Lucid Dreaming Part 8

Since the sensations of movement during dream spinning are as completely vivid as those during actual movements, it is very likely that the same brain systems are being activated to a similar degree in the two cases. An intriguing possibility is that the spinning technique stimulates the vestibular system of the brain, and thereby facilitates the activity of the nearby components of the REM-sleep system. Since neuroscientists have obtained indirect evidence for the involvement of the vestibular system in the production of rapid-eye-movement bursts in REM sleep,24 the proposed connection is not entirely without foundation.

On the other side of the psychophysiological coin, Barbara Lerner has emphasized the importance of movement during dreaming to maintain the integrity of the body image.25 If movement is a psychological function of dreaming, as Lerner suggests, there ought to be a mechanism connecting such imagery with the physiology of REM sleep. Moreover, since imagery of one particular sense decreases sensitivity to external stimulation of the same sense, hallucinated movement ought to suppress actual body sensation, and hence help prevent awakening. If the brain is fully engaged in producing the vivid, internally generated sensory experience of spinning, it will be more difficult for it to construct a contradictory sensation based on external sensory input. This is an example of what is called "loading stabilization" of a system. Charles Tart described this with an a.n.a.logy: "If you want someone to be a good citizen you keep him busy with the activities that const.i.tute being a good citizen, so he has no time or energy for anything else."26 In these terms, "being a good citizen" means continuing to dream, and the "activities" mean dream spinning.

Another technique-less effective than spinning-works on the same principle, by focusing attention on something in the dream. Moers-Messmer described, in 1938, the technique of looking at the ground to stabilize his lucid dreams, and several others have apparently discovered this technique independently since then, including Scott Sparrow and Carlos Castaneda. "Don Juan's" variation on the theme was, of course, the famous technique of looking at one's hand.

Another way to prevent awakening or loss of lucidity is to stabilize the state of consciousness through "positive feedback." In Tart's a.n.a.logy, this is rewarding the citizen for carrying out whatever activities are considered desirable. Several methods proposed for stabilizing the lucid dream state appear to fall under this cla.s.sification. For example, there is the suggestion of using an affirmation that constantly reminds you of the dream state (repeating "This is a dream, this is a dream," and so on). Another idea is to "go with the flow" of the dream, not attempting to alter the drift of dream events. My spinning technique also involves positive feedback, if the neurophysiological explanation I gave above is correct. If dream spinning results in brain-stem facilitation of REM sleep, then we have a case of dream activity-spinning-resulting in more dream activity.

A third way of stabilizing a state of consciousness-in this case, a lucid dream-is called "limiting stabilization," and is described by Tart as limiting the citizen's opportunities for engaging in undesirable activities. In the context of lucid dreaming, "undesirable activities" are awakening or losing lucidity. A number of methods that have been proposed for stabilizing lucid dreams probably have limiting stabilization as their basis. Some people have recommended exercising, to obtain deeper sleep, and eating well and avoiding indigestion. Others have suggested using earplugs, or sleeping alone. It is universally recommended that you avoid emotional conflict and do not get too excited in your lucid dreams. Finally, lucid dreamers have been advised not to "daydream" or think too much during the dream and not to lose themselves in the dream.

A Coherent Knowledge of Sleep Life?

We have so far considered some of the wide variety of forms taken by lucid dreaming. However, what we have seen so far may represent only the tip of the iceberg: lucid dreaming may be capable of a far greater degree of development than has yet been seen in Western psychology.

The claim is often made by yogis and other specialists in "inner states" that they are able to retain consciousness throughout the entire night, including during dreamless sleep. Wrote a twentieth-century Indian master, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, "... it is even possible to become wholly conscious in sleep and follow throughout from beginning to end or over large stretches the stages of our dream-experience; it is found that then we are aware of ourselves pa.s.sing from state after state of consciousness to a brief period of luminous and peaceful dreamless rest, which is the true restorer of the energies of the waking nature, and then returning by the same way to the waking consciousness. It is normal, as we thus pa.s.s from state to state, to let the previous experiences slip away from us; in their turn only the more vivid or those nearest to the waking surface are remembered: but this can be remedied-a greater retention is possible or the power can be developed of going back in memory from dream to dream, from state to state, till the whole is once more before us. A coherent knowledge of sleep-life, though difficult to achieve or to keep established, is possible [my italics]."27

This is a very exciting possibility that would-if proven true-have profound implications for the scientific study of sleep, dreaming, and consciousness. As for the proof, it remains only for such a wakeful sleeper to spend a night in a sleep laboratory!

The problem with claims of continuous awareness during sleep is that we cannot be conscious of being unconscious. The moments or hours we pa.s.s unconsciously are forever veiled in oblivion. Not only do we fail to remember them, but we also forget that we forgot them! The fact is, we are normally fully conscious of our selves and our actions only for brief moments, even while being what we call "awake." But in spite of the fact that we are only occasionally conscious of our selves, we experience ourselves as being continuously present. This is because our minds operate in such a fashion as to construct coherence and continuity out of our experiences. Thus we gloss over the blank spots in our consciousness. Since the first thing we remember when emerging from unconsciousness or sleep is the last thing we were conscious of, we may mistakenly a.s.sume that our consciousness was never lost.

In spite of these reservations, I see no reason in principle why a higher development of the human mind could not result in a continuity of consciousness throughout sleep, as described by Aurobindo. Such an advanced level of consciousness would only reveal itself after an extensive course of mental discipline. But we may well be able to learn to dream with degrees of lucidity and control as yet undreamt of.

6.

Learning Lucid Dreaming

The vast majority of people have enormous potentialities of thinking, far beyond anything ordinarily suspected; but so seldom do the right circ.u.mstances by chance surround them to require their actualization that the vast majority die without realizing more than a fraction of their powers. Born millionaires, they live and die in poverty for the lack of favourable circ.u.mstances which would have compelled them to convert their credit into cash.

A. R. ORAGE.

Learning to Dream

Just as we ordinarily take for granted that we know how to think, we may also presume that we know how to dream. But there are vast differences in the degree to which these two faculties are developed in different people. What the above quote says about thinking applies, I believe, just as much to dreaming. We possess undeveloped, undreamed-of capacities. Like conscious thought, lucid dreaming is an ability that can be gained or improved by training. This chapter outlines the kind of training required, and in so doing provides you with the key to lucid dreaming.

In order to recognize that you are dreaming, you need first of all to have a concept of what dreaming is. What happens when you "realize you are dreaming" will depend upon what you understand "dreaming" to be. To ill.u.s.trate this point, let us look at the typical developmental stages children pa.s.s through in acquiring a concept of dreaming.

According to the celebrated developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, children pa.s.s through three stages of understanding of dreams. In the first stage, attained between ages three and four, children do not distinguish dreams from waking life; thus a child believes that dreaming takes place in the same (external) world as the rest of his or her experiences. At this age, a child might awake in terror from a nightmare and believe that dream "monsters" are in the room. Parents' a.s.surances that it was "just a dream" are not greatly effective at this stage. The child needs to be shown that, say, the closet is actually empty.

Between the ages of approximately four and six-and after sufficient experiences with awakening from dreams that are denied reality by parental figures-children modify their concept of dreaming. Now they know that what was happening was "just a dream." However, they don't know exactly what "just a dream" is. A child treats dreams, at this stage, as if they were partially external and partially internal. He or she might reply, for instance, if asked where dreams come from, "My head." But when asked where dreams take place, the same child might say, "In my bedroom."

Somewhere between the ages of five and eight, this transitional stage gives way to the third stage, in which the child recognizes the dream as entirely internal in nature. The child now considers dreams to take place only in his or her head. In other words, they are now conceived of as purely mental experiences.

These developmental stages refer, of course, to how the child views the dream after waking up. While asleep and dreaming, children and adults alike tend to remain at the first stage, implicitly a.s.suming that dream events are external reality. This is the dominant a.s.sumption of ordinary, non-lucid dreams.

People not uncommonly have the experience, in dreams, of seeming to have temporarily separated from their physical bodies. These "out-of-body experiences" with their somewhat contradictory mixture of the mental and the material, may provide examples of the second developmental stage. In the typical experience, you apparently find yourself in a sort of mental body floating around in what seems to be the physical world. This is reminiscent of the mixed metaphysics regarding dreams displayed by children at Piaget's second stage.

In a fully lucid dream, the dreamer reaches the third stage, realizing that the experience is entirely mental and that the dream world is completely distinct from the physical world. To be lucid in this sense presupposes that the dreamer has reached Piaget's third level and knows that dreams are only mental experiences. Since this is attained by some children at age five, we should expect that lucid dreams might appear as early as that age; indeed, my first lucid dreams took place at just that age, and many lucid dreamers report their first experiences beginning between the ages of five and seven.

Potential for Lucid Dreaming

Can anyone learn to have lucid dreams? Does it take some special talent possessed by a gifted minority, or is this remarkable ability merely one of the everyday miracles of the human brain?

This question has the same answer as the question, "Who can learn to talk?" Everyone attains as much proficiency in his or her native tongue as is required for everyday speech; beyond that, the degree of fluency depends upon motivation, practice, and innate ability. The degree of language mastery exhibited by great writers and poets far surpa.s.ses the level with which the ordinary person is content, and what I have said regarding this skill applies a.n.a.logously to the skill of lucid dreaming. The Shakespeares of lucid dreaming are bound to be few, but why shouldn't everyone be able to attain at least some proficiency in the field?

In my view there are two essential requirements for learning lucid dreaming: motivation and good dream recall. The necessity of motivation is obvious enough: lucid dreaming, after all, demands considerable control of attention, and hence we must be motivated to exert the necessary effort. As for dream recall, if A. M. Nesia recalls no dreams at all, and we a.s.sume one percent of the dreams he has forgotten are lucid, how many lucid dreams does he recall? The answer, obviously, is none-since unless we remember some dreams, how can we remember lucid ones?

Dream Recall

In order to have a lucid dream and know about it when you awaken, of course you have to remember your dream. For one thing, the more frequently you remember dreams, and the clearer and more detailed your pictures become, the more likely you are to remember lucid dreams. The more familiar you become with what your own dreams are like, the easier you will find it to recognize them as dreams while they happen. Thus, if you want to learn to dream lucidly, you need first of all to learn to reliably recall your dreams. (Incidentally, there is probably a good reason why dreams are so hard to remember: see Chapter 8.)

One of the most important determinants of dream recall is motivation. For the most part, those who want to remember their dreams can do so, and those who do not want to do not. For many people, simply having the intention to remember, reminding themselves of this intention just before bed, is enough. One effective way to strengthen this resolve is to keep a dream journal beside your bed and record whatever you can remember of your dreams every time you wake up. As you record more dreams, you will remember more dreams. Reading over your dream journal can provide an added benefit: the more familiar you become with what your dreams are like, the easier it will be for you to recognize one while it is still happening and therefore to awaken in your dream.

An infallible method for developing your ability to remember dreams is to get in the habit of asking yourself, every time you wake up, "What was I dreaming?" This must be your first thought upon awakening; otherwise, you will forget some or all of the dream due to interference from other thoughts. You must not give up too quickly if nothing is recalled at first, but persist patiently in the effort to remember, without moving or thinking of anything else, and in most cases, pieces and fragments of the dream will come to you. If you still cannot remember a dream, ask yourself what you were just thinking and how you are feeling. Examining your thoughts and feelings in this way can often provide the necessary cues for retrieving the entire dream.

In developing dream recall, as with any other skill, progress is sometimes slow. It is important not to be discouraged if you do not succeed at first. Each of us masters the ability to recall our dreams at our own rate. But virtually everyone who stays with it improves through practice. As the saying puts it, "If you want to be a calligrapher, then write, and write, and write." If you want to be a dream recaller, then try and try and try to remember.

Learning Lucid Dreaming

Let us suppose that you are capable of remembering your dreams often enough to appreciate how rarely you are lucid in them. Your occasional lucid dreams might be likened to finding money on the street-a rare, though nonetheless rewarding experience. Cultivating the skill of lucid dreaming corresponds, in this a.n.a.logy, to developing a gainful means of employment with which to earn the money. If this sounds like work, it is; and it requires a certain amount of discipline at first, but it becomes easier-even effortless-with practice.

Try to remember what learning to speak was like: it was simply impossible at first to do more than babble. But with days after days and years after years of practice, you have now so mastered the skill that you are able to talk without thinking.

Maybe you haven't yet said your first word in lucid dreaming, or maybe you've just said your first sentence. Can you realistically expect someday to be an effortlessly fluent lucid dreamer? That, I say, depends on you.

You may wonder whether it is possible to learn to dream lucidly at will. My own experience has shown me that it is. That it took me two-and-a-half years is probably due to the fact that n.o.body taught me how. Since I did not have a very clear idea at first of what I was doing, I wasted much of my time and effort. With the induction method that I finally developed, I believe anyone who is motivated can be successful in learning how to dream lucidly, and in a fraction of the time it took me. But before I describe this method, I will first briefly summarize what has already been written on learning to dream lucidly.

Eastern religious and psychological writings contain a number of hints and suggested methods for lucid dreaming. As far as I know, the earliest recorded mention of lucid dreaming as a learnable skill is found in the eighth-century Tibetan ma.n.u.script The Yoga of the Dream State, which outlines several methods for inducing lucid dreams. However, unless you are an advanced yogi, capable of complex visualizations of Sanskrit letters in many-petaled colored lotuses, most of the methods will not be of much use! Besides, the book is really intended as a students' manual to supplement the oral teachings of a dream master.

Only the first and most elementary exercise described in the ma.n.u.script is likely to be intelligible to Westerners. The technique, called "comprehending it by the power of resolution,"1 involves two practices. First of all, during the day the novice is instructed to think continuously, that "all things are of the substance of dreams." This practice makes use of the effect waking experiences have on the dreams of subsequent nights. Moreover, we tend to dream about our current concerns. The practice also helps to remove one of the most effective barriers to lucidity: namely, that if we never question the nature of our experience during the waking state, why should we do so during the dream state? Thinking of waking experience as dreaming will break the automatic habits with which we are used to seeing and thinking about life. The mental flexibility that results from waking practice facilitates lucidity in the dream state.

The second technique, the "firm resolution" to "comprehend the dream state," is just as straightforward. During the night, before going to sleep, the student must invoke the aid of the guru and "firmly resolve" to comprehend the dream state-that is, to understand that it is not real, but a dream. Lucid dreaming rarely occurs without our intending it, which means having the mental set to recognize when we are dreaming; thus, intention forms a part of any deliberate effort to induce lucid dreams. And if the would-be lucid dreamer is not initially successful in his or her efforts, the ma.n.u.script exhorts him or her to make no fewer than twenty-one efforts each morning to "comprehend the nature of the dream state."

One aspect of this Tibetan technique would-if essential-severely limit its application in the West. I refer to the "prayer to the guru." It may be that the Tibetan disciple's complete trust in his or her guru results in an expectation of success that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Westerner who lacks both guru and G.o.ds may thereby be deficient in the degree of confidence necessary for success.

For the most part, modern Eastern methods for lucid dreaming are no less complex. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, an unworldly guru with sixty-two Rolls-Royces, describes three techniques that vary from the incomprehensible to the almost impossible. The first is: "With intangible breath in center of forehead, as this reaches heart at the moment of sleep, have direction over dreams," and if that is not enough-"over death itself."2

The second method is to "remember 'I am'-whatsoever you are doing."3 This is intelligible at least, and probably designed to strengthen self-consciousness and the observer's perspective. Remembering "I am" is a technique designed to produce a state of mind called "self-remembering" in esoteric psychology. "Self-remembering," wrote biochemist and esoteric psychologist Robert S. deRopp, "is a certain separation of awareness from whatever a man happens to be doing, thinking, feeling. It is symbolized by a two-headed arrow suggesting double awareness of self. There is actor and observer, there is an objective awareness of self. There is a feeling of being outside of, separated from, the confines of the physical body; there is a sense of detachment, a state of non-identification. For identification and self-remembering can no more exist together than a room can simultaneously be illuminated and dark. One excludes the other."4 This sounds so much like lucid dreaming that it is likely that the practice of self-remembering in the waking state encourages the occurrence of lucidity in the dream state.

Rajneesh's third method is simple enough if you happen to be the obsessive type. He advises the would-be lucid dreamer to "try to remember for three weeks continuously that whatsoever you are doing is just a dream."5 In my view, anyone who could remember anything at all for three weeks continuously ought to be able to do practically anything! For such a talented person, lucid dreaming should present little difficulty.

Paul Tholey, a German psychologist, has recently described various techniques for inducing lucid dreams, derived from over a decade of research involving more than two hundred subjects.6 According to Tholey, the most effective method for achieving lucidity is to develop "a critical-reflective att.i.tude" toward your state of consciousness, by asking yourself whether or not you are dreaming while you are awake. He stresses the importance of asking the critical question ("Am I dreaming or not?") as frequently as possible, at least five to ten times a day, and in every situation that seems dreamlike. Asking the question at bedtime and while falling asleep is also favorable. Following this technique, most people will have their first lucid dream within a month, Tholey reports, and some will succeed on the very first night.

Oliver Fox regarded a critical frame of mind as the key to lucid dreaming (as described in Chapter 5), and it is easy to see why asking the question "Am I dreaming or not?" ought to favor the occurrence of lucid dreams. We most often dream about familiar activities from our waking life, and if we never ask whether we are dreaming or not while awake, why should we do so while dreaming? Or, to put it more positively, the more often we critically question our state of consciousness while awake, the more likely we are to do so while dreaming.

There are several modern methods aimed at the maintaining of consciousness during the transition from waking to sleep-such as the method used by Ouspensky and Rapport. Rapport described his technique as follows: While lying in bed and drifting into sleep, he interrupted his reveries every few minutes, making an effort to recall what had been pa.s.sing through his mind a moment earlier. With sufficient practice, this habit of introspection continued into sleep, and he found himself in lucid dreams that frequently inspired "raptures of delight."

There are many variations on the technique of falling asleep while maintaining consciousness. For example, a student of Tibetan Buddhism reports having been instructed to visualize an eight-petaled rose with a white light in its center in his throat-a technique supposed to focus concentration with an intensity that allows consciousness to persist into the dream state. Tarthang Tulku, a Tibetan lama teaching in Berkeley, describes a similar procedure: After relaxing very deeply just before sleep, you are to "visualize a beautiful, soft lotus flower in your throat. The lotus has light-pink petals which curl slightly inwards, and in the center of this lotus is a luminous red-orange flame which is light at the edges shading to darker at the center. Looking very softly, concentrate on the top of the flame, and continue to visualize it as long as possible."7

The flame, Tulku explains, represents awareness; the lotus, I may add, denotes in Buddhist iconography the awakening consciousness of Self. While continuing the visualization, you are to watch how your thoughts arise, observe their interaction with the image of the lotus, and see how they are connected with the past, the present, and by projection, the future. You are to "just observe" whatever images come into your mind, but continue to concentrate on the lotus image. Thus, "as long as the thread of the visualization remains intact, it will carry over into the dream." Tarthang Tulku cautions the practioner against "trying to interpret or 'think about' your visualization." This, he warns, will break the thread and your awareness will be lost. "So, be careful not to force your visualization; just let it happen, but keep your awareness on the lotus." Finally, you are to "let the form reflect into your awareness until your awareness and the image become one." He explains that at first you will tend to pa.s.s into the dream state forgetting that you are dreaming, but with practice your consciousness "will naturally develop until you will be able to see that you are dreaming. When you watch very carefully, you will be able to see that whole creation and evolution of the dream."

Tholey8 has described three similar techniques for retaining lucidity while falling asleep. The methods are based on the general procedure of falling asleep while maintaining inner attentiveness, with variations depending upon the object of attention. In the "image technique," you focus on your hypnagogic imagery, as Ouspensky, Rapport, and others suggest. Tholey recommends allowing yourself to be pa.s.sively carried into the dream scenery rather than attempting to enter it intentionally, which tends to cause the dream to fade.

Tholey's second method, "body technique," is related to procedures aiming at producing an OBE or "astral projection" (see Chapter 9). While drifting into sleep, you simply imagine that your body is somewhere else, doing something other than lying in bed. If you find yourself vividly "elsewhere," you will be lucid if you do not forget that it is a dream. Tholey's third method of lucid dream induction, "the ego-point technique," involves concentrating, while you are falling asleep, on the idea that you will soon no longer perceive your body. As soon as you have fallen asleep, it is possible to float freely, as a point of awareness, in "a s.p.a.ce which seems to be identical with the room in which one went to sleep."