Re: Lucid Dreaming

Stephen LeBerg's experiments from within the dream state at the Stanford Dream Lab pretty much validate the existence of Lucid dreaming and help tell us how time passes in dreams.

Within the REM stage sleep-paralysis causes all the non-autonomous muscles to remain non-responsive except the eyes. ( Hence the term Rapid Eye Movement ) But typically we are passive observers within our dreams; becoming what we're scripted to be, going where and when we're supposed to be and gazing where we're supposed to. Therefore the eye-movements are pretty random.

LeBerg realized that the self-aware dreamer is still paralyzed. But that if they chose consciously where to look they could use a distinct pattern of eye-movements to signal outside the dream state. Pretty much it was limited to signalling the beginning of a test and its conclusion.

Interestingly the Tibetan's practice a Dream-Yoga designed to cultivate not the mastery of dreams, but the awareness that Waking consciousness and Dream consciousness are alike in their illusory nature. To the Tibetan, its perverse that Lucidity should be used to extend a controlling culture's obsession with personal power into another sphere of consciousness.

Author Gayle Delaney sees regular dreaming and lucidity as existing on a spectrum, rather than an all or nothing. Normal dreaming seeks to incorporate any disturbance which might waken us into the dream to keep us asleep. Many experimenters with Lucidity find the shift in volition is enough to jolt them out of sleep. So its only natural for many pre-lucid dreams ( her term ) to reincorporate the awareness into the narrative.

I've had quite a few of these where I become aware I'm dreaming ( lucidity ) and immediately tell those around me ( validating the dream narrative.)

I've had friends who were spontaneously lucid, including one who was unaware that the rest of us have no degree of free-will when we dream.

Dante