my progress in learning it. Also, I will be doing research into the study of dreams over history, as well as looking at how dreams have already shaped the world in areas such as visual art, film, music, etc. I would love to have more of a focus on lucid dreaming through weekly goals and studies, but I am not sure I'll have the skill to do so in just a few months. I will most likely be starting to practice WILD much before April as it is unlikely that I'd have any success with it in just 30 days even if I am strictly devoting a portion of each day to practicing it. I am excited though that I'll be able to clock hours for the project by sleeping (assuming I don't stay awake trying to WILD). My friends are jealous, and my teacher told me that this was a first that he was asked if sleeping could count as hours for the project. In addition to informing everyone of my plans, I also want to ask you all for help. Even though I added more on with the research aspect, I feel like there's more I can do for this project. So I'm open to any ideas. One thought I've had is using the small budget we have access to to buy lucid dreaming supplements to test over the weeks. I'm just not sure if my school would be ok with that; they'd probably think I'm trying to take drugs... Thanks!

[Burke]

So... what exactly is this project about? I know it's about LDing, but is it like a power point, a poster board, a video...? I would love to help but I would need to know more details

[Francium]

Oh I'm sorry, I was a bit vague about that. One of the requirements for the project is that we produce some tangible product whether it a book, website, etc. Mine will be my dream journal which I will put all the dreams in addition to what I analyze and any reflections from the research. We also have a required blog in which we discuss and reflect on how the project is going, but that won't be like a wordpress blog or anything similar. Also, at the conclusion of the project, I will be giving a presentation to the student body in which I will discuss what I did during the project. So ideas could be anything that could go in the dream journal or it could be something experiential that I will discuss in the journal.

[Ev]

Hi Francium, It's great that you picked dreaming as your subject! Stuff like that says that you are serious about the topic. If your school really lets you drop classes to complete this project, and requires a tangible product, a plain dream journal may not be the best option. There are many dream journals out there, but very few of them are analyzed or connected for any extended period of time. At best, people are looking for dreamsigns, while dreams may reveal much more about the person's physiology. You have an opportunity to devote some time to dream study. Use it well. For example you may look at the "day residue" - images and experiences from the waking world appearing in dreams. or you may keep a day journal and a night journal and try to demonstrate connections between the two. I think this will be better received than just publishing your dream journal. Finding how long it takes for your brain to process a significant event in a real world and see it in a dream has big implications for learning/memory. For example a week ago I found a new recycling center in my town and was very impressed at how good and orderly it is. Today, a week later I had a dream about me sorting recyclables for a community. If I were to do research like that, I would keep a journal of significant new learning events, see when they manifest in a dream and find all other related causes that might've contributed to the image appearing in a dream (for example: I saw a talk on sustainable development and trash converted to energy yesterday). Another idea to look at is the dream quality and your body's position. For example today I woke up from a very violent dream while laying on my back and my mouth/throat dry. This tells me that I was laying on my back, breathing through the mouth, and the violence in a dream might've been an episode of sleep apnea, as my tongue obstructed my throat, causing my breathing to stop. The brain might've interpreted this as a struggle in a dream. I've had multiple dreams like that over the years, maybe the answer is that I've been having sleep apnea. Finally, you can take a look at your food and the quality of your dreams, particularly how long is the delay between your last meal of the day and your bedtime. You can then find out how long it takes to digest the food that you were eating and thus see by which hour of the night your body has absorbed most of the nutrients from the meal. There's anectodal evidence that eating fruits and vegetables (ex: apples, apple juice) before bedtime causes vivid dreams. These are just a few examples.

[kevojy]

This sounds like a really cool project, and a great reason to devote some time to dream research. I agree with everything Ev said in terms of not just producing a dream journal. While interesting to you, it would sort of be a "so what" to others. What I think you should do is have a dream journal and use it to pull out evidence for arguments that you would make in a more formal production. Such as a series of essays. I know that since you're in high school that probably sounds horrible but I don't mean your cookie-cutter 5 paragraph format high school essay, more like something that you'd put on Dreamviews, or what you'd find in a non-fiction book. You also might want to invest some time in reading some already published work on dreaming and work evidence from them into your project as well (an excellent place to start would be LaBerge's novel). Hopefully you can make a good impression on some people and encourage them to explore their dreams as well! Good luck! And I hope some of my suggestions helped!

[Francium]

Ev: Studying day residue is a great idea! I've kept daily journals to some extent in the past checking to see if anything from that day appeared in that night's dreams, but I never thought to keep checking to see if they appeared later. This is definitely something I can incorporate into the project. Studying body position in regards to dream quality is also another awesome idea that I think I can include as well. I'll just have to work on staying still when I wake up which should help with lucid dream induction as well. And again, studying how different foods relate to dream quality is another good idea. I don't think I'm going to work with supplements with this project, but this is another way of studying how chemicals affect dreams. kevojy: You're right, I definitely should do more than just make the dream journal. Using the dreams I record for arguments for points is a great idea to keep from having these dreams just sit in a journal. I just recently read Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, and I read Robert Waggoner's Lucid Dreaming book a few months ago (might end up rereading both of them in the next few months anyway). I have The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud and Journey to Ixtlan by Castaneda on my list to read for the project. What other dream-related books should I read? (that question is open to everyone, of course) Thank you, Ev and kevojy! You're ideas have really got me thinking. I filled out a sketch of a schedule for my project last night and saw I had so much extra time that I didn't know what I was going to do with. This gives me some things to incorporate, and I will continue to brainstorm other things to include. And any other ideas are appreciated! Thanks, everyone!

[IAmCoder]

You have my ax! And my dream journal for plotting graphs and finding dream signs so you have something to print out and hand in. You are also invited to do some research similar to Linkzelda14's FIELD tests on LSDBase where you log how long you can hold the mouse button down until you fall asleep, which then plays a song. I suggest you read Far Journeys by Robert A. Monroe.

[Ev]

Here's a thread where I describe a couple example of day residue and memory consolidation within a dream: http://www.dreamviews.com/f32/dreami...ration-127800/

[Robot_Butler]

I've noticed that my dreams are often about events that happened a week ago. I seem to work on a 7 day delay. If you are looking at day residue, take the last few days into consideration.

[Hukif]

What RB said, for me it takes 3 days for stuff to go into dreams so taking a look back would be good. Also, if you are going to check on sleeping positions, also try with lights on/off.

[Francium]

IAmCoder: That's two things I'll definitely look into, thanks! And I'll add that book to my list. The author looks rather familiar for some reason. Ev, Robot, Hukif: Thanks for the day residue advice. That's something I'm sure I want to look into. It seems to be rather important in dream formation. I had to turn in the initial proposal form a few days ago, but I talked to one of the teachers in charge of the projects, and she said that there will be a revision stage in a few weeks, so I'll make sure I have all the changes ready to integrate. I should be able to add things once the project starts as well anyway since these aren't drastic changes. I'll update here as the proposal process continues. I've talked to two of the head teachers of the project board about the project already and they liked it, so I'm confident they'll approve it. Any more ideas, suggestions, feedback, etc is still welcome and appreciated! Thanks!