Introduction and my theory of how the mind creates a dream.

First off, I am under the impression my name gives me a certain "fluff" that most are put off by. I mean I could have been a bit more original about choosing a name, but I tried LD for the first time last night and was eager to get feedback.
Now that we can all just ignore my name (yes we can) here's a theory I came up with:
It has roots in Freudian psychology and deconstruction.
If you don't know what deconstruction is, just think of it as the belief that language is unstable and constantly subject to change.
Such as: "bad" came to mean its opposite in slang terms.

Words are defined by more words. Which means substituting one word for another is valid. The English language has become so complex that during the writing process we never actually say what we mean. No matter what we write, no matter how much we think we know what we mean--we never can because of the ambiguity and unstableness of words.

From my study on Freud, I believe true meanings to "reality" are kept in our unconscious mind.
We lose touch with these true meanings as we grow older and develop a conscious mind. I believe this is one reason why babies sleep for so long; they are storing newly gathered information in their subconscious to form their conscious mind (their behavior). Hence, as we grow we require less sleep because our conscious mind is well developed and mostly static.
What does this mean?
Perhaps a limit exists to what our subconscious mind can store; anything that flows over this limit creates a mental illness. Drugs may inhibit the minds ability to detect this limit, or the mind itself may be able to inhibit its own ability to detect it.

Excuse this tacky symbolism but think of a computer system and how it works.
There are two types of memory: ROM and RAM.
ROM - Read only memory, which is stored even when the computer is off; is like our unconscious mind.
RAM - Random Access memory, which is only stored while the computer is on and is erased when the computer is turned off; is like our conscious mind.
Our subconscious is like an operating system and a hard drive, it provides functionality and stores information that can be moved, copied, erased, and displayed and so on.

When we are awake and conscious we are constantly storing and analyzing information, hence we are interacting with our subconscious mind. The key is that our conscious mind controls what is stored and analyzed.
Think of it as installing and uninstalling programs on a computer.

In terms of regular dreams
When we sleep I suggest that our conscious mind is not off, but it no longer controls what is stored and analyzed. To compensate for this lack of stimuli our subconscious begins running random "programs" (that are previously installed) that store memory in our conscious mind and become dreams. Basically the conscious mind becomes redefined and behaves differently, perspective is everything. Between each dream this "clearing" and "loading" process is repeated. Anytime we "wake up" out of sleep our subconscious no longer controls what is stored and analyzed; our conscious mind is back in the driver's seat. What is stored in our conscious mind when we went to sleep, determines the type of dreams we will have. If we are stressed when we go to sleep, we will wake up stressed. If we focus on solving stress related problems, not specifically but just the idea, theoretically we may wake up with ideas and solutions to problems.

In terms of lucid dreams
For most of us "training" is required to experience an LD. Nearly all training consists of clearing your conscious mind and meditating on one thing. It also stresses the importance of repeating to yourself that you will have a lucid dream. Well one defines what a lucid dream is by first gathering, storing and analyzing information from different sources. You can't tell someone who has never heard of a lucid dream to just experience it. I think a lucid dream is a trick in itself. By storing your conscious mind with information conductive to "being in control" of your dreams, when you fall asleep, all dreams are interpreted through this "filter." Hence you really believe you are in complete control of your dream, when in reality you are just doubly tricking yourself into believing it.

When you wake up your conscious mind may be filled with these thoughts:
1) General information; who I am, where I exist, math, etc.
2) Artificial information: I will have a lucid dream / I just had a lucid dream / I am having a lucid dream.
3) What your dream was about.

Please do not be offended nor infuriated because this was not the intent. I am just doing a mind dump, figured it might be worthy of discussion.

In order to figure out if we are tricking ourselfs that we are conscious while dreaming, we must first define consciousness.

We must ask ourselfs, how do we know we are conscious right now in the waking world.

We need to have someone list what consciousness is defined as, then we need to contrast this list
with what can be done in a lucid dream consciousness.

If there is no differences, then we can resonabley conclude that we are conscious in a lucid dream.
If there is a significant difference we can conclude that we might be tricking ourselfs.
If defining Consciousness is too narrow or not possible, then we might as well let everyone have their opinion, and state it as controversal.

I believe alot of lucid dreams could be a trick, for instance we say we are dreaming, yet we don't really do anything differently.

However I do believe there is genuine Lucid Dreams where we are fully conscious of self and aware of what is happening consciously.

Could you define what consciousness is while awake and them someone contrast that with Lucid Dreaming Consciuosness?

-Daniel

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Could you define what consciousness is while awake and them someone contrast that with Lucid Dreaming Consciuosness?[/b]

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I am implying that it is an impossibility to be \"sleeping\" and be \"conscious.\"

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con•scious•ness
n.

1. The state or condition of being conscious.
2. A sense of one's personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group: Love of freedom runs deep in the national consciousness.
3.
1. Special awareness or sensitivity: class consciousness; race consciousness.
2. Alertness to or concern for a particular issue or situation: a movement aimed at raising the general public's consciousness of social injustice.
4. In psychoanalysis, the conscious.[/b]

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I am going with the second definition. By this definition, it is impossible to be "conscious" and be "dreaming." While dreaming no limitation exists, limitations are the defining factor for a personal identity. If we all can do whatever we want, then we are all equal, and have no defining identity--thus destroying conscious thought. In the "reality" that the general population lives in we are individuals with different traits and varying strong and weak points.

If you are into LDs then you must appreciate the power of the mind; it can be one's heaven or hell. If we truly believe something we can make it true. For example: if you believe everyone is out to get you, then you will see this manifest itself in your life. I am not saying that it is true, but you make your mind believe it is so.
Is it too hard to swallow that your mind is complex enough to convince you that you are actually inside of a dream? The LD might be nothing more then a compiled list of thoughts that you are so focused on that your mind makes you think you are conscious inside the dream?

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I am going with the second definition. By this definition, it is impossible to be \"conscious\" and be \"dreaming.\" While dreaming no limitation exists, limitations are the defining factor for a personal identity. If we all can do whatever we want, then we are all equal, and have no defining identity--thus destroying conscious thought. In the \"reality\" that the general population lives in we are individuals with different traits and varying strong and weak points. [/b]

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If we are dreaming and can do whatever we want, we still have a personal identity... not everyone is going to do the same thing, that makes us unique. Personality comes into play, in our dreams are personalities are still the same, we still behave towards things in our own way.

We may be all equally powerfull in potential ability, but we are not all equally challenged. It is hard for some people to fly, and easy for others.

Everybody dreams different things, some things are the same, but most things are completely individualized. How can you say that dreaming destroys personal identity. Dreams are unique, dreams are very self defining.

And yes there is one limitation to dreaming, it is the limitation we put on ourselfs... thats another thing that defines us.

I still see that definition as quite vague, and your still not contrasting waking consciousness with "(the impossible)" sleeping consciousness.

I don't see how that is impossible. You haven't thoroughly explained that. Why can't your body be alseep and your conscious&subconscious mind awake?

How bout this question: How do you even know we are conscious right now? If you can answer that, apply it to a lucid dream... and tell me the difference.

It is true that we can program ourselfs into wish fullfillment and consciousness can easily be faked. The question is where do you draw a line between programming and actual consciousness. Usually one can see the difference by simply experiencing what it is like to be unconscious and what it is like to be conscious. The big difference is that your aware. Awareness can't be measured or seen, so it's impossible to say if someone else is having a lucid dream, you can only tell for yourself if your having one, by the awareness you experienced.

Besides didn't they already do an experiment to prove they were conscious while dreaming? Steven Leburgs or something.

Again: Just ask yourself, "how do i know i'm conscious right now, and not just a programed mind doing stuff"

I believe the answer to that question is: I'm experiencing awareness, while a programmed mind has no awareness... it doesn't question anything.

If you've had some true LDs, you've experienced this awareness, you know by the experience if your conscious or not. (In regular dreams your just doing stuff, in a LD you see yourself asking "hmmm... what do I want to do." "hey I know what i'm doing and who I am" Not to mention, it's alot more vivid... and don't they say the more conscious(more attention) you put on something the more you remember it clearly.

-Daniel

Very interesting theory, and I agree with a large part of your ideas of the subconscious. Not everything, but a fair bit.

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Besides didn't they already do an experiment to prove they were conscious while dreaming? Steven Leburgs or something[/b]

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Yes, they proved that conscious decisions can be made while a person is asleep
How? During REM (rapid eye movement), the entire body is generally paralysed, except for eg. eyes
They enlisted lucid dreamers, and determined a protocol to use involving light in the lucid dreamers' eyes, and movement of the eyeball in response. They found that the victims, I mean, lucid dreamers :P, were indeed able to respond with particular eye movements, upon shing the light in various places, ways, etc in their eyes.

I'm not sure on any more detail other than that :)

As for a normal dream being a dream where the conscious mind has taken the back seat, I agree :)
I feel that lucid dreaming is 'consciousness splitting', where only a part of the conscious mind is active

Maybe its also possible that when lucid dreaming does occur it is simply your conscious mind becoming aware of what the subconcious mind is doing and then manipulating what the subconscious mind had started. And as far as limitations defining our persona, I do believe that there are several limitations in the lucid dreamstate. Maybe we have the power to manipulate things more in a lucid dream because our mind isn't busy with the everyday effort of controling the voluntary functions of the body such as walking or moving a body part. Unfortunately I have never had a lucid dream (yet) so take that into account when reading this as this is all just theoretical for me. All in all this is some seriously interesting topics.