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