WEBVTT - Oh the Lucid Dreams we Weave ... 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.520 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.880 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.279 what is the last lucid dream that you had and 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.320 what happened to it? Because I know you're you're a 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.520 lucid dreamer of old. It was like this weird. I 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.040 don't know how to even explain it. But um, I 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:28.560 didn't expect that you were going to ask me this, 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:30.840 so I'm not completely prepared. You didn't think i'd ask 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:35.080 you about your lucid dreams, like my last my last one. Well, 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:37.360 if not the last one, what what's an example that 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.440 stands out in your mind? Okay, well, how about one 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.200 where I've talked about recurring dream of a dog mulling 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:47.800 my face while I can't move right, and so eventually 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.040 got to the point where I knew that I was 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.280 dreaming and I could tell myself like I'd have a 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.200 different solution every time it happens to make the dog 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.320 stop chewing the skin off my face. So sometimes I'd 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:03.080 have to hug the dog, like embrace it back, even 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.279 though it was malling me and then it would shatter 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.399 into a thousand pieces, which is an excellent example because 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.600 because that example of a horrible dream flowing into a 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.120 lucid dream works nicely with some of the stuff we're 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.440 going to talk about here. Yeah. Yeah, And actually we've 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:18.680 had a lot of request for this topic and we 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.440 touched on it before. Yeah, we've certainly talked about in passing, 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.680 but it seems like when we covered virtual sex and 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.000 we talked about the possibility of linked dreaming, it came 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.800 up again. So Dan and Oakland, who also is as 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.400 an experienced to a lucid dreamer, he wrote us about it, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:39.640 and Joffrey talked about how awful lucid dreaming might be, 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.440 especially if we linked our dreams. Yes, I believe we 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.400 read the ladder and I have dands that I'm gonna 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.680 read at the end of Yeah. Yeah, it should be 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.760 a nice insight into this. So anyway, we wanted to 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.880 talk about it in full for you guys. All right, Well, 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.240 the term lucid obviously lucid dreaming as a thing has 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.160 existed for a very long time, but the term the 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.720 dreaming days back to nineteen and you had Dutch psychiatrist 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.080 Fedric Wilhelm von Eden. He coined the term. He identified 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.560 nine different types of dreams, which I granted I don't 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.440 have to list all nine, but I'm going to because 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.040 they're pretty awesome. Well, and he spent sixteen years of 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.960 his life studying this and coming up with these categories. Yeah, 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.640 I mean, he's an amazing dude. So number one and 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:26.920 I like to think of these as kind of like 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.760 items at a Chinese restaurant or items at a fast 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:31.840 food restaurant where you could order them up and be 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.280 like like a number one with the side of four, 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.800 but number one initial dreams. These are the very beginnings 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.880 of sleep, when the body is in a normal, healthy 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.600 condition but very tired, and the dreams sort of flew 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.880 in right off the back. Second type pathological dreams, in 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.600 which fever, indigestion, or some poison plays a role. You know, 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.280 a b bit of undigested potato, that kind of thing, Okay, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.840 too much pepperoni, right, or if you know, fever dreams 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.720 intense situations but it's due to something not being right. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:05.360 Body number three ordinary dreaming, good old vanilla dream number four, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.120 vivid dreaming. All right, it's rich, it's it's the kind 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.320 of thing you're talking about all week and boring your 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.760 significant other with like it's a car that does not 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:18.040 exist in nature and I cannot explain it. Yeah. Number 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.600 five the symbolic or mocking dream. Van Eden tells us 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:24.200 that this is the kind of dream where we get 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:28.960 this intense feeling that circumstances are being arranged or invented 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.040 by intelligent beings quote of a very low moral order. 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.240 And this also ties in erotic dreams. But there's this 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:37.600 sense that it's not just you say, like you were 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.440 encountering something else, like an external force, and that's the feeling. 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.280 He's not saying that you're actually encountering some sort of entity, 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.120 but that's the feeling that you get in the dream. Right. 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.000 Number six is the realm of dream sensations. All right, 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.560 there's no vision, there's no image, there's no event, there's 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.000 not even a word or a name, But you have 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.280 this long period of deep sleep with the mind is 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:01.520 continually occupied by one person, one place, one remarkable event, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.520 or even one abstract thought. Have you ever had one 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.560 of these? This one is outside of my dream experience, 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:09.920 I think no, I don't think so. I dream a 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.200 lot about the material that we research, so sometimes there's 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.960 a concept thore, but not just ones with such singularity 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.320 on topic. Number seven is the lucid dream, which we 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:24.000 will of course discussed in more detail. Number eight, and 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.200 this is where we get around to the Malling Dog 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.120 is what he called the demon dream, and it's always 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.840 very near before or after a lucid dream in vad 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.320 Eden's experience, and it involves something demonic, a horrific attacker, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.359 and it's just really intense. So immediately I'm reminded of 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.760 your example of the Malling Dog, and Radio Lab recently 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.120 did an episode that dealt with lucid dreaming in which 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.960 an individual kept having a recurring dream in which someone 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:50.960 was at their door pounding on the door and that 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:52.760 they were going to come in and just attack them. 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:56.359 And it was like this fierce, confrontational, violent dream and 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.840 he was able to eventually break through that into a 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.040 lucid dreaming experien arians. So those would both the examples 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.560 of that and number nine the final in this series 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.200 of dream categories that I needn gay. This is the 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.839 wrong waking up, and this occurs always near waking. We 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.960 have the sensation of waking up in our ordinary sleeping room, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.400 and then we begin to realize that something isn't right, 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.799 and there's like some sort of inexplainable movements strange noises, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.240 and then we realized we're still asleep. Those are the 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.960 worst because you spend a lot of time thinking that 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.360 you're waking up and getting ready and preparing, and only 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:30.960 to realize that you're still sleeping. I remember having them 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.599 in high school junior high, where I was inevitably I 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:35.360 was staying up too late at night because you're in 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.880 high school junior high in your sleep patterns are weird. Yeah, 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.440 and and so I've been up way too late, and 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.680 then I'm having to get up way too early, and 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.440 I dream that I have risen, that I have showered, 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:51.480 that I'm dressed, and then yes, I have risen. And 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.040 then and then I realized, crap, I've I haven't even 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:56.760 waken up at all. I just did all that work 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.520 for nothing. Well see, yeah, it's exhausting work. The waking 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.600 dream is also something you see a lot in films, 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.120 especially since like John Carpenter used this several times, where 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.320 you know the character wakes up, do you think he's 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.040 woken up from a dream geotypically like a weird dream 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.080 or a nightmare is something crucible of the plot, and 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.640 then they look around, Oh, everything's normal, everything's normal. Oh 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:17.200 there's a zombie. And then they wake up for real, 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.000 and it's a great sort of wham wham, double pal 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.600 kind of cinematic fool hum here, distract him here and 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.680 really get him. It's kind of cheap too, but when 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.560 you used a great effect by a talented director like Carpenter, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.800 it really packed the punch. It's a great narrative device. 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.520 So in literature as well, of those nine, have you 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.479 had all of those with the exception of maybe that 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.480 the dream sensations? Yes, I would say that, and I'm 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.920 sure everybody has experienced all those to some degree, right, 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.480 because this is pretty and I think most people usually 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:46.880 remember their dreams, and if you don't, later on in 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.040 the podcast, we'll talk a little bit more about how 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.720 you can have better recall of them. Yes, but let's 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.479 talk about this lucid dreaming. Yes, this is the item 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.120 we're ordering here today, the number seven. That's right. This 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.720 is generally thought of as a dream where the dreamer 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.039 is a where that they're dreaming and being aware of 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:06.839 the dream, they are able to manipulate or outright control 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:12.120 the circumstances around them, and generally this involves flying or 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:16.040 just complete power over their surroundings. I have a friend Elena, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.480 who took some classes and Lucid dreaming. I don't know 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:21.880 if they were physical classes or if she attended them 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.520 through dreams, or how exact they were. I think that's 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.080 something in New York. But she Lucid dreamed of workshop. Yeah, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:28.960 but but her her lucidreams would be that she should 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.040 grow to an enormous size like Godzilla and start crushing buildings. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.680 So she has a lot of unresolved issues. And I think, well, 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.600 and that's the beauty of a Lucid dream, right, I mean, 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.960 the sky is the limit. You can do anything that 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.760 you want. Um you can shrink yourself to you know, 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.760 nano size, or you can become magnificently large. And it's 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.679 such a beautiful idea because it's through dreaming, through the 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.280 neural gear that we're born with, we're able to achieve 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.480 the ends of some of our most outlandish technological dreams, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.920 like all these ideas of virtual worlds that we can 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.880 move around in sandbox worlds in the video game, that 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.480 we can control in an An immense amount of talent 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.800 and effort, in time and money goes into the creation 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:13.760 of these things, and he's going into the creation of 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.240 virtual reality technology in the future. But we already have 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.160 all of that deer in our head and the idea 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.000 that with a certain amount of training and a certain 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.760 amount of forethought and presentness, that we can achieve those 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.680 same ends. It's just really remarkable. Well, and here's the 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.000 deal to Bettan Buddhists have been hipped to this long 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:34.440 before Western civilization. Yes, they were looking inward far before 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.240 most of the rest of the world was really looking 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.640 that far into the human psyche and into the human mind. Yeah. 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.880 And while we may use lucid dreaming to fly or 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:46.839 for erotic adventures, Tibetan Buddhists actually practice a kind of 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.560 lucid dreaming called dream yoga, and this is a way 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.280 of recognizing the world for what it is, free from illusion. 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.400 So they're using it in a more high minded way. 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.240 It's about making discoveries about the way you think, in 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.600 the obstacles your mind puts in in your way, and 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.840 achieving better clarity. The ultimate goal is a state of 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.560 meta lucidity, in which you wake up from reality. I 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.880 love that, yeah, And I also like the idea that 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.520 in the same way that you are in a lucid dream, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.600 you are realizing, you know, all these rules and all 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.680 these things that seem like they matter so much in 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.000 this dream. These all the confines, howling dog or an 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:25.520 attack or at the door, all these things that are 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.440 pushing in on me. They're not real. And if I 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.800 just let them go, then I have this immense freedom 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.320 in my life. You can take that into the waking 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.640 world and say that if you were actually awake in 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.440 the waking world and you're hip to these forces that 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.800 are all around you, aspects of the mind, the ego, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.280 and all these forces. And we've talked about so many 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.439 of these things before, but all these forces that are 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.520 dictating the way that we feel the world around us 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.320 in a mental sense, if we are aware of those, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.600 then we can have elucid experience of a different type 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.920 in the waking world, all right, Because the mind makes 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.720 these paper tiger ors whether or not you are awake 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.040 or asleep. Right, And to recognize that the mind is 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.240 creating so much of your reality, is that the endgame 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.040 here for for our friends, the Buddhists. But it's a 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.520 very interesting way to look at it. Okay, so let's 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.320 get down to some of the brass talks about how 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.360 we know it's real, because for a long time it 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.760 was kind of thought of as maybe sort of made 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:22.840 up or magic, you know, because it sounds like magic. 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:27.440 It is magical, and it's it's it's reality. And so 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.160 for a long time that the really serious scientific minded types, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:32.880 if you brought up the idea of lucid dreaming and 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.360 controlling your dream they would be like, I don't know, 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.560 I think that maybe you're you're making that up. Yeah, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.880 But although we have all long suspected that dreaming could 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.800 help us with these sort of breakthroughs, right, and that 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.360 there was a possibility that we could control our dreams, 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.800 were at the very least know that we were dreaming, right. 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:51.800 And then there of course individuals along the way who 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.520 were doing it. And so even if they experts were 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.360 telling them it wasn't happening, they had a pretty good 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.240 idea about what was going on in their head. Only 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.080 they are a way to test it, right, How could 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.880 I test this anecdotal evidence? Well, it happens that lucid 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.480 dreaming occurs during REM sleep, the fifth sleep stage, and 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.080 the body is basically paralyzed, which we know with the 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.360 exception of the eyelids. And this is kind of an 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:20.280 AHA moment for a psycho physiologist, Stephen Leberge who monitored 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.720 subjects with electro and Sophello Grahams e g s, which 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.640 map electrical brain activity as they slept, and in the experiment, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.600 subjects used pre arranged eyelid movements to signal they were 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.800 lucid dreaming to Lebert's right. So he's looking at them, 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.040 he's monitoring them, and all of a sudden he sees 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.679 their eyelids flutter. He then looks at the e g 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:44.880 s and he's able to confirm that they're actually in 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.920 that REM sleep and that this is all corroborating. So 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.520 that's one instance we have where we can see that 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.520 people are outwardly signaling that they're in REM sleep and 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.960 we can we can say, yes, you are. According to 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.079 Scientific Americans John Horrigan, leber showed the activities such as 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.240 counting numbers or having sex evokes similar neural and physiological 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.000 responses in both the dreaming and waking states, and if 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.160 your dream self holds its breath, then your real self 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.200 does too. And moreover, events take about the same time 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.720 to unfold in lucid dreams as they wouldn't real life, 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.240 which is a little bit different than what we've thought before. 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.000 We've always thought about dreams being compressed. And then there's 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.120 also some interesting data from Dr Matthew Walker, who is 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.599 the director of the Sleep Lab at Berkeley, and that 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.360 he found that the lateral prefrontal cortex, part of the 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.320 brain that deals with logic, may be responsible for a 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.840 lot of what's going on in lucid dreaming. So during 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:38.599 rem sleep, this part of the brain is supposed to 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.400 be asleep or inactive, but it's possible that it wakes 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.800 up so that dreaming and logic are both working at 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.520 the same time, which would then enable the dreamer to 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.520 suddenly have the mental capacity to say, Hey, this is 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.640 a dream, and this is what I want to do 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:54.760 with that dream. Now. You and I are talking about 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.360 this briefly before, and I was sort of saying that 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:58.880 that is one of the things that can get in 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:00.920 the way when you lucid dream, the fact that you're 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.320 bringing logic into it. But you can always kind of 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.520 get over it, because you know you're dreaming. And this 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.360 is the way that I kind of square this idea 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.520 of your logic center coming online while you're dreaming. Is 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.520 that now your logic center is under a set of 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.959 different constructs, I guess for the dream logic. So even 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.960 though what you're doing in a dream might seem absolutely 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:28.480 crazy or inconceivable, your logic recognizes you're in a dream 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.440 and allows it. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.400 This is kind of a tangent. But there's a fantastic 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.520 short story by South American author You're a Lewis Borges 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.200 called The Circular Ruins or or perhaps it is in 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.600 the Circular Ruins, but keywords Circular Ruins, in which a man, 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:47.439 a dreamer, begins to dream a living being. He dreams 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.439 the dream child piece by piece and cell by cell 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.080 and until it eventually achieves reality. And I won't spoil everything, 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:55.920 but do check that out. It's a very short story, 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.800 but just very poetic and shock full of wonder if 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.560 someone who's definitely concerned with the borders of reality right 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.439 and crossing those borders. This is really interesting to the 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.480 visual cortex and parts of the motor cortex and some 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.679 motion sensing areas deeper in the brain are really active 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.199 during dreams. So this is why we have lots of 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:17.880 motion and visuals and not so much stuff that you 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.840 can feel in your dream. Some people may have had 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.400 that experience, but for the most part, we're much more 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.960 visual and motion oriented in dreams. Yeah, I can't remember 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.240 ever having smelt or eaten anything in a dream before. Yeah, 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.320 I can ever remember something like stunning in terms of 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.880 like a pungency of smell, or something that's always usually visual, 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.920 or some sort of action like flying. These are some 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.000 interesting looks into the brain here. I also wanted to 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:49.160 note that German researchers gave lucid dreamers specific instructions to 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.000 make a series of left and right hand movements separated 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.520 by a series of eye movements. Again that that eye 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.080 fluttering while asleep, and the researchers were able to perform 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.760 brain scans knowing what was going on in their heads. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.240 The eye movements undertaken in dreams are known to show 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.480 up on electro oculogram, giving the researchers markers to know 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.360 what the dreamers were meant to be doing at that point. 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.200 So this is really interesting in the sense that you 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.200 can start to map out actions and dreams and begin 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.080 to see what people are doing. Now, this is like 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.840 pretty rudimentary, right, but can you imagine within ten years 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.120 being able to look at the brain and start to 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.600 figure out what specifically people are dreaming about, what sort 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.320 of stories that they're weaving. This was from Current Biology 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.520 and the name of that paper is dreamed movement elicits 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:42.320 activation in the sense of remorn or cortex. So you know, 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.880 just a little f y I in case you know, 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.040 in ten years you want to get your dreams mapped out. Well, 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.320 let's take a quick break and when we return, we'll 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.320 talk more about lucid dreamings and we'll also discuss some 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.400 of the ways that you might bring lucid dreaming into 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:04.960 your life. Alright, we're back, so lucid dreaming. You obviously 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.840 have done this before. I do not believe I've ever 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.360 lucid dreamed. I've had the odd flying dream, I've had 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.080 the odd attackers coming after me dream lots of what 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.200 I loosely called movie dreams were something amazing, and I 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.360 guess they're vivid dreams under the nine point scale that 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.920 we were discussing earlier, but very vivid dreams for something 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.960 really imaginative is happening. But I've never had a lucid 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.000 dreaming experience. Okay, So I will say that in the 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.400 last couple of years, I haven't had as many lucid dreams. 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.400 And I'll tell you why I haven't been getting as 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:37.000 much sleep. Get a little rug rat right three years old. 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.960 So there you go. One of the first things you 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.160 have to do is get enough sleep, and the reason 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.680 is because the more rem the better your chances of 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.320 lucid dreaming and recalling the dream. And we go into 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.400 RAM every ninety minutes throughout the night, but each RAM 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.800 period gets much longer and occupies a larger chunk of 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.120 that ninety minutes cycle each time. So if you're only 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.960 sleeping the first part of a normal eight hours of sleep, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.680 you're getting very little of that REM sleep. So if 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.240 you wake up at three o'clock in the morning and 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:05.880 four o'clock in the morning, it's harder to get back 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.560 to sleep than chances are you're not gonna have that 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.199 good time REM sleep that will induce our help to 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.360 induce a lucid dream I should also have in terms 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.480 of dreaming in general, some sleep ates will also affect 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:21.360 your propensity for dream remembering yeah or not remembering right. 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.200 That's usually the cache that you you have a fogg 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.399 you r recall if you're if you're taking stuff. But 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:29.920 you can still try some of these things. You could 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.359 keep a dream diary that seems to be very helpful 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.240 for people. Um, you can set an intention which sounds 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.160 kind of yoga s but if you want to fly 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.320 in your dream, you could look at a picture of 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:42.560 a person flying right before you get to bed and 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.520 tell yourself, I would like to know that I'm dreaming 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:47.960 and I would like to fly in my dream. And 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.680 that seems pretty simple, but it's you know, the brain, 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.280 as we know is, is really great about taking suggestions 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.359 and acting on them. There's something called the mild technique 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:01.160 that Leberge calls mnemonic induction of lucid dreams, and that 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.879 involves waking up an hour earlier than usual in the 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.240 morning and recalling your last dream and then going to 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.080 sleep again while thinking again setting an intention next time 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.040 I'm dreaming, I want to remember that I'm dreaming, and 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.679 I'm going to lucid dream. And also you should know 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.720 that lucia dreams occur most often in the morning. Just 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:21.880 before awakening, which makes sense when we talk about those 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.680 longer rim periods and then go back to sleep again 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.439 with purpose. Well, yeah, I mean a lot of it 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.320 has to do with that waking period, just the millisecond 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.440 when you're waking up and you begin to have this feeling, 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.320 this really strong flooding of a dream right coming at you. 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.399 Instead of saying, oh, I need to get up and 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.359 I need to get dressed and so on and so forth, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.960 if you try to just really bask and whatever emotions 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.439 that are evoked at that moment, chances are you going 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:52.560 to be able to engage your recall a lot better. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.600 So how do you know when you are actually Luca dreaming? Well, 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.120 one method that I've read is just simply to look 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.439 around you and start looking at a little more detail 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:04.399 about what's actually in this world, because that's one method 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.159 that is often used is the idea that let me 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.200 look around, let me see if I can realize this 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.040 is a dream, if I can look for something. And 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:11.719 I've heard you need to go about this in your 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.119 daily life as well, like in your waking life. Make 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.760 a point of, say, looking at light switches and making 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.520 sure they're there and that they work. Probably look at 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.199 text and see if it's readable. The text thing is 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.879 a big That's been a big clue for me, because 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:25.479 a lot of times I'll be reading or I'll be 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.480 writing something and the text keeps moving, or I can 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.240 see one sentence and then it all falls away. You 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:32.920 look at it, it's text, and you look away, and 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.159 you look back at it and it's something else to 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.479 pict a graham or a smiley face or something. It's 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.000 not gonna hold. It's not gonna be the same thing, 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.199 whereas in the waking world, I can look at this 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.320 and it's still say the same thing it said earlier. 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.560 Waking status confirmed right, or clocks they don't have scrambled 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.880 numbers right in reality. But if you're dreaming, you're trying 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.000 to get a beat on what time it is, a 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.679 lot of times you'll see the same thing as the 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.800 text that the numbers run around. So there are definitely 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:01.639