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Re: Lucid Dreaming?
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I am very puzzled by your scepticism Ed. Why should we be any less sceptical
about dreams than lucid dreams (since in both cases we confront the same
problems with verification)?
As for lucid dreaming, I managed to achieve it twice a few years ago but gave up
trying after a while. It is possible to train yourself to become conscious while
dreaming by incessantly checking that your not dreaming while your awake and
hoping the habit will transfer while you are dreaming (if you have a digital
watch you can check by seeing if the numbers on your watch make sense). A friend
of mine who was doing this at the same time as me could lucid dream on a regular
basis.
It's a very interesting phenomenon, if you're interested I recommend listening
to Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works 2', which was composed entirely whilst
lucid dreaming (or so he claims).
Andrew
> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
>
>
> I was introduced to the term Lucid Dreaming by someone I wouldn't
> exactly trust for anything scientific, as he/she has displayed a
> tendency for falling for any spiritualist nonsense, however I've run
> into (or rather "talked into") discussions on the matter with several
> other people since then, some of them trustworthy scientists (some of
> them even oxbridge dons... although that's not necessarily a
> guarantor of validity/trustworthiness :), and must admit that for all
> my skepticism, I cannot help but be a bit curious about the topic.
>
> For those unfamiliar with the topic, "lucid dreaming" is a proto-
> science (in the kuhnian sense of a theory which follows scientific
> method but, being in its infancy or embryonic state, has not been
> [entirely] validated [yet]) which is surrounded by a lot of pseudo-
> science, and deals with the state of being in a dream whilst being
> conscious of oneself being in a dream. This, obviously, not the same
> thing as simply remembering ones dream, or having a realistic dream.
>
> My skepticism on the matter stems from the fact that it seems that
> the only validating experiment is observable only from the standpoint
> of personal experience, and therefore does not really conform to the
> scientific method maxims of repeatability (the conditions change from
> individual to individual, since the act of perception is not only
> central to any experimental observation, but who is observing and
> when is as well). However I'm informed there have been some
> experiments on the matter carried out at Stanford by S. LaBerge,
> which attempt to avoid the "internalization" of observation, and
> produce scientifically verifiable (replicable) results. Such
> experiments have involved detecting REM phases in sleeping test
> subjects, and either trying to prompt lucid dreaming through photonic-
> flash cues, or simply detecting pre-arranged cues from the subject
> while they are in a "certifiable" dream (REM) state (I say
> "certifiable" because I recall reading in some paper or other that
> recent research demonstrates our ability to dream in non-REM sleep
> states).
>
> While as a (would be) scientist, I find this to be a lot less dodgy
> method for investigating the existence and essence of lucid dreaming,
> rather than taking someone's word for it, it's still very
> unsatisfactory, since it really doesn't tell us much (or anything at
> all, if you want to be rigorous about it) about what lucid dreaming
> is, and is like. This is a shame, since I believe there's quite a lot
> of interesting philosophy to be done on the matter (which, I suppose,
> it a rather obvious statement). For example, we have the notion of
> self, which we use to differentiate the thinking entity (oneself)
> from the object of thought, or potential objects of thought
> (basically, the external world... although I'm fully aware that this
> becomes problematic if you ask what we are thinking about when we
> think about concepts that bear no possible physical tokens). However,
> what is it like to be fully self-conscious within a dream, when the
> dream itself is something that is in the mind. What is it to have
> intentional states about an external environment which is in fact
> internal? Are the waking me on one hand, or the intentional,
> conscious me in a lucid dream on the other hand, the same person, or
> is the latter just a fraction of the former?
>
> Has anyone else looked into the topic at all? Whether you have or
> not, I'd be very happy to hear from you if you have any recommended
> reading on or around the topic, or have any thoughts on the matter
> that you'd like to share.
>
> All the best,
> Edward.
>
>
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--
Andrew Bacon
Lady Margaret Hall
07830048336
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~lady1900
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