Thread: An Art That Believes It's A Science

The thing about science is it can define anything, including art. However, I do agree with this quote. Lucid dreams seem to come from the same part of the mind that is responsible for all forms of creativity, and I certainly take artistic inspiration from my dreams. Because dreams are an internal phenomena, we create every aspect of what we experience. This is especially true for lucid dreams, where dreamers can consciously direct the dream world. Speaking from my personal experience, dreams can yield an otherworldly beauty that I have yet to see captured properly in any artwork.

That depends on what you call art. Is art simply beauty? I think art is for moving, touching and inspiring people, if that is true then dreams can never be art, because it can't be shared.

Lucid dreaming is more a skill than an art.

Originally Posted by Ginsan

That depends on what you call art. Is art simply beauty? I think art is for moving, touching and inspiring people, if that is true then dreams can never be art, because it can't be shared.

Lucid dreaming is more a skill than an art.

I think we disagree on what art is. There are plenty of people who paint pictures, write stories, and compose music but never show anyone else. They create just for their own sake. I believe lucid dreaming is both a skill AND an art, like many forms of art can be.

Dreaming is an art, and skill is inherent in any art, whether dreaming, massage or juggling.

Maybe the author's intent in the statement is that we think of lucid dreams too rigorously and with a great deal of focus on the scientific side, AKA the manifold techniques and substances that can induce such a state. Maybe, this laser-like focus is to the detriment of the true art, which is cultivating the inner spark of lucidity, the access to the flow state that can come upon us at any time, day or night, waking or sleeping.

The way I see it, the fascinating science behind lucid dreaming are the training wheels that tell the world, "This is possible." For dreamers, the art is in enjoying the ride.

I can only agree with NafDaddy. In addition to that, I dont think sciene can´t be an art. Science has done pretty amazing things which I personally would describe as art..
Probably differs from person to person. I think it´s a mixture out of both. It also depends what you make out of it.. If you use lucid dreaming to explore your own psyche and your brain, that would be more of a science. If you use it to create landscapes and new stuff I would categorize it as art.

The phrase is an oversimplification if you ask me, and misses the point a bit. Science does study lucid dreaming, being after all the study of the natural world. And science of the medicinal variety gives us dietary supplements that help to achieve and modulate the state of lucidity. But lucid dreaming itself is not science - its main goal is not to study the natural world. It does allow study of the mind and the nature of dreams etc, but that study is something that's conducted by a dreamer while they're lucid. So the study isn't the lucidity itself, the lucidity simply allows the study.

As for art - I suppose becoming a lucid dreamer can be called an art in the same sense as the martial arts, since they're both systems of discipline and control aimed at mastering your own body and/or mind. To me though art is a way to communicate ideas or feelings to an audience, and that communication needs to be its main purpose. What I mean is, if the main purpose of your efforts is for example to build a functional piece of furniture but you add some nice artistic embellishments, then you're really a craftsman. Decoration is not the same as art, since it doesn't really communicate to an audience as its primary focus.

Personally I think it makes more sense to call lucid dreaming a discipline. Or an activity.

Lucid dreaming is basically a skill. You can do science with and about it, and fortunately the scientific community has taken notice, and oftentimes enthusiastically.
And it is a fountain of inspiration from which the most sublime works of art can spring forth. Like the paintings of Andrew A. Gonzales - my signature picture is one of them - you can look at more and read about him, if you click the link on the left below.


And yeah - decoration just means, that there is another functionality coming with the piece of work. Between "decorative arts" and "fine arts" is no qualitative distinction per se - decoration is seen as inferior mainly in the post-Renaissance art of the West. It makes much less sense, when applied to the art of other cultures and periods, where the most highly regarded works often include those in "decorative" media. Consider Islamic art, medieval book illustrations, antique mosaic, glass windows in cathedrals ..

By the way - oneself is definitively a sufficient audience in my eyes. Works hidden by their creators, and coming to light after their deaths - they've been art all along, without having been meant to be perceived by others.

When is decoration definitively not an art? I would say, when it doesn't originally stem from the mind of the actual craftsperson, but is a mere reproduction of somebody else's work. That would clearly be craftswomanship then - like painting the same flower over and over off some template.
The same goes for copying pieces of "fine art" - even if you copy your own work 1:1 - it is mere craftsmanship then.

Originally Posted by DownrightDreamr

In the book "Dreamside" by Graham Joyce, lucid dreaming is referred to as "An art that believes it's a science".

What do you all think about this quote?

Who says science isn't an art?

I haven't read, or even heard of, this book, but I would imagine the author is using the classic definition of art, and not the current popular definition.

The classic definition, according to the OED's first listing, is: "Skill, its display or application; Skill in doing anything as a result of knowledge and practice." About a page later we come across the more popular modern definition, which is, "The application of skill to subjects of taste." I couldn't help but notice that "skill" showed up in both, and "images or works you present for other people's edification," showed up in neither. Now:

I think what's happened is that lucid dreaming has been an art -- a carefully refined skill applied to dreaming -- for centuries, if not millennia, and obviously predates science, which has only existed for about four centuries. But science has become the driver of modern Western society (Eastern society has pretty much caught up as well), and any practice has the potential for illegitimacy if it lacks the imprimatur of Science. These days if Science doesn't recognize the existence of something, it does not exist.

So science and LD'ing are dovetailing at two points:

First, there are the scientists, like LaBerge, who feel that LD'ing deserves the approval of science, or rather desire that their acquired LD'ing skill and related experience ought to be considered "real." These scientists have endeavored, and sort of succeeded, to prove that LD'ing exists, and deserves to be looked upon as real by Science.

Second: There are those who, because of Science's apparent power, believe that science can solve anything or foster technology that will do tasks for them. So, clearly to them, applying science will be the very thing they need to finally be able to LD, or to be able to do it without really trying.

Put these two together, and you have an art that has been proven a physical process, and a crowd of people who believe that science alone can solve or drive that process. From that collision is birthed all the techniques, the pills, the machines, and the general attitude that, "If I just do these things they say, or take the right pills at the right times, or buy that cool machine, I will enter the magical world of lucid dreaming, and in that magical world enjoy my own universe of unfettered creation."

That attitude leads to overlooking the basic requirement for success in LD'ing -- carefully developed skills based on self-awareness, expectation, and memory -- in favor of trusting science to replace what's been overlooked with something easy, applicable, and purchasable. In other words, LD'ers -- newbies and gurus alike -- have come to believe that if LD'ing were to be included in the folds of Science, then it ill not only be "real," but also much easier to do.

[As an aside, using science to "believe" that LD'ing is real has become a fairly practical tool for building expectations, so I can't really argue with that (That is also a hint as to why LaBerge et al have gone to so much trouble scientifically proving its existence, BTW).]

tl;dr: Since I didn't read the book, I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that the author is acknowledging that practitioners and examiners of the art -- the skill -- of lucid dreaming have come to believe that it is physical event that can be defined, studied, and controlled scientifically, and they believe this both because modern Western society will accept as real only what science confirms is real, and because science has made so many other things in life easy, why not LD'ing?

When I think of science and lucid dreaming, I don't think about showing it is real - that has been done decades past.
I also don't think of induction methods - now with the latest news about 40 Hz stimulation more so of course.
What is so fascinating about the two in concert, is the fact that lucid dreaming is a means to try and unravel the workings of human consciousness. One of the most important questions of all.

I think lucid dreams are highly fascinating, because they are the only conscious experience that can never be directly shared with anyone else.
This makes them extremely personal, and sometimes it can feel very nice to be in your own private world where you have full right to do absolutely anything you want.

Both.

It's simply both.

The study of lucid dreaming - that is how and why lucid dreaming works - is scientific. The experience of lucid dreaming can be artistic. The practice of lucid dreaming itself is a skill and activity, as has been noted before my post, which can be used for both scientific and artistic purposes.

I think, one can view a dream as a work of art in itself, too, without something springing forth into real life from it. It is only there, while being created, but that is true for some other forms of art as well, like the sand-mandalas of Tibetan monks - blown away upon completion. The actual dream is only for yourself, until there might be a technology to record them. But that doesn't disqualify them from being art per se.

Along the same lines I could also say, that LDing is a science in itself, without having a machinery to measure something or other from external. Just the dreamer making experiments in her LDs. They are a subjective source of evidence, and such a very delicate endeavor, if you wanted to generalize. Extremely hard to overcome bias - but anyway. LDing can be understood as a form of research, to try and figure out the workings of one's mind - or even "the mind".

Originally Posted by StephL

I think, one can view a dream as a work of art in itself, too, without something springing forth into real life from it. It is only there, while being created, but that is true for some other forms of art as well, like the sand-mandalas of Tibetan monks - blown away upon completion. The actual dream is only for yourself, until there might be a technology to record them. But that doesn't disqualify them from being art per se.

Along the same lines I could also say, that LDing is a science in itself, without having a machinery to measure something or other from external. Just the dreamer making experiments in her LDs. They are a subjective source of evidence, and such a very delicate endeavor, if you wanted to generalize. Extremely hard to overcome bias - but anyway. LDing can be understood as a form of research, to try and figure out the workings of one's mind - or even "the mind".

Indeed, one could say that a dream is a work of art created by the subconscious mind. And the lucid dream is a machine of art which one can have a more conscious ability to observe and use. Why, one could even say that lucid dreaming is the ultimate art form - with which the artist is fully surrounded by and immersed in the wonder of his/her art and in-tune with the creative workings of his/her deeper mind.

One can indeed say that. It makes perfect sense, Vagabond!

Originally Posted by AstralVagabond

Indeed, one could say that a dream is a work of art created by the subconscious mind. And the lucid dream is a machine of art which one can have a more conscious ability to observe and use. Why, one could even say that lucid dreaming is the ultimate art form - with which the artist is fully surrounded by and immersed in the wonder of his/her art and in-tune with the creative workings of his/her deeper mind.

As an extension, I would say a dream isn't a work of art until it is lucid, and enjoys the active creative input of your Self, rather than just the random/needs-inspired image-generation of the unconscious.

And yeah, I have to agree -- LD'ing has potential to be the highest art form possible, IMHO.

Yepp - I meant only lucid dreams above, too, Sageous!
If I only were so proficient yet to view my LDing as an artform..goodsigh2.gif

I had to think of the science fiction movie "Strange Days" tonight and then of this thread.
They have a recording device, which can read out a person's experience directly from the scalp/brain, and in such a way, that another person can play it back and live through it 1:1. There's an economy for the tapes - and a black market, too - snuff video style. It's all about real life experiences.

But if we would get to a point, where such recordings are possible - there will be a huge market for lucid dreamers to sell their creations.
Besides real life stuff, certain non-lucids would be marketable, too - but a lucid dreamer could then really sell her dreams as works of art - a medium with enormous possibilities for expressing artistic excellence.
Contract work, customizing LDs for your varied audiences would be possible, too.
You could also excise the dreamer's perspective and narrative, and just sell the dream-world and it's "inhabitants" for fresh exploration, if you had something for a simulation/extrapolation of non explicit stuff to run on.
Easily imaginable LDing to be the most highly esteemed artform of all in such a scenario!

What an amazing art form that'd be, Steph! But I'm sure editing would be a monster.. star artists would probably have some awkward, overly personal, bizarre thoughts spontaneously create themselves in front of the viewers every now and then. No one wants a contemplative and beautiful work of art such as "Creation of Matter and the Big Bang" to suddenly change into "The Big Bang - of My Parents (Whoops) Including A Dog in a Tutu Singing Weird Al." Well, unless they do. Okay, I could see people digging the absurdity factor here.