Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Review: DMT: The Spirit Molecule

I received my kick-starter movie in the mail yesterday and decided to check it out. As promised I wanted to write a review about the movie so that some people could at least get a good idea of what to expect when they see the movie.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule is a documentary that talks about the history of DMT use in relation to Dr.Strassman's work. If you have ever read the book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" and maybe a book on the history of drug use in America, well then you know just about everything that is in the movie. The director uses some great interviews to express their experiences as well as talking about the history of why DMT and other drugs like LSD were banned from research. The video goes into detail about the chemical relationship between DMT and other types of drugs, and how those drugs are being used today in clinical studies.  There is a little video about the tribal use of DMT but really this is only a fraction of the movie.

The one thing that I was really surprised about in the movie was the idea that DMT is produced in the pineal gland. For anyone who has done any type of research about DMT, it is not a proven fact that its created in the pineal gland. Even Strassman states this in one of his interviews I conducted over a year ago:
I regret not being more clear about the hypothetical nature of the DMT-pineal link. There is one paper in which human pineal tissue is ground up and put into a test tube; then the precursors for 5-methoxy-DMT are added, stirred, and warmed, and out comes 5-methoxy-DMT. We have no data on intact, in-person pineal gland DMT synthesis. That’s one of the questions we hope to answer with our new assay at LSU. While the pineal link remains speculative, it is established that lung makes lots of DMT.

I am pretty sure that this assay that Strassman is talking about hasn't yet been concluded. In any way, its a bit hard to see Strassman talking about the pineal gland being where DMT is produced when its only theory, and once again pushing people to believe wrongly what he stated as being a problem in his book.  Another thing that I had a problem with is that in the video they talked about how western society seems to be always trying to get the best high, the most bang for their buck kind of deal, but little in the movie do they show anything about the cultures that use DMT for healing such as in South America. They instead talk to westerners about their experiences on DMT and little dealing with Ayahuasca where the real healing is done. Jace Callaways research that dealt with the healing powers of DMT and increasing serotonin receptor sites, was done with Ayahuasca, not just DMT alone, and often enough with no mimosa hostilis which contains the large amount of DMT used in Ayahuasca. The Santo Daime also use Ayahuasca in their religious practices and not pure DMT.  In truth, in terms of experiences with DMT, the movie focuses on the trippy experiences that DMT provides rather than the real healing after effects that it has. The video fails to address the long term effects that have dramatically changed these peoples lives for the good and bad after their experiences.

Over all the movie was great for a public who knows nothing about DMT or why anyone would want to use it. It tells us a realistic story about why DMT was banned from public use and research as well as the uses for DMT and other hallucinogens. It provides awareness to people about the experiences behind DMT and about Strassmans book and his research. The video seems to fail in a number of areas which I believe would be very beneficial to people who wanted to know how DMT can help them and others who have mental illness.  I would highly recommend everyone to purchase the movie because it supports further research as well as public awareness, but to really understand the pros and cons of using DMT, more personal research into the area of the drug is needed for those individuals.

Review: DMT: The Spirit Molecule

I received my kick-starter movie in the mail yesterday and decided to check it out. As promised I wanted to write a review about the movie so that some people could at least get a good idea of what to expect when they see the movie.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule is a documentary that talks about the history of DMT use in relation to Dr.Strassman's work. If you have ever read the book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" and maybe a book on the history of drug use in America, well then you know just about everything that is in the movie. The director uses some great interviews to express their experiences as well as talking about the history of why DMT and other drugs like LSD were banned from research. The video goes into detail about the chemical relationship between DMT and other types of drugs, and how those drugs are being used today in clinical studies. There is a little video about the tribal use of DMT but really this is only a fraction of the movie.

The one thing that I was really surprised about in the movie was the idea that DMT is produced in the pineal gland. For anyone who has done any type of research about DMT, it is not a proven fact that its created in the pineal gland. Even Strassman states this in one of his interviews I conducted over a year ago:
I regret not being more clear about the hypothetical nature of the DMT-pineal link. There is one paper in which human pineal tissue is ground up and put into a test tube; then the precursors for 5-methoxy-DMT are added, stirred, and warmed, and out comes 5-methoxy-DMT. We have no data on intact, in-person pineal gland DMT synthesis. That’s one of the questions we hope to answer with our new assay at LSU. While the pineal link remains speculative, it is established that lung makes lots of DMT.

I am pretty sure that this assay that Strassman is talking about hasn't yet been concluded. In any way, its a bit hard to see Strassman talking about the pineal gland being where DMT is produced when its only theory, and once again pushing people to believe wrongly what he stated as being a problem in his book. Another thing that I had a problem with is that in the video they talked about how western society seems to be always trying to get the best high, the most bang for their buck kind of deal, but little in the movie do they show anything about the cultures that use DMT for healing such as in South America. They instead talk to westerners about their experiences on DMT and little dealing with Ayahuasca where the real healing is done. Jace Callaways research that dealt with the healing powers of DMT and increasing serotonin receptor sites, was done with Ayahuasca, not just DMT alone, and often enough with no mimosa hostilis which contains the large amount of DMT used in Ayahuasca. The Santo Daime also use Ayahuasca in their religious practices and not pure DMT. In truth, in terms of experiences with DMT, the movie focuses on the trippy experiences that DMT provides rather than the real healing after effects that it has. The video fails to address the long term effects that have dramatically changed these peoples lives for the good and bad after their experiences.

Over all the movie was great for a public who knows nothing about DMT or why anyone would want to use it. It tells us a realistic story about why DMT was banned from public use and research as well as the uses for DMT and other hallucinogens. It provides awareness to people about the experiences behind DMT and about Strassmans book and his research. The video seems to fail in a number of areas which I believe would be very beneficial to people who wanted to know how DMT can help them and others who have mental illness. I would highly recommend everyone to purchase the movie because it supports further research as well as public awareness, but to really understand the pros and cons of using DMT, more personal research into the area of the drug is needed for those individuals.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Caffeine Withdrawal Induced LD

Something that I have always noticed during my days of sleeping is the times when I have a horrible caffeine withdrawal headache. I wake up in terrible pain and I remember my dreams very vividly. I never really paid much attention to this besides taking a aspirin and trying to go back to sleep. Apparently there are some really positive uses for such a withdrawal.

Caffeine Withdrawal  Induced Lucid Dreaming (CWILD) is where a person goes to sleep full knowing they will have a headache from the caffeine withdrawal, wake up after a period of time, and take a type of caffeinated substance, and fall back to sleep. The sleeping person subconsciously feels the effects of the withdrawal go away and the person is then in a lucid state.  The caffeine acts as a type of indicator that the person is asleep.

About a year ago R left us a post on the site about a article that he read about dealing with caffeine and how it may increase melatonin production. He said that after his review of the article that it looked like caffeine when induced in small amounts can allow for slower breakdown of the melatonin in the brain. Here we can get the information strait from the article itself:
In summary, caffeine was found to increase the oral bioavailability of melatonin probably due to an inhibition of the CYP1A2 catalysed first-pass metabolism of melatonin. The effect was more pronounced in nonsmokers and subjects with the *1F/*1F genotype.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1884289/

I also found another article that gives us a little more information into how the whole caffeine process may be helping the melatonin production:
Treatment of cultured rat pineal glands with norepinephrine or dibutyryl adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate causes a six- to tenfold stimulation of N-acetyltransferase. This enzyme converts serotonin to N-acetylserotonin, the immediate precursor of melatonin. The increased synthesis of melatonin caused by norepinephrine treatment appears to be the result of stimulation of N-acetyltransferase by an adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate mechanism.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1970Sci...168..979K

Caffeine increases the amount of adenosine in the body, and from what the article says is that adenosine has a increase in the conversion of serotonin into melatonin. It truly is a wonder how coffee keeps anyone awake :)

So in the case of CWILD not only is the caffeine acting as a indicator of being in REM or dreaming, but also allowing for the better use of melatonin. From the article this use of caffeine would be better used in non-smokers as well as people with a specific genotype. It may be interesting to also look into the sleeping habits of smokers, as they may sleep less due to the breaking down of melatonin in their bodies.

Over all CWILD is becoming a very effective way of increasing the amount of lucid dreams a person can have. Moonbeam and Pj over at mortalmist.com are the ones who working hard on the project and indicate that their use of this technique has increased their lucid dreams to be about 80% effective.

Take part of this discussion over at: mortalmist.com

R's original article: http://lucidconsciousness.com/?p=29

Caffeine Withdrawal Induced LD

Something that I have always noticed during my days of sleeping is the times when I have a horrible caffeine withdrawal headache. I wake up in terrible pain and I remember my dreams very vividly. I never really paid much attention to this besides taking a aspirin and trying to go back to sleep. Apparently there are some really positive uses for such a withdrawal.

Caffeine Withdrawal  Induced Lucid Dreaming (CWILD) is where a person goes to sleep full knowing they will have a headache from the caffeine withdrawal, wake up after a period of time, and take a type of caffeinated substance, and fall back to sleep. The sleeping person subconsciously feels the effects of the withdrawal go away and the person is then in a lucid state.  The caffeine acts as a type of indicator that the person is asleep.

About a year ago R left us a post on the site about a article that he read about dealing with caffeine and how it may increase melatonin production. He said that after his review of the article that it looked like caffeine when induced in small amounts can allow for slower breakdown of the melatonin in the brain. Here we can get the information strait from the article itself:
In summary, caffeine was found to increase the oral bioavailability of melatonin probably due to an inhibition of the CYP1A2 catalysed first-pass metabolism of melatonin. The effect was more pronounced in nonsmokers and subjects with the *1F/*1F genotype.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1884289/

I also found another article that gives us a little more information into how the whole caffeine process may be helping the melatonin production:
Treatment of cultured rat pineal glands with norepinephrine or dibutyryl adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate causes a six- to tenfold stimulation of N-acetyltransferase. This enzyme converts serotonin to N-acetylserotonin, the immediate precursor of melatonin. The increased synthesis of melatonin caused by norepinephrine treatment appears to be the result of stimulation of N-acetyltransferase by an adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate mechanism.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1970Sci...168..979K

Caffeine increases the amount of adenosine in the body, and from what the article says is that adenosine has a increase in the conversion of serotonin into melatonin. It truly is a wonder how coffee keeps anyone awake :)

So in the case of CWILD not only is the caffeine acting as a indicator of being in REM or dreaming, but also allowing for the better use of melatonin. From the article this use of caffeine would be better used in non-smokers as well as people with a specific genotype. It may be interesting to also look into the sleeping habits of smokers, as they may sleep less due to the breaking down of melatonin in their bodies.

Over all CWILD is becoming a very effective way of increasing the amount of lucid dreams a person can have. Moonbeam and Pj over at mortalmist.com are the ones who working hard on the project and indicate that their use of this technique has increased their lucid dreams to be about 80% effective.

Take part of this discussion over at: mortalmist.com

R's original article: http://lucidconsciousness.com/?p=29

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Mitch Schultz - DMT: The Spirit Molecule Interview

Martain Ball over at the Entheogenic Evolution provides us another great interview, this time by Mitch Schultz the producer and director of DMT: The Spirit Molecule. With the release of the documentary I am sure that Schultz has gotten a lot more attention and more to come soon. You can hear the podcast at: The Entheogenic Evolution

Martin w. ball's Friends


Mitch Schultz - DMT: The Spirit Molecule Interview

Martain Ball over at the Entheogenic Evolution provides us another great interview, this time by Mitch Schultz the producer and director of DMT: The Spirit Molecule. With the release of the documentary I am sure that Schultz has gotten a lot more attention and more to come soon. You can hear the podcast at: The Entheogenic Evolution

Martin w. ball's Friends


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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Turkey Time: the Role of Tryptophan in Sleep and Dreams

Ryan Hurd over at dreamstudies.org gives us a great post about tryptophan and its effects during the Thanksgiving chow down. Here is a little of what he has to say:
My US readers are preparing for Thanksgiving, the traditional harvest meal to celebrate family and friends. And most of us that sit at the Thanksgiving table will probably want a serious nap after eating. While the tryptophan in turkey is often blamed for this holiday nap effect, actually it’s more complex than that.

Read more over at dreamstudies.org

Turkey Time: the Role of Tryptophan in Sleep and Dreams

Ryan Hurd over at dreamstudies.org gives us a great post about tryptophan and its effects during the Thanksgiving chow down. Here is a little of what he has to say:
My US readers are preparing for Thanksgiving, the traditional harvest meal to celebrate family and friends. And most of us that sit at the Thanksgiving table will probably want a serious nap after eating. While the tryptophan in turkey is often blamed for this holiday nap effect, actually it’s more complex than that.

Read more over at dreamstudies.org

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

New Rick Strassman Interview!

Oh Dr. Strassman's book....how I love thee. Let me count the ways. I can't believe this thing came out ten years ago. I was one of the early readers and I am extremely pleased that sales of the book are still going strong.

At anyrate, head on over to the Gnostic Media podcast to hear the latest on Strassman the DMT documentary and tryptamine research in general. And if you can...donate god damn it! Of course, I don't always agree with Jan's guests, topics or opinions but where else can you listen to interviews of everyone from Benny Shanon to Joe Rogan? Now, if he could only get J. Allan Hobson!

Here's the linkage:
http://www.gnosticmedia.com/dr-rick-strassman-interview-dmt-the-spirit-molecule-095/

-Red

New Rick Strassman Interview!

Oh Dr. Strassman's book....how I love thee. Let me count the ways. I can't believe this thing came out ten years ago. I was one of the early readers and I am extremely pleased that sales of the book are still going strong.

At anyrate, head on over to the Gnostic Media podcast to hear the latest on Strassman the DMT documentary and tryptamine research in general. And if you can...donate god damn it! Of course, I don't always agree with Jan's guests, topics or opinions but where else can you listen to interviews of everyone from Benny Shanon to Joe Rogan? Now, if he could only get J. Allan Hobson!

Here's the linkage:
http://www.gnosticmedia.com/dr-rick-strassman-interview-dmt-the-spirit-molecule-095/

-Red

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Dream Questions

I recently added an add a new section to the website called Dream Questions. In this section you can ask questions about your dreams, sleep, or anything related to the consciousness. Those questions can then be answered from anyone that is a user and the answers can be voted on. Its much like yahoo's answers, but directly for Oneirology based  work.

You can also join dream questions on twitter to receive a update whenever a question is submitted. Its a good way to keep track of what is going on in the world of dreaming!

Get started and please visit the site: ask your dream questions

Dream Questions

I recently added an add a new section to the website called Dream Questions. In this section you can ask questions about your dreams, sleep, or anything related to the consciousness. Those questions can then be answered from anyone that is a user and the answers can be voted on. Its much like yahoo's answers, but directly for Oneirology based  work.

You can also join dream questions on twitter to receive a update whenever a question is submitted. Its a good way to keep track of what is going on in the world of dreaming!

Get started and please visit the site: ask your dream questions

DMT The Spirit Molecule Purchase DVD

Well it looks like the main site has been updated purchasing the DVD for the documentary DMT The Spirit Molecule. I still haven't received my Kickstarter copy of the DVD so I have no update on how well done or any feedback to the community, but I hope to have some out soon. I will make sure to update the website as soon as I can with that information.

I wanted to thank everyone for visiting the site and hope you all have a great Thanksgiving/turkey day.

DMT The Spirit Molecule Purchase DVD

Well it looks like the main site has been updated purchasing the DVD for the documentary DMT The Spirit Molecule. I still haven't received my Kickstarter copy of the DVD so I have no update on how well done or any feedback to the community, but I hope to have some out soon. I will make sure to update the website as soon as I can with that information.

I wanted to thank everyone for visiting the site and hope you all have a great Thanksgiving/turkey day.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

More Jung

I spent the last night reading more into the wonderful world of Jung (not the book title by the way) and was reading into the development of personalities. In the book Jung gave an account of a child that was discovering where babies came from and came up with some interesting and strange yet logical ideas of where babies come from. The odd thing is that Jung gave a very good account of why the child came up with really strange and almost damaging ideas about child bearing from the child's parents. Jung though didn't deal much into child psychology ultimately stated that children are a lot smarter than grownups think and will create ideas to make sense of the strange and sometimes bazaar stories we tell them to ignore halving to have a uneasy conversation about where they came from. It brings me to think about some of those same strange stories I later found out in life were not true, either from my own exploration into understanding nature, or my parents telling me flat out lies (stories).

I think what we experience as a child really does effect how we are as grown ups. In terms of consciousness I can see how when we are younger we develop personalities that will live with us the rest of our lives. If we damage those early with hurtful and negative thoughts about the world being full of un-trustworthy people, then we will forever believe that un-consciously or at least until something dramatic happens to change that. I always say, "garbage in, garbage out."

More Jung

I spent the last night reading more into the wonderful world of Jung (not the book title by the way) and was reading into the development of personalities. In the book Jung gave an account of a child that was discovering where babies came from and came up with some interesting and strange yet logical ideas of where babies come from. The odd thing is that Jung gave a very good account of why the child came up with really strange and almost damaging ideas about child bearing from the child's parents. Jung though didn't deal much into child psychology ultimately stated that children are a lot smarter than grownups think and will create ideas to make sense of the strange and sometimes bazaar stories we tell them to ignore halving to have a uneasy conversation about where they came from. It brings me to think about some of those same strange stories I later found out in life were not true, either from my own exploration into understanding nature, or my parents telling me flat out lies (stories).

I think what we experience as a child really does effect how we are as grown ups. In terms of consciousness I can see how when we are younger we develop personalities that will live with us the rest of our lives. If we damage those early with hurtful and negative thoughts about the world being full of un-trustworthy people, then we will forever believe that un-consciously or at least until something dramatic happens to change that. I always say, "garbage in, garbage out."

Letters from Red: Dopamine and the Dream

Hey L!

So, I’ve been thinking about the role of dopamine in all of this crazy lucidity land stuff. Actually, S has been working on a paper about Tobacco in South America and that lead me on a weird internet search in terms of Dopamine, Nicotine and the “Visionary State”.

So, first off, as we know…Tobacco not only has nicotine but also has potent MAOIs. In fact, there seems to be more than a few people on tobacco forums talking about how the nicotine replacement therepies (patches, gum ect.) just don’t seem to do it for them. This is interesting to me seeing as how I am an on again /off again nicotine fiend (I’m actually sucking on a Nicorette lozenge as I type this Mwhahahaha).

At anyrate, Nicotine does have an affect on dopamine levels. However, what is more impressive are the long term effects that other chemicals in tobacco (not nicotine) have on smokers MAO levels. Especially MAO-B’s which are related not to serotonin but dopamine.

Exhibit A:)
http://whyfiles.org/024nicotine/brainscan.html

So! It’s obvious that smokers have lower MAO-B levels and therefore higher amounts of dopamine. Now…are you ready for the shizzle? The craziest piece o’ data that I stumbled across in my nicotine fuled research-o-haul of awesomeness….

DMT may not be broken down my MAO-A’s (the one’s that break down serotonin)…but by MAO-Bs (the one’s that break down dopamine)!?!?!!

That’s right!

Now, when taking an MAOI that targets MAO-A’s (like caapi or rue) if taken in large enough amounts, it will also inhibit MAO-B levels. But check this out dude…

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3937611/The-Scientific-Investigation-of-Ayahuasca-A-Review-of-Past-and-Current-Research-

Look at the last paragraph on pg 67.

I think this is TERRIBLY interesting because….it may mean that those of us (me) who don’t usually have visual dreams and who seem to have blocked access to the visual side of the visionary experience (hardhead) may have HIGH MAO-B levels. This would explain a lot actually.

Oh yes, and the dopamine/MAO-B visionary conundrum continues!
Check out this article:

http://www.meaningofdreams.org/dream_theory/hobsondreamingprotoconsciousstate.htm

Notice the stuff under the heading of Modulation.

In fact, as I’m re-reading this I clicked on this link:

http://www.meaningofdreams.org/dream_theory/solmsdreamsprotectsleep.htm

Head down to the “Dreams are made in the Forebrain” part.

Now, I of course do have dreams. But by and large they are these weird “talking” dreams. Where I wake up and remember that my brain was engaged in strange thoughts or conversations or sentences more than visual scenes. I still get scenes occasionally but not like a lot of people.

I’m not saying that Serotonin still doesn’t have a huge role to play. But it may be more along the lines of the dopamine system being so depressed that the REM rebound phase (when you take 5-HTP) is the body over compensating with a huge dopamine rush. I’ve read conflicting reports about the relationship between dopamine and serotonin.

In some places, I’ve seen that there seems to be a teeter-totter like effect  between Serotonin and dopamine. Like if one is high the other is low. But other places I’ve seen that by raising one you somehow raise the other. Like the body is trying to keep a neuro-chemical homeostasis.  But I dunno dude…

Plus, I’m sure there is some role that endorphins play in all of this. But I don’t know just what that is yet.

Oh yea, and P.S.
Jung was a smoker...

http://briarfiles.blogspot.com/2010/01/featured-pipe-smoker-carl-jung.html

Meaning LOW MAO-B levels. Meaning, (maybe in logical leaps o' pleanty)..vivid dreams!

Anyway, now I’m off to bed just thought I would share this with you lol.

Talk to you later dude-

R

Letters from Red: Dopamine and the Dream

Hey L!

So, I’ve been thinking about the role of dopamine in all of this crazy lucidity land stuff. Actually, S has been working on a paper about Tobacco in South America and that lead me on a weird internet search in terms of Dopamine, Nicotine and the “Visionary State”.

So, first off, as we know…Tobacco not only has nicotine but also has potent MAOIs. In fact, there seems to be more than a few people on tobacco forums talking about how the nicotine replacement therepies (patches, gum ect.) just don’t seem to do it for them. This is interesting to me seeing as how I am an on again /off again nicotine fiend (I’m actually sucking on a Nicorette lozenge as I type this Mwhahahaha).

At anyrate, Nicotine does have an affect on dopamine levels. However, what is more impressive are the long term effects that other chemicals in tobacco (not nicotine) have on smokers MAO levels. Especially MAO-B’s which are related not to serotonin but dopamine.

Exhibit A:)
http://whyfiles.org/024nicotine/brainscan.html

So! It’s obvious that smokers have lower MAO-B levels and therefore higher amounts of dopamine. Now…are you ready for the shizzle? The craziest piece o’ data that I stumbled across in my nicotine fuled research-o-haul of awesomeness….

DMT may not be broken down my MAO-A’s (the one’s that break down serotonin)…but by MAO-Bs (the one’s that break down dopamine)!?!?!!

That’s right!

Now, when taking an MAOI that targets MAO-A’s (like caapi or rue) if taken in large enough amounts, it will also inhibit MAO-B levels. But check this out dude…

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3937611/The-Scientific-Investigation-of-Ayahuasca-A-Review-of-Past-and-Current-Research-

Look at the last paragraph on pg 67.

I think this is TERRIBLY interesting because….it may mean that those of us (me) who don’t usually have visual dreams and who seem to have blocked access to the visual side of the visionary experience (hardhead) may have HIGH MAO-B levels. This would explain a lot actually.

Oh yes, and the dopamine/MAO-B visionary conundrum continues!
Check out this article:

http://www.meaningofdreams.org/dream_theory/hobsondreamingprotoconsciousstate.htm

Notice the stuff under the heading of Modulation.

In fact, as I’m re-reading this I clicked on this link:

http://www.meaningofdreams.org/dream_theory/solmsdreamsprotectsleep.htm

Head down to the “Dreams are made in the Forebrain” part.

Now, I of course do have dreams. But by and large they are these weird “talking” dreams. Where I wake up and remember that my brain was engaged in strange thoughts or conversations or sentences more than visual scenes. I still get scenes occasionally but not like a lot of people.

I’m not saying that Serotonin still doesn’t have a huge role to play. But it may be more along the lines of the dopamine system being so depressed that the REM rebound phase (when you take 5-HTP) is the body over compensating with a huge dopamine rush. I’ve read conflicting reports about the relationship between dopamine and serotonin.

In some places, I’ve seen that there seems to be a teeter-totter like effect  between Serotonin and dopamine. Like if one is high the other is low. But other places I’ve seen that by raising one you somehow raise the other. Like the body is trying to keep a neuro-chemical homeostasis.  But I dunno dude…

Plus, I’m sure there is some role that endorphins play in all of this. But I don’t know just what that is yet.

Oh yea, and P.S.
Jung was a smoker...

http://briarfiles.blogspot.com/2010/01/featured-pipe-smoker-carl-jung.html

Meaning LOW MAO-B levels. Meaning, (maybe in logical leaps o' pleanty)..vivid dreams!

Anyway, now I’m off to bed just thought I would share this with you lol.

Talk to you later dude-

R

More Yung

I spent the last night reading more into the wonderful world of Yung (not the book title by the way) and was reading into the development of personalities. In the book Yung gave an account of a child that was discovering where babies came from and came up with some interesting and strange yet logical ideas of where babies come from. The odd thing is that Yung gave a very good account of why the child came up with really strange and almost damaging ideas about child bearing from the child's parents. Yung though didn't deal much into child psychology ultimately stated that children are a lot smarter than grownups think and will create ideas to make sense of the strange and sometimes bazaar stories we tell them to ignore halving to have a uneasy conversation about  where they came from. It brings me to think about some of those same strange stories I later found out in life were not true, either from my own exploration into understanding nature, or my parents telling me flat out lies (stories).

I think what we experience as a child really does effect how we are as grown ups. In terms of consciousness I can see how when we are younger we develop personalities that will live with us the rest of our lives. If we damage those early with hurtful and negative thoughts about the world being full of un-trustworthy people, then we will forever believe that un-consciously or at least until something dramatic happens to change that.  I always say, "garbage in, garbage out."

Draft created on November 17, 2010 at 5:12 am

myzeo

I just got my myzeo in and am interested to start using it.

What I must say from the packaging is that they did a great job in making it easy to understand and clear to use. I have absolutely no questions about the product or how to do something. I am also interested to see how my sleep really is. I often feel exhausted in the mornings and believe its because I often wake up in the nights but just don't remember it. I am interested to see how much of that I can change with some simple techniques  or even supplements.  Ill start using myzeo tonight and see how it goes!

myzeo

I just got my myzeo in and am interested to start using it.

What I must say from the packaging is that they did a great job in making it easy to understand and clear to use. I have absolutely no questions about the product or how to do something. I am also interested to see how my sleep really is. I often feel exhausted in the mornings and believe its because I often wake up in the nights but just don't remember it. I am interested to see how much of that I can change with some simple techniques  or even supplements.  Ill start using myzeo tonight and see how it goes!

Monday, November 15, 2010

A dream

After what seemed to be a calling I managed to fall in admiration for a the psychiatrist Carl Jung who really has become an inspiration over the last few weeks. Being a psychology student I found it funny that I have heard little about Jung and more about Freud who has always been an almost laughable figure in my understanding of psychology, consciousness, and the dream mind. I found that Jung is really a much more reasonable person and though I'm sure many of his views have been proven wrong over the years, he still seems to have more of an open mind than the coke fiend who insists that women have envy of men's more delicate parts.

I didnt know where to start with Jung, I tried to find his "Red Book" but after finding it in my local library, I found it impossible to read. I then looked around on the internet for some good books on Jung and found that there are some very interesting volumes written about his work called "The Collected Works of C.G. Jung". I picked up a number of the volumes and started to read volume 9, part II called "Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self". So far I must say what a great read!

Really Jungs work is a hard read to understand and he often goes on in some cases about what I think is some abstract thinking, but the main point is, is this guy makes sense when he wrote about the self. How so? Well...

Jung talks about how our consciousness is made up of personalities rather than just a subconsciousness that entails everything that we cant know. Not only that but he says that these personalities are able to communicate with and of which a lot happens during sleep. He never says that we cant understand these personalities like the all so wrong Freud, and interesting enough he talks about the same personalities that we often experience in our dreams. When my last post about my lucid dream I talked about having a conversation with a number of distinct personalities that made up my consciousness. I never stated how many personalities that seemed to be involved in the dream but to be exact I could distinguish three very predominate ones. One being a very serious personality who just wanted to do work and not have much fun, another whos life revolved around being a trickster and enjoying everything without work, and other was the dark side of my life. What I failed to realize is that the self was also involved as I couldn't have communicated with these personalities if I was not aware of myself and thinking to myself. Anyways, Jung also says that we have three distinct personalities as well as a self and an ego.

The ego according to Jung is not really much. He says that its really hard to determine how much of the ego really is involved in anything. It seems to me from my readings into Jung as well as into peoples personal experiences into the ego death, that the ego doesn't really effect much of anything. Some may say that their ego is what makes them think they are all important and very full of themselves when in fact it seems that those relationships are very much tied to the personalities that make the consciousness and subconsciousness up. The ego seems to more play the role as a control mechanism that holds together the personalities and refrains one to become over dominate of the others. Its possible that experiences that rep apart the ego allow the person to understand more of the personalities that make them who they are, and allow them to be a more understanding and well rounded person. Jung even says that this is the goal of all humans through religion and other means, to understand these personalities to be a more "full" person.

The shadow which Jung so well named it is the darker side of the person. It is the pure terror that we all have inside of us, and those dark negative things we think about our self and others. Its interesting with the name because often enough when people have abonafide nightmare we often see a shadow figure that is never positive. I have had experiences and read about others experiences were rather than try to be scared of this dream figure we tried to understand what it wanted, and often enough it is some kind of childish negative thought that manifested the figure. Understanding this figure has caused a feeling of understanding of myself that I had never had before, and though its often terrifying to face, I know I should be more understanding to this figure.

The anima and animus are a little more confusing to my understanding of the personalities. They seem to be tied to what I experienced in my dream as one is more of a feminine nature than the other but its hard to understand where the line is in having fun and being serious that tie to mine. Jung says that the anima is a feminine type of personality that is more active in men than women and the animus is a more male dominate one and is more active in women than men. He explains our emotional states with these as women often seem to be more illogical in their choices than men and are more emotional, as men are more moody from seriousness to wanting to have fun. I think how he figures out which one is feminine and witch one is masculine by studying ancient mythological images and how humans have tied those type of personalities to either male or female figures.

In the aspect of the self its a bit more confusing to me and I truly dont have an understanding of what he talks about in his writing in this section besides of what we know. The self is active at all times and seems to work in conjunction of the ego to hold things together. Maybe when we are developed the sense of self is one of the first things to develop and later the personalities. Thats only speculation my behalf.

Over all Jung has become one of my mentors in psychology and dreaming and I hope to share more of my understanding in the future.

A dream

After what seemed to be a calling I managed to fall in admiration for a the psychiatrist Carl Jung who really has become an inspiration over the last few weeks. Being a psychology student I found it funny that I have heard little about Jung and more about Freud who has always been an almost laughable figure in my understanding of psychology, consciousness, and the dream mind. I found that Jung is really a much more reasonable person and though I'm sure many of his views have been proven wrong over the years, he still seems to have more of an open mind than the coke fiend who insists that women have envy of men's more delicate parts.

I didnt know where to start with Jung, I tried to find his "Red Book" but after finding it in my local library, I found it impossible to read. I then looked around on the internet for some good books on Jung and found that there are some very interesting volumes written about his work called "The Collected Works of C.G. Jung". I picked up a number of the volumes and started to read volume 9, part II called "Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self". So far I must say what a great read!

Really Jungs work is a hard read to understand and he often goes on in some cases about what I think is some abstract thinking, but the main point is, is this guy makes sense when he wrote about the self. How so? Well...

Jung talks about how our consciousness is made up of personalities rather than just a subconsciousness that entails everything that we cant know. Not only that but he says that these personalities are able to communicate with and of which a lot happens during sleep. He never says that we cant understand these personalities like the all so wrong Freud, and interesting enough he talks about the same personalities that we often experience in our dreams. When my last post about my lucid dream I talked about having a conversation with a number of distinct personalities that made up my consciousness. I never stated how many personalities that seemed to be involved in the dream but to be exact I could distinguish three very predominate ones. One being a very serious personality who just wanted to do work and not have much fun, another whos life revolved around being a trickster and enjoying everything without work, and other was the dark side of my life. What I failed to realize is that the self was also involved as I couldn't have communicated with these personalities if I was not aware of myself and thinking to myself. Anyways, Jung also says that we have three distinct personalities as well as a self and an ego.

The ego according to Jung is not really much. He says that its really hard to determine how much of the ego really is involved in anything. It seems to me from my readings into Jung as well as into peoples personal experiences into the ego death, that the ego doesn't really effect much of anything. Some may say that their ego is what makes them think they are all important and very full of themselves when in fact it seems that those relationships are very much tied to the personalities that make the consciousness and subconsciousness up. The ego seems to more play the role as a control mechanism that holds together the personalities and refrains one to become over dominate of the others. Its possible that experiences that rep apart the ego allow the person to understand more of the personalities that make them who they are, and allow them to be a more understanding and well rounded person. Jung even says that this is the goal of all humans through religion and other means, to understand these personalities to be a more "full" person.

The shadow which Jung so well named it is the darker side of the person. It is the pure terror that we all have inside of us, and those dark negative things we think about our self and others. Its interesting with the name because often enough when people have abonafide nightmare we often see a shadow figure that is never positive. I have had experiences and read about others experiences were rather than try to be scared of this dream figure we tried to understand what it wanted, and often enough it is some kind of childish negative thought that manifested the figure. Understanding this figure has caused a feeling of understanding of myself that I had never had before, and though its often terrifying to face, I know I should be more understanding to this figure.

The anima and animus are a little more confusing to my understanding of the personalities. They seem to be tied to what I experienced in my dream as one is more of a feminine nature than the other but its hard to understand where the line is in having fun and being serious that tie to mine. Jung says that the anima is a feminine type of personality that is more active in men than women and the animus is a more male dominate one and is more active in women than men. He explains our emotional states with these as women often seem to be more illogical in their choices than men and are more emotional, as men are more moody from seriousness to wanting to have fun. I think how he figures out which one is feminine and witch one is masculine by studying ancient mythological images and how humans have tied those type of personalities to either male or female figures.

In the aspect of the self its a bit more confusing to me and I truly dont have an understanding of what he talks about in his writing in this section besides of what we know. The self is active at all times and seems to work in conjunction of the ego to hold things together. Maybe when we are developed the sense of self is one of the first things to develop and later the personalities. Thats only speculation my behalf.

Over all Jung has become one of my mentors in psychology and dreaming and I hope to share more of my understanding in the future.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

research on dreams

Lucid Dreaming Paper

I have been working on a paper for the last few weeks about lucid dreaming, how to do it, and what are the positive and negatives about the subject. Its hardly perfect but I wanted to post what I had and ill edit it over the next few weeks.

How to Be a Lucid Dreamer


Lucid dreaming

Lucid dreaming is the realization that one is dreaming (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997). Though the definition of lucid dreaming may be simple, the ability to be lucid inside of a dream is another matter entirely.  So much has been the case that until recently lucid dreaming was considered nonexistent in the scientific world. It wasn’t until Stephen LaBerge’s experiments in the lucid dreaming community did it become known that lucid does occur in some individuals (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

Lucid dreaming is something that didn’t just start to occur in the last twenty years, it has been around much longer than that. In Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s book “The Tibetan Yoga’s of Dream and Sleep” he describes lucid dreaming as being an active meditation practice since the practice of meditation in the Tibetan culture was formed (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).  Though not a highly known or practiced form of meditation, lucid dreaming is still a known and taught way by the Tibetan Buddhist community of exploring the unknown areas of the human psyche.

Though lucid dreaming is a relatively new area of research into the dream research community, it is still something that there is multitude of information about in the online community as well as in books where people express their personal experiences and their own guides into how to lucid dream. Through years of personal trials and errors many of those guides have become useful for practice, as some have become useless.

Different types of lucid dreams


Lucid dreams can be broken up into a number of different groups. Robert Waggoner, author of the book “Lucid dreaming: Gateway to the inner self” describes lucid dreaming as five different levels.

  • Stage 1: Personal Play, pleasure, and pain Avoidance- In this stage the individual who becomes lucid explores the lucid dream with a sense of awe by seeking out those things in the dream world that provide the most amount of pleasure, and avoid those things that are troubling (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 2: Manipulation, Movement, and Me –In this stage the individual may be trying to explore the common lucid dreaming experience of flight (being able to fly) or may also manipulate the dream environment to be how they would like it to be (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 3: Power, Purpose, and Primacy – In this stage the individual may realize that they are in power of the dream characters and require that they obey the dreamer. The individual may also wonder what the purpose of the lucid dream and test situations to try to find out that purpose (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 4: Re-reflection, Reaching Out, and Wonder – In this stage the individual may realize that the dream characters have something to offer the dreamer and in result they ask the characters questions into insight into reality and dreaming. The individual may also ask questions that they seemly know the answers to in order to understand more of themselves as well as the dream world (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 5: Experiencing Awareness- In this stage the individual understands that something besides the “ego” is controlling the dream world. They go past the images of the dream and looks to seek to find the awareness behind the dream world (Waggoner, 2008).


The ultimate goal of a lucid dreamer can be said to want to be a stage five lucid dreamer, but often enough a lucid dream can pertain many different stages of Waggoners dreaming scale (Waggoner, 2008).  It is also not uncommon that a lucid dreamer who has been able to dream a stage five lucid dream will often dream other stages of lucid dreams again before having another stage five lucid dream. The possible cause for this is the slight loss of long term memory due to serotonin increase during REM (Hobson, 2002).

Different ways of lucid dreaming


There are a number of different guides to inducing lucid dreams that many different authors describe in their own ways. In result there seems to be an endless amount of techniques to induce lucid dreams.  A number of the most popular techniques are:

  • WILDS- Wake Induced Lucid dreams- The subject falls asleep seamlessly without losing consciousness though a series of techniques of relaxations and tricking the mind to believe that the body is asleep. The person then can experience a fully conscious lucid dream without having to realize they are dreaming.  Often these dreams are interpreted as producing Out of the Body Experiences (OBEs) because of the experiences felt while the individual’s body falls to sleep (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • MILD -Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams – The subject falls asleep and realizes they are dreaming after a type of cue is initiated inside of the dream. The subject remembers that when they see the cue they are in fact dreaming and then become aware (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • ELDI – Electronic Lucid Dream Induction – The subject uses a device that activates when they are in rapid eye movement (REM) and indicates that they are possibly dreaming. Devices such as the DreamLight shine a bright LED into the closed eyes that often shows up as a red dot inside of the dream of the subject. The subject then knows they are dreaming and becomes aware (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • DILDS – Dream Induced Lucid Dreams- The subject realizes they are dreaming after something out of the ordinary happens such as the impossible situation, or an object out of place. In result the person becomes aware they are dreaming and a lucid dream occurs (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • WBTB- Wake Back To bed- The subject in this lucid dreaming realization technique wakes up a number of times a night and focuses on the idea of producing a lucid dream. This often causes a person to remember more of their dreams and have more dreams to realize they are dreaming in. This technique is normally used in conjunction with other techniques (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • CAT- Cycle Adjustment Technique- Much like WBTB the objective of this technique is to put the body out of the normal circadian rhythm cycle. In this technique the subject goes to sleep at different times of the night “tricking” the body to fall into more REM sleep and produce more chances for an individual to remember they are dreaming (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • SILD- Supplement Induced Lucid Dreams- The subject takes a series of supplements that aims at reducing the amount of REM a person experiences during the first part of the night and extends it during the ending cycle (Yuschak, 2006). These supplements also improve recall and normal sleep processes that occur by increasing the amount of neurotransmitter a person has. This technique is used in conjunction of other lucid dream techniques to become aware (Yuschak, 2006).

  • CWILD- Caffeine-withdrawal Induced Lucid Dream- The subject uses caffeine until a addiction is formed where they end their use and produce the withdrawal symptoms. The subject then falls asleep and wakes up when they are most likely able to be in their REM cycle. They then administer a caffeine based substance and fall back to sleep. The withdrawal symptoms go away and acts as an indication to the sleeper of being in a dream. (Mortal Mist Community, 2009)


The Dream World


When an individual becomes lucid in their dreams and they experience the different stages of a lucid dream they may become more aware of a few remarkable things. The first noticeable learned experience is that in stages one through four a person only is partially lucid during a lucid dream. There is still the element of the separation between the dreamer and the creator of the lucid dream. The idea is that the lucid dreamer is the conscious mind and the director (the consciousness creating the dreaming world) is an entirely different identity or the sub-consciousness. The realization that these consciousnesses are exactly the same thing creates a perception of awareness that caused the dreamer to be fully of full lucidity inside of the dream. This makes it so that dream images are no longer needed in order for communication between the “ego” and “sub-consciousness” to communicate. There is no longer a defined line between the two and “total awareness” is possible. Those who provide us examples of these stage five lucid dreams provide little to no detail into the experience of the dream, possibly meaning that a dream without the images or verbal communication is indescribable. Until an individual obtains a stage five type of dream, there are many different experiences that a lucid dreamer may experience.

Realism

Often when a person first starts to explore a lucid dream they are often found testing the environment around them to see how real something is or not (Lucidology, 2008).  In a normal lucid dream there has been described a type of realism that is below the realism of reality (Lucidology, 2008). Often there are mistakes in the psychics of the dream world, or unrealistic characters may be involved in the dream. In cases where people experience OBE type lucid dreams, the realism is increased to another level. It is possible that the lucid dreamer’s ability to test the dream reality in OBE dreams has become reduced and lucidity lowered, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. In contrary in OBE lucid dreams the individual seems to realize more than ever that they are dreaming. Details are ever more vivid in OBE experiences than in normal lucid dreams, and testing the reality of the experience seems to fail almost in every situation. Psychics may not be exactly correct in the situation of gravity, but for the most part the rules apply the same as in waking realty.  Dream characters in OBE type lucid dreams seem to follow their own set of rules and seemingly seem far more intelligent than in normal lucid dreams. This experience of OBE lucid dreaming is often considered so real that many people have been perplexed to believe that these dreams are in fact real (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).  Though these dreams seem very real simple experiments inside of these OBE dreams have shown that they often fail simple reality tests. In the following dream I tested the reality of the dream:
Falling asleep I felt the vibrations that normally came when I knew I would have a OBE type dream. I opened my eyes and was in my room. Things seemed slower and I knew that there was a good chance I was dreaming. I walked around my room and thought that there was a chance that I was sleep walking as everything was very slow but still realistic. I feared my roommates would see me walking around the house but figured the risk was worth it and continued on my way to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I flicked on and off the light in the bathroom and it worked how it should have which caused me to believe more that I was sleep walking. I looked at my face in the mirror and noticed everything was slightly green. I walked down the stairs which lead to outside the house and saw my shoes. I positioned my shoes so that when I awoke the next day that I would see I was sleep walking. I continued outside where the sky was full of amazing stars and supernovas. After a while of walking around I lost my lucidity and had a long dream. I awake and checked my shoes. They were not positioned in any strange manor and I noticed that the temperature outside was around 15* which would have caused me to wake up if I went outside in my sleeping cloths.

Though in my experience I thought the dream was real I still was unable to produce any results where the dream interacted with reality. Theories have been presented that when we have an OBE our minds tend to create a world that resembles the one which we went to sleep in. Often there is a portal (a door or window) in these dreams that when we walk through them (or fly through them) we are transported into a dream world that is unique. It is unknown why these dreams seem so much more real than other types of lucid dreams, but it could be hypothesized that the area of the brain which deals with long-term memory is still very active. This could be because of the result of the improper sleep process of the WILD type dream. Often people who experience OBEs experience vibrations, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, as well as sleep paralysis.

Characters

Dream characters can be as dynamic as the dreams themselves. Often these dream characters can be broken into a few groups:

Mindless- this type of dream character seems to be pre-programmed to do a number of tasks but when asked questions can only reply with a fixed number of replies and often cannot perform complex tasks of any kind. These characters are easily tricked and often have little insight to the dream world, assuming that they too are awake. Some examples of this type of dream character can be described in a number of dreams I had:
I dreamed I was at a college in Boise and noticed that I was dreaming. Knowing I was lucid I decided to go find people and ask them questions. I found a large church and went inside. Inside were a number of people all doing homework. I asked them what they were doing and they replied with “Doing homework.” They had no other answer besides that and no description of what homework they were doing.

I became lucid in a building that I was dreaming of. I saw a number of people around me and asked them if they wanted to see a magic trick. They said sure. I said I could make a million dollars appear with the words abracadabra. I said abracadabra and then nothing happened. The dream characters expressed how lame the trick was, but I expressed for them to wait a moment. Soon enough a woman with a suitcase walked down the stairs and she opened it with the result of a million dollars inside. The dream characters asked how I did it and I replied, it’s magic.

Intelligent- These dream characters can answer complex questions that the dreamer may not know the answer to.  They often are insightful to dream world as well as reality and can be asked questions that the dreamer doesn’t seem to know the answers to. Some examples of this type of dream character can be described in a number of dreams I had:
I had a OBE type experience and was fully lucid. I went to the door to the outside of my house and walked through it. I met a older woman which told me her name was Jabooty. I asked her if I had known her before, she said yes. I asked her what I should do with my life and she said that it’s very simple what we should all do with our lives, we should enjoy it and take care of it. She said she had to go because she was playing games with some kids.

I dreamed I was at work and then noticed that my hair was acting funny and then became aware of dreaming. I looked around the building for a panda because I had intended to find a panda before I had fallen to sleep. I found the panda but it was a person with dark eyes and dark ears. I laughed at the idea and he laughed too. I asked him about the reality of dreams and he told me that dreams were real and not real at the same time. He said that dreams were a way for our subconscious mind to communicate with other people’s sub-consciousness and dreams were a visual representation of that.  I found it interesting and continued on my dream.

Dwellers- the last type of lucid dream characters are what I describe as the dwellers. These dream characters often resemble monsters or feelings of fright in a lucid dream and are often not any more intelligent than mindless dream characters. They often present themselves during sleep paralysis or during a lucid dream that the dreamer is actively trying to control. Often they are found in OBE type lucid dreams and though often don’t actively attack the dreamer they provide the dreamer to produce fearful thoughts.  Often dwellers are described as sitting on ones chest and pushing down on the dreamer making it hard to breathe (Lucidology, 2008). Often bells, screeching metal, or the shuffling of feet across the floor are heard before a dweller is hallucinated. The experience of the dweller often is experienced by portal object (door or window) being opened with the dreamer unable to move due to sleep paralysis.

Many common monsters of our day are attributed to dweller based experiences. The succubus, vampires, old hag, and even the term nightmare derive from the word Mara which means The Crusher which is termed after the experience of sleep paralysis.

Though not much research has been spent into understanding these dweller based characters, it has been theorized that they are a form of negative emotions produced by the mind. In some cases lucid dreamers have been known to accept these characters and they often go away. When the lucid dreamer awakes after accepting these types of characters they often feel better about themselves and rarely have these character experiences. Some examples of this type of dream character can be described in a number of dreams I had:
I awoke in my room and noticed a shadow like figure in my room. I ran at the figure to try to scare it way or to destroy it. After a number of attempts the figure dissolved.

I awoke in my room and walked down the hall. I knew I was dreaming with a type of OBE dream and remembered I wanted to face my fears and accept it. I thought about seeing that dweller based dream character and it appeared. I was fearful but walked up to the character and asked it what it wanted. It stated that it was unsatisfied. I asked it what it was unsatisfied about. It said it didn’t know but was just unsatisfied. I then saw another dweller character and it walked towards us. We all sat down on the ground and I molded them into each other like clay. They then both disappeared.  I woke up feeling refreshed and happier.

Though these groups of dream characters are defined there are many different variations of them inside of dreams. Some dwellers are intelligent and perform complex strategies to try to scare the individual as they become actively aggressive. There are also mindless based dream characters that have the capacity to learn and become somewhat intelligent.  In a dream world environment there is truly an endless amount of possibilities with complex and different characters.

How to Lucid Dream


There are countless amounts of guides online a books that will tell you that they know best on how to lucid dream. As lucid dreaming has become much more popular in the last twenty years, people have produced seminars on how to lucid dream and help those who can’t remember dreams start to explore the wonderful world of the imagination.  After reviewing many of these books and sights it has become ever increasingly apparent that there are a few practices that are common throughout all guides.

Remembering dreams

The biggest part and maybe the only part that is important in lucid dreaming are remember your dreams (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997). It’s very possible that all of us have lucid dreams every night we go to sleep, but we don’t remember any of them because we don’t remember our dreams, or in enough detail (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997)(Berrett & McNamara, 2007). According to Allen Hobson and his theory on sleep with his Activation-synthesis hypothesis, the area of our brain that controls long term memory shuts down (Hobson, 2002). With this process shut down we may shortly remember our dreams while we are dreaming, but when we wake up we soon forget (Hobson, 2002). Often in a night we have a number of dreams and many of these dreams we don’t even realize we have because of this exact process. To overcome this problem a number of techniques have been created in order to increase the ability of the dreamer to remember their dreams.  They are listed by importance and put into easy groups for those who are the hobbyist lucid dreamers and expert groups for those who don’t mind losing a little sleep to obtain their lucidity:

Easy Groups

Set and setting: Though the term is used for those who experiment with psychoactive drugs, the dream experience is much of the same type of situation. Make sure you are sleeping in a comfortable situation. Keep things that will irritate your sleeping out of the bedroom. Keeping lights off will help with your eyes not picking up photo waves as the pineal gland is photosensitive and will not produce melatonin (a natural sleep aid) when it detects light.  How you position your body also has a great deal on how you may lucid dream. Lying on the side has said to produce more normal dreams as lying on the back may produce more OBE type lucid dreams (Lucidology, 2008).

Dream journals: Keeping a dream journal is maybe the number one most important aspect of all lucid dreaming guides because it seems to helps to keep active our long term memory during sleep. It increases our motivation to remember dreams and there for increases our dream recall ability while in sleep and outside (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). It may have also other altering affects as we have more intelligence to realize we are dreaming while we are in the dream world.

Mediation on awareness: Being aware of your daily life is very important in becoming lucid. Paying attention to things that you are doing at a very single moment creates a focus on the reality of the situation and also allows for the dreamer to realize they are dreaming when reality changes. Practice clearing the mind by focusing on breathing as is done in meditational practices is one way of increasing awareness. Focusing on an object or focusing on breathing while awake is one of the greatest ways of increasing your dream recall and becoming lucid (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).

Aware of the processes of sleep: Understanding what your body does before it goes to sleep is an important aspect of understanding when you are asleep. This technique helps in the WILD type of lucid dreaming because it allows for consciousness to know when the body is asleep and you are dreaming without becoming un-conscious. The body will twitch often when you are about to fall asleep, temperature changes will occur and images will start to appear with the eyes closed. Often laying on the back while practicing breathing techniques (meditating on breathing) will cause an OBE preceded by sleep paralysis and possibly a hypnotic hallucination, such as a dweller.  You can also purposely twitch your body like it does before you fall asleep to sometimes trick the mind to believing it’s ready for dreaming.

Waking often: Foods and Drinks: What you eat and drink before you go to bed is very important to if you will have any lucid dreams or not.  If you have a heavy night of drinking the night before you will awake to often remember having a lot of dreams. This is because alcohol increases the amount of serotonin in your system and serotonin does not allow for REM to occur until it’s out of your system.  Once the serotonin is out of your system you have what is called REM relapse where REM occurs for a longer than normal period at the end of the sleep cycle at the point when you will awake. Even though REM rebound is ideal situation while trying to remember a lucid dream alcohol also produces a lot of negative effects.  Drinking milk or eating fish before going to bed will naturally increase the amount of serotonin in your body and allow for REM rebound. Supplements such as 5-HTP are precursors (where your body naturally converts the chemical into another substance) to serotonin and can be taken before going to bed.

Expert Group

Changing the cycle of sleep: Just like it’s good to mix up your work outs when you are trying to build muscle, it’s good to mix up the times you go to sleep to build lucid dreams. Your body and mind start to remember what time it’s normal to go to bed and the processes put into motion to make it so you have a good night’s sleep without remembering your dreams. If you mix up the sleep cycle then the mind may not be fully asleep when you don’t want it to, making it so you have a better chance to be lucid.

Supplemental support: In Thomas Yuschaks book “Advanced Lucid dreaming: the power of supplements” he lists a number of supplements that he experimented with in order to increase his lucid dreaming (Yuschak, 2006). After experimenting with these supplements my colleague and I have found that the supplements that support acetylcholine, serotonin, and histamine production are the most productive for lucid dreaming as they are used naturally as neurotransmitters during sleep (Yuschak, 2006).

Caffeine: Coffee as well as other caffeine based stimulants help produce a number of chemicals that help with sleep, if taken in small amounts. Caffeine has been shown to increase adenosine in the body, which helps to convert serotonin into melatonin in the pineal gland in the brain. Melatonin is one of the bodies best sleep aids and is produced while the eyes are closed due to the light sensitive of pineal gland (Oneirology, 2009).

Serotonin: as discussed earlier, serotonin helps with reducing REM until later in the sleep cycle. Using 5-HPT is a good way of increasing your serotonin production. Serotonin also has benefits during the waking day as it’s known to reduce depression, elevate mood, and reduce the need to over eat (Yuschak, 2006).

Acetylcholine: this neurotransmitter helps with memory and is tied directly to modulate levels of wakefulness (Yuschak, 2006). Choline salts are good supplements to be used to increase the amount of acetylcholine in the system but I much more prefer an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor called galantamine (Yuschak, 2006). A acetylcholinesterase inhibitor makes it so that the normal breakdown of acetylcholine is reduced and allows for the buildup of acetylcholine in the brain. Galantamine is used to help reduce the affects of Alzheimer’s and seems to improve the ability to recall and remember things better (Yuschak, 2006).

Histamines: though histamines are not talked about often in the lucid dreaming community, they are quite frankly maybe the most important. Histamines are tied to being one of easiest ways of releasing serotonin into the body as well as releasing a substance called PDG2 into the system that is theorized to be the cause of sleep activation.  Niacin or vitamin b-3 is a good supplement for this, however; it must obtain the flush ability (Barrett & McNamara, 2007). The flush causes a rash type of feeling over the body that is the release of serotonin and PDG2 into the system. It is frankly one of the best sleeping pills that my colleagues and I have found that’s over the counter.

Having the right supplements seems to be half the battle as using them at the correct time is also just as important. The best technique for the use of these supplements is by using the WBTB system as follows:

  • A day before: Have some type of caffeinated foods, drinks, or supplements. This will produce a later withdrawal.

  • The day before: Don't use use any caffeinated substances a day before or in a time peirod that will be needed in order to produce the withdrawal symptoms during sleep.

  • At bedtime: Take a 5-HTP or a Niacin supplement combination. This will increase the ability to have WILD type lucid dreams as well as allowing you to remember your dreams later in the night after you wake up the second time.*Note niacin causes a niacin flush that will make your body feel warm as though having a reaction. It’s best not to move very much after taking the supplement combination.

  • 2 Hours after sleep: Wake up, take an additional 5-HTP along with an galantamine supplement as well as a small form of caffeine. This will increase memory and sleep cycle proficiency along with increasing the REM rebound about 4 hours into sleep.


*Note- Removing the CWILD type instructions is also an option to produce lucid dreams. The CWILD is just one of the most effective way of having lucid dreams.

Make sure not to do this technique every night or if you are not going to get more than 6 hours of sleep.

An important note here is to make sure that the supplements that use are safe for the individual to use. A doctor must be consulted before any levels of supplements are used to insure that there will be no reactions. Only recommended use must also be maintained.

Daily ritual timeline

In order to practice lucid dreaming to the point of having common occurrence lucid dreaming experience, there is a easy to follow timeline of systematic events that will lead to this conclusion.

  • A.        Supplements/Mediation) Prior to sleep the individual takes a supplement combination of niacin and serotonin. The person relaxes in a meditative state with a breathing technique that allows them to be calm and ready for sleep.

  • B.        Sleep occurs after the meditation practice is complete.

  • C.        The person awakes after 2 hours of sleep allowing for the body to become rested and ready for the lucid dream. The awakening allows for the taking of the additional supplement galantamine. A meditation practice is then used to calm the mind and allow for sleep again.

  • D.        A highly likely occurrence of a WILD type lucid dream is prominent at this point of the night because of the relaxation from meditation support of the galantamine supplement in produce REM stages of sleep, and the support of the serotonin supplement reducing REM earlier during the nights rest.

  • E.         The person can attempt to produce a number of WILD dreams by repeating steps C and D until the end of the sleep process.

  • F.         After awaking the person will write down their dreams in the journal that they experienced that night as well as how they slept and the things they would like to improve on in the next night. This will help to reaffirm the goal of having a lucid dream.


These steps are illustrated in figure 1.

Figure 1.



Understanding the body

Understanding how the body feels when a person is falling asleep as well as when the body is experiencing different events related to lucid dreaming is also very important. Some of the experiences can be terrifying as well as confusing and can cause a lucid dream to become negative or end suddenly if poorly understood. Relaxation during these events often results in a meaningful and sometimes blissful experience (Lucidology, 2008).

Ready to sleep feelings

Ready to sleep feelings are the experiences of the mind interpreting the body being ready to sleep. Twitching and jerking is a common occurrence right before sleep. Some techniques of lucid dreaming encourage individuals to try to trick their body into being ready to dream by imitating the twitching (Lucidology, 2008). I have found this to be not helpful in most cases.  Temperature change is common before sleep due to the body naturally exhausting heat during this phase of relaxation (Roger, Bowes, Lushington ,& dawson, 2009). Hypnotic Hallucinations are common right before sleep and are often tied to WILD type lucid dreaming. Images may be seen with the eyes closed as well as intrusive thoughts that don’t make sense.

WILD and OBE feelings

There are a number of experiences that are felt when having a WILD or OBE type lucid dream that are often confusing and terrifying. Buzzing sounds are often heard before or during sleep paralysis and are a good indicator that a WILD or OBE type lucid dream is about to occur (Lucidology, 2008). Hypnotic hallucinations, paralysis, extreme vibrations and a sense of floating often are tied to these types of dreams as well.

The benefits and negatives of lucid dreaming


The benefits of being able to lucid dream are truly endless based on the belief system of the person and their cultural. Some persons believe that through lucid dreaming you can travel to other worlds or become enlightened much like the Buddhist culture believes Siddhārtha Gautama did in his meditational practice. Other lucid dreamers take the more western approach of believing that lucid dreamers have the ability to communicate with the sub consciousness.

Enlightenment

The Tibetan Buddhist practice in dream yoga has only one purpose, to become enlightened and end suffering.  The Buddhist believe that life is based on a cycle of death and rebirth and that in order to end the never ending cycle one must understand that the true reality of consciousness is based off of dualisms and a type of psychological drape that covers up what true reality is (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). It takes years of study into the philosophical beliefs of the Buddhist to really understand what their true beliefs are to give them full justice, however; lucid dreaming in the Tibetan culture is one way of ending this rebirth cycle (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). In order to do this one must realize that the dream world is made up of purely images produced by the sub consciousness or what they call the awareness (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). Once the dreamer realizes that the dream world is an illusion then they can experience true awareness dreams called white light dreams. These white light dreams ultimately lead to the understanding of reality and enlightenment (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).

Some people are gifted lucid dreamers and have amazing experiences in the dream world.  This approach to lucid dreaming can allow those individuals to have a more meaningful spiritual life through their experiences in the understanding of reality.

Traveling to other worlds

Many lucid dreamers that experience OBE truly believe that these dreams have an alternate reality to them. The reality of our world ends once they travel through the portal in the real world (a window or door in their house or place of sleep) and are then able to travel to other worlds and experience real events in those realities. These individuals have said to have experienced saving other worlds from destruction and taken part in Star Wars like experiences across the universe.

The benefits from these experiences are that the dreamer can have a more adventures life however we can see many problems that are produced psychologically from this experience. As a very important part of lucid dreaming is to understand that reality is still a very important big part of a person’s life and that negative actions in reality have very real long lasting consequences. Because of the degree of the realistic dreams, at times individuals have had problems determining the difference between reality and dreams.

Sub conscious communication

The greatest benefit from lucid dreaming and OBE experiences are the ability to communicate with the mind in a very visual and unusual way. During the dream states experiments can be conducted to find out the limitations of the narrator based dream creator that illustrates the dream world and manifest the dream characters.  A true personal relationship with the sub consciousness can be achieved through lucid dreaming, something that Sigmund Freud expressed was impossible. Through these experiments alternate theories of the sub copiousness models like those provided by Carl Jung have slowly become more realistic view into how the sub consciousness works (Gustav, & Shamdasani, 2009).

Conclusion


Lucid dreaming is a complex and for most individuals an extremely challenging form of dreaming to master. There are many different ways to lucid dream and many different types of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming can be extremely gratifying in one’s life by supporting the understanding reality, understanding self and overcoming fears with little to no negative effects.  With continuing research into the area of lucid dreaming, we can better understand the subconscious thoughts something that was deemed impossible by many psychiatrists. Truly lucid dreaming has become one of the final frontiers to explore.

References

Barrett, D., & McNamara, P. (2007). The New Science of Dreaming. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Gustav, C, & Shamdasani, S. (2009). The red book. W W Norton & Co Inc.

Hobson, A. J. (2002). The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness. MIT Press.

LaBerg, Stephen, & Rheingold, Howard (1997). Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.Ballantine Books.

Lucidology, (2008). Lucid Dream Forum, OBE Forum. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from Saltcube Lucid Dream and OBE Forum Web site: http://www.saltcube.com

Mortal Mist Community. (2009, October 5). caffeine--the overlooked lds? . Retrieved from http://mortalmist.com/forum/lucid-aids/caffeine-the-overlooked-lds/

Oneirology. (2009).  Strassman interview. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from http://lucidconsciousness.com/?p=107

Rogers, N. L., Bowes, J., Lushington, k., & Dawson, D. (2009). Thermoregulatory changes around the time of sleep onset. Physiology & Behavior, 90, 643-647.

Waggoner, R. (2008). Lucid dreaming: gateway to the inner self. Red WheelWeiser.

Wangyal, T, Wangyal, T, & Dahlby, M. (1998). The tibetan yogas of dream and sleep. Snow Lion Pubns.

Yuschak, T. (2006). Advanced Lucid Dreaming - The Power of Supplements. Lulu.com

Lucid Dreaming Paper

I have been working on a paper for the last few weeks about lucid dreaming, how to do it, and what are the positive and negatives about the subject. Its hardly perfect but I wanted to post what I had and ill edit it over the next few weeks.

How to Be a Lucid Dreamer


Lucid dreaming

Lucid dreaming is the realization that one is dreaming (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997). Though the definition of lucid dreaming may be simple, the ability to be lucid inside of a dream is another matter entirely.  So much has been the case that until recently lucid dreaming was considered nonexistent in the scientific world. It wasn’t until Stephen LaBerge’s experiments in the lucid dreaming community did it become known that lucid does occur in some individuals (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

Lucid dreaming is something that didn’t just start to occur in the last twenty years, it has been around much longer than that. In Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s book “The Tibetan Yoga’s of Dream and Sleep” he describes lucid dreaming as being an active meditation practice since the practice of meditation in the Tibetan culture was formed (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).  Though not a highly known or practiced form of meditation, lucid dreaming is still a known and taught way by the Tibetan Buddhist community of exploring the unknown areas of the human psyche.

Though lucid dreaming is a relatively new area of research into the dream research community, it is still something that there is multitude of information about in the online community as well as in books where people express their personal experiences and their own guides into how to lucid dream. Through years of personal trials and errors many of those guides have become useful for practice, as some have become useless.

Different types of lucid dreams


Lucid dreams can be broken up into a number of different groups. Robert Waggoner, author of the book “Lucid dreaming: Gateway to the inner self” describes lucid dreaming as five different levels.

  • Stage 1: Personal Play, pleasure, and pain Avoidance- In this stage the individual who becomes lucid explores the lucid dream with a sense of awe by seeking out those things in the dream world that provide the most amount of pleasure, and avoid those things that are troubling (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 2: Manipulation, Movement, and Me –In this stage the individual may be trying to explore the common lucid dreaming experience of flight (being able to fly) or may also manipulate the dream environment to be how they would like it to be (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 3: Power, Purpose, and Primacy – In this stage the individual may realize that they are in power of the dream characters and require that they obey the dreamer. The individual may also wonder what the purpose of the lucid dream and test situations to try to find out that purpose (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 4: Re-reflection, Reaching Out, and Wonder – In this stage the individual may realize that the dream characters have something to offer the dreamer and in result they ask the characters questions into insight into reality and dreaming. The individual may also ask questions that they seemly know the answers to in order to understand more of themselves as well as the dream world (Waggoner, 2008).

  • Stage 5: Experiencing Awareness- In this stage the individual understands that something besides the “ego” is controlling the dream world. They go past the images of the dream and looks to seek to find the awareness behind the dream world (Waggoner, 2008).


The ultimate goal of a lucid dreamer can be said to want to be a stage five lucid dreamer, but often enough a lucid dream can pertain many different stages of Waggoners dreaming scale (Waggoner, 2008).  It is also not uncommon that a lucid dreamer who has been able to dream a stage five lucid dream will often dream other stages of lucid dreams again before having another stage five lucid dream. The possible cause for this is the slight loss of long term memory due to serotonin increase during REM (Hobson, 2002).

Different ways of lucid dreaming


There are a number of different guides to inducing lucid dreams that many different authors describe in their own ways. In result there seems to be an endless amount of techniques to induce lucid dreams.  A number of the most popular techniques are:

  • WILDS- Wake Induced Lucid dreams- The subject falls asleep seamlessly without losing consciousness though a series of techniques of relaxations and tricking the mind to believe that the body is asleep. The person then can experience a fully conscious lucid dream without having to realize they are dreaming.  Often these dreams are interpreted as producing Out of the Body Experiences (OBEs) because of the experiences felt while the individual’s body falls to sleep (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • MILD -Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams – The subject falls asleep and realizes they are dreaming after a type of cue is initiated inside of the dream. The subject remembers that when they see the cue they are in fact dreaming and then become aware (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • ELDI – Electronic Lucid Dream Induction – The subject uses a device that activates when they are in rapid eye movement (REM) and indicates that they are possibly dreaming. Devices such as the DreamLight shine a bright LED into the closed eyes that often shows up as a red dot inside of the dream of the subject. The subject then knows they are dreaming and becomes aware (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • DILDS – Dream Induced Lucid Dreams- The subject realizes they are dreaming after something out of the ordinary happens such as the impossible situation, or an object out of place. In result the person becomes aware they are dreaming and a lucid dream occurs (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • WBTB- Wake Back To bed- The subject in this lucid dreaming realization technique wakes up a number of times a night and focuses on the idea of producing a lucid dream. This often causes a person to remember more of their dreams and have more dreams to realize they are dreaming in. This technique is normally used in conjunction with other techniques (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • CAT- Cycle Adjustment Technique- Much like WBTB the objective of this technique is to put the body out of the normal circadian rhythm cycle. In this technique the subject goes to sleep at different times of the night “tricking” the body to fall into more REM sleep and produce more chances for an individual to remember they are dreaming (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997).

  • SILD- Supplement Induced Lucid Dreams- The subject takes a series of supplements that aims at reducing the amount of REM a person experiences during the first part of the night and extends it during the ending cycle (Yuschak, 2006). These supplements also improve recall and normal sleep processes that occur by increasing the amount of neurotransmitter a person has. This technique is used in conjunction of other lucid dream techniques to become aware (Yuschak, 2006).

  • CWILD- Caffeine-withdrawal Induced Lucid Dream- The subject uses caffeine until a addiction is formed where they end their use and produce the withdrawal symptoms. The subject then falls asleep and wakes up when they are most likely able to be in their REM cycle. They then administer a caffeine based substance and fall back to sleep. The withdrawal symptoms go away and acts as an indication to the sleeper of being in a dream. (Mortal Mist Community, 2009)


The Dream World


When an individual becomes lucid in their dreams and they experience the different stages of a lucid dream they may become more aware of a few remarkable things. The first noticeable learned experience is that in stages one through four a person only is partially lucid during a lucid dream. There is still the element of the separation between the dreamer and the creator of the lucid dream. The idea is that the lucid dreamer is the conscious mind and the director (the consciousness creating the dreaming world) is an entirely different identity or the sub-consciousness. The realization that these consciousnesses are exactly the same thing creates a perception of awareness that caused the dreamer to be fully of full lucidity inside of the dream. This makes it so that dream images are no longer needed in order for communication between the “ego” and “sub-consciousness” to communicate. There is no longer a defined line between the two and “total awareness” is possible. Those who provide us examples of these stage five lucid dreams provide little to no detail into the experience of the dream, possibly meaning that a dream without the images or verbal communication is indescribable. Until an individual obtains a stage five type of dream, there are many different experiences that a lucid dreamer may experience.

Realism

Often when a person first starts to explore a lucid dream they are often found testing the environment around them to see how real something is or not (Lucidology, 2008).  In a normal lucid dream there has been described a type of realism that is below the realism of reality (Lucidology, 2008). Often there are mistakes in the psychics of the dream world, or unrealistic characters may be involved in the dream. In cases where people experience OBE type lucid dreams, the realism is increased to another level. It is possible that the lucid dreamer’s ability to test the dream reality in OBE dreams has become reduced and lucidity lowered, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. In contrary in OBE lucid dreams the individual seems to realize more than ever that they are dreaming. Details are ever more vivid in OBE experiences than in normal lucid dreams, and testing the reality of the experience seems to fail almost in every situation. Psychics may not be exactly correct in the situation of gravity, but for the most part the rules apply the same as in waking realty.  Dream characters in OBE type lucid dreams seem to follow their own set of rules and seemingly seem far more intelligent than in normal lucid dreams. This experience of OBE lucid dreaming is often considered so real that many people have been perplexed to believe that these dreams are in fact real (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).  Though these dreams seem very real simple experiments inside of these OBE dreams have shown that they often fail simple reality tests. In the following dream I tested the reality of the dream:
Falling asleep I felt the vibrations that normally came when I knew I would have a OBE type dream. I opened my eyes and was in my room. Things seemed slower and I knew that there was a good chance I was dreaming. I walked around my room and thought that there was a chance that I was sleep walking as everything was very slow but still realistic. I feared my roommates would see me walking around the house but figured the risk was worth it and continued on my way to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I flicked on and off the light in the bathroom and it worked how it should have which caused me to believe more that I was sleep walking. I looked at my face in the mirror and noticed everything was slightly green. I walked down the stairs which lead to outside the house and saw my shoes. I positioned my shoes so that when I awoke the next day that I would see I was sleep walking. I continued outside where the sky was full of amazing stars and supernovas. After a while of walking around I lost my lucidity and had a long dream. I awake and checked my shoes. They were not positioned in any strange manor and I noticed that the temperature outside was around 15* which would have caused me to wake up if I went outside in my sleeping cloths.

Though in my experience I thought the dream was real I still was unable to produce any results where the dream interacted with reality. Theories have been presented that when we have an OBE our minds tend to create a world that resembles the one which we went to sleep in. Often there is a portal (a door or window) in these dreams that when we walk through them (or fly through them) we are transported into a dream world that is unique. It is unknown why these dreams seem so much more real than other types of lucid dreams, but it could be hypothesized that the area of the brain which deals with long-term memory is still very active. This could be because of the result of the improper sleep process of the WILD type dream. Often people who experience OBEs experience vibrations, auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, as well as sleep paralysis.

Characters

Dream characters can be as dynamic as the dreams themselves. Often these dream characters can be broken into a few groups:

Mindless- this type of dream character seems to be pre-programmed to do a number of tasks but when asked questions can only reply with a fixed number of replies and often cannot perform complex tasks of any kind. These characters are easily tricked and often have little insight to the dream world, assuming that they too are awake. Some examples of this type of dream character can be described in a number of dreams I had:
I dreamed I was at a college in Boise and noticed that I was dreaming. Knowing I was lucid I decided to go find people and ask them questions. I found a large church and went inside. Inside were a number of people all doing homework. I asked them what they were doing and they replied with “Doing homework.” They had no other answer besides that and no description of what homework they were doing.

I became lucid in a building that I was dreaming of. I saw a number of people around me and asked them if they wanted to see a magic trick. They said sure. I said I could make a million dollars appear with the words abracadabra. I said abracadabra and then nothing happened. The dream characters expressed how lame the trick was, but I expressed for them to wait a moment. Soon enough a woman with a suitcase walked down the stairs and she opened it with the result of a million dollars inside. The dream characters asked how I did it and I replied, it’s magic.

Intelligent- These dream characters can answer complex questions that the dreamer may not know the answer to.  They often are insightful to dream world as well as reality and can be asked questions that the dreamer doesn’t seem to know the answers to. Some examples of this type of dream character can be described in a number of dreams I had:
I had a OBE type experience and was fully lucid. I went to the door to the outside of my house and walked through it. I met a older woman which told me her name was Jabooty. I asked her if I had known her before, she said yes. I asked her what I should do with my life and she said that it’s very simple what we should all do with our lives, we should enjoy it and take care of it. She said she had to go because she was playing games with some kids.

I dreamed I was at work and then noticed that my hair was acting funny and then became aware of dreaming. I looked around the building for a panda because I had intended to find a panda before I had fallen to sleep. I found the panda but it was a person with dark eyes and dark ears. I laughed at the idea and he laughed too. I asked him about the reality of dreams and he told me that dreams were real and not real at the same time. He said that dreams were a way for our subconscious mind to communicate with other people’s sub-consciousness and dreams were a visual representation of that.  I found it interesting and continued on my dream.

Dwellers- the last type of lucid dream characters are what I describe as the dwellers. These dream characters often resemble monsters or feelings of fright in a lucid dream and are often not any more intelligent than mindless dream characters. They often present themselves during sleep paralysis or during a lucid dream that the dreamer is actively trying to control. Often they are found in OBE type lucid dreams and though often don’t actively attack the dreamer they provide the dreamer to produce fearful thoughts.  Often dwellers are described as sitting on ones chest and pushing down on the dreamer making it hard to breathe (Lucidology, 2008). Often bells, screeching metal, or the shuffling of feet across the floor are heard before a dweller is hallucinated. The experience of the dweller often is experienced by portal object (door or window) being opened with the dreamer unable to move due to sleep paralysis.

Many common monsters of our day are attributed to dweller based experiences. The succubus, vampires, old hag, and even the term nightmare derive from the word Mara which means The Crusher which is termed after the experience of sleep paralysis.

Though not much research has been spent into understanding these dweller based characters, it has been theorized that they are a form of negative emotions produced by the mind. In some cases lucid dreamers have been known to accept these characters and they often go away. When the lucid dreamer awakes after accepting these types of characters they often feel better about themselves and rarely have these character experiences. Some examples of this type of dream character can be described in a number of dreams I had:
I awoke in my room and noticed a shadow like figure in my room. I ran at the figure to try to scare it way or to destroy it. After a number of attempts the figure dissolved.

I awoke in my room and walked down the hall. I knew I was dreaming with a type of OBE dream and remembered I wanted to face my fears and accept it. I thought about seeing that dweller based dream character and it appeared. I was fearful but walked up to the character and asked it what it wanted. It stated that it was unsatisfied. I asked it what it was unsatisfied about. It said it didn’t know but was just unsatisfied. I then saw another dweller character and it walked towards us. We all sat down on the ground and I molded them into each other like clay. They then both disappeared.  I woke up feeling refreshed and happier.

Though these groups of dream characters are defined there are many different variations of them inside of dreams. Some dwellers are intelligent and perform complex strategies to try to scare the individual as they become actively aggressive. There are also mindless based dream characters that have the capacity to learn and become somewhat intelligent.  In a dream world environment there is truly an endless amount of possibilities with complex and different characters.

How to Lucid Dream


There are countless amounts of guides online a books that will tell you that they know best on how to lucid dream. As lucid dreaming has become much more popular in the last twenty years, people have produced seminars on how to lucid dream and help those who can’t remember dreams start to explore the wonderful world of the imagination.  After reviewing many of these books and sights it has become ever increasingly apparent that there are a few practices that are common throughout all guides.

Remembering dreams

The biggest part and maybe the only part that is important in lucid dreaming are remember your dreams (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997). It’s very possible that all of us have lucid dreams every night we go to sleep, but we don’t remember any of them because we don’t remember our dreams, or in enough detail (Laberg & Rheingold, 1997)(Berrett & McNamara, 2007). According to Allen Hobson and his theory on sleep with his Activation-synthesis hypothesis, the area of our brain that controls long term memory shuts down (Hobson, 2002). With this process shut down we may shortly remember our dreams while we are dreaming, but when we wake up we soon forget (Hobson, 2002). Often in a night we have a number of dreams and many of these dreams we don’t even realize we have because of this exact process. To overcome this problem a number of techniques have been created in order to increase the ability of the dreamer to remember their dreams.  They are listed by importance and put into easy groups for those who are the hobbyist lucid dreamers and expert groups for those who don’t mind losing a little sleep to obtain their lucidity:

Easy Groups

Set and setting: Though the term is used for those who experiment with psychoactive drugs, the dream experience is much of the same type of situation. Make sure you are sleeping in a comfortable situation. Keep things that will irritate your sleeping out of the bedroom. Keeping lights off will help with your eyes not picking up photo waves as the pineal gland is photosensitive and will not produce melatonin (a natural sleep aid) when it detects light.  How you position your body also has a great deal on how you may lucid dream. Lying on the side has said to produce more normal dreams as lying on the back may produce more OBE type lucid dreams (Lucidology, 2008).

Dream journals: Keeping a dream journal is maybe the number one most important aspect of all lucid dreaming guides because it seems to helps to keep active our long term memory during sleep. It increases our motivation to remember dreams and there for increases our dream recall ability while in sleep and outside (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). It may have also other altering affects as we have more intelligence to realize we are dreaming while we are in the dream world.

Mediation on awareness: Being aware of your daily life is very important in becoming lucid. Paying attention to things that you are doing at a very single moment creates a focus on the reality of the situation and also allows for the dreamer to realize they are dreaming when reality changes. Practice clearing the mind by focusing on breathing as is done in meditational practices is one way of increasing awareness. Focusing on an object or focusing on breathing while awake is one of the greatest ways of increasing your dream recall and becoming lucid (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).

Aware of the processes of sleep: Understanding what your body does before it goes to sleep is an important aspect of understanding when you are asleep. This technique helps in the WILD type of lucid dreaming because it allows for consciousness to know when the body is asleep and you are dreaming without becoming un-conscious. The body will twitch often when you are about to fall asleep, temperature changes will occur and images will start to appear with the eyes closed. Often laying on the back while practicing breathing techniques (meditating on breathing) will cause an OBE preceded by sleep paralysis and possibly a hypnotic hallucination, such as a dweller.  You can also purposely twitch your body like it does before you fall asleep to sometimes trick the mind to believing it’s ready for dreaming.

Waking often: Foods and Drinks: What you eat and drink before you go to bed is very important to if you will have any lucid dreams or not.  If you have a heavy night of drinking the night before you will awake to often remember having a lot of dreams. This is because alcohol increases the amount of serotonin in your system and serotonin does not allow for REM to occur until it’s out of your system.  Once the serotonin is out of your system you have what is called REM relapse where REM occurs for a longer than normal period at the end of the sleep cycle at the point when you will awake. Even though REM rebound is ideal situation while trying to remember a lucid dream alcohol also produces a lot of negative effects.  Drinking milk or eating fish before going to bed will naturally increase the amount of serotonin in your body and allow for REM rebound. Supplements such as 5-HTP are precursors (where your body naturally converts the chemical into another substance) to serotonin and can be taken before going to bed.

Expert Group

Changing the cycle of sleep: Just like it’s good to mix up your work outs when you are trying to build muscle, it’s good to mix up the times you go to sleep to build lucid dreams. Your body and mind start to remember what time it’s normal to go to bed and the processes put into motion to make it so you have a good night’s sleep without remembering your dreams. If you mix up the sleep cycle then the mind may not be fully asleep when you don’t want it to, making it so you have a better chance to be lucid.

Supplemental support: In Thomas Yuschaks book “Advanced Lucid dreaming: the power of supplements” he lists a number of supplements that he experimented with in order to increase his lucid dreaming (Yuschak, 2006). After experimenting with these supplements my colleague and I have found that the supplements that support acetylcholine, serotonin, and histamine production are the most productive for lucid dreaming as they are used naturally as neurotransmitters during sleep (Yuschak, 2006).

Caffeine: Coffee as well as other caffeine based stimulants help produce a number of chemicals that help with sleep, if taken in small amounts. Caffeine has been shown to increase adenosine in the body, which helps to convert serotonin into melatonin in the pineal gland in the brain. Melatonin is one of the bodies best sleep aids and is produced while the eyes are closed due to the light sensitive of pineal gland (Oneirology, 2009).

Serotonin: as discussed earlier, serotonin helps with reducing REM until later in the sleep cycle. Using 5-HPT is a good way of increasing your serotonin production. Serotonin also has benefits during the waking day as it’s known to reduce depression, elevate mood, and reduce the need to over eat (Yuschak, 2006).

Acetylcholine: this neurotransmitter helps with memory and is tied directly to modulate levels of wakefulness (Yuschak, 2006). Choline salts are good supplements to be used to increase the amount of acetylcholine in the system but I much more prefer an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor called galantamine (Yuschak, 2006). A acetylcholinesterase inhibitor makes it so that the normal breakdown of acetylcholine is reduced and allows for the buildup of acetylcholine in the brain. Galantamine is used to help reduce the affects of Alzheimer’s and seems to improve the ability to recall and remember things better (Yuschak, 2006).

Histamines: though histamines are not talked about often in the lucid dreaming community, they are quite frankly maybe the most important. Histamines are tied to being one of easiest ways of releasing serotonin into the body as well as releasing a substance called PDG2 into the system that is theorized to be the cause of sleep activation.  Niacin or vitamin b-3 is a good supplement for this, however; it must obtain the flush ability (Barrett & McNamara, 2007). The flush causes a rash type of feeling over the body that is the release of serotonin and PDG2 into the system. It is frankly one of the best sleeping pills that my colleagues and I have found that’s over the counter.

Having the right supplements seems to be half the battle as using them at the correct time is also just as important. The best technique for the use of these supplements is by using the WBTB system as follows:

  • A day before: Have some type of caffeinated foods, drinks, or supplements. This will produce a later withdrawal.

  • The day before: Don't use use any caffeinated substances a day before or in a time peirod that will be needed in order to produce the withdrawal symptoms during sleep.

  • At bedtime: Take a 5-HTP or a Niacin supplement combination. This will increase the ability to have WILD type lucid dreams as well as allowing you to remember your dreams later in the night after you wake up the second time.*Note niacin causes a niacin flush that will make your body feel warm as though having a reaction. It’s best not to move very much after taking the supplement combination.

  • 2 Hours after sleep: Wake up, take an additional 5-HTP along with an galantamine supplement as well as a small form of caffeine. This will increase memory and sleep cycle proficiency along with increasing the REM rebound about 4 hours into sleep.


*Note- Removing the CWILD type instructions is also an option to produce lucid dreams. The CWILD is just one of the most effective way of having lucid dreams.

Make sure not to do this technique every night or if you are not going to get more than 6 hours of sleep.

An important note here is to make sure that the supplements that use are safe for the individual to use. A doctor must be consulted before any levels of supplements are used to insure that there will be no reactions. Only recommended use must also be maintained.

Daily ritual timeline

In order to practice lucid dreaming to the point of having common occurrence lucid dreaming experience, there is a easy to follow timeline of systematic events that will lead to this conclusion.

  • A.        Supplements/Mediation) Prior to sleep the individual takes a supplement combination of niacin and serotonin. The person relaxes in a meditative state with a breathing technique that allows them to be calm and ready for sleep.

  • B.        Sleep occurs after the meditation practice is complete.

  • C.        The person awakes after 2 hours of sleep allowing for the body to become rested and ready for the lucid dream. The awakening allows for the taking of the additional supplement galantamine. A meditation practice is then used to calm the mind and allow for sleep again.

  • D.        A highly likely occurrence of a WILD type lucid dream is prominent at this point of the night because of the relaxation from meditation support of the galantamine supplement in produce REM stages of sleep, and the support of the serotonin supplement reducing REM earlier during the nights rest.

  • E.         The person can attempt to produce a number of WILD dreams by repeating steps C and D until the end of the sleep process.

  • F.         After awaking the person will write down their dreams in the journal that they experienced that night as well as how they slept and the things they would like to improve on in the next night. This will help to reaffirm the goal of having a lucid dream.


These steps are illustrated in figure 1.

Figure 1.



Understanding the body

Understanding how the body feels when a person is falling asleep as well as when the body is experiencing different events related to lucid dreaming is also very important. Some of the experiences can be terrifying as well as confusing and can cause a lucid dream to become negative or end suddenly if poorly understood. Relaxation during these events often results in a meaningful and sometimes blissful experience (Lucidology, 2008).

Ready to sleep feelings

Ready to sleep feelings are the experiences of the mind interpreting the body being ready to sleep. Twitching and jerking is a common occurrence right before sleep. Some techniques of lucid dreaming encourage individuals to try to trick their body into being ready to dream by imitating the twitching (Lucidology, 2008). I have found this to be not helpful in most cases.  Temperature change is common before sleep due to the body naturally exhausting heat during this phase of relaxation (Roger, Bowes, Lushington ,& dawson, 2009). Hypnotic Hallucinations are common right before sleep and are often tied to WILD type lucid dreaming. Images may be seen with the eyes closed as well as intrusive thoughts that don’t make sense.

WILD and OBE feelings

There are a number of experiences that are felt when having a WILD or OBE type lucid dream that are often confusing and terrifying. Buzzing sounds are often heard before or during sleep paralysis and are a good indicator that a WILD or OBE type lucid dream is about to occur (Lucidology, 2008). Hypnotic hallucinations, paralysis, extreme vibrations and a sense of floating often are tied to these types of dreams as well.

The benefits and negatives of lucid dreaming


The benefits of being able to lucid dream are truly endless based on the belief system of the person and their cultural. Some persons believe that through lucid dreaming you can travel to other worlds or become enlightened much like the Buddhist culture believes Siddhārtha Gautama did in his meditational practice. Other lucid dreamers take the more western approach of believing that lucid dreamers have the ability to communicate with the sub consciousness.

Enlightenment

The Tibetan Buddhist practice in dream yoga has only one purpose, to become enlightened and end suffering.  The Buddhist believe that life is based on a cycle of death and rebirth and that in order to end the never ending cycle one must understand that the true reality of consciousness is based off of dualisms and a type of psychological drape that covers up what true reality is (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). It takes years of study into the philosophical beliefs of the Buddhist to really understand what their true beliefs are to give them full justice, however; lucid dreaming in the Tibetan culture is one way of ending this rebirth cycle (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). In order to do this one must realize that the dream world is made up of purely images produced by the sub consciousness or what they call the awareness (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998). Once the dreamer realizes that the dream world is an illusion then they can experience true awareness dreams called white light dreams. These white light dreams ultimately lead to the understanding of reality and enlightenment (Wangyal, Wangyal, & Dahlby, 1998).

Some people are gifted lucid dreamers and have amazing experiences in the dream world.  This approach to lucid dreaming can allow those individuals to have a more meaningful spiritual life through their experiences in the understanding of reality.

Traveling to other worlds

Many lucid dreamers that experience OBE truly believe that these dreams have an alternate reality to them. The reality of our world ends once they travel through the portal in the real world (a window or door in their house or place of sleep) and are then able to travel to other worlds and experience real events in those realities. These individuals have said to have experienced saving other worlds from destruction and taken part in Star Wars like experiences across the universe.

The benefits from these experiences are that the dreamer can have a more adventures life however we can see many problems that are produced psychologically from this experience. As a very important part of lucid dreaming is to understand that reality is still a very important big part of a person’s life and that negative actions in reality have very real long lasting consequences. Because of the degree of the realistic dreams, at times individuals have had problems determining the difference between reality and dreams.

Sub conscious communication

The greatest benefit from lucid dreaming and OBE experiences are the ability to communicate with the mind in a very visual and unusual way. During the dream states experiments can be conducted to find out the limitations of the narrator based dream creator that illustrates the dream world and manifest the dream characters.  A true personal relationship with the sub consciousness can be achieved through lucid dreaming, something that Sigmund Freud expressed was impossible. Through these experiments alternate theories of the sub copiousness models like those provided by Carl Jung have slowly become more realistic view into how the sub consciousness works (Gustav, & Shamdasani, 2009).

Conclusion


Lucid dreaming is a complex and for most individuals an extremely challenging form of dreaming to master. There are many different ways to lucid dream and many different types of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming can be extremely gratifying in one’s life by supporting the understanding reality, understanding self and overcoming fears with little to no negative effects.  With continuing research into the area of lucid dreaming, we can better understand the subconscious thoughts something that was deemed impossible by many psychiatrists. Truly lucid dreaming has become one of the final frontiers to explore.

References

Barrett, D., & McNamara, P. (2007). The New Science of Dreaming. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Gustav, C, & Shamdasani, S. (2009). The red book. W W Norton & Co Inc.

Hobson, A. J. (2002). The Dream Drugstore: Chemically Altered States of Consciousness. MIT Press.

LaBerg, Stephen, & Rheingold, Howard (1997). Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.Ballantine Books.

Lucidology, (2008). Lucid Dream Forum, OBE Forum. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from Saltcube Lucid Dream and OBE Forum Web site: http://www.saltcube.com

Mortal Mist Community. (2009, October 5). caffeine--the overlooked lds? . Retrieved from http://mortalmist.com/forum/lucid-aids/caffeine-the-overlooked-lds/

Oneirology. (2009).  Strassman interview. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from http://lucidconsciousness.com/?p=107

Rogers, N. L., Bowes, J., Lushington, k., & Dawson, D. (2009). Thermoregulatory changes around the time of sleep onset. Physiology & Behavior, 90, 643-647.

Waggoner, R. (2008). Lucid dreaming: gateway to the inner self. Red WheelWeiser.

Wangyal, T, Wangyal, T, & Dahlby, M. (1998). The tibetan yogas of dream and sleep. Snow Lion Pubns.

Yuschak, T. (2006). Advanced Lucid Dreaming - The Power of Supplements. Lulu.com