Thread: An Investigation Into Consciousness

Originally Posted by glen

Do you think that the reason LaBerge recommends lying on your back or right side(not left side) for WILD is becuase the part of your brain responsible for dreams will get more blood pooled there and will be more active?

I have yet to read anything by him (though I have meant to for a while now), so I can't say for certain. However, that does make logical sense.

I do know that most people who talk about how to WILD will say to lay on your back because it makes blood flow more consistent, and also to make it easier to focus on each individual part while shutting yourself down, but I hadn't heard of it being recommended to lay on your right side. I believe that blood flow would be a pretty solid argument as to why you should sleep on your right side, though.


Edit: I think LighrkVader is more likely to be right here, but I'll leave this here anyway for argument's sake.

Has anybody attempted "hemisphere merging meditation"? I make up meditation techniques from time to time. This and the kick ass "dragon breath meditation" which is a sort of shadow taming practice being my proudest inventions. I should find a better name for the hemisphere meditation too...

Anyway... it's very delicious I'm sure I'm not the first to do it so hopefully there is a name for it somewhere so I can read what others have done. It's very difficult to explain, but what I do is meditation with the intent on merging the brain halves into a single unit. It requires the ability to step back into silent awareness. And from there willing the two to merge, communicate and blend as much as possible in loving silence. It starts like a probing and evolves into what feels like a dance or mutual massage of sorts. It doesn't feel like they become one. The poles can't dissapear completely. But more like meeting in the middle and all I see is the dance.
After a while it moves on it's own and I can focus on different polarities. Starting with simple stuff, back and forth, black and white.

Man.. I really don't want to write these lab-journals.

Originally Posted by LighrkVader

Has anybody attempted "hemisphere merging meditation"? I make up meditation techniques from time to time. This and the kick ass "dragon breath meditation" which is a sort of shadow taming practice being my proudest inventions. I should find a better name for the hemisphere meditation too...

Anyway... it's very delicious I'm sure I'm not the first to do it so hopefully there is a name for it somewhere so I can read what others have done. It's very difficult to explain, but what I do is meditation with the intent on merging the brain halves into a single unit. It requires the ability to step back into silent awareness. And from there willing, the sides to merge, communicate and blend as much as possible in loving silence. It starts like a probing and evolves into what feels like a dance of sorts. It doesn't feel like they become one. The poles can't dissapear. But more like meeting in the middle.
After a while it moves on it's own and I can use it on different polarities. Starting with simple stuff, back and forth, black and white.

Man.. I really don't want to write these lab-journals.

XD

That sounds like a really bizarre experience. While I can't say that I've done that personally, I can absolutely say that your 'Hemisphere Merging' meditation sounds really cool, and worth trying (eventually, when I get comfortable with normal meditation )

That's cool Vader, I've got a feeling I've experienced something like that.


Personally I feel that by moving into silent awareness, these two poles automatically become nondual. But I've generally played around with a lot from the space of silent awareness. Including focus on either hemisphere.

Absolutely. The non-duality is what makes it possible. If I try to identify them as separate or focus on one and not the other it falls apart.

So it seems all conscoisness is a separated intertwining to create the whole. But what does that make the observer? The awareness that observes the observing? Is this a form of consciousness. Or maybe a a state absent of Consciousness? Not sure if that even makes sense O_o

Interesting conversation, guys, but I hope you won't mind if an old curmudgeon butts in with a reality check or two. I understand how much of this will be received, and likely will be heartily shouted down, because I've been there before; but still, I think a few things stated here need to be clarified, or at least countered, regardless of whether you think I'm a stodgy fool or not:

* First, the easy one: I'm pretty sure that LaBerge suggested lying on your back to do WILD for one very simple and specific reason: it's a bit harder to fall asleep on your back. This means that you have a little more time to gather your awareness as the sleep process proceeds, increasing your chance of staying conscious throughout it. This is as opposed to being totally comfortable and falling fully asleep immediately, before you have a chance to settle into your WILD attempt. As far as I know, lying on your back has nothing to do with pressure on your heart or anything else like that; it's just a bit less comfortable than other positions, and that helps with WILD.

As far as lying on your right side, I believe LaBerge got that from the Tibetan dream yogis (he loves the Tibetans) who recommend that men lie on their right side, and women on their left, and he had no real theories about blood pooling (mostly because blood really doesn't do much pooling in our brains, whichever side we sleep on -- if so, we'd all be pretty much dead by now). I vaguely remember that LaBerge did a sleep posture study a couple of decades ago, and found no real difference in dreaming performance based upon whether you were on your left side, right side, or back. And for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure I've WILD'ed hundreds of time in all of those positions, and have never found my dreams any different in them (though I have found that WILD's do tend to be a bit easier on my back).

* Another easy one:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

^ There's also the book The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, which is also about remaining aware through every level of sleep, including the deepest - I believe they're Delta-wave levels (?)

Yes.


Now for the stuff that's going to get me into trouble:

* Yes, we have a pineal gland, and it may actually have been used by our extremely distant ancestors for perception (like still-jumping-out-of-the-way-of-dinosaurs distant) . And yes, there are still animals that use it. But modern humans probably do not (note, guys, I say "probably" here because I've gotten in trouble before for daring to say absolutes, even when they are clearly so to me).

The Third Eye is a metaphor, meant to illustrate the opening of our higher awareness to mystical or transcendental things that we are not generally able to witness with our normal levels of awareness; its original conception (and the one that remained intact for centuries before westerners started playing with it) has nothing at all to do with a physical organ or gland. On another thread, Vagaltone described the "nature" of the third eye better than I could, so I'll just post his words here:

Originally Posted by VagalTone

The third eye is the perspective of wisdom and intuition, something that sees beyond the veils of beliefs, concepts and indoctrinationIt is seeing and being from a more selfless perspective, a new level of mind or consciousness (like being in flow for instance) This level of mind allows you to see with your eyes, heart and mind - and it can even seem like you are not watching from your physical eyes ( maybe that's why it is called a third eye, but some people referred to it as the single eye too and i prefer this one).

It is not a real eye, but is commonly represent on a physical level for some (perhaps deluded) reason

I am sure you can finds lot of mature spiritual articles corroborating this opinion (besides the deluded and closeminded ones contradicting it)

Somehow, through the magic of Pop Culture, coupled with the uncanny ability of the conceptual MixMaster that is the Internet, we've managed to redefine the most ancient and established of terms: people have come to believe that the third eye is an actual physical thing sitting in our foreheads that can be opened; it really isn't.

Ironically, in the context of this thread, discussion of "opening" the traditional, mystical, metaphoric third eye would fit right into the conversation, and would do so, I think, in a much better way than discussion of the pineal gland.

* A non-dual perspective is not about joining our brain halves together (more on that in a sec), or cancelling out poles, or whatever. It is not biological at all. It is, simply, an awareness that our self is an integral part of reality, and not a separate being independently experiencing reality (this is an extremely important perspective to have in LD'ing BTW). This is as opposed to our default dual perspective, where we see our self as separate from reality, interacting only by observation.

* I was pretty sure that the whole "Right/Left Brain" theory was debunked decades ago. Yes, the hemispheres of our brain may have different functions centered in them, but in the end our whole brain is working as a unit, at all times... in other words, both "halves" of our brains are always intertwined, consciously speaking. It seems that the Right/Left brain thing has been resurrected over the last few years, but I suggest you guys do a little research before you sacrifice too much of your time seeking to join two things that by nature are already one.

Though that this might seem to run anathema to the OP, I'm not entirely sure it does. If those hemispheres were to become metaphors rather than physical parts of the brain, then SpaceGod's theory works quite nicely (and I think might actually line up in a sideways sort of way to Freud's theories). In other words, there is no reason not to divvy up the mind into separate sections; it's when you confine certain aspects of consciousness to sections of the brain (and, by extension, invent new sections like a physical third eye) that you might find yourselves wandering down dark alleys that lead directly away from the truth.

Okay, that's all the curmudgeonry I have to offer. Take it or leave it; I don't care; I'm accustomed to be disagreed with (often loudly). I just thought a few things needed to be mentioned.

As long as I'm here, and if anyone's still reading: I did like Surealization's summary of the whole thing:

Originally Posted by surealization

So it seems all consciousness is a separated intertwining to create the whole. But what does that make the observer? The awareness that observes the observing? Is this a form of consciousness. Or maybe a a state absent of Consciousness? Not sure if that even makes sense O_o

It seems to me that a very long discussion is packed in that excellent summary of this thread! ... Assuming, of course that I understood it properly...

Right off the bat, Surealization, my thought is that consciousness is the existence of that observer; a "larger" presence greater than the sum of the cells and lobes creating the observation (wherever those parts might be situated ). But consciousness is a thing exercised in that manner by pretty much everything alive (and, some might think, even things that are not alive). I think it is indeed the awareness of that consciousness that makes sentient critters like us humans special. So, perhaps, I wonder if a discussion of self-awareness might create a clearer path to figuring out how all this works?

Wow! Thank you for the reply, Sageous! I think you clarified quite a few things here!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Somehow, through the magic of Pop Culture, coupled with the uncanny ability of the conceptual MixMaster that is the Internet, we've managed to redefine the most ancient and established of terms: people have come to believe that the third eye is an actual physical thing sitting in our foreheads that can be opened; it really isn't.

Ironically, in the context of this thread, discussion of "opening" the traditional, mystical, metaphoric third eye would fit right into the conversation, and would do so, I think, in a much better way than discussion of the pineal gland.

I suppose we did go down quite deep into that rabbit hole

I was pretty sure that the whole "Right/Left Brain" theory was debunked decades ago

Also, I'm very glad you mentioned this! I think I intended to talk about it in the original post, but completely forgot.

So, it's a popular misconception that the left/right brain theory was debunked. Sort of. We do know for certain that the brain is divided into hemispheres, and these hemispheres tend to have certain parts of the brain we believe cause components with 'logical thinking' and 'creativity.' We also do know that individuals usually experience lateralization of brain function to favor one side over the other. However, both hemispheres do interact to perform all of the brain functions, most of the time (There is usually intercommunication between the two). But, in contrast to this, hemisphere splitting has been performed to cure seizures, but individuals who experienced it generally didn't lose much intelligence or brain function (The CGP Grey video I linked in the Original post explains it better, in a little more detail.), aside from a few instances where someone's hands would disagree with themselves on what they were trying to pick up, and we know that your right hand is controlled by your left brain, and vice versa. Therefore, there is a good amount of evidence that supports the idea of two, equal consciousnesses that operate together to create 'you' as a whole, or that's at least how I interpret the evidence.

The idea that left brain/right brain theory was debunked came about because pop culture thought about it so rigidly as "Left brain = Logic, Right Brain = Creative, you're one or the other," which is untrue; the hemispheres are more flexible than that.

And, I suppose a good amount of the blame for this misunderstanding rests upon me; I probably shouldn't have labelled the consciousnesses by hemisphere, but I figured it would help with making a visualization of the concept easier. I believe that your alternative of thinking about them in a more metaphorical sense when talking about hemispheres works a lot better for the ideas I presented



Once again, thank you for the reply! It offered a lot of insight and information!

It has been my understanding as well that the hemispheres are still very much relevant, and seen as separate to a degree. But that they have been misunderstood to be more separate than they are.

That's why I said in my first post in this thread that I don't think of the two as good representatives for the conscious and sub-conscious. It's not that clear cut.

As for third eyes, as some of you know I did a whole lot of reading on the subject of parietal eyes from an evolutionary standpoint for a presentation exam in a biologyclass I took this fall, and naturally also delved into the mystical parts of it, and I agree with sageous. The whole topic is completely mystical and awesome. It really is, and so there is no wonder why there are a lot of theories surrounding it. But they are highly speculative from what I can tell. It is however a very important part of our nervous system with a lot of connections and central roles in the more mystical parts of our consciousness, we obviously can't say for sure one way or another. And it's placement in the center of our brain where it feels like our awareness shines through also makes it a good candidate for being more than it seems.
But other than being mysterious and cool, we don't have any empirical evidence that points to it being a central hub in consciousness that I'm aware of.

As for the degree of photoreceptivity of the pinealcomplex in humans... there is none. It is stimulated indirectly by our visual experiences. But recemblance to photoreceptive cells in human-pinealglands only exist in the early stages of fetal development. Birds have photoreceptive pinealglands though. They are stimulated by the sun through their thin skulls, which is pretty cool.

As far as I know, and I could be wrong, we still don't know where in the brain the different sensory inputs internal and external, from the two hemispheres are turned into a single experience. Maybe there is none.

As per usual, Sageous speaks the most sense out of everyone. xD Don't get me wrong, some of it itched my funny bone, but I can't deny any of it.

Anyways,

Originally Posted by Sageous

Right off the bat, Surealization, my thought is that consciousness is the existence of that observer; a "larger" presence greater than the sum of the cells and lobes creating the observation (wherever those parts might be situated ). But consciousness is a thing exercised in that manner by pretty much everything alive (and, some might think, even things that are not alive). I think it is indeed the awareness of that consciousness that makes sentient critters like us humans special. So, perhaps, I wonder if a discussion of self-awareness might create a clearer path to figuring out how all this works?

The thing about this is, there's a problem with language.

Y'see, the way I see it is, there is a "pure awareness" pervading everything.
Many in the spiritual community call this pure awareness "consciousness".

But then you come back to a place like DV and use that kinda language, you'll get laughed at.
Over here, consciousness specifically refers to the functions of the mind.
And awareness refers to a function of consciousness.

When you say "awareness of that consciousness makes us special". What you're referring to is the ability to "focus" on one's own consciousness, using one's own consciousness, in a specific way.

But I could say "All creatures have awareness" and be completely accurate. But perhaps they don't have this "self-awareness" you refer to. Which to be honest, I feel that self-awareness came largely from the development of language. The moment a person could say "I" or think "I", they automatically become self-aware. I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this Sageous.

Originally Posted by surealization

The awareness that observes the observing? Is this a form of consciousness. Or maybe a a state absent of Consciousness?

Indeed the observer is the awareness that perceives perception. The observer of observation. The witness of all witnessing. The awareness of awareness.

"A state absent of consciousness". I actually like the way you put it there.
When I contemplate or focus on the observer, I find that the observer is truly nothing. Nothingness watching somethingness. So nothingness must surely be absent of consciousness. Yet many people literally call it "consciousness".

Originally Posted by slash112

The thing about this is, there's a problem with language.

Y'see, the way I see it is, there is a "pure awareness" pervading everything.
Many in the spiritual community call this pure awareness "consciousness".

But then you come back to a place like DV and use that kinda language, you'll get laughed at.
Over here, consciousness specifically refers to the functions of the mind.
And awareness refers to a function of consciousness.

That might be less a problem with language than you think. Setting aside that "pure awareness" bit above (and I assure you I'm not laughing!) and ignoring what the folks in the spiritual community call consciousness (because, well, that I think too is something else altogether in our context here), and the whole problem you cite is fixed by adding a single word: Instead of awareness, we should be talking about self-awareness:

When you say "awareness of that consciousness makes us special". What you're referring to is the ability to "focus" on one's own consciousness, using one's own consciousness, in a specific way.

No, I don't think I am.

I think it's more along the lines of what you mentioned: self-awareness is not so much a focus on consciousness, but the whole "I am" thing: knowing who you are, that you are, that you were here yesterday and will be here tomorrow, and that you are in a constant state of interaction with your local reality.

But I could say "All creatures have awareness" and be completely accurate. But perhaps they don't have this "self-awareness" you refer to.

Agreed. Yes, all living things have awareness, and most of them are far better at being aware than we are. A mouse, or even a housefly, for instance, is vastly more aware of their surroundings than we could ever be (their lives depend on it, after all), but I'm pretty sure no one ever accused either of being self-aware!

Which to be honest, I feel that self-awareness came largely from the development of language. The moment a person could say "I" or think "I", they automatically become self-aware. I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this Sageous.

I have to say that I totally disagree with that. In fact, I would almost say that (complex) language could have evolved from self-awareness, and not the other way around. I would also say, with a sense of depressing confidence, that there are many, many humans (probably most of them) who go their whole lives without more than a moment of self-awareness -- and they all use lots of language, and think and say "I" regularly. Also, and for instance, there are plenty of narcissists who think nothing but "I," yet they are, ironically, among the least self-aware of us all (self-awareness is the polar opposite of selfishness).

Self-awareness, to me, is not a natural event, but an accident of consciousness combined with the extreme processing power of the human brain. So achieving it really is a decision, or perhaps a discovery, and not the result of simply using language; and it is by no measure automatic, or else we would all be living in a much nicer world. In fact, achieving a steady state of self-awareness is a fairly high-end discipline, usually practiced for years before any consistency of the state is achieved.

Oh, wait: here is my description of self-awareness from my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals page; maybe it will help:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you. This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s a lot harder to master than it sounds. Most people are content to live their entire lives without a moment of self-awareness, content to let the events of their world wash over them and to remain unaware of how the things they do and say touch those events…sort of living life like it’s a dream, I suppose. Perfecting self-awareness is simple: pay attention! Unfortunately, humans are naturally wired to not pay this sort of attention, so it takes a lot of work to stay focused and not lapse back into the easy strides taken by those who travel life without ever once checking the path.

That all felt a little vague, but I'm running out of time. I hope I made sense, and sorry in advance for all the parsing...

Wow, ok, well said man.

You take selfishness to be the opposite of self-awareness. But I think I was taking them both to be the same thing.
I like your definition of self-awareness. It's something to strive for and perfect.

It's times like this I'm just sat thinking "wtf"... Because I've used the term "self-awareness" correctly many times. But I've used it wrongly today, and probably many times before.

I stand by my statement that language is a problem hahahahaha. But still, I agree with you. I'm gonna really absorb what you've said there.

I just found some information about the pineal gland that I didn't know. Apparently they have proven that the pineal gland in living rats produce DMT. I knew that it was something that people thought, but I didn't know that they had been able to prove it. That's definitely something that should be taken into consideration. It's a dificult substance to get where I live, but I recently got lucky. What an experience! I think my lucid dreaming had a pretty strong effect on my experience. When I opened my eyes again it felt almost like a false awakening.