Lucid Dreaming and The Scientific Method

I guess before I start this thread I would like to ask a question to all of the lucid dreamers out there. Do you guys (lucid dreamers) have a crystal clear memory of your lucid dreams? I have only had one lucid dream in my life, and I only remember a few minute details from it. For those of you whom have never had a lucid dream, it is quite a profound experience- to be consciously aware that you are dreaming, while you are dreaming. But anyway..... The point I'm trying to get at is that I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to conduct scientific (physics based) experiments in there lucid dreams? Can one become aware enough in the lucid dream space to conduct an experiment in there lucid dream space and remember the "data" of their results?

Ive always wondered if there is some kind of consistency in the lucid dream world as there is in our waking reality world. I have read accounts from lucid dreamers stating that they could consciously create anything in this lucid dream space but I wonder if that conscious space follows laws and limits.

I think it would be interesting if lucid dreamers all conducted experiments in there lucid dreams to try to see if there is any consistency or inconsistency between others conscious space. Maybe this had already been considered or thought about but if anyone had any further information on the matter, please feel free to post.
 
Hi Die Unendlich Gelehrte!

I've never had a lucid dream, save perhaps once for a few seconds of lucidity, but I did make a thread about it in C&S.

Chuck made a thread about trying to lucid dream in Spirituality, as I recall, but a first glance doesn't show it.

Look for the work of Stephen LaBerge - he's done a lot of work in this area. You may also get better answers on a Lucid Dreaming forum.
 
Okay awesome!!!! Thank you Sciborg_S_Patel!!! I guess I'm still learning how to navigate through this forum- My apologies if my thread is a little off topic or completely irrelevant to this section of the forum.
 
I've managed to get two instances of what I would consider to be lucid. But there were very short and I didn't have much control. I don't try every night but I alternate regularly with some lucid dream induction videos on youtube.

People on the forum have directed me to sources such as Laberge and I understand that they are worth looking into. For myself, I've come to terms with the fact that at this stage I'm not willing to study and develop personal techniques but I am willing to drift off to sleep accompanied by guided meditations. It might not be optimal but the two semi-successes I have had lead me to believe they hold some promise of success.
 
I have had occasional lucid dreams, but they are not long. Generally, once I know I'm dreaming I begin to wake up for real.

There are some conditions that seem to encourage lucidity in dreaming and the first of these is being well rested. Lucid dreaming for me tends to come in the morning, after sleeping in rather than waking up at the usual hour. It's that "extra" sleep that seems to do it. I can't be overly tired when I go to bed and it helps not to have any strong worries going on.
 
All my opinions. Take with salt:

Lucid dreaming is like bowling. With a little practice, intention and luck anyone can get a strike. But to begin to get a majority of strikes you must engage in a dedicated level of training. (And of course, like anything, some people are simply more talented and bowling or lucid dreaming might come easily.)

There are lots of tricks in lucid dreaming books about doing reality checks, etc. But when the rubber meets the road if you want to actually develop a powerful skill in lucid dreaming, then you need to look into developing greater powers of concentration and you need to begin paying attention to waking reality in great detail. The skills we learn in waking reality, we carry over into dream reality. If we begin consciously paying great attention to detail in waking reality, then we will do the same in dreaming reality. Paying attention to detail in an aware manner is how one realizes one is dreaming. So in general you must become more aware and with a greater power of concentration in both realities, waking and dreaming. For some who already have a high level of waking awareness and concentration it may only be a matter of intending to apply these same powers to dream reality. And then they may find it as a matter of course to be aware during dreaming.

Paying attention to your dreams also sends a signal to your subconscious that dreams are important. This is why writing them down tends to increase the number or dreams remembered and the amount of detail remembered. Many people find that dreams come in waves during the night as REM sleep increases. It is helpful to train yourself to have the discipline to awake in between the waves of dreams and write them down. Once you have a pattern, it is easy to fall back asleep after jotting down some notes in the middle of the night. You can also use memory devices within the mind to remember dreams.

My point here is that it is easy to have a lucid dream. What is much more difficult is to develop the ability to consistently dream lucidly, unless of course one has a natural ability to do so, which seems to happen, but more rarely than not.
 
Welcome to the forum!

I guess before I start this thread I would like to ask a question to all of the lucid dreamers out there. Do you guys (lucid dreamers) have a crystal clear memory of your lucid dreams?
I've found that like waking consciousness, lucid dream consciousness varies in its clarity. Sometimes it's crystal clear, sometimes not. And sometimes you will drift from lucidity to a normal dream state. A friend of mind calls this "porpoising". :) I tend to remember just about everything in the most lucid parts of my dreams.

I have only had one lucid dream in my life, and I only remember a few minute details from it. For those of you whom have never had a lucid dream, it is quite a profound experience- to be consciously aware that you are dreaming, while you are dreaming.
Like Chuck and others mentioned, you can become adept at lucid dreaming depending on your dedication to it. Though I've met people that seem to have a preternatural disposition towards it.

The point I'm trying to get at is that I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to conduct scientific (physics based) experiments in there lucid dreams? Can one become aware enough in the lucid dream space to conduct an experiment in there lucid dream space and remember the "data" of their results?
100% yes. Laberge conducted very specific experiments in a sleep lab with subjects who were talented lucid dreamers. Using rapid eye movements as pre-determined signals to communicate with members in the lab, the lucid dreamers would test particular phenomenology to see how it would effect their waking body, such as dream breathing, counting second on a dream watch, etc. When I learned about this it blew my mind, and it kickstarted my interest in a major way.

I've conducted my own informal experiments for fun. With a waking, preset intention to do so I've been able to create new music instruments, generate wormholes for travel, find winning lottery numbers (that didn't actually win), and a battery of other fun stuff within lucid dreams.

Ive always wondered if there is some kind of consistency in the lucid dream world as there is in our waking reality world. I have read accounts from lucid dreamers stating that they could consciously create anything in this lucid dream space but I wonder if that conscious space follows laws and limits.

This is a wonderful question. It's tricky, because lucid dreams can only ever be limited to your imagination, and yet there seems to be a necessary and consistent phenomenology for the dreamworld to remain stable. For example, what does it mean to simply stand on a floor in a dream? What are you standing on? As to creating/changing the dreamworld, this is totally possible within reason. Often the changes must follow a "logical" progression, like finding a particular friend around a corner opposed to just making them appear out of thin air.

I think it would be interesting if lucid dreamers all conducted experiments in there lucid dreams to try to see if there is any consistency or inconsistency between others conscious space. Maybe this had already been considered or thought about but if anyone had any further information on the matter, please feel free to post.
I agree! I'm working on a series of recordings to hopefully induce/increase lucid dreams. Once finished I will definitely share them with anyone who would like a listen.
 
But anyway..... The point I'm trying to get at is that I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to conduct scientific (physics based) experiments in there lucid dreams? Can one become aware enough in the lucid dream space to conduct an experiment in there lucid dream space and remember the "data" of their results?
Can you give an example of such an experiment? Would data from the experiment pertain to waking or dream reality?
Ive always wondered if there is some kind of consistency in the lucid dream world as there is in our waking reality world. I have read accounts from lucid dreamers stating that they could consciously create anything in this lucid dream space but I wonder if that conscious space follows laws and limits.
What kind of limit could you imagine within the dream space if you are in a state of complete lucidity?
I think it would be interesting if lucid dreamers all conducted experiments in there lucid dreams to try to see if there is any consistency or inconsistency between others conscious space. Maybe this had already been considered or thought about but if anyone had any further information on the matter, please feel free to post.
Here is a paper by Radin reviewing some dream studies post-Maimonides. There have been a number of write-ups on Maimonides. You can google it if you are interested.
http://www.deanradin.com/FOC2014/Sherwood2003MetaDreamESP.pdf
 
I've recently read two books on Tibetan Dream Yoga.

Norbu, Namkhai Rinpoche. Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1992.

Wangyal, Tendzin Rinpoche. The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1998.

They offer a different approach to lucid dreaming. They also reiterate an idea that I have suggested many times on this forum--that your ability to apply awareness and equanimity in your dream life may be echoed in the period immediately following physical death. Those who are nightly caught up in their dreams without awareness or equanimity may well be swept up mindlessly in the afterlife bardo and suffer an immediate reincarnation.

They also distinguish between three different types of dreams samsaric dreams, dreams of clarity and clear light dreams.

The "yoga" of dream yoga involves developing the ability to lucid dream and clarifying mind in all awareness so that one can move beyond samsaric dreams. Then instead of spending one's time flying about or slaying dragons, you can more effectively work on awakening during dreams with full access to your subconscious and without the limits of physical reality. Dream yoga allows access to the knowledge and transmission from ascended masters or other deities.

The real gist of Tibetan dream yoga is the absolute realization that waking reality is no different from dream reality.

I realize there is no point in sharing this kind of information in the CD forum, but there you have it.
 
Thank you very much for moving this thread. I didn't want to give you the impression that you had started your thread in the wrong place, or that posts like chuck.drake's wouldn't be useful/welcome. I just knew that some of the people who you would likely want to hear from are among those confined to this forum.

I'm not up on the lucid dreaming research. Bishop would be the one you would want to talk to for that. I just happen to be very adept at lucid dreaming.

In some of my lucid dreams I am a scientist performing physics/chemistry experiments and I have the impression that the results are profound. I am gradually making progress towards accessing those results so I can memorize them (and write them down when I awake). I'm really keen on getting these results, but I'm not there yet. The last time it happened, I had the results with me in a lab book, but I was pursued by a team of ninja-type bad guys (who wanted to prevent me from looking at the results). I escaped from them, but at the expense of changing to a different lucid dream.

I have used lucid dreaming as a sort of tool to tap into implicit memories or knowledge that I am unable access explicitly. If that knowledge becomes explicit during the dream, then I am able to access it when I awake. I have played around with attempts to access implicit knowledge that cannot be coming from my own memories. I haven't really been successful, although some results have been tantalizing.

I hadn't really thought about experimenting with the laws of physics, since I can make weird stuff happen at will anyways. Sometimes I have to ease myself into it by starting with something consistent with the real world, but often I can just "make it so". I don't actually think there's anything profound to be gained by exploring my imagination (does it sound weird to say that dragons and sex with strangers get old?). I'm more interested in loosing my non-conscious processes.

Linda
 
There are occasionally some interesting ideas to be gleaned on some of the lucid dreaming forums. I remember reading recently about a person who could nightly inhabit imaginary worlds and interact repeatedly with the same characters on an ongoing basis. They lived separate and unique lives in these dream worlds. They claimed though that once they had died in one of these worlds that they could never manage to return in their dreams any longer. I believe that less than I believe the idea that we are bound in our dreams by our ideas of what we believe is possible.

And there is a fellow on Reddit that I have linked to before who has also created several worlds that he inhabits, filled with characters who seem to continue their existences quite nicely while he is away. I've often thought about how such a person is limited in that world only by the power of their own imagination. And I wonder if I had that power of dreaming what kind of exploration I could do in this waking reality in literature or science or films that would alter my dream world, opening up new unexplored horizons of experience.
 
Thank you very much for moving this thread. I didn't want to give you the impression that you had started your thread in the wrong place, or that posts like chuck.drake's wouldn't be useful/welcome. I just knew that some of the people who you would likely want to hear from are among those confined to this forum.

I'm not up on the lucid dreaming research. Bishop would be the one you would want to talk to for that. I just happen to be very adept at lucid dreaming.

In some of my lucid dreams I am a scientist performing physics/chemistry experiments and I have the impression that the results are profound. I am gradually making progress towards accessing those results so I can memorize them (and write them down when I awake). I'm really keen on getting these results, but I'm not there yet. The last time it happened, I had the results with me in a lab book, but I was pursued by a team of ninja-type bad guys (who wanted to prevent me from looking at the results). I escaped from them, but at the expense of changing to a different lucid dream.

I have used lucid dreaming as a sort of tool to tap into implicit memories or knowledge that I am unable access explicitly. If that knowledge becomes explicit during the dream, then I am able to access it when I awake. I have played around with attempts to access implicit knowledge that cannot be coming from my own memories. I haven't really been successful, although some results have been tantalizing.

I hadn't really thought about experimenting with the laws of physics, since I can make weird stuff happen at will anyways. Sometimes I have to ease myself into it by starting with something consistent with the real world, but often I can just "make it so". I don't actually think there's anything profound to be gained by exploring my imagination (does it sound weird to say that dragons and sex with strangers get old?). I'm more interested in loosing my non-conscious processes.

Linda

If you mean loosening your non-conscious processes I have interesting idea that may or may not appeal to you. Since you are free in your dream world to indulge your imagination, you might try and nurture an ongoing relationship with either the Dakini or the Oneiroi, whichever might appeal more to your sensibilities. I prefer the idea of partnering with the Oneiroi for some reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneiroi

There is no logical reason for you not to call upon some gods within your dream life, especially gods who specialize in that area of reality. It would be most interesting as an exercise if you accepted the fact, that at least in your dream reality something approaching a deity could exist. You might ask them to show you around the block as it were--see if they can show you something unexpected.
 
Can lucid dreamers see through multiple bodies?

And can you fall asleep and dream yourself into a new dream, then wake up again the old dream before waking up into real life*?

*Assuming, of course, that this life isn't a dream. ;-)
 
Can lucid dreamers see through multiple bodies?

And can you fall asleep and dream yourself into a new dream, then wake up again the old dream before waking up into real life*?

*Assuming, of course, that this life isn't a dream. ;-)
I have recently been thinking about this: trying to actively layer the dream. It's happened to me before by chance. Actually the first time I became lucid was after a false awakening.

I was trying to focus on becoming lucid before bed. While asleep I was dreaming, but never became lucid. I woke up in my bed, annoyed at my lack of success. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom, washed my hands and while reaching for the towel I noticed my hands were bone dry! I looked at myself in the mirror completely shocked; I was dreaming! I awoke again in my bed, fading slowly back to reality. It was very cinematic.

I should mention that when I woke the first time, and was still in the dream, my environment was completely consistent with reality. There was nothing strange at all about the dream with the exception of my hands drying impossibly fast. It makes you wonder if something like that happened in what you assume is reality, how you would react?
 
If you mean loosening your non-conscious processes I have interesting idea that may or may not appeal to you. Since you are free in your dream world to indulge your imagination, you might try and nurture an ongoing relationship with either the Dakini or the Oneiroi, whichever might appeal more to your sensibilities. I prefer the idea of partnering with the Oneiroi for some reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneiroi

There is no logical reason for you not to call upon some gods within your dream life, especially gods who specialize in that area of reality. It would be most interesting as an exercise if you accepted the fact, that at least in your dream reality something approaching a deity could exist. You might ask them to show you around the block as it were--see if they can show you something unexpected.

If you want to tap into implicit or non-conscious knowledge, it is important that you don't perceive any ownership of that knowledge. Using your imagination is an explicit, conscious process, so conjuring up a god or other creature is unlikely to work. Characters who happen to show up can work, though. For example, in my experiments, I am not the scientist in charge of the research program, so it isn't an experiment I have designed or understand. That's why it feels to me like there is something being revealed to me which does not come from me. Another approach is the one described by Bishop, where one is given a task and you observe what results from that. In any case, it is crucial to avoid teology.

What I could do is to create an imaginary world where gods are likely to show up, but I can't create the world for that purpose. What would impress me is if some of the people who study lucid dreaming were able to advise me on what kind of imaginary world to create to call upon certain kinds of characters in a completely non-intuitive manner.

Linda
 
Somebody in the previous Lucid Dreaming thread mentioned the multi-layered dreaming - I don't remember who. I've moved from one lucid dream to another (as we discussed previously, it can be a way to escape a disturbing dream), but I don't remember having to wake up in series through previous dreams.

Linda
 
What I could do is to create an imaginary world where gods are likely to show up, but I can't create the world for that purpose. What would impress me is if some of the people who study lucid dreaming were able to advise me on what kind of imaginary world to create to call upon certain kinds of characters in a completely non-intuitive manner.

Huh. Why not ask the same question from within a lucid state?
 
If you want to tap into implicit or non-conscious knowledge, it is important that you don't perceive any ownership of that knowledge. Using your imagination is an explicit, conscious process, so conjuring up a god or other creature is unlikely to work.
You have an odd concept of the imagination I think. Lots of artists create even written works without any real idea of the source of the work. Some of the greatest works of art have been described by their creators as seeming formed by another. While it is true that using the imagination can be a conscious, explicit process, it certainly needn't be that way.

What I could do is to create an imaginary world where gods are likely to show up, but I can't create the world for that purpose. What would impress me is if some of the people who study lucid dreaming were able to advise me on what kind of imaginary world to create to call upon certain kinds of characters in a completely non-intuitive manner.
I seriously doubt that anyone studies the content of lucid dreams in that way. The main source of that kind of knowledge is by communicating with the dreamers themselves.

Anyway. You completely missed my point.
 
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