Re: Lucid Dreaming?

["Tatjana Wingender" <u01tw3@abdn.ac.uk>]

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Hi,

I have heard of this phenomenon and experienced it once (as far as I can
remember) myself which was really interesting. But I didn't know anything
else about it and I'm not sure I would like to try and train myself to do
it. What for? I can imagine it being helpful in case one has a lot of
nightmares - then it might be possible to comfort oneself during having a
nightmare with the "knowledge" (? - feeling might be a better word) that
it is just a nightmare and nothing more. Fortunately I don't have a lot of
nightmares and enjoy being completely immersed in my dreams.

Anyway, I just wanted to make a few remarks regarding some of the things
you mentioned:

1)"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": I know that this notion exists but what happens when I think
about myself. Am I really split between me as the thinking entity and me
as the object I am thinking about? Maybe it's just language and brain
capability that forces us to formulate it like this (and maybe also
science in order to be able to objectify, examine and to make scientific
statements about such phenomena).

2) "what is it like to be fully self-conscious within a dream, when the
dream itself is something that is in the mind": Where is
self-consciousness located? I think it is also in the mind. Or is it in
the brain? Or are brain and mind the same thing? The old question of
duality. Where does the dreaming happen - brain or mind - and where the
self-consciousness? And if it happens in the same location then maybe
there are more layers of the brain/mind consciousness, e.g. subconscious
activities like all the things that keep the body alive and well and are
done without us thinking about it like breathing and blood-pumbing etc,
inbetween conscious activities like dreaming and fully (more or less)
conscious activities like thinking hard about philosophical problems. A
lot of activities will probably not fall exactly into any of those
categories but somewhere inbetween and there are probably more categories
possible.

3) The problem with science (at least with respect to the experiments
described below that try to find out what lucid dreaming is all about) is
- in my opinion - that scientists start from the assumption either that
brain and mind are the same thing or that there is only brain and no mind
(which leads to more or less the same result, i.e. investigate the brain
functions and you know all there is to know). But this assumption is sill
debated - at least in philosophical circles. Therefore, how good a guide
can science be?

All the best,
Tatjana


> 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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