
Induction of self awareness in dreams through low current stimulation (2014) - MichaelAO
https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3719.epdf?referrer_access_token=9Tfd9gCOjhmjJ99qLJA0RtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NMJX-e58w7wIsk_Aecpf542dQWR8O1rUFA_HuZelRwZxV11gmP5-2Jl_WdZLajhnE2NTSSyW6I_02xukpEMODmZ9DxrTf7hPM4Sayj-ObrwJzQguGOm9l2BdVsdzYkaewnBiHgMAvppyBsSaHtaD1RnZQAKgwOMAsmiAp65qVQk-2F-n0t3HZkf9XSBr1XhPO1jat7x7VvR_Q41x-rkB1C&tracking_referrer=www.iflscience.com
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skjerns
That's so 2014

Please also regard the methodological problems that are posed by the study
[http://neurocritic.blogspot.nl/2014/05/does-gamma-tacs-
reall...](http://neurocritic.blogspot.nl/2014/05/does-gamma-tacs-really-
induce-lucid.html) and that they only used 3 subjects. Furthermore they are
not willing to share their data with other scientists. However, support comes
from another group:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810013...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810013001098?via%3Dihub)

~~~
nonbel
The first link is pretty much my impression. This looks like the usual trick
of people playing games with definitions (lucid dreams is such and such score
on our "LuCiD" scale). The main part of the trick is to measure something that
sounds similar to what people actually care about, then draw conclusions about
that thing cared about.

By definition a person knows when they are having a lucid dream or not. If you
will not trust their self report of that info there is no reason to trust
anything else they report about the dream either. This scale is pointless for
the purpose of identifying lucid dreaming.

Where is the result: "% of trials that the person reports lucid dreaming"?
Perhaps that is in supplementary figure 1 where they show "Nb. of dreams rated
as lucid"? But what does it mean to "rate as lucid"?

For this paper I see this is based on the scale:

 _" Lucidity was assumed when subjects reported elevated ratings (>mean + 2
s.e.) on either or both of the LuCiD scale factors insight and dissociation."_

Going back to their earlier paper about creating the LuCiD scale all I find is
this:

 _" Dreams were treated as lucid dreams if they were rated as such by the
participants."_
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23220345](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23220345)

~~~
derefr
> By definition a person knows when they are having a lucid dream or not.

Do they? I mean, the qualia of "I'm having a lucid dream" might not have 100%
overlap with the fact of _having_ a lucid dream.

Certain drugs can give people something they will describe as "a feeling of
being very sure about things" without that feeling having any particular
referent—whatever they think about, they tend to describe experiencing an
"epiphany" about. (The subset of people who think tend to frame things through
a lens of religious faith tend to describe this drug experience as a
"religious experience", a "contact with the divine." Mostly, it seems, because
they direct their attention to their religious beliefs, and end up having a
feeling of sureness about those, while other trippy things are happening.)

I wouldn't find it hard to believe that there is a thing you can do to the
brain that makes it _believe you are in conscious control of affecting the
world you are sensorily experiencing_. By itself, this would just make you
experience dreaming as normal, but with a sensation that whatever you're doing
in the dream—and however the dream is proceeding—it was your choice for you to
do those things, and for the dream to proceed in that fashion. Without actual
control of the dream, this would likely cause ego-dystonic thoughts:
questioning _why_ you directed the dream to go the way it did, because it
seems so out-of-line with your normal waking desires.

~~~
robotresearcher
Good luck proving that conscious will has any effect on the world whether
waking or sleeping. People _report_ that it does, and that's all we are sure
about.

~~~
derefr
I wasn't really talking about "free will" or anything so airy; more about 1.
your predictive model of your own behavior lining up with your actual
behaviour; and 2. your predictive model of the causal effects of your behavior
lining up with the actual observed world.

In dreams, neither of these are true: "you" don't behave the way you'd expect
of your waking self, and the things "you" do don't result in what you'd expect
out of the real world.

~~~
Nomentatus
Re the last sentence. I have in fact deliberately behaved in ways I never
would in life, in a lucid dream; and flown around which doesn't work in real
life. Did you swap negative for positive.

~~~
derefr
That's not ego-dystonic decision-making; that's just different things being
possible in the embodied environment and you being aware of that.

That is: you can fly in a dream; you can't fly in real life. But _if_ you
could fly in real life, you probably _would_. Therefore, it isn't shocking to
"watch yourself" decide to fly, if flying is obviously an option.

Consider, by contrast, ripping your own limbs off. Perfectly possible in
reality, but nobody does it. If you did it in a dream, you'd wonder why "you"
wanted to do that. It wouldn't make sense for you to make that decision, so
probably "you" aren't you at the moment.

You might try some stuff, e.g. stepping off a cliff _in order_ to fly, only if
you're really quite sure you're in a dream. But "being sure you're in a dream"
means "being sure your actions have no long-term consequences in reality",
which allows many more things to be ego-syntonic.

~~~
Nomentatus
Actually, every decision you make while asleep is different from the one you'd
make while awake. The mind is less organized; different parts of the brain are
active. See the studies re EMG suppression of various parts of the brain, and
the effect of that on artistic ability for a close parallel.

Rarely - you can recapture that very different way of being while awake and
have skills you never had before.

------
mkoryak
Recently I found a way to induce lucid dreams nearly 50% of the time I try. I
start by closing my eyes and looking at the blackness. Usually there is
something else there, like a field of dots. I will the field of dots to
uniformly move or become a tunnel. After a while more objects form, I try to
control them in some way, or just observe them. Eventually this turns into a
lucid dream or a deep meditative state where I am aware of my body but time
passes faster.

It does not work when I cant get any images to form because I am not tired or
distracted. It also requires a fair amount of attention to redirect yourself
to 'keep looking'. Its easy to drift off and do normal sleep.

~~~
yathern
Wow! I thought I was the only one who did this. Never to accomplish lucid
dreaming - but I noticed in classes in highschool (why was I closing my eyes
in class?). When closing my eyes for a little bit, I'll see patches of
glowing, slowly churning colors. Usually a paradoxically dark neon. Sometimes
it's the afterimage effect from looking at a light - but I think some of it is
just your eyes trying to make sense of the darkness.

When focusing on these for a while, and trying to force my mind to make sense
of it, eventually these blobs turn into oddly abstract shapes with intricate
patterns on them, that are very visible. I've never gone that far with it -
very interesting.

~~~
hnzix
_> Never to accomplish lucid dreaming_

Two easy techniques -

1\. Ask yourself continually through the day "Am I dreaming?", which primes
you to become self-aware while dreaming.

2\. Wake up two hours before you normally get up for 10 mins, then go back to
sleep.

I also find that a Magnesium and Zinc vitamin tablet before bed assists with
dream recall, however I have no science to back this up.

~~~
nkrisc
I've never done it intentionally, but as someone who occasionally has lucid
dreams #2 definitely seems accurate. Much of the time I lucid dream it's when
I'm sleeping extremely lightly right before I wake up.

In fact, I know that I'm dreaming and that if I open my eyes (somehow separate
from opening or closing my eyes in my dream) I will wake up. Sometimes I might
shout or say something in my dream and I actually say it out loud and that
wakes me up as well.

------
clavalle
Maybe my experience is different than others, but when I dream lucidly it is
fun but my dreams lose a lot of spontaneity and richness because I realize I
am in control of everything in the dream.

I suspect this is because the conscious mind is slow and single threaded
compared to the unconscious mind which is faster and multithreaded. In a dream
where the mind is in control of both the experiencing 'self' and all aspects
of the environment, this difference causes a real loss in fidelity.

Thus, I don't understand the obsession with lucid dreaming and I really don't
understand why people would want to do it every time they dream.

~~~
psyc
I have never had control of anything other than myself during a lucid dream.
My dreams become lucid extremely rarely, and that is why I want to experience
it.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
I have opposite control. When I try to make a layup it won't go in, when I try
to punch my arm feels heavy and slow. It's strange but predictable.

------
debacle
For people who don't dream lucidly, what are your dreams like? Do you
experience them in third person? Is it like being on rails? My wife often
tells me that, in her dreams, she's still herself but also not herself. Is it
like a compulsion, where you know what's happening but you're not in control
of yourself?

~~~
warent
Most of my dreams aren't lucid, but I've had a few lucid dreams, so I can
compare.

Typically in my dreams it feels like normal life, except that for some reason
I'm gullible to dream logic. If something strange happens and I try to make
sense of it, a bad explanation--one that I wouldn't accept in real life--will
perfectly satisfy my dreaming brain.

However, occasionally dream logic totally breaks down and I realize it's a
dream. In that instant I gain full control. But it doesn't take long before
the control slips away, forgetting the revelation that happened moments ago.

What about you? Are all of your dreams always lucid?

~~~
teekert
For me it's more like it's all just a memory I suddenly have when I wake up,
there does not really seems to be a "now" in the dreams.

Sometimes there is some sort of realization of being in a dream but it's
always at the moment I'm waking up.

I'm pretty jealous of people with lucid dreams, it must be fantastic.

~~~
pera
Wow it's the first time I heard of this type of dreaming. It's intriguing that
people dreams in so many different ways, I wonder what causes that.

~~~
falava
I only remember one lucid dream, when I was a kid, and it was fantastic.

I researched a little and found this book, may be you find it interesting, so
here it is:

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming)

------
Walf
Neat. When do they release the home lucid dream inducer?

~~~
unixhero
Blue tooth

IOT enabled (Blink the lights while exploring the underside)

Spotify integrated

Tinder enhanced

Facebook dreams comparability

Google drive flow (work in your dreams!)

Udemy stream (I know kung fu)

Tesla wheel dream (dream while you drive? / dream about your next car..?)

~~~
IgorPartola
Oh yes this. Ideally we want it closed source but with a backdoor or ten so
that you can control anyone’s dreams though the Internet.

~~~
m12k
If you're into video games, you should play Dreamfall Chapters.

~~~
croon
The Longest Journey was one of my favorite games. I've been holding off on
Dreamfall, but I should probably get it when I can find the time.

~~~
m12k
Mine too. I felt Dreamfall was a bit 'light' compared to the depth and charm
of The Longest Journey. But I feel that Dreamfall Chapters is finally a worthy
successor (though still not at the same height of 'all-time classic' as the
original is for me, but few things are).

~~~
the_af
I liked The Longest Journey a lot back in the day. A bit too talkative for my
taste, but I loved the world-building, the characters -- I especially loved
April, of course -- and the unconventional "plot twist" at the end.

I didn't like Dreamfall. I didn't like what they did to April, and found the
new characters uninteresting. Never played Dreamfall Chapters.

------
matte_black
I wonder if this can help people who suffer from depersonalization and
derealization disorder, an endless hell from which there is no escape.

~~~
38932ur98u
Interesting. How would this be related?

~~~
matte_black
I’m not sure it would help, but maybe stimulating self-awareness can help
victims come “back to reality”.

------
andai
To reliably lucid dream, become more lucid (mindful, through careful
observation of sense perceptions) in waking life.

Also, get a watch or app with hourly beep and do a reality check. Mine is 3
things: (1) close eyes (2) pinch nose and try to breathe through it (3) check
out my hands.

All 3 of these are weird in dreams & reliably indicate that I am dreaming.

------
eponeponepon
I feel like I also might wake up a bit if somebody gave me an electric shock
while I was asleep... :-)

------
usaphp
I feel like control over dreaming is a much better direction of AR
development. In dreams you can pretty much come up with any type of action and
all the sensations are exactly like they are in real life, pleasure, pain
etc...

------
sjclemmy
Brilliant - the scale to measure higher order consciousness in sleep is called
the ‘LuCiD’ scale. Nice.

