Proprioception in dreams

Hey, lets see if anyone can answer this one, i feel an experiment coming on.

Proprioception is the sense (not one of the 5 human senses) that tells us where our body parts are positioned without having to see them or feel them. It is a sense in that balance is a sense.

So.

Are our proprioception senses active inside dreams?

For instance, suppose you became lucid. Stop and concentrate on where your limbs are. Ignore your dream form, imagine yourself as a ball of dust or whatever, then try and locate where your real life limbs are positioned. Then wake up and see if your position is as you imagined.

My theory is yes. Because when some people sleepwalk, there must be a primitive and subconscious sense of proprioception required to walk or co-ordinate even the basic of actions (example if you tried to walk but your legs happened to be in the wrong position for walking, you would sense this)

pretty complex eh?

I've felt my real life body in dreams before, is that what you're getting at?

kind of, im saying whether you imagined this or not. Did you simply imagine you felt your body?

Test this, 'feel' your real life body in a lucid dream, wake up and see if you are in the same position you thought you were in in your LD, position of your arms etc.

Well I became lucid quite late in the game, then woke up a while after #I began to feel my body, in the same possition that I felt. Perhaps it's an end of dream thing?

I remember in my 2nd LD, I had a feeling of "plurality", I guess you could call it. I could feel both my physical sleeping body (which was, obviously, unmoving) and my dream body. The dream body I caused to walk around and it was quite interesting to have those dual feelings superimposed upon each other. I'm pretty sure, if I remember correctly, I was sleeping in the same position as I felt during the LD. Is that what you were wondering? I haven't had enough other LDs to know for sure.

-Amé

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Originally posted by Amethyst Star
Is that what you were wondering?

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I would need ot know for certain if you were in the same position as you thought in your LD.

And alex, i would be safe and not count tha one because you were waking up at that point so your senses were regaining.

Yes, its true, in my first LD I moved my leg because I could feel it falling asleep.

Thats not exactly what i meant at all. You seem to have missed the entire point of this post.

Perhaps if you knew what proprioception is, you would see what i mean.

I have not performed your test exactly, but I have had a lucid dream in which I moved forward bipedally in my dream, and (unintentionaly) simultaneously moved in my bed. The stimulus that came from my movement in bed shattered my dream and woke me up. From this, I might state that proprioception is active and the mixed signals crossed me up.

However, your experiement is hard to quantify. For example, to base the assesment truely on proprioception alone, ones waking body needs to be floating or in a a position that no other of the 5 senses can be utilized. Specifically I am talking about touch. Thoughts?

i see what you mean, but touch is firmly shut off in dreams. I dont know why, but you cannot feel specific touch in your dreams, but excessive touchedness (:P) causes you to wake up.

So, i dont think touch is a factor here. All 5 senses are blocked from your awareness, and can only siphon through on a subconsciouss level. (playing a tape while you sleep can help you learn etc)

Proprioception-the sense that tells you where all your limbs are placed, without it we would have to literally look where we were putting our feet to walk-is something totally unrelated to touch.

And what is with the 'i moved my leg in a dream' thing? It has nothing to do with proprioception. If you somehow concentrated on where your feet were PLACED in a dream (try and make your dream body mirror the placement of your physical body for example) and then woke up, and saw that you were correct, and that you DID know what position your IRL body was in from a dream, then proprioception is indeed active in dreams.

Did that shed any light on this?

i once dreamed that i was riding a bicycle. i was pretty young at the time so i wasnt very sure of my balance. after riding for a few yards i fell of the bike. simultaneously i awoke and was falling out of my bed. i thought that since i was falling out of my bed it influenced me to fall off my bike in dreamstate. i wasnt aware of anything while i was dreaming, but is this what you mean?

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Originally posted by shel
i once dreamed that i was riding a bicycle. i was pretty young at the time so i wasnt very sure of my balance. *after riding for a few yards i fell of the bike. simultaneously i awoke and was falling out of my bed. *i thought that since i was falling out of my bed it influenced me to fall off my bike in dreamstate. *i wasnt aware of anything while i was dreaming, but is this what you mean?

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no.

its something completely unrelated to proprioception. read the linki posted above, then youll see what i mean

Ok, I THINK I can see what Damascus is getting at. I'll try to explain this semi-visually:

1) Imagine a chalk outline of a body (top view).
2) This outline is drawn on a checkered pattern tile floor.
3) The person's head is positioned at square 10 from the left and 5 from the top (10,5).
4) The person's left hand is lying on square 3,7 with their elbow at 5,10.
5) When we "connect the dots" head(10,5) to elbow(5,10) to hand(3,7) - we get two lines (probably an "L" shape). This is our "proprioception" position.

So, I think the question is:
If in your dream you are curled up in the fetal position - but lying in bed you are really in this chalk outline position - are you aware that your arm is really in this (10,5) (5,10) (3,7) position?

-or-

are we only trying to figure out where our hand is relative to the grid (3,7)?

Looking back on what I just wrote, I think that the 5 glasses of wine I just had has kicked in - but who knows, am I on the right track Damascus???

:eh:

yes, exactly.

The question, to be more specific, is if you can find out-while sleeping-what position your body is in.

Me in a LD:

I wonder what position im in in reality...

*concentrates*

hm, id think that i am in *so and so* position

*wakes up*

Aha! i was correct, i AM in *so and so* position.


If the above event can be carried out, then our sense of proprioception is active in dreams, proprioception being explained in the article i linked above.


I really could not explain that any simpler.

When we sleep, we were essentially cut off from the sensory world. There is no auditory, gastatory, olfactory, or feeling sensations. We would not even see if our eyes were peeled open.

This is because when you are asleep, the following happens (or doesn't happen):
- Acetylcholine (ACh) system becomes inactive
- Sensory thalamus inhibited
- Reticular nucleus active
- Thalamocortical neurons in slow rhythm
- EEG synchornous

Also, during sleep the dorsal raphe nuclei (a cluster of serotonergic cells) and the locus ceruleus (a group of noradrenergic neurons) help to keep consciousness suppressed during dreaming. During REM sleep, only the eyes muscles twitch (hence Rapid Eye Movement) but the middle ear muscles also twitch, for an unknwon reason. This occurrs mostly because of the descending inhibition. Dreaming turns on a group of cells in the medulla that descend down the spinal cord and inhibit motor activity. Very specific lesions of these cells (a rare event) lead to a phenomenon called "violent sleeping", where the dream physically acts out his or her dreams. This is different from sleepwalking, as sleepwalking does not occur during REM sleep.

If there is any possibility of auditory perception during sleep, it would be because the auditory nerve carries it's signals all the way to the brainstem which synapses with the cochlear nucleus. From here, the auditory sense eventually reaches the medial geniculate nucleus and then into the auditory cortex. If this occurs, it is very incidental and very rare.

What to keep in mind is that, during slow wave sleep, neuron activity significantly slows down. Neurotransmittesr such as norephinephrine, serotonin, and histamine are at very low reproductive states. However, during REM, ACh fire rapidly, producing a dreaming state, but the monoamine cells stop firing altogether. Do not confuse this with what I said above; ACh does not fire during the first few stages of sleep, but only in REM period.

Proprioception occur's within the cerebellum, which is facilitates by monoamine cells. Since there is no production of monoamine cells within the period of dreaming, propriocetion is impossible. If there is any sense that you feel your body or are "aware" of it, it is most likely your memory recalling the sense. Primarily, your memory facilitates all that occur's within your dreaming states and your sensory perception - hence why you dream in a visual state.

If you woud like links to references I have used or experiments done to discover the senses activity during sleep, please just ask.

I hope I have been enlightening.