Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with luciddreaming

Waking Lifestyles

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:35:02 -0800

Is lucid dreaming real, or fiction? Are its practitioners and advocates fringe scientists, spiritualists or charlatans? (or all three in mixed proportion) On the one hand, there have been studies that seem to verify it (from wikipedia):

"During the 1980s, further scientific evidence to confirm the existence of lucid dreaming was produced as lucid dreamers were able to demonstrate to researchers that they were consciously aware of being in a dream state (again, primarily using eye movement signals).[9] Additionally, techniques were developed which have been experimentally proven to enhance the likelihood of achieving this state"

On the other hand, all of this research seems to have been conducted by a single psychologist , who now runs a Institute which sells many expensive machines to help you Lucid Dream or Lucid Dream in style. This strikes me as awfully convenient, and similar to other parapsychology branches' suspect techniques, yet even Skeptic's Dictionary can't find anything amiss with his practices.

What is the mainstream opinion of this area of research among psychologists and neurologists? Does Lucid Dreaming prove anything interesting about the nature of dreams or is a meaningless party trick?

(Previous threads on MF and AskMe have focused on LD anecdotes and How-tos, rather than its scientific explanation. It's clear that many many people can Lucid Dream on purpose using the methods described by Lucid Dream Institutes and others--but the anecdotes don't prove that the "experience" of consciousness and will as described by the dreamer aren't added, upon waking, to the random firings of neurons--fabricated memories of lucidity no different from any other dream. As fun as they sound [I've never purposefully induced LDs] I wonder if they are similar to the insights supposedly gained by drug experiences: the hallucinations contain the feeling of meaning, rather than any actual intellectual content, so why couldn't the memory of the dream be infused with the "feeling" that you were in control ex post facto the usual oneironautical process.)

Thanks! Hope this wasn't too long winded. I need a nap.

How can I sleepwalk more productively?

the latin mouse — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 12:47:05 -0800

I'm a sleepwalker. While asleep I can accomplish basic tasks, but nothing which requires higher brain function. I've heard of lucid dreaming; is there any way I can train myself to do simple household chores while asleep?

Lucid Dreaming as a Senior Project?

zenja72 — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:02:06 -0800

I am a high school senior right now, contemplating various senior projects for last semester. I'd like to consider learning to dream lucidly as a project. I've found in the past that I can't become lucid unless I have immense concentration, something school deteriorates. So, any ideas for structuring a senior project around learning to dream lucidly? I know I could have an electronics component (building a face mounted lucid dreaming machine), a psychology component (reading books on sleep, dreaming, lucid dreaming, etc.), a philosophy component (i.e. reality), and a biology component (various herbal supplements?). Also, how can I convince high school bureaucracy, my teachers and peers to let me try what they'll perceive as a hokey, new-agey concept? What happens if I can't learn to dream lucidly?

Tell me there's more than this!

borkingchikapa — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 22:14:54 -0800

How can I totally blow my mind? I realize this is kind of a weird and inprecise question, but bear with me here.

Some background - I've done a lot of things in my short time on this planet in an attempt to further understand myself, everyone else, and generally just become a genuinely interesting and understanding human being. Not to mention have a bit of fun along the way. I've been around the world and seen poverty, excess, and everything in between. I've taken a myriad assortment of weird drugs, always safely, always with the intent of learning about the inner reaches of my mind. I've dabbled with reasonable success in the arts of lucid dreaming and "astral projection" (with and without drugs), keeping in mind that these are scientifically explainable aspects of conciousness and not supernatural mumbo-jumbo. In the past year or so I've been messing around a bit with meditation, and getting serious about it is my resolution for 2006.

So! What types of things have you done that have totally blown your mind? What sorts of things have changed the way you think, act, feel, or just your general perception of the world around you? "Expanded your conciousness"? I'm looking more for slightly offbeat things than the "when I saw my child for the first time" stuff that happens to everybody.