Ksero,

I am a proponent of always leaning towards the most reasonable answer. When a door moves on its own, I think air draft, not ghost. Similarly, regardless of how complex the system which utilizes these components are (the brain utilizing emf, chemicals, action potential) if these components have no subjective nature to them whatsoever, the emergent properties will not either. There is an explanatory gap between quail and their physiological correlates. This is undeniable.

Moreover, I would not consider lucid dreaming unnatural, nor would I consider it a "shortcut" where you can simply forget the preformed neural networks. That is an incredible claim because you are essentially saying that the preformed neural networks do not confine us; that the mind is not only a subjective COUNTERPART of the brain, but a different thing altogether. I'm surprised you say this since in the previous paragraph you just argued for the exact opposite. The first paragraph and the second paragraph you wrote contradict each other. If we are not confined to the neural networks in a particular state of consciousness, then that means our mind is an independent entity. While I believe the mind and brain are not the same thing, It is the particular brain state that allows us to experience particular mental states.

I'd like to see evidence of an MRI demonstrating that we are not confined the preformed neural networks that were formed in waking life, when we are lucid dreaming.

Furthermore, any change whatsoever completely alters the system. There are many unconscious processes which form the basis for your conscious experience. Just because the changes do not immediately leak into conscious experience, they most certainly have changed something about the unconscious processes upon which conscious experience rests.