Criteria for (Lucid) Dream Ability

[M.D]

What I mean is, has anyone taken the time to formally think over and analyze what kinds of in-dream behavior are conceivably possible, and categorize different types of behavior? Clearly, the human mind is capable of a lot; hypnosis shows that you can cause yourself to hallucinate, or at least believe you're hallucinating (hmm, any hypnosis experts know if cognitive science has made the distinction?). The ability to access a part of your mind/consciousness in a unique way may open the way for a lot of potentially very useful or even (subjectively speaking) wonderful experiences, and you don't have to follow any kind of mysticism to agree the idea of that isn't completely far-fetched. So, my question is, has anyone thought about this developed a framework for what kinds of in-dream exercises could be considered? Involving the extent to which a person can affect the dream world and themselves and be creative, the ways in which a person's state of mind may differ and how they might take advantage of how the mind differs, and what kinds of sensations are accessible in dreams, for instance. I'll note that in the Research forum I'm seeing a lot of research about how to approach lucid dreams, some more research about testing for supernatural aspects of dreaming, and just a few interesting topics about in-dream activities, such as derlacher's post about improving motor skills (not sure if he ever really completed that, though?). (Just to be clear, again, when I say ability I /don't/ mean OBEs or psychic powers, I mean practical applications of affecting your mind within the context of itelf, if that makes any sense.)

[Cridegnosis]

Sounds very interesting, but I'm not quite sure if I got your point right... Anyway, here is a story of a dream of mine that I think has some connection with your question. I love flying in my dreams and this became and reality testing tehnique... If I think I might be dreaming, I try to fly and if I can do that, well, I must be dreaming. But how do I try to fly? Well, I had once a dream in which I explained some persons how they too can fly in dreams. It was not a lucid dream, but I was giving lessons about dream flying tehniques . I told them that first of all they must concentrate and build up a strong desire to fly. Then they must give themselves a little boost with the tip of their toes and in the same time contract the muscles of their scapula and their diaphragm, thing that might give them lift and power, and then follow their will power. They would fly vertical first and then however they wanted to. Of course it didn't work in the walking life, but it did emproved my dream flying abilities. I'm not sure if this answer is any good to you... Good luck!

[M.D]

Cridegnosis, I sympathize with that technique not working in real life, and am glad there's someone else around here who's slightly insane enough to test out something supernatural they learned in a dream. Unrelatedly, the more I think about how I feel when I dream, the more I'm frustrated that I can't will myself to move around. Maybe it would be better if I gave examples of the kind of criteria which I'm thinking about. Sample organizational structure could be: ... Never mind, my attempt to organize things formally isn't appropriate when I myself am just thinking about these things. Instead, I'll list examples. Exerting control over what you see/hear/smell/taste/touch in the dream, and over how you think and who you are within the dream (how real can you make people? could you create a person, and then imagine yourself switching identities with that person? can you set up an emotional assocation that truly makes you a sadist or a masochist?) Be creative by accessing your subconscious through the dream (say try imagining the story you're having trouble writing, then create the paper which has written on it the first sentence with that concept in mind? could you create a representation of a genius and ask him questions to be able to figure out what the smartest decision "you" could make is?) Explore what kinds of emotions are possible through object analysis of emotions, and different ways of thinking that may be possible in dreams (what does happiness taste like? ever tried to create and then eat a happiness burger? is math really easier?) See how you can affect your state of mind (trying to hypnotize yourself? or meditate within a dream or see how aware you can become of the waking world while still asleep?) Trying to influence or change yourself or your ability (practicing a skill as derlacher imagined, or trying to simulate situations to desensitive yourself, etc.) A lot of these kinds of things should be possible to some small extent. For instance, on the latter, I know just ordinary dreams themselves have had a profound influence on me, direct and indirect, and sometimes I have very good ideas in dreams. I would probably know more about how much of this is possible if I had looked into hypnosis more, since it's something of a similar principle, but I haven't bothered researching hypnosis much since it's not a priority. But anyway, the run-down I gave you is just to show that there's a range of things, and to show that those things can be categorized to some small extent at least, and also to point out that there's degrees to which each might be furtherable, or maybe I should just say, possible.

[DuB]

[*]Be creative by accessing your subconscious through the dream (say try imagining the story you're having trouble writing, then create the paper which has written on it the first sentence with that concept in mind? could you create a representation of a genius and ask him questions to be able to figure out what the smartest decision "you" could make is?) [/b] I've been planning on doing something in one of my next lucids that fits into this "category." I got the idea from one of my non-lucid dreams. At one point in the dream I was driving in my car with the radio on. The radio played a song that doesn't exist: Frank Sinatra singing a Van Morrison song in his lounge style (the song was "Moondance" for anyone who's wondering ). After the song ended, it played another version of the same song, this time sung by Van himself, but the song had an overdriven electric guitar in it (the original doesn't). When I woke up I was amazed at this. The songs were perfectly clear, played start to finish, and even sounded pretty good, but they were completely made up! My unconscious mind had created them. I got the idea to compose music in my sleep. There are many ways I could do this, but I think what I'll do is manifest someone (maybe an existing artist, maybe a stranger, maybe even a reflection of myself&#33 and ask them to play a song for me, and I'll watch and listen. Maybe we'll even jam together . I'll probably wake myself up immediately afterwards so that I can recall it with the most clarity. Anyway, I am convinced that this will work after that non-lucid dream that I had. I haven't got a chance to do it yet, but I'll let you know how it goes when I do. Maybe I'll even have a recording for you guys . [*]See how you can affect your state of mind (trying to hypnotize yourself? or meditate within a dream or see how aware you can become of the waking world while still asleep?) [/b] People have often tried taking drugs in their dreams to see how it affected them. There have been some threads over it, you might want to look them up. Anyway, sometimes they work like in real life, sometimes the effects are completely different, and sometimes nothing happens. I can only ever recall doing drugs once in a dream. It was a non-lucid dream, and I took some acid. I've never done acid. In the dream, all that happened was that I got really stoned as if I had smoked pot (which I've done plenty of times).

[Cridegnosis]

It was a stupid yet funny joke in one american show: Get out of my head!!! That means I am truly amazed, finding out some other persons interested in the same things I am... I believe these "issues" you are talking about are a concrete way to prove the utility of dreams, other than simple, let's say, pleasure or well being... Everyone I spoke with about the "own" study of dreams said that this is mainly a lose of time, that if they can't serve a concrete and social purpose, they do not deserve interest, other than that revelead by phylosphical or psychological approaches. Here there is still a poor mentality, I think, and older people especially are looking first of all at the concrete and palpable aspect and rarely they think of the intelectual joy and the sake of knowledge... Anyway, your idea is very interesting and productive. I myself am trying to come up with some way of using dreams as a source of creativity and exploring impossible things in the day to day life. I had some dreams which helped me in the study of dreams by the information they gave me. I think the real purpose of dreams is giving birth to the "new", because the dream is the only form of imagination availible at early stages of live, thus the only psychological process that creates new connections in experience (and brain cells). Why do small children have to dream so much??? Here's an example of such dream I've mentioned: I was thinking one day that you can control your dreams, but not necessarily real time control but choice control. How comes ? Well, we don't control our lives, we just choose from a bunch of possibilities we have at some times. If we're hungry, we choose wether to eat now, or eat later, or die by starvation. We choose what to eat, but we can't choose not to be hungry. Well, in dreams it seems we are forced into different actions, like in real life, but much less subtle, which gives us the impression we don't have control (anyway, the control in real life is a little different, but also based on choice and decision and not control of cause that leads to an effect. The latter is like choosing what to eat in real life. We choose A and not B and think we're powerfull, but it's only an illusion of control, because we choose according to the substances our body lacks at the moment). So, I thought I can control dreams by choosing from the possibilities that appear. Let's say I want to travel - I can walk, or go by car, or fly, or teleport myself. It's the same basic fact but with other skin, and skin isn't much of an important issue in dreams, I believe the content is the one that really counts. Anyway, that night I dreamed of an monster coming to eat me, and I was scared. But then I thought to myself I can choose to let myself being eat, so I'll take control of the situation (in dreams only ). And I've had the monster over for dinner... It ate my little hand finger and I asked if it was good... It didn't say anything, but it did leave me alone and I wasn't scared anymore, but happy and ironic. The dream actually helped me to better understand how this control I had been thinking of really works in dreams... So, I really do belive dreams can be used to enhance our day to day abilities, not necessarily reffering to dreams. Wish you well!

[M.D]

That means I am truly amazed, finding out some other persons interested in the same things I am... I believe these "issues" you are talking about are a concrete way to prove the utility of dreams, other than simple, let's say, pleasure or well being... Everyone I spoke with about the "own" study of dreams said that this is mainly a lose of time, that if they can't serve a concrete and social purpose, they do not deserve interest, other than that revelead by phylosphical or psychological approaches. Here there is still a poor mentality, I think, and older people especially are looking first of all at the concrete and palpable aspect and rarely they think of the intelectual joy and the sake of knowledge... Anyway, your idea is very interesting and productive. I myself am trying to come up with some way of using dreams as a source of creativity and exploring impossible things in the day to day life. I had some dreams which helped me in the study of dreams by the information they gave me. I think the real purpose of dreams is giving birth to the "new", because the dream is the only form of imagination availible at early stages of live, thus the only psychological process that creates new connections in experience (and brain cells). Why do small children have to dream so much??? [/b] I'm happy that you also understand that this isn't an area to be ignored. Actually, I think there should be a lot more people than just you and I who appreciate these kinds of possibilities to some extent, even, as I mentioned initially, discounting those who believe dreams have supernatural attributes. If there isn't... well, maybe there isn't, actually. I suppose the kind of person who would be interested in that kind of potential could also largely be the kind of person who would just come to have interested in OBEs, etc. But I hope there are more exceptions (DuB and the people who posted in the topic he mentioned seem to be ones&#33, and since you've only been here a relatively short time (not relative to me, of course, I'm very new) perhaps you're pleasantly mistaken. Here's an example of such dream I've mentioned: I was thinking one day that you can control your dreams, but not necessarily real time control but choice control. How comes ? Well, we don't control our lives, we just choose from a bunch of possibilities we have at some times. If we're hungry, we choose wether to eat now, or eat later, or die by starvation. We choose what to eat, but we can't choose not to be hungry. Well, in dreams it seems we are forced into different actions, like in real life, but much less subtle, which gives us the impression we don't have control (anyway, the control in real life is a little different, but also based on choice and decision and not control of cause that leads to an effect. The latter is like choosing what to eat in real life. We choose A and not B and think we're powerfull, but it's only an illusion of control, because we choose according to the substances our body lacks at the moment). So, I thought I can control dreams by choosing from the possibilities that appear. Let's say I want to travel - I can walk, or go by car, or fly, or teleport myself. It's the same basic fact but with other skin, and skin isn't much of an important issue in dreams, I believe the content is the one that really counts. Anyway, that night I dreamed of an monster coming to eat me, and I was scared. But then I thought to myself I can choose to let myself being eat, so I'll take control of the situation (in dreams only ). And I've had the monster over for dinner... It ate my little hand finger and I asked if it was good... It didn't say anything, but it did leave me alone and I wasn't scared anymore, but happy and ironic. The dream actually helped me to better understand how this control I had been thinking of really works in dreams... So, I really do belive dreams can be used to enhance our day to day abilities, not necessarily reffering to dreams. [/b] Yes, that could be true. I think one of the key things about being able to exercise control over your dreams is maintaining an emotional detachment. Emotions are by nature something which evolved to override the mental aspects of a person because we're largely idiots, although in theory a very smart person with perfect self-control and awareness should do better without emotions (excepting the potential of emotions when channeled, e.g. contemporary martial arts). However, the state of mind which perceives a lucid dream almost always seems lost immediately to me when a strong emotion comes into play. One lucid dream I had, I remember I lost lucidity when I attempted to make a jump from a rooftop, suddenly became upset (I experience vertigo as very easily in dreams as IRL, apparently) and my jump didn't make it to the other side, and I closed my eyes and willed myself to teleport somewhere else but by then lucidity was of course lost. If I had been able to control my instinctive reaction, which is the one aspect of the mind of a lucid dreamer which the lucid dreamer can't see coming and thus circumnavigate, I would not have lost lucidity. In another dream, I willed the color of a brick to turn color, but then keeping in mind the memory of how the brick had used to be caused it to turn back to the color it had been. In either case, self-control would have allowed me to exercise more control over the dream, and the qualities of the dream, lucidity being one of them. How to exert control over one's dreams best is something others who regularly dream lucidly probably have a better idea about, however (I'm not interested in it at the moment, but I think there should probably be a couple topics about it, somewhere). However, Cridegnosis, more important than just thinking about how one would go about doing something with the dream is making sure we (I) have a proper conceptual framework. To approach something scientifically, and propose or conduct effective experiments, that's crucial. Which is why I looked around and asked if anyone knew if someone had taken into account all the actions involved in, for (ideally) temporary lack of a better term, the constructive potential of guided dream states. If I do more research into the nature of dreams, maybe I could write up something about this myself, but right now I'm not qualified. For instance, I'm not really sure exactly how much of the dreamer's perspective is "you", and how much is perhaps an puppet consciousness which is created by the real you which is a subconscious? Sometimes I wonder these things, when there's a dream in which I can't say that I'm just one person in one place at one time and now multiple people or impartial observers. How you would go about considering affecting things when you're not quite sure which is an extensions of your identity and which is more subjective, etc. ... That's an important consideration that could completely determine an analytical framework. Of course, it's possible to just lightly categorize things, and it's possible to just conduct experiments without knowing what variables exist or which are important, and very possibly the results will be interesting, but I'm someone who must be serious about whatever I would allow to occupy my time. Wish you well! [/b] I absolutely wish the same to you. I've been planning on doing something in one of my next lucids that fits into this "category." I got the idea from one of my non-lucid dreams. At one point in the dream I was driving in my car with the radio on. The radio played a song that doesn't exist: Frank Sinatra singing a Van Morrison song in his lounge style (the song was "Moondance" for anyone who's wondering ). After the song ended, it played another version of the same song, this time sung by Van himself, but the song had an overdriven electric guitar in it (the original doesn't). When I woke up I was amazed at this. The songs were perfectly clear, played start to finish, and even sounded pretty good, but they were completely made up! My unconscious mind had created them. I got the idea to compose music in my sleep. There are many ways I could do this, but I think what I'll do is manifest someone (maybe an existing artist, maybe a stranger, maybe even a reflection of myself&#33 and ask them to play a song for me, and I'll watch and listen. Maybe we'll even jam together . I'll probably wake myself up immediately afterwards so that I can recall it with the most clarity. Anyway, I am convinced that this will work after that non-lucid dream that I had. I haven't got a chance to do it yet, but I'll let you know how it goes when I do. Maybe I'll even have a recording for you guys . [/b] Indeed, that's a great thought. Definitely let everyone know how it turns out! Sometimes I'm tempted to try something like that myself, since I have had experience with music in dreams and also am someone who likes music, but I've never done any real work with composition or music theory and I know since there's a limit to what the subconscious is capable of (as with hypnosis, dumb people are worse subject, for instance) I only would like to be able to write creatively with an in-dream method, if I find the chance. Hey, if you can't remember the music well, you can try to transform the music in sheet format, and then you can create objects in your dream while taking a walk within the dream, the first letters of which stand for musical notes, and then quickly retrace your steps once you awaken and write down the objects your remember. If that kind of memorization technique works while awake, maybe it'll work as well while asleep! Uh, it could be too elaborate, I'll admit... People have often tried taking drugs in their dreams to see how it affected them. There have been some threads over it, you might want to look them up. Anyway, sometimes they work like in real life, sometimes the effects are completely different, and sometimes nothing happens. I can only ever recall doing drugs once in a dream. It was a non-lucid dream, and I took some acid. I've never done acid. In the dream, all that happened was that I got really stoned as if I had smoked pot (which I've done plenty of times). [/b] Very interesting. I don't know that this could be much more deep than how a person might act in real life if you told them you to believe they were smoking it, actually (except perhaps they'd be in a more clear state of mind, or something...). I think that in a dream, even your subconscious can be bizarrely erroneous associations, like as you said causing acid to seem like pot. Sometimes I think a person can't be very readily creative at imagining a sensation they haven't experienced, so the subconscious lazily redirects them elsewhere; an example would be how I'm constantly getting butchered in various situations within dreams, but all I feel is a powerful burning sensation and the wetness of my own blood (and if this makes any sense, pain feels the same but doesn't have the same "meaning" as it does when I'm awake, so I don't revile it).