Why aren't we always lucid

So i though why aren't we always lucid? Why is it unnatural to be lucid especially in dreams? I think the explanation is that this lucid state i a newer thing in our brain. It's like an upgrade. Our animal ancestors didnt have this brain function so there was no lucid state for them. When this upgrade happened, it wasnt for 100% time... We are not lucid all the time and i bet some people never been lucid at all. So most of the time we are like our mammals ancestors... And i think that is the reason why we have base dreaming non lucid dreams. We have to turn this function on either awake or asleep.

Bingo!! I had never really connected it up all the way like that, but you're absolutely right. Conscious awareness has only been with us for as long as we've been human, and we're still learning how to use it. And it seems the default thinking approach is still mostly unconscious for many people - conscious awareness needs to be developed through practice, such as critical thinking skills, self-analysis etc - things many people don't do often if at all. It's entirely possible (and much easier) to go through most of life without switching on the conscious apparatus. The unconscious apparatus runs by default - things like instinct, unexamined opinion and bias, and automatic emotional reactions. It takes a lot of work to discipline the mind to become more conscious, and it takes practice and effort.

I suppose what it looks like to develop conscious awareness more fully so that it extends through sleep would be what Tibetan Buddhists call the Clear Light - or something similar anyway. They develop the ability to hold this state constantly through every level of sleep, even the deep dreamless stages. I'm not sure it's exactly like what you're talking about - I do have the book The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, but it's been a long time since I've read it. It's about developing awareness, just keeping the spotlight of base awareness focused even as you relax and drop off. And I think it's what Sageous calls the Void, or at least they're closely linked.

But what they do is detach from dreams entirely and instead it's like meditation that lasts all night long (and all day as well). I think that part is up to you - you can either continue to experience dreams and exert lucid awareness and control over them, or let dreaming slide away and just go into the clear light awareness. I've heard of similar things in other ancient traditions - there was a lot of talk about it in Castaneda's books as well.

I think it's also like dream meditation that people talk about in here.

We aren't always lucid because the thought we are or might be dreaming doesn't consciously cross our minds during the dream. This is because our attention is preoccupied with other things during the dream that are more important to us at the time.

Of we were always lucid, it would become boring at one point. This way, it is a challenge for one to accomplish.

Atleast how I think it would be.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

We aren't always lucid because the thought we are or might be dreaming doesn't consciously cross our minds during the dream. This is because our attention is preoccupied with other things during the dream that are more important to us at the time.

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Like in a computer program. The common denominator is an electic impulse. Every program needs to be initiated by a single electrical sequence of ones and zeros. Maybe the same could be said for self awareness in general. You could have a insanely powerful computer without self awareness untill the right sequence is played...

And like darkmatter points out, there are levels and different aspects to it. And by intent we can run programs/perform exercises known to increase self awareness untill suddenly you play the right sequence to activate a new program in your consciousness.

I feel it becomes important to recognize that this sequence, like any happening in the universe, would be a continual process. The beginning and end of the sequence/thought is arbitrarily decided and does not really exist.


(that turned in to a stream of thought, but it makes sense to me at least)

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Originally Posted by Lucidit

Of we were always lucid, it would become boring at one point. This way, it is a challenge for one to accomplish.

Atleast how I think it would be.

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This was my first thought as well. It makes a lot of sense to think "entertainment value" is one of the core priorities of the universe. And it can often provide a good perspective. It is in simple terms the Hindu world view. The world as a drama.

Edit: Another thing from Hinduism is that in order for the drama to be as entertaining as possible, it is set up so that the actor may not realize that he is in a play (to put it horribly). Lucid Dreaming could compromise that.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

We aren't always lucid because the thought we are or might be dreaming doesn't consciously cross our minds during the dream. This is because our attention is preoccupied with other things during the dream that are more important to us at the time.

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Which in turn comes from the fact that most live non-lucidly (mindlessly, "autopilot," "zombie mode," "zoned out," etc.) in waking life. Awareness and access to memory are impaired in the dream state. In order to compensate for this and have much more chances of becoming lucid in the dream state, waking awareness, reflection, and access to memory need to be raised to higher levels.

Seen alot of lucid dream tutorials in social media that 'you control everything'..i highly doubt anyone's 100% in control, if so people would probably make better (more philosophical decisions) than flying or playing with unicorns

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Originally Posted by PrisonPlanet

Seen alot of lucid dream tutorials in social media that 'you control everything'..i highly doubt anyone's 100% in control, if so people would probably make better (more philosophical decisions) than flying or playing with unicorns

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Some people do spend a lot of time on philosophical and self improving pursuits during their LD's. But they are not the only ones who can gain a very high level of control. Time brings the awareness and experience to sustain and control a lucid dream to all sorts of folk with all sorts of priorities and life views.

Most of us aren't even lucid for most of our waking lives, our awareness is minimal.

I think the reason we are not always lucid is more of a social conditioning thing than a capacity that we have recently developed. At present, I think the human race in general is narrowly focused on the material physical sensory world rather than the internal world of sleep and dream. I think the world we live in (the system) promotes this sort of single-minded materialism by marginalizing dreams as unreal or unimportant. We are not encouraged to explore our consciousness beyond the waking life.

I think we might start out that way. But we are told (in the one that doesn't change no matter my attention or belief) that one matters and one doesn't. A lot of the other things people say here probably is true as well autopilot, social conditioning, not ever thinking about dreams, and other things seeming important. And as far as "full control getting boring as others mentioned. It just depends what you do with it. Being in " creative mode" on Minecraft can get boring with time, but just because I choose to play hardcore mode doesn't mean I dont have full control. And just because I am in creative mode doesn't mean I am "in full control". I usually create video games and plots and read books. Or I will create a small area and explore the whole thing. Exploring the whole of infinity is impossible and boring after a time. Going back to a small world and continually exploring and getting a reputation and exploring that worlds " rules" is not something that gets boring very easily. Practicing waking life hobbies is also good. There are many things that I simply can't see getting boring unless I lack creativity.

I think the reason why we are not lucid every night is simpler than everything that has been written in this thread so far.
We are not lucid because we are not supposed to.

It has been proved that during non luci dreams, few parts and functions of the brain (and a certain kind of neurons) are turned off.
This must have a biological reason. (hobson gave some)
I see lucid dreaming as a way to hack the brain.
When those parts and function are turned on (because of prospective conditioning : DILD techniques, or because it has not been turned off :WILD), the brain starts to work more like it works when awake.

The parts and functions involved in the sens of self, and few other functions, probably need to rest while other parts need to keep working during a certain fraction of the night.
Plus maybe dreams are supposed to be rather random and with free idea associations, a cat becomes a tiger few seconds later, a yellow umbrella becomes a yellow stick and so on.
Because dream events are succeeding this way, in an illogical and inconstant way, if the functions involved in the recognition of illogical or weird events were not turned off, this way of producing dreams would be compromised and it's purpose (whatever it is) too.

Lucid dreaming is a way to make the brain work in an unnatural way, that's why I see it as a hack, or a glitch for occasional and spontaneous LDs.

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Originally Posted by Kaan

I think the reason why we are not lucid every night is simpler than everything that has been written in this thread so far.
We are not lucid because we are not supposed to.

It has been proved that during non luci dreams, few parts and functions of the brain (and a certain kind of neurons) are turned off.
This must have a biological reason. (hobson gave some)
I see lucid dreaming as a way to hack the brain.
When those parts and function are turned on (because of prospective conditioning : DILD techniques, or because it has not been turned off :WILD), the brain starts to work more like it works when awake.

The parts and functions involved in the sens of self, and few other functions, probably need to rest while other parts need to keep working during a certain fraction of the night.
Plus maybe dreams are supposed to be rather random and with free idea associations, a cat becomes a tiger few seconds later, a yellow umbrella becomes a yellow stick and so on.
Because dream events are succeeding this way, in an illogical and inconstant way, if the functions involved in the recognition of illogical or weird events were not turned off, this way of producing dreams would be compromised and it's purpose (whatever it is) too.

Lucid dreaming is a way to make the brain work in an unnatural way, that's why I see it as a hack, or a glitch for occasional and spontaneous LDs.

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. What about those many naturals that boast lucid all the time or the few that have worked to get to that point? From the ones I have talked to, they don't have any issues because of lucid dreaming.

Also, tho I may not quite be at the level of the ones I mentioned that are lucid every dream, i am lucid every night in most dreams, and it seems to be a more natural and healthy state. When I am not eating or sleeping or active, I struggle to LD. When I am healthy and productive, they seem to come easily and if I could keep that up, I feel like I would be lucid even more.

@OP NFRI, this actually does lead me to an idea and a point, that the reason we dont LD, when there are lots of naturals that easily LD and do it all night every night, is that we are not as healthy, or simply dont have an interest in dreams. Those two things from a young age seem to be a common idea for naturals.

There is always the exception that confirms the rule, isn't there?

I mean, we are not supposed to exactly and instantly know how many matches has just fallen on the ground. your argument sounds like "what about rain man?" to me.

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Originally Posted by Kaan

I think the reason why we are not lucid every night is simpler than everything that has been written in this thread so far.
We are not lucid because we are not supposed to....Lucid dreaming is a way to make the brain work in an unnatural way, that's why I see it as a hack, or a glitch for occasional and spontaneous LDs.

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Originally Posted by Sensei

. What about those many naturals that boast lucid all the time or the few that have worked to get to that point? From the ones I have talked to, they don't have any issues because of lucid dreaming.

Also, tho I may not quite be at the level of the ones I mentioned that are lucid every dream, i am lucid every night in most dreams, and it seems to be a more natural and healthy state. When I am not eating or sleeping or active, I struggle to LD. When I am healthy and productive, they seem to come easily and if I could keep that up, I feel like I would be lucid even more.

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I think maybe that these two views are not actually in opposition.

I agree with Kaan that LD'ing is pretty much by definition an "unnatural" event. All tech talk aside, the very act of lucidity -- being awake while you are asleep -- is paradoxical at best, and probably not what we were programmed to do during sleep. So the reason consistent lucidity might be a problem is that we are moving upstream against the current of the brain functions we were given. However:

Aside from the fact that I do not agree that there are "many naturals," as I have met to date only one person who has convinced me that he is a natural (and, BTW, he has professed real mental issues that could be related to his inability to release awareness from his dreams), though I've met many who proclaim themselves naturals, though most prove they are not after a very short conversation, there are many people -- myself included -- who LD very frequently, and some -- myself included -- whose lifelong practice has left them with at least a kernel of lucidity in most dreams. And those people seem to be quite healthy and reasonably sane -- hopefully myself included. In fact, some would say that they are able to use their lucidity to enhance the restorative functions of dreaming by having a Here&Now opportunity to digest any messages their unconscious might be offering. Also, I'm pretty sure that researchers have found that LD'ing -- at least in the moderate way that most people can manage -- has zero effect on the physical restoration going on during sleep (of course, I can't cite anything here, because I think I'm going on something LaBerge told me long ago).

So, even though LD'ing is an unnatural event, if it becomes commonplace in a person's life, it doesn't seem to do any real harm to our natural sleep and restorative functions. The caveat here here is that even those who LD every night are very likely having some NLD activity during their sleep cycle (especially in the early stages), so the "natural" work of sleep and dreams is still going on; so if someone did manage to be constantly lucid every moment of every night, they might encounter problems (as that guy I mentioned earlier did).

tl;dr: I think both of the positions you guys present are valid, and can live together in this process: Lucidity is not a natural function, but those who have learned (usually from years of intentional action) to counter some of that function by impressing their waking-life self-awareness upon it on a consistent basis have not seen their sleep functions or health (mental or physical) damaged.

If the lucid state is a part of evolution, and being lucid entails awareness... then evolving is... for the purpose of being more aware?

Evolution has no purpose. It's driven by natural selection - survival of the fittest in the new environment. We lost our sharp teeth and tails and claws but grew a prefrontal cortex instead, which brought a new more fully developed type of conscious awareness into the world. We survived because we were good generalists, rather than specialists, and because our higher intelligence allowed us to out-hunt, out-gather and generally outsmart everything else. But we're still tipping the scales and now we're able to do amazing things at a massive scale, and who can say if we'll end up destroying most of the life on the planet at some point? Or at least devastate our own civilization. So it's not like a linear climb toward ever better things - it never is. What serves a species well at one point evolutionarily might be what destroys them later.

But that said, I do agree that we still have to learn how to use all this shiny new conscious apparatus we grew - and mainly we need to learn how to integrate it with unconscious intuitive wisdom, which is something left-brain conscious intelligence arrogantly forgets about.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, we have no way to know if animals lucid dream or not.

Here's a weird thought though:

With the development of language came our ego. Our ego is the source of a lot of "unconsciousness".
Without the ego you're sorta always lucid. Always in a state of pure awareness.

However this begs the question: Is a lucid dream A) A dream in which you know it's a dream OR B) A conscious dream?
We usually go about the assumption that A and B is the same thing, but they are not. You can have a highly conscious dream and not necessarily know it's a dream.
Without ego, all dreams are highly conscious.

Therefore, lucid dreams are more natural than given credit for, if you consider option B to be the definition of a lucid dream.
The "knowing it's a dream" bit is just the surface of what a lucid dream is. The juicy, conscious bit beneath that is really natural.

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Originally Posted by slash112

With the development of language came our ego. Our ego is the source of a lot of "unconsciousness".
Without the ego you're sorta always lucid. Always in a state of pure awareness...

Without ego, all dreams are highly conscious.

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I see where you're coming from, but I think there's a confusion of terminology going on here. I wouldn't call the ego a source of unconsciousness - it's actually the source of consciousness. It literally is the conscious mind - the part of the mind that we're consciously aware of. Dreams are created at least mostly by or in the unconscious. Non-lucid dreams, I mean. Though to be fair, I think many animals have at least some rudimentary form of conscious awareness - just not to the same level we have.

A lucid dream is when we're able to bring some level of conscious awareness into the otherwise unconscious world of the dream. So it's actually the ego that brings the lucidity. Or rather it's the introduction of (ego) consciousness into the normally unconscious dreams.

I think the problem arises from the fact that the common popular understanding of the word ego has nothing to do with the psychological usage of it. In common usage ego means egotistical, but in psychology ego is literally the name for the conscious mind.

There's also some confusion coming from the fact that Buddhists use the word consciousness to refer to awareness, but divorced from left-brain conscious thought. So it's a sort of unconscious awareness. I THINK - though possibly it does stem from the right-brain/unconscious? We just need to be careful when we use loaded terms like this that we understand exactly what we mean by them.

Ahah yeah defos a terminology breakdown here. I have that problem a lot, with the stuff I'm interested in xD Slowly learning to overcome these hurdles though.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

There's also some confusion coming from the fact that Buddhists use the word consciousness to refer to awareness, but divorced from left-brain conscious thought. So it's a sort of unconscious awareness. I THINK - though possibly it does stem from the right-brain/unconscious? We just need to be careful when we use loaded terms like this that we understand exactly what we mean by them.

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Very good point. I get very jumbled because I shift from perspective to perspective all day long.

Indeed I refer to the word consciousness as awareness. When I first seen it used that way I was like "wtf that's not consciousness", but I've gotten a bit too used to it. xD
I also use "consciousness" to refer to experience. Everything we experience is consciousness, all we know is consciousness.

Unconscious awareness is indeed a good way to describe my meaning of "highly conscious". Weirdly.

But the weird thing about this unconscious awareness is, you're aware of everything, exactly as it is. Just without the chatter and the filters we usually look through. I sometimes refer to it as "super lucidity". But I guess that's stupid when you consider lucidity to be all about the chatter.


EDIT:
So, if we're taking "lucidity" to be in relation to the head-chatter. Then lucid dreaming is indeed due to evolution. My bad. It's still natural tho. Anything your mind does is natural.

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Originally Posted by slash112

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, we have no way to know if animals lucid dream or not.

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This is true, but I have reason to believe that other animals are capable of lucid dreaming.

A dream is a reflection of one's self. A lucid dream requires an identification of one's own dream as such while it is happening. So, for one to have a lucid dream, one has to be able to identify a reflection of one's self as their own while they are experiencing it. Mirror tests have shown that other animals like chimps and elephants have the ability to identify that their reflections as their own while they are experiencing them. Sure, a dream is a much more abstract reflection of one's self than a mirror, but these animals are also capable of making sense of other abstract concepts.

Speaking of this, I'll add this reason why we aren't always lucid: a dream is relatively abstract in appearance, making it tend to be more difficult to identify while experiencing it than something more concrete in appearance.

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Originally Posted by slash112

So, if we're taking "lucidity" to be in relation to the head-chatter. Then lucid dreaming is indeed due to evolution. My bad. It's still natural tho. Anything your mind does is natural.

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I don't think the chatter has anything to do with lucidity really - but it does come from the conscious / ego part of the mind. The left brain is the logical and linguistic part (makes it kinda easy to remember). I would say the logic part has more to do with lucidity than the language part does. The chatter is just because we have a tendency to do all our thinking through language now - we've sort of become endless chatterboxes.

But now that you've brought this up, I am very curious as to where the 'observer' is located. Is it in the conscious or the unconscious? Maybe it straddles both, or exists somehow between them? We may never know, or possibly science already has the answer and we just haven't got the memo on it yet.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I don't think the chatter has anything to do with lucidity really - but it does come from the conscious / ego part of the mind. The left brain is the logical and linguistic part (makes it kinda easy to remember). I would say the logic part has more to do with lucidity than the language part does. The chatter is just because we have a tendency to do all our thinking through language now - we've sort of become endless chatterboxes.

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My mistake, I get you.

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But now that you've brought this up, I am very curious as to where the 'observer' is located. Is it in the conscious or the unconscious? Maybe it straddles both, or exists somehow between them? We may never know, or possibly science already has the answer and we just haven't got the memo on it yet.

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It's actually located everywhere (and nowhere). You could say the observer is outside of space and time.
It takes time to come to this realization, but you can indeed prove it to yourself.

There are functions of "observing" in the mind. Functions of "awereness". But even that awareness is perceived by the "pure awareness".
You can be aware of pure awareness by pointing your focus backwards/inwards. You either reach a "back screen of consciousness" or "the void".

You can investigate the void itself. Check it for qualities. As it turns out, it is a proper void, it has no qualities, including location.

But try for a moment to think what it is like to be "pure awareness". This helps.
In deep sleep, pure awareness is aware of nothing. We all know what that feels like, timeless and spaceless.
Awake, pure awareness sees all the activities of the mind. In the unconscious part of the mind, there's not much to experience. In the conscious part, that is where pure awareness sees thoughts and senses.
What do you think it's like for pure awareness to see a rock? Much like deep sleep I imagine.
Then it gets interesting when you start thinking about plants.

The thing about the observer is. It's not even right to say that it "observes", because that implies that it's doing something. But it doesn't do anything, it simply is. Hence you may often hear the word "is-ness" thrown around. That is-ness is all around you, it's where you're looking FROM, THROUGH, and AT. This is the point where it becomes really natural to say "it's consciousness!".

It helps to know that pure awareness is all-pervasive.

Also helps to know the non-dual truth that the pure awareness and the things which appear in it, are not two, but one. Seems like a contradiction to everything else I've said, but it's not. Nothingness and somethingness, pure awareness and the appearances, are intimately joined in a unity, like light to a TV screen.

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Originally Posted by slash112

(About the Observer): It's actually located everywhere (and nowhere). You could say the observer is outside of space and time.

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Wow - you just described the Self! This is exactly how Jung explained it, though it does more than just observe or be aware. It's also been described (in many traditions, starting long before Jung) as a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. A very Buddhist description now that I think about it. Of course Buddhism was one of the world wisdoms that helped Jung develop his ideas about the unconscious and its relation to the conscious Ego. He also said it seems to exist outside of space and time, because the unconscious (right brain awareness essentially) doesn't think it terms of linear time the way the left brain does. It thinks holistically and sees everything all at once. Of course this also explains ideas about God, Angels etc, for whom time as we know it does not exist and who see everything all at once and understand it all holistically. These are all simply the various names people have come up with in the past to describe the strange phenomena they observed that have a numinous - meaning divine or magical quality to them. So quite possibly meditation (and prayer) helps to constellate the Self. After all, the way to do that is to pay more attention to the unconscious.

And I realize it's probably impossible to do what I was asking about, but I was wondering where in the brain it's located - if scientists could see activity in some part of the brain when it's active.

That's awesome, about Jung. I take things from Buddhism and others a little bit, but I take a big massive chunk from Advaita Vedanta.
And indeed it's called the self/true self/the witness/the observer/pure awareness/the void and maaaany other names, even Christ light or Christ consciousness.

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And I realize it's probably impossible to do what I was asking about, but I was wondering where in the brain it's located - if scientists could see activity in some part of the brain when it's active.

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That's just the thing, the true observer is not the brain. This why you may hear around the place "You are not the body. You are not the mind."

HOWEVER, I often see a correlation between the third eye and the observer. The third eye is a genuine bit in the brain that receives senses and thought.

http://www.ascensionnow.co.uk/upload.../316219300.jpg

Here's a drawing I did, I put it in the first page of my book. Sorta symbolic way to look at it, just drawing this helped me process it better. Click into it, the writing in the image shows which parts of the third eye receive what. Experiential info from the brain comes through in channels, into the third eye.
Attachment 9843

But the true observer is the one which sees the third eye. The info is there in the third eye, but something witnesses that info. A pure witness.

Wow, that is really fascinating! Is it scientifically validated? Spiritualists like Buddhists etc will often use scientific terminology but in a very loose way. I wonder if they're just saying that's the source of the Observer (etc) because it looks like the Eye of Horus? Though being located right there between the lobes of the brain at the top of the brainstem, and so close to the Corpus Callosum (which is the nerve bundle connecting left and right hemispheres), it seems ideally situated to be a go-between - a Hermes, messenger of the Gods who carried communications between Man and the Gods. And Hermes (Greek) is another symbol of the Self, known as Mercurius to the Romans and Thoth to the Egyptians.

Jung identified Christ as a symbol of Individuation/The Self, and of course Buddhism (isn't Vedanta a branch of Buddhism?) keeps updating, unlike most ancient religions. It keeps incorporating scientific findings into itself, even if sometimes they need to be distorted somewhat to really fit. And of course one of the big upgrades it incorporated were Jung's theories. I love looking into the various religions, spiritual systems and mysticism etc, but I always try to compare it back to Jungian findings since he approached it all with true scientific rigor. I see him as the great consolidator of all the ancient spiritual/religious wisdom and mysticism, who figured out what it all really meant or referred to - whereas they always saw it through unconscious projection because they didn't understand the nature of the Unconscious. They tended to put the cart in front of the horse so to speak, and understand it all as being real when it's really symbolic, though that does nothing to reduce the true numinous power and transformative capabilities of it all. Symbols, being able to move freely between the conscious and the unconscious, do have powerful transformative capabilities, so they are not "mere" symbols, but carry all of the power that God or any God ever carried.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

But now that you've brought this up, I am very curious as to where the 'observer' is located. Is it in the conscious or the unconscious? Maybe it straddles both, or exists somehow between them? We may never know, or possibly science already has the answer and we just haven't got the memo on it yet.

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How about this? Without going into the dual/non-dual perspectives, which I think of as more philosophical than physical subject*, I think that there probably is no "observer center" in the brain at all. Instead the whole brain is churning away, using all its parts in a powerful enough manner that produces an individual entity -- a Self -- that can do far more than than any individual piece of the brain could do on its own. In other words, there really is no "left" or "right" brain, consciously speaking, though both sides may make unique contributions to the Self's actions, including observing.

By the same token, I really don't think of the unconscious as a unique entity that operates separately from the conscious (aka, in this context, the waking-life self); instead, it is a facet of the overall Self, contributing what it does to ensure that we're, say, observing as best we can...things like finding and routing memories, handling all the reptilian brain activity, and inspiring emotion, all of which are important to the act of observing. To separate the unconscious from our overall Self, even if you're just doing so to better understand the machinery, is to separate a deeply integral contributor to our Self that is active all the time, very much an aspect of our conscious existence, and not a separate entity making contributions when necessary. So for me it isn't so much that our Observer is straddling the unconscious and unconscious portions of our minds, but rather that we draw upon tools to make and define our observations, and two of those tools are the conscious and unconscious aspects of one mind. Rational** observation cannot happen without both aspects working together, just as, in terms of sentient awareness, neither aspect can operate completely on its own (including in dreams).

And yeah, until science learns to grasp the physically ungraspable, or builds a machine that can map and interpret a brain's activity in a holistic manner, it will likely never be able to define the roots of our self-awareness.

* Though it does tie right into the OP, since, in my opinion, a non-dual perspective is decidedly anathema to our genetic design, which is what makes it -- and LD'ing -- an unnatural perspective that can be difficult to develop and maintain.
** Simple observation, or basic awareness, can operate completely on an unconscious/autonomic level, though: a housefly exercises an enormous amount of awareness, but no one ever accused one of being self-aware, I'm pretty sure.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

In other words, there really is no "left" or "right" brain, consciously speaking, though both sides may make unique contributions to the Self's actions, including observing... So for me it isn't so much that our Observer is straddling the unconscious and unconscious portions of our minds, but rather that we draw upon tools to make and define our observations, and two of those tools are the conscious and unconscious aspects of one mind. Rational** observation cannot happen without both aspects working together, just as, in terms of sentient awareness, neither aspect can operate completely on its own (including in dreams).

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Well said. When I use the terms left and right brain, I do understand they aren't completely separate, and that they both in many ways do the same thing, but it's a simplified way of referring to the fact that they both operate in different ways. The left brain works 'in serial', so it computes things (if I may borrow the term) one at a time to allow a much more logical and rational analysis. This is conscious thought. The right brain method of thinking is 'in parallel', meaning it works holistically (synthesis) and doesn't separate things into pairs of opposites. I do understand though that they tap into each other and work in tandem all the time, I just use the terminology right and left brain to separate the 2 different modes of thinking, the conscious and the unconscious. Really left and right brain for me are symbols - though I suppose conscious and unconscious might be better (and less confusing) symbols. Sorry if that leads to confusion - maybe I should stop saying it that way. It just makes it easier for me to remember the way each part of the overall Self operates.

But I suppose you're right, that the observer or the Self can't be located in either the 'left or right brain', and that science is utterly incapable of locating it in the physical brain. Sort of silly of me to suggest it now that you bring it up. And sometimes I do forget that the Self is the full mind - the conscious Ego as well as the unconscious. Thanks for the reminder!

This is quite possibly the best discussion I've ever had on DV. :D

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Wow, that is really fascinating! Is it scientifically validated? Spiritualists like Buddhists etc will often use scientific terminology but in a very loose way. I wonder if they're just saying that's the source of the Observer (etc) because it looks like the Eye of Horus?

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I'm pretty sure it's all scientifically mapped out, but I don't know the details. I used to be very scientific minded, then slowly as I built my spiritual-thinking up, I found that same results can be found by spiritual-thinking as scientific-thinking, and scientific-thinking takes a lot of energy. I guess in the end I found that to be unnecessary energy to spend. But I'm a bridge builder so I gotta boost my scientific thinking again.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Without going into the dual/non-dual perspectives

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Funnily enough, everything you said there works nicely with non-duality.
Indeed I like to take the perspective that the whole brain plays its part in creating that feeling of self. (I say feeling of self, to distinguish from true self). The way I see it is, *everything* makes up self. And that is the nondual truth.

But still the third eye is interesting. If you just look at your own experience and investigate your own third eye, it's very tangible. It's like you've got a floating eye that sees your sight from your two eyeballs, joined into one image. Plus if you really pay attention, you can feel the space of your other senses, and your thoughts, all being encapsulated in this one "eye".

Agreed - this is an amazing discussion.

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Originally Posted by slash112

I used to be very scientific minded... But I'm a bridge builder so I gotta boost my scientific thinking again.

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Yes, it's about keeping the 2 in dynamic balance. Your understanding will shift one way at times and then the other, but the point is when that happens to try to nudge it back toward holistic balance. There's a very strong tendency for each view - the logical (conscious) and the spiritual (unconscious) to each try to dominate and wage war on the other, so it can be difficult to find that balance.

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Originally Posted by slash112

But still the third eye is interesting. If you just experimentally investigate your own third eye, it's very tangible. It's like you've got a floating eye that sees your sight from your two eyeballs, joined into one image. Plus if you really pay attention, you can feel the space of your other senses, and your thoughts, all being encapsulated in this one "eye".

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Very true. I did some meditation for a while, and also messed with Chakra meditation and a few related things. I definitely became aware of the Observer. Very interesting what you say about it being able to see the views of both eyes merged into one. I don't really want to get into it too deep, but if you've ever heard of experiments done on split-brain patients, who had the Corpus Callosum severed (nerve bundle connecting left and right hemispheres), this is where scientific understanding about the differences between left brain and right brain thinking emerged from. And interestingly, each eye is connected to one hemisphere, though the connection is crossed (left eye connects with right hemisphere and vise versa). Fascinating stuff, but like I said, I don't want to write it all up here. Do a search if you're interested.

Indeed, there seems to be a balance in all things to be found. I'm getting better and better at finding these balances. And in fact I do still use scientific thinking a fair amount, come to think of it. I jump from perspective to perspective and compare, all the time. I do it naturally for communication purposes, but there are elements of scientific thinking involved in that process.

Wow, that's fascinating, about the split-brain!

Here's a quote from a website I was reading just there:

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Show a familiar face to left eye, and they'll recognize it, picking up a picture of the person, but they'll say they saw nothing. Show the face to the right eye, and they'll say that they saw a face, but it will just be a face - not a face they know.

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That pretty much sums it up. Really fascinating.

Somewhat related: My ex's brother, half his brain is dormant. I can't remember which side. But his body functions just fine and is really smart. Hardly leaves his bedroom, but that's no different from me right now xD
I think one of his eyes is almost blind, but not fully blind, I think he can see blurs out of it.

What really blows me away about the right brain/ left brain thing is this video, a neuroscientist named Jill Bolte Taylor who had a stroke that cut off blood flow to the left side of her brain, and what she experienced as a result:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=UyyjU8fzEYU

Haaaaaaaaaaaaah! I'm not even half way in and this is amazing.
Stoke Induced Enlightenment! That's a new one to me! :D

Third eye stuff again :) Nice thread. There was a long one on the topic a few months ago slash, I'm sure you'll find it if you just search for third eye :)

When I did my presentation on third eye stuff this fall I did read a bit on the eye of horus. It's definitely intriguing. But I found that it only resembles the eye of horus a little bit in certain models. In an actual cut brain however, they don't look the same at all. Too bad the egyptians used hieroglyphs. Seems like we could learn so much from them if they hadn't.

I agree with the observer not really being subject to time/space. I like to think of it more like a lightbulb, inside a globe thats full of tiny holes. The universe being the globe, the holes are entities with senses. And the observer shines through all of them. I don't think it requires a "seat" in the brain. If there are senses then there are holes and the light should be able to pierce through, no?

Watching that video makes me realize that right brain and left bran are more than just symbols - they really are very different minds and personalities. It's only through the Corpus Callosum, - Hermes the messenger of the Gods, that they communicate.

Darkmatters, shortly after I posted that reaction, I realized that her experience sounded almost exactly like my experience that landed me in mental hospital. But it happened after I was already enlightened, it was almost like a second "first time enlightenment", it was truly amazing, but my family were scared for my life, basically.

I can't thank you enough for posting that video because as it just so happens, it is perfect for me to send to my dad, to help him understand. We were just talking today about my spirituality and he's pure worried about it. It's not easy to explain this stuff to him cause he butts in and I lose my train of thought, and when I do say something important it goes right over his head.

Seriously, this video is perfect. It gave me shivers.

LighrkVader: That's an awesome perspective! Completely agree with it!



EDIT: Btw, at this moment in time, I'm 2 likes away from 1111, and you, Darkmatters are 2 likes away from 5555

EDIT 2:
Angel number 5555 means:
"a message from your angels that it is time to break free from old restraints and constraints that have held you back in the past."

Angel number 1111 means:
"Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts are manifesting instantly into form. Focus only upon your desires and not upon your fears."

Dunno bout you but, my message resonates with me. I realized earlier that I manifested strawberries magically into my life today, by an intention made yesterday.
(btw, these angel number messages are to be read lightly. It's the energy behind the message that matters. Like, you might already be breaking free from constraints, and the angels are supporting you)

It's fun to look at angel numbers xD I test for "more than coincidence" all the time. It's like a side-investigation I've got going on.

That does resonate with me - I've been feeling like I've almost absorbed enough of this Jungian stuff to stop all the reading (well ok, at least slow way down on it) and start to put it into practice. Oh, also there are other ways in which it's getting to be time to change my life as well.

I just noticed earlier today, on this thread in fact, that my posts are approaching 6,666. I also noticed at the same time how close my likes are to 5,555. I suppose they sort of balance each other out.. :chuckle:

EDIT: There's always been a close association between what we call madness and enlightenment, aka spirituality or prophecy, as in direct communication with the Gods or spirits. Mental illnesses of certain types seem to bring enlightenment, just as psychoactives like Ayahuasca seem to also bring enlightenment but at a great price of temporary pain and illness.

2ND EDIT: I just realized - and I'm not saying this is definitely what happened to you (I have no idea), but I think it's worth mentioning. Sometimes during the process of Individuation people experience temporary psychoses or strong neuroses, because the breaking-out of Archetypal forces can be too much or come on too fast. In other words, it's possible that a 'mental illness' could actually be enlightenment that sort of put too much pressure on you too fast.

Angel number 6666:
"The repeating number sequence 666 tells us that it is time to focus on your personal spirituality in order to balance and heal any issues in your life."

Repeating 6's usually refers to an excess of materialism in one's life. It's time to free yourself a bit from the worries of materialistic things, like money worries.
Sometimes it means it's time to shift inward instead of looking for answers outwardly all the time. Which sounds like what you just said.

But I mean, I'm gonna reach 6666 one day too, but the question is, will it be so synchronistic? Will it pop out the page at me?

EDIT: Ah yes indeed, I've since heard of many cases of psychosis (and other mental problems) linked to spirituality.

EDIT 2: Ahh yeah I've thought about that before. Indeed I think that's what happened. I dived into it full-force. (with the power of sleep deprivation to amplify it)

I'm not Liking that post so you can remain @ 1111 for a while - and when I get one more we'll both be in sync.

Yas, we're in sync! :D :D :D the angels are talkin to us :D

EDIT: "Pics or it didnt happened":
https://i.imgur.com/KCZQEos.png

Awesome!! Well done! And I still ain't Liking it... at least not officially! :lol:

Some little bugger is gonna come along and screw it up eventually.

Also, about the video, I'm just thinking before I do send it to my dad, I think he'll still find a way to think enlightenment is a bad thing through-and-through.
I mean c'mon, any normal person would join the dots. Illness = enlightenment. Enlightenment = illness.

Which is of course very short sighted.

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It's only through the Corpus Callosum, - Hermes the messenger of the Gods, that they communicate.

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Damn.. Hermes getting all the kudos:D I didn't know he had his own brain part. Elements, Planets, Gods, Brain parts... Leave some for the rest of us Hermes! Why bother to become a saint if all the good stuff has already been named. YOU'LL MAKE A DEMON OF ME HERMES!!!

I am slowly getting into hermeticism. Reading about the basic prinicples. I find it's dificult to set it all into a single view, but it gradually takes form and some of the teachings are pretty fun to use.

For the video what she said about her hands looking like primitive claws made me giggle. That's something that always strikes me on psychedelics, or just some times when I'm feeling especially "right-brainy"(as I imagine she might call it). Hands really look like something dinosaur would have. Right now I can't see it, but if I took some time to get in the zone.... dinosaur hands.

It's fascinating how enthusiastic and emotional she is about sharing her view. Normally I tend to lean more towards the side that says: "Lets not give away the show/let the cat out of the bag". But in the end it doesn't matter, it's a cool story, and she seems like she's really expressing herself, so I like it.

Slash: That's a difficult situation to deal with. I don't know exactly what you are trying to make your father understand. But it sounds a bit like you want to speak the unspeakable. I won't tell you what to do. I don't know your situation. But remember that a lot of the things she said sounds like nothing at all unless you already know what she's talking about. There are very few who can effectively communicate these things with words. And this woman is a scientist. Not a master of words. In the end your father might just see a woman flailing her arms in the air in joy.

Then again maybe there is not a better thing to show... if he can accept that what you have might be beautiful, even though it doesn't make sense to him.

idk. haha never mind me:rolllaugh:

Edit: As for the light and the globe. I think that might be something I heard in some Alan Watts lecture a very long time ago that stuck with me. An example of a person I consider as a master of the art of communicating these things.

Hermeticism is cool, I wanna look more into it.

And you're right I do try to communicate something that's beyond words. More and more I find it's actually part of my life purpose.
But if I can at least communicate the benefits, it would put a good dent in it.

But yeah I don't think I'm gunna send him the video. It could do more harm than good, I'm best just letting it go for now until a proper solution unfolds. This will come through my balancing back towards scientific thinking. Get that left-brain workin'

A dream is like an octopus. Like an octopus, a dream can appear like many things. It can be difficult to identify a dream or an octopus when they appear like something other than what our schema of them dictates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8xJ13pAZNw

Just getting back to the original question, I think there's maybe a simple answer to why we don't always get lucid when dreaming, and that is just simply that we might otherwise consciously confuse dreams for real life.
That makes sense to me, because if we were normally lucid during dreams, that is, we had our full consciousness, memories and sense of self, we would not be able to distinguish dreams from real life, and then might end up thinking we could fly off a cliff in waking life, or approach a tiger etc..
Having a suppressed consciousness during dreams avoids this confusion, and also makes dreams less frightening.

I like that. It kinda bends into a very strange but also fun idea on evolution and epistemology: As we all know natural selection only works towards one goal... To copy the genetic material as efficiently as possible. In other words, the organisms experience mirroring the external reality 100% is secondary to reproduction.

Now, common sense tells us that successful reproduction depends on a realistic world view. But that's not necessarily true. There could be strange phenomena in the "real/unseen" world that would be unpractical or straight up lethal to observe as they truly are. Could be a trap, or maybe just something so incomprehensible, confusing and maybe mezmerizing that it damages the organisms focus on reproduction and survival.
If these things could be filtered to appear as: a huge vortex in the water, a fire, a tiger or maybe just nothing at all... problem solved. It's a funny thought that you can take really, really far.

This can also be applied to dreaming. And lucid dreaming would defeat the purpose.

^^ That's all good, but I think there might be one more step to consider here:

Natural selection as I understand it (organisms who find better ways to survive tend to be more likely to breed, so their "better ways" find their way into the common genome) pretty much doesn't work for humans anymore. Thanks to medicine, technology, and civilization in general, pretty much anyone can breed with anyone, and mutations -- even helpful ones -- don't tend to hold the sort of sway they once did... in other words, we've gotten smart enough to survive without the help of natural selection, so we've collectively discarded it. [We didn't discard evolution, of course; we just redefined its parameters,,, but that's probably for another thread]

So, to your point I think: Though it is still quite handy for other things, like connecting with our unconscious activity, or helping ourselves with dream interpretation, the "natural" stuff you list above really isn't needed for survival or natural selection anymore. We've become collectively bright enough to differentiate -- as say, a pre-homo sapiens primate never could have -- our dreaming worlds from our waking-life worlds, with lucidity being the decision to make that differentiation. And as lucid dreamers we have consciously risen above the rules laid down by eons of evolution, but still must contend with them (or, perhaps, defy them) in order to put our dreams to a new, decidedly unnatural use.

You're absolutely right of course :) We are at the point where the we can imagine our DNA handing the keys over to the brain saying.. I'm proud of you, remember to not always use a condom. hahaha.

Thats why I wrote organisms... if a mechanism like this is real it would have to be much, much older than humans. But I'm not so sure it would have been selected away from humans if it was already there. The person who is able to see all sorts of weird stuff that nobody else sees would probably not be very succesfull in reproducing. ESPECIALLY not in humans... -"did you hear that crazy kid Borgar walked straight into a burning house mumbling something about being Gods chosen one.. I mean, everybody knew he was crazy...but really?"

And depending on how much we assume is filtered out and altered, life might be straight up impossible or incomprehensible without the filter.

I'm a bit unsure if I adressed your point about what you're saying in your last paragraph...