The neuroscience of lucid dreaming

[ChicoRaton]

Are there any (other) neuroscientists here?

I joined this forum when I was a teenager. Now I’m studying neuroscience at the predoctoral level.

I’d like to get a discussion going about the neuroscience of lucid dreaming.

Um,

Go!

[drakekarmin]

Yes sure there will be lot of good neuroscientists to help you.

[ChicoRaton]

Here’s a pretty recent review on lucid dreaming induction techniques

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22841958

There’s not a lot of research out there on the topic…

[yoy]

Is there a way to read it fully?

[matthewebbert]

lucid dreaming has become a hot topic for neuroscience and cognitive psychology because it promises to isolate one of the hardest-to-pin-down objects of all time.

[ChicoRaton]

@yoy

Is there a way to read it fully?

Yeah, if you click the upper-right hand corner button that says “Elsevier full-text article.” It’s copyrighted so I’m not sure if it’s legal for me to post the PDF here. Large libraries, especially those associated with universities, usually have access to these articles. I’ll look into the copyright restrictions to see if my University’s license allows me to re-post the article here. Or you can buy it for $31.50 USD.

matthewebbert, care to elaborate?

[Qu (aka pasQuale)]

@ChicoRaton

Are there any (other) neuroscientists here?

I joined this forum when I was a teenager. Now I’m studying neuroscience at the predoctoral level.

I’d like to get a discussion going about the neuroscience of lucid dreaming.

Um,

Go!

Hey ChicoRaton!

I remember you! Good to see you back and cool to read you are pursuing the field of neuroscience, as a matter of fact, I’m a cognitive psychologist now don’t know about many(neuro) scientists here on the forum though but who knows, maybe you can lure them out

[Rafnica]

I’m am partially studying neuroscience, but I really don’t know much about it yet. I’m thinking about doing a research master in cognitive neuroscience or fundamental neuroscience though.

[pumpkin]

I don’t care the neuroscience about lucid dream.I just want to play games in it.

[Qu (aka pasQuale)]

Not about lucid dreaming but neuroscience of dreams:

sciencemag.org/content/early … ce.1234330

Scientists have demonstrated dream imagery can be recorded and translated.

[ChicoRaton]

@Qu

Not about lucid dreaming but neuroscience of dreams:

sciencemag.org/content/early … ce.1234330

Scientists have demonstrated dream imagery can be recorded and translated.

This was interesting… I have thought that maybe dream perception doesn’t involve lower-order processing, because visual perception in dreams is all about objects and ideas and the fine details are often difficult to see.

Have you ever tried examining an object really closely, trying to pick out the finest lines and shapes possible?

The results suggest that the principle of perceptual equivalence (29), which postulates a common neural substrate for perception and imagery, generalizes to spontaneously generated visual experience during sleep. Although we have demonstrated semantic decoding with the higher visual cortex, this does not rule out the possibility of decoding low-level features with the lower visual cortex.

[ChicoRaton]

@yoy

Is there a way to read it fully?

The article says basically that all the studies are low quality and that there is an extreme scarcity of lucid dreaming research, and that WBTB seems to be the most reliable method for “at-home” lucid dreaming. There’s a lot of meta-analysis.

[The0neThe0nly]

I imagine some day, dream sharing could be possible through machines. But I’m sure we are a longgg way from that. And with that, there would be many bad things (like the stuff that happens in Inception). Who knows?

[Shaper]

It’s really interesting to see that others have begun to study the mind/brain after their earlier experiences here on the forums and with lucid dreaming! I myself have spent quite a lot of time studying philosophy owing in large part to some great discussions I’ve had in the Cloud, and this fall I’ve be starting my doctoral studies in Cognitive Science – it’s been a dream of mine to study the mind in some way or another since I first started lucid dreaming as a teenager.

Something I’ve come across before that might have some interesting predictions for the neuroscience of dreaming is this. I haven’t read this paper closely, but I think I have the gist of Dennet’s theory of dreaming. Actually I think some of LaBerge’s work seems to run contrary to what Dennet proposes. Nevertheless, some of what he says here might imply certain things that neuroscientists can test.