From:
jeremyhdonovan@gmail.com
Comments on quotes from the 1994 book:
'Lucid Dreaming - The Paradox Of Consciousness During Sleep'
by Celia Green and Charles McCreery
Celia Green was Director of the Institute of Psychophysical Research
at Oxford, and Charles McCreery was a Ph.D. Research Officer at the
same organization. Green also wrote one of the earliest scholarly
books on LD in 1968 (Lucid Dreams).
Green:
"The mere fact of being aware of the possibility of lucid dreams
may be sufficient for a person to start having them."
Agreed. Yet I had my first three or four LDs *before* hearing about
that possibility (in the mid-1970's), although the experiences were
few and far between at first.
I also know my dad had a few lucid experiences in the early 1960's
(without calling them that of course). Three times in childhood
I recall waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of my
dad calling out my name in a far-away "ghostly" tone from his
own room, and when I got up out of bed and came into his room
I could then hear him imploring me - in the same far-away sounding
muffled voice (in retrospect, as if he could barely move his mouth) -
to "wake me up!" After I'd shake and wake him, he'd tell me he'd
been having a nightmare and that he realized it yet couldn't manage
to wake up, so he was calling to me to help him wake up.
I find that a bit remarkable now since most body muscles are
paralyzed in dreaming, and yet he was able to call out
(it is even possible that he had surfaced to a state of
sleep paralysis (but even there it would be hard to talk).
I did not obtain enough info from him to analyze it well.
Anyway, he almost certainly had never read a thing about
lucid dreaming, yet clearly he knew he was dreaming while
inside some kind of nightmare, therefore he was lucid,
albeit not lucid enough to realize nightmares can't harm you
and neither can sleep paralysis if you just relax.
The point: I know some LDs do just happen... naturally.
Green:
"On the other hand, few people become habitual or frequent lucid
dreamers without some degree of deliberate effort or intention."
Yes. So, while the baseline for analyzing LD frequency may well be
"the mere fact of being aware of the possibility", I'd also agree
that increased frequency of LD begins with the definite intention
to do it, regardless of the method used. Having the intention to
do LD is common to *all* formal methods, MILD, WILD, DILD, etc.
That may seem terribly obvious, but I think it needs to be noted.
*Intention* to be awake in a dream is the common denominator
of all LD methods.
Green:
"Nevertheless, it is possible that some kinds of subjects have a
particular aptitude in this direction."
Agree again. Some people hardly ever remember their ordinary
dreams. Only about 50% of people report ever having a lucid dream.
To me, that is to be expected. People have different aptitudes
and talents. This is one reason it's unwise to insist upon any
particular method of LD or insist that it's "bad" to use aids
or devices to assist with LD. For some, it might even be the
only possible way to succeed.
(Aside: Eventually, scientists may even learn enough to create
a device that just 'zaps' a human brain into the ideal brain
state immediately, making it available to 100% of the people
at any desired time. We don't know; that's not so far-fetched.)
It is interesting to note that Green even tried to define a dream
state she called "pre-lucid dreaming", which is where "the dreamer
asks himself whether or not he may be dreaming, and may or may not
come to the correct conclusion (that he is)."
But in my experience, any time you find yourself seriously asking
"am I dreaming?", when it's not done merely as an exercise - i.e.
you're asking because you *really* wonder - 99% of the time when
that happens you ARE dreaming. :) And almost always, any time
you come to ask yourself naturally "am I dreaming?", then within
only a few moments after asking you will find some way to KNOW.
For these reasons, I don't think it's necessary to focus on the
"pre-lucid" state. And this term didn't ever catch on. It is,
however, indicative of how carefully Green approaches most issues.
Green notes that false awakenings "may occur following both lucid
and non-lucid dreams" and points out that the subsequent discovery
that one was still dreaming "may occur while one is still asleep,
in which case a lucid dream may ensue, or may not occur until
one wakes up".
Notice how many different cases this generates:
Ordinary Dream --> False awakening --> Ordinary Dream
Lucid Dream --> False awakening --> Lucid Dream
Ordinary Dream --> False Awakening --> Lucid Dream
Lucid Dream --> False Awakening - Ordinary Dream
And all 4 scenarios can repeat. Green even adds another
distinguishing trait, which is that all dreams that ensue
after a false awakening can seem either realistic or
non-realistic. Yes indeed.
Green also points out that many of these same 'cases' can arise
in connection with sleep paralysis - even noting the possibility
that a subject who believes his eyes are open and seeing the real
room (while being paralyzed and unable to move) may not always
really be seeing the real room (and this similar to OBE)
Again, I agree. Adding this to the mix gives rise to complex
possible scenarios such as:
Ordinary Dream --> Sleep Paralysis --> Lucid Dream
False Awakening --> Ordinary Dream (where you believe
you're awake yet are still dreaming) --> Lucid Dream
(where again you realize you're dreaming) --> Awake.
etc. etc. It's easy to see how many possible combos there are.
Been there, done all sorts of things like this, over and over.
Green discusses in detail several issues that connect and/or
differentiate different reported states: OBEs, LDs, waking dreams, hallucinations, apparitions, sleep paralysis, etc.
And now it starts becoming more interesting to me...
Green:
"Some subjects have regarded certain types of false awakening
as equivalent to out-of-the-body experiences."
As I've said before, many of my experiences seemed that way,
at least at first (usually morphing eventually into LD when
I was able to hold onto the state long enough).
Then Green tries to distinguish between these 'seeming OBEs'
and LD, and in so doing she lays the background for a theory:
"A lucid dreamer, by our definition... is determined by the awareness
that he is dreaming; whereas the subject of an OBE may or may not
be aware of the hallucinatory nature of his experience."
Green points out that seeming OBEs make people believe they
are not dreaming since they provide "a greater sense of reality
and vividness". Nevertheless, she also observes that:
"in one respect the lucid dreamer is in a more realistic frame
of mind... since the lucid dreamer is not under a temptation
to confuse the experience with waking life."
Green continues by pointing out that any dream scene - experienced
lucidly or not - can "faithfully mimic the subject's real environment".
Absolutely. I've had that happen to me shitloads of times.
She makes one more preliminary observation:
"It is worth noting that according to Oswald (1962) it is quite
possible for short episodes of sleep lasting a few seconds to occur
while the subject's eyes remain open throughout."
Iow, people can go to sleep without fully realizing they did
and without it being in any way obvious that they did. And also
recall, many of LaBerge's WILDs in the sleep lab were recorded
as initiated during what he called "micro-awakenings" (verified
by the electrophysiological state).
Green now states a theory, based on all the evidence she's covered,
which is a lot (and I haven't presented anywhere near all of it -
above is a bare outline; I'm not going to type in her whole book):
"Stage 1 is the first stage of sleep into which one enters
when leaving the waking state, whereas REM sleep usually only
occurs after one has passed through both Stage 1 and SWS stages
[SWS = Slow Wave Sleep, i.e. it is Stage 3 and 4 deep sleep).
There are two differences between REM and Stage 1 sleep which
are important for our present discussion. First, rapid eye movements
are usually absent in Stage 1; and secondly, Stage 1, like SWS,
is not characterized by the extreme motor inhibition of REM sleep.
In other respects, REM and Stage 1 sleep are considered by some
writers to be similar to each other. REM sleep is indeed sometimes
referred to as 'ascending' or 'emergent' Stage 1 sleep to convey
the fact that electrophysiologically it shows a considerable
resemblance to 'descending' Stage 1...
These phenomenological data [referring to several chapters of data]
would appear to fit well with the hypothesis that most but not all
OBEs occur in conjunction with a form of Stage 1 sleep, while most
but not all lucid dreams occur in association with REM sleep..."
"The subject of an OBE will quite commonly assert that 'it was
nothing like a dream'. However, lucid dreams and false awakenings
can be 'nothing like a dream' in the same sense..."
This is all precisely in line with all of my own experience
and with my own theory which I arrived at independently based
on all my experiences.
As can see, unless you've been ignoring everything I said before,
Green's theory is extremely similar to my own. I didn't realize this
until a couple of weeks ago when I sat down and read one of her books
I'd owned for years but had only skimmed in the past.
Here in adc, I've theorized that WILD usually occurs in Stage 1
(yet sometimes DILD can occur there too), and that DILD usually
occurs in REM (but WILD can sometimes too since WILD has been
recorded in what are called "microawakenings" in the sleep labs).
So-called OBEs simply fall into the same pattern as WILDs.
That all fits perfectly with Celia Green's theory quoted above.
All I can say is that I'm happy to learn that over 20 years ago
there was an Oxford Dream Researcher who arrived at a theory of
DILD, WILD, and OBE that's *very* similar to a theory I arrived
at independently and hold today. :)
.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)