Why are lucid dreams uncommon without training?
Is it purely for physiological reasons ?
If we can get clearer ideas about this, it may help to channel our efforts more effectively, and perhaps avoid some hardships and dead ends.
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Why are lucid dreams uncommon without training?
Is it purely for physiological reasons ?
If we can get clearer ideas about this, it may help to channel our efforts more effectively, and perhaps avoid some hardships and dead ends.
I think that as we grow up, we lose focus on the dream world and also lose our awareness and focus. Probably because of the plethora of attention sapping devices we use to distract us - TVs, games, computers, etc. Without awareness in waking, we aren't aware in dreaming. Personally, I found the quickest way of achieving regular lucidity to be all day awareness practise, regular reality checks and meditation. All the induction and ancillary techniques come after that in my opinion.
Thanks for your reply, so you are pointing mainly to psychological aspects. I donīt know but i am more biased to blame sleep physiology* ( somehow i donīt want to believe i am guilty ), but let's see what more people have to say.
* Of course physiology and mind are deeply connected
Why are elite athletes uncommon without training? Or artists? Or musicians?
Humans have the potential to become really good at some things, but that ability needs to be trained and honed. Some people are natural athletes or whatever, but even they can benefit from training their technique etc. Most people aren't naturals but can become pretty good with enough work.
The way you're wording this it sounds like you somehow think being expert at lucidity is everyone's natural right and that something is unnaturally blocking most of us.
Yup. The body simply cannot do everything. We train to lucid dream for a specific purpose, just as we train to fight, do a split, think within the rules of logic and reason, be an acrobat, etc. It is fortunate that the body is so great at adapting to these things, but it almost always takes daily practice to truly excel. Through this practice you discover the barriers one at a time, often getting injured or frustrated, and learn to overcome them.
Evolution, the brute-force algorithm that has begotten us this far. And the environment our ancestors grew up in.
Think back to the first organism that had the mutation in the nervous system that allowed it to have full-blown hallucinations during the dark hours of the night coupled with muscle atonia to keep it from falling out of the tree. It would unconsciously dream about things that threatened its survival. And every now and then, after repeating the same nightmare all night, night after night, it would come up with a unique way to survive a threat. The next time the troop encounters said threat, it would have a greater chance of escaping and surviving and having more offspring with the same mutation.
Therefore we all dream.
Enter the lucid dreamer in that environment. It feels for the poor unenlightened souls who whimper at night and have no control over their dreams and tries in vain to teach them they can simply fly away or beam a bright light to overcome their nightmares. And promptly gets eaten because that doesn't work out so well when the threat is encountered during the day and it doesn't survive long enough to reproduce and pass the light on to us.
Therefore lucidity is an ability that can only begin to emerge now that we have full command over our environment and the amount of data in our unconscious mind has surpassed the level where randomly merging emotionally charged memories outweighs consciously directing which areas of knowledge deserve the highest priority on a given evening.
Yup, i agree i might sound like that. But i think there is something naturally, and not unnaturally, blocking most of us, as you said. I am not claiming anything, i would like to know why we are not all natural lucid dreamers, there must be some good reason, i donīt think that is our fault, or lack of training.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
I agree must of us have to do something to become good at it, but if we donīt know what the mechanisms are our efforts may not yield best results. So, whatīs the right target to hit, if thereīs one ?
I totally get what you're saying, I just disagree with terms like Fault and Blame, which imply that someone or something is stopping us. Put it into a different context - who's fault is it that I'm not rich? What is to blame? See, the actual fact of the matter is that most people just aren't rich and never will be - though a person can work toward that goal if they really want to and bother to learn how. Lucidity is like that - it's a weird state of mind that happens to many people naturally a few times when they're kids, and to a small handful or people pretty often, usually because they had a lot of nightmares and learned to recognize the feel of a dream.
So what's to blame is that lucidity isn't really a normal state - it's a rare one that can be cultivated with practice, or that some people learn to achieve thanks to their nightmares as kids. You're essentially talking about a rare occurrence but treating it as if it 'should' be normal. It's like saying "what's to blame for the fact that the entire world does't exist in peace and prosperity all the time?" -- when clearly peace and prosperity are rare events that depend on many local circumstances and can't be sustained indefinitely.
To me it's just a weird way to word the question, and to find answers it's important to word the question properly. Looking for something to point the finger of blame at seems counterproductive to me. Unless you mean to 'blame' something like the fact that not many people know about lucidity or how to achieve it - which really isn't a fault or something to be blamed on anybody, it's just the way things are.
I guess I dislike terms like fault and blame because they imply victimhood and a state of self-imposed helplessness, and to me that state is the real culprit and needs to be gotten rid of before a real search for answers can begin.
Yes... natural selection!Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
The right target to hit would be to link survival to lucidity - make the brain understand and feel that increased lucidity, or greater levels of awareness and conscious control will increase its chance of and level of survival. We should all go on a hunger strike until we have a lucid dream! Or something along those lines...
Hey, i just used those words because you have to make the thread more attractive. I am sorry :) So, you get my idea. Now, please focus on that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
Edit: for instance, why is memory impaired in dreams ? that is an implicit question in my first questions. Thatīs a question i would like to explore.
Lol ok, that makes sense then! Sensationalism does bring in viewers. :lol:
Let's see, I've already covered that I think lucidity is not a normal state and that for most people it takes practice to achieve.. as for memory in dreams, I'd say it's because the 'conscious mechanism' (including waking life memory access) is offline while we're sleeping - usually anyway, except for when we become lucid and intentionally access it. But then this is all really conjecture since not a lot is known about the mind and how it functions during lucidity. Mostly we just have our own gut instincts, we each have our own theories on how things work. Basically, once again my answer comes down to "because lucidity is not a normal state but rather a sort of 'glitch' that can be achieved with effort/practice".
No question that practice and effort is how we get skilled, most of us. What do you think of natural lucid dreamers, and i mean those that donīt do anything, and get lucky everynight ? What is working here ? That question makes sense to you ? :)Quote:
Basically, once again my answer comes down to "because lucidity is not a normal state but rather a sort of 'glitch' that can be achieved with effort/practice".
Well, as I said already, as far as I'm aware most natural lucid dreamers get that way because of nightmares when they're kids, and they learn to wake themselves up because they learn to recognize the 'feel' of the dream state. Some people only use it to wake themselves up, but some learn they can use it to control the dream. From what I've seen of natural lucid dreamers around here, many of them hate lucid dreaming and wish it would just stop. Not all of them of course, but quite a few have started threads to that effect. I guess since they don't learn about the science behind it or about what can be done in lucid dreams they come to see it as a sort of curse, in which they realize they're dreaming but associate that with the terror of nightmares, and it makes them only feel trapped. In cases like that of course being a natural is not a good thing, though its based on a misunderstanding stemming from lack of education.
You make a good point here: many, if not most, naturals learn to be naturals. They are not completely naturals :P But that was just an example.
IAmCoder, do you wanna try and report back :P ?
Hmmm... I think that if you ask any naturals, they have a linear learning curve, so it is like most everything else. There are some people that just can do it really well at the beginning and don't need any teaching (take any class and you will see this) they can teach themselves. There are the ones that try really hard to do good, and even if they don't do good at the beginning, they catch up in the end. There are those that are good at everything that they do, so when they do this they are more in the middle, but depending on their progress at the beginning and things they do, they can also get to the point of naturals. Then there are people that dont try hard and aren't naturals. The only difference between them and the ones that try hard is amount of effort, and the difference between them and the ones that are good at almost everything is their mindset is negative.
I believe that anyone can get good at LDing if they study hard and work hard and stay consistent. Knowing how to learn is something that is shown more easily when we are doing something like lucid dreaming versus school.
Although we know very well how to get skilled at LDing, our efforts donīt quite hit the fundamental problem, i think. Thatīs the feeling i have. Thereīs some basic knowledge i feel is missing, which could be hugely important to LDing.
I don't feel like basic knowledge is missing. I just think it is hard to explain, so you might hear 10 bad explanations and one good one. That is why like everything you need a good teacher. If you look at my LD by months, you can easily see when I first got a good teacher. First good teacher was August when I read ETWOLD (started trying in June). Talked to Lucidmax in October (and started becoming a regular at DV). And lastly Hukif I first talked to around end of December beginning of January. After you learn the info, the next thing is to apply it every single night. Don't take a night off, make sure you sleep consistently. Using my dream journal system, you can easily figure out what works for you, and what works for recall. It takes a lot of energy out front, but after 3 months with that I don't need a DJ anymore and I keep getting better at LDing as well. Even through my most busy year yet. Working full time and part time and studying a lot add on a baby girl in June (yet again, the numbers show all of this).
What this thread is all about is the mechanism that prevents natural lucidity. I dont think we have that knowledge, but it could have some practical application.
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by IAmCoder
It is something new - we as species are beginning to learn it - as opposed to doing what all other mammals do - learn for real life - or just simply practise real life - in dreams.
We are at a stage, where it is not longer necessary that dreams are steered automatically into a natural biologically useful setting. We probably still "need" - or can make good use - of the non-lucid dreams for that purpose.
But are not bound to it - as you say - we control our environment to a big degree - and with a certain threshold of awareness in general - it might just swap over.
Maybe evolution even selects for LDing sine an unclear while..?
There is a quite related thread next door - I have transfer-quoted you over, IAmCoder - maybe someone in here would like to take a look - topic gets deepened and furthered there!
http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2072594
I believe the reason why most of us are not natural lucid dreamers is because we simply aren't lucid enough in our waking lives.
If you think about it, lucidity seems to be particularly common among children, and I believe this is because children are still relatively curious about their environments, since so much is still new to them, so they will observe everything, listen to everything and feel a great interest for their surroundings in general.
This probably carries over to their dreams as well, so that they more easily realize that they are dreaming at that point.
When you grow up, you become more and more used to everything around you (I am sure we have all gone through the painful phase when we no longer feel any great excitement for the things that used to be so fascinating, like birthdays and Christmas Eve), and lose interest in it, and this also makes you stop paying attention to the dreams.
I agree with you Laurelindo ;) itīs a shame we donīt keep some child traits as we grow up.. but, again, i feel my question is not being properly understood :P Anyway, i am happy you all have posted here :P
My question is why critical thinking, memory and recognition of clear dream signs and aberrations is not working in dreams as well as IWL ? Is it possible to fall asleep and keep these intact ? Or activate them with some external aid ( cranial stimulation.. ) ?
I think you guys are all sort of beating around a bush, here (and on that other thread Steph noted above). Lucid dreaming is difficult because we are not naturally programmed to do it ... period.
We are designed to be doing the exact opposite of lucid dreaming during sleep -- passing the time consciously unaware of our selves, our situation (sleeping), and generally our memory and bodies (perhaps to avoid interfering with necessary repairs, and, once falling out of trees). That is how we are wired, and probably was quite helpful when we were sleeping in the wild, and needed, say, a break from concerns about being eaten.
So, though you all seem to be saying it, sort of, one way or another, lucid dreaming is not easy because we are not naturally meant to do it. We have to train ourselves to be self-aware in dreams, because there is simply no wiring naturally in place to do it for us. Hell, as it is we are just barely wired for self-awareness during waking life, and must work at that as well.
There is also a lot of misunderstanding about children and LD'ing, I think. Because they lack any sense of self-awareness at all, children don't LD as we understand it. It's more that their daytime world is quite solipsistic (meaning their entire universe revolves around them), and they simply carry that solipsism into their dreams... in other words, their dreams are just as real as their waking life. This is interesting, yes, but by no means is it an awareness that they are dreaming, and that their dreams are not real, but a creation of their own mind (or that their sleeping body is elsewhere, etc.). I really don't think it's a great idea to wish for childlike experiences of dreams, because that would be a fairly enormous step backwards. There are a lot of reasons adults have trouble LD'ing; maturity is not one of them.
Okay cue the irate mothers and those who have friends whose uncle's cousins say they are "naturals."
^^ I forgot to mention this above:
So, though there may not be a "pure" physiological reason for failure to be regularly self-aware in dreams, there is often quite a hill to climb as we encourage our brains and unconscious minds to work with us for a bit, and let us into dreams. That might come easy to some, but certainly not all, but it doesn't represent an actual, designed, barrier.
Not expecting such an answer - or any answer - and surely not everybody to read this really long and partly repetitive post.
So just ignore and not feel any bad from it! :)
But if I wait and shorten and file on it too much - I'll not do it at all maybe.
We are programmed to do LDing I believe - or how would you explain the sheer (rising) numbers?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Not only that - it is widely agreed, that all healthy people can learn LD.
There is nothing happening in the extremely evolutionarily fine-tuned network of the brain, which is not pre-programmed, when it comes to such crucial aspects.
At least not in genetically healthy people - which to a nice degree, we all hopefully are.
It is clearly hardwired into us to lucid dream*.
It is not a curiosity which only the selected few experience.
Not something only for "special people".
There was a long documentary on LDing on German and French television.
It was portrayed as a skill you can learn - an art even, when you cultivate it.
One of great personal usefulness - having tons of potential benefits behind it and worth the while surely.
How come so many people do LD in your view, Sageous?
Does the soul program something new into it's supposedly mere vessel?
How should I understand you? Do beat on the guy in the bush directly yourself please!
No - we are not designed by evolution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Again it comes up - we had this before - you putting a creator into the concept of evolution - but that is not how evolution works.
And on how we are wired to do so - see here:
Lucid dreamers help scientists locate the seat of meta-consciousness in the brain*
No - I sure enough am not saying that we are naturally meant to anything in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
And - if I take your supposed meaning and translate it into my language here - no - I do not think, it is a trait, that is selected against.
I say this concerning perceived barriers :
People have dreams, which are unconsciously steered and that is good for you, since they help you deal with real-life situations in a way that would be lost to you, were you constantly lucid.
The more unresolved stuff on the platter to learn from in a non-mess-about-able way - the bigger the resistance maybe.
Creativity in avoiding getting eaten brought about a mechanism of nightly all-round hallucinations, combined with sleep paralysis - dreams - in the first place - or to come up with throwing stones for example - sounds very reasonable to me.
IAmCoder`s arguments of lacking evolutionary pressure against it from great control over our environment - and a certain dominance of human conscious faculties in all functions of the mind - sort of a spill-over - are good.
I want to think a bit further than that - maybe LD is an evolutionary invention maybe (a lot?) younger than that, what we feel distinguishes us from animals.
What for?
Just shortly ponder, where the wording - realize your dreams comes from.
Is not LD an upgrade to that?
LDs are widely seen - by the informed, incl. non LDing scientists - as being good for artistic and scientific inspiration (periodic table, benzene-carbon structure, Dalí, my sig..).
For musicians and sports-persons - for becoming more one with one self and happier - lalala.
Are we not all rather convinced, LD makes us special, be honest!
I get consistent positive reactions, for once.
But having visions for your life - being inspired - like for example to building up a huge company - lets see it monetary - is generally seen as a good thing - attractive.
Unfortunately probably mainly in men..
Realizing your personal dream with all that is associated, is actually something which counts in sexual selection, don't you think?
And that is more likely from LD than from normal dreams - or isn't it?
At least to such a degree, that evolution has thrown it up .
Or at the least not suppressed it/eradicated it as un-fit - by brute force algorithm - like all else detrimental.
Such a high percentage of a trait - is conserved for a purpose.
As said - there was a study finding significantly less mental health problems in the 5-10 % LDers in the population (Germany probably).
Even if it was so, that the more healthy do more LD - it is a selection factor indirectly then.
And maybe that is not the right way round - why not assume, LDing makes you mentally more healthy?
I could list very good arguments for that..
So it is (at the very least) not detrimental - and it is not a rare trait - it is a latent skill.
As animals there was no need to learn true visionary thinking, no higher philosophical, political, personal businesses involved in mating.
Also from having that much of the "meta-consciousness ongoings"* in the brain of sapiens sapiens - a mere spill-over in connectivity could be imagined well.
Sorry - but that makes no sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Of course it is hard-wired - how else do we do it?
You can't just "learn" to wire your core-consciousness into your dreams, when there are not already ways there, I believe.
Maybe we do not have to "learn it" just keep it up from childhood on, when at least the first levels of it turn up on their own - naturally.
All it maybe needs is recognition, confirmation and coaching, teaching - and it would be the easiest thing in the world for children to lay the groundwork for what you tend to mean with lucidity - namely only high-level lucidity.
But sorry - you can not tell me it was not lucidity to know, that I dream, even despite thinking I have too open the kitchen window - and then time and time again - go air-swimming.
That surely is lucidity - even with low control and understanding.
This skill and understanding nobody did teach me further - who knows, where I would have gotten otherwise.
But I did not jump out in real life either - confusing it with LD - having inferior consciousness of some sort.
There could be a "natural learning" - guided from teachers from that point on.
Said so elsewhere - five people still remember LDs from childhood in my real-life surroundings.
I guess, you also had low level lucidity as a child and forgot about a lot from that period.
Do you have this experience with your own children if you have children?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
In my view you underestimate children by quite a margin.
I have talked with my mother about my LDs - she said, she also had them as a child** - she was on a Rudolf Steiner School (Anthroposophy) and was always moaning to have lost all connection to her spiritual essence from her childhood - incl. LD – but let’s not get into that.
Yes - she thought, I was something very special - but I was not - I was just encouraged.
Credit to her, where credit is due.
She generally treated me with real serious interest and surely assumed me to be fully conscious and able to understand all sorts of “deep and complicated” topics - she gave me all information, I wanted to have - and explained it all in words I could understand.
Went with her to yoga class and meditation as well with at least 8 - if not before.
There are also really amazing children out there, I could put up lists of them - I was not like that.
Maybe the memory of your own childhood is a bit hazy – but not the childhood..?
**Even forgot counting her - 6 then.
Believe it or not, Steph, we're more in agreement than you might think -- I think some things got lost in translation. Let me try to make a couple of quick responses, though:
What sheer numbers would those be? LD'ing might be quite popular in Germany, but it is still extremely rare here in the U.S. Though, probably thanks to the Internet, there are certainly far more LD'ers than there used to be, the practice is hardly mainstream, or even close to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
Of course they can. But learning something is very different from naturally being able to do something (more in a sec).Quote:
Not only that - it is widely agreed, that all healthy people can learn LD.
I obviously don't agree with that. Couldn't it be that we are clearly hardwired to learn? There is a difference.Quote:
There is nothing happening in the extremely evolutionarily fine-tuned network of the brain, which is not pre-programmed, when it comes to such crucial aspects.
At least not in genetically healthy people - which to a nice degree, we all hopefully are.
It is clearly hardwired into us to lucid dream*.
No. It is a curiosity that a self-selected few experience, by their own choice, and by their own effort.Quote:
It is not a curiosity which only the selected few experience.
Not something only for "special people".
Absolutely! I think we are generally saying the same thing here, Steph -- that all humans are more than capable of learning to LD. But does being capable to learn something equal having a natural tendency to do something? I don't think so.Quote:
There was a long documentary on LDing on German and French television.
It was portrayed as a skill you can learn - an art even, when you cultivate it.
In my opinion, precious few people practice LD'ing. Yes, maybe tens of thousands are doing it these days (though likely not), but remember that there are 7 billion people wandering this earth... out of that number tens of thousands does not amount to much. And yes, thanks to movies like Inception and Avatar, that number might have gone up briefly, but even if it when up tenfold, it still wouldn't even be a statistical blip on the world population scale.Quote:
How come so many people do LD in your view, Sageous?
That said, I am also confident that everyone experiences a lucid dream once or twice in her life by accident, but this is not the same as actually practicing the art.
That's a very cool concept, and I hope it's true, but no, that is not what I was saying. I'll probably repeat this in a moment, but keep in mind that brains are extremely malleable organs -- we can alter its hard-wiring, and do so regularly. Learning to LD (and to be self-aware in general) is simply another way that we rewire our brains. That they didn't come a certain way does not mean we can't make them a certain way. Do you think we were hard-wired to, say, fly airplanes or write symphonies? I don't think those would have occurred to DNA back when the original hard-wiring was working itself out.Quote:
Does the soul program something new into it's supposedly mere vessel?
Saying that we're designed by evolution was just been a turn of phrase on my part, sorry about that. No, there is no "Evolution God" overseeing our development from the primordial soup to present day, but I think it's safe to say that there is a process to evolution, based on natural selection and eons of changes, that can be used to define how we came to be, and what we are or are not hard-wired to do. I never said there is a God overseeing things, and never intended to say that.Quote:
No - we are not designed by evolution.
Again it comes up - we had this before - you putting a creator into the concept of evolution - but that is not how evolution works.
I never said we weren't capable of LD'ing, or that dreaming does not exist. That would be absurd, especially coming from me. Those dreamers that contributed to that study were using their skills to contribute, and I would bet that most would say those skills were well-earned, and not naturally bestowed upon them.Quote:
And on how we are wired to do so - see here:
Lucid dreamers help scientists locate the seat of meta-consciousness in the brain*
Well then you agree with me, right? ;)Quote:
No - I sure enough am not saying that we are naturally meant to anything in the first place.
Okay. I have no problem with that, and can see how the unresolved stuff would indeed cause a barrier to learning -- but not a natural, hard-wired, barrier, more a psychological one.Quote:
I say this concerning perceived barriers :
People have dreams, which are unconsciously steered and that is good for you, since they help you deal with real-life situations in a way that would be lost to you, were you constantly lucid.
The more unresolved stuff on the platter to learn from in a non-mess-about-able way - the bigger the resistance maybe.
Agreed again. That creativity, and the malleable brainpower that enabled it, are the roots of intelligence, of sentience, and, ultimately, of being able to learn to do things that defy our natural make-up, like being awake while we're asleep.Quote:
Creativity in avoiding getting eaten brought about a mechanism of nightly all-round hallucinations, combined with sleep paralysis - dreams - in the first place - or to come up with throwing stones for example - sounds very reasonable to me.
I don't think so. Though our self-awareness is what distinguishes us from animals, and I'm all for LD'ing being an "upgrade" in evolution, I think it is much more an extension of waking-life consciousness, of a curiosity expressed by our own intellectual decisions than it is a function of genes or chemicals.Quote:
IAmCoder`s arguments of lacking evolutionary pressure against it from great control over our environment - and a certain dominance of human conscious faculties in all functions of the mind - sort of a spill-over - are good.
I want to think a bit further than that - maybe LD is an evolutionary invention maybe (a lot?) younger than that, what we feel distinguishes us from animals.
What for?
Just shortly ponder, where the wording - realize your dreams comes from.
Is not LD an upgrade to that?
Agreed.Quote:
LDs are widely seen - by the informed, incl. non LDing scientists - as being good for artistic and scientific inspiration (periodic table, benzene-carbon structure, Dalí, my sig..).
For musicians and sports-persons - for becoming more one with one self and happier - lalala.
Sure. But is it our ability to Ld that make us feel special, or the actual knowledge that we can go to a very special place -- a place where no one else can go? I'm not sure.Quote:
Are we not all rather convinced, LD makes us special, be honest!
You live in a very special place, I think, Steph!Quote:
I get consistent positive reactions, for once.
Sure.Quote:
Realizing your personal dream with all that is associated, is actually something which counts in sexual selection, don't you think?
I don't think so. LD'ing might help, but the stuff that makes you successful in life is also the stuff that makes your LD'ing successful. If you lack the strength, focus, self-awareness, and perseverance necessary to succeed, you likely will have trouble learning to LD.Quote:
And that is more likely from LD than from normal dreams - or isn't it?
I'm not seeing LD'ing as a high percentage trait... indeed, I'm not seeing consistent LD'ing as a measurable trait at all.Quote:
At least to such a degree, that evolution has thrown it up .
Or at the least not suppressed it/eradicated it as un-fit - by brute force algorithm - like all else detrimental.
Such a high percentage of a trait - is conserved for a purpose.
Maybe I'm wrong, though; has anyone ever checked this statistic? 5-10% of the population doing consistent LD'ing seems extremely high (though statistically it is just next to insignificant, BTW).Quote:
As said - there was a study finding significantly less mental health problems in the 5-10 % LDers in the population (Germany probably).
Okay. But that spillover of connectivity comes with conscious input, and not the other way around, I think.Quote:
As animals there was no need to learn true visionary thinking, no higher philosophical, political, personal businesses involved in mating.
Also from having that much of the "meta-consciousness ongoings"* in the brain of sapiens sapiens - a mere spill-over in connectivity could be imagined well.
Of course you can learn to "wire your core-consciousness into your dreams," Steph, just as you can learn to wire, say, doing the backstroke into your floating skills. As I said above, the brain is a very flexible device, and is able to adapt to change or new experiences with amazing dexterity... that's what learning is, in the end. Yes, we "always" were dreaming, but we were doing so without knowing we were -- just as we only very recently (evolution-wise) became aware of our places in waking life. We don't have our entire existence programmed into our heads at birth, I think.Quote:
Sorry - but that makes no sense.
Of course it is hard-wired - how else do we do it?
You can't just "learn" to wire your core-consciousness into your dreams, when there are not already ways there, I believe.
I have no children, but was one, once, have a great deal of experience with them (including but not limited to studying their development in school) and believe me, I do not underestimate their intelligence or abilities by any measure, thank you. Mentioning that bit of (very well-known, studied, documented, established, etc) child-development -- that kids simply haven't developed the self-awareness to truly LD, and do have a world-view where dreams are just as real as waking life, so those dreams seem to be lucid -- has gotten me into trouble before, and led me into unwanted emotional arguments with others who were fully stocked with anecdotal evidence, and I have no wish to go there again. So I won't. I'm more than happy having you assume I'm wrong on this.Quote:
Do you have this experience with your own children if you have children?
In my view you underestimate children by quite a margin.
I hope I've made myself a little more clear, Steph, and that these short responses indicate that I am indeed the same person who has been posting on these forums to date. If I was still unclear, let me know, and I'll try again -- except for the kids stuff! ;)
:cheers:
Completely forgot - like the documentary also said - most children who learn it do so as a defence against nightmares.
^^ And they would... just as they would in waking life.
I'm not saying children aren't doing anything, or even that they don't know they're dreaming. I'm saying that they lack the self-awareness to know that the dream isn't real, or their own creation. They see dreams as just as real a thing as waking life (which they also see with little to no self-awareness).
That's what I'm saying, and that's all I'm saying, because, aside from it taking us off topic, I'm not interested in swimming through the mess that saying such things causes. I should've remembered to keep my yap shut. So please don't be upset if I don't argue any more about children and LD'ing. [for what it's worth, I also tell cat lovers that all that special stuff their cats do is basically the same instinctual behavior that all cats do... I'll never learn!).
Interesting discussion, Steph and Sageous!
Let me try to contribute to the OP, bringing in thoughts from two expert LDers: Daniel Love and Robert Waggoner.
- Daniel Love asks: If we do the same technique at the same moment of the night on different days, why it works sometimes, and does not work others? He says the answer is Neuro-chemistry. He says that usually we do not take it into account and therefore our results are not consistent because we miss an important factor (He calls Psychology, Timing, and Neuro-chemistry the three pillars of lucidity)
- I read an article from Robert Waggoner about how to become an ultra-frequent LDer. He said from interviews he got to this point: One ultra-frequent LDer (Lucidous?) keeps asking herself "What was just I doing?", other keeps mapping his sorroundings and asking "Where I am?" (Billybob's tutorial on dream yoga, anyone?), and Robert thinks most naturals got into the habit of asking at all times if they were safe from nightmares. So according to him the key is the Lucid Mindset, asking constantly through the day a "Critical Question".
So going back to the OP, what is it? Brain chemistry? Lack of awareness?
PS: BTW, Daniel Love acknowledges also that those three pillars are so much related. Sometimes neuro-chemistry is the result of our psychology or emotions, and sometimes it's the other way around. Also our chemistry at the different sleep cycles depends of the time of the night or the hours we've been sleeping.
I have a long answer in the pipeline - just as a start to present - quite stunning - numbers.
5-10 % is an extremely conservative estimate - from MelSchaedlich`s paper:
Link: Applications of lucid dreams: An online study | Schädlich | International Journal of Dream ResearchQuote:
Schredl and Erlacher (2011) reported that 51% of the par-
ticipants in a representative German population sample
(N=937) had a lucid dream at least once, while 20% were
frequent lucid dreamers with at least one lucid dream per
month (cf. Snyder & Gackenbach, 1988).
There is a study with 80 % as well - among psychology students - who naturally are more interested than a representative sample.
Got to check - but I really think 5-10 % was the lowest percentage ever counted with strictest criteria somewhere - and that is why it got mentioned in the documentary.
That there is so much incidence and interest and research done in Germany - "hard" science and psychology both - speaks for a dreaming culture enabling this - and so do my experiences.
Once more - I have found 6 people who clearly remember, having noticed that they are dreaming and that they can do what they want* as children.
That is lucidity in my eyes - no discussion - I had it myself - there is a thread next door on childhood LDers - might link up later.
And again - I did not jump out of the kitchen window irl - I knew very well, what was a dream, and what not!!
*Some to a higher degree than others - but one said, he could control all other DCs like puppets and build up whole worlds.
He did not lie - he got going and going and was very excited and rapt to hear from me it has a name and can be taken up once more.
Here a perfect argument against it having to get newly wired by extensive learning: There are people, who get their first LD only after reading about it.
Just came across such a post - and have read it more often before.
I do not believe, they are lying - just having easy access to the in my view natural ability.
Another thing - these days - most everybody - esp. the working part - has a not optimal sleeping schedule - not enough mostly.
So there we have something playing against more people LDing, which is rather indisputable.
If it were fostered and promoted and recognized in the first place - and systematically in children - we would be at over 80 % practitioners - my hypothesis.
Yes, it would be very important that children could keep their natural abilities. LDing could be promoted on school activities, like asking children to visit some place in their dreams and then ask them to write a text or draw something. I have felt very humble listening to some kids's LDs, and one immediately learned to LD without any technique, ahh he even told me he doesn't know what to do, because he was lucid a like an hour. When i see him he always has some interesting stuff to say, including advanced dream control techs, like time dilation, stability...Quote:
If it were fostered and promoted and recognized in the first place - and systematically in children - we would be at over 80 % practitioners - my hypothesis
Wow. Okay. At the risk of writing what I don't like to read: That statistic flies in the face of pretty much all of my life experience. I've met many thousands of people in my life and, aside from those LD'ers I intentionally sought out (like here), I have met no more than a small handful of people who have had LD's, much less practice them consistently... and all that I've read and heard from other LD'ers over the years confirms that they are almost always as alone in their practice as I. And yet, statistically, I should have met not several, but hundreds of consistent LD'ers in my lifetime. At even 10%, much less 20%, the subject ought to come up occasionally at, say, parties. Yet it never has (and whenever I brought it up I was consistently met with blank stares). Germany is either a very special place, or I have been living in a very large lucid-free bubble all my life! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
Or, perhaps my definition of lucid dreaming -- being in a dream with your waking-life self-awareness intact -- does not match the growing norms? That could be. Perhaps LD'ing does include things like dreaming that you are lucid, and a child's perception of a dream as just another reality. It may be time for me to retire, huh, and keep my antiquated ideas about LD'ing to myself?
I have met one person that LDs outside of DV, I think he is on the edge of consistent too. I have talked to like 40 people about LDing, and he was the only one that knew of it. How many people do you know that LD steph? Because like sageous, I dont meet many LDers. If 1/5 were LDers I would have met more. I mean, look at the amount of people on this site, the biggest LDing forum online. Compare to the biggest forum of anything else. Take guns or anything like that, and I think that less than 1/5 is a gun lover.
I agree, I honestly almost think it's a bit annoying when dream researchers throw out unrealistic numbers like "only 17% experience lucid dreams at least once per month", almost as if 17% is a low number - and even that sounds heavily exaggerated.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandonBoss
They must be based on the entire world population, including the most spiritual countries in the East.
Other than that, I would say that the number of Western lucid dreamers are closer to 1.7% or something.
In any case, it's definitely not 17%, at least not in number of consistent lucid dreaming enthusiasts.
I also find this statistic surprising (Steph is calling it "stunning" as well in the quote). Do you have the question that was asked in the survey?Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
As far a child LDs. I feel that mine were not like Sageous describes but can imagine that many cases could be. Back then I knew I was waking up from having occasional nightmares that were not real but were still scary maybe around 5-7 years old. My father told me about LDing as a way to take control. My recollection was that my very next nightmare I stopped and remembered what my father said, realizing this was all just a dream during the dream and I defeated the monster. Scary nightmares were rare after this. I still have nightmare-like scenes but they are very rarely scary. I went on to lots of flying and fun but like most people I eventually stopped paying attention to dreams unfortunately and fast forward decades later to me getting back into it recently. I agree my mindset is different now from then of course, but I am positive that my childhood LDs were true LDs.
Absolutely not Sageous!!! :) You are an important part of the dynamics that keeps this place in balance and provide invaluable advice on the fundamentals of LDing!!! There will always be disagreements. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
Thanks for posting this VagalTone, I was just thinking about something in these lines, and glad to see StephL is bringing some data into the discussion ^^
This one seems easy at first: Because there are particular changes in terms of several cognitive capabilities (mostly higher functions) that disable certain actions/thought processes that would allow the person to become lucid. Regardless of what we know/don't know about the function/characteristics of dream, we are well aware of several changes in our neural activity that limit our access to things like self-reflective state/meta-consciousness/short-term memory/logical reasoning/etc. If you think about it, this question is mostly irrelevant for our purposes as seekers of lucidity. The reasons for lack of lucidity are embedded in the core science of dreams itself, and I very much doubt lucid dreaming is the answer to understand the normal dreams.Quote:
Why are lucid dreams uncommon without training?
We need to target a fundamental question, and stick with it. This (imo ofc) is the most important question for lucid dreaming right now:
What mechanisms are involved in lucidity?
Why is this extremely important?
- Because it would give researchers an important framework, and it would eliminate much of the "trunk of garbage" we currently have laying around the "streets" of lucid dreaming. In case anyone hasn't noticed, it's not good that we have so many techniques for achieving a DILD: it means we have no clue about the underlying processes about becoming lucid inside a dream. What we need to is strike into the core of what lucidity is, identify what makes us lucid, and determine what sort of cognitive practice(s)/function(s) have the biggest effect on those mechanisms.
- Because it would put us one step closer to solving the biggest obstacle to lucid dreaming research: we lack data. The only way we can better understand lucid dreaming as a science it's to increase the sample of lucid dreamers so studies can grow at the same time the field expands. This has practical advantages even outside the field, by linking lucid dreaming to health research, especially regarding mental health, sleep, physical/cognitive performance, sports psychology, etc etc.
Now, jumping into a possible answer:
We know (not just by the study that is in the LD news that StephL mentioned) that lucid dreaming state resembles a mixture of 2 distinct sides of the continuum of consciousness: sleep and waking. What happens in any lucid dream, is that your brain starts escalating this line, and the variability of the several aspects presents in the (now lucid) dream is due this fluctuation.
- Low lucidity exhibits signs of impaired memory, low reflective skills, poor dream control.
(I'm assuming that vividness is not an aspect of lucidity, but this is naturally debatable).
(And...I completely forgot where I was going with this...oh well)
Got to read the study, but it may as well just mean that healthy people have better sleep quality, resulting in more chances to lucid dream. Low sleep quality also relates to recall problems, thus less mentally health people would recall less lucid dreams: there's so much going on that these studies need to be perceived with caution. I do find the study interesting though :oQuote:
As said - there was a study finding significantly less mental health problems in the 5-10 % LDers in the population (Germany probably).
Even if it was so, that the more healthy do more LD - it is a selection factor indirectly then.
Maybe Sageous didn't use the best words, but he does have a point. We're as hard wired to lucid dream as we're hard-wired to induce sleep paralysis. Lucid dreaming is not hard-wired into humans because it is neither automatic or innate. Children have particular reasons to experience more lds than adults, and still, it's not extremely common, like it would be if we were hard-wired to it.Quote:
Of course it is hard-wired - how else do we do it?
You can't just "learn" to wire your core-consciousness into your dreams, when there are not already ways there, I believe.
Now that's a complex aspect, and honestly I don't find it surprising that Sageous would be called on that one xD You must understand that for someone like him, lucidity is not just awareness of being in a dream, but knowledge. If you're running from a dinosaur in a lucid dream, do you really grasp the concept of being in a dream? What if you're unconsciously lucid, should that be considered a lucid dream? When Sageous talks about lucidity ( or maybe he's gonna correct me all over the place in his next post :P), he's talking about understanding the ramifications of your state of consciousness, not just being aware of it, because as we all know, being aware that you're in a dream will never take you far into dream control.Quote:
But sorry - you can not tell me it was not lucidity to know, that I dream, even despite thinking I have too open the kitchen window - and then time and time again - go air-swimming.
That surely is lucidity - even with low control and understanding.
On the other side, I completely agree with you here: I can be lucid and still be compelled to run from a dinosaur because I'm hardwired to: lucidity doesn't eliminate these kind of responses that are naturally present in our mental schemas. Maybe that work is not a product of lucidity itself (the activation of meta-consciousness), but an activation of other brain functions.... It would make sense right? Is meta-consciousness enough for dream control? And I'm confused once again...
Sageous, one question: you put a lot of emphasis on self-awareness, and it got me thinking: if self-awareness is an habit, what makes it more effective than the habit of reality checking? Because now that I think about it, DILD techniques seem to fall into 2 categories:
- Explicity memory (the power of habit);
- Implicit memory (prospective memory being the largest player in here, way ahead of retrospective memory)
I'm sure I didn't word the above correctly, but let's assume: if self-awareness is something you build throughout the years, then it would be an habit right? You have the ingrained habit of assessing your state of consciousness, so much that you do it without thinking (in the sense, without effort to intentionally recall it). But if it's merely an habit, what makes it more effective than reality checking? Come to think about it, self-awareness and reality checking are the same thing in practical terms: you assess your state of consciousness. What is the important keyword of lucidity after this: self-awareness or habit? Because if they are the same, the real question is: is the journey from beginner to frequent lucid dreaming a matter of balance between prospective memory vs habit, more of the first in the beginning, and then largely due the later one?
(I think my post sounds confusing as hell, but I'm too sleepy to revise it atm xD)
Zoth: First, it must be said that Steph will like your post way more than mine... I'm okay with that, of course!
Now:
Nicely put; thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Spot on as usual Zoth! I could even take that one step farther: it isn't just about control, but being aware that you are interacting with your dream world and, at the same time, that dream world is you. Just being aware that "this is a dream" does not approach that kind of relationship with your environment (in this case, the dream world).Quote:
Now that's a complex aspect, and honestly I don't find it surprising that Sageous would be called on that one xD You must understand that for someone like him, lucidity is not just awareness of being in a dream, but knowledge. If you're running from a dinosaur in a lucid dream, do you really grasp the concept of being in a dream? What if you're unconsciously lucid, should that be considered a lucid dream? When Sageous talks about lucidity ( or maybe he's gonna correct me all over the place in his next post :P), he's talking about understanding the ramifications of your state of consciousness, not just being aware of it, because as we all know, being aware that you're in a dream will never take you far into dream control.
I think you might be misunderstanding my take on self-awareness, Zoth. For me it is not a technique, but a state of mind. Self-awareness is literally sentience, and it is by no means a habit!Quote:
Sageous, one question: you put a lot of emphasis on self-awareness, and it got me thinking: if self-awareness is an habit, what makes it more effective than the habit of reality checking? Because now that I think about it, DILD techniques seem to fall into 2 categories:
- Explicit memory (the power of habit);
- Implicit memory (prospective memory being the largest player in here, way ahead of retrospective memory)
I'm sure I didn't word the above correctly, but let's assume: if self-awareness is something you build throughout the years, then it would be an habit right? You have the ingrained habit of assessing your state of consciousness, so much that you do it without thinking (in the sense, without effort to intentionally recall it). But if it's merely an habit, what makes it more effective than reality checking? Come to think about it, self-awareness and reality checking are the same thing in practical terms: you assess your state of consciousness. What is the important keyword of lucidity after this: self-awareness or habit? Because if they are the same, the real question is: is the journey from beginner to frequent lucid dreaming a matter of balance between prospective memory vs habit, more of the first in the beginning, and then largely due the later one?
I don't believe you could consider self-awareness a habit any more than you could consider being awake, or maybe joyful, a habit. There are lots of things we build through the years, like our physical forms, our knowledge and wisdom, our prowess at particular skills or arts. Are those things habits too, or are they time-honed facets of our personalities, of our selves?
That said, I think (a habit of) RC's could be an excellent tool for developing self-awareness, though not the only one. This is because, as a state test, if done correctly and not by rote, RC's allow their practitioner a moment to wonder about whether they are dreaming or not and, after they have determined that they are not, then they can wonder about where they really are. This sort of stream of consciousness is very handy when the RC reveals you are in a dream, and will probably lead to sparking self-awareness in the dream -- and a nice LD!
That said, I think you might be making the process of LD'ing a bit too mechanical. Those DILD techniques will both work (often in parallel, BTW), but they will only work if your mind is ready to be lucid. Otherwise you'll just manage to say, "Hey, this is a dream!" and then pretty much lose lucidity or wake up, because you lacked the self-awareness to truly appreciate where you are. I think that is my overriding problem with techniques: LD'ing, by definition, is a state of mind, and not the conclusion to a series of clever actions or habits (or for that matter a series of cues from machines, or stimuli from drugs). To see it in such linear terms I think leaves out much of what the lucid experience really entails.
Perhaps that is my problem? That I see LD'ing not as a mechanical result of, say, habits, but as potential tool for growth, exploration, and entertainment of a self-aware mind? This perspective might not be correct, physiologically, but it certainly elevates our being above just that of a programmable machine... I think I like that perspective.
Hey, you don't suppose that the "barrier" to lucidity is nothing physical at all, but simply dreamers' choosing to set aside self-awareness in the name of all those techniques, do you? That perhaps people are indeed doing everything right, but they're doing so without including the most fundamental aspect of lucidity, self-awareness? Something to think about, I think.
So: No; practicing self-awareness -- or, rather, achieving the ability to exercise self-awareness -- is not the same as maintaining a habit of RC'ing. RC'ing, and all those other techniques, can be helpful toward reaching the moment where self-awareness unites with the dream, but that's all they are: helpful habits meant to reach a goal, that goal being self-awareness in a dream.
I hope that made some sense!
Sageous: Self-awareness is the most important tool for lucidity, and being self-aware in WL means being self-aware in dreams(LD and NLDs), of course when you have honed it to a certain level, and I assume that Self-awareness isn't shut off during NLD(like, for example, memory that shuts off during NLD), but self-awareness isn't from a particular part of the brain, but from logic? or anything similar? It is a product of actions produced by the brain? Not directly produced? Anyways, if self-awareness is honed in WL, and thus it is increased automatically during NLD, then it is indeed the most powerful aspect of LDing.
Note: Don't ever retire! That would cause a big emptiness in DV!
I would like to disagree. I think that Self-awareness can be a very important tool for lucidity, but one that I have mostly abandoned, I am trying a method right now similar to self-awareness, but I have no fruit with it yet. I would type more, but it is lucid dream time. :) g'night.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Good night, and sweat LDs:D!Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandonBoss
But, are you sure that your self-awareness isn't developed quite well now? For a very successful LDer, you must have better self-awareness than the average or beginner LDer
Also, about my post to Sageous, I hope I didn't give the wrong idea. I meant that is self-awareness increased in NLDs because of the expectation and intention? or is it that it is maintained to a certain level within the dream? I think it's the first one, but if self-awareness isn't a product of a particular peace of the brain that is shut off during NLDs, then it could well be the later.
Edit:I love theories related to self-awareness and sentience!
That's an excellent question, LouaiB, and I certainly don't have the answer to it. I would say that self-awareness is a higher function of consciousness that somehow transcends the normal functions of the brain, but is certainly fueled by all of them; especially memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
So yes, I will think it "is a product of actions produced by the brain" until I find out otherwise, but it is a global product with no specific neurons or lobes dedicated to it ... just like its little brother consciousness! Other, more primordial bits of consciousness, like straight awareness and memory, probably do have dedicated brain "parts" working them, though it does seem that the more we learn about the brain, the more we discover its higher functions seem to be happening all over the place.
Yes, if you experience a lot of self-awareness in waking-life, I think that it does increase a bit in NLD's. Same goes for having lots of self-awareness-filled LD's.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
But no, I do not think that self-awareness is a product of expectation/intention. They are two very different things, each affecting very different but almost equally important aspects of a dreaming experience. Expectation/intention is very much a driver of unconscious activity, and is an important fundamental in dreaming, but it does nothing for self-awareness... indeed, you can be thoroughly un-self-aware and still have your dreams driven by expectation/intention. No only that, but expectation always drives dreams, whether you're into LD'ing or not, and you can set intentions for NLD's just as well as LD's, all without a moment of self-awareness.
So I would say it's the latter: because self-awareness is not a product of any specific brain processes, self-awareness can be present in a dream, even when the rest of the stuff, including memory, is shut off or unavailable. If you have an excellent handle on your self-awareness and practice it often, its presence (aka, your presence) will linger in NLD's, waiting in the wings for you to escalate that presence into a LD.
Awe, thanks! I'll likely be around for a while, regardless of how far the mainstream of this stuff seems to be shifting away from me.Quote:
Note: Don't ever retire! That would cause a big emptiness in DV!
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandonBoss
Bandonboss: Having read, enjoyed, and learned from so many of your posts, I think I must agree with LouaiB that you might be just a bit more connected to your self-awareness than you think. And, as LouaiB already noted as well, self-awareness, once well-established, is not the easiest thing to shut off... just sayin'!Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Yes, the current mainstream is killing us. Everyone wants a glamorous technique that is simple and fast. But, practicing the fundamentals, even though it takes time, is the most smart and rewarding thing in the long run. It is truly the right path to go with. Think about it, intermediate LDers must have higher self-awareness, so honing them directly is the key to directly becoming an expert. So, it is truly the fastest and most effective way to become a professional LDer.
What's the method?Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandonBoss
Another thought:
Self-awareness activates the memory in dreams, and memory is an important component of being self-aware. Now, someone might say that how come you need self-awareness to activate memory and need memory to activate self-awareness? Because it's not like that. Memory is not the only factor for activating self-awareness. We want to use the other factors that are responsible for self-awareness. These other factors stay on or partially on during NLDs, so we use them to coax a little self-awareness to the NLD, then that self-awareness "leaks" to the memory and activates it. So, even though memory is an important component of self-awareness, it is not used to activate the self-awareness in a NLD, rather to be activated by the small self-awareness from other parts of the brain, and then used to become lucid.
Right , Sageous?
Quote:
What's the method?
Quote:
night, and sweat LDs!
But, are you sure that your self-awareness isn't developed quite well now? For a very successful LDer, you must have better self-awareness than the average or beginner LDer
0_0 maybe it is self awareness. I will be putting my entire technique on here on my thread, this will give you a chance to see if it is classified as self-awareness. I would classify it more as dream awareness, night time awareness, or Straight up expectation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
I'm really curious to read that thread!:content:
I am almost done. Might be able to get it done today or tomorrow. :) It is reallylong so far, i just have a bit more to type up and then I have to format it on here so that it will be easy/more interesting to read.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
take your time. No body's rushing you:) ( I think)
about that "hard wired'' or ''learning'' thing, I think that in dreams, we percieve the same way as RL. We see, smell, feel the same way. The only difference is the input we get. It is possible to become aware in dreams, and it needs factors to induce it. So, it is a normal thing. Consciousness doesn't need a new way to activate in dreams. It just turns on. So, it is nothing out of the natural mechanism. This, of course, is my own opinion.
Great. I love it when someone comes up with a new angle on lucidity. Looking forward to reading :)Quote:
Originally Posted by BrandonBoss
I hope it's okay, but I'll answer your pm in here LouaiB, because my answer goes (it seems) against the view of Sageous, and it's interesting to see 2 perspectives working out. One thing he's spot on: I might be biased towards a more mechanical view of lucidity, partially due the fact that lucidity has indeed visible neurocorrelates (you can see it happening in the brain). But let me develop (I accidentally deleted the original response, but I'll do my best to recall what I wrote!):
Many will agree here that LDing is (but not limited to) an issue of memory. The reality is not that you're memory is off but impaired to some extent, which we can't quite figure. You do possess qualities such as procedural memory, semantic memory, and even to some degree, autobiographical memory. What confuses us, is tQuote:
by LouaiB: LDing is the issue of memory. Since you memory is off during dreams, you need to turn it on so you can remember that a dreamlike thing is unnatural. How? By increasing your self-awareness in dreams.When you are self-aware in dreams, your memory will be much more accessible.
Quote:
by LouaiB:RRCing is a great way to improve your self-awareness during the day. The nice thing about it is that , with practice, it becomes second nature.
This is where we disagree. Now, I think that we can all start with a basic truth regarding self-awareness, which for the purposes of this post (we can find another definition) we will define as:Quote:
by Sageous: I don't believe you could consider self-awareness a habit any more than you could consider being awake, or maybe joyful, a habit. There are lots of things we build through the years, like our physical forms, our knowledge and wisdom, our prowess at particular skills or arts. Are those things habits too, or are they time-honed facets of our personalities, of our selves?
Self-awareness is the capacity/state for/of introspection and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals.
I'll agree that self-awareness is a state of mind, but that doesn't cut it into practical terms. Self-awareness, like you (Sageous) mention and many of us agree, is something which is not hard-wired into humans. But for that exact reason, a long part of journey (lding journey) is not engaging in self-awareness, it's creating the habit of self-awareness. Regardless of what self-awareness is, we need to consciously direct our minds to it. Like you said, you've been building this self-awareness for many many years, so what you are doing is not (correct me if I'm wrong) reaching self-awareness: what you're doing/trying to do is achieving a continuous of this state of mind - we know that it's biological impossible to keep a continuum, so eventually, we are consciously reprogramming ourselves to perform that shift. At some point, like LouaiB mentioned, it becomes second nature. But this all still qualifies as an habit:
A habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.
Even if self-awareness wasn't an habit, we need to engage in an habit to *reach it* or develop it, so in the end, it's all the same concept: one type of DILD involves the implementation of habits to increase self-awareness. You can't shift to self-awareness mode unconsciously unless the habit is formed. Now where you and I might be clashing without knowing is where self-awareness is relevant to lucid dreaming. Notice that the original post is dwelling on the level of "induction", while you seem to dwell on the level of "development". I'll explain:
- If we assume lucidity as a shift in the state of consciousness (I'm going with the perspective I already mentioned where you're advancing a bit more towards waking life consciousness), then it wouldn't necessarily be self-awareness that would grant you the tools for post-lucidity induction.
It's this exact point that I find extremely relevant: so what we are picturing are DILD techniques that can and do work, that will grant you lucid dreaming induction. It's this simple! It doesn't matter if you're self-aware or not, you can induce lucid dreams based on:Quote:
by Sageous: Those DILD techniques will both work (often in parallel, BTW), but they will only work if your mind is ready to be lucid. Otherwise you'll just manage to say, "Hey, this is a dream!" and then pretty much lose lucidity or wake up, because you lacked the self-awareness to truly appreciate where you are. I think that is my overriding problem with techniques: LD'ing, by definition, is a state of mind, and not the conclusion to a series of clever actions or habits (or for that matter a series of cues from machines, or stimuli from drugs). To see it in such linear terms I think leaves out much of what the lucid experience really entails.
- Habit formation;
- Prospective memory;
But what's the issue then? You lack development! See where I'm going at? Self-awareness is not a necessity to induce lucidity in itself, as random ordinary people have lucid dreams without any practice/information. But development of lucidity: dream stabilization, dream control are only a product of self-awareness: if you can't understand yourself and the reality you are in, you won't be able to dissociate yourself from mental schemas present in the waking life, that kick in the moment you become lucid. Another great example of why self-awareness relevance is not in the start/induction of lucidity, but in it's development is EILD. I'm just guessing, but wouldn't you believe that by finding the neurocorrelates of lucid dreaming, we could stimulate certain brain regions responsible for reflective thought, logic, etc (whatever they may be), and induce lucidity? After all, if you can use NovaDreamer without self-awareness, but a simple pattern recognition (boosted by MILD) over and over, where is the need for self-awareness for the induction?. I think you got my point now, and for those who didn't, what I'm basically saying is that self-awareness is only essential for post-lucidity induction (mostly dream control and maintenance of this state of mind), not for the induction itself.
We don't know. Not only we don't understand the temporal aspect of daily residue process in dream content expression (we know it can happen days after, sometimes weeks), but we also don't understand exactly how the emotional aspect of it (brought by the allegedly function that dreams act as emotional regulation mechanisms), or even how exactly memory is expressed. Habit formation seems something simple, but why don't simple habits like checking the time, your mobile, biting your nails, occur often in dreams? We went as far as to include dream signs, but we still don't know what exactly makes a certain habit carry out in a dream, where your memory seems to be impaired. We know that prospective memory can't be the answer, otherwise veteran lders would need to keep thinking about inducting a lucid dream (they don't need to consciously think about it anymore it seems).Quote:
by LouaiB: What you want to do is to use that advantage to your benefit. Since dreams are partially made out of our daily experiences, we hope that the self-awareness increased by those RRC will be a part of those experiences that will be lucky enough to be a part of the dream, thus making you more self-aware in the dream. As mentioned above, self-awareness , with practice, will become second nature, so it will be more likely for it to be a part of the dream(that's why it is more effective than RCing). So, more self-awareness= bigger chance of it being a part of the dream(expectations).
Expectation and intention are part of memory ,and should be considered within it. You develop expectation based on retrospective memory, and if intention isn't the same as prospective memory, it sure seems a lot like it (I know I'm being over simplistic on this one, but it's for the sake of practical discussion).Quote:
If you set up strong expectation with intention, and the thing(lets say a person) appears, it would trigger self-awareness, which will trigger memory so you remember that this person is the person you wanted to see in the dream, so you become lucid. this is one way to coax self-awareness.
(I keep loosing myself at the middle of the post, I'll stop here xD)
PS: forgot to mention: that discussion between StephL and Sageous got me a lucid last night lol. Me and a DC briefly discussed what dream control and lucidity was, and boy he looked at me like I was an alien after I presented my view on it.
prospective memory surely increases the effectiveness of intention. That is why MILD is great with the fundamentals. As for self-awareness, I have 2 questions:
1. Does self-awareness coax in dreams by means of a habit(making it second nature). I know this is a question you just talked about, but if the memory responsible for such maintainance of a habit seems to be linked to intention. I will explain: Not all habits coax to dreams, but habits that we use intention to support seem to coax well.
2. When making self-awareness a habit and using intention to support it, does it actually coax to the dream(has there been direct studies to show that?)
.Quote:
1. Does self-awareness coax in dreams by means of a habit(making it second nature). I know this is a question you just talked about, but if the memory responsible for such maintainance of a habit seems to be linked to intention. I will explain: Not all habits coax to dreams, but habits that we use intention to support seem to coax well
Intention and habit are opposite (or at least different) things. An habit is something you do unconsciously, or at least a behavior that is integrated on your daily events. Intention implies a conscious attitude towards something. I get what you're trying to say though, and I honestly don't know what makes the "intent" influencing the "habit" in dreams: my view is that it's prospective memory that is helping you remembering something. Prospective memory can still take effect under distraction or temporal distance between the reminder and the cue, especially if we're talking about event-based prospective memory. In simple terms:
- While you develop the habit, prospective memory takes a larger role (you need to "work for lucidity);
- After the habit get's implemented, it still won't happen all the time (I can't comment on lucidity like hukif's/sageous/sivanson in here), but you need less reminders. I got no clue why, in this particular aspect I'm just speculating, so other theories would be welcomed :)
LouaiB: the (I think) most recent meta-analysis on lucid dreaming technique effectiveness highlighted one thing: Poor methodological quality of all studies regarding EVERY technique listed. Yes, that includes LaBerge's MILD. Guess that should give you an idea of what the answer for that question is xDQuote:
2. When making self-awareness a habit and using intention to support it, does it actually coax to the dream(has there been direct studies to show that?)
Yes, I read that analysis, you posted a link to it(pdf). Yes, i was very disapointed.
Also, I would like to argue that if we can use prospective memory to carry a habit to the dream, I'd rather use the habit of self-awareness because it is an easier habit to coax, and it helps in becoming lucid in other aspacts(like increasing the access to memory).
But, is it true that self-awareness would be the best habit to choose? I think this is a very important question
Great question. Ultimately, it all comes down to habit implementations. There are studies that analysed the time it takes to implement an habit: for example drinking a cup of water might take 10 days, doing exercise every day might take 2 months. No one ever studied this for specific lucid dreaming habits, so no one knows the pay off. Despite everything, self-awareness, due the reasons you mentioned, still would be ahead of any other habit to induce lucidity, because of the extra advantages it brings after you become lucid. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't complement self-awareness exercises with others (like reality checking) which could take significant less time to implement - I tested this with reality checks, it took me 20-21 days to achieve the first lucid, but I got no clue how long it took to automate the habit which is all that really matters. Besides, habit automation in waking life and in dreams seem to have complex differences, which makes the question even harder.Quote:
Also, I would like to argue that if we can use prospective memory to carry a habit to the dream, I'd rather use the habit of self-awareness because it is an easier habit to coax, and it helps in becoming lucid in other aspacts(like increasing the access to memory).
But, is it true that self-awareness would be the best habit to choose? I think this is a very important question
Would love to hear other's people input regarding that question of yours.
http://memecrunch.com/meme/1UBPE/for-now/image.png
quick edit: couldn't read your whole last post Sageous properly (im late!), but please don't assume I'm trying to "set" any rules. I got way less experience then many people posting here, and if I sound like I have all the answer just because my sentences look good, I don't. This isn't a dismissal of self-awareness: it's simply me trying to understand it and you shouldn't perceive my posts as if I'm trying to win an argument. I don't dismiss yours (or anyone's) input, I'm actually trying to get the ball rolling a bit more.
I got confused a little. What part of the memory is responsible for habits? Do we know how much impared it is during dreams?
Also, a habit of self-awareness is better than a habit of RCs because it becomes second nature. So, if the part of the memory that is responsible for habit is partially on, it will have a better chance to leak to the dream even if not making you lucid, it will activate the memory to a furthur extent, thus helping getting lucid
Zoth:
Aside from expressing disappointment in your apparent dismissal of self-awareness as an important aspect of LD'ing, I really have nothing for you... your post was lucid, clear, and probably right on almost every count, and I really don't feel like arguing for something that people are rapidly not giving a crap about anymore. So I won't.
That said, there were a few small things that I couldn't leave be:
First, I must ask: is just inducing a LD is really having a LD? Yes, you get a flash of "hey! this is a dream!" but pretty much nothing else. With no self-awareness to enhance that flash with control, stabilization, memory, and a true sense that this place is your dream, where exactly is the lucidity?
Next, I must mention that calling the practice of developing self-awareness a "habit" is pure semantics. By extension, announcing that that semantic conclusion means that self-awareness must be a habit because its development takes time is logically fallacious, and a bit of stretch, since it assumes that all the major things we do in life are just so many habits. By that measure, things like higher learning, proficiency at music or sports, or mastery of an art must also be habits, right? I don't think so. I have no idea why you are interested in diminishing self-awareness, as it is the single aspect that truly raises humans above most if not all living things on this planet. To do so seems odd for one as thoughtful as you, and perhaps a curious route to take just for the sake of argument.
One other very small thing: I don't know about stimulating the neurocorrelates of lucid dreaming (if there are any), but the NovaDreamer, to paraphrase its inventor, does not make you lucid. It only sends you a signal to tell you, in the dream, that you are dreaming. It is up to you to recognize that signal, and then choose to become lucid. In other words, you make you lucid, the machine only gives you a cue. You do so with a combination of expectation/intention, memory, and, of course, self-awareness. If you do not make that choice, then you are just another DC who sees -- and then dismisses -- a flashy red light on the horizon. I had thought you already knew this (that the machines only signal that you are dreaming, and don't make you lucid), Zoth; I guess I was mistaken.
That's it. Though now I'm thinking there is likely much more to say on this subject, we might be heading a bit off-topic, and besides, it is depressing that the smartest person in the room is intent on proving that a fundamental of "actual" LD'ing is not necessary, and is doing so convincingly (so all the LD'ing students reading will say, "Hey, no need to do all that daytime work! Zoth here has proven we can have LD's with just a machine or drugs! Cool!").
RCs is a great habit too.
Sageous: I'm sure Zoth meant that self-awareness isn't a necessary tool for achieving lucidity. Of course self-awareness is important to maintain thr lucidity, but he is specifically talking about the induction part. Also, he knows that the Novadreamer doesn't make you lucid, but only give a stimuli, like a dreamsign, and when combined with MILD(and self-awareness IF the prospective memory is impared during dreams), would be a very great way to focus your efforts on a apecific point.
I still want to continue this argument. It seems very productive.
I hope so... it didn't read that way to me; and will not, I think, read taht way to budding LD'ers looking for answers to their "barriers." I could of course be wrong!Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Go for it! I'll probably drag myself back in too, because this stuff is definitely important.Quote:
I still want to continue this argument. It seems very productive.
ok.
First, we need to determine what makes us know that we are dreaming. A dream sign or a spontaneous RC because of habit.
What makes us know that the dreamsign is dreamlike? We are aware of it, but lack the memory. So, we activate the memory to remember that this is unnatural. Any other aspect involved? Memory is categorized according to functions. We need to know what functions we need to use to become lucid, how to use them, to what extent they are active in a NLD, and what activates them(or increase the activity).
I think we should talk about every memory separatly.
This would be long, but is a huge step.
Also, the other aspect. Habit. We need to study what a habit is to the brain, how it works, what makes it work. Then, connect it to the first part I mentioned(because a habit is a matter of memory), so we can conclude what technique is best for exploiting habits.
Finally, we can deduce which method(s) is best for using memory, self-awareness and habits are best.
Expectation will be a factor of habits and intention will be a factor of prospective memory.
May we work without biases please( I am not implying that any of you are biased)
as somebody said here before
it's like everything, you just have to learn it ^^
vagaltone, we are gonna jack the thread for our own study.
I assume they will contribute. They have too! This is important for everybody
Fair enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
I would just like to say that this is an absolutely fabulous thread with all sorts of really important observations going on, it's going to take a while to digest all the various vews, thanks so much to all the contributors, and BrandonBoss can't wait to see your big post! Take your time and make it as long and detailed as necessary, I for one am not afraid of reading long posts!
Neither of these has ever caused me to become lucid. And I believe the same is true for many people. Usually I just spontaneously become lucid, and then comes the rush of excitement, followed by a couple of RC's just to confirm and then stabilization. However, I don't become lucid unless I've been thinking about it a lot lately and really trying to achieve it. So it's got a lot to do with just getting yourself thinking about it and expecting it to happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Reading the argument about whether self-awareness is mandatory for Lucid Dreaming is making me feel like there might be different types of "Lucid Dreaming". I definitely have had dreams that I called lucid dreams that did not involve self-awareness but they went like this:
I realize I am in a lucid dreaming. I am not aware of the significance of this. I just know the name of the phenomenon. If I see people in those lucid dreams, I will sometimes believe that it really is them and that I am in a real world, although not the same one as the waking world. Then, you might say, you were not lucid dreaming. However, in those dreams, my awareness of my surroundings is greatly increased. It is a different experience then a usual dream. I think that although Zoth accepts this type of dream as a lucid dream, Sageous does not. Instead, he believes a lucid dream is an experience in which you become self-aware specifically. I think that's what they think.
In my opinion, we are are ALWAYS conscious in dreams. This is if you define consciousness as "being sentient". We obviously feel and experience our dreams, that's what they are, sensations. In some dreams, we become more observant and those dreams are more vivid, you might think a thought like "I am dreaming" (Without deeper understanding of it) and you start controlling your dream or acting differently. You've got yourself a dream that feels different, that you would classify as a lucid dream. If you have a dream, however, in which you become self-aware, that is, you are aware of yourself and your surroundings and the context and interactions between those two, you gain an even greater experience. I think this is perfectly parallel to our experience in real life.
Not having studied all the posts in depth - just jumping in to say:
Dreaming of lucidity is surely not happening in children, who never heard of it before - it is happening to those trying to learn LD and then dream of talking about it or some such - that is not the topic.
Yes Sageous - just the flash insight "This is a dream" is lucidity.
All else is down to practice and preference.
Lucidity is lucidity - and it is defined by that realization.
I find it very strange that you want to draw some imaginary line through lucid experiences and say - but only now it is real lucidity.
What for?
Sure - they have different lengths and quality - you might or might not remember all and everything, you have planned for the LD from waking life - you might get scared even while at the same time knowing it is a dream...
But even when I only shortly realize, that I am dreaming - that is the very same state of affairs, from which I had my higher level lucids in terms of length, control and memory.
It is like saying - no - you can not walk, until you are not able to do it on a high-wire!
Why doubt other children`s lucidity - when you yourself know better?Quote:
Originally Posted by fogelbise
Quote:
Originally Posted by fogelbise
So there we have it.
Fogelbise should be credible enough. One more classic case.
It must be hardwired and easily accessible - even if that hurts some people`s pride of having LDs as a well-earned and especially deserved achievement.
Nightmares - gets information - very next nightmare - not only lucidity in the sense of a short flash of realization - but with remembering information from waking life and putting it into practice.
And then going on with LD for fun - until it falls into forgetfulness/gets neglected.
Like our culture does that to us - less sleep, stress...
If you are not advised to keep up the practice for it's many, many benefits besides versus nightmares and for mere fun - that is what happens per default it seems.
I have repeated it loads - I do it once more - 6 people, whom I asked, my mother included - had LDs as a child and have very vivid and clearly valid memories of them.
That clearly means for me - there are others, who also had them among those I asked, who have simply forgotten them.
The core problem I see, why LD is not wide-spread is that children do not get acknowledged, supported and taught it.
I am convinced, they more or less all stumble over it at some time - or at least it is extremely easy for them in comparison to us adults, wanting to (newly or again) lucid dream.
Edit: Thank you VagalTone for supporting me with having talked to and being impressed by LDing children - tell us more maybe please?
My plan is actually to open a thread and give it a stab at arguing for LD being an evolutionary invention - after human consciousness - and after dreams in mammals.
Ok, maybe we should change the aproach a little. How about we see how we can use self-awareness and specific parts of the memory together for even better results( how to use MILD, RRC and RC together, maybe?)
Yeah, I get that a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
I could be wrong, I probably am wrong, about drawing that imaginary line, but I fear I will never stop doing it. This is because the things that happen after that flash of "knowing it's a dream" are so wonderful, and so worth exploring, that I will likely always think that there is a difference between opening the door to lucidity and walking through it. Also, it isn't so much requiring a tightrope walk to define walking as defining walking as something more than a toddler balancing and stepping forward for the first time -- even though its parents are shouting with joy because the baby is "walking."
Though I've also always felt there were several levels of LD'ing quality, and always will, I truly do not think you need to be a master of the art to appreciate LD'ing; just stepping through that door is enough! ... and I think that getting out of that doorway is what this thread was all about, so all the more reason I hold fast here and insist that, in order to really appreciate lucidity, you must do more than just have a moment of "Hey, this is a dream!" Yes, that moment of discovery is a very cool thing, but if you stop there, blocking that doorway, you have indeed formed a barrier to, yes, actual lucidity. And by dismissing the fundamentals in favor of flashy techniques, machines, or drugs that just get you to the door and no further, you are building a new, locked, door in front of then open one.
Sorry to disappoint, Steph -- for some reason it really bothers me...
On a small break at work so can't continue my previous post, but just wanted people to consider a small thing regarding this "what is lucidity" that StephL and Sageous are still discussing:
StephL, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if children had a much higher lucid dreaming frequency than most people expect: after all, they're forming brain connections at incredible rates, and unlike adults, at a huge development period when it comes to integrate experiences into their mental schemas. My question is:
What does that have to do with lucid dreaming being hard-wired into humans, or even being an evolutionary intention?
You do make a compelling point regarding lucidity as a process that would arise in our evolutionary path, but you're assuming that lucidity is an evolutionary product of consciousness, which in itself would be another evolutionary product. But we don't know this, and this is (I think) where Sageous makes total sense: how can we state that lucidity is an evolutionary intention when consciousness itself might just as well be an evolutionary byproduct of language? It makes much more sense that lucidity is a byproduct of the dreaming mechanism (a "glitch" if you may) then a trait for evolution. Why? Because children alone cannot possibly account for a trait that would make evolutionary sense: high lucid dream frequency would have to be present throughout the whole period of human life.
Besides that, we already know that lucid dreams happen spontaneously: join that to the initial characteristics of children that I posted in the first paragraph, and is it that special that so many children have lucid dreams? (and we're assuming this based on anecdotal evidence several of us presented, in a lucid dreaming forum)
You tell Sageous that it must be hard-wired and easy accessible, but then you create a much complex question: why would children loose that ability to lucid dream as they grow up? There are several other aspects to consider, but even then, evolutionary designed and hard-wired are completely different things: hard-wired meaning innate, meaning it would stick forever, and be present on everyone. Clearly we aren't hardwired.
I just realized I lost myself again: I wasn't meant to talk about this, but instead about what is lucidity xD I already posted this in another topic, but for the sake of everyone seeing it:
I'd agree with StephL on this one: lucidity is lucidity, knowing that you are in a dream provokes significant changes to your brain activity. But Sageous view get's me thinking: the definition of what a lucid dream is it's only that....a definition, and may not necessarily represent the phenomenon perfectly. Now playing a bit of semantics:Quote:
For THOLEY (1985) the following points have to be fulfilled to define a lucid dream: THOLEY compiled a list of prerequisite factors that have to be present to define a lucid dream:
Clarity (Klarheit) about the status of consciousness: Awareness that one is dreaming
Clarity (Klarheit) about the freedom of decision: The ability within the dream to choose a course of action...
Clarity (Klarheit) of consciousness, as opposed to a state of confusion
Clarity (Klarheit) about the waking life: about who you are and what, if any, your plans were for this dream
Clarity (Klarheit) of perception: what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted or felt sometimes much more intense
Clarity (Klarheit) of recollection of the dream. You know, that you will remember this dream, that you can remember other dreams already dreamt while dreaming
Clarity (Klarheit) of meaning: You know, why you dream this dream and you know, what the (hidden) meaning is
The first four points of THOLEY’s definition of lucid dreaming is widely accepted whereas the last two points are open to discussion and often not accepted as absolute prerequisites.
For the definition of lucid dream like THOLEY introduced it, (1) to (7). For Stephen LaBERGE only (1) and (2) are required. (3) to (7) are more like features of this wonderful often quite ecstatic dream state (in German called “Klartraum” oder “luzider Traum”).
lucid: Mentally sound; sane or rational. readily understood; clear; psychiatry of or relating to a period of normality between periods of insane or irresponsible behaviour
Now, if we assume some of these common definitions, then lucid involves more than knowing you are dreaming: you can't be lucid if you can't think properly and rationally. If we take the literal translation of lucid dream "being aware that you are in a dream", then unconscious lucidity would be in the same category of higher-level lucidity (which would be really insulting indeed, because we're practically talking about radically different experiences). If "lucid dream" was coined after the "lucidity" that you experience in the waking life, then being aware that you are dreaming wouldn't cut it: we can't be considered "lucid" while hallucinating with LSD while knowing we are in the train hallucinating and not in disney land riding pluto, can we?
Hmmm now I'm undecided lol, unsure if we should stick to the traditional definition and go from there( so I'd agree with StephL because lucidity would just be another part of the spectrum of consciousness) or integrate lucidity as something that transcends the dream - after all, "lucid" was being used for waking life before it was used to describe a certain type of dream (in that case, I'd agree with Sageous completely). Back to work!
Very nice discussion guys ! I was not hoping to catalyze such a deep and broad debate with my questions, but i am glad you have all find an opportunity to do so. We have here a good piece of material to read and reflect. It would provide a good book, if i could have the copyright :)
I am not completely aware of all this thread's thoughts, so far, specially after it began to develop into more specific and detailed lines. I sometimes loose interest when my limited intelligence and curiosity canīt figure out immediate practical insights and applications.
I just want to add that of course there are degrees of lucidity as there are degrees of waking consciousness. And i also feel that all of us are aiming to achieve those highly lucid dreams. And i would add that, just as well, all of us would like to achieve a higher mastery of attention, mental stability, insight and so on.
If that high state of consciousness is available to us during the day, why do we loose that when we fall asleep ? That's something we can't accept :P. Is it a psychological habit or a physiological imperative ?
Now, some thoughts on children and LDing:
I think children can get high level lucid dreams, comparing to what is possible for them in waking life. I would add that children, much more than adults, have a smaller gap between their dreaming and waking minds. At least thatīs how i remind my own child dreams, and thatīs the feedback i get very often.
Of course their experience is different than ours, they donīt have complex self-actualization and transcendent goals, but as far as mundane goals and activities are concerned, i think we are not that different ( that's why we talk about our inner children, right ? ). We enjoy playing with our dog, just like when we were a child, or playing an instrument..
In absolute terms i think we adults have the potential to reach higher lucidity dreams in terms of complexity, insight, transcendence, and spiritual impact than children but i also believe that children end up reaching higher lucidity levels - not because of the complexity of the dream, but because it is more vivid and realistic. In short, they end up reaching their present dreaming potential more often, and without deliberate effort.
I think we as adults have a higher potential to reach, just because we have different interests and a more complex mind, but actually end up with more low quality lucid dreams. Children, i think, have much more consistent high quality dreams, just not so " interesting" in terms of content.
--> adults have more interesting dream contents and intentions, but not so much vividness. They have higher potential to explore, which means they have more levels to progress, if they want.
--> children have more vivid dreams, and more dream control abilities, dream more often, but their dream contents are not as much evolved. They reach their potential easily, without deliberate effort.
I also wonder how to factor in the idea that a child's brain isn't finished growing yet? We know for instance that up to a certain age kids don't really understand ideas about right and wrong, they're just selfish egotistical want-machines. Surely a brain with an as-yet undeveloped cerebral cortex (the part responsible for advanced human-level thought setting us apart from the rest of the animals) doesn't act the same as a fully developed adult brain?
Well, you know how you can never remember the last minute before you fell asleep, most of your dreams, and some times that you woke up during the night. What if we never reach a level of 0 consciousness, we only reach a low level of consciousness and then, we also just don't stock the information in our long-term memory (not even the short one for that matter)?Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
At the same time, we all know that Lucid Dreaming is possible. It is possible to sleep and have a high level of consciousness. A low level of consciousness is therefore not a prerequisite of sleep. Some people even claim that they can be aware throughout their complete sleep period, although I am skeptical about that feat.
In that sense, a lowered consciousness during sleep is not a physiological imperative.
I am tempted to say it is a psychological habit, and perhaps a necessary one. We have very noisy minds, or at least I do. I think that as a whole, we have a lot going on in our heads and if we try to sleep while with a normal level of consciousness, we pay too much attention to our complex problem solving of what to do tomorrow, evaluating yesterday, etc... If we trained to clear our mind easily and simply focus on being, then maybe, we could enter sleep without being distracted by anything complex. Like a WILD.
I guess that means that I believe that getting a higher level consciousness is a habit, a habit of focusing your attention on certain ideas that create this feeling of higher consciousness. But to sleep and have a higher level consciousness we must be able to have a quiet mind, by focusing attention only on being for very long periods of time.
Could children be more able to lucid dream because they have simpler minds and therefore more quiet minds which allow them to have a higher level of consciousness during sleep. And perhaps kids are more like animals which pay a lot of attention to the world. A child is very captivated by its surrounding while us as adults spend a lot of time studying abstract concepts and on the internet which does not require observance. Children, being more observant, have more vivid dreams.Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
Just throwing my own experience out there, I can well remember at a young age, 9 being the oldest age I recall experiencing this, I would find the feeling of self-awareness very strange. It made me feel so special and so confused at the same time. It was an explainable feeling, where I thought, if I only experience me, who experiences other people? For example, if you watch TV, you can only experience one person at once, and in this life, I was always only watching myself, making me feel as if I was the only conscious being in the world. This could of been when my self-awareness was developing which seems to me like I was quite old for that to be happening then...
Thatīs something that sleep yogis attain with training..If one gets that far then itīs possible to hold lucidity throughout the sleep cycle, but thatīs a skill and may be lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Occipitalred
I have read scattered reports of people achieving natural, spontaneous non-rem sleep awareness ( or lucidity ? ) though...
So, i donīt know, may be our sleep physiology could be very different now if we had counted sheep when we were children ? :P
So, in this regard, what is hardwired and what is learned ? what is the difference and relation between the two ? We may have some hardwired potential, but there is an environment which selects and guides what potential is developed.
So, i am more willing to say that we have the "hardwire" potential to lucid dream ( and may be lucid sleep ? ), but our environment ( including our permeated and culturally shaped mind ) is not conducive to its flourishing, quite the opposite.
Thatīs why i think we should look carefully at children, if we want to help them keep their potential an develop it further :) I bet it would be much more simple than it sounds..
In regards to the "evolutionary/hardwired" discussion, I don't understand what is meant. Evolution is only the way by which the next generation has mutations which makes it different from the previous generation and when a group is too different from the rest of the species due to these mutations, you've got yourself a new species. That's all that evolution is. So the question is, do our genes permit us to lucid dream. Well, obviously they do since we do it. Therefore I do not understand the confusion. Obviously, we are "meant" to lucid dream since we do, although are bodies are not meant to do anything at all (unless there is a higher power controlling evolution). Evolution, in its modern science definition, only talks of how we evolve randomly. Eyes are just random. They are not designed to see because they are not designed. They just happened to gradually become what they are now since species with eyes were more fit, although even that is not the only factors. If an accident had killed the species with eyes and random factors would have brought another species without eyes, then it would have happened. It's all just random. When we talk about today, whatever we can do is by definition possible and allowed by the genes that evolution gave us.
I think it is a matter of keeping children interested in the outside world and help them focus their attention to their surroundings, as well as telling them about lucid dreaming and how to practice it so they know what they are doing. I just feel that with today's technology, kids are much more interested by video games, cellphones, and the internet to have a continuous attention for their surroundings.Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
Since the premise that children LD just like adults seems to have been accepted without question, I think Darkmatters'earlier post bears repeating:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
Not just like adults, i took great care to show the differences. But yes, they do LD. It may be hard to accept though :P
This topic is getting confusing (probably our own fault :yumdumdoodledum: ), we already have at least 3 premises being discussed at the same time:
- Lucid dreaming induction;
- What is lucidity;
- Children and lucidity.
VagalTone, you made the thread, so should we follow your lead and straighten the conversation to the last premisse, or is this thread meant to discuss different components of lucidity? It's just so we don't derail your thread and scare people with the massive comments regarding different things (and I want to know so I can go look for my book on child development if we're talking about that xD)
Feel free Zoth, i was only taking advantage of the last trend on this thread.
I think these are all related topics and itīs natural they have been brought up, imo, so if someone has further insight to help understand how lucidity is lost or aroused in sleep, the mechanisms of lucidity, whether in children or adults, i would welcome it.
Well, as I said, I think children lucid dream according to this definition: They know a dream is happening (Children know what dreams are and can make this observation) and they have higher sensory awareness, they become more observant of their dreams because they are very observant creatures in waking life, a bit like animals because they are exploring the world. I agree that they lack some experience with self-awareness to have a higher consciousness lucid dream though.Quote:
I also wonder how to factor in the idea that a child's brain isn't finished growing yet? We know for instance that up to a certain age kids don't really understand ideas about right and wrong, they're just selfish egotistical want-machines. Surely a brain with an as-yet undeveloped cerebral cortex (the part responsible for advanced human-level thought setting us apart from the rest of the animals) doesn't act the same as a fully developed adult brain?
But what is the age range that defines someone to be a child?
Well - if something brings me to the door - that realization - why does that build a new and closed one up in front of me?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
If I gain lucidity with a certain alarm-device tuned to my REM cycles - I am as much there as the next person.
And can start the journey - with abilities - whatever they are.
It is actually not so, that they build up new connections and synapses - they get pruned down - we loose an enormous amount of them after birth - it is more a process of carving out the final pathways - like with a chisel. Oh where do I find the citations now - almost didn't mention it..:roll:Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Nothing much - it is the prerequisite for the idea though - and Sageous was at the outset last page doubting, that there could be - lets better say soft-wired pathways for LDing in brains, which have not yet undergone specific or at least extensive other awareness practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Really?Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
If you do attribute anything at all to evolution - why on earth not the mind?
Is is not what distinguishes us from all other animals - and is it not us, who have conquered this planet in almost all conceivable ways - who subjugate, use and kill all other life more or less at our leisure?
Why call exactly the biggest success story of any species on the planet not due to evolution - I really don't get it!
We are biological, or aren't we?
That again comes from wanting to have a need for a soul in the equation - why on earth else would you exclude the mind - a trait of living things - from the realm of evolution?
And why want to believe in a soul? For fear of death. Ultimately only for fear of death*.
Listen to the one hour plus/read the 9th chapter on consciousness in Nick Lane`s "Life Ascending - The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution" - you will change your mind there, I think.
*Death has chapter number ten devoted to it..
Yeah - I want to try to argue the case - I am not sure about the invention part - but I think, this argument of yours is not valid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Especially in former times life-span was much shorter - and whom we view as children/kids today - where the ones doing the procreation to a significant degree.
But I actually came off it a bit - maybe it is just better to subsume LDing under the great invention of human consciousness and good is.
Shame - and I liked the idea so much..:P
Aahm - yes and no.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Being hardwired is maybe the wrong term - it came up to oppose the theory, that completely new wires would have to be connected for LD, and not just using ones, that are already there. Being there of course does not mean being static - that is not how the wiring works.
But you are right - being soft-wired so does in itself not say, that LD is a specific evolutionarily significant factor.
As opposed to just spill-over from human consciousness into the pre-existing animal-dreams.
And yeah - makes more sense - even to enthusiastic little me..
But who knows!
Arguing the case could bring forth a compendium of possible benefits - well - can be done for the mere fun of it, too..
Original ways to foster LD-wiring in the gene-pool or something..:D
No - being aware, that - means for me being aware of the fact that you are dreaming - and that of course includes knowing, what a dream is, and that there is waking life in contrast to that - where other laws are in power etc..Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
What you are getting at I would name - being aware in a dream - some sort of awareness is of course in all our dreams - otherwise no narratives.
It was coined after the German word Klartraum - and that is in itself seen as a bit unlucky in the German community**. Klar means clear, not lucid - we have "luzide" - but it was supposedly meant as a translation historically.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
It was from the onset a rather poetical naming - playing on the connotations of clear.
**Into which I will foray a bit - strange I didn't already..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Well - no need for deep confusion here - it was not a god bound to name everything to it's true nature, who came up with the term - and neither a taxonomist - distorted in translation - is all.
I just wanted to make sure people keep the differences between a child's brain and an adult's brain in mind for this discussion - I doubt anyone can really say with any certainty exactly what the differences are, or which functions of the brain go online at a particular age (unless somebody is a child psychologist?). As for defining the age range - I wonder at what age (or range of ages) kids typically start lucid dreaming, and stop? I guess it coincides with when they tend to have nightmares. I wish I could clearly remember my own dreams from childhood, but I'm sure even if I did by now the memories would be hopelessly filtered through my adult concepts.
I wish we had studies!!
I have a famous book on the subject in my lap, I just don't know for what particular function to look into.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
Firstly we need to limit the age right? Well, it seems that children can perform the mirror test at around 1.5-2years, and you can't be lucid without sense of self I'd say...
According to this other book regarding sleep on children, we have N-REM to REM cycle relatively equal to the adult at around 6 years of age.
Wait....behold:
Lucid dreaming: an age-dependent brain dissociation
Has someone mentioned this study yet? Wow, that prevalence is high indeed 0o And there is a lot of (seemingly) signifcant information. According to this: Dream lucidity is moderately related to dream recall, but unrelated to duration of sleep or napping. So much for my thought about children having more ld due possible higher amounts of REM....this would mean that REM rebound would also be useless for non-WILD lding.
Ahahah, same! Well, maybe we can find something interesting by ourselves. I'll reply to your reply in a bit, but have you thought about compiling the brain regions mentioned in that meta-consciousness studies and check for any particularities (like, aren't they located in a part of the brain known for slower development?)Quote:
I wish we had studies!!
Wow!! Yesss!!!!
Thank you Zoth for unearthing this!!
That proves my theory of LD being very common in children and they found it declines from age 13 on and usually drops significantly around age 16.
There are so many data - and analysed so many ways - hard to find the best number to cite - but no doubt at all.
Quote:
Based on previous research on lucid dreaming, we are
inclined to interpret the current results as evidence that it is
an exceptional mental state occurring naturally in the course
of brain maturation. The fact that lucid dreaming is more
pronounced in students of higher level secondary schools
implies that lucid dreaming is linked to the development of
cognitive functions.
Quote:
The phenomenon of lucid dreaming is often only vaguely
understood, even by those who claim to have had lucid
dreams in the past. Most studies of lucid dreaming rely on
questionable or not properly validated sources (for a review,
see Gackenbach, 1991). Our own experience shows that
especially online questionnaires, which are currently quite
popular, invite unreliable reports that compare meagerly with
those collected in the laboratory after REM-awakenings or
paper and pencil tests with proper instructions (Voss et al., in
preparation). Accordingly, reports of lucid dream experiences
in adults (at least once in a lifetime) range from 82% (Schredl
and Erlacher, 2004) to 26% (Stepansky et al., 1998) 4 .
In this survey, we found an overall prevalence rate of 52%
which compares well with a recent representative survey by Schredl
and Erlacher (2011), who reported a lifetime prevalence of
51% in adult participants. On the other hand, our group of 18
and 19 year olds had a lifetime prevalence of more than 70%,
which shows how important it is to provide age-related
incidence rates of lucid dreaming. Another shortcoming of
past surveys on lucid dreaming was that they did not
distinguish between past and present lucid dreaming inci-
dence. This was one objective of the current study.
Our findings strongly suggest that, although most adults can
remember having had a lucid dream in the past, they rarely
experience them at present.
Miscellaneous findings
Concerning sleep and dreaming, we found no evidence of a
confounding effect of sleep duration or napping with regard to
either frequency of dream recall or lucid dreaming (Table 5).
We confirmed sex differences in dream recall (Schredl and
Reinhard, 2008), but did not observe an age effect. The
literature in this regard is controversial, some sources cite a
significant decline in older age (Schredl, 2008; Stepansky
et al., 1998), while others do not (Schredl and Piel, 2003;
Schredl and Reinhard, 2008). Because our age range does
not compare with those studies, we refrain from an in-depth
discussion at this point. It appears, however, that young
children in our current survey were as reliable in their dream
reports as their older peers.
Similar to a recent study by Schredl and Erlacher (2011),
but to a lesser degree, frequency of dream recall was
significantly correlated with frequency of lucid dreams,
suggesting that the ability to remember one?s dreams
facilitates lucid dreaming or the memory of it.
Clinical implications
Lucid dreaming is of immense value for the study of conscious
states. We must ask ourselves, however, what the conse-
quences are for our subjects: will training of lucid dreaming
alter cognitive and ⁄or emotional processing capacity in
waking? Can lucid dreaming be applied to clinical settings?
What we have observed in the children and young adults of
the current survey is what seems like a preparedness for
lucid dreaming.
Interestingly, plot control was not automatically coupled with lucid dreaming.
Does this indicate that they do not recognize the possibility? Is that in turn a function
of a Piagetian kind of causality mystery? Do they later learn
it?
Obviously, it is available to frequent lucid dreamers
(Fig. 5), which indicates that plot control must be susceptible
to training. Indeed, several of the interviewed young boys and
girls stated unasked that lucid dreaming commenced at a
time of need when nightmares prevailed.
Narrative 3: (girl, 10): Someone was haunting me. And I
was with my girlfriend. The chaser stood before me and
wanted to kill me. And then I realized it was only a dream.
So I made the person disappear and then suddenly, it
wasn?t dark any more.
Students described lucid dreaming in combination with plot
control as a sort of self-remedy that helped them not only to
sleep through the night but also to achieve a sense of
mastery over their emotions.
This is especially relevant
because plot control was mostly reported in connection with
aggression, violence directed at them, or flying. It is espe-
cially remarkable because these students had no training and
lucid dreaming occurred spontaneously. The present survey
did not assess these aspects systematically, but the asser-
tiveness with which students described their experience with
lucidity leads us to speculate that lucid dreaming may prove
clinically useful in the treatment of children suffering from
anxiety disorders or nightmares.
Lucid dreaming might even prove useful in abating excessive impulsiveness.
So there.
And all adult people, whom I ask - really all of them - have poor dream-recall.
That seems the main difference to children - if I got this right - recall and lucidity are intimately connected.
Wow - look at you two go!!! Haha - Steph, you wished for studies and suddenly there they were!
Discussions like this one are why I have stayed at this forum. I don't have anything to really add this time, but regarding self awareness I will say that all of my experience is mostly in agreement with Sageous's; if I understand him correctly, that is.
"State awareness" sometimes combined with MILD and dream control practice (during the day) is more than enough to make me lucid. Then self awareness naturally kicks in after practicing it for some time. Once I developed these two over the years, memory usually kicks in as soon as awareness does, or if it does not, I can choose to switch it on or remain ignorant of it at that point. Without self awareness however, memory would always be a problem for me, as would a high level of lucidity (and obviously a very real sense of self awareness). Yeah, confusing. Finally, there are times when self awareness makes me lucid when even state awareness fails; at least that is the way I interpret it.
Sometimes low level lucid dreams are great. Sometimes I like thinking I am still 17, but when memory is limited, so is virtually everything else. Practice in drilling techniques (including memory) can alleviate this to some degree, but not entirely. Think of a tree with many branches and no trunk.
Apologies for the incoherent babble.
EDIT: I think my purpose for posting this is that while it is great (and very important) to delve into the hows and whys, it is also important to not lose sight of what works (in pursuit of convenience), even though we may not be able to see it under a microscope yet. I think this is Sageous's fear, and it would be mine as well. I find it difficult to believe that a high satisfaction level can be reached otherwise. I am sure we all mostly agree, but I think it is an important reminder.
Great study Zoth!
This does not necessarily go against what Sageous was saying though (Although, I am not him so I might be misinterpreting what he said).
You still need to define lucid dreaming. Yes, lucid dreaming is when you know you are dreaming but that is not a good enough definition for me. But that's just "Lucid Dreaming" which is not as amazing as "Conscious Dreaming". You can easily have a dream where you know you are dreaming just like you can have a dream where you know you are in Harry Potter. It's not because you're right about it being a dream that it makes a difference. Self-awareness goes deeper than just "this is not the real world".
This is their procedure in the research:
Participating students were provided with a detailed
description of lucid dreaming (lucid insight into the dream
while remaining asleep) and ample time was given to make
sure they had understood the concept. Students were then
asked several sleep-related warm-up questions (Fig. 1),
followed by seven dream-related ones. If a lucid dream was
reported, the interviewer requested that an example of such a
dream plot be shared (Narrative 1).
Narrative 1 (boy, 7 years old): I dreamt I was playing
soccer with my friends, and when I looked at my legs I saw
that they were distorted. Then I realized it must be a dream
because they did not at all look like my own legs. Then I
looked up and saw that I was in a giant soccer stadium and
I was able to play with my favorite soccer team (the adult
team). I could run real fast, faster than in waking.
For validation purposes, the student was then asked to
describe why he ⁄ she believed the dream had been a lucid
one (Narrative 2).
Narrative 2 (boy, 11 years old): I knew I was dreaming
because the houses and streets looked different from
reality and I was able to climb up the walls, like Spiderman,
just like that. And then I thought about what I could do up
there on the
The study does not prove they had "conscious dreams". They did indeed have "lucid dreams" but I don't count my own dreams where I know that I am dreaming as lucid if I do not have a higher consciousness. This definition that Zoth brought up is already much better:
Clarity (Klarheit) about the status of consciousness: Awareness that one is dreaming
Clarity (Klarheit) about the freedom of decision: The ability within the dream to choose a course of action...
Clarity (Klarheit) of consciousness, as opposed to a state of confusion
Clarity (Klarheit) about the waking life: about who you are and what, if any, your plans were for this dream
Clarity (Klarheit) of perception: what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted or felt sometimes much more intense
Clarity (Klarheit) of recollection of the dream. You know, that you will remember this dream, that you can remember other dreams already dreamt while dreaming
Clarity (Klarheit) of meaning: You know, why you dream this dream and you know, what the (hidden) meaning is
I don't know what else to say.
If you have a dream for example, in which you know you are in love with said DC and that affects your behavior in the dream scenario. For example, you look for them before leaving a house, OK... It's a "romantic dream". But it's not the same as actually experiencing love in the dream and feeling a deep connection with them. This doesn't seem like a great analogy but I don't really know how to explain it.
No, it does not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Occipitalred
Great post, BTW, Occipitalred; nicely said!
About the lucid dream defenition, I think that a lucid dream should be defined as only being aware that one is dreaming and recall the goals he put(like Laberge). I believe it should be like that because of technique assesment. Sageous makes a very important point, that self-awareness is very important to experience a good LD, but it should be related to the techniques only, not to the defenition itself. What I mean is that, to evaluate a technique, one should make sure the technique provides LDs, and does not hinder self-awareness.
As for the attaining lucidity topic, I studied the types of memory, and still think that memory is an essencial factor of LDing, as well as self-awareness(no environmental awareness is needed to be trained bcz we already poses it in dreams, but lack the other factors). Expectation and intention are very important too(seems like Sageous's fundamentals are truly the right way, but we need to study them more). I will study this more and report my results.
It's impossible to stick to one premise in this thread xD Regarding lucidity, even though there are strong arguments for both sides, jumping to conclusions like the ones below doesn't solve the problem. I feel like many of us are facing the discussion on the basis that someone is right and the opposite thinker is wrong (no one in particular), instead of promoting a discussion to find what what's truth:
Quote:
Yes, lucid dreaming is when you know you are dreaming but that is not a good enough definition for me. But that's just "Lucid Dreaming" which is not as amazing as "Conscious Dreaming".
It's just it doesn't really matter how we personally view lucidity: our experiences have limited value. Awareness in a dream, and by awareness I mean the realization that you are dreaming, already gives you significant cognitive "freedom": it allows you to change your state (waking yourself up), it allows to perform dream control (even at a basic level, like directing your attention to a certain aspect of the dream), and it changes the experience. Tholey, who came up with that table of prerequisites for lucidity, did not have access to fmri or other tools: if low lucidity and high lucidity presented themselves as mere differences (low and high) in terms of brain activation, should we still say lucid dreaming has to be something more than being aware you are in a dream? And (this is important), just because control and memory greatly enhance the lucid dream, making it the "experience we are chasing", does that mean anything below that threshold should not be considered a lucid dream? So many reports in LaBerge's book reveal a clear lack of dream control and low lucidity, but nonetheless, intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating.Quote:
The study does not prove they had "conscious dreams". They did indeed have "lucid dreams" but I don't count my own dreams where I know that I am dreaming as lucid if I do not have a higher consciousness. This definition that Zoth brought up is already much better:
I'll play a bit of devil's advocate: can you elaborate why? Intention might help, but is not necessarily crucial: I can have no intention of becoming lucid, but if you train me to reality check whenever I see NovaDreamer's light, chances are I'll get lucid. This isn't a guess, it's simple classical conditioning, and I already mentioned that study in which Group A, which was given no task, still memorized words better than Group B, which were told to memorize them. My point is: saying that intention is relevant for anything doesn't replace the review of the effectiveness of the method. We could say: yes, but intention has to almost necessarily have an impact on memory (like prospective memory) and thus, be beneficial to lucidtiy: and that seems to be the case for beginners. But what good does intention to someone like Sageous, who experiments low-lucidity in practically all his dreams, and who I bet doesn't even need to think about lucid dreams before laying down to sleep? Could it be that intention is just "prospective memory" in disguise, in the sense that it's very useful while you're building the habit of self-awareness/reality checking/whatever you use, but effectively "not important" as your progress increases?Quote:
Expectation and intention are very important too(seems like Sageous's fundamentals are truly the right way, but we need to study them more). I will study this more and report my results.
Sageous regarding this point, you told us some posts above that you need to be ready to be lucid: could you develop that?
PS: Darkmatters, wasn't it you that created that thread where atheists should pose arguments for the validity of religion and vice-versa? I think we would greatly benefit for such exercise in this thread, sometimes it seems everyone's marching their own way xD
Zoth
I agree and I will try to incorporate that at the end of my post. However, I must admit that I agreed more with you and StepL at the beginning of your discussion and did not agree with Sageous but as I wrote my post, it took a weird twist and made me talk about the opposite and now I have become committed to my new view :PQuote:
PS: Darkmatters, wasn't it you that created that thread where atheists should pose arguments for the validity of religion and vice-versa? I think we would greatly benefit for such exercise in this thread, sometimes it seems everyone's marching their own way xD
LouaiB
ZothQuote:
About the lucid dream defenition, I think that a lucid dream should be defined as only being aware that one is dreaming and recall the goals he put(like Laberge). I believe it should be like that because of technique assesment.
To be honest, this to me sounds like Dream Induction.Quote:
It's just it doesn't really matter how we personally view lucidity: our experiences have limited value. Awareness in a dream, and by awareness I mean the realization that you are dreaming, already gives you significant cognitive "freedom": it allows you to change your state (waking yourself up), it allows to perform dream control (even at a basic level, like directing your attention to a certain aspect of the dream), and it changes the experience.
"You want to experience a specific experience in a dream? Just start practicing Dreaming Induction! (People call it lucid dreaming…) How do you do it? Well, you are gonna need a trigger to activate a chain of events but first use any technique that works for you. The chain of events will look like this:
1. Your dream body will realize that he is in a dream.
2. Your dream body will stop doing whatever his goal was and will embark in doing what you had set yourself to do next time they were in a dream.
3. You wake up and remember a dream about what you wanted it to be."
The result: a dream about something else that was initiated by changing the goals of your unconscious self. It’s not a lucid dream, it is a normal dream, an induced dream. And yes, you can evaluate techniques and all to assess this.
But then, you will disagree with this, because you experienced it and your experience of such a dream is more vivid, and you had memories of your waking goals. It must be a different kind of dream. Well, some normal dreams are also very vivid, whenever you become more observant, the dream becomes more vivid, and being more observant and having a more vivid dream might be the cause of your sudden realization that you are dreaming.
If as lucid dreamers, we are seeking to experience being awake in our sleep, then we must seek to have a higher awareness in our dreams. That is what creates a dream where we are awake, the ultimate paradox that makes lucid dreaming such a peculiar and amazing experience.
LouaiB
I think that being more observant in real life makes us more observant in dreams which allow us to realize that we are not in real life but in fact, in a dream. If this is true, environmental awareness would be necessary like your other stated factors.Quote:
(no environmental awareness is needed to be trained bcz we already poses it in dreams, but lack the other factors).
Zoth
I see Zoth, that you like very much the idea of looking at brain imaging. Yes, that is very interesting to understand the physiological meaning of our experience. However, whatever the results of a brain image are will not change our experiences. Our experiences are therefore the main factor to look at when considering whether an experience is valuable or not, unless we are seeking to see if a certain experience helps develop parts of our brain gradually, which we would not feel ourselves.Quote:
if low lucidity and high lucidity presented themselves as mere differences (low and high) in terms of brain activation, should we still say lucid dreaming has to be something more than being aware you are in a dream? And (this is important), just because control and memory greatly enhance the lucid dream, making it the "experience we are chasing", does that mean anything below that threshold should not be considered a lucid dream? So many reports in LaBerge's book reveal a clear lack of dream control and low lucidity, but nonetheless, intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating.
I do agree with you, that we cannot discard lucid dreams with low level consciousness as garbage. Hell, I don’t even discard my normal dreams as garbage. I think all dreams are great and give me information about how I react to extreme situations if I lack time to reason. Low level consciousness dreams are different, they are more vivid, they have greater consciousness and they tend to have us do crazy things, it’s awesome and great. But, so are normal dreams and I would tend more to put them in the category of normal dreams, it’s just, part of the dream story is that I am in a dream and I am aware of it. It’s like watching the Matrix movie. Yes, the main guy knows he’s dreaming and it makes for a very entertaining dream except the guy is not actually aware of it, it’s just an image on a screen.
Zoth
I agree with you here.Quote:
Intention might help, but is not necessarily crucial: I can have no intention of becoming lucid, but if you train me to reality check whenever I see NovaDreamer's light, chances are I'll get lucid.
What I would argue however is that, since I seek more than just dreams about me knowing that I am dreaming, and I seek more than a waking life where I react to conditioning and automatic reflexes, I try not to depend on machines to get me anywhere and I would rather develop my ability to focus my attention where I want it to be, and to get the habit of connecting with myself through self-awareness and connect with the world around me by being more observant and just feeling those mystical feelings of interconnectedness. Using a NovaDreamer will not achieve that for me, although it will possibly give me a dream about being in a dream and knowing so.
I’d like to do what you said and argue against myself but I forgot what we were arguing against… what really is lucid dreaming? Isn’t there just a spectrum of consciousness that we might have in dreams and we have different expectations for ourselves? There’s nothing to really argue about. It’s as if we would be arguing about what set of grade in school we should seek to have. The higher the better but if you don’t get those high grades, the experience that lead you to the lower grades are not to be dismissed. People with low grades are still good people, who perhaps are struggling with learning or are not putting enough effort in that specific part of their lives. These people are also great people and their lives should not be devalued. Obviously though, you would wish them to have better marks and also that they would not be using mental steroids to get there. ;P
Ahahaha, same xD ! I "feel" the perspective that lding is more than awareness that you're in a dream, but I "think" lding is merely awareness of a dream. I've been trying to put myself in different sides of the argument (which is why some of my posts might of sound confusing to Sageous, this also happened in the ADA's thread), because as good skeptics, we shouldn't be afraid of suspending our judgement ^^ Let me try it:Quote:
I agree and I will try to incorporate that at the end of my post. However, I must admit that I agreed more with you and StepL at the beginning of your discussion and did not agree with Sageous but as I wrote my post, it took a weird twist and made me talk about the opposite and now I have become committed to my new view :P
Premise: What constitutes lucidity?
Considerations:
1. Lucidity (specific term relating to lucid dream) is a state of consciousness describing awareness that the individual is dreaming while dreaming.
2. Lucidity as a state does not integrate any additional actions: a dream in which the individual is aware that he's in a dream but is passive regarding the experience is as much as a lucid dream as a dream in which the individual is aware that he's in a dream and is active regarding the experience.
3. Lucidity, as self-awareness of the individual's conscious state, does note integrate any other cognitive functions that might extend beyond self-awareness:
a) an individual with Anterograde Amnesia can still experience a lucid dream, even though he cannot perform any set of intentions that require long-term memory, which would include tasks designed before the dream; MEMORY
b) an individual with Aboulia can still experience a lucid dream, even though he may not be able to fully perform certain set of intentions that require will or initiative. INTENTION
I can't go any further for now I think, what do you guys think?
Nononono, that it's entirely possible indeed, I don't disagree at all: while we may feel inclined to state what we experienced a lucid dream, the scenario you presented seems at least perfectly valid! Can I just call it dream incubation (think it's the term most people use I think)? Okay, so (already got what's wrong with this, but let me follow your thought), there would be 2 types of lucid dreaming experiences:Quote:
The result: a dream about something else that was initiated by changing the goals of your unconscious self. It’s not a lucid dream, it is a normal dream, an induced dream. And yes, you can evaluate techniques and all to assess this.
But then, you will disagree with this, because you experienced it and your experience of a lucid dream is more vivid, and you had memories of your waking goals. It must be a different kind of dream. Well, some normal dreams are also very vivid, whenever you become more observant, the dream becomes more vivid, and being more observant and having a more vivid dream might be the cause of your sudden realization that you are dreaming.
- Incubation dreams with topic of lucidity in a dream and consequent performance of a pre-defined task (like...Task of the Month just for the sake of example)
- Lucid dreams without any constraint regarding consequent actions.
But is very easy to reject this (sadly, because it's an awesome hypothesis): the study mentioned above mentioned a high frequency of lucid dreams right? But it makes no mention regarding the intention of lucidity: the children were no onironauts (intentional explorers of the dream world), they simply became aware they were dreaming without any type of encouragement. So while that phenomenon exists, it would still not be highly statistical significant, because it doesn't take into account the majority of people who have lucid dreamers: those who don't go out to intentionally induce them.
My point is not the value of experience: it's the categorization of the experience. Take a look at the small segment of this video between 0 and 1:50 (disregard the video as a whole, it's just an easier way of telling you to read a whole page of text) - it mentions perspectival switching. You'll understand my point as to why any lucid dream experience has the limited value I mentioned.Quote:
However, whatever the results of a brain image will not change our experiences. Our experiences are therefore the main factor to look at when considering whether an experience is valuable or not, unless we are seeking to see if a certain experience helps develop parts of our brain gradually, which we would not feel ourselves.
I think that's what is holding us back. For those of us who went past the initial series of 20-50 lucid dreams where everything seems new, the goal is to reach high-level lucidity, perform specific tasks, and have a as crystalline clear experience as possible. And maybe that's interfering with our ability to recognize or assess what a lucid dream - in it's essence- is.Quote:
What I would argue however is that, since I seek more than just dreams about me knowing that I am dreaming, and I seek more than a waking life where I react to conditioning and automatic reflexes, I try not to depend on machines to get me anywhere and I would rather develop my ability to focus my attention where I want it to be, and to get the habit of connecting with myself through self-awareness and connect with the world around me by being more observant and just feeling those mystical feelings of interconnectedness. Using a NovaDreamer will not achieve that for me, although it will possibly give me a dream about being in a dream and knowing so.
Spoiler for Small Off-topic regarding the 2 of 2 part of lucid dreaming (1 being the induction)::
Just a couple of specific, probably irrelevant at this point, responses to your earlier post, Zoth; I hope I don't interrupt the conversation you're currently in too much:
I think that "intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating" kind of trumps just realizing that you are dreaming for a second or two -- and if those intense feelings come after you wake up and realize you "did it," I'm not sure that counts as what LaBerge was talking about. Speaking of LaBerge, let me wax cynical for a moment: LaBerge's entire academic and financial life is dedicated to and hinged upon proving that LD's are real and making sure that his paying customers have what can be called a lucid dream; therefore, LaBerge has lowered the bar of what lucidity is to about the lowest point it can possibly be without seeming just silly. I've argued with him about this, but, in spite of agreeing with all my points (the same ones made here) he would not budge -- I don't think he could allow himself to do so. This arguably self-serving perspective from the grand poo-bah of LD'ing has helped to fuel the consensus that the experience of lucid dreaming need be nothing more than having that "Ah-ha!" moment, and then waking up. I guess, in a democratic sort of way, that makes it right, and there is little to be done about it, save try to help the many people who don't understand the point of LD'ing when, after doing all that work, all they get is a flash that in the end is pretty meaningless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Agreed.Quote:
My point is: saying that intention is relevant for anything doesn't replace the review of the effectiveness of the method. We could say: yes, but intention has to almost necessarily have an impact on memory (like prospective memory) and thus, be beneficial to lucidity: and that seems to be the case for beginners. But what good does intention to someone like Sageous, who experiments low-lucidity in practically all his dreams, and who I bet doesn't even need to think about lucid dreams before laying down to sleep? Could it be that intention is just "prospective memory" in disguise, in the sense that it's very useful while you're building the habit of self-awareness/reality checking/whatever you use, but effectively "not important" as your progress increases?
First: yes, I don't do a lot of intention-setting (I never did -- I simply cannot generate the necessary focus), though it would certainly have done no harm if I did, and probably would enhance my dreaming. If you notice, whenever I talk about intention it is included with expectation, as sort of the conscious manifestation of expectation (written as expectation/intention). Intention by itself is not a singular route to LD'ing... indeed, as someone already said, intention works just as well -- if not better -- with NLD dream incubation, or, accidentally of course, with false lucids (i.e., you fervently "ask" for a lucid dream, so your unconscious dutifully provides you with a dream about being lucid -- a thing that I believe happens more often than many would like to admit, BTW -- oh great, now I'm in more trouble! ;)).
So, though setting intention is a fine thing to do, it is by no means a singular path to lucidity, and likely will work against you if tried that way.
And yes, Zoth, I've always considered setting intention quite similar to prospective memory. I have a feeling that (cynical hat on again here) LaBerge may have actually started using "setting intention" in place of "prospective memory" because the former phrase was more easily understood and memorable than the latter.
Given the overall cadence of this thread, there seems no point in doing that -- what I say would both go on for thousands of words (interrupting the nice flow of ideas you guys have going here) and also fly in the face of the accepted assumption that lucidity is all about getting there quickly and easily, and not about being there... any elaboration I make will be seen as an argument, and that's not helpful at this point. If you'd still like to read my expanded view about why you must be "ready" to be lucid, I suggest you look at the first few posts of my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread, or perhaps session one of my DV WILD class.Quote:
Sageous regarding this point, you told us some posts above that you need to be ready to be lucid: could you develop that?
Great thread, guys!
Wanted to link up to this thread before:
http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-cont...naturally.html
Next thing - repeating myself:
Like you said before, Zoth - and me as well - lucidity has been shown to have a characteristic pattern of brain-activation - easily discernible.
So - the question can now be answered not only by recording pre-agreed on eye-signals - but by looking at fMRI as well.
That actually does away with the possibilities of doubting the phenomenon in the first place - and can secondly also be used to get an objective measure of lucidity yes or no.
Eye-signals should be enough, I suppose.
So where is the problem?
The three regions, which newly light up:
http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/...ps60dc21f6.jpg
Their jobs:
So to dismiss the significance of these findings in favour for personal, subjective notions of what is and what is not lucidity seems - questionable at least to me.Quote:
The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream, says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds. The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings. The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception.
Aand - your spoiler is interesting, Zoth - especially I think, it might be better to try to stabilize lucidity as such, too - as the cognitive realization it really is - instead of stabilizing-efforts directed at the dream only.
Probably on the danger of arriving in the void - I do not know it.
I have to put some effort in again - which I do not feel like at the moment, it seems - but I could well imagine that a lot of the "techniques" people start pulling off at the onset - can distract from the actual fact it is all about.
Next big topic emerging in this thread - but VagalTone gave his okay..:D
I do indeed believe, that the community on the internet has a dynamic to it, where "rules" come to be real, by people reading and believing things - having the expected - for example problems - reporting them - and enforcing a maybe entirely artificial aspect for the next person to come up with or come up against.
Well - won't force it at the moment - sooner or later, I'll try out these sentiments.
Small update: I'm reading about the precuneus, and it gets more and more interesting. Look this abstract from Parietal cortex and representation of the mental Self (just the link, not the pdf):
Can we kidnap Sageous and put him under a fmri and analyze the level of activity in his precuneus during REM when compared to control? Pretty please :D?Quote:
To determine whether medial parietal cortex in this network is essential for episodic memory retrieval with self-representation, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation over the region to transiently disturb neuronal circuitry. There was a decrease in the efficiency of retrieval of previous judgment of mental Self compared with retrieval of judgment of Other with transcranial magnetic stimulation at a latency of 160 ms, confirming the hypothesis. This network is strikingly similar to the network of the resting conscious state, suggesting that self-monitoring is a core function in resting consciousness.
What's curious is that his idea of self-awareness, while always being completely unrelated to any neuroscience talk, it's remarkly similar: self-assessment, self-perception, and self-monitoring (which is a +1 for self-awareness imo).
On another topic, I'd love to see in that study how did the test subjects reached lucidity. Maybe the type and degree of activation depends on the technique? Maybe a simple reality check would be less effective than an actual self-awareness "habit" (I still didn't answer to Sageous's reply regarding this word I recall now). Or maybe it isn't about what you do to reach lucidity, could we actually increase brain activity in all the areas as long as we reached (at least) minimal lucidity? Like climbing the stairs.
Spoiler for Quick Response to Sageous on why there's so much attention to this thread regarding induction and not the experience as a whole:
Back to the brain talk: thought experiment (gogo StephL):
- Assuming that people like Sageous would have an greater overall activity on precuneus (disregarding the other parts now because it's just a test), was it possible that we could correlate lucid dreaming frequency with precuneus activity? Because:
If we could use that personality trait test on a range of lucid dreamers in the forum....wouldn't necessarily be causal, but if there was a correlation...would be worth the try :P?Quote:
Functional imaging has linked the precuneus to the processes involved in self-consciousness, such as reflective self-awareness, that involve rating ones own personality traits compared to those judged of other people.
PS: Incase you're not much of a neuroscience's talk fan, here's an article explaining the article linked by Steph. Bonus: loads of lucid dreaming references that can be used to the discussion (I think I can link the pdf of some of them here if someone asks for them).
edit: it's on the PS StephL (it's not a scientific article, just a blog post commentating the study).
Where is this article Zoth??
Again - not much time - sorry for not reading and considering it all - but:
Found a short BBC feature on conciousness - with this mirror-recognition test Darkmatters mentioned - they show, that basic self-awareness sets in between 18 and 24 month of age.
Not really fitting in here maybe - but this is already a "hopeless mix-thread" - so I throw it in anyway..:P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b59KgcEoJT4
Yes, thats what I was referring to. Sorry. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Good point. Now, I do not think this endangers the hypothesis that a lot of lucid dreams are actually just dreams of being in a dream and knowing you are in a dream, but I just have to add two types of such dreams:Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
1. Dream Incubation of a dream about Lucid Dreaming: The person trains so that in the next dream, once they recognize certain cues, they will dream about doing a pre-defined task, like the task of the month.
2. Simply a random dream about being in a dream and knowing that you are dreaming.
This parallels a dream in which you are in the Harry Potter Universe and you know it (you also have a feeling that this world is otherwise fictitious but now thats where you are) and that affects how you act in the dream, for example, you use brooms to fly and you use Harry Potter spells.
I think a lot of people, even kids, simply dream that they are lucid dreaming without actually being lucid dreaming.
How can they dream that they are in a dream if they are not familiar with the concept of lucid dreaming? Simply because they are very familiar with the concept of dreaming and knowledge of the additional word lucid that comes before dreaming is not necessary to have a lucid dream. To dream about being in a dream, you only just need to know what dreaming is.
Thank you for that video, I watched it all actually (it was very insightful).Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
I think the point of the video is that you must choose one point of perspective and not mix them together. For example, you can say:
1. (1st person perspective) When I become aware of myself and that the world around me is a creation of my own, I feel so and so, and this is what I define as a lucid dream because what I experience is not the same as what I experience in normal dreams
2. (3rd person perspective) When a persons certain regions of the cortex are activated during sleep which comes with a set of physiological characteristics, well what happens?
I was going to finish the 3rd person perspective but I really dont know. Its not like a movement, where you can see an activation in the brain, a signal travel through the body and a limb flexing. Is the activated regions of the brain that we see in a lucid dreamer the cause or the result of a lucid dream?
I feel like I can give a reasonable definition of lucid dreaming using 1st perspective but not 3rd .
Another point is, how is consciousness observed with technology? By looking at brain waves? I dont feel like alpha and beta waves and the rest of them have too broad of definitions to explain consciousness.
In the 3rd person perspective, is it consciousness brain waves or whatever it is that affect the activated regions or the opposite?
Zoth, it appears to me like you are interested in knowing which factors are important of mastering at different stages of lucid dreaming development rather than what is a lucid dream in general and that seems very interesting to me. Ill think further about this later but Ill have a rapid go at it:
1. To be a non-lucid dreamer, you need to first practice memory. For memory to be stored, you have to pay attention. Therefore, first step should be to do something like ADA (being observant) just to make dreams more vivid and to be more memorable. Also, the dream journal is a big thing because it allows you to remember more dreams.
2. For a non-lucid dreamer wanting to become a lucid dreamer, they most just train to question their worlds through RCs so that they may ask themselves that question in their dreams and also having that prospective memory of when I see this, I will do that.
3. For a lucid dreamer to last in the dream, they most train stabilization which involves having a balance in your attention given to your knowledge that you are dreaming and to the dream so that the dream will be stabilized and at the same time you will stay lucid. That is just a matter of training your attention, may that be by meditation
4. Once the dream is stabilized, the lucid dreamer must try to attain control thanks to being good at having faith in their own abilities and also probably an ability to visualize.
5. Then, I would say, the lucid dreamer still needs to become self-aware but now, I would even say that self-awareness is not at all important for lucid dreaming Wow, I didnt expect that from myself. Instead, I would say that self-awareness is something completely different from lucid dreaming which has to be used frequently in everything we do, whether that be our waking life or our dreaming life and it adds value to everything. It makes doing martial arts better, it makes lucid dreaming better, it makes watching tv better, it just makes life better. But it does not have anything to do with lucid dreaming. Now, I have a problem with this. I feel that since lucid dreaming has a lot to do with certain types of awareness, being a self-aware person can only help the process.
I really cant keep up with this discussion :P
EDIT
Just to clarify, are you saying this study shows that self-awareness is important for lucid-dreaming since they are all self-assessment related?Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
Also, as for the original question of this thread and about the physiological barrier to lucid dreaming,
why is it that we lose awareness during sleep and how would we go about changing that?
If we have not answered that question, I think it was what the thread was looking for initially.
It wouldn't work -- I'm, perhaps ironically, a terrible sleeper, and would never be able to get to sleep, let alone stay asleep, in a lab environment (much less while being subject to an fMRI scan)! :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Understood. I was perhaps inharmonious with the thread by insisting that, though relevant (and important), induction isn't the only priority in successful LD'ing... but you already knew that, obviously!Quote:
"By the way Sageous, I'll explain why my perspective in this thread is so much about lucid dreaming induction, and not the rest: it's because for the nature of the topic VagalTone made, induction is extremely relevant.
Actually, no, I would not agree. I think if a beginner had just one high-level lucid, and also possessed the requisite mental wherewithal to have that LD in the first place, that single LD would be more valuable, both as an experience and as a primer for future lucidity, than any ten "Ah-ha!" moments. Or any 20, or 30. The experience of a high-end lucid is simply that valuable.Quote:
Wouldn't you agree that 10 low-level lucids would be more helpful to a beginner than 2 high-level lucids? What you want is quantity in order to have more chances to eventually improve quality right?
Quantity, especially in this department, does not necessarily guarantee eventual quality. I've known plenty of dreamers who have had many dozens of low-level LD's, and have never really gotten to the point where they could truly explore their dreams as themselves. Why? Because they were not interested in diving into the deep end of their dreaming pool -- the fact of induction was enough for them, so working on things like self-awareness and memory did not matter. Many of those people, BTW, eventually got bored with LD'ing; I wonder why?
Sure. This would indeed be the way to go: baby steps, as it were, to learn the art of Ld'ing. But they must be considered as baby-steps toward greater discovery in the future, as their self-awareness improves, rather than assuming that, since they briefly got "there," then they've mastered the art. That may be all I was trying to say.Quote:
- induce low-level lucidity and go from there. Wouldn't you agree that way more people would lucid dream if they could experience the effects of low self-awareness skills in a series of lucids that would come by much more frequently in the first weeks/months?
I did practice for years, yes, but I also wasted many good years -- when I was still young and strong -- locked in a smug cage of "success" built around the naive conclusion I made that simply becoming aware I was dreaming was enough (I too had loads of low-level LD's in the beginning; they were a lot of fun, but I had no idea what I was missing). I guess my stubborn streak on this subject stems from that experience, and the fact that I'd like to do what I can to help new dreamers avoid the years of wheel-spinning that can accompany a disinterest in learning more (fueled by the cool stuff you can do in low-level LD's, of course), or, perhaps, an assumption that just mastering a technique that gets you to notice you are dreaming is enough.Quote:
I got the luck of having loads of lucid dreams in the first weeks that I tried, but many people practice for months, and you practiced for years.
These questions actually bring me around to a point I may have tried to make earlier: These barriers to getting lucid could well be self-inflicted, because so much of the information available about LD'ing comes in the form of time-saving techniques that get you there, but little to no information -- or assistance -- in preparing your mind, your self, to be there when you arrive.
I can attest to this. My first lucid dream was a brief unstable WILD, but my first DILD was a spontaneous, extremely vivid and conscious dream that it took me years to again equal. It inspired me (and still does) to an extent that is difficult to explain. Obsession followed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
I was thinking about what makes expert LDers lucid. I always hear that they just "know" they're dreaming. I wanted to start 2 threads (surveys) and get as much expert LDers' info about that as possible. They usually say that they "feel" the dream and become lucid. That is like an always existing DS, and prospective memory is a great way to exploit that. What I also wonder is, why don't we beginner LDers, who are training for months , just use a few LDs to memorize that "feeling" and train our prospective memory, so we become great at inducing LDs? But, I don't think it is that simple. We probably need hightened self awareness to catch that "feeling" while dreaming. Another thing comes up. We know that if you train your prospective memory on a single object, it becomes automatic(no need for intention).
I want to ask Sageous something:
Do we really need self-awareness if we can use prospective memory to detect that DS?( you may think that the below questioon for Zoth is the same, but I need you to also tell us how frequently does self awareness occur in NLD after we train it, and how powerful).
Also, Zoth:
Is prospective memory by its own enough to remember a single DS that we have memorized, and to detect it and remember that we are in a dream? Dont we need something else to help us detect it?(you know, it may be harder to detect than a normal DS)
So, if we only need prospective memory, then we should buy a REM Dreamer, make our main LD goal to feel that "feeling", and voala, easiest way to become great at inducing LDs. If we do need self awareness, then no problem, we already need to train it for dream control.
But beware, the main question is:
Are we able to feel that "feeling" constantly in our NLDs if we memorize it , and highten self awareness if needed?
Also, Sageous, you are right that a high-level LD is much more important than 10 low lucid dreams, because, I think, the better we feel the dream "feeling", the easier it is to induce LDs(Also, I think it is not like a normal feeling, more like a hunch, right?)
Definitively agree with all you say there Sageous - in especially that one high level event is more fruitful for a beginner to actually grasp, what one is on to.
And unfortunately - while having had my memory and having been able to do a lot of the TOTM and comp stuff for my novice-state - I still yearn for what I had experienced in the past. Not exactly the first one as it was - but that was really full-on realization, too. And so was one of the LDs around age 30.
Just to make it clear - I am very much with you in terms of awareness being the important thing - most important.
What galled me was your estimation of children`s lack of same - and lack of true LDs.
I might even go as far as to ponder, if not a child`s awareness for the world she lives in is more direct, immediate and - well yeah - higher.
Seeing the world with more open eyes and more curiosity as to what it has on offer.
In terms of self-awareness as such - trained adults are surely better at it - but untrained ones?
Not so sure there.
I have a nagging feeling, most people loose awareness with growing up and integrating themselves into society as it is.
And I also do not think, that an easy access to the flash of realization puts up new closed doors in front of LD-experience.
It just does not give you the abilities you need to go through the door and actually be lucid - that depends in my eyes not on the way of entry and how easy it is - but on your otherwise developed abilities.
But otherwise - you might feel more "under attack" than you actually are. :)
Another maybe interesting aspect:
The last paper Zoth linked up to spoke of dissociation in connection with LD.
The time, in which LDs seem to decline rather sharply is also the time, which some psychiatrists - since not so long - see as the "vulnerable" phase for certain wiring-processes going astray and leading to dissociative conditions - psychosis - in genetically predisposed youngsters - even if it shows up much later in life, when the environment takes a certain toll.
There is a connection to puberty somehow.
So maybe we are in a way on the same page here - would need to research further to come up with supporting data - but maybe there is a more intimate connection between mental health and LDing, than I thought.
also, another question for Sageous:
Do you feel the dream because you got used to it?(bcz you had a huge amount of LDs)
Do you use it as a DS?
Do you need self-awareness to help you detect that feeling?(feeling or hunch or whatever)
I don't know why you don't think NovaDreamer is helpful for improving your LDing skills. Using it with MILD and self-awareness will help you get more good LDs and to get a hang of that dream hunch. Isn't it that dream hunch that all expert LDers rely on completly?
P.S: Zoth and Steph, don't think I don't care about the brain stuff about LDing, I just didn't study them yet, but I am now. So, can I join the possy when I am done?:D
If self-awareness was the only prerequisite to lucid dream, then kids could therefore start lucid dreaming at the age of 18-24 months. However, I have some questions about this mirror-recognition test:Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
1. What if the kids under a certain age and the animals that don't pass this test is only because they don't care about having a spot on their cheek?
2. If an animal can identify other animals in their environment such as prey, family, and predators, why would it not recognize itself? Maybe they can recognize their own arm, just not identify with an arm that's in front of them because that makes no sense for someone that doesn't believe in mirrors.
3. Just being able to recognize yourself in a mirror is something that even a robot could do. Therefore the mirror-recognition test does not correspond to the same type of self-awareness we are talking about. Self-Awareness is more of a mystical (as in hard to explain) experience where you are aware of your own awareness, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, how they affect the world around you, how they are affected by the world and in what context-space-time you're in. Maybe I added more to the self-awareness definition, but this is more what I think about when I think about self-awareness. I think this definition corresponds more to what a child needs to be able to experience to have a conscious dream than being able to know they're looking at themselves in a mirror.
EDIT
4. I find it hard to be self-aware when looking into the big mirror in my bathroom because it feels like me is the person in the mirror that's looking right into my eyes.
5. Also, I feel like the mirror thing depends on an understanding of what a mirror is to some degree. Why would a horse say "Hey this is me, it makes total sense that I am here but I see myself in front of me. They're more likely to think. Hey, this other horse is copying me. I am self-aware so I know I'm here and not there."
P.S: I love the idea of kidnapping Sageous and FMRIing him.
Don't worry, Sageous, we'll drug you so you can sleep:lol:
The sleeping pills might affect his ability to lucid dream. I think that if we simply attach him to the FMRI machine for a long period of time (2 days), he will eventually fall asleep. We'll feed him with a straw and sing him lullabies from far away lands.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
I'm preparing an armed team as we speak, then I will rent a heli. Meet me at the destination(I'll PM it to you).:chuckle:Quote:
Originally Posted by Occipitalred
quick responses here...
I agree with Steph especially in regards to children's interaction with the world around them. I think that most of us lose some kind of connection that takes great effort to get back and/or surpass. I would guess that most people who live on auto-pilot don't remember this connection. I think that there are some lesser known educational philosophies that attempt to maintain some of those connections while developing the more traditional ones through the elementary school years. The study linked further back seems to show that children are indeed lucid dreaming, even if it may not be at the level that Occipitalred seems to be striving for (which I applaud).
Since the idea of a true lucid has become a significant part of this thread, I had to express an opinion here. I feel that the best approach to bringing up the idea of an inferior lucid is to only name it as such to intermediate or advanced LDers. For beginners, after they have had their first assumed LD that doesn't sound like Meskhetyw's or Steph's early examples involving high levels (of self-awareness, correct?), it is perhaps more helpful to say something like "great start, now practice adding this...you will be amazed at the new heights that you can attain over time." You can let them know that it is a work in progress, so that they strive further. Depending on their personality type, the idea that the wonderful experience that they had might be labeled as inferior or as merely dreaming that they were lucid could chase them away. Heck, I went back and recalled the sequence of events in my last few LDs just to double check that I wasn't dreaming of being lucid. That initial doubt, no matter how small, is scary. Again, I think it can be approached more head on with intermediates and above. This goes along with Sageous' baby steps comment above and with Sageous' approach of proving the lucid to yourself, which I agree with at my current stage of lucid dreaming development.
I think everything does filter down to the idea that there probably are no real shortcuts, even though I also keep an eye out for shortcuts while putting in the work needed on the fundamentals to continue to advance in lucid dreaming. Sageous has mentioned elsewhere that one of the primary things missing or switched off while dreaming is memory and we can aid switching memory back on through self awareness. Since self awareness is useful IWL and in dreaming, I plan to keep striving to improve it.
So many questions!
Yes. Sure, you can detect a dreamsign (I assume that's what DS stands for) with prospective memory, but you still need to summon some self-awareness to remember what that DS means, to assure yourself that this is a dream with perhaps some other double-checks (like an RC, or remembering where your sleeping body is), and of course to actually begin the LD. Keep in mind that the presence of some waking-life self-awareness is what makes your dream lucid, so self-awareness is necessary eventually. Also keep in mind that it is very easy to wind up dreaming that you saw a DS, and dreaming that you became lucid, and the presence of self-awareness is what negates this sort of NLD.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
So yes, prospective memory is enough to prompt the LD, but self-awareness must emerge eventually to enable the LD.
I don't think it's a feeling that can be memorized, per se. I think this is where Zoth's "habit" thesis comes into play (and RRC's as well): If you are regularly practicing some sort of self-awareness, regularly taking a moment to "establish" your position in your immediate reality and your relationship with that reality, you might just bring that routine into the dream with you and then voila! there is the "feeling." In other words, I don't think you can use prospective memory to create a constant, say, subsonic hum of self-awareness.... memory just doesn't work that wayQuote:
But beware, the main question is:
Are we able to feel that "feeling" constantly in our NLDs if we memorize it , and heighten self awareness if needed?
No, I think the high-level dream transcends that "hum" that quietly reminds you that you're in a dream. The reason a high-level dream has value is because it becomes an experience you really want to repeat, and your focus and intention have something to target, something to desire... If you know what you are looking for, it becomes much easier to find.Quote:
Also, Sageous, you are right that a high-level LD is much more important than 10 low lucid dreams, because, I think, the better we feel the dream "feeling", the easier it is to induce LDs(Also, I think it is not like a normal feeling, more like a hunch, right?)
Yes and no. Since my original LD's, as far as I remember them, happened spontaneously, I can't honestly say that it is my long time spent LD'ing that got me used to noticing that "feeling," or having that "hunch," that this is a dream. That said, I think a lot of my current "feel" for the dreaming has as much to do with experience as anything else. How's that for a non-answer answer?!Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Not really. The awareness that I'm dreaming is always slightly there these days, so as a DS it would sort of be a little too common a feeling to stand out. Also, see my note just above about the "feeling" being a bit too steady and subtle to jump out as a proper DS.Quote:
Do you use it as a DS?
I feel like I'm at a legal inquiry, being asked the same question over and over ;) ... Yes, because the feeling, or hunch, or subtle understanding, or whatever, that this is a dream is couched in self-awareness, you would necessarily need self-awareness to detect, and ultimately amplify, that feeling. Now if there were something to nudge that self-awareness into action, here is where it would come into play:Quote:
Do you need self-awareness to help you detect that feeling?(feeling or hunch or whatever)
I never said the NovaDreamer isn't helpful for improving your LD'ing skills. What I did say was that it cannot replace LD'ing skills, or the fundamentals for LD'ing. The NovaDreamer just sends a stimulus to you when it detects REM. It does not tell you what that stimulus means in the dream, and it certainly does not trigger you to suddenly become lucid.Quote:
I don't know why you don't think NovaDreamer is helpful for improving your LDing skills. Using it with MILD and self-awareness will help you get more good LDs and to get a hang of that dream hunch. Isn't it that dream hunch that all expert LDers rely on completly?
What it does do, and this can be quite helpful, is give you an opportunity to recognize the stimulus for what it is -- a flash of light from the waking world, and a reminder that you are dreaming. That recognition is done with self-awareness. Also, spotting the stimulus in the first place tends to happen more through waking-life work -- like building expectation and setting intentions, than it does simply turning the machine on and going to sleep.
Oh wait. Now that I read this through, I suppose that it is somewhat true: in a sense I do not think that the Novadreamer is helpful for improving LD'ing skills. It is helpful for sparking lucidity, which is a good thing, but for me the actual skills are developed both after that spark and in waking life, not during the spark.
In other words, the Novadreamer doesn't create that hunch, you do. It only makes it a little easier to remember to have the hunch.
Uh - oh!Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Man, this thread is moving so fast - can't keep up!! :panic:
I just skimmed a few lines of the last flurry of posts, and a couple things I want to say..
Steph, I agree that children have a much stronger awareness of their surroundings than adults do. This actually is what Don Juan talks about - being taught to see the world in a certain way, and as a consequence forgetting the world in its real form, which as a child you were aware of. It's the Tonal and the Nagual. Tonal being the totally conscious way to see the world, and Nagual being a very unconscious way of experiencing it. It's known that a young child sees itself not so much as an independent agent, but as a part of its environment, or as a part of the mother. This isn't self awareness, it's just awareness of surroundings, with a very marked absence of self.
Being able to recognize that the image in the mirror moves when you do and then 'getting' that it's your own reflection is also not the same as self awareness. I think Occipital Red covered this already.
I would say that oodles of "oh I'm dreaming" and immediately waking up would be more demotivating than anything. All this hard work for just a moment? No, thanks. The thing that keeps me going are the LDs where I have self-awareness and memory to choose actions, and observe the consequences, and are long enough to do that several times while exploring the dreamscape.
However, I will say though that perhaps I think length is more important to me right now, since I seem to have pretty good self-awareness in lucids now that are more than an instant. So really for me, 1) getting in the dream, and 2) staying in the dream, are priorities, slightly ahead of 3) being "me." Because achieving frequent #1 and #2 motivates me to reach for #3.
So, expectation/intention and self-awareness are key to "detecting that feeling". So, with practice, your self-awareness increases and lets you know you are dreaming better and better with more practice. And, we need expectation/intention to plant that self-awareness, and the activated memory is needed to remember that this phenomena is a dream, or that what all this is is dream components(info needed to analyze the current state). Ok, it is not a feeling, but self-awareness. So, it is not enough to use MILD with Novadreamer to get a bunch of LDs, then assume you have become an expert at detecting when you are dreaming.
It is all about the fundamentals. But you never mentioned in your class how to use a LD to develop the skills(I think). If you can, then that extra bunch of LDs caused by the Novadreamer could be handy.
Sorry for the long questions, but the answers where very helpful, thank you.
So, I should stop trying to figure it out now. I will truly understand only when I become a proficient LDer.
I believe that the fact that children are more curious of their environment could very likely stimulate lucid dreaming.
You have probably experienced the same kind of excitement during vacations, when you visit a completely different culture and suddenly feel that everything is interesting, and pay attention to everything.
That's what small children feel like a lot of the time, and this is probably also why they laugh and seem so jolly over everything.
Like natural ADA?Quote:
Originally Posted by Laurelindo
Warning: zoth is writing while he's thinking, so the long chain of thought ahead which might sound confusing :P
Yeah, just reminded myself of something I mentioned some posts ago: classical conditioning. Extinction is quick when the reward is regularly presented, and it's expressed in form of (for example) frustration. In this example, a more memorable experience with less frequency of reward would actually increase behavior, because extinction would be slower. You're right.Quote:
Quantity, especially in this department, does not necessarily guarantee eventual quality. I've known plenty of dreamers who have had many dozens of low-level LD's, and have never really gotten to the point where they could truly explore their dreams as themselves. Why? Because they were not interested in diving into the deep end of their dreaming pool -- the fact of induction was enough for them, so working on things like self-awareness and memory did not matter. Many of those people, BTW, eventually got bored with LD'ing; I wonder why?
Still, there's one point to be made: we're assuming that you can't have medium to high level lucid dreams unless you practice self-awareness, but this doesn't have to necessarily be true. Also, there's still the issue of self-awareness practice being an habit or not. The deal is, after some thought, I realized that while you deny the self-awareness is an habit, you do have a point: self-awareness would also qualify for a personality trait - assuming (just for this particular thought) that self-awareness would relate to those 3 areas of brain activation during lucidity, some people could naturally be more self-aware than others (and this would actually be possible to test to some degree)....(slight pause to make sure with myself that I'm not intentionally trying to bash self-awareness....nope, I'm not, free to continue ^^). Also, self-awareness could also be perceived as mindfulness, and mindfulness relates a lot with meditation (if these 3 are not the same thing, they're at least inter-connected, but that's irrelevant for this). The fact is, meditation is not a "doing", it's a "being". Is this the aspect that you were trying to explain to me? That self-awareness is about "being" and not "doing"? Because if so, it couldn't possibly be an habit. This is hard to conceptualize: introspection "states", like meditation/mindfulness/self-awareness (not that I think about it, self-aware may as well be the primitive word, meditation and mindfulness being types/ways of reaching self-awareness), don't require any action: they require inaction. But the exercise of "meditating" can be an habit or not...no it can't, it's doesn't remotely qualify as the type of habit like a reality check: that' would be the same as saying that meditation is like the habit of touching your nose (you can't meditate without self-awareness, aka unconsciously, but the habit of touching your nose HAS to be unconscious to some degree to be qualified as an habit).
After 50 premisses, 1 conclusion: self-awareness cannot be an habit, at least not in the same way we consider reality checks an habit. This inevitably leads to (at least) one extra conclusion:
- Self-awareness regarding lucid dreaming induction is always a parallelism to any other "known" practice: whatever "technique" you practice, self-awareness would always be beneficial, especially because as an introspection event, it would affect your brain in both short/medium/long term. How do I know? Because if you assume self-awareness as an introspection event, you'd have to include (like mentioned above) concepts like meditation/mindfulness, and both of these have been scientifically demonstrated to affect your brain (in more than one way).
Self-awareness would also be above any other technique due a simple principle: whatever method you use to induce lucidity, it requires self-awareness (and by self-awareness, I'm talking about the functions performed by those 3 brain regions mentioned in the study), so *enter guessing mode* it's very likely that it would be way more worthy of your time/energy to devote it to self-awareness even if takes longer to produce results, then to actually engage in "short-term exercises" that still require you to develop self-awareness later.
PS: there seems to be activation of precuneus to certain types of meditation. Maybe self-awareness is an abstract concept, in the same way that certain "perspectives/exercises" used to develop self-awareness would not necessarily help you with lucid induction. This could explain why ADA doesn't work for everyone?
PS: I think I sympathize much more with your "attempts" of explaining self-awareness Sageous, it's complexity it's its beauty but at the same time its curse :PQuote:
In fact, converging evidence from recent functional imaging studies in healthy subjects indicate that the precuneus may play a role in the internal mentation processes of self-consciousness. Lou et al. (1999) found a medial parietal-prefrontal core in the enhanced consciousness state of yoga meditation, by measuring cerebral blood distribution with the PET technique in experienced yoga teachers.
Now I'm gonna sit in a chair and think about the implications of these conclusions ^^
PPS: pure old meditation might just be an example of something possibly way more boring but possibly way more effective than many lucid dreaming techniques...
PPPS:
It's a bit more complex than that: we'd need to understand what exactly is making that change in the brain: emotional response towards the experience, the experience itself, or interference with the regular pattern of sleep? Because there is a study that correlates interference with REM (and we can assume dreams as well) and improvements of negative-dream content seen in people with depression. But I feel like this post is too big already. I do have loads of studies regarding sleep and mental health that we could find useful if you want to expand that particular discussion ^^Quote:
So maybe we are in a way on the same page here - would need to research further to come up with supporting data - but maybe there is a more intimate connection between mental health and LDing, than I thought.
PPPPS (it's the last one I promise xD):
I'm surprised no one mentioned that study about children, there are many aspects of lucid dreaming mentioned there that go against general beliefs the majority of us possess, like "increase the number of hours you sleep will help you with lucidity" which doesn't seem to be true (which would make WBTB way more valuable for example, and WILD as well).
Me too^^Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
From what I read, it seems that the conclusion that is being reached by this thread is that techniques which increase average mindfulness are the techniques we should prioritize most when learning how to become lucid.
That answers the question: "What allows us to lucid dream?" However, what answers "Who or what should we blame for the lack of lucidity?" I think that was a very good question worth considering and I think what we have discussed so far could help us with it.
If our conclusion is that mindfulness/consciousness is what we need to lucid dream, then, why is it that we naturally lose this when sleeping? It is obviously a natural process since it happens to all of us and very rare are those who overcome this. Only LDers and Sleep Yogi do.
Why we sleep: To sleep, our body needs to be immobile so that the energy can be used in repair rather than action. Also, I suppose, the brain needs moments of rest where no reflection is happening that way, it can also use energy to repair. REM sleep is an exception, where repair is not the priority.
Thought Experiment: People do not lose consciousness during sleep
Implications: People are distracted by lack of comfort and move around. People use their moment of physical calmness to use their minds. They think about their plans, they create stories, they reflect about their past; their brain is not calm. Most importantly, they get bored and stop the process of sleeping. How many of us can meditate for 6-10 hours? I personally have a lot of trouble meditating just 1 hour. If we did not lose consciousness, every human would just terminate sleep too early and we would die.
I think that explains why we need to lose consciousness to fall asleep. The only way to overcome this, then, like the sleep yogi do, would be to train ourselves to not move despite lack of comfort, not think actively, and all of that for 6-10 hours (however much you sleep), all while keeping a sense of self-awareness.
This is probably very hard and few will even want to try this. Although, I am sure that if someone achieved this, they would not be bored because boredom is what stops us from being able to achieve this. Then, how is this relevant to everyone else? Perhaps, because it explains to us how to remain asleep during a lucid dream and therefore how to stabilize the lucid dream. Once we become lucid, we must not think too hard and.... Hmmm... Never mind. The REM cycle is an exception. I do think during normal dreams. I think everything I said is only helpful for non-rem lucidity. Rem sleep is different and we just must be able to allow stimuli to trigger a sense of mindfulness.
Well yeah, kind of like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
The less familiar you are with your environments the more interesting (or threatening) you will find them, which makes you more aware.
So one good way to prompt lucidity could be to try having a sense of awareness of everything you experience in waking life.
One way to trigger that specific excitement is to pretend that waking life is a dream, just for fun.
This makes you feel "closer" to the dreamworld because you kind of get a foretaste of what it would be like to actually be in a real lucid dream, like "oh man, a lucid dream would actually be this vivid, and it would be so awesome if I was dreaming right now and could rush off and do whatever I wanted!".
Of course, this "dream feeling" would be extra powerful if you practice it during dreamlike situations, for example if you take a walk very early during a quiet, misty morning in a beautiful place.
This video might fit well in this thread.
I think the author shares Sageous' s idea that Ŧ knowing this is a dream ŧ is just the beginning of lucidity. He says that this realization doesnīt mean one's logic becomes vastly improved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TVOLB8sTu4
Ah, Stephen Berlin, yeah he is pretty awesome. :content:
Too bad he doesn't have more videos on YouTube, he seems like a very likeable person.
Another key factor may be rooted in neurophysiology. I have always likened human awareness to a circuit, or a loop of interconnected neurons, if you will - with a current that run around in a circle all day and processes and redirects the input from the senses. It runs at different rates of speed and power throughout the day, depending on how aware - or lucid, we are and is limited by physical factors such as the amount of sugar and oxygen available to it. And the amount of energy that is being consumed by the rest of the brain and body. E.g.: you can't be fully aware of the road when operating a smartphone and your primary awareness loop can't run at full capacity if you are contemplating advanced mathematics or theoretical physics.
Furthermore, the main neurons and neural connections wired into this circuitry need to rest. They need to re-absorb neurotransmitters and restore the myelin sheaths around the axons. And lucid dreaming is counter-productive to this process. You could go so far as to say that it defies it and too much of it might even cause mental health issues related to sleep deprivation.
There is, however, a solution. Just because the primary awareness loop needs to rest, doesn't mean the rest of the circuits in the brain need to rest at the same time. Hence dreaming. The secret it to install or develop a secondary awareness loop. I have talked about it here a few times before, but the gist of it is to start watching yourself. The primary loop watches the five senses, and "you" or this primary loop is simply the reaction to the outside world. But if you start watching yourself consistently, first with easy, monotonous and repetitive tasks, like sweeping the floor, then with more complex things like speaking and typing, you will begin to notice that you can watch yourself act and start relaxing parts of the primary awareness circuitry while awake. You can almost feel the "seat" of the new awareness loop located in a slightly different and, for me personally; slightly elevated, part of the brain.
A little trick is to learn to notice when you stop being aware of yourself, or when this secondary circuit flickers off, which in the beginning will tend happen all the time after just a few seconds until real connections can grow between the brain cells and they become hardwired. But noticing when it stops allows you to jump-start it for another few seconds so that it becomes over-strained and would hurt like a muscle the day after a heavy training session if you had feeling inside your brain. Luckily the brain knows what's up from the torn sheaths around the neural connections and will automatically nourish them the next time you don't notice that it went off and it gets a chance to rest.
I have always felt that enlightenment is not a state you reach once and then maintain forever. Even the Buddha slept. Enlightenment is something that can be glimpsed before one takes the first step on the path. But only briefly and partially until the secondary awareness circuit grows into a lush rain forest.
prospective memory relies on episodic memory, declarative memory, and retrospective memory. I assume they are active during sleep, since... Uhm... MILD. Well, if so, then why do we need self-awareness with MILD? Do we? We need self-awareness for everything else, but not MILD. But, one thing I found strange is that one of the mantras for MILD(coincidently the one that is mostly mentioned in EWOLD) is " next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming". Well, we surely aren't aware of the fact that we are dreaming while we are dreaming, so I assume self awareness is needed for the "next time i'm dreaming..." parts of MILD
wait. I think the "next time i'm dreaming I remember i'm dreaming" is a time based event, like wheyou want to watch a show at 8, and when it's 8, you remember, without having your consciousness even knowing the time.
Zoth!... Zoth!............Zoth!
MILD is your expertise, right? Plz, plz, pretty please explain! I'll buy you a luxurious BMW coupe sports car 2014! With free gas for a year! And a mantion in Sharam el Sheikh!
It would be pretty awesome if our internal clock could help to achieve lucidity, or ( ok ! ) to realize i'm dreaming, like Ŧ at 6 am i will be lucid ŧ or Ŧ after 1 hour, i will know i am dreaming ŧ. That would be prospective memory, but instead of an object it would be time perception, right ?
But mostly, for me at least, it works to wake me up :D..
Yes it is! prospective memory works for time-based events too(using the internal clock), but does it work when saying "next time I'm dreaming..."? does that correspond to a certain time according to our prospective memory?Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
The great thing is that you can train your prospective memory, so it becomes more powerful and LDing easier!:D
We need Zoth to explain. Come on...Zoth!Zoth!Zoth!
Yup, letīs call Zoth !!
LouaiB, maybe it is prospective memory working here..but i remember i had thought about this also ( even posted on Zoth's MILD thread ) and my idea is that the cue that activates prospective memory in this example ( when you use this specific autosuggestion ) is, as you suggested before, more dependent on self-awareness and some natural lucidity than time perception. When dreaming, when you got that rather vague and weak but natural feeling of the dream, you remember it is a dream.Quote:
but does it work when saying "next time I'm dreaming..."? does that correspond to a certain time according to our prospective memory?
I have suggested in Zoth's thread that MILD ( with that specific autosuggestion ) implies some degree of natural lucidity, which is then used as the cue to the full-blown prospective memory activation.
Just my thoughts, maybe wrong :)
Sounds very consistent with Sageous's fundamentals, I think. Makes sense!Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
Augh, plz, call me Louai! I have it under my name! LouaiB is just a formal name, just to be formal;)
Oh, but reading Laberge's MILD tutorial again..this quote from EWOLD seems to support more your idea that Ŧ next time i'm dreaming..ŧ autosuggestion is based somewhat on time perception
Edit: or maybe itīs only the definition of prospective memory :DQuote:
Once I knew that I was trying to remember to do something (that is, become lucid) at a later
time (that is, when next I’m dreaming), I was able to devise a tech-nique to help me accomplish
that. How can we manage to remember to do something in a dream? Perhaps we should start
with a simpler question: How do we remem-ber to do things in ordinary life?
Yes, prospective memory based on-time also exists, but it's not so effective as the one based-on events. It can still work while you're sleeping, and this is because several regions of your brain are responsible for delayed-tasks, self-maintained intentions, along with attention. Also, it's important to realize that prospective memory may not necessarily what is happening when you wake yourself up, but instead, you're making use of your biological clocks which can also keep track of time and increase/decrease the production of certain substances which make you regain consciousness. This is particularly relevant and common on stressful morning events, like an exam, or your first day of work. Also, there are some factors that can greatly determine your performance, one of the most important one being cognitive-overload: we're not made to multi-task, and pressure during such intense activities can disrupt your performance on time-based prospective memory. Another relevant factor for this discussion is the role of motivation, but you probably already guessed this one out. It's also important to realize that any tasks LaBerge mentions in his MILD technique is not exactly unique: he's just removing the names of certain aspects of prospective memory and including the "lucid dream" talk into them. An example is the so-called "visualization" on MILD: it's simply the implementation intention strategy, but doing it for lucid dreams. LaBerge's MILD techique is incomplete (for the bad and for the good), because it has limited capability: we're still not sure about how certain processes of prospective memory work, whether they need to be hold on consciousness or it's more about spontaneous retrieval, and once more knowledge (which I'm sure has been layed out since MILD was published in his book), we will be able to use MILD more effectively (now that I think about it, DIPE has a fundamental error in it, must scrape the whole system xD).
Regarding any kind of DILD based on realizing you are dreaming, it's important to know that the cue is not always consciously perceived. For example, you might think that you're checking this thread because you decided too, but maybe you arrived home, looked at your fridge, which had a peach inside, which happened to resemble the color of your blanket, which reminded you still had to make your bed, which made you thought about the last time you were sleeping, which made you think about lucid dreaming, which made you remind of this thread.
PS: incase you're wondering, memory implementation is just a famous way to develop prospective memory, others being (as read in here):
-Use external memory aids such as the alerting calendar on cell phones
-Avoid multitasking when one of your tasks is critical
-Carry out crucial tasks now instead of putting them off until later
-Create reminder cues that stand out and put them in a difficult-to-miss spot
-Link the target task to a habit that you have already established
This is why I find WBTB + WILD + MILD so effective. During that window of time, there are no *real life* concerns because it's sleep time. There's no other tasks you need to watch for, and you're able to focus only on your intention. If you hit a "bad spot", WILD might take ages or even fail, but remember that during all this time you're effectively developing a very strong target using memory implementation (what you would call visualization), giving you pretty good chances of achieving a DILD.
Interesting Zoth !
It seems a very important thing to know, which would have very direct implications on lucidity (or induction at least ! ). That missing knowledge, and some dissatisfaction about that, was the first reason to start this thread.Quote:
LaBerge's MILD techique is incomplete (for the bad and for the good), because it has limited capability: we're still not sure about how certain processes of prospective memory work, whether they need to be hold on consciousness or it's more about spontaneous retrieval, and once more knowledge (which I'm sure has been layed out since MILD was published in his book), we will be able to use MILD more effectively
Again, i'm sure everyone can master lucid dreaming induction with current techniques, but i always feel like i (we) am not applying the most direct,intelligible and therefore effortless, path ( fundamentally because we donīt know some mechanisms ? )
WILD seems to me the most intelligibly described "technique", would you agree ? But then, if one's purpose is to have abundant lucid dreams per night, a DILD approach, maybe (D)EILD in the future , seems more feasible. MILD seems a god bet, but until we understand its mechanisms, there is still room for misunderstanding and wasted effort and willpower.
Are you sure, external aids help to develop prospective memory :P ?Quote:
PS: incase you're wondering, memory implementation is just a famous way to develop prospective memory, others being (as read in here):
-Use external memory aids such as the alerting calendar on cell phones
Clearly MILD and WILD seem to share some mechanisms ( we can WILD with MILD and MILD with WILD, lol )..Quote:
This is why I find WBTB + WILD + MILD so effective. During that window of time, there are no *real life* concerns because it's sleep time. There's no other tasks you need to watch for, and you're able to focus only on your intention. If you hit a "bad spot", WILD might take ages or even fail, but remember that during all this time you're effectively developing a very strong target using memory implementation (what you would call visualization), giving you pretty good chances of achieving a DILD.
Edit 2: also, how much do RCing and critical reflective techniques work by strenghtening prospective intention to become lucid ) ?
I was thinking, maybe instead of saying "Next time I dream, I will..." or try to guess the hour at which you dream and say "At 5:00 AM, I will..." we should focus on the physiological changes that are characteristics of dreaming, and say things like "Next time I am in REM sleep, when my body will paralyze and my eyes will move, I will..." Maybe the body will understand this better?Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
Who knows ? So many things to experiment and try :panic: ( and of course, without patience, only for a short period of time :P )Quote:
Originally Posted by Occipitalred
This is the difference between prospective memory tasks based on time (concept of later) and based on events (concept of "when X happens). As you may realize, the fact that makes PM based on events more effective is the fact that you make use of cues, while on PM based on time, you're all in your own, which is especially problematic since our perception of time is way biased towards our emotional state/attention levels. Regarding lucid dreaming, this because even more relevant: when you sleep, and on the contrary of a WILD - where you retain a bigger similarity of specific neuro-activity with wakefulness - you undergo a series of physiological changes that interfere with brain activity, and thus, your PM. This is why LaBerge emphasizes that "waking up and thinking about your last dream": prospective memory (as a intentional and conscious action), is still more effective after an WBTB. Another aspect that many people don't consider is the fact that WILD still requires prospective memory: you will be distracted continuously during sleep stage's progression (by thoughts, HH, non-rem physiological events, reduction of self-awareness levels - like self-monitoring - etc), and if you got a low prospective memory, chances are you will fall asleep after forgetting you are meant to stay conscious.Quote:
Originally Posted by Occipitalred
Couldn't have said it better: we already know that 90% of all lucid dreaming techniques presented in DV work, and that's because they make extensive use (even if not explicitly) of the same basic mechanisms of memory/self-awareness. But this automatically makes us realize that there must be ways to apply these mechanisms that are more effective than others - it's like saying that all forms of exercise are good for your health, but if you're specifically looking for a healthy heart, you should prioritize cardio over lifting weights. In lucid dreaming, this idea raises even more questions - even if certain mechanism proves out to be fundamental to lucid dream induction (think self-awareness), we still don't know exactly the best way to improve them. Proving that improving memory is good for lucid dreaming still doesn't explain how (and it doesn't mention what type of memory is responsible), and that's what we need to go further.Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
I'd agree indeed: WILD, if done correctly, would be the "best" method for inducing lucid dreams, in the sense that it removes any randomness from the picture (because it's a direct action > reaction). The problem with it is that it doesn't allow you extended periods of lucidity in the sense that DILD does: DILD only requires you to dream, while WILD requires you to perform an action which only provides satisfactory results under certain conditions. (For those wanting to take a glimpse of what mastered DILD is, just read Hukif's DJ). But one thing we may not necessarily agree: WILD/DEILD, even if with a 100% induction success performed several times per night, would still less desirable than a kind of Hukif's DILD, because in the first case, you can't avoid but loose sleep in quantity (which may not necessarily be a problem to some people), but also in quality (sleep fragmentation has it's consequences, especially in long-periods of time). Also, you know as well as me that as people get older, their sleep quality declines, which gives more support for a DILD like approach. But at this point, both methods are feasible, because you do have a good point in your sentence regarding MILD. But what if we solved that puzzle in the meanwhile :)?Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
It may sound it one thing doesn't have any relation to another, but a study shows they do (sadly, I don't got the pdf, I found this study in this blog post.Quote:
Are you sure, external aids help to develop prospective memory :P ?
Spoiler for Abstract:
Great question. Let me try to answer this with a question: What do Reality-checking, visualization, ADA, auto-suggestion, intention, and any other critical reflective technique have in common?Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
Spoiler for Answer:
Spoiler for What this still doesn't explain:
I agree with you Vagaltone. These techs seem to be not so direct or 'sufisticated', except for WLD, I think.
I read about a study that proved that we use spontaneous recovery of intention. A part of the brain stays focused to detect the cue. See prospective memory in wikipedia
Yes, MILD can be as sleep-unfriendly as WILD imo...oh yes, if we solve that puzzle may be it doesnīt have to be anymore. Until that happens, maybe we can achieve DILD mastery ;)Quote:
Also, you know as well as me that as people get older, their sleep quality declines, which gives more support for a DILD like approach. But at this point, both methods are feasible, because you do have a good point in your sentence regarding MILD. But what if we solved that puzzle in the meanwhile :)?
One thing that would be great to start improving MILD, i think, would be to know exactly what cue to search for or be aware of. Then, we would need some self awareness/habit to amplify that cue, and BAAM ! We have many distinctive dream cues, kind of super dreamsigns, like gravity ( Hukif's cue), sense of temperature, feeling of clothes, ambient noise, etc, like Ctharlhie said
You mean RCs become dream signs themselves ?? hehe, that would be a very good dream sign to have ;) But is there an easier way to induce them :P?Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
Won't be able to answer in full detail, got to head work in 10 minutes :P
Yes, but how exactly? Something like DIPE (explained in this thread), which tries to incorporate several of the main types of dream signs/cues; something like a single action like breathing? Each one has it's own advantages, but I think a single cue would work best due that principle of cognitive-overload on PM. And what exactly would be the best course of action to speed up PM? Hukif's reality check isn't a event-based PM I think, it doesn't present any cue, he does it when he remembers to, making it the same as doing a hand reality check.Quote:
One thing that would be great to start improving MILD, i think, would be to know exactly what cue to search for or be aware of. Then, we would need some self awareness/habit to amplify that cue, and BAAM ! We have many distinctive dream cues, kind of super dreamsigns, like gravity ( Hukif's cue), sense of temperature, feeling of clothes, ambient noise, etc, like Ctharlhie said
The talk in this situation seems more about "how fast can make it an habit of linking X behavior to Y event?" than exactly PM. I guess you could improve PM with exercises, test it, and see if what effect it has in WBTB + MILD? But I don't think the cue is the problem at all, more like the PM level OR/AND whether the action has become an habit or not. Time to run to work xD
I've been wondering:
Do you become better at MILD with experience? Or is it that you are only strengthening your PM? Laberge says that MILD, if practiced correctly and for enough time, will become a reliable tech to induce LDs. Meaning that we do get better at it. Ok, we know with, lets say WILD or dream control, we become pros with increased self awareness, but to attain LDs in an intermidiate way using MILD, we need only PM. that is what Laberge says, but is it true that self-awareness isn't needed for MILD? Maybe you can get used to spotting DSs or using time based MILD, and that relyes on PM, and PM doesn't nesecarily rely on self-awareness to activate it, or does it? Is it studyed?
My point is, does MILD rely on self awareness to become a tech of high lucidity attaining?
We know that expert MILD users rely on time based PM, not DSs, not as much. I think we should study time based and event based PM seperatly, because they use slightly different memories, right?
I think I'm just asking the same question over and over without the answer even being available currently.
Self awareness and memory relation.
I will continue studying the matter, and ,at least for myself, understand the states of memories during sleep.
I will report back
I will let Zoth answer this, but until he comes back..
If i understand self awareness correctly, i think not. At least in Laberge's description he seems to clearly emphasize prospective memory training and dream signs.Quote:
My point is, does MILD rely on self awareness to become a tech of high lucidity attaining?
Of course, it wouldnīt hurt and probably it would even help a lot..
Edit: oh, i forget to say that self-awareness, in my view, can help you to notice, at least, some specific dreamsigns ( feelings, sensations, thoughts ) and so, if you use these dreamsigns, yes, it is a great help.
I don't know many expert MILD users..true..do they rely on time based PM ? what do you mean by that ? ( MILD without a specific cue ? )Quote:
We know that expert MILD users rely on time based PM, not DSs, not as much. I think we should study time based and event based PM seperatly, because they use slightly different memories, right?
by time based I mean that they use their 'internal clock'. I is always there, and they have strong PM, so I would be easy. Plus, for that time based PM, they must be relying on self-awareness too, even if they don't know it! But, again, we need more studies to prove that. Zoth mentioned that self-awareness is very close to the other similar aspects that are responsible for lucidity, and Sageous says that self-awareness increases the capability of retrieving memories from the memory, so very likely that they can't be so proficients(expert MILDers) without the self-awareness they gain by experience. Again, we need to prove if self awareness does effect the elements of MILD, the explanation I just gave isn't enough.
Oh, i found another interesting quotes from Laberge ( this time from Lucid Dreaming, 2009 )
About MILD...
Again time based PM..Quote:
The mental set involved in this procedure is much like the one you adopt when you decide to awaken at
a certain hour, and go to sleep after setting your mental alarm clock. The ability to awaken in your
dreams may be regarded as a sort of refinement of the ability to awaken from your dreams.
...
So he experienced very quick results when he switched to MILD. Self awareness takes time to increase and didnīt seem to be the factor involved in this improvement. I am not saying it is not important, by all means is ( mostly waking life ). Just donīt get discouraged or overexcited, because that doesnīt seem to be most important factor here :)Quote:
Since motivation is an important factor in inducing lucid dreams, how can we be sure increased
motivation doesn't account for the improvements I have attributed to MILD? During all the nights I
attempted to induce lucid dreams while being physiologically monitored, my motivation was very high.
Using self-suggestion, I had only one lucid dream in seven nights of laboratory recordings, but when I
began practicing MILD, I had fifteen lucid dreams in thirteen recording nights. It should be clear that it
is the method, and not merely the motivation, that accounted for these results.
Ok, but thatīs not too difficult Stephen..Quote:
MILD also seems to work well for others, especially those who meet the requirements of high
motivation and excellent dream recall. "High motivation" means having a strong desire to develop the
skill of lucid dreaming, and by "excellent dream recall" I mean being able to awaken from (and
remember) dreams two to three times per night or more. Students in my workshops and courses have
almost always succeeded with MILD if they met these two conditions. Two of my students increased
their lucid-dream frequency from less than one per month to about twenty per month during an eightweek
course. Even the average student had three or four lucid dreams in the same two-month period. All
this should make it clear that it is possible to learn to have lucid dreams. What one dreamer can do,
others can do as well.
That is why MILD is better than auto suggestions:
1. It gave the immediate increase because it concentrated in increasing the power of the intention(the effect of PM, you know, by those extra stuff added(other than the PM exercises)).
2. Since it made us know that intention is based on PM, we now know that we should train it.
Motivation does effect the results, especially for PM, so if he has low motivation, the effectiveness would decrease. But, motivated as in excited, interested, or both?
Seems MILD essential doesn't need self-awareness. That can be an indicator that episodic memory, retrospective memory and imperative memory aren't impaired during dreams!(lets use that to further progress our conclusions:))
Why does the awareness help MILD?(WBTB)Quote:
During the 1970s, when Dr Stephen LaBerge was developing the MILD technique, he found that certain interruptions in regular sleep patterns improved success rates. These included waking up to have sex, vomit or meditate. This led him to conclude that: wakefulness, interjected during sleep, increases your chances of becoming lucid.
So, in order to have more lucid dreams with MILD, you may want to wake yourself up in the night and bring yourself to full consciousness for a few minutes. No need to induce vomiting! Simply spending 20 minutes reading about lucid dreaming works fine. As you return to sleep, perform the MILD technique.
Another way to exploit this principle is to practice MILD during afternoon naps. I find this most effective if I am a little sleep deprived from the night before, so it's easy to fall asleep during the afternoon. However I don't advocate forced sleep deprivation; simply make use of this principle if you happen to be particularly sleepy in the day.
Does it have to do with the PM directly? It's activity? Or is it bcz being more aware means more effective 'implantation' of the intention?
I think frankly we (including LaBerge) don't really know exactly how/why MILD works. LaBerge's insight that he wanted to remember to do something in the future (while dreaming) was (IMHO) just the mental "schema" that he used to describe what he wanted to do. My opinion is that MILD is just another framework within which to mix up the soup of self-awareness, expectation, intent, and memory, which leads to lucidity. "remembering to do something [realize you're dreaming] the next time you're dreaming" just seems too complicated to me, ala occam's razor. Even prospective memory may be a red herring, since it seems to me to be a sort of all-day mindfulness / active goal center thing.
Not quite. prospective memory doesn't need you to be aware all day, it has it's own awareness and detecting the cue mechanism. Also, MILD is no more than powerful intent. Indeed, self-awareness helps, but is not a part of the MILD itself. As for expectation, that is if you use RCs for instance, which is very good. Expectation coupled with intention makes a double hard blow!Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
True that it is not fully explored, but the concept is sound.
PM exercises are not exactly like "ADA" that's why I didn't write "awareness", but for me at least, there is absolutely an enhanced mindfulness when I have a bunch of active PM targets.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
FryingMan makes a good point here ! MILD, as Laberge describes it, really sounds too straightforward ( to be completely true ) and, yes, it might be just a little bit more elaborated than what it seems. However, his description of MILD might help to instill some confidence and assuredness, because it makes "some" sense :)
Actually, you shouldn't do that. The point of the PM training is to make you remember your intention at the furthest moment you are from its though(like in dreams). So, you should memorize the targets, set the intention, the complitly forget about them. It is hard. I currently have 30% success for 2 targets per day.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
essentially, it shouldn't be "next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming" cuz that needs very strong PM. So, we start with DS. And, see how great Novadreamer and MILD are together? Laberge's discovery of the importance of PM with LDing is very important. Novadreamer is only a DS giver, no more, and would do no good at all without mental prep(MILD). Look at the success rates! Again, the Novadreamer is ONLY a DS giver, no more.Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
Based on my own experience, I'd say yes. I'm probably not the best person to give an opinion (I tend to do breaks in training due health reasons), but back in the days where I was consistent enough to reach several lds a week, MILD was my main technique, this being the reason why I got so curious as to why it would work so well. I was already doing several other stuff though, like an exercise designed to improve your episodic memory and get a better sense of time (you can read Sageous in his fundamentals thread encouraging me to do it), which developed to self-awareness (which, curiously enough, made the previous exercise almost automatic, I will explain why in a bit), and besides that, I already consider myself as having a great prospective memory (When my therapist thought I had OCD, Sageous told me I could use that to my advantage xD). If you ask me what type of PM I'm good at, I can't answer you, but I'd guess time-based prospective memory: I don't really recall that I have to practice reality checks because I see something weird (in fact, I'm very bad at reacting to dream signs!), it just keeps popping in my mind over and over after some time has passed. Other aspects that reflected my overall behavior during that time would be the fact that I used alarms for everything - from alarms that ringed every 5 to 10 minutes to reality check, alarms that told me it was time to reduce lightning, alarms that told me I had 20 minutes before initiating my nightly ritual, an alarm to tell me it was time to fall asleep, and 2 alarms to wake up (plus an alarm for WBTB obviously). Along with a reality check counter bracelet, I was pretty focused on keeping the intention of becoming lucid I'd say :PQuote:
Do you become better at MILD with experience? Or is it that you are only strengthening your PM? Laberge says that MILD, if practiced correctly and for enough time, will become a reliable tech to induce LDs
I'll try to explain the relation with self-awareness in my view (might differ from other people like Sageous): self-awareness is not required to MILD, but it does help a lot. First of all, capacity to self-monitor oneself is relevant to PM: you need to remember to remember, and this happens by being aware of yourself. Secondly, and more important, awareness (in the lines of mindfulness at least) has the (documented) effect of calming the mind, increasing attention, improving your ability to ignore irrelevant stimulus...You can see how this is relevant for MILD: self-awareness reduces cognitive-load. If your mind is calm as a lake, you are much more likely to notice disturbances, and to analyze the surface of the water. The rest is simple: do you think you are more likely to retain/recall a certain intention in the future if in the meanwhile you are being bombarded with a river of thoughts (monkey mind), or if you are continuously capable of introspection and distancing yourself from other stimulus? Same exact reason I reserve 20 minutes before going to sleep to simply stretch, clear my mind, and focus on lucid dreaming (especially more relevant when I'm hunting a specific task).Quote:
but is it true that self-awareness isn't needed for MILD?
On a small side note, I personally think many lucid dreamers develop self-awareness even if they don't use it to induce lucidity initially. After some lucids (some people take more than others ofc), you start getting a really good figure that you might be dreaming at any moment. It then becomes not a question of inducing a lucid dream, but being aware you might be in one (notice the shift between intention and habit here?), which is why honestly, I personally use the excuse of reality checking as a way of keeping my PM up (by keeping myself recalling my intention), rather than a way to induce a lucid (I never became lucid because I felt like doing a reality check out of the blue). No one can intentionally perform a DILD if you think about it: they either happen or not, the most you can do is increase your chances.
VagalTone, I might be a bit too arrogant to LaBerge, but I'm curious as to how he reached the first and second conclusions. I lost the link to a website which explained in detail "why you wake up before your alarm", and I'm not totally convinced it's the same as PM. Or maybe I'm completely wrong, because that would explain an awful lot of situations where lucid dreams are super-short: you'd effectively become lucid during the transition from sleep to wakefulness, but he still has to explain why the process would be so much more gradual than the original scenario (wouldn't we hear many more reports on lucidity, especially when coupled with those days of the week that we have some pressuring morning event? The most we hear is about false awakenings...hm, interesting).
What is not saying in there is "I was already trying to induce lucid dreams before MILD, and maybe MILD sort of caught the train along, making it run faster, but not necessarily the reason why the train started moving at that time" - (you'd think he would talk about his sample, not his own anecdotal testimony 0o?). Once again, you need to be extremely careful when making these studies, and even he was pointed with studies with low methodology quality . Maybe we could take a look at them if anyone finds them?Quote:
So he experienced very quick results when he switched to MILD. Self awareness takes time to increase and didnīt seem to be the factor involved in this improvement. I am not saying it is not important, by all means is ( mostly waking life ). Just donīt get discouraged or overexcited, because that doesnīt seem to be most important factor here
Just a thought, but do you know why blind people get their sleep ruined if you remove their eyes? It's because while being blind, your eyes are still crucial to light, which influences your circadian clock. I wonder if the light produced by the NovaDreamer couldn't also affect your circadian clock, telling you to "wake up".Quote:
Again, the Novadreamer is ONLY a DS giver, no more.
Question: Time based cue: when dreaming: our memory knows when we are dreaming?(one of the 3 responsible for PM)
If so, then setting intention and powering PM is enough. No need for a habit of time realization every while, or is it a natural part of time based PM, to concern about the time occasionally(consciously)? There is a PM system that stays alert for the cue. There is no need for our direct attention(studied).
Found it lol, it's PER! To determine if that first affirmation you mentioned VagalTone from LaBerge is true, we just need to see if there's any relation between PER (the protein) and lucid dreaming. If there is, becoming lucid is just like waking up. If not, LaBerge stated that without actually knowing what he was talking about.
Our memory can't "know" anything, it can only be retrieved :). And yes, you certainly can retrieve memories during your sleep, but it's not that easy (otherwise, lucidity would be simple). It's relevant to determine if there's any relation between the above mentioned PER protein and lucidity. Assuming not, what's basically turning you lucid would indeed be PM, and while we can't know for sure, PM is probably "kicking in" during REM because that's the most "conscious" sleep state you ever experienced, and your brain is extremely active (even more than waking life). That said, it's understandable why you don't become lucid in N-REM (you're in deep sleep).Quote:
our memory knows when we are dreaming?
That habit helps (not exactly an habit and not exactly the "time", I mean the ability to retain the intention on your consciousness ): PM based on time requires you to monitor yourself, since you got no cues to help you, unlike PM based on events. But how exactly the brain is keeping track of time, we don't know. But you can test how beneficial the act of reminding yourself over and over might be: try to remind to do one thing after 8 hours while reminding yourself of the task every 1 hour, or with no meanwhile reminders. I think you can already guess which will give you more chances of succeeding ;)Quote:
No need for a habit of time realization every while, or is it a natural part of time based PM, to concern about the time occasionally(consciously)?
Only if we're talking about PM based on events, the same doesn't happen with PM based on time because there are no cues ;)Quote:
There is a PM system that stays alert for the cue. There is no need for our direct attention(studied).
ah, ok. Thnx!!:D
by the first question I meant if our memory(short-term) during sleep contains info that we are currently sleeping, but I guess it doesn't bcz we have to be conscious of that for it to be stored in the short-term memory, right?
It's not really a matter of "should" vs. "should not," it's a matter of "is" -- this is what I find when I have PM targets. I don't constantly run through the list in my mind, but I do review them from time to time. In any case, LaBerge does mention the increased activity of the goal center in the brain until goals are achieved, at the subconscious level, and this is the increased mindfulness I'm referring go.Quote:
Originally Posted by LouaiB
And a note here -- my first couple of DILDs were on days where I had a lot of PM targets (10 or more, no more than 4 at one time). I usually spread them out throughout the day, if I only select end-of-day targets then I get a lot of misses without much practice. I prefer to keep a rolling set of targets: some soon, some farther out, and maybe one at end of day, so that I always have a set of 4 or so active targets (when I'm doing PM exercises)Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
ah ok. I thought you meant normal consciousness, not sub. sry, my badQuote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
Niiice! That is very handy!Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
So, you need to carry that habit of monitoring yourself for time based PM to the dream. You do that using self-awareness. This is why self-awareness is essential for time based PM. This is the same thing pros rely on. Using self-awareness, and PM. To be aware of themselves in a dream and use PM to remind them that this means dream. So, you need them both to become lucid using time based PM. Is this the same thing that Sageous talks about?(about being aware that this is a dream while dreaming)
I need to know more about it. What is exactly being monitored? Why do we need LDing experience for that? Do we?
the expectations you build are for , when in a
dream and if they occur, activating the memory,
because if the sub choses to incorporate the
expectation to the dream, it has to activate the
memory while dreaming. Right? I'm guessing it is
the episodic memory, right? Then, it since the episodic memory activated, your self-awareness
increases, thus activating the semantic memory.
Since you have access to the episodic memory, you
have a sense of time(if you prepared correctly),
thus activating the time based prospective memory
cue, thus becoming lucid(I'm guessing that's how pros pecome lucid most of the time). Also, if the
prospective memory didn't fulfil its job, then you'ld
still have semantic memory to let you recognize
dream like entities and become lucid.
Again, all this is suggestions, but I don't know if
there is enough info to back them up. What do you think? Is there a direct study on how this works? A
detailed explanation to it? Edit: The idea of kidnapping you and putting you in
an fmri is starting to seem more appealing:p
Seriously, why doesn't anybody do more studies
and tests about the relation of memory to other
aspects!?
also, a lot of beginners that only use autosuggestions seem to have lots of LDs. Why? they build expectation/intention, only?
I will jump in once more - and I think, I found the who or what to blame primarily, if I had to choose one suspect after all:
Bad dream recall.
That was, what was directly linked to LDs declining in that study about LDing children - recall declining.
Everybody I asked, told me that she or he remembers great dream-recall as a child - and they all said, they hardly remember any dreams now.
Only clear exception: My father in law - and he is the only up and running LDer I found in real life. But he also remembers his normal dreams very well.
Buut - now I started ETWOLD* (better late than never..) - I came across this little passage:
My own feeling goes in that direction as well - especially since every time, I got lucid, it was (if not by something DEILDy) by recognizing dream-signs.Quote:
Originally Posted by La Berge
But the hypothesis put forth by the LDing authority par excellence - that we all have some sort of LDs from time to time - but forget them like we forget all else happening in our dreams - I could believe it!
Sheds another light on the whole affair again.
Would be great, if you could put on a cap and it gives something like fMRI - and in the morning look, if something has light up in that department.
I mean no - would be great not to have to check for LD like that - but anyway!!
Intriguing!
*Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming by LaBerge - the "LD Bible" I have sinned against by omission up to now..Attachment 6380
yes, Dream recall may be the one to blame indeed! Buut, my last LD was at a point where it was early REM, and I wouldn't recall. I even felt that the dream was one of the dreams I wouldn't recall, but I did bcz I was lucid, and no, I didn't wake myself up, I lost my lucidity. I'm sure this example is a lucky one.
ETWOLD is great, but lacks some crucial info and got a few points wrong :/
^^ I must agree with Louai, here, Steph; I'm pretty sure LaBerge got that bit about missing LD's for lack of dream recall wrong.
Since LD's are waking-consciousness events, they are stored in memory just like any other waking-life events. Also, given that most LD's (especially the "surprise" ones) are extremely memorable events, I believe that they are events that would not only be easily remembered (as in straight into long-term memory), but they would be very hard to forget.
Dream recall is of course very important on its own, because it does things like train your mind to pay attention to your dreams, allow you a chance to look for repeating dreamsigns, and give you a foundation for expectation/intention (i.e., recalling dream places to which you'd like to return). So dream recall matters, but I really do not think that we are all forgetting LD's on a regular basis.
I'm not sure why LaBerge drew this conclusion, or whether he still believes it, but forgetting LD's simply does not agree with the nature of a LD as the waking-consciousness event that LaBerge himself has defined. A strange contradiction on his part, I think.
This, therefore, might not be the real solution. Dream recall is a very good thing, but not for the sake of remembering LD's that you might have otherwise forgotten.
Yes. But still, could it be the benefits of dream recall that make children LD more? I mean they do have more dream recall, and therefore do practice expectation/intention due to their interest to it, like "wow! That dream was fun! I wanna have it again!" or something like that. So, dream recall + their curious fun attitude causing expectatiOn/intention, or something like that.
Could be that simple! Could, but this is only an option, and may not be the only one(probably isn't, maybe)
^^ Sure. As I already said, good dream recall is a very good thing, and doing things like keeping a dream journal is very important to LDing, mostly for the reasons you already said. I was not belittling dream recall -- though it is certainly not the only answer to successful LD'ing.
I thought the study said "moderately correlated" not directly linked :PQuote:
That was, what was directly linked to LDs declining in that study about LDing children - recall declining.
I don't have the article with me (just found it, Recalling and Forgetting Dreams: Theta and Alpha
Oscillations during Sleep Predict Subsequent Dream Recall), but there's some study that suggests you can predict dictate dream recall even before you wake up. Also, your "neuro-soup" may be also influencing your lack of recall when you wake up (at large to a large extent of your dreams), and if assuming you get lucid - thus, altering brain activity to better resemble waking life - your recall would improve.
An article that might be relevant to this: Does the Circadian Modulation of Dream Recall Modify with Age?
PS: a downside of this study is the sample: doesn't include children/teenagers.Quote:
Measurements and Results:
Dream recall and number of dreams varied significantly across the circadian cycle and between age groups, with older subjects exhibiting fewer dreams (P < 0.05), particularly after naps scheduled during the biological day, closely associated with the circadian rhythm of REM sleep. No significant age differences were observed for the emotional domain of dream content.
Conclusions:
Since aging was associated with attenuated amplitude in the circadian modulation of REM sleep, our data suggest that the age-related decrease in dream recall can result from an attenuated circadian modulation of REM sleep.
I wouldn't dismiss dream recall so quickly. I think it would be great if we could conduct a miniresearch and see the results. It doesn't hurt at least.
A bunch of probably silly and ignorant questions, but somehow important to understand dream recall implications:
- can dream recall become exceptionally good without lucidity ?
- why do we remember lucids better that nlds?
- can we get better at lucidity by remembering better how dreams are and feel ? Yeesss !
- why do we forget dreams so fast ? Is it possible to keep recall of every dream we have recalled ?
Yes, there's loads of reports of great dream recallers that make no mention of lucidity.Quote:
- can dream recall become exceptionally good without lucidity ?
You're more conscious, which allows a better encoding/storage of memories?Quote:
- why do we remember lucids better that nlds?
Like a Pavlovian response? Pretty sure we can, that's why we use dream signs :PQuote:
- can we get better at lucidity by remembering better how dreams are and feel ? Yeesss !
īQuote:
- why do we forget dreams so fast ? Is it possible to keep recall of every dream we have recalled ?
"Neuro-soup" during sleep seems that it doesn't facilitate sub-subsequent recall, along with other aspects mentioned in that study in my last post.
I agree with that until someone proves it wrong. But for the question about dream feeling, you can use self-awareness for that, but not really a dream feeling more than realizing you are dreaming cuz of the self-awarenessQuote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
I'm pretty sure no one is dismissing dream recall here, VagalTone. Here's my take on your questions, for what it's worth:
Yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by VagalTone
Because lucid dreams are waking-consciousness events, and waking consciousness events -- especially the important ones -- tend to be more carefully filed in memory than non-waking consciousness events (aka: NLD's).Quote:
- why do we remember lucids better that nlds?
Of course.Quote:
- can we get better at lucidity by remembering better how dreams are and feel ?
Because NLD's are generally not stored in memory at all. I have no idea about the physiological specifics of this (I'll bet Zoth does, though), but it is probably because the images of regular dreams are simply not significant enough to be considered memorable by the brain's operating system.Quote:
- why do we forget dreams so fast ?
Sure. It's called a dream journal. It seems that the very act of writing a dream down is instrumental in raising its significance to "rate" long-term memory storage. So, if you recall a dream and write it down, it could possibly be with you forever.Quote:
Is it possible to keep recall of every dream we have recalled ?
Also true what Sageous said, and Zoth(but does my opinion matter!? They taught me everything I know about LDing! Of course I won't have a different opinion^^)
(We should make a thread to store dreaming articles so they don't get lost between all the pages, and that everyone could access them and use them in the discussions)
Two more studies regarding dream recall, one shows that dream recall is lower in younger groups. Note: it's cross-sectional, not longitudinal, so don't take it too seriously.
Home Dream Recall in Children and Young Adults
And another one regarding dream socialization (very interesting imo) and it's effect on subsequent dream recall:
The effects of dream socialization in childhood on dream recall frequency and the attitude towards dreams in adulthood: A retrospective study
The last one is particularly relevant to discuss why some people could have a worse dream recall than others.
Yeah, we should make a thread, or better yet, ask the admins to add a new section for studies regarding defferent aspects of LDing(may not happen, but at least we can try)
I know you were not dismissing dream recall. I meant to say that you donīt consider it as the real solution.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
As you said in your post:
In the next post ( which sadly i noticed only after posting my reply )Quote:
This, therefore, might not be the real solution
Ok, so you agree it is an answer to succesfull LD'ing ! Not the real solution, but likely one real solution !Quote:
I was not belittling dream recall -- though it is certainly not the only answer to successful LD'ing.
And thank you Sageous, and also Zoth, for replying my questions. I am still curious about more deep mechanisms :P ( even if they donīt exist )
Another question :D : Is it too much if i propose that we donīt lucid dream more often because we donīt know, or remember, how a dream feels like ?
I have a longer post in the pipeline - and still didn't read back - but I just wanted to make one thing clear.
When I say recall - what I really mean as well, is getting an intimacy with one`s dreams - getting to know the feeling of one`s dreams - seeing patterns, not just reconstruct story-lines.
Which is much deeper an issue than the term "recall" maybe suggests.
But I also can't really imagine to have been fully lucid and not noted it in a more special way than waking life.
Just waking life is easy to forget - but LD is something extraordinary in my intuition - but who knows - really remembering nothing could really hide even amazing things? Hm..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoth
And - took a look at the children-paper to check, if I have twisted things in my memory :D
Good dream-recall is significantly correlated with life-time LD prevalence, LD frequency and recent lucidity - don't think, I got this wrong - or do the numbers paint a different picture than the text in your view? Honest question - too lazy to try to answer it to myself and run into - obstacles.Quote:
Frequency of dream recall
Most children and young adults remember their dreams at
least sometimes (84%), only 5% reported no dream recall at
Table 4 Inferential statistics on dream-related variables
Univariate anova (Table 4) using Sex and
Secondary School Type as fixed factors and Age as
covariate showed a significant effect for Sex but not for any
other variable. Girls in our sample had slightly but signifi-
cantly higher recall of their dreams (girls: mean = 2.42,
SE = 0.05; boys: mean = 2.24, SE = 0.06).
As expected, dream recall was significantly correlated with frequent lucid
dreaming (r = 0.14, df = 694, P < 0.01), lifetime prevalence
of lucid dreaming (r = 0.10, df = 694, P < 0.01) and recent
lucidity (r = 0.13, df = 694, P < 0.01). There was no evidence
of a relationship between dream recall and control over
dream plot, however (r = 0.06, df = 694, NS).
Similar to a recent study by Schredl and Erlacher (2011),
but to a lesser degree, frequency of dream recall was
significantly correlated with frequency of lucid dreams,
suggesting that the ability to remember one?s dreams
facilitates lucid dreaming or the memory of it.
"Is it too much if i propose that we donīt lucid dream more often because we
donīt know, or remember, how a dream feels like ?"
It is not the only factor. Note that a fream feeling is based on self-awareness. There is no special dream feeling, just the effect of self-awareness. That said, you still can have plenty of LDs using expectation/intention and dream signs.
Depends on what you mean with "dream feeling". You talked with a certain person who mentioned this in one of her interviews exactly that, so maybe she told you something else that can clarify what she said?Quote:
Is it too much if i propose that we donīt lucid dream more often because we donīt know, or remember, how a dream feels like ?
First of all, we need to realize consciousness is not an unitary result. You can only experience consciousness as one whole....experience, but in fact that experience is being constructed by many many systems present in your brain. So this dreamy feeling would actually have to derive from one (or more) of those systems. I think the "dreamy feeling" is actual the consciousness that you are dreaming, or more precisely, a "construct" of those systems active in the brain during a dream, it's realization if you may.
If we assume the dream itself may possess intrinsic characteristics that distinguish it from waking life experience, then the "dreamy feeling" would be the representation of certain cerebral components working, right? Just like you can make a rat walk near a cat without any trace of fear if you interfere with his amygdala, you would encounter certain brain regions with low activity during REM, and then an significant increase of activity when lucidity occurs (and we get exactly that during that study that shows the neurocorrelates of lucid dreaming).
Now, some of the intrinsic characteristics of a dream that make it differ from waking life are: lack of logic and coherency, lack of continuity, disruption of laws of physics, abnormal behavior, etc. But they all require cerebral components that are impaired during sleep/REM/dreams. So saying we don't get lucid is because we don't remember or know how a dream feels like would be redundant: we know how a dream feels like, we just can't remember it when the mechanisms that allow us to do that are impaired.
People like Sageous who are constantly (even if not always at a high-level) experiencing the "dreamy feeling", do it because (guessing time), they have increased activity in those self-monitoring throughout the whole dream, resultant of continuous shift to that state of introspection (which also characterizes certain types of meditation and mindfulness, although this in particular can be discussed to some extent) that effectively ends up rewiring their brain.
@Steph
Now I'm a bit confused. Your view on it is correct, p < 0.01 indicates a strong correlation, you're seeing it right. It's just that in the same page, they say: "Dream lucidity is moderately related to dream recall, but unrelated to duration of sleep or napping." So does the correlation get weaker as they age? Now that's weird!
But that awareness (surely self awareness) has to transit to the dream. It is a state of mind, or what? It'll be very helpful to label what self awareness is(habit/state of mind/...) so we can know if it is impaired during dreams, but that would be hard, since it envolves a lot of brain activities that aren't very well studied, or even specified what they are exactly that produce self awareness.
In the end you can only blame yourself....
Or something like that.... ;)
