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Animals - and apparently some humans - can function completely by taking short naps (10-20 mins) repeatedly throughout a 24 hour period without having an hours long sleep session. This phenomenon is termed polyphasic sleep.

It is also interesting to note that the practice of lucid dreaming (having conscious awareness during a dream while it is happening) happens during REM sleep - which increases in frequency and duration throughout the night (or sleeping time) - with the majority of REM sleep occurring with in the last couple of hours before waking.

Thus, one method for inducing lucidity involves waking up a couple of hours early and staying awake for an hour or so and then returning to sleep, quickly entering into the REM state. Napping is also very conducive to lucid dreaming and REM sleep.

This makes me wonder if people with the DEC2 gene would have a better chance of entering REM sleep (and thus have more opportunity to become lucid) than someone without the gene. Logic would seem to dicate so.

These seemingly safer types of tools have been around for years, why not compare to electrically shocking yourself in your sleep?

http://www.lucidity.com/novadr...

http://sleepwithremee.com/luci...

You can. People have been practicing lucid dreaming for centuries.

These days you can even purchase devices to make lucid dreaming easier.

Oh please.

An entire third of your life will be spent not doing or experiencing anything.

You don't dream?

Now think about the value of your time. ... You are wired to spend about a third of that time unconscious. ... What, then, would 33 extra years be worth?

You'd be better off realizing that this "unconscious" state is actually quite valuable and potentially under much more of your control than you suspect. All it takes is a quick suggestion to yourself that "I remember my dreams" before going to bed each night to start improving your dream recall. If you want to go an extra step, start practicing lucid dreaming. Seriously.

This idea that sleep is a useless state where you are completely unconscious is detrimental. Sleep can be a very active, creative endeavor if you choose to utilize it.

Using your subconscience to make decisions for you.... http://www.lucidity.com/

If you want to try lucid dreaming I'd definitely check out this faq. The basics are to keep a detailed dream journal and to do little mantras about remembering your dreams as you fall asleep each night. It's all just suggestion, really. It's also a lot of work.

I guess that's why I say acid might be cheating... because I'm not sure as you said, that it "takes you to places you cannot go on your own", but rather takes you to places that you can't go without a lot of work on your own -- i.e. meditation and working on lucid dreaming. Just a theory, though.

Maybe once I feel I've explored lucid dreaming thoroughly I'll give acid a try and see if it really does take me in new directions.

Thanks for the comment. Best of luck to you.

I wonder if anyone who has done LSD has also had experience with lucid dreaming? I have experimented to some degree with lucid dreaming, and after discussing acid trips with friends who've had them, I kind of theorize that LSD is very similar dreaming while awake.

I'm 30 and I haven't tried LSD. It's not likely that I will, but I don't think it's wrong or particularly dangerous. It's possible I'd try it at some point if I got exceedingly bored with other means of exploring conciousness.

But for now when I get the inclination for some exploration of conciousness, I just crack out the dream journal and go from there. I guess I think of LSD as cheating a bit. Like steroids or something.

Of course, someone with experience with both might feel differently.

Cheers.

I do a lot of what you said. I've actually been using an Olympus DS-2000 digital voice recorder to record dreams and archive them on my PowerBook for the past 2 years. The audio compression works so amazingly well that it makes it feasible to do so. Before that I used dream journals. I agree that keeping a journal helps. It's surprising how the memories of a dream start flooding back when you start recording it, even if you feel like you don't remember much before doing so. The test that I've practiced is reading text twice over to see if it changes. The method you describe sounds a lot like the MILD technique. Napping helps as well. I've also read that spinning around apparently helps keep you in a dream if you feel like you're waking up, for some reason.

I do a lot of what you said. I've actually been using an Olympus DS-2000 digital voice recorder to record dreams and archive them on my PowerBook for the past 2 years. The audio compression works so amazingly well that it makes it feasible to do so. Before that I used dream journals. I agree that keeping a journal helps. It's surprising how the memories of a dream start flooding back when you start recording it, even if you feel like you don't remember much before doing so. The test that I've practiced is reading text twice over to see if it changes. The method you describe sounds a lot like the MILD technique. Napping helps as well. I've also read that spinning around apparently helps keep you in a dream if you feel like you're waking up, for some reason.

I do a lot of what you said. I've actually been using an Olympus DS-2000 digital voice recorder to record dreams and archive them on my PowerBook for the past 2 years. The audio compression works so amazingly well that it makes it feasible to do so. Before that I used dream journals. I agree that keeping a journal helps. It's surprising how the memories of a dream start flooding back when you start recording it, even if you feel like you don't remember much before doing so. The test that I've practiced is reading text twice over to see if it changes. The method you describe sounds a lot like the MILD technique. Napping helps as well. I've also read that spinning around apparently helps keep you in a dream if you feel like you're waking up, for some reason.

Anyone have an idea what these things mentioned in the article are? I know about the NovaDreamer from the Lucidity Institute, but I'm not aware of any other gadgets.

Recently, I've been looking into hypnotism, subliminal pursuation, inducing alpha state conciously and lucid dreams.

Although this does seem pretty cool, I have a breif idea of how it works, and just like most things, once you know how it works, it doesn't impress you as much (well, if it's not that hard in the first place).
To me, it looks like it's using hypnotism techniques to make you fall asleep (dimming the lights, making you relax, playing music (if you time the beats right you can change the brain waves into an alpha state)). Anyway, as we know, hypnotists can make people fall asleep in seconds, so making a computer which makes people fall asleep in 30 minutes, I have to admit, doesn't impress me that much. Considering the techniques are very similar


The sleeping gadget which impress me is the NovaDreamer - a device which, when you train yourself, can induce lucid dreams - It detects when your eyes are in REM sleep, and then uses flashes and sounds at the right level to wake you into a lucid state.

For those who don't know what lucid dreams are; they are dreams in which you know you are dreaming, and can therefore control your dream in any way you want - fly, breathe underwater, whatever. There are reports people can predict the future in lucid dreams too, which I really don't know if thats BS or not, we've all had deja vu's, and apparently they are previous dreams we've had. Lucid dreaming deviced would be more impressive to me, but hey.

Anyway, there's my opinion.

I started with this FAQ.

I think it was about a month or so of writing down every dream or fragment that I could remember (each morning as soon as I woke up). The more I wrote, the more dreams I would remember the next night.

Then one night I was dreaming something so ridiculous and disturbing that I realized it _must_ be a dream. Suddenly I was laughing and I started to wake up. However, in an amusing turn, I woke up into another dream :) I didn't realize this until the morning.

Anyways, I kept at it and eventually had several more lucid dreams, in addition to regular dreams, maybe once a week or so. Usually they were pretty short, though: the thrill of realization would often cause me to wake up. When I was able to stay in the dream for any length of time, I often found myself exploring creative thought, and letting the narritave fade away. I would race through my mind connecting ideas at what seemed like a magical rate. However I could never remember enough details when waking up to make much sense of it. I imagine it's a bit like taking acid (though I've no direct experience).

After a few months, other things got in the way and I turned my attention elsewhere. I soon stopped having the lucid dreams and also I don't remember my dreams often these days. So if you stop working at it, it seems to go away.

I do hope to get back to it, though, as soon as I've got the time and energy to spare :)

Good luck in your explorations!

The flashing lights in this case are not an attempt to induce specific brainwave patterns (like you might find in an "entrainment" device), but are merely intended to gain your attention while you are dreaming, and thus allow you to become conscious of your dream state without actually waking up. To recognize the light cues, you must train yourself to react to the sight of flashing lights when you are awake. You go through your day as usual, and when a light flashes, you ask yourself "Am I dreaming?". This is supposed to prepare you to react the same way when you see the LEDs flashing while you are dreaming.

The rig was pretty cool to use, but after I while I gave it up as I wasn't getting the results I wanted, and it was not always comfortable to wear. It did help spark my interest in lucid dreaming, so I wouldn't say it was a complete waste.

Those who want to play around with lucid dreaming don't need these special devices to get started. A simple tape recorder or CD player plugged into a wall socket with a timer switch can produce sound cues at the approximately correct stage of REM sleep. Most people are pretty regular with their sleep patterns, and go into REM at the same time each night. With enough practice you can improve your ability to enter the lucid dream state, or so the theory goes.

You can certainly improve your ability to remember dreams, simply by writing them down or recording them each morning. So it is possible to measure how the effectiveness of your attempts to have a lucid dream.

I doubt that the "Dream Workshop" would work as intended for normal dreams. My own experience with this is that your dreams go in whatever direction they want, script or no script. However, a lucid dream is another animal altogether. When you are conscious in the dream state, you can actively direct it. Your ability to control what happens in a lucid dream may be absolute or minimal - it varies from person to person. But you will certainly be more in control than in a normal dream.

It's great fun to experiment with. The Lucidity Institute website has some excellent suggestions.

The flashing lights in this case are not an attempt to induce specific brainwave patterns (like you might find in an "entrainment" device), but are merely intended to gain your attention while you are dreaming, and thus allow you to become conscious of your dream state without actually waking up. To recognize the light cues, you must train yourself to react to the sight of flashing lights when you are awake. You go through your day as usual, and when a light flashes, you ask yourself "Am I dreaming?". This is supposed to prepare you to react the same way when you see the LEDs flashing while you are dreaming.

The rig was pretty cool to use, but after I while I gave it up as I wasn't getting the results I wanted, and it was not always comfortable to wear. It did help spark my interest in lucid dreaming, so I wouldn't say it was a complete waste.

Those who want to play around with lucid dreaming don't need these special devices to get started. A simple tape recorder or CD player plugged into a wall socket with a timer switch can produce sound cues at the approximately correct stage of REM sleep. Most people are pretty regular with their sleep patterns, and go into REM at the same time each night. With enough practice you can improve your ability to enter the lucid dream state, or so the theory goes.

You can certainly improve your ability to remember dreams, simply by writing them down or recording them each morning. So it is possible to measure how the effectiveness of your attempts to have a lucid dream.

I doubt that the "Dream Workshop" would work as intended for normal dreams. My own experience with this is that your dreams go in whatever direction they want, script or no script. However, a lucid dream is another animal altogether. When you are conscious in the dream state, you can actively direct it. Your ability to control what happens in a lucid dream may be absolute or minimal - it varies from person to person. But you will certainly be more in control than in a normal dream.

It's great fun to experiment with. The Lucidity Institute website has some excellent suggestions.

Uh.... despite the loudness of the claim you are making, you don't seem to have many facts at hand to support you.

Guided dreaming of one sort or another has been around for a long time. Sometimes it is done with a volunteer who is willing to speak to the dreamer as the dream is occurring. Other times, mental exercises before falling asleep can have a major impact on what the dreams will be about. People who attempt to have lucid dreams are occasionally known to use such devices and/or techniques, and many report success.

Hey, genuine skepticism is great (and I encourage it, in the general case), but that's not the same as having actual evidence that the device is flim-flam. Those "flashing-light eye-glasses" that you so disparage are quite useful for informing someone when he is dreaming, so that he can therefore take advantage of the lucid dreaming state to control his dreams. That is, in fact, what they're usually used for, and they do work when used for that purpose. If you've never experienced a lucid dream, I encourage you to do a little research and give it a try -- the experience is simply amazing.

Now whether this *particular* device works or not, I can't say. I've never tried it, nor talked to anybody who has. But certainly what it is trying to do has been done before by other techniques, and is not in principle impossible.

As to remembering your dreams... there are known techniques for doing that too. Just because you routinely forget your dreams doesn't mean that everybody does. I rarely forget the last dream that I have before waking, for instance, provided that I spend five minutes or so trying to fix it in my mind before it fades from short term memory.

You know, I don't know why lucid dreaming isn't a bigger thing. Given all the effort people put into altered conciousness, that is. No hardware required.

I've never been a big one for altered conciousness, but I did do some lucid dreaming for a while. Basically you just get good at recognizing when you're dreaming, and then you can start controlling what happens. Yes, Natalie Portman is an option.

It does take some dedication, though. Keeping a dream journal is essential. There's some basic info out there that will help get you started.

The only downside I found is I sometimes felt I wasn't sleeping as deeply. But it is a great way to explore altered conciousness without worrying about killing brain cells or geting addicted to anything.

Cheers.

One interesting thing about your point is that this device could assist lucid dreaming. In fact, the Lucidity Institute that you link to sells a similar device called the NovaDreamer. The NovaDreamer detects REM sleep, then uses flashing lights to hopefully introduce dream signs into your dream. At $138 USD, this device is much cheaper than the NovaDreamer, which costs $395 USD.

I've been experimenting with a home-brew solution (a web page that flashes and talks at random intervals throughout the night,) but I've had very limited success with it.

While we're on the topic, I wrote a very long piece about Lucid Dreaming in 1996 -- many people have put it on their own sites

I disagree. The dog translator, now that's flim-flam. But this, in contrast, ought to be testable and verifiable. And flashing-light gadgets have been used, by real scientists, to induce lucid dreaming for years: http://www.lucidity.com/

Although lucid dreaming is not exactly the same as dream control, it does give you the ability to control your OWN ACTIONS in a dream. The advantage of lucid dreaming is that you don't have to buy any gizmos to make it work (although some people do sell things to help you achieve lucidity). The disadvantages are, as I mentioned, the fact that you only control yourself and not necessarily your surroundings and it takes some time to learn the skill of becoming lucid in a dream.

Lucid dreaming is basically a technique for becoming conscious that you are in a dream without actually waking from that dream. It takes some work, believe me. We're talking months here. But it is kinda cool. Once I realize that I'm dreaming, I usually take advantage of that fact by blasting any enemies around me with a Godzilla-like breath weapon! While this is admittedly pretty geeky, I can say that here without being laughed at (right?) because we're all geeks. Plus, it's pretty neat to see Bill Gates go up in flames!

Another advantage of lucid dreaming is that it's a proven technique whereas this new gizmo is just something that someone is trying to sell you.

GMD

Although lucid dreaming is not exactly the same as dream control, it does give you the ability to control your OWN ACTIONS in a dream. The advantage of lucid dreaming is that you don't have to buy any gizmos to make it work (although some people do sell things to help you achieve lucidity). The disadvantages are, as I mentioned, the fact that you only control yourself and not necessarily your surroundings and it takes some time to learn the skill of becoming lucid in a dream.

Lucid dreaming is basically a technique for becoming conscious that you are in a dream without actually waking from that dream. It takes some work, believe me. We're talking months here. But it is kinda cool. Once I realize that I'm dreaming, I usually take advantage of that fact by blasting any enemies around me with a Godzilla-like breath weapon! While this is admittedly pretty geeky, I can say that here without being laughed at (right?) because we're all geeks. Plus, it's pretty neat to see Bill Gates go up in flames!

Another advantage of lucid dreaming is that it's a proven technique whereas this new gizmo is just something that someone is trying to sell you.

GMD

I admit that my exposure to Rheingold is fairly limited but I'm afraid I don't really "get" what he does. I have Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming written by Stephen LaBerge and Rheingold. LaBerge is a practicing psychologist who works in the area. As for Rheingold, it's hard to understand what his contribution to the book is. In fact, the entire book uses "I" pronouns instead of "we" when explaining things. I'm assuming this means that LaBerge pretty much wrote the entire thing -- it wasn't a collaborative effort at all. I could see maybe citing Rheingold in the Acknowledgements section for fruitfull discussing or something like that but I have no idea why he's a co-author on this book. One gets the feeling reading this book that the publisher or someone else coerced LaBerge into adding Rheingold's name. So I guess I'm agreeing with the parent poster that Rheingold certainly gives the impression of some desperate soul who's trying to hang on and keep his name in the limelight in spite of the fact that he has nothing important to say.

Check out the SuperNova (requires the NovaDreamer) (lucidity.com) I've got one of my own, and I'm working on the lucid dream stuff right now, it's amazing. I'll be getting the SuperNova package soon, hopefully.

Anyway, thought you might be interested in that.

~eQuasarus

"Death is the only great adventure" James Hook

Check out the SuperNova (requires the NovaDreamer) (lucidity.com) I've got one of my own, and I'm working on the lucid dream stuff right now, it's amazing. I'll be getting the SuperNova package soon, hopefully.

Anyway, thought you might be interested in that.

~eQuasarus

"Death is the only great adventure" James Hook

Check out the SuperNova (requires the NovaDreamer) (lucidity.com) I've got one of my own, and I'm working on the lucid dream stuff right now, it's amazing. I'll be getting the SuperNova package soon, hopefully.

Anyway, thought you might be interested in that.

~eQuasarus

"Death is the only great adventure" James Hook

Yeah...this is called lucid dreaming...

The device you speak of is called 'NovaDreamer' (or 'Super NovaDreamer' for the version w/ the computer interface), and it's availible from the Lucidity Institute here. I have one, it's kinda neat, but hasn't worked for me quite yet.

It`s called "lucid dreaming" - the state, when you`re aware, it`s only dream.

LUCIDITY INSTITUTE

Yes.. Well at least thats what www.lucidity.com say about things. Lucid dreaming is knowing you're awake whilst in a dream, and therefore do whatever you want in the dream. They have little devices to help you achieve lucidity that make mild stimulus such as flashing lights, to help you realise you are in a dream.

The idea is that if you train yourself to look out for flashing lights etc all the time, you will recognise it when you are dreaming, as your brain will translate it to something like a fluorescent light flickering or something, in your dream. Then you will consciously know you are dreaming and are free to have fun :). The whole basis of their stuff is that your dreams can and are easily influenced by the outside world.

There are people who say that a perfect virutal reality system already exists in the world of Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreaming is conciously knowing that you are dreaming while in the dream state, often with the ability to control your dreams. I imagine this truly "virtual" environment would be much more satisfying (and easier to clean up) than this early holodeck...

The lucidity institute" have a FAQ about lucid dreaming. Give it a try.

Good luck!

/Ripat