"Dreaming" the iasd journal

[EbbTide000]

Dreaming Vol 24, #2 (which is the Journal of the IASD) just got delivered in the post. The 7th artical is called Spontaneous Lucid Dreaming Frequency and Waking Insite. ByPatric Bourke and Hannah Shaw. University of Lincoln. It has 5 headings Intro Method Participants Procedure Results Discussion References I'm going to read it (in a bit) but I just wanted to open this thread first to share it with you. When my friend BobV died on January 29, 2013 (...edit ... oops I mean 2014) joined his iasd because he said that he didn't want friends to sent flowers. He preferred that folk give a donation to his beloved iasd (International Association for the Study of Dreams) So I sent my $100 membership fee. And now I'll get thier Dreaming mag. Here's bobV at the most recent iasd Conference, six months before he died, suddenly at 86. BobV announced at this 2013 annual iasd Conference that this was his last Conference because he is not able to fly (cabin pressure issues) any more. BobV with his university dream colleagues began the International Dream Conferences and later the pdc especially for people, like me, who can't get to any Dream Conferences. BobV (Dr Robert Van De Castle) ↓↓↓ Forum code:* ♥♥♥

[EbbTide000]

Yuk! This scientific experiment supports earlier scientific findings that Dumb folk (like me) Don't Lucid Dream. I hate these experiments ...... ...... ...... ...... I try and try but I've only had one real Lucid Dream in my entire 54 years of life. When I try hard I only get False Awakenings. I hope I read this experiment wrong.

[EbbTide000]

LDers gave tasks to their DCs in the 6th article. That experiment was veery interesting. It was done online over two months. 15 People who could manage a couple of Lucids a month participated. This was the Dream Task: Lucid Dream Task Participants were asked to find a dream character in their lucid dream and to carry out the following experiment. If you recognize that you are dreaming, please talk to any well-disposed dream character and ask him/her for a small amount of his or her time If the dream character agrees, hold both of your hands in front of you and show a random number of fingers to the dream character. Then ask him/her to tell you the number ("open condition"). Memorize the answer given by the dream character. Now, repeat the experiment but this time do not show your hands to the dream character. Keep them behind your back and ensure that the dream character has no chance to see how many fingers you are holding up. Ask the person how many fingers you are holding up behind your back ("hidden condition"). If the dream character has no answer ask him/her to guess the number of fingers you are holding up behind your back. Memorize the answer. Thank the dream character. Wake yourself and write down the answers and the dream report. Actually, these iasd Dream Jounal experiments are so well described that we, here on Dreamviewers, could follow what they did and see what happens with us. I also think that iasd gives out grants to groups who submit plans for a lucid dream experiment. And then publishes the results in this Journal. But don't quote me on that. Does anyone reading this know if that happens?

[sleepingSYNAPSE]

GREAT! Thanks for pointing these out, I just downloaded them, but will have to get to reading them later this evening (I will post here my thoughts). I like the papers that "interrogate" other dream characters; I'm excited to read that one! And I am hoping, like you, that the first paper you mentioned doesn't state that lucid dreaming is for a limited population, because everything I have come across suggests otherwise... BTW, cool story (and photo) about Dr. Van de Castle. Thanks again for bringing these to surface, I'll post later ***as for your question about grants being given, I am not sure...maybe best to email the journal and ask

[EbbTide000]

GREAT! Thanks for pointing these out, I just downloaded them, but will have to get to reading them later this evening (I will post here my thoughts). I like the papers that "interrogate" other dream characters; I'm excited to read that one! And I am hoping, like you, that the first paper you mentioned doesn't state that lucid dreaming is for a limited population, because everything I have come across suggests otherwise... BTW, cool story (and photo) about Dr. Van de Castle. Thanks again for bringing these to surface, I'll post later ***as for your question about grants being given, I am not sure...maybe best to email the journal and ask sleeping SYNAPSE I read article 7 again (pages 152 -159). I got it wrong. It was talking about Spontaneously occuring lucid dreams. Apparently, the experiment found a correlation between frequent spontaneous lucid dreams and talent at a word game. Those who did not have spontaneous lucid dreams were not very good at the word game. But thoe who were very good at the word game also reported lots of spontaneous lucid dreams throughout their lives. Here is the word game: . In each of these puzzles, a list of words is given. To solve the puzzle, think of a single word that goes with each to form a compound word (or word pair that functions as a compound word). For example, if the given words are* volley,* field, and bearing, then the answer would be ball, because the word*ball*can be added to each of the other words to form* volleyball,* ballfield, and* ball bearing. Here is a site with 46 of this kind of game. ¤¤¤ Brain Food: Associated Words ¤¤¤

[RavenOfShadow]

Oh this is interesting, about the article 7. I have had many many spontaneous lucidities and I was very good at that game... how interesting. Thanks so much for sharing these, and I'm sorry for the loss of Bob.

[FryingMan]

Yuk! This scientific experiment supports earlier scientific findings that Dumb folk (like me) Don't Lucid Dream. I hate these experiments ...... ...... ...... ...... I try and try but I've only had one real Lucid Dream in my entire 54 years of life. When I try hard I only get False Awakenings. I hope I read this experiment wrong. Don't let negative things like this pollute your mind, negative thoughts are LD- and dream-killers. You've only had about 4 more years of life than me, and in the last year (my first year) of my LD practice I've recalled between 1000 - 2000 dreams and had 46 lucid dreams. Absolutely anybody can recall dreams and dream lucidly, of that I'm sure. Why don't you post your day and night practice routines and the DV members can help you diagnose what's going on. To start with, how's your recall? Do you set intention to remember your dreams every single night? Do you lie quietly upon every waking reaching for recall? That's the place to begin.

[Memm]

sleeping SYNAPSE I read article 7 again (pages 152 -159). I got it wrong. It was talking about Spontaneously occuring lucid dreams. Apparently, the experiment found a correlation between frequent spontaneous lucid dreams and talent at a word game. Those who did not have spontaneous lucid dreams were not very good at the word game. But thoe who were very good at the word game also reported lots of spontaneous lucid dreams throughout their lives. Here is the word game: . Here is a site with 46 of this kind of game. ¤¤¤ Brain Food: Associated Words ¤¤¤ Correlation doesn't imply causation. I believe that if you spend a lot of time without results then either a) you're not doing something right or b) the method is faulty. I'm quite certain that all the humans in the world that can dream can also lucid dream, maybe if you let us know what you're currently doing towards LDs we might be able to analyse what the problem might be. =]

[sleepingSYNAPSE]

Just finished article 7 (about insight and spontaneous lucid dreaming frequency). Very cool, and yes, of course, correlation does not imply causation...but the authors do not claim such a thing. They only insist a connection. I think the definition of "insight" can be fuzzy, but the task that they used was interesting because it involved making connections between words; dreams are all about associations! A large stance on dreams and memory now is that the dreams take "residue" from the day's events/information and connect it with previous experiences/info. Not sure what it is, but I feel like this says an additional something... Just for fun speculation on the causation issue, I would guess that the more frequent lucid dreaming causes a better ability on "insight" tasks. There is a community of researchers trying to find relationships between personality types/cognitive characteristics and lucid dreamers, arguably pioneered by Jayne Gackenbach (her PhD dissertation from 1978 was titled A personality and cognitive style analysis of lucid dreaming). They are making great progress, although I am always skeptical of the results because they are based on self-reported lucid dreaming frequency and the associations always seem to be small... I like the research and I understand that self-reports are the only possibility, I am just saying I take it for what it is. I personally feel like there are more external factors (sleep, stress, schedule, interests, attitude, etc.) at play in terms of LD frequency; at least that seems to be my experiences. However, the external factors are daunting--if not impossible--to study and quantify. It is neat to find these things out though (even if suggestive), because it might help us find out little games/tasks to play that can work certain areas of our brains for more frequent/controlled lucid dreaming. THANKS for posting these, I will read the other one this weekend

[Memm]

That associated words game is a pretty cool way of showing off the associative power of the brain, what makes it interesting is the lack of imagery so it relies fully on what kind of words you have been exposed to in the past which would basically be your language skills and culture / general knowledge. Let's take this for example: butter maid run If we list them from higher possibility of association to lower it would probably go something like buttermilk, milk run, milk maid. Most people would know what butter milk is, and a decent amount would know what a milk run is, but I don't think many would have heard of a milk maid, it would all depend on your general knowledge, culture, age etc... You can simply read the three words, relax, try to use your senses for each word and the brain will go into search mode looking for everything associated with them, eventually something will float up that is associated with all three, the strongest associations will come up faster but I think given enough time you can answer most of them, even though some might take an hour or maybe even a day for the brain to get to. It all goes back to my explanation on how memories are a network. Playing this game (or any other association based game) a lot will be strengthening some pretty obscure memory links and all the links in between, so it's a good exercise. It's not really surprising that if you keep the brain active you'll get more spontaneous associations, some of them in dreams, leading to lucid dreams. So if you want to know the types of people that would be good at this it would be creative problem solver. That's not to say you can't be one too, it's not even very difficult, just use the associative power of your brain more.