Dreams and Consciousness

[Tinker Gnome]

For some reason, when i fall asleep for about half an hour or less, this is the only time I Dream. Although PC said that dreams take place about an hour and a half later. Mine seem to occur in the first hour of my sleep.

 

[MerakSpielman]

My dreams aren't coherent enough for lucid dreaming. Often, there isn't a definite "me" in them. It's kind of weird. There can be several characters interacting, among whom I will sometimes associate strongly with one or the other, but rarely actually see anything from their point of view. There's no "me" in that I'm aware of the thoughts and decisions of the characters, but I do not consciously participate in them, and "I" don't have thoughts and impressions of my own.

Now that I try, it's really hard to explain. It's like it's me watching a play - except without me. The scenes are disjointed and weird, too, rarely maintaining continuity in location (house-street-hospital), people present (friends-superheroes-cast of Buffy), their overall situation (looking for shampoo-saving the earth from disaster-discovering a cheating boyfriend), genre (D&D-videogame-reality-scifi). Often all of these things are shifting so rapidly that when I wake up I have no way of explaining to anybody what the dream was "about," though it always seems sensible while it's happening. And that's if I remember my dream at all. I've often woken up remembering a dream, and then experienced the disturbing phenominon of forgetting it over the course of a few seconds while I'm actively thinking about it. Disconcerting.

This all probably has something to do with a certain level of sleep deprivation.

 

[cybertalus]

My dreams aren't coherent enough for lucid dreaming. Often, there isn't a definite "me" in them. It's kind of weird. There can be several characters interacting, among whom I will sometimes associate strongly with one or the other, but rarely actually see anything from their point of view. There's no "me" in that I'm aware of the thoughts and decisions of the characters, but I do not consciously participate in them, and "I" don't have thoughts and impressions of my own.

Now that I try, it's really hard to explain. It's like it's me watching a play - except without me.

This sounds broadly similar to something I recall reading about when I was going through my eastern philosophy phase. That's been a while, but I'll try to explain it as best I can (Astralpwka might find this idea a useful jumping off point for what he's trying to achieve as well).

The idea is that you learn to perceive yourself from an external point of view. You start by thinking of yourself in third person ("Talus is typing a message on ENWorld" instead of "I'm typing a message on ENWorld"). Over time you begin to see youself both from your own internal point of view and from the point of view of an external observer, almost as if you have awareness in two places. The two awarenesses don't necessarily remain active and alert at the same times, so your normal first person awareness could be sleeping, while your observer awareness remains conscious and actually watches you sleep. For those who are persuing enlightenment the goal is for eventually the first person awareness to dissipate, leaving only the observer awareness. It was this last part, where all that's left is the observer awareness, that seems similar to your dream.

The scenes are disjointed and weird, too, rarely maintaining continuity in location (house-street-hospital), people present (friends-superheroes-cast of Buffy), their overall situation (looking for shampoo-saving the earth from disaster-discovering a cheating boyfriend), genre (D&D-videogame-reality-scifi). Often all of these things are shifting so rapidly that when I wake up I have no way of explaining to anybody what the dream was "about," though it always seems sensible while it's happening. And that's if I remember my dream at all. I've often woken up remembering a dream, and then experienced the disturbing phenominon of forgetting it over the course of a few seconds while I'm actively thinking about it. Disconcerting.

This all probably has something to do with a certain level of sleep deprivation.

I once had a conversation online with someone else whose dreams shifted around in a manner similar to what you described. This was in a forum where quite a few of us were analyzing our dreams and finding some meaning in them. This fellow posted about his shifting dreams, and commented that he'd always been of the belief that dreams don't have meaning, but are byproducts of the brain organizing itself and its data while we sleep. I couldn't disagree that being the case for him, but felt that for the ones of us who were getting meaning out of our dreams that something Jungian was going on.

And I've had the forgetting thing happen to me, though usually it happens when I'm thinking about a dream later in the day. But then I've also had it happen with non-dream thoughts as well.

 

[Impeesa]

Impeesa - I've got lucid dreaming down already. I can stay in a lucid dream for several hours (as far as I can judge time). It's something I've been doing for roughly 5 years. Anyway, I'm really interested in taking it to another step. the closest thing I've come across is consciously induced astral projecting, which the techniques of sound very similar to maintaining consciousness through falling asleep.

Heh. I've tried some lucid dreaming techniques before, but the farthest I ever got was gaining awareness and then waking up shortly afterwards. As for maintaining my stream of consciousness in and out of sleep, that usually happens when I'm really tired - particularly when I'm tired and trying not to nod off, such as in class. It's rather odd, actually... it's like my mind has switched completely into dreaming mode, but I'm subconsciously aware enough that if the room suddenly goes quiet, or something else happens, I open my eyes and see what's up (as opposed to suddenly snapping to attention and looking strange ).

--Impeesa--

 

[LightPhoenix]

Hour and a half, actually. One sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes, consisting of moving through the sleep stages and ending in REM sleep. The longer you sleep, the greater proportion of your sleep cycle in spent dreaming in REM.

You know, I actually randomly knew that, for some strange reason, and not from you mentioning it before. I think one of my psych teachers mentioned it a long time ago.

So how does one put oneself into a state of sleep at the beginning of the night, but keep the mind awake? To me, there is awake, then asleep, and asleep means the mind is out, until dreams kick in about three hours later.

The way I was told to do it is to start by keeping a dream log. As soon as you wake up, write down everything you can remember about the dreams you had. Keep it on your nightstand so you don't even have to get up. As you do this, you'll start to remember more and more of your dreams - it's basically like training your memory. As you do this, you have to get a sort of image in your head, one that you can use so that you know you're dreaming - a symbol of sorts. For instance, I might think about phoenixes before I go to bed. Now, when your memory is really good, eventually you should be able to see this image, realize you are dreaming, and then influence your dreams.

Unfortunately, I didn't stick with it long enough to show any results. I'm a light sleeper, which actually made it a bit easier for me, I just never really had the patience to do it. Besides which, when you have early morning classes, usually you don't have enough time to do this between showering, eating, and driving.

 

[Malcolm]

But! If the mind can be active consciously in dreams, removing all awareness of the physical body and having the dream be real, shouldn't there be a way to enter a state of putting the physical body asleep, when you actually fall asleep at the very beginning of the night, and have the mind enter a similar place, retaining consciousness? I've heard that there is a type of yoga or mediation that seeks to remain conscious 100% of the time, even while asleep. Anyone have experiences with such?

Yes.
There are many states of consciousness that involve placing the body into a dreaming/meditative form while keeping the mind fully awake and alert.
Dream Walking, Dream Sequencing, etc.
There are also advanced methods for putting the body on "auto-pilot" while the conscious mind engages in complex tasks.
Walking Meditation, Yogic Meditations on the Flame, etc.

Rarely do practitioners of these seek to maintain, or achieve, a waking state for a 24hr period; its dangerous to one's health both physical and mental. There are very good reasons for the suspension of one's consciousness with the waking world.

I have practiced these techniques for many years but still consider myself a novice in them compared to the masters I know who are Dream Walkers.