Lucid dreams

Yuschak T. (2006) Advanced Lucid Dreaming. 1st ed, Lulu Enterprises. ISBN 978-1-4303-0542-2. 

But all in the mind s eye, not in the eyeball an interactive lucid dream accessible to the will. 

Examples of dissociations of consciousness that often divide the waking mind into two compartments include microsleeps, attentional lapses, and fantasy states. At the edges of sleep are hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis. Within sleep are sleep walking, sleep talking, and lucid dreaming. In all of these conditions, consciousness has some features characteristic of one state mixed with features characteristic of another. 

What can sleep neurophysiology and the new neuropsychology tell us about lucid dreaming, and how can we use that information to increase our access to that state And what, beyond entertainment, can we learn about the brain-mind from a scientific exploration of lucid dreaming The last question has one ready answer by placing experienced lucid dreamers in a PET scanner (or preferably an fMRI), we could test the hypothesis that, when lucid, dreamers increase the blood flow to their dorsolateral prefrontal cortices as that cortex reactivates to a level consistent with wake state executive function. 

In order for the dream to continue (so that it can be observed), the pontine activation would have to persist, and with it, all the outward signs of REM sleep (including the inhibition of muscle tone and the REMs themselves), as Stephen LaBerge observed in his laboratory studies of lucid dream adepts. We would also predict that the amygdala activation would decline reciprocal to the dorsolateral prefrontal increase and with that decline, negative emotionality, especially fear, might also diminish. 

My dinner party hostess, who happened to be a descendent of Mary Arnold-Eoster, sent me home with her copy of Studies in Dreams, where the technique of lucid dreaming and its psychedelic delights are described in detail. I was as attracted by the idea of flying in my dreams as I was by the power of self-hypnosis, so I followed Arnold-Eoster s prescription. I simply put a notebook by my bedside, so as to be able to record my dream recall, and told myself, before going to sleep. I ll pay attention to my consciousness, which I would know to be dreaming because of the bizarre discontinuities and incongruities of time, place, and person. 

These self-observation experiments convinced me of the veracity of lucid dreaming as a robust and remarkable state of dissociated consciousness. What other conclusions can we draw from the experience of lucid dreaming ... 

Third, it shows that a kind of psychic causality—or free will if you will—operates in conjunction with brain physiology. This last point illuminates the others and is so important as to deserve critical analysis. In the section that follows I consider the possible brain basis of lucid dreaming and develop a cognitive neuroscience theory applicable to all dissociative states where suggestion plays an important part. 

In order for me to escape total absorption in my dream I must somehow be able to dissociate some part of my brain-mind from REM sleep so that it—the dissociated part—remains awake or regains the waking state while the rest of my brain-mind dreams on. I must, therefore, do nothing less than change brain physiology and chemistry, at least locally, by the medium of thought. Sounds spooky, doesn t it No wonder so many hard-headed scientists reject the reality of lucid dreaming ... 

It is this sort of mechanism that I think must underlie the incubation procedure for lucid dreaming. By putting the notebook at my bedside... 

The upshot is that hypnosis and lucid dreaming both result from oppositely directed changes in the balance of regional activation levels that drive AIM toward a forbidden zone with congruent but reciprocal phenomenological features. 

Internal inputs are enhanced in hypnotic trance and suppressed in lucid dreaming, whereas aminergic drive is suppressed in hypnotic trance but enhanced in lucid dreaming. 

Huxley could alter the features of the state by autosuggestion or upon Erickson s instruction. He could see color or he could limit his descent to a lighter level and still retain contact with Erickson. But like subjects in the forbidden zone of lucid dreaming, Huxley tended to be pulled deeper or to exit when his concentration was interrupted by verbal or nonverbal commands. In other words, the introduction of volition, presumably mediated by the frontal cortex, acted in opposition to the trance state. 

The slippery slope from acceptance of the veracity of the subjectivity of these accounts to acceptance of the veracity of the objective implications of the accounts is difficult enough to understand in the patient informants. But patients are already functionally marginal in one way or another, otherwise they would not be patients And to understand why one cannot easily overthrow delusions, try teaching yourself lucid dreaming. It s not easy, especially if you are middle aged or older, as are most abductees. And, as with all of us, there is a lot at stake—personal credibility and personal worth, among other things. 

First and foremost, the psychosis does not cloud consciousness in the way that dreaming does. Instead of being disoriented and confused, the stimulant psychotic is clear-headed and knows exactly who and where he or she is, when events are taking place, and what is going on. This lack of what we have called the delirium—like lucid dreaming and some psychotomimetic drug states—is probably due to the fact that the subject s brain-mind is actually being driven away from the REM sleep domain of the AIM state space. 

Without wishing to challenge the belief systems of transcendental meditation adepts, it is possible to propose a mechanistic explanation along the same lines as those used to analyze hypnotic phenomena and lucid dreaming. In the case of transcendental meditation, the subject wishes to remain awake—or at least remain aware—but to be free of directed thoughts, organized precepts, and internal language. 

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