Robert and others:
First, I would like to thank you all for your posts; I've been reading them
for six months or so.
I've a method to possibly induce lucid dreams:
It took weeks (almost a month) to work, but it was worth it. Typically,
dream content includes some familiar waking-state content. My dreams often
include family, friends and familiar environments. So, as an experiment I
left post-it notes in my home (one in my wallet), workplace and such which
read simply, "Are you dreaming?". I hoped to see one in a dream.
One day, I was shopping in a pet store, and opened my wallet and saw the
familiar note. I'd seen it nearly everyday for weeks and had grown tired of
seriously considering my own query. I paid for the exotic bird, and drove
home by the light of two moons. I woke up in the middle of this dream and
admonished myself.
I had grown so used to my note that, while in a dream (which was very much
"real"), ignored it.
So, I began, again, to seriously consider my notes whenever I saw them and
try an experiment to help confirm. I decided I would call myself; if I
answered, I decided, I would very likely be dreaming. I did this a few times
in a waking-state - I'm fairly sure at least, in spite of feeling a little
bit silly.
A week or so later, I was walking downtown, and was missing my sister
terribly so I walked across the street to a row of payphones. In the
reflection of a nearby building, I noticed my blue skin was brighter and a
quite a bit purpler than usual; perhaps it was something I ate, I thought.
I deposited a few coins, dialed, she answered and told me that there was
somebody there who wanted to speak to me. I heard some shuffling and a
familiar voice came to the phone. "Is this Max?", he asked, and then
continued: "If it is, I just wanted to let you know that you're dreaming
right now." It was my voice. I became flushed and dizzy as the phone shrank
in my hand and had a few moments of lucidity before I woke with a start.
Eventually, I learned to stay in my dreams and indeed, play.
Now, typically, I'm clued in to the fact that I'm dreaming by a friend or
even stranger sharing the information. Two moons, blue skin - familiar blue
skin, morphing animals and even "weirder" circumstances don't seem to be
enough. I have to be told, convinced even. Why?
Do we ever need to be told that we are not dreaming? Why?
Be Well,
Max Friedenberg
Santa Fe, New Mexico
PS: By the way I highly recommend the book,
The User Illusion : Cutting Consciousness Down to Size
by Tor Nrretranders, et al (Paperback - August 1999)
Considering the topics lately, I think many of you would find it enjoyable
and fascinating.
-----Original Message-----
From: rwas rwas [mailto:mc68332.domain.name.hidden]
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 8:32 PM
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Subject: Re: White Rabbits, Consistency and Dreaming
I think the problem is that folks are assuming that
the only way you can tell whether you are awake or
dreaming is by sensory input limited physical senses,
ie., 5 senses.
If one pays attention, one can be aware of a number of
senses that are not quantified by popular
understanding.
One of these is the awareness of the passage of time.
One can remember *typically* which memories come
before or after another. Not always, but a sense of
temporal organization exists for most people within
the ability to manipulate memories.
Another more difficult *burried sense* is one that
allows to ask the question: where do our words come
from?
If one concentrates, one can be somewhat aware of the
flow of words from the depths of their consciousness
as they *feel* a meaning, and turn that meaning into
the spoken word. How is that one has the ability to
explore this awareness? Is it a journey through some
kind of n-space? Is focus something that can be moved?
How does one point to an abstract space? I've just
explained how one might explore the *where do my words
come from* thing. But how do you locate this space?
I've not provided the address, just a description of
how one might concentrate in a way to illustrate this
concept.
Another would be minds-eye thinking. How one
visualizes something. How do we do this? How do we
even know we can do it? One could argue the ability
just apeared and we found some kind of tag/button we
could toggle to manipulate this space. How does one
know the difference between visualization and physical
seeing? There are some that can visualize things so
powerfully they are more real than what we would call
*real*. So what kind of tag or label do we have to
tell which space we're in?
All of these things I mention illustrate or point to
what I would call buried-senses. They seem to be
abstract senses we can form as we wish. We can create
new one as we can create new burried features of
thinking.
All of these and many more I don't even know how to go
about describing would form a composite that would
grant us situational-awareness. This situational
awareness is how one tells when one is in dream space.
At some point you'd have to ask yourself, what's more
real?, that which I see through physical eyes, or
things I create and put my own rules and senses on.
We have a common ground for which we interact. We see
other people and things and can model their behavior
well enough that we can be confident that these rules
will hold as long as we choose to participate. We have
a sense of what is *us* and what is not. Is this
learned? Or is it built in?
The question of animals morphing to other things is
only meaningfull statistically. We've grown up in a
world where things like that don't happen. Not many
people claim to have seen such things, so we accept
that as a-typical behavior. It does'nt fit our model
of *reality*. I submit that if people relied on this
kind of defintion of reality that they set themselves
up for a kind of weirding-out, lost feeling when life
then throws us a curve. If one day rabbits do develop
the ability to morph, I think most science types could
be found wandering around in a stupor and babbling
meaningless phrases.
To get an idea of this, one might recall a movie or
experience like culture-shock that caused a person to
feel out of place and lost. For me this is easily
accomplished with a really strange movie. I saw a
program on WWII where an interviewed paratrooper
mentioned mentioned that after puting on all his gear,
and while waiting to board the aircraft amidst all the
noisy aircraft in preperation for the D-Day invation,
he felt a kind of disconnected, surreal feeling.
I've felt this as well when some time ago on board a
small aircraft wearing a headset and voice activated
mike. It seems just the loss of something familiar
like aural echos and hearing one's own natural voice
can be enough to leave one in a dreamlike state.
I think just the loss of the ability to model enough
of one's sensory input would cause this loss of
connection to reality.
Robert W.
--- George Levy <GLevy.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> This is a continuation of "Consistency? + Programs
> for G, G*, ...+ White Rabbits"
>
> Some more thoughts about dreaming.
>
> I wrote:
>
> >
> > To summarize:
> > White rabbits are inconsistent by definition. The
> issue is "inconsistent with
> > respect which frame of reference?"
> > If we dream of a real world white rabbit
> (inconsistency as seen from the real
> > world point of view) then it may be perfectly
> consistent in the dream world. If
> > it is consistent in the dream world, no problem.
> No paradox in the dream world.
> > No paradox in the real world..
> > If we dream of a dream world white rabbit
> (inconsistency as seen from the dream
> > world point of view), then we realize the dream
> world is a fake and we wake up.
> > No more dream world. No more paradox.
> >
> > We can resolve the white rabbit paradox if we take
> relativity seriously.
> >
> > George
>
> Let's say you are dreaming of a nice little pussy
> cat. Suddenly the pussy cat morphs
> (white rabbit?) into a hungry lion who goes straight
> for you with bared fangs and
> drooling saliva.with anticipation of a good meal.
>
> The first consistency test is whether you believe in
> the morphin process or you
> don't.
>
> If you do believe that the cat morphed into a lion,
> then your world is consistent
> and you are having a bad nightmare.The lion will
> tear you to pieces and you'll die
> in your dream. At that point you meet the second
> consistency test.
>
> Either you believe you are dead and then you must
> stop dreaming and therefore stop
> believing you are dead... This is impossible. Your
> dream world therefore becomes
> inconsistent and comes to an end. You either switch
> to a deep theta sleep state or
> you wake up... unless you go to a dream heaven...
> but then you are not really
> dead....and the whole pussycat/lion nightmare could
> arise again... Death in a dream
> leads to infinite heavenly regression or to
> inconsistency.
>
> Now if you don't believe that the cat morphed into a
> lion, you realize that your
> world is a dream world. You then have two choices.
> Either wake up (end of the dream
> world) or continue to enjoy your dream with the full
> knowledge that it is only a
> dream not the reality (end of real dream) and that
> no matter what the lion does to
> you, it's only a dream and nothing bad could really
> happens. So you let the lion eat
> you. In fact you are really enjoying the process.
> Finding yourself in the stomach of
> the lion.... becoming the lion.... what fun!!! A
> dream that you know is a dream is
> called a lucid dream. Lucid dream are fun! You can
> jump from a huge cliff and not
> get hurt, stand in front of a speeding locomotive
> and see it go right through you.
> In a lucid dream, you are immortal.
>
> Not let's take a step back and look at science in
> interpreting our world. The role
> of science is to expose inconsistencies and reveal
> the old perception of the world
> world for the dream it is....Our set of beliefs
> affects how we perceive the world.
> Way back before Copernicus, we were living in a
> dream world where the earth was at
> the center of the universe etc... But there were
> inconsistencies... Copernicus,
> Galileo, Newton, Einstein etc.. resolved the
> inconsistencies. They showed us that
> the old set of beliefs were just dreams, not
> reality. Our horizon has been
> expanding. We have been waking up, and waking up
> again, and again. We are now faced
> with the ultimate expansion of our horizons: the
> plenitude. Quantum immortality is
> like lucid dream immortality. Yes, our world is a
> dream. But what a magnificient
> dream! Let's be like the lucid dreamer and enjoy it
> to the fullest!
>
> George
>
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Received on Tue Jun 12 2001 - 00:03:16 PDT