Space Brains: Lucid Dreams

The Star Larvae Hypothesis
Nature's Plan for Humankind
Part 3. Space Brains

Lucid Dreams

Dreams remedy the otherwise impoverishing effects of sleep. Dreaming with intent extends conscious will into the unconscious.

Think you're Bright? Rise and Shine at http://starlarvae.blogspot.com/

Sleep would seem to be a brain-impoverishing condition, because it paralyzes the body, or at least it minimizes gross motor activity. But the curious thing about it is that the problem contains its own remedy. The paralysis impasse looks to be surmountable, but in "Infant Mind" Richard Restak observes that even fetal sleep can invigorate:

"Six months into the pregnancy, eye movements and breathing are linked: rapid eye movements, combined with irregular, jagged breathing. This pattern will persist throughout childhood; during periods of eye movements the breathing becomes irregular and jerky. Dreams disturb the sleep, disturb the breathing . . . this is our explanation in children and adults. But what can we say of the fetus? Does it dream as well? . . . . Indeed, what could the fetus be dreaming of? No neuroscientist, unaided by input from some Higher Authority, could ever begin to answer that question."

Higher authorities are where you find them.

When it occurs in fetuses, REM sleep—the stage named after the rapid eye movements that accompany dreaming—challenges conventional psychodynamic explanations of dreaming. The prevailing psychodynamic theories describe dreams as exercises in conflict resolution, wish fulfillment, or the "sifting through" of mental residues. What significance such psychological processing might have in the mind of a fetus is unclear. Nonetheless, at least one theory does explain REM sleep in fetuses without relying on psychodynamics. It proposes that dreaming is not primarily about psychological processes, but neurophysiological ones. In this theory dreams have the job of maintaining neural networks that are not adequately exercised during waking hours—sensorimotor feedback loops in particular. The medium is the message in this model of dreaming.

Researcher J. Allan Hobson, in "The Dreaming Brain", notes that during dreams the brain's visual and motor cortices are as active as they are during waking, although input from the eyes and output to the muscles are blocked. The high levels of neural activity, "are just what one would want if one function of REM sleep were actively to maintain basic circuits of the brain," Hobson explains. "Since our daytime repertoires are not always comprehensive in calling forth a complete set of neural actions, these circuits might otherwise suffer through disuse." The dreaming brain exercises sensorimotor feedback loops by simulating inputs and outputs—hence the sensory vividness of the dream world and its ability to call forth tireless, though simulated, activity.

If dreaming has the potential to mitigate the neurological impoverishments of sleep, then native extraterrestrials should have little to worry about in the way of sleep-induced impoverishment. Their juvenilized brains should be adept dreamers. A typical three-month-old infant spends about 40 percent of its daily sleep ration in the REM state, whereas adult brains spend only about 20 percent of their sleep time in REM. Enriched brains are predisposed to protecting their assets.

But the prospect of spending most of one’s life in REM sleep might not be one that many brain/minds would find particularly inviting, given the chaotic tumult of typical dream experience. Even this potential pitfall of brain enrichment might be simple to remedy, however. Lucidity is available to tame the tumult. Learning to become lucid in dreams and to take command of them is a capacity that seemingly anyone can develop. Indeed, lucid dreams would seem to be the progeny of sleep and wakefulness merging, a union that weightless brain enrichment is likely to encourage.

Sleep researcher Stephen LaBerge, working at Stanford University, not only has documented the existence of lucid dreaming, but also developed training methods that help sleepers trigger the experience. Lucid dreaming is the occurrence of becoming conscious of dreaming while dreaming. The adept lucid dreamer, exercising intent, can manufacture experiences to order in the dream world. LaBerge’s training method involves equipping the trainee with special goggles that signal him or her with a colored light when the trainee is in the REM phase of sleep as determined by EEG monitoring equipment. Using agreed-upon eye movements as a code, the dreamer can signal back to the outside world about events that occur in dreams. The EEG monitoring equipment verifies that the subject remains asleep during the communication.

LaBerge offers an attractive pitch: "Lucid dreamers are often overjoyed to discover that they can seemingly do anything they wish. They have, for instance, but to declare the law of gravity repealed, and they float. They can visit the Himalayas and climb to the highest peak without ropes or guides; they can even explore the solar system without a space suit." The world of lucid dreaming amounts to a vast simulation projector obedient to the dreamer's will.

Dreams are often a part of the spirituality of many people, as well as a part of Native American beliefs in some cultures. While modern research on dreams might not include the beliefs of various cultures, and perhaps the art they may draw of their dreams, sometimes seeing how a religion treats dreams can provide insight on the religion.