Welcome to Lucid Dreaming News!

This place is reserved for the posting of news around the world regarding lucid dreaming, and other dreaming subjects.

Please feel free to submit any news that you've found on the internet, providing that they are not simple "opinions" regarding the subject.
You can contact a Dream Guide (the members with a green name) and link them the article in order for it to be posted in here, or just reply in this thread.

Example of a good lucid dreaming news:

" Studies show that the majority of population has experienced a lucid dream in their lives"
" Cognition, dream and memory institute at X place is working with lucid dreamers in hopes of unraveling details regarding dream control"

Example of a bad lucid dreaming news:

" *Random guy* opinion on lucid dreaming"
" Lucid dreaming is so fun says Oprah!"

Sources are extremely important, after all, this is all about getting people to read more about experiments and events going on about lucid dreaming.
If you want to, you can always add your personal opinion regarding the matter, or even a small explanation of the topic if the theme is somewhat complex or uncommon.

I have something pretty interesting - funnily - this scientist does maybe 90 % of the video only talk about sleep-research as such.
The original question - is there a connection between the state of dreaming - and esp. lucid dreaming - and the experiences generated by Ayahuasca - is initially mentioned and follows almost as a side note in the end.

I have no personal experience of the latter - but there are really interesting sleep-facts in it - especially interesting I find, that they have identified a gene and it´s product, which gets markedly activated, when a memory consolidation takes place while sleeping.

They had rats in a boring environment, where there was nothing to learn, and rats with toys and labyrinths and stuff - and these did indeed activate that gene while dreaming - and also showed other activation patterns in other methods - not sure there any more.

I had opened a thread about my recurring experience with not managing what I was on about in a dream - and had to think of this video.

They are discussing, that during normal dreams - certain regions connected to awareness and also executive function do not take part.
Same thing as in your thread about what can be seen in fMRI while lucidity.

If this does not constitute giving incentive to consume entheogens - which I do not think it does - I´d like to open a thread about this lecture.

This video belongs to a lecture-series put forth by MAPS.
Got to say - I am a bit reluctant about putting myself more or less publicly in connection to it - but they are renowned for their scientific approach on this controversial topic - non-profit too.

Here we go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJH0u...UyB11CRR62uee8

You could just take this post as a thread and I will edit the question about posting aspect out by editing!
Title would be - well - either the video-title: "How Similar to Dreaming is the Ayahuasca Experience?" or something less captious - like - "New Insights In The Mechanisms Of Memory Consolidation While Dreaming"
Thanks for looking into it!

Attachment 5817

Hi Zoth!

Maybe this could be of interest - I don't think, we have it on here already:
New perspectives for the study of lucid dreaming: From brain stimulation to philosophical theories of self-consciousness

In this paper from 2010 the authors propose to not only aim at gathering correlative neuroscientific data - meaning external recordings of some sort - but instead try to research the role of the DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and metacognition in LDs with actually interfering with neuronal function.
Using transcranial magnetic stimulation or transcranial direct current stimulation over the DLPFC or galvanic vestibular stimulation.
The vestibular system in the inner ear - our sense of motion /position/acceleration - has been found to be linked in some way to LD.

Furthermore they propose a continuum of dreams over the lucid non lucid axis - and conclude, that it should be possible to do some of the LD background research on normal dreams, too - which contain certain metacognitive elements as well.
In the end of the paper there is a system, which ascribes letters A, B, C and E to different levels of having lucid elements in a dream.
It's pretty interesting and a good read, I find.

Thank you so much for that article Steph! It was a great read, made me rethink a lot of concepts regarding lucid dreaming, and a whole bunch of perspectives were included on several sub-topics.

I've highlighted all the interesting/important aspects of the article I've found, so if one of us ends up creating a thread regarding this study I'll be sure to address them thoroughly :)

Ah - great that it interests you Zoth!
I have to say, I am really pleased with all the activity on LD in the German philosophical and scientific community.
How encouraging!

:yddd:

From philosophy's side of affairs: Dreaming

It's really interesting - I pick some things out - in the end it is just a brief article on the thoughts of Thomas Metzinger and others, whom I highlighted for those interested in further research:

Quote:

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Getting Lucid about Consciousness

– Experience might be a virtual reality –

Waking up from a nightmare, you suddenly realize that what seemed real was in fact a dream. You were inhabiting a world cooked up by the brain, not realizing you were lying in bed. You were comprehensively deluded about your situation.

In what are called lucid dreams, you become aware of the fact that you’re dreaming – you become undeluded. Knowing that you’re dreaming allows you to appreciate something quite remarkable while you are dreaming: that dream reality can be just as vivid and detailed as waking experience. Having had a few lucid dreams myself, I can testify, as have many others, that the dream world seems just as present, tangible and real as what we experience when awake.

...


As people learn about lucid dreaming, an interesting fact about the brain will become known: it is a virtual reality generator. But an even more remarkable fact is waiting in the wings: waking experience is virtual reality too.

This seems daft on the face of it. When we’re awake, the world is solid, out there, a 3-dimensional reality with us walking around in it, looking at it, manipulating it. There’s nothing virtual about it. It’s clear that this is real reality, right?

Well, it’s real as reality can get for a brain. As Thomas Metzinger, Antti Revonsuo, Rudolfo Llinas, V.S. Ramachandran and other neuroscientists and philosophers now surmise, consciousness is more or less the same thing when we’re awake as when dreaming.

That is, the brain constructs a conscious phenomenal world, with ourselves as part of that world; this is what we experience, or rather is our experience. The difference between waking and dreaming experience is that the former is responsive to perceptual input coming in via the eyes, ears, and other sensory faculties while the latter is not. Both are virtual realities, but one has the crucial property of being constrained, in real time, by the real world outside the head.

...

Lucid dreams help us to see that in being conscious we construct a simulated world, we do not directly grasp reality. This realization should keep us humble in our knowledge claims, especially those based primarily on uncorroborated personal experience. Our conscious subjective realities are very selective takes on what exists outside the head, versions of reality that have been shaped by evolution. We get closer to the way the world really is by engaging in the scientific project, which does its best to transcend the distorting effects of subjective realities, which are often colored by motivational biases and perceptual limitations. Science models the world not via a selective phenomenology, but via testable hypotheses that end up amalgamated into our best theories. From a scientific perspective, conscious experience is epistemically adequate for personal and social purposes, but not a particularly perspicacious rendering of reality. Both science and consciousness, however, are essentially representational projects, one collective, the other personal.

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This leads to a pretty extensive text, I didn't yet read myself:
The New Science Of Dreaming
If I happen to get euphoric about it - I'll check back in!

Not news - but two pages article on LD in abc news, whatever they are - featuring La Berge, but somehow the videos don't work for me:
Living in Dreamworld




How does this work by the way - are you the "guardian of LD News" Zoth - the one, that can open threads?
I remember dimly, that that wasn't possible back first time..?

Bookmarked that page so I don't forget those names, thanks :)

By the way, there's a study that is being pointed out as a significant advance in our understanding of dreaming (reward system mostly):
The roles of the reward system in sleep and dreaming
And here's the link of a post talking about the main ideas presented in the study.

Quote:

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This leads to a pretty extensive text, I didn't yet read myself:
The New Science Of Dreaming

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I found that document some time ago, it's the 3rd volume of a sciences: The New Science of Dreaming . Makes me cry because the book is soo expensive and I can't find it anywhere (seriously, a book costing more than 200€? Had to be about dreaming -.-).

Quote:

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How does this work by the way - are you the "guardian of LD News" Zoth - the one, that can open threads?
I remember dimly, that that wasn't possible back first time..?

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Will look into this, at this point I can no longer create any thread either.

Thanks for the links, StephL. They will be a good and challenging read !

And congratulations for Germany for leading LD research and studies

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VagalTone

Thanks for the links, StephL. They will be a good and challenging read !

And congratulations for Germany for leading LD research and studies

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Yes, hopefully they will beat LaBerge to producing the NovaDreamer2 since he's taking his sweet time about it!

Alternating current across the skull during REM sleep makes regular dreams lucid.

By Diana Gitig

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-conten...6afa60d5_z.jpg
Flickr user: Carolinespics

During REM sleep, dreams are the epitome of living in the moment, of harnessing the power of now. During these dreams, consciousness is concerned solely with the immediate present. Once we awaken, humans—"and supposedly only humans," according to a German study out in Nature Neuroscience—inhabit a different mode of consciousness that allows higher-order cognitive functions like abstract thinking, volition, and self-reflective awareness.

But sometimes, we humans can have lucid dreams. These dreams take place during REM sleep, but we are aware we are in a dream. We can even control the dream's plotline.

EEG and fMRI studies have shown that there is elevated activity in what’s called the lower gamma frequency band, notably in frontal and temporal regions of the brain, during lucid dreams. Gamma band activity is modulated by sensory input and internal processes like working memory and attention. It is most often viewed as a byproduct of neural activity; it is not clear if it contributes to brain function.

Activity in the fronto-temporal region is related to executive ego functions; it is characteristic of being awake, and it's not usually seen during REM sleep. So the question obviously is: does lucid dreaming trigger this atypical electrical activity, or vice versa? And either way, is it required for lucid dreaming?

To find out, these researchers subjected people to fronto-temporal transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at various frequencies ranging from 2-100Hz. Controls got sham conditions—simulated stimulation without current flow. Unlike an older method of brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, tACS has no side effects like noise or tactile sensations that might disturb the subjects' sleep. Brain activity was then monitored by continuous electroencephalography (EEG), electrooculography (EOG), and electromyography (EMG). The subjects were woken up and asked to rate their dream consciousness.

Stimulation with 25 and 40Hz increased activity in the lower gamma band, which is not generally seen during REM sleep. More significantly, it increased five out of eight factors associated with lucid dreaming: insight into the fact that one is dreaming; control over the dream plot; sense of realism; access to waking memory; and dissociation akin to taking on a third-person perspective.

Rapid eye movements were maintained throughout the stimulation and dream sequence, so subjects were definitely still in REM sleep. The researchers conclude that their induced gamma band oscillations altered awareness during sleep.

An increase in lower gamma band power was significantly stronger in the presence of lucid dreaming, but it was also detectable in its absence. Lower gamma-band stimulation thus might act to enhance neuronal synchronization, which then "sets the stage for lucidity in dreams." So if you're planning to incept Alec Baldwin, just make sure to avoid first stimulating fronto-temporal gamma activity—you definitely do not want him to be lucid.

Nature Neuroscience, 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nn.3719 (About DOIs).