Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Emphasis on Consciousness


It seems that the consciousness post that I made was a bigger hit than I had expected and it also brought up a lot of good ideas and questions. I wanted to examine more into the transitional phase of consciousness as it starts to form dreams.

Lately I have been reading into different accounts of psychedelics drug users and the effects of them on the mind. One thing that I noticed is the transitional phase of when the drugs start to take effect are the same type of effects that show the onset of dreams or heaviness, the wondering of thoughts, buzzing or sounds, change in body temperature and manly the onset of forgotten memories. In states of deep mediation people have also reported these experiences. But why do I care about psychedelic drugs? Well people that have had psychedelic drug experiences have reported the strong correlation between the effects of trypatmine based psychedelics and lucid dreaming. If there is any type of correlation then psychedelic experiences may be the closest thing we have to a true understanding of a fully conscious dreaming. The main experience from both the onset of dreams and psychedelic experiences that I am interested in is the change in memories and the ability to recall sometimes repressed childhood memories.

Though I am not an avid supporter of Freud, I still tend to agree that he has some understanding of the mind in altered states. Though I don’t believe there is some type of subconscious agenda in our dreams or minds as repressing our childhood wants I do suggest that maybe our memories are built up on layers of consciousness that is developed throughout our years of growing up. Memories can be hidden throughout our lives and be “repressed” by accident until our mind is altered in mediation, sleep, or psychedelics. I tend to believe that lucid dreaming is one of the closer of the options to fully consciously remembering old memories, however; we tend to use it as more of an experience than a tool.

For those of you who are experienced lucid dreamers, next time you dream try to remember things that would seem impossible during your normal waking life. See how much has change.

-L

3 comments:

  1. I certainly agree with you L. I have a hard time believing that my subconscious wants to mate with my mother and kill my father. However, I do believe that much of our memories are what makes us who we are.

    It has been a while, but the last time I remember looking up what was going on in memory research it had some interesting implications. The older models suggested that our brains act like giant computers and that everything we observe is locked somewhere in our memories. The newer models seem to suggest something different entirely. Instead of “real” concrete memories, we instead seem to store hints and inclinations about events. However, I believe there is an exception for especially shocking events, (i.e., where were you when you heard about September 11, or when Kennedy was shot ect.) At any rate, then our brains essentially create a fantasy about the particular events we are recalling based on our hints and inclinations. What’s even more fascinating is that our current sense of self seems to influence what we recall about our memories!

    If anyone is interested, there is a fun book by a Harvard psychologist named “Stumbling on Happiness” that deals not only with memories but our perception of the future as well. Wow…that was a bit of a rant wasn’t it? Completely off topic from what you were discussing lol.

    So, yes! I would subscribe to the idea that our memories are built upon layers of consciousness that is developed throughout our lifetimes.
    -R

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  2. Great post. I believe these states of consciousness might also be similar to what is achieved in Vajrayana Buddhist Dream Yoga.

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  3. Good idea
    awesome post - i'm creating video about it and i will post it to youtube !
    if you wana to help or just need a link send me email !

    ReplyDelete