Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner

Something funny happens when I read books on lucid dreaming:

I have more lucid dreams.

It wasn’t but a day or two into reading Robert Waggoners new book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self
, that I found myself experiencing more lucidity in my dreams.

(And hey – not a problem. I will gladly trade waking myself up at all hours of the night in an attempt to induce lucidity for reading a great book on lucid dreaming. )

Other themes from Waggoners book began making their way into my dreams, too – especially how I thought about my dream experiences upon waking.

I’d write my dreams down, and then find myself asking questions like:

• Do dream characters have some kind of free will?
• Do dream characters have their own goals and intentions?
  (…and how much does any of that have to do with me? Everything? Nothing? )
• Can dream characters tell me or show me things I can benefit from?
• Am I fooling myself by thinking I really create and (if lucid) control my dreams?

One of the first points Waggoner makes in his book is that, contrary to our popular understanding of lucid dreaming, lucid dreamers do NOT control the dream.

He explains this using the following analogy:

No sailor controls the sea. Only a foolish sailor would say such a thing. Similarly, no lucid dreamer controls the dream. Like a sailor on the sea, we lucid dreamers direct our perceptual awareness within the larger state of dreaming.

At first glance, this might not sound like a big deal, but this is quite a break from most definitions.

Starting from this mindset, there are many interesting consequences, from refocusing the concept of lucid dreaming beyond a self-centered, sometimes egotistical experience, to wondering then what sort of limits there are in this world that I previously thought of as under my control?

And finally, it begs the question that’s surely on the tip of your tongue right now:

Hey, if I’m not controlling this dream, then who or what is?

…

3 Questions for Robert Waggoner, author of Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self.

I’d like to highlight one of the more startling interactions with dream characters you speak of in your book. In chapter 4, “Beyond Freud’s Pleasure Principle”, you write about an experience in which a lucid dreamer tells a dream character named Sandra that she was a character in her dream, and then:

She replied that I’m a character in her dream.

To prove her wrong, I did various things such as fly around the room and change our environment.

Sandra did similar tricks. Neither of us could influence the other.

After a bit of this, I was very confused and Sandra commented that she, too, was confused.

What do you think interactions like these mean in regards to the identity and motivations of dream characters? Is the question of dream characters having free will a legitimate question?

Ben, thanks for your question.  I first became interested in this topic, when I noticed how many lucid dreamers reported the dream figure looked annoyed or upset after being told they were dream figures.  This did not support the prevailing thesis that all lucid events are the result of expectation and mental modeling.  Looking in to it more deeply, I felt like the Dr. Dolittle of Dream Figures – I wanted to talk to them, and understand them from their perspective.

In the conscious conversation you pulled from my book, lucid dreamers see the shocking complexity of dream figures.  First, the dream figure suggests from its perspective the lucid dreamer is the dream character! Then, it responds rationally to the lucid dreamer’s attempt to demonstrate superiority by showing that it can do everything that the lucid dreamer does.  Finally, it realizes the futility of these attempts at persuasion, and emotionally shows its sense of confusion.

Think about that.  A dream figure shows apparently unique awareness, the ability to observe and rationally respond, and the capacity for emotion.  Incredible.

Like many lucid dreamers who experience these moments, we are left with the sense of some dream figures having awareness roughly equivalent to our own (and sometimes greater!); a point the German psychotherapist and lucid dream researcher, Paul Tholey, suggested also.  So lucid dreamers quickly see that dream figures are much more than mere symbols or ‘a reflection of some aspect of yourself.’ Some dream figures appear basically self-aware.  As such, they demonstrate a unique independence and separate-from-the-waking-self thought process.  Lucid interactions like this may be showing us actual ‘sub-personalities,’ or ‘ego-complexes’ in action.  In lucid dreaming, we may have the means to investigate a continuum of conscious forms; both those beneath our level of awareness and also those beyond it e.g, the Self.

What motivates these dream figures?  Good question. By all appearances, this level of dream figures seems motivated by the desire to be understood.   They don’t seem to have an agenda to dominate or usurp the lucid dreamer – any more than they want to be dominated by the lucid dreamer.  They appear to want recognition, appreciation, possibly even respect.

However, as I point out in my book, there does seem to be another class of dream figures motivated by the desire to educate and assist the lucid dreamer.  They often appear when the lucid dreamer needs help or actively asks for assistance, and refer to themselves as “guides” or “guardians.”  As such, we seem to have different types of dream figures, possibly with different motivations.

Free will?  By their actions in lucid dreams, it definitely appears that some dream figures have a separate-from-the-waking self sense of awareness and act according to their own intents.  So yes, some appear to have a type of freedom of action within that realm.  Of course, a larger subset of dream figures appear to have very little, if any, awareness, and may constitute a more basic level of mental formation.

Through your own experience, you’ve come to the conclusion that lucid dreamers do not control the dream, but rather, act more as a guide through the dream, much in the way a sailor moves through water but does not control the ocean.

In this analogy, it’s easy to imagine the sailors boat propped up in the water, with him navigating, but not controlling, the ocean – but in a lucid dream, when we are manipulating our surroundings and experiences, but are still not the ones ultimately in control of the dream, who or what is?

In my book, I suggest that lucid dreamers “direct the focus” of their dreaming, but “do not control” the entire dream, much like a sailor directs the movement of the boat, but does not control the sea.

Lucid dreamers notice this when they fly through a wall and encounter an entirely new, detailed environment.  Who created that environment and all the details?  Not the lucid dreamer.  He or she was simply flying through a wall.  The lucid dreamer did not consciously pre-determine (or control) that the next room would have two doors, green walls, five desks (some with staplers), three dream figures, etc, etc.  But somehow, that is what the lucid dreamer encounters upon flying through the wall, and basically accepts it without thinking about it or controlling it.

Obviously, something fleshes out the dreamscape, and creates all of these details, which are not consciously considered or intended by the lucid dreamer.  But what does it?  How does it come about?

Here, we have a number of possibilities for dream scene creating: 1) the lucid dreamer’s subconscious dredges up appropriate details through an automatic dream making process, 2) or a hybrid system of subconscious dream making exists both automatic and purposeful, which allows for deep meaning and the entry of apparently aware, independent dream figures, or 3) an inner awareness throws together the dream scene with lightning fast speed, possibly in keeping with certain principles or overall purposes.  Of course, once the dream scene emerges, the lucid dreamer can focus on anything in that dream scene and try to direct it – or if talented, the lucid dreamer can focus his intent on potentially anything (flying to outer space, conducting a dream experiment, smashing the dream scene, etc) and try to achieve it.

From my lucid dreaming and research, I knew that my beliefs, expectations, focus, intent and will appeared to coalesce to help create or direct the formed reality.  However, the surprising elements and sometimes shocking information that I sought out (such as clairvoyant and precognitive information) which appeared in some lucid dreams, suggested that something more was involved.  In my book, I call this the Inner X, an inner unknown – since my waking self was unaware of the information.

In part, this caused me to assume that a larger awareness existed ‘behind the dream.’ So I began posing questions and requests to that non-apparent awareness behind the dream.  I would just shout out what I wanted.  Incredibly, a response would occur – sometimes of mind blowing proportions.

So in answer to your question, it may be that like the human body which has automatic functions and the capacity for intended actions and thought, dream creating has both an automatic function and a capacity for intended action and thought, most easily seen when lucidly aware and actively engaging it.  However, the action and thought can originate from multiple layers of the Self – the conscious waking self in the dream, subconscious intents and/or the inner Self or awareness behind the dream.

Lastly, a more mundane, but rather important question:

In your presentations on lucid dreaming, you often begin by asking people if they’ve ever had a lucid dream. About 80% of the hands go up. One question later reveals that about 35% of the audience has had more than 2 dozen lucid dreams. But if you go further and ask who has had more than 100 lucid dreams, you wrote that you might look out and see just one hand, alone, in a sea of people interested enough in lucid dreaming to actually attend a lecture or conference on the subject.

This point bothers me.

Despite the rich amount of information describing techniques to induce lucidity and assurances from people that it’s not hard to do – it is.

Why do you think this is the case and what can people do differently to change this?

Personally, I feel that this culture does not value dreaming, nor does it approve of altering consciousness.  When you put those two things together, you create a cultural sanction against lucid dreaming.  As social beings, it seems hard to go against the culture and its belief system.

If the culture valued dreaming, and approved of altering consciousness, you would likely find a flourishing of lucid dreaming and a much deeper exploration of it. Individually, we must learn to value dreaming, value active explorations of consciousness, and value lucid awareness.

Some people have written me that these are the reasons they like my book.  I help illustrate the value of lucid dreaming by showing how some lucid dreamers have used it to heal their own bodies and apparently others as well.  How lucid dreamers have been able to seek out conceptual information, unknown information, clairvoyant and precognitive information.  How lucid dreamers have been able to come to a greater understanding of the dream realm, and its interface with waking reality.  How lucidly aware, we have a platform to honestly probe our larger identity and methods for reality creation.

Once we value something, let go of limiting beliefs, and reward or praise the activity, it becomes much easier naturally.

So it is important to un-earth those limiting beliefs, address the fears and hesitations and create what I call a ‘welcoming mental atmosphere’ for lucid dreaming.  That, along with persevering in a proven practice, should get most any truly interested person into the game.

Lucid dreaming does not seem to be everyone’s path.  But I believe almost anyone can become a talented amateur, and see for themselves the potential and beauty of this approach.

…

Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Waggoner

It’s rare that a book comes out these days that advances the discussion and understanding of Lucid Dreaming, but this is what Robert Waggoner has accomplished with his new book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self
.

The official description reads…

Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self is the account of an extraordinarily talented lucid dreamer who goes beyond the boundaries of both psychology and religion. In the process, he stumbles upon the Inner Self.

While lucid (consciously aware) in the dream state and able to act and interact with dream figures, objects, and settings, dream expert Robert Waggoner experienced something transformative and unexpected. He was able to interact consciously with the dream observer-the apparent Inner Self-within the dream. At first this seemed shocking, even impossible, since psychology normally alludes to such theoretical inner aspects as the Subliminal Self, the Center, the Internal Self-Helper in vague and theoretical ways. Waggoner came to realize, however, that aware interaction with the Inner Self was not only possible, but actual and highly inspiring. He concluded that while aware in the dream state, one has both a psychological tool and a platform from which to understand dreaming and the larger picture of man’s psyche as well. Waggoner proposes 5 stages of lucid dreaming and guides readers through them, offering advice for those who have never experienced the lucid dream state and suggestions for how experienced lucid dreamers can advance to a new level.

Lucid Dreaming offers exciting insights and vivid illustrations that will intrigue not only avid dreamworkers but anyone who is interested in consciousness, identity, and the definition of reality.”

Peer Review & Reception

Dream researchers, writers, and heavyweights such as Jayne Gackenback, Robert Van De Castle, Robert Moss, and Stanley Krippner lended their endorsement to Waggoners new book on the back cover, and thus far, Amazon.com reviewers have all given it a 5 star rating, the highest rating possible, with some calling it the best book ever written on lucid dreaming. Big words!

Interview with Author — coming soon!

I will be interviewing Robert Waggoner on the subject of lucid dreaming and the themes discussed in his book.

I’m really excited for the opportunity to interview an individual who has logged over 1,000 lucid dreams, has 30 years of experience in the subject, and currently serves as the President-elect for IASD, The International Association for the Study of Dreams!

Be on the lookout for this combination book review/author interview next month here on Dreaming Life.

In the meantime, you can learn more about (or buy) his book on Amazon.com.

Please tell us about you film Entheogen: Awakening the Divine Within. What’s it about and why did you decide to make it?

The film Entheo:genesis is about discovering the ways in which we participate with the dance and flow of life— and how to maintain that flow. The film also gives us context from our history— from the evolution from indigenous tribes through shamanism through world religions throughout the course of history. Also how our civilization has participated with meaning, inspiration, and the grand metaphysical questions. We end the film with a contemporary perspective of the post-modern technosphere, which is cancerous on our biosphere, which we are embedded in and a big part of.

What was it like working with the likes of Alex Grey, Terrence McKenna, Daniel Pinchbeck, and other well-known figures in the entheogen and shamanic communities?

One of the greatest peripheral benefits of creating a piece like Entheo:genesis is having the opportunity to sit one-on-one in dialogue with some of the most inspirational minds and hearts–our elders on this planets. It was a tremendous honor to be able to work with and spend the countless hours in the editing room with reviewing these interviews and subjects vs. a thirty hour piece on the evolution of hula hoop in southern California. I’m not saying the hula hoop is not interesting. I like the hula hoop as much as the next man or woman does. I’m saying spending hours editing hula hoops in the hula hoop world would be my second choice if given the choice between these two.

I really love the subtitle Awakening the Divine Within, as it hints at the potential of entheogens to manifest mystical states of being. In that respect, what are your thoughts on the role of entheogens as a tool for spiritual exploration? Are these experiences legitimate expressions of spirituality?

I think entheogens can play an integral role in the birthing process of an individual who is coming from adolescence into adulthood. I think there are a lot of 30, 40 and 50 years olds walking around on the street still encapsulated in an adolescent mentality. Having the opportunity to study indigenous and shamanic use of entheogens as initiatory substances, I gained a profound respect for the sacred participation, and the sacred intentionality, which must be present in a journey of this sort. I believe that entheogens are not for everyone. I believe entheogens must be respected and in the right context, set, and setting, with the right intention. They can be an extremely potant catalyst for self-exploration, psychological processing, and spiritual reawakening.

Psychonauts can get divided over terms like entheogen, hallucinogen, psychedelic, dissociative, etc. What that in mind, what makes a substance an Entheogen?

Traditionally, entheogens describe plant based hallucinogens, which would include Salvia, Iboga, Ayahuasca, Psylocibin, San Pedro, etc.

Many people describe out of body experiences (OOBE) with entheogens such as Salvia Divinorum and Ayahausca. This aspect of the “drug experience” endlessly fascinates me and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on OOBE’s.

Well, I think that any entheogen or substance which induces an out of body experience yields one very important realization, which is that we are not our bodies, and there is some greater understanding of the psyche or the soul. Out of body experiences aren’t always limited to use of entheogens. There’s a great article here that offers new research— the article claims out of body experiences can be achieved using sensory deprivation with virtual reality goggles.

What do you think Entheogens can tell us about our own consciousness and sense of self?

I think that entheogens offer us a window into the deeper dimensions of our Self, our psyches, our behaviors, our subconscious patterns, and we may use these substances in the proper context of course, to do the necessary work, the individuation, bringing a sense of awareness to ego inflation and self importance so that through that process we may gain a stronger sense of our community and our families, and also regarding other species, plants, etc.—how we fit into the sempiternal interconnected web of life which sustains the whole of existence.

How have Entheogens shaped your worldview and affected you as a person?

Entheogens have had a tremendous impact on my worldview as some of the most potent experiences including inspiration of the most divine nature to isolation of the most fearful… I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue my practice on my own path, which includes evermore intention structure and absence of structure, gratitude and prayer when I journey.

Official Site: (DVD available for purchase here)

http://entheogen.tv/

And so I present to you a very short but interesting interview with Joe Griffin.
Is there a relationship between the mechanism behind dreams and the mechanism behind individual psychedelic experiences? Could the content of the “trip” be determined in the same way our dreams are i.e. from the days un-fulfilled emotional arousals to the nervous system?

There is an undoubted influence arising from specific expectations of the psychedelic experience. As to whether current unfullfilled expectations have a huge influence on the content, I very much doubt. It is not an area, though, that I have personally researched.

Is there a connection between having many dreams each night and then waking up with headaches? Could I actually be causing my headaches by intensifying or prolonging the REM state with my intention to have, remember, and control my dreams?

The intention of controlling dreams is unlikely to cause a major increase in the number of dreams and length of time spent dreaming. If headaches were to be caused by such research it would be more likely be due to sleep disruption interfering with the stress reduction benefits of dreaming.

(Note: I thought of this question after watching this video on dreams and depression.)

Can you explain what you mean when you equate the effects of lucid dreaming and hypnosis? Are you saying that the experience achieved through lucid dreaming can be achieved through hypnosis?

It has been suggested that lucid dreaming might provide the ideal setting to reprogramme neurotic reactions. My suggestion is that thesame benefit can be obtined more easily from hypnosis. In principle I think that anything that can be experienced in lucid dreaming is potentially also experiencable in hypnosis.

…………

I think many lucid dreamers visiting this blog might argue this last point.

What do you think?

Can your experiences in the dream world be replicated through hypnosis?

Rob was kind enough to chat with me via email and answer some questions I had after reading the book and that’s what I’m here to bring you today.

Table of Contents

watch the video
Watch Part 1 of 2 of the video clip “Imagining the Tenth Dimension”
Watch Part 2 of 2 of the video clip “Imagining the Tenth Dimension”

read the interview
part 1 – on the book itself and the animation
part 2 – what the bleep style thinking & the bicameral mind
part 3 – ghosts & science fiction
part 4 – drugs and the ten dimensions
part 5 – ten dimensions and a lot of dreams

go exploring
Imagining the 10th Dimension – main page
Tenth Dimension forum – Rob is often here chatting with visitors
Rob’s Blog – Lots of additional writing here by Rob on a variety of subjects

buy the book

Click anywhere on the image below to start this clip.

Click here for Part Two of this clip.

Click here for interview index page.

Click anywhere on the image below to start this clip.

Click here for Part One of this clip.

Click here for interview index page.

The basic idea is something I started to believe as a child – that the other realities that could have existed based upon alternate actions and chance do actually exist – I pictured my life like one of those dandelions gone to seed, with the straight stalk representing the now-locked in past, the base of the flower representing me, and all of those slender lines blooming out from there representing possible futures. Selecting one of those lines then, was like zooming in, where the one line now became part of my past and a new bloom appeared ahead of me – a very fractal, enfolding sort of an image.

By the time I was in my twenties I had worked out the steps up to seven as presented in the animation, and thought it was fascinating that so many mystics and ancient religions pointed to seven as the ultimate number for enlightenment or ascendancy. For years I would show my logical progression to people with pen and paper and a spiel very similar to the one in the animation, some people would think it was cool but many just didn’t get it. This always bothered me, I felt like I had something people in the world would be interested in, but I had never found a way to get it to that audience.

In 2004 I went in for a routine laparoscopic surgery which went wrong, a vein on my liver was accidentally sliced open and I almost bled to death on the operating table. This took me months to recover from, but as I was waking up from my morphine dreams my “way of imagining the dimensions” was one of the first things I wanted to talk about. Despite being barely conscious, there some part of my mind saying “this was something you were supposed to get done, telling people about this new way of imagining the dimensions”. My eldest son, Todd, 22 at the time, confessed later that he assumed it was just the drugs talking.

Then in spring 2005 I was in Australia, my wife had been invited to attend a series of multimedia conferences and I was tagging along because I had never seen that side of the planet. I had picked up a copy of Michio Kaku’s “Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension” for bedtime reading. At some point during the trip it occurred to me that there was a way to extend the point in the seventh dimension representing our universe to the other different-initial-conditions universes in the multiverse, and that the logic could then be extended up to a point in the tenth dimension, which was where string theorists said the superstrings that create our reality originate from.

During the long plane ride back to Canada, I developed blood clots in my legs which eventually migrated to my lungs. A month or so later I ended up at the emergency ward, so short of breath I couldn’t even fall asleep, and suspecting heart problems had caused the clots in my lungs they placed me in the Cardiac Surveillance Ward for two weeks. It was during that lovely stay in the beautiful private room with a very comfortable bed and kind nurses trained not to upset the potential heart attack victim, that I wrote the first draft of my book on my laptop. The first draft was about a hundred pages, outlined everything in the first ten chapters of the book. I spent the following year polishing the book in my spare time (while continuing my day job as composer for film and television and studio owner). The book was published early July 06, just as the website became popular.

How long did it take for you and your creative collaborators to create the animated sequence explaining your concept of the 10 dimensions? And is that really your voice on the video?

Trent Haus is President and Jason Orban is vice president of OH!Media, they were responsible for the website, and all the graphics in the book. Jason did the graphics design for the flash animation based upon my scratchy little pencil drawings and text descriptions of what I was imagining. We were working on the book graphics and the website graphics at the same time, so as we locked in the look of the still frames that would appear in the book, Jason was being given the go-ahead to animate them.

So the timetable was that I storyboarded out what I was thinking about back when I started writing the book in June 2005. I recorded myself reading the narration at my studio (Talking Dog), designed the sound effects, and gave rough mixes of the audio track in late August to Jason and Trent. A few things had to be changed in the timing of sound effects once the animation was up on its feet, but mostly that all stayed the same. Trent and Jason gave me a good deal on the project, but they were also busy with other projects… so completing the animation got pushed to the back burner for them a number of times by other projects. It didn’t help that I was very picky, as I kept asking for tweaks to make sure the overall look was as clean and simple as it could be. I signed off on the animation in April 2006, the rest of the site was mostly ready by then except we were having some trouble with a custom-designed forum. Eventually we switched it to the standard phpBB forum everyone uses and the site and the animation were finally ready to show to the world by end of June 2006.

We create reality through conscious observation. What we choose to think, decide, and observe has a literal input into the creation of the reality around us.

You write on page 64 that “we are doing more than just “throwing the dice” as quantum observers, and in fact each of us are actively influencing the outcome through the choices we make.”

To what extent can this idea be taken that we create our own reality? Is this a meaningful perspective to have over how we live our lives or is it an idea that only applies at the quantum level and not in our day to day living?

With the popularity of “The Secret” now, the whole “thoughts become things” movement (which has been around for many years) appears to have gathered new steam. I would describe the Secret as being a very simple and direct version of the What the Bleep ideas.

For me, this boils down to the difference between consensual reality and personal reality, and the fact that both can easily co-exist. So, our consensual reality has been locked in within our universe, and people can’t walk through walls no matter what actions they take as quantum observers: and the book I push off the table will fall towards the floor, not up to the sky, no matter how much I believe in The Secret. Within the framework I’m proposing, the laws of the consensual reality universe we live in are locked in by the specific point in the seventh dimension that our universe and all its possible timelines occupies. This point implies that no matter where we enter the dimensions below, we will all look back in time to see a big bang, and look into the future to see the ultimate end of the universe, creating a long rope of the many many threads that could get us from one end to the other. And I should really put “time” in quotes here, since I am saying that what we experience as time is really an illusion, a very limited view of the reality that is out there in the timeless multiverse.

This is a big picture / small picture question then: is what I have for breakfast going to influence the end of the universe? No. Is my attitude towards life going to affect my health, my way of dealing with other people, and hence the life that I end up having, out of all of the possible futures that I might have been able to experience from this moment forward? Of course it does! Any physician will tell you how important attitude is to health and recovery from illness. Lots of us know people who were “too busy to get a cold”, so they didn’t.

The jump from that idea to “you got cancer because you wanted to punish yourself, or because that was the sad lesson you chose for yourself as you selected your current reincarnation” is not one I buy into. Bad stuff happens to people because of chance, the actions of others, and actions which are difficult to see the outcome from. While there may be some smokers out there who very well have a secret death-wish that eventually gets fulfilled, the mom who dies from cancer because of some additive that was put in the food she served to her family almost certainly will tell you this is not the path she chose for herself.

In my song “Everything Fits Together” I talk about the uplifting feeling of seeing where you are in the big picture. That big picture, though, includes the fact that there are often reasons why your life is not the way you would want it, because of the parts that are beyond your control. The starving child in Africa is not going to become a millionaire just because you give them The Secret. In fact, that may be the dirty little secret of The Secret: that there are people who have used their power to allow/cause the current world we live in to exist – a powerful who have manipulated the machinery of possible futures to ensure their own wealth and success at the expense of others.

Ultimately, though, this shouldn’t be about money, this should be about happiness. We don’t all need to be millionaires, but somebody who lives their life unhappy because they feel there is no way out should look to Imagining the Tenth Dimension and understand that there the version of their life where they make the best of their current situation already exists in the fifth dimension, and they just have to find their way there.

I’m thrilled at the nice article about my project that has just come out in “What Is Enlightenment?” magazine – Senior Associate Editor Tom Huston has some excellent thoughts on just how much my way of imagining the dimensions seems to neatly tie together concepts from a wide variety of belief systems.

You mention Julian Jayne’s theory on the evolution of human consciousness as written in his book “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.” He posited that perhaps just a few thousand years ago, humans operated together as a sort of group consciousness, and that there was no division between our conscious and subconscious mind, meaning there was no one inside us actively observing and “talking” about what it saw.

Flash forward to the present day and evolution has integrated these two aspects of the mind in modern humans.

This got me mind rolling on to other thoughts, like this one:

In meditating the goal is to clear away the mental clutter of the mind and simply be. One could say that enlightenment is the embodiment of this state of mind on a moment to moment basis.

To me, this sounds a whole lot like the way our minds operated before there was an evolution of and integration between the subconscious and conscious mind. Could our desire to “calm the mind” be the desire to move back to this pre-integrated state? Do we have a subconscious memory of experiencing the world in this manner? If we view the spectrum of consciousness with species like fish on one end and present humans on the other, it would make sense to imagine that in most of the other conscious species of the world, there is not an integration of the conscious and subconscious. Perhaps there is only a subconscious, and that is why we are drawn to meditation and enlightenment because it is a return to a pre-conscious state that we evolved from. What are your thoughts on this?

I think Jaynes got it right – that our minds used to be integrated, and that what we now think of as a conscious minds and a subconscious mind is caused by the breakdown of that integration. In the integrated state, it is very much like meditation, absolutely, and it is also like the trance state that repetitive physical action or ritualized movement or even dance can help us to achieve.

But modern society has taught us to be suspicious of the times when we realize our narrator voice had switched off – like when you realize you’ve been driving your car, for instance, without consciously thinking about what you’re doing. The fact is, many complicated activities are performed better when we switch off the narrator voice – any accomplished athlete or musician will tell you there’s no way they could do what they do if their narrator voice was constantly saying “now I should look here, now I should move this, now I should think about that”.

I believe you can watch any intelligent animal and see what it is like to exist in that integrated state. But the other part of Jaynes’s theory was that prior to the development of that narrator voice as the voice of consciousness, any memory or intuition was viewed by the integrated mind as being the voice of a god, or forefathers, or other aspects of the spirit world. Does my dog, operating in an integrated mental state, have a voice in his head that he thinks of as his guardian angel, telling him “don’t stick your head in there because last time you almost got stuck”, or some such thing? This is what Jaynes proposes – and that civilizations from even a few thousand years ago were still built by human beings who acted in that integrated mindset, reporting any important decisions for action that were actually based upon memory or intuition to be advice from the gods.
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“Regardless of the position that mainstream science takes on the topic, a huge percentage of the general population have had personal experiences which show them that the idea of reading minds, “catching vibes”, supernatural connections to dead loved ones, or even just the positive effects of talking to their houseplants has a direct connection to their feeling of how the world really works.”

What this says, in effect, is this:

• 1 Personal experiences have a direct connection to how we feel the world works
• 2 Personal experiences can include supernatural or paranormal experiences
  

Therefore, the implication is that supernatural or paranormal experiences have a direction connection to how the world really works.

I notice you actually say how we feel the world works. But the way you’ve written this entire statement will leave most readers to the idea that there’s a legitimate connection between how the world works and the supernatural. It seems you’re bending over backwards to make the supernatural appear legitimate. What were you trying to say?

I certainly didn’t intend to bend over backwards here – I was trying to say in no uncertain terms that personal experience tells many of us that these things exist, and my way of imagining time and space allows us a framework that shows how these things could be happening. On the other hand, I always have to take a step back and make sure that readers remember that what we’re talking about here is not the accepted viewpoint of mainstream science, and I would hate for some high school student somewhere to get an F because he wrote a paper saying that string theory proves the existence of ghosts!

In “The Paradoxes of Time Travel” chapter it becomes clear that you have a love for science fiction and that this genre has stimulated your thinking in regards to the ideas presented in this book. I find it interesting that a science fiction author is generally praised for his or her original presentation of scientific ideas that are not proven or even intended to be completely factual, when these ideas are brilliantly woven into a gripping story. The bulk of the criticism against your book is that it simply is not science. This is not something you’ve tried to evade as you freely admit that your ideas are not mainstream science and that you have no formal background in physics. Considering all this together, have you ever thought about putting your ideas out there in the guise of a science fiction novel? And on this note, what does the future hold for you? Are you planning on publishing any more books?

I also say in the book that I think there is enough self-consistency in the framework I’ve proposed that this would be a handy manual for anyone attempting to write a new story or screenplay incorporating dimensional travel, the multiverse, and time travel. There are a great many scenarios proposed in the book that could be developed into stories, no question. I’m not a novelist, though, so this book and website seemed to be the best conduit for getting my crazy ideas out into the world.

Yes, I am half way through writing my second book now, which takes a specific set of ideas from the first book and expands them. The second book is much less about science, more about imagination and creativity within the tenth dimensional approach to how reality is constructed.