Implicit Memory In Lucid Dreams

Hi there all of you! I study my own dreams from some time and I have recently came up to the conclusion that much of the content of common dreams is based or derives from implicit/procedural/non-declarative memory. I have searched the internet and it seems it is partially true. So, I want to propose you an experiment. But first let me explain the general idea.

You all now what a reality testing tehnique is. If you were to put it simply, it is some kind of action or activity you do during the day, hoping it will get internalized and will get rehearsed in dream, which will led you to recognise the pattern and become lucid.
But how does it get internalized? For sure it enters our memory, but what type of memory? I would say it gets in the implicit memory. And for this reason, it might be that the lucid dream you think you have is a mere common dream about geting lucid using a reality testing tehnique. I had a lot of dreams in which I was only dreaming about using a reality testing method to get lucid. They seemed pretty lucid at the time, but later on I have realized they were in fact just common dreams (the whole set of lucid dream particularities was kind of incomplete). So, if common dreams are based on implict memory material, I thought that this use of "lucidity methods" might generate only a dream about lucidity instead of a real lucid dream. We easily get confused and when having such a strong urge to get lucid, we may not realize that what we experience is not a lucid dream at all.

For example, the actions involved by the tehnique (let's say checking the time on your wrist watch) might get in the implicit memory. Once they are there, the probability of dream occurence having them included gets higher. So, sooner or later that material generates a part of a dream, where we (the dreamers) perform the action that stands for the tehnique. So, we dream about checking the time on our watch.

Now it's the tricky part. From this point on we might get lucid or we might just dream about getting lucid. What makes the difference? Well, I think that if you make a good plan in the waking state about what to do once you are lucid, the entire script (checking the time, getting lucid, do whatever you want once being lucid) will go in the implicit memory and will form a good common dream about lucidity. Why? Because all the material needed it's retrived from the implicit memory. Because you spend (so much) time every day rehearsing the method and planning your way to lucidity, all the things gets into your head in the form of a script about lucidity, and that script will become a dream later on.

But if you don't have a well established plan of what to do once lucidity "strikes" you, it is possible that you won't get an implicit script in your head that would automatically turn into a dream. You will have a common dream till the point you get lucid. It is possible this would generate a lucid dream, because you will dream about recognising you're in a dream, thing that might trigger real lucidity. I hope I managed to get myself understood. If not, I will try to re-explain another time.

Now the idea of the experiment gets obvious, I think.

- The independent variable is the reality tehnique and all the other things (that we consider to be the same, using a certain "amount" of subjects; statistics say so)

- The dependent variable will consist of the dreamer building/ or not building a well established plan of things to do after becoming lucid

So, we must choose one standard, simple and easy to use reality testing tehnique (to which all the subjects are accustomed and that gave results earlier in thir lucid dreaming experience).
Then we need two groups:

The control group will perform only the tehnique, without having any kind of plan or stable intentions about what to do once they become lucid

The experimental group will perform the tehnique but will have a very good build plan about the things to do when lucid (but not very hard things, like flying or going through walls, because not all dreamers have the same experience)

Once they have a dream about the tehnique or the plan or bouth, they will write down the dream in every possible detail, so that later on we can establish if it was a real lucid dream or not.

This is the overall procedure. Those interested will add up and discuss further details for the beginning of the experiment. Hope it is of some interest. If you think some thing is out of place or would work in another way, feel free to comment.
All the good things!

Great idea, it's something I wonder about a lot too, whether some lucids are actually just dreams of lucidity. That's one of the reasons I've always been reluctant to "plan" an LD before going to sleep, I keep thinking to myself: "If I'm actually conscious in the dream, why would I need to have a whole plan ready? Maybe planning only makes you have a simulated lucid dream where you attempt what you were intent on doing, which is why many people would get 'results'."

Anyways, I'm in. I guess I'd rather be part of the control group, although I wouldn't mind being in the experimental one that much if needed. As a sidenote, the reality check I usually use is the nose plug and breathing one; I think that could be a decent one to choose.

Hope we get some more people and interesting results!

Huh!?

Implicit or procedural Memory comprises such processes as 'remembering' how to swim, or 'remembering' how to ride a bike.

But dreams are Episodic and Declarative Memories -- "I remember I was naked in Public, became Lucid, and looked at much more than my hands" -- that is Declarative Memory... WHY? Because we can declare the details.

And then by your description of Lucid Dreams... I honestly don't think you have ever had a Lucid Dream. Indeed, I wonder whether you have ever attained reflective and intelligent awareness in any conscious sphere.

Wildman, I am happy you are interested. If it won't get so many people, you can experiment at home, I think (but with two different tehniques, so that once you test the other hypothesis, the anterior learned material won't interfere).

Leo Volont, I apologize if you didn't quite understand the message. I will put this links here, maybe the idea will get clearer.

But first of all, I said that the content of a dream is partially derived from implicit memory, I didn't said you won't remember it. Swimming is part of procedural memory (it's quite something else than implicit memory, but largely the same), but you recall the actions you make when swimming, you can say what you do in order to swimm. But swimming, when automatized, is part of procedural memory, like hand writing. This means you don't have to recall how to do it, you do it automatically. But you recall doing it. Like I've said, I apologize for a poor definition of terms.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077505/ a study of the role of implicit memory in dreams

Implicit memory - The memories acquired through unconscious learning processes, such as operant and classical conditioning. (http://www.addictionstudies.org/glossary_i.html)

Implicit memory refers to remembering information but not being consciously aware of "remembering". For example, many motor skills (ie. riding a bike, playing the piano) are forms of implicit memory. (http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/Neurops.../glossary.html) That means you are not consciously retrieving every piece of information about notes and intervals and so on when you have to play the piano. If you are a beginner, you must search every note on the keyboard and so on, but when you get experience, you can play entire musical pieces without paying attention to your hands.

implicit memory (im′plis·ət ′mem·rē)
(psychology) A type of memory that is expressed through performance, rather than conscious recall, such as information acquired during skill learning, habit formation, classical conditioning, emotional learning, and priming. Also known as nondeclarative memory. (http://www.answers.com/topic/implicit-memory)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa36...603/ai_n8751236 a larger discussion about implicit memory

Sorry if the links are of no interested, but I believe lucid dreaming is not about lucid dreams, is about what you may become studying lucid dreams.
All the good things.

Follower, thank you, I think you've described pretty well what I was intending to point to.

Now, if you remember, if not... I will write it all. The most important experiment in proving lucidity, as far as I konw, was those in which the dreamer will learn a certain eye-movement pattern that will have to reproduce once being lucid. If in the REM state the dreamer would exactly reproduce the given pattern, the experimenter will conclude it was lucidity.

My question: wasn't it all just a common dream of doing that pattern, the necessary eye movements having derived from the hypothesis of acting out the dream at the possible active motor levels?
The eyeballs' muscles are the only one active during REM sleep. Some say their activity stands for visualy cheking out the visual dream imagery. So, if the common dream had those patterns incorporated, they would generate REM movements as well.

I also know that lucid dreams are accompanied by some specific brain waves (brain activity). But how do we know it isn't just a beginning of lucidity, the moment you realize you're dreaming, and then on is just a common dream, but a dream about lucidity, thing that might induce the different brain activity, due to high levels of metacognition, but not lucidity?

I know it's a complicated thing and this theory might not be welcomed in a lucid dream community. But I'm not 100% sure it might be true, that is why I want to test it. In the way described in the first post or by another means... I'm awaiting your proposals. If you think it's time wasting, no big deal, it is you freedom of choice, which I won't ignore.
All the good things.

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Originally Posted by Cridegnosis

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077505/ a study of the role of implicit memory in dreams
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Okay. But now we know that we know more than the Scientists know.

They say that the hippocompus, and declarative and episodic memory does not operate in dreams. Well, then, NOW we know what a Lucid Dream is, in their terms. A Lucid Dream is a dream in which the Hippocampus turns on allowing us episodic and declarative memory.

In ordinary dreams, we have a great deal of Symantic Memory -- ordinary concepts that are usually expressed by words and narrative are presented by visual images... I once awoke slowly from a dream and saw the transition from Visual Image to Verbal narrative.

But the problem with science is that it lags so far behind what we really know. Their requirement to quantify forces them to ignore what they see but can't count. So it is that I read about a study of Bird Flu last week that concluded that the people who died were sicker than the ones who didn't. Well, don't we already know this? Do we really need to pay Science to present us with the obvious.

We can SEE a hill of beans. Do we really have to pay people with Doctorate Degrees and all their hired help to count them?

It was once explained to me thusly, that God knows of every grain of sand on every beach on every planet in all the Gallaxies... but even God doesn't know the specific number.

It is probably because he is wise enough not to care.

Follower wrote: "Could you point me to the source if it exists online? I heard otherwise, that dreaming and lucid dreaming are accompanied by the same brainwaves."

It might be just a confusion of mine, but I think this is the article I've read about this in. http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html

@Leo Volont
The thing is that we remember common dreams upon awakening, so there is a link to the declarative memory. But I tend to believe it is just a data-driven process, or unidirectional, from the dream content to the decalarative memory and not backwards too. But in some lucid dreams it seems that this link is bidirectional, how you said, allowing content of declarative memory into the dream.

From this point of view, if the whole lucidity scenario gets into the implicit meory and becomes a dream, the actions of the dream (planned ahead in waking life) are in fact implicit and do not derive from the declarative memory, after our decision of what to do once lucid. So it's a dream about lucidity. If we do not plan ahead our actions or do somehow not to determine their implicit memory engram, maybe it is possible to gain real lucidity. Or maybe not...

Regarding the semantic memory, you are right. Many concepts are stored in memory by semnatic means rather than images. But their reactualization can imply/involve images and vice versa. The pre-sleep and post-awakening imagery, hypnagogic and hypnopompic images are a good example.

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Originally Posted by Cridegnosis

From this point of view, if the whole lucidity scenario gets into the implicit meory and becomes a dream, the actions of the dream (planned ahead in waking life) are in fact implicit and do not derive from the declarative memory, after our decision of what to do once lucid. So it's a dream about lucidity. If we do not plan ahead our actions or do somehow not to determine their implicit memory engram, maybe it is possible to gain real lucidity. Or maybe not... [/b]

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You assume that Lucid Dream material is pre-planned... consciously programmed. Who told you that? Lucid Dreams like all ordinary dreams come as complete surprises in most every detail.

Now, regarding Dream Material... Lucid or otherwise, while some dreams are confusing, other dreams lend themselve very well to epidsodic description. Dreams with well define plots, though they have not been pre-programmed, still we cannot assign them to this confined place that your Scientists have projected for them. Remember, they didn't know a damn thing about dreaming last week, and they are now just guessing their asses off after they found just one correlatable variable. They don't know what they're doing.

Now, having discussed Dream Content, now let's look at our Dream Consciousness or Experience. Again, if we can describe these dreams with plot line and episode, then we have jumped out of the Box that these Scientists have planted for us.

But your explanation... it has no elegance. It is too complicated. To make your scientists seem as though they may be on to something you are proposing too many tangled up operations of the mind, that yes, tell us why our dreams are random and meaningless, which is the underlying assumption of your scientists, but it does nothing to explain why so many dreams are very ordered and very meaningful.

You are blinking away empirical data to protect a hypothesis that you like.

Leo Volont, chill out a little. I didn't say general lucid dream material is pre-planned. I was referring to the situation in which you make a plan in the waking life about what to do when you become lucid. Of course every dream, including lucid dreams, is a surprise, you don't know before what it will hapen. But you can control a little some aspects of the dream. Like, for example, if you strongly want to dream about a certain object, eventually you will have some dreams in which the thing will appear, but you can not control the hypostases in which it appears and how it takes form.

I am not a scientist yet, I don't represent anyone, other than myself. But I like things to be scientifically examined. Not very scientifically, but in a critical way. Regarding the meaning and plot of a dream, I didn't say anything about it, you make some assumptions that go a little further than reality. This is a very interesting aspect that seems to be contradictory with the random neural-activation theory. I think is not absolutely necessary. I believe we are the ones who impose meaning in the dream, better said, our motivation, our concerns etc. play the role of guidelines to the possible content of a dream. Without a "healthy" psyche, the dream will seem sensless, much more than it already is. It has no meaning for others, we are the ones who give it a meaning, we build a sense for it, at nightime (when it creates itself) and at daytime, when we analyse it. They are no such things as mysterious forces controlling our minds and putting sense in whatever we do. They are us. (those cases of paranormal perception exist, but do not represent a majority yet; maybe we all have that capacity but it's like talent... more than a talent).

So, why trying to go choose only one option? It is not a matter of black and white, it doesn't mean that dreams either have full meanaing on their own, either have none. They surely have an objective purpose and they surely have a subjective meaning for the dreamer and an objective one for a third party. Their are too many realities, you cannot go: "if you're not my friend, you're my enemy".
I, for example, believe in the power of dreams, but I want to have some strong real data too, not only ancient believs and so on (even if they might be true). I really consider dreams may help you to better understand yourself and develop better and more beautiful. But I need some real evidence too... I must question some things and if they prove wrong, that doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong, but my way of studying them is wrong and so on. This is an open-mind, who does not stick with only one opinion and that's all. I have changed my opinons about dreams a lot in the few last years. It doesn't mean they were wrong, rather inaccurate...
All the good things!

It is an interesting idea. I would have a problem participating tho, because I have plans for things to do while lucid but I usually forget about them. I think I have LD's, but I am usually lucid only in the context of that dream, I am not fully aware, because if I was, I would remember my plan. Of course I often forget things in real life, so it is not so different! :? I think there are levels of lucidity; I have experienced different levels, and I think other people achieve higher levels than me. So I have a goal. I don't think I could participate in the experiment but I would be interested in the results, because I know what you are getting at; sometimes I think I dreamed that I was lucid rather then actually was lucid. I know the difference later tho (I think!)

And here I had hoped Mr. Volont did not realize the research team existed. Oh well. :?