dreaminglife.org

Wearing the God-Helmet for Out of Body Experiences and Alien Abductions

This is a fascinating 6 minute video into the research of Michael Persinger, inventor of the “God Helmet.” His research into out of body experiences, alien abductions, ghosts, and other “paranormal” phenomenon is predicated on the idea that these experience take place in the brain i.e. they’re an illusion and do not take place in physical reality.

To this end, he has invented a technique to stimulate the temporal lobes of the brain via magnetic pulses. The resulting device is known as the “God Helmet”, and in his lab people wearing it have experienced all sorts of wild and paranormal sensations - invisible presences, alien abductions, meeting the devil, out of body experiences and so on.

Since no one else in the room sees or experiences these things, this certainly lends evidence to the idea that the experiences are taking place in the brain and not in physical reality.

Personally, I have little problem accepting that out of body experiences (and associated phenomenon) take place within the brain. I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong - in fact I would LOVE to be proven wrong - but I’ve just not seen any solid evidence that points to the OBE as actually being a physically real experience.

Either way, I would love to be a subject in one of these tests and I fully support research into understanding what’s happening in the brain when we have mystical, out of body, and near-death experiences.

Question:

If we know how to physically manipulate the brain in order to experience out of body sensations, near-death experiences, the presence of (invisible) beings, aliens, demons, and angels, etc - does this mean that there is no value to these experiences?

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The Death of Lucid Dreaming

Will virtual reality mean the death of lucid dreaming?

Recently I saw the movie eXistenZ by David Cronenburg. It’s about a fully-encompassing virtual reality game, where of course, something screwy happens and you begin to question what’s real and what’s not.

To play, you have to surgically install a “bio-port” at the base of the spine that the game plugs into. Conceivably, the game interacts with the brain via the nervous system via the spine. Users then “plug in” and are transported into full-scale virtual world in which they can interact with others and the environment, just like they would in the real world. Pretty neat.

Ultimately, eXistenZ suffers the same fate of so many other science fictions film; cheesy characters, bad acting, with predictable scenes all along the way.

But 45 minutes into the film it actually goes from “this is starting to suck” to “okay this is getting interesting” once they go into the game known as eXistenZ.

Anyhow, the movie got me thinking about lucid dreaming and virtual reality, and how similar the two experiences are.

There’s a scene in existenz where they’re speaking in front of a game character about the fact that they’re in a game, and guy just stands there, wobbling back in forth, in a “game loop,” not understanding what they’re saying. This cracked me up and reminds me so much of just the general weirdness that the existence of a dream character entails, and how strange it can be to tell a dream character that they are just part of your dream.

Beyond this little snippet though, the overall experience of being in an “unreal” environment that fully encompasses all the senses is what makes lucid dreaming and virtual reality so very similar. Obviously, lucid dreaming is a kind of virtual reality, and I think it rightfully fuels an interest in the development of virtual reality systems.

However, I don’t think the reverse will be true.

Virtual reality, once possible, could very likely have a negative effect on the growing culture of lucid dreaming.

Because, let’s face it - lucid dreaming is hard!

If you could simply enter into a virtual world at the touch of a button, wouldn’t you do it?

And wouldn’t it be awesome?!

Ah…but it’s just a fantasy right?

Well, I really don’t think so. If global warming or a nuclear war doesn’t ruin everything, we could develop the technology for virtual reality systems here in a few decades.

If this sounds ridiculous – and it probably does, considering, well, futurists are always wrong – go grab a snack, get comfortable, put on your thinking cap and then read this presentation by Ray Kurzweil titled The Human Machine Merger: Why We Will Spend Most of Our Time in Virtual Reality in the Twenty-first Century.

Ray Kurzweil is one of a few dozen figureheads who speak about the exponential acceleration of technology, and how this is going to result in a “Singularity.”

This term has become somewhat of fuzzy concept with lots of different meanings, but it’s safe to say it includes the point where we create an Artificial Intelligence that exceeds human intelligence. Once this AI is created, it will create increasingly more capable AI’s, who in turn do the same, and so on, creating a point at which the future simply whisps off into a singularity beyond our capacity to even imagine.

Whew!

(Yeah, that’s a lot to take in. I realize it sounds pretty absurd if you’re hearing it for the first time. If you’d like to learn more, get ready to have your mind blown so hard that it’s gonna splatter on a nearby wall and check out The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil and Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies - and What It Means to Be Human by Joel Garreau. Radical Evolution is a more unbiased look at what’s coming and I recommend reading it first for anyone not already familiar with Kurzweil’s ideas.)

Anyhow:

What’s this got to do with lucid dreaming?

Nothing in particular, just that I think those of us who are fascinated with the idea of being in a lucid dreaming world where we can do whatever we want will likely find it fascinating that we’ll be able to replicate this concept virtually, without going to sleep, without any special skills, without supplements, and without techniques, cheaply and easily here a few decades.

Supposedly.

For me personally -

If I could enter into a virtual world at the click of a button, I bet I’d eventually spend much less time exploring the world of dreams.

What would you do?

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Joe Griffin Responds To My Questions on the Expectation Fulfilment Theory of Dreaming

Earlier this month I wrote about the Expectation Fulfilment Theory of Dreaming by Joe Griffin. In my post I posed some hypothetical interview questions that I’d like to ask Joe Griffin. Much to my delight, he’s responded to them!

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?

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Did you know Stephen LaBerge has a patent on substances that cause Lucid Dreaming?

I found something really wild tonight.

I guess it’s old news since the patent is from 2003, but I see that Stephen LaBerge, the most famous lucid dream researcher and lucid dream author in the world, has a patent on “substances that enhance recall and lucidity during dreaming.”

Patent number 20040266659, to be exact.

Here’s a summary of his patent, in his own words:

“This invention relates to the field of Lucid Dreaming and the enhancement of dream recall and dream lucidity through memory enhancing drugs, including the class of substances that comprise Acetylcholine Esterase inhibitors (AChEls). Lucid dreaming involves dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. AChE inhibitors (AchEl’s) inhibit the normal metabolic inactivation of Acetylcholine (ACh) by inhibiting the enzyme, Acetylcholine Esterase (AChE), leading to accumulation of Ach. AchEl’s are most commonly used to enhance memory, particularly in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Ach is also well known to be important in REM and thus is suggested herein to enhance dreaming and lucidity.”

Whoa! What did that just say?

(This makes me think of the movie Lawnmower Man, where the doctor gives Jobe drugs and then makes him a genius by combining it with virtual reality games.)

Pretty amazing stuff. If there’s anyone out there who could invent a lucid dreaming pill, I’d put my money on LaBerge.

You can read all the details of Stephen LaBerges lucid dreaming drugs patent here.

This got me curious - what other patents are there related to dreaming and lucid dreaming?

Quite a few actually.

We’ve got a patent for Equipment and methods used to induce lucid dreaming in sleeping persons, with LaBerges name attached to this one too.

This looks like a patent for the Nova Dreamer device, which detects REM and flashes a light with the idea that it will show up in the dream, and the dreamer will recognize this signal and know he or she is dreaming.

On a similiar but-this-probably-won’t-really-work idea, someone filed a patent titled Dream State Teaching Machine, which detects Rapid Eye Movement and then plays a prerecorded message in your ears via headphones, with the idea that you’ll hear it and become lucid.

There’s a not-too-exciting Dream Detection & Method System patent. Eh, next.

Ohhh - what’s this? Somehow someone got away with filing a patent for a Device that Records Dream Recollections ; also known as a tape recorder, or in this case, a digital recorder. What makes this different than a normal recording device? Not sure. Maybe because it looks like an alarm clock and sits by your bed?

Then this last one I found is pretty neat:

It’s called an “Apparatus for facilitating analysis of dream activity.” In more exciting terms, it detects your REM states, signals a sound to wake you when an REM period is over, and contains a voice activated recorder. The device is attached above your bed on the wall; the idea then is that it gently wakes you up once your dream is over and you can record your dream without even getting out of bed simply by using the voice-activated recorder.

I’d use it!

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Why We Dream: The Expectation Fulfilment Theory of Dreaming

Recently I discovered a new website called Why We Dream, which explains a new theory of dreaming known as The Expectation Fulfilment Theory of Dreaming.

This theory has been put together by psychologist Joe Griffin, co-author of the book Dreaming Reality, as well as the Director of Studies at MindsField college, and a big player in the field of psychotherapy in general, evidently.

I encourage you to take some time to read the entire theory as put forth on their website. I found it fascinating, well thought-out, and thought-provoking. I also appreciate that the theory specifically addresses lucid dreaming as a real phenomenon.

So What is the Expectatation Fulfilment Theory of Dreaming?

The website states 3 premises that summarize the theory:

• “Dreams are metaphorical translations of waking expectations”.

• “But only expectations that cause emotional arousals that are not acted upon during the day become dreams during sleep.”

• “Dreaming deactivates that emotional arousal by completing the expectation pattern metaphorically, freeing the brain to respond afresh to each new day.”

Below are the most interesting points I see in regards to this theory of dreaming.

Read up on the Why We Dream website and join in with what you think!

On Dream Interpretation and The Meaning of Dreams

“The key to identifying what the dream was about is its emotion.”

I think this is the most meaningful advice ever in regards to dream interpretation.

On Lucid Dreaming

“Theories of dreaming that do not allow for occasional lucidity are, necessarily, incorrect or incomplete, because lucid dreaming is an acknowledged phenomenon. Our view of the REM state and the function of dreaming does not exclude lucidity in dreams.”

“However, lucid dreaming is a fairly volatile and rare phenomenon, even for those who have experienced it, and so such hopes have not been realised.”

“Lucid dreaming occurs in the REM state like any other phenomenon involving memory, metaphor and imagination. The same effects can be achieved through hypnosis, a focussed state of attention that artificially accesses the REM state. Knowledge of how to do this has been around for perhaps 40,000 thousand years.””

Ah! Finally - a theory that actually addresses lucid dreaming without dismissing it!

But wait! Doesn’t that last bit almost sound like a dig at lucid dreaming?” i.e. “The same effects can be achieved through hypnosis…” Huh?

On FLYING in Lucid Dreaming

This one caught me off guard!

The author implies that flying in a lucid dream is common because we are touching upon an ancient, pre-mammalian template in our brains for…swimming!

To quote:

“They describe their limbs as pulling or propelling them through the air, as though swimming. It’s as if an ancient premammalian template for swimming, left over from a time when our far distant ancestors lived in the oceans, is still able to be co-opted by the brain for a metaphor.”

On the Similarities Between Dreaming and Hypnosis

They state 3 similarities between the two states:

Amnesia - Time Distortion - Trance Logic

I love this last term, trance logic.

It aptly describes how when dreaming and when hypnotized, people accept whatever is going on. It’s as if there’s no backdrop of what’s normal to compare the experiences against, and thus everything is accepted as it is, without question, no matter how absurd.

Side note : Based on these three points, this list can also be expanded as similarities between dreaming, hypnosis, and tripping.

On The Relationship Between Dreams and Depression

This theory states that excessive dream sleep and “reduced slow-wave sleep” causes depression. Check out their video about dreaming and depression.

On Dreams Being Actually Not All That Bizarre

This one surprised me too. The author claims that dreams are actually overwhelmingly NOT bizarre; most dreams are dreams of our routine experiences. We simply tend to remember the incredibly strange dreams, and forget the rest.

Unless it’s just true that I forget most of my dreams because they’re boring, this one just doesn’t vibe with what’s in my dream journal, so I have am skeptical about this one.

On Dreaming and…(not) Going Insane?

One point that is actually pretty funny is that Joe Griffin claims that dreaming keeps us from going insane. By derousing the autonomic nervous system every night, our stress levels don’t overwhelm us to the point of insanity. Whew - That’s a relief.

Questions I have about this theory

If this theory is right, it would be possible to create a scenario to cause an unfulfilled emotion that would then, by default, be fulfilled within that night’s dreams.

So couldn’t we purposely create unfulfilled emotions to cause a certain metaphor in the dream? To in effect, pre-emptively control our dreams?

But then how can you create an emotion and not fulfill it, for certain, before going to bed?

And then how can you actively measure if an emotion is even fulfilled?

Questions I would like to ask Joe Griffin in an interview

1) 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?

2) 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?

3) 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?

What do you think about this theory of dreaming?

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Rob Bryanton, author of Imagining the 10th Dimension, visits Dreaming Life!

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding a new book out there called Imagining The 10th Dimension. Singer / songwriter, thinker, philosopher and amateur scientist (although he insists he’s not a scientist!) has pieced together a means of actually explaining a way to understand the idea of not just 4 or 5 dimensions, but 10. (10 dimensions is the magic number lately since String Theory posits there are 10 dimensions.) His animation explaining the 10 dimensions has been widely viewed on the internet and has propelled his book to the spotlight. His book was recently the subject of an article in What is Enlightenment magazine.

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

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