Thread: Theories on Dreams

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I wouldn't say the conscious mind fully awakens during lucidity - if it did that then we'd be actually awake! There's just some particular part of the conscious apparatus that goes online during dreams that causes lucidity, without fully waking us up. We know that we can often become lucid for a moment just as we're waking up, but if we do fully wake up then of course the dream ends. So it seems like some kind of cheat or hack - making just the right part of conscious awareness kick in without fully activating it which would just wake us up.

Hmm I think I will read up on this because I don't think the conscious side of the brain has much to do with it. The dream is formed by only taking stimuli from our memories which is an unconscious action, as is interpreting external stimuli. I don't think that consciousness itself triggers any specific events. As I said I think I should look into it first, there is bound to be some articles or papers on the subject.

Edit
http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html
This is a very interesting read, it shows quite well how the division of either asleep or awake is quite wrong. I will try show how you really can be fully awake in a dream, pardon me if I don't bring it across very clearly

Imaginations and perceptions are normally distinguishable by the fact that images are usually much less vivid than perceptions. Normally, perceptions seem real and images seem -- imaginary. How real something appears depends mainly on its relative vividness and experienced vividness is probably a function of intensity of neural activation. Thus, we may conjecture that images usually involve a lesser degree of neural activation than the corresponding perceptions, and this results in a lesser degree of experiential reality for imagination. At least two factors contribute to this state of affairs: one is that while we are awake sensory input produces much higher levels of activation than imaginary input. Imagination interferes with perception in the same modality (Perky, 1910; Segal, 1971) and we may suppose the reverse is true as well. Another more speculative factor favoring perceptual processes over imagination in the waking state is the existence of a neural system to inhibit the activation (vividness) of memory images while perception is active. Evolutionary considerations make such a system likely; it would obviously be extremely maladaptive for an organism to mistake a current perceptual image of a predator for the memory of one (LaBerge, 1985). Mandell (1980) has implicated serotonergic neurons as part of a system that normally inhibits vivid images (hallucinations), but is itself inhibited in REM sleep, allowing dreamed perceptions (i.e., images) to appear as vividly real as perceptions. In REM, also, sensory input is actively suppressed preventing competition from perceptual processes.

From this we can see that whether awake or asleep we are in an equally stable state, in both we are either almost wholly relying on external or internal stimuli but are still slightly immersed in the other one. There are actually four clear states between awake and dreaming
1) Fully conscious and awake 2) day dreaming 3) non lucid dreaming 4) lucid dreaming.
While these states may seem to be separated in the divisions 1,2 and 3,4 representing being awake and being asleep. The actual proper divisions of these states would be 1,4 and 2,3 representing high consciousness and low consciousness. It seems that consciousness can vary from none to full whether asleep or awake which to me shows that they are to a large extent unrelated.
It makes sense considering that the prominent conscious parts of the brain are fairly useless when doing primal actions such as eating or walking. Generally our consciousness seems to be only able to indirectly control the properties of our body and unconscious mind, and even then to a small extent. From my understanding our consciousness is only really useful for higher cognitive tasks like abstract reasoning, and as far as I know every single conscious task we can do can be achieved both in a dream and while awake.