Posted on 06/16/2010 7:08:42 PM PDT by shibumi
Editorial: Wake up dreaming to explore consciousness
AM I awake or am I dreaming?" I ask myself for probably the hundredth time. I am fully awake, just like all the other times I asked, and to be honest I am beginning to feel a bit silly. All week I have been performing this "reality check" in the hope that it will become so ingrained in my mind that I will start asking it in my dreams too.
If I succeed, I will have a lucid dream - a thrilling state of consciousness somewhere between waking and sleeping in which, unlike conventional dreams, you are aware that you are dreaming and able to control your actions. Once you have figured this out, the dream world is theoretically your oyster, and you can act out your fantasies to your heart's content.
Journalistic interest notwithstanding, I am pursuing lucid dreaming for entertainment. To some neuroscientists, however, the phenomenon is of profound interest, and they are using lucid dreamers to explore some of the weirder aspects of the brain's behaviour during the dream state (see "Dream mysteries"). Their results are even shedding light on the way our brains produce our rich and complex conscious experience.
It's a central issue in the study of consciousness. In 1992, Gerald Edelman at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, proposed that there are two possible states of consciousness, which he called primary and secondary consciousness. Primary consciousness is the simple subjective experience of sensory perception and emotions, which could be applied to most animals. It's a state of "just being, feeling, floating", according to Ursula Voss at the University of Frankfurt in Germany.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
I close my eyes, imagine being in an open field like a prairie, and start running. I do this over and over. As I fall into a sleep state, I am finally able to take off in flight.
Flying is the coolest thing to do when you control your dreams. You even get that “roller coaster” feeling in your stomach.
On nights that I am unable to do it, telephone lines appear from nowhere blocking my path and preventing me from taking flight.
Funny stuff.
Similar story.
I’ve had this happen about five times.
First times were scary, but the last couple
were enjoyable.
A lot of people mistake this state with
Being abducted by aliens. It feels that real.
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