The Spark of Lucidity

Quest for Lucidity
1

I’m trying, based on my current knowledge about the brain, to explain what happens inside our brain when we get lucid during a DILD. I’m also trying to make this as simple as possible.

[PFC = Prefrontal cortex. The part of the brain that is responsible for logical thinking and making certain associations (and other things).]

So, how do we get our PFC, which is normally shutdown, to get up and running again during the dream state? (by ‘shutdown’ I mean, very inactive.)

I’m imagining it like a tiny spark in your PFC. Maybe a single neuron firing and then setting up a huge chain reaction. Suddenly all the neurons are activated around it. I call this the
‘spark of lucidity’.

How do we experience this in the dream world?

With WILD of course, the PFC never shuts down in the first place. That’s why we are able to continue with awareness after we entered the dream state (of course there are other processes we block during that procedure)

With MILD we try to program our mind so that it activates the PFC during the dream.

The ‘spark of lucidity’ mostly occurs during the DILD’s (not RCILD’s!):
Imagine you’re dreaming. You follow the dream normally. The brain is highly active but the PFC stays dark at this time. You fly and people change faces in front of you but everything seems alright even when you enter your room and you see your doppelganger standing in front of you. Meanwhile a neuron fires (accidentally) and reaches the PFC. The chain reaction starts, setting off a firework of neurons firing.

This is the most crucial point in DILD because now it depends on whether you give your PFC more fuel. How? By doing a RC for example.
At this point in the dream you go ‘Hey, wait a second…’
If you’re lucky now you’ll do a RC at this point. (Either by habit or by memory)
You’re doing a nose RC. You’re able to breathe through the closed nose. You’re certain that you’re dreaming now. You managed to activate the PFC by stimulating it and setting off more neurons to fire.

The PFC is very weak at this point and it takes a lot of fuel to power it. If the fuel stays out, if these neurons in the PFC won’t get more stimuli, they’ll extinct pretty soon and it get’s quiet again in the PFC.
We experience this often when we lose lucidity during the dream. When we wake up in the morning it takes about 20 minutes to fully activate the PFC. This is not a problem because, unlike in the dream, our world is logical in itself (most of the time at least :wink: )

2

Did you read about this somewhere? I’m interested. :smile:

3

Very interesting… but, I’m afraid I’ve got some slight misunderstandings…

1.

Twenty minutes ? What would be the difference between these 20 minutes and when the PFC is fully activated IRL ? :eh:

The moment I wake up I feel as normal and “logical” as possible. I don’t have to “snap out” of it like in a LD and after 20 minutes go and say “Oh yeah… it’s RL !” (|)) I know you said “because our world is logical in itself”, but going back to my first question… when waking up, don’t just all the neurons “fire up” at once and there we are fully lucid ?

2.

Why “accidentally” in brackets ? Can they fire “unaccidentally” - but just because they are somehow programmed to ? If this is all accidentally, then people should have DILD’s like one per year. I guess you can somehow stimulate these neurons to “fire” more, getting so more DILD’s - I mean a sort of habit - no ? :neutral:

3.

Even after an RC you still need fuel ? I’m pretty sure this could happen, so… how can you make use of more “fuel” ? Rubbing your hands and stuff like that ? Sounds like attaining lucidity all depends on weather the neurons want to keep firing or not… :meh:

[size=150]Well formulated and informative on-topic ! Keep up the good work Mars, I’m really looking forward to knowing more ! :smile:
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4

I think most of those 20 minutes are integrated at the end of a sleep when you wake up by youself (so not from alarm clock etc.). That’s the time when you become very aware but still have easy access to dreams so maybe that’s why it’s easy to slip into LD in the morning. When something else wakes me up I usually have to get used to RL for quite some time. Most children seem to need quite some time too to recognise RL when they’ve woken up. (btw… is this the reason why some people are really grumphy when they wake up?)

I was thinking the same thing as you Don Anonymus, about the “accidentally”. Hard to believe it accidentally fires a neuron because you can obviously train your LD skills.

The last bit about fuelling… tell me I’m really curious :smile:

5

Thank you Leonie and Don Anonymus for your feedback :smile:
It gave me a lot to think about

  • First about the 20 minutes
    I read this in a couple of books and articles.
    Like Leonie said, this process probably starts already before we actually wake up. This would indeed also explain why a lot of people get lucid just before they are about to wake up. If so, you wouldn’t say “I woke up because I got lucid.” but rather “I got lucid because I was about to wake up.” :wink:

  • About the “Fuel”
    I just took this from my own experience during the lucid dreams. To me it seems like during a lucid dream the subconscious is trying to lure me back into the normal dream state. It just likes the status quo, where it is in control of what is going on in the dream, like it would be usually the case. So it uses any chance it can get to ‘take over’. I think as long as you keep sending signals to the PFC (to stimulate it) you make it harder for your SC to shut it down again.

Yes, this is done by RC’s or just a constant reminder that this is just a dream. But, technically, (if this theory is correct) solving math problems should work as well …(perhaps this is worth some research. :grin: )
(But then you might have the problem of your SC taking over and distracting you etc. … :confused:)

  • And now to the most interesting part: “(Accidentally)”

Tbh, I haven’t really put a lot of though into it but I think it’s a very important aspect of it.

This is true. I’ve had my first LD when I was about 6 years old and I had no idea what LDing was. I believe that this is an example for this ‘accidental neuron firing’.

If we would say that all DILD’s occur only because of accidental neurons firing activating the PFC we would have perhaps 1 or 2 DILD’s per year and all the others were actually MILD’s because we somehow programmed the neurons to fire. But I think this would only be more confusing. :eh:

LD is learnable I agree, but the question is, how do we train to become lucid. What do we train and how? Can we even learn how to DILD? Can we train a neuron to fire at the right time at the right place? Or would that only be possible with MILD?

What we certainly can do is setting new neuronal ways in our brain. (This is like learning something new, like an instrument.) The more a synapse in our brain is used the stronger it gets, hence the more signals can come through and I think this is what happens by training LDing. After a while this path into the PFC becomes so strong that it’s possible to activate it almost every night because more and more neurons use it ‘accidentally’. :wink:

Perhaps there is a way to build this neuronal highway at daytime?..

Gah, sorry for the long post. There are still plenty of questions to be answered though and many things we don’t know yet so feel free to speculate! :happy:

6

It’s true what you said about the neuronal paths in your brain, I guess that’s what learning is. The more you do it, the more it’s activated and the easier it gets.

So I guess that frequent LDers always show PFC activity while dreaming, even when it’s a ND, there will be just a little bit of activity that can become more activated more easily compaired to normal sleepers who only have those few accidentally fired neurons?

Makes sense to me because even in NDs I have the feeling I’m dreaming but I’m not aware enough to make it a LD.

And it is really good that you point out to keep doing RCs or remind yourself to think or say that you’re in a dream to maintain lucidness. I will use it more to check out if my LDs become longer. Or do some extra math equations haha :happy:

7

This is interesting.

I have an idea. You know how when you are falling asleep, you kind of just ‘fade out’ into sleep? Well, if you stay fully aware long enough, you’ll find that what actually happens is that you’ll start thinking random thoughts that really make no sense. You can’t control these thoughts, they will just float into your head. Eventually they take over and your PFC shuts down and you fall asleep.

These thoughts are probably the closest you’ll get to a dream without WILDing. So now try this. It semi-worked for me (I came close to having a LD):

  1. Choose an object or occurance… anything that can be in a dream. It should be something significant, like something important that happened during the day or something that you think about a lot. For example, if you recently watched a movie that really brought out your emotions, choose the thing from the movie that did that. Or, if you aced a test and got excited, choose the test.

  2. Do WBTB. When you wake up, stay awake for 20 minutes but don’t get up. Logic puzzles are good to do, because they wake up your PCF.

  3. Once the 20 minutes are up, go back to sleep. But, as you drift off to sleep, take note of all the thoughts that come into your head. Repeat and analyze everything you think about in your mind.

  4. By doing step (3), you are accepting info from your subconscious with your conscious mind. Now, it’s time to give a little bit back. Remember the thing you chose in step (1)? Every time you recieve a thought that your conscious mind did not think up by itself, think of the thing you chose and imagine that you are ‘sending’ this info to your subconscious mind. Also, tell yourself that you will do a RC whenever you think of it or see it.

  5. When you feel yourself getting really tired, hang on to a mere thread of the thing you chose, and let your subconscious take over.

If you can manage, you might even be able to acheive a WILD (but to do that, instead of doing step (1), use ‘lucid dream’ or ‘I am dreaming’).

What this does, is it basically sets a landmark in your dream that will fire the neurons and start a chain reaction that will make you lucid. Also, by doing step (5), you may even end up falling asleep with a small part of your PFC still awake. This will make you more likely to do a RC, which will set off the rest of the neurons and give you a LD. Try it!

8

wow this is really cool and interesting, thanks for the post!

And I completely believe the 20-minute power up process, because sometimes when I wake up and immediately write down a dream in my DJ and come back to read it later in the day, I see a lot of abnormal spelling errors and incorrect grammar that I would never make when fully conscious, so I definitely see how the PFC isn’t at full function right away :wink:

9

This is a very good information about the single neuron “booting up” the PFC. Sounds very similar to what I experience after a digital clock reality check in a dream. It starts off as a very very dim realization and then grows with each subsequent glance at the clock. After several seconds I’m lucid enough to go have an adventure, usually leaving the room through a wall. :smile:

10

Thanks for having taken the time to respond to all this. :smile:

This really makes sense :eek: Never thought of it…

Well explained. But… if a synapse isn’t used, it can disappear, can’t it ?

Though I’m not sure about that, because if you do a thing for long enough and put pressure on it, it creates another connection which somehow “connects” the connection making it even stronger (saw that in a documentary once :wink:) - which is almost everlasting.

Anyways, I’ve been thinking. What does MILD actually do ? It makes neurons fire up during a dream. How ? Just by thinking of some dream and daydreaming that you control it ? How does that stimulate them neurons to fire “accidentally” ? And how come that it only works that time ? (Sometimes it doesn’t work at all…). I’m not sure I was so clear on that one… was just a thought.

Now that is something on which research should be done - what am I saying here ? Serious investigations, testing, explaining… really, really interesting idea. :smile:

11

very interesting but it cant always be accidental when we have a DILD because a decent amount of the time in a DILD you realize youre dreaming because of something thats just too out of the ordinary

12

Phew, that’s a tough one. Perhaps with MILD you can programm your SC to do boot your PFC once you’re in this dream environment. This is like saying ‘As soon as I see that certain store, I’ll remember to buy milk’. This comes easier when you have a dream sign, when you can really set that ‘landmark’.

This is where I see xxmoriahxx’s tech working. She suggest to program that mark right at falling asleep. This however requires to hit that mark and for the SC to do the right thing at that moment. A tricky task for the brain while it is in sleep-mode i guess. But defenatelly worth a try! :content:

I concur! :happy:

This is true, that’s how we have a chance to get lucid. But consider that our PFC has to be already fired up to a certain degree to notice that something is just too out of the ordinary in our dreams. :smile:

13

Hey… isn’t that how we could practice neuron PFC firing during daytime ? Simply set tasks around us. :eh:

I have problems setting my “SC” to remind me of what it has to at the certain time… it failed many times. Now talking about doing that in dreams while it isn’t sure enough IRL it’s pretty much out of the question - at least for me.

I do remember for a pretty much amount of time a certain thing if I literally “learn” it before. I mean, if I repeat what I want to remember and focus deeply only on it and practice it times a day, I will remember it. It’s funny, because things which happen around and which aren’t of much importance I sometimes do remember instantly, while things I want to remember take time to do so. What if I’d try that before going to sleep ? Hmm… :neutral

How could the brain respond to such a landmark and “if … then” task, if the PFC (logic center) is shut down ? I mean, a tricky task indeed…

Mars, if you are really looking forward to a deep dive into this story and perhaps need some help, count on me - I find it fascinating :smile:

14

I think that a MILD works by when you repeat somehting over and over in your head or out loud. Then it extends the time that one part of the PFC or a neuron stays active looking for the sign since we are expecting it in the near future. The rest of the “logical” part might be shut down but that one part might still be working. Think of it as this---- a man works for a company and everyone else goes home because it is closing time. But this man gets new work to do (this “new work” is you repeating to yourself to do something) and has to stay at work for an extra hour and he is the only person still left in the building. If he doesnt finish his work in that one hour, he decides its too late and he goes home too. (that represents you not realizing you’re dreaming) lets say you do realize you are dreaming then that means that this man finishes his work but he finds something interstig and emails the rest of his workers to come back. (right when he sends this “email” that is the point of lucidity.

15

Sounds like it’s all up to “the man” if he either wants or not to “remain” at work… what if he quits ? :content:

16

well if he quits, or “goes home” early then that means you didnt it repeat it enough times. :smile:

17

This post is really nice, however, it is kinda similar to what bruno posted earlier, and like ninja’s theory (or hypothesis?).

Nothing against it at all, I’m just pondering… Maybe someone has the perfect technique/methodology and we don’t know it, then we just keep trying and trying to reach it… Are we going around and around?

But, we have no choice, but to keep trying, so keep up, and please, document it!

Good luck for all!
I know we can reach it :tongue: (some time)

18

I say, game on Don Anonymous! :happy:

I’ve been thinking about this…

You’re right this is kinda strange that this works- So what if the “if-then” command shouldn’t be stored in your PFC but rather somewhere else?

looks at brain-map :tongue:

What about the Amygdala. A small area which controls emotions. It receives sensual inputs and assigns different emotions to it. It is very active during dreaming because dreams consist mainly of emotions.

“The amygdala assigns emotional significance to the data it receives—and it has a pretty loose grip on reality. Take, for instance, our reaction to scary movies—or dreams. The event may not really be threatening, but the amygdala perceives it as real and triggers chemical changes in the body as though it were real. This part of the brain doesn’t know a real event from a perceived event—yet perception can change biology.” source*

Now (and this sounds like sci-fi) what if we can program the amygdala and set the if-then-command in there? Because unlike the PFC the amygdala stays active during dreams and even gets more active…

I’ve no idea how though or if it’s even possible…
But you know what they say: In order to get lucid you should associate the feeling of becoming lucid with emotions!

19

Gah, sorry I just saw your post after I posted. :eek:

I’d like to point out that this is not some sort of LD-technique, method or guide. (yet?).
All we do here is look at lucid dreaming from a neurological point of view :tongue:
(Even though we’ve just started scratching on the survace. :content: )
It’s mostly theoretical stuff here based on assumptions and current knowledge so anyone can post their idea here. :smile:

20

No need to apologize, I wasn’t criticizing your post, I’m sorry if it felt like that.

We can tell about the same thing from several points of view, and then, identify something really really important. So, continue working on it!

:happy: