Re: Jeff's Experiences

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:22 am

Well, I'll kick off my own thread of experiences here.I'm really lazy about typing them in detail (I don't know why) so I'll just post the more unusual and interesting ones.I'll start off with the best part of this morning's Lucid Dream:

I met this 'dream character' on this large city street.We moved our conversation to a sidewalk by a tree where he showed me how he can blend into it and appear as an inanimate object.He said something like he "hangs around like this sometimes." Then I wanted to do it too,so he helped me become part of a nearby wall! He easily blended into it ,but as I concentrated, I could only merge my right arm before popping all the way through. (going through objects is never a problem for me; but merging was something new for me) He was on the other side waiting where there were more walls ,but I forgot to maintain and fouled. It was actually a pretty long and stable experience though...

12padams · Post by **12padams** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 4:28 am

Are you 100% sure that you were fully concious there???

Whether you were fully concious or not doesn't matter as you will still feel and learn how to do things in the phase but there's a difference between remembering an experience and actually being present during it. Heres my definition of the phase/lucid dreaming:

"The analytical conscious mind present during waking life becomes present within a dream"

The reason I came up with that is because the real definition: "knowing your dreaming within a dream" can be simulated. That's why I came up with simulated lucidity and ways to understand the difference between simulated phases (dreaming of being lucid) and real phase experiences (being truly lucid).

Just remember that simulated phase experiences can teach you skills for real phase experiences. I never post my simulated phase experiences (I document them only in my book) however because to me the phase is only covered by my definition. If I don't compete or attempt to complete my plan of action then I am not truly conscious.

Simulated lucidity also allows the concept of low lucidity to exist because when your in the phase your world is created by your subconscious and therefore your conscious mind has less brain power to work with and can't think as clearly.

In real life you only control yourself yet in the phase you control yourself and your subconscious controls the world... (see where that extra brain power is going). That's why flying over large environments and talking to people in the phase can lower your level of lucidity because it takes a lot more effort for your subconscious to control others and generate environments than it does to simply recall and construct your own bedroom.

All of the above are just my own theories but hopefully they will be added to the practical guidebook as they make sense and even Michael agrees with avoiding flying over large environments and talking to people... The more your subconscious has to generate, the less brain power your conscious has and in turn your lucidity level drops.

I only bring this up because when people post their experiences I wish for them to state if they were truly conscious and if they completed their plan of action rather than just letting a dream control them.

Anyway good on you for starting your own blog and I look forward to more posts

TheOnerous · Post by **TheOnerous** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 7:39 am

Really thought provoking ideas, 12padams. Thanks. I will have a think about those.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:25 pm

I'm pretty sure when I'm Lucid,umm I've done this before

But yeah,I'd say on a scale of 1-10 my level was about a 7 this time.

Not that I disagree with you,in fact I've come to the same conclusion about flying for instance.(This was one of the major insights in SOBT that formalized what I had found on my own too.)

So,here's something I've found from my own experience which is different from what everyone else says:

I've systematically explored my phase neighborhoods and experimented with many levels of lucidity.I've found that for me,an OBE that begins with a close resemblance to the waking world can mean alot of work with deepening and maintaining.After all of this I can still end up where I could have started from had I just become Lucid without all of the separation business.(Not that I don't do that any way on awakenings)

My philosophy is to capitalize on the stable environment already in progress and prolong it.I try to let the phase do the heavy work.I still maintain and carry out goals but I try not to be a bull in a china shop.The phase is delicate and volitile,I respect this and work with it when I can....

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:59 pm

"talking to people in the phase can lower your level of lucidity because it takes a lot more effort for your subconscious to control others and generate environments than it does to simply recall and construct your own bedroom"

I disagree with the assumptions behind this statement. Talking does not lower my own lucidity though it can without proper focus.I can lower the lucidity of the 'others' though.( I believe this is also true to a lesser degree in waking life.)But this has major exceptions,that's why I believe there are catagories of dream figures that range from scenery to fully sentient. (I have proved this to myself and my wife )

As for environments,I have been to rich,stable, solid environments populated with sentient and self determined characters while being fully conscious.This is not mutually exclusive.

12padams · Post by **12padams** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:59 pm

As for environments,I have been to rich,stable, solid environments populated with sentient and self determined characters while being fully conscious.This is not mutually exclusive.

And how do you know you were truly fully concious??? I believe we need to do a test here:

Test 1 - familiar environment:
In your next phase simply walk around your house alone and grab an object from every room of your house and throw it out the front door.
-goal complete when an object from each room is out the front door.

Test 2 - unfamiliar environment:
In your next phase open any door and expect a never before seen location on the other side. Do not plan what this location will look like while awake just walk through a door without planning about where to go and find yourself in a massive environment filled with plants and animals that don't exist in real life.

Fly high above this environment and find 4 dramatically different biomes. Pick up one flower from each biome and one animal from each biome and use your powers to shrink them down to toy size and put them in your backpack. Ask each animal it's name and remember these upon awakening.
- goal complete once all animals and flowers are in your backpack and you know their names.

If you can do both these experiments you should notice that the second one will be much harder to complete without getting sidetracked. You see in my real lucid dreams (some I don't count as they are fully simulated [dream control powers such as flying and saying I am dreaming]) when I talk to people I continue to act lucid but miss major anomalies or let my dream control me. The second your not in control then your not in the phase and your simply recalling a dream.

Btw not saying you fully lose lucidity when flying or talking to people but you do at least lose some or find it more difficult to continue your plan of action while doing both those actions. Even if it's just a small drop of lucidity something definitely happens even if slightly once you do something complex.

Post by **Summerlander** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:03 pm

Jeff wrote: "talking to people in the phase can lower your level of lucidity because it takes a lot more effort for your subconscious to control others and generate environments than it does to simply recall and construct your own bedroom"

I disagree with the assumptions behind this statement. Talking does not lower my own lucidity though it can without proper focus.I can lower the lucidity of the 'others' though.( I believe this is also true to a lesser degree in waking life.)But this has major exceptions,that's why I believe there are catagories of dream figures that range from scenery to fully sentient. (I have proved this to myself and my wife )

As for environments,I have been to rich,stable, solid environments populated with sentient and self determined characters while being fully conscious.This is not mutually exclusive.

I agree that talking to phase characters will not necessarily dwindle lucidity...provided that something is being done to maintain the phase. If you don't, you will run the risk of fouling or falling asleep.

On the sentience of characters...sure, some can exude sentience, and they can also seem to lose it, and vice versa. But I do not believe that these characters are separate from us. I think they represent our own sentience. The phase is equivalent to lucid dreaming. The dream characters we meet when lucid are aspects of ourselves. They are also reflections on how we feel about the many things we encounter in waking life.

For instance, we may be one person at work and behave in a certain manner in front of our bosses. At home, to our partners, we may become somebody else. And again, when dealing with our kids, we assume yet another role. These changes don't have to be apparent. Our nuances often come through on an unconscious level. We often say "I feel this way..." or "I am this...", and then we find ourselves saying "I didn't feel like myself...", "I wasn't being myself", "I don't know what possessed me to do that"...but who is this self that we speak of, who is supposed to be our true self, when we are apparently so many different things and capable of being so much more?...hmmm...

In the phase, many of the things we experience, even if the logical mind deems them random, stem from the subconscious mind. Some of these things can be found to have associations with waking life that we hadn't thought of before. They were never apparent until our moments of clarity flare up.

Let us remember that life is like a dream too. No, let me paraphrase that: Life is a dream. But don't be fooled into thinking what I mean here is that objective reality is dreamt by people or that I am promulgating the idea of observation on consensus creating/collapsing the physical universe outcome. No. That's not remotely what I'm talking about...

What I'm saying here is that our perception of the waking world is a brain construct. A very elaborate and persistent "dream" because it is a translation/interpretation of what our senses capture through our organism as it interacts and comes into contact with things that exist in the physical world. We never experience reality directly. All experience, as I have stated before, happens in the mind.

In the words of Stephen LaBerge:

"Dreaming is perception unconstrained by sensory input. Perception is dreaming constrained by sensory input."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo_cB21v ... re=related

The psychology behind dream characters also go deeper than most think. Most think that we are a single entity when in fact we are more of a combination of behaviours according to the environments, thoughts and emotions experienced. Individuals are made up of a family of characters.

People that we've met in waking life that appear in our dreams are exactly what we think of them both on a conscious and unconscious level. Even in waking life, they are what we think they are. Our minds still project our notions outwardly albeit more inconspicuously.

Finally, here is another example on how waking life is not that different from dreams when it comes to memory...

Many of us, in wakefulness, go in a room with the intention to do something or get something only to forget what it was. I think it happens to everyone especially when our minds are not fully involved or are partly 'somewhere else'. But it doesn't end there. We not only forget what we were supposed to do, but we also (sometimes) don't even realise that we forget and end up doing something else (often a familiar/usual procedure) which serves as a replacement (quick solution/gap filler). Then we realise: "I didn't come here to do this". The brain is like a computer so used to working fast that it can't help but err. Isn't it funny that we can lack memory and lucidity even in the waking state?

Likewise, in a dream, we often find ourselves in situations with no memory of how we got there and simply accept it because it seems to make sense (cause: dream naivete/brain damage-like state theory?). We don't even remember having gone to bed previously, but so what? Of course, lucid dreaming is another matter because everything can suddenly become clear. This is the reason why we set the phase state apart from dreaming and waking experiences. In the phase, we suddenly find ourselves observing a world with a high entropy potential through logical/analytical eyes. That world is dreamland.

On the subject of dream characters, here is an interesting excerpt from the Lucidity website:

"One research aim in child psychology is to identify when children recognize that other people are like themselves in having emotions, needs, pain, pleasure, etc. Before that time, presumably, we treat ourselves as the center of the universe, and everything else as being important only in how it affects our well being. Once awareness of self and other dawns, our choices generally reflect concern for others, although the degree of consideration we show others varies greatly. Fear of social consequences reinforces our social deference, which in common parlance we usually call "goodness." Being "bad" is being selfish or cruel, that is, not considering the feelings of others. Another way of describing this aspect of human psychology is to say that we learn at some age that other people are "real," like us, and to treat them accordingly. And so we do in our dreams, too. Of course, as long as we think dream characters are "really there," we are likely to be concerned about social consequences"

http://www.lucidity.com/NL62.FoolsGuide.html

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:40 am

SL,
I do agree that the personality is something plastic,something with changing borders-more of a set tools than a single thing.Although,in a healthy individual these 'tools' serve purposeful functions and are well integrated.But I cannot agree that the personalities of waking life and some phase experiences are only constructs of physical brains.

Without getting into objective realism vs other logical possibilities (phenomenalism,subjective idealsim,externalism,veiled reality,etc,)I want to just bring up some evidence from 'dissociative identity disorder' and my own subjective experiences.

If personalities are soley the illusory constructs of physical brains then causality should flow one way.This is not the case.Objective scientific studies of subjects with Multiple Personality Disorder/DID show that mental states can guide measurable physical changes in brains and bodies.Some of these changes are not explainable by the conventional material reductionist theories.When they try to explain,they do nothing but restate the issue in jargon.

(When reading the following note that drug dosages and allergic reactions are believed to have specific biochemical pathways of action independent of mental states.Drug dosages are calculated by body wieght and surface area;not mental states.)

For example:Multiples can have allergic reactions or not depending which personality has 'taken over'.One can have color blindness.They can have differing eyeglass perscriptions/visual acuity.Different handedness.Diabetes requiring differing doses of insulin/personality.Personalities that tolerate different drug dosages of sedatives and anesthetics.Skin marks that appear in certain personalities who suffered abuse.(one reason why they fragment btw)They can change EEG patterns and PET scan-cerebral blood flow.Change autonomic functions like eye muscle tone.Change their vital signs,heart rate,blood pressure.Galvanic skin response.And even more....

Then there's subjective phase experiences that can be verified in waking reality.There are many,many people who have done this:

So,If the belief that all dream characters are physical by products of a single brain is like saying "all swans are white" ,then,the experience of a dream character that never was a part of conventional sensory input from the waking world is then the proverbial "black swan" which falsifies such a belief. I have had this experience and proved it to my wife and family.I accept that people can dismiss this,I just feel sorry that they have not had their own self validating experience.

See page 39:
http://dreaminglucid.com/issues/LDE51.pdf

Now was this dream character the 'real' person who existed 'in' 'objective' physical reality before his death? No. What about our normal perceptions? Whether they are 'internal' or 'external' they are not the 'thing in itself' either. The truth is we don't know,these are open questions about reality that remain to be solved.

Finally,I believe the evidence for any kind of local-objective reality is incompatible with both recent scientific findings from quantum theory and with our own phenomenal experience.With all that said,I agree that dream characters and waking life people for that matter are not separate from us.

Post by **Summerlander** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:08 pm

Nobody is disputing the fact that the mind can effect the physical body and vice versa. There is a lot which is yet to be understood. For example, there have been some remarkable physical changes observed in individuals who were hypnotised. The physical changes/symptoms observed from having experienced suggested and imagined scenarios were undeniable even if the extremes are rare and not fully understood. None of this, however, proves Descartes' duality to be correct - only that a system is in play which is yet to be fully understood. In saying this, there is no reason whatsoever to conclude that some dream characters are not in our minds.

Likewise, with the phase state, we have the potential to make many changes - otherwise we wouldn't have healing phase experiences and they wouldn't be mentioned in SOBT!!

I've had many remarkable phase experiences which suggested telepathy and even precognition at play. But when assessing such instances from a truly logical point of view, I found that the so-called verifications were not verifications at all. Most of us can be swayed into wholeheartedly believing what we think we are experiencing especially when it seems out of the ordinary. Anything that isn't mundane or monotonous can be intense and beautiful - magical even! But realise that human beings tend to see things that they recognise in places where they shouldn't be. Just this morning, in a groggy state, I could see the face of an otherworldly being by the banister only to realise that it was a towel and a bra that my wife had hung there.

It is also not surprising that the majority of people seem to have this notion that coincidences are supposed to be rare and that, if they happen often it must mean something. The fact of the matter is this...such experiments with OOBEs should be verified all the time...but they are not, are they?

And then we have individuals who are mentally ill and completely believe that the hallucinations they experience are objective reality. Like John Nash believing that his "friends" were real until he realised otherwise. An individual's subjective experience has the potential to be that powerful as to dupe him/her into believing that reality is what is being perceived. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the paranormal doesn't happen, but I think it is highly unlikely. But I guarantee you that, if you test all your phase experiences and attempt to control those characters that you believe are not yours, you will succeed if you open yourself to the notion that it is all in your mind.

When it comes to drugs, we can only administer them and assess the results both on a physiological and psychological level. I read Rick Strassman's DMT, The Spirit Molecule, and, although he pointed out that the same dose had different effects on several individuals, they all experienced cognitive distortion. Why were the experiences different you might ask? And why is it the the same dose repeated on the same individual delivered yet again a different result? Well, we are not always thinking the same things, we are not always in the same moods and our minds constantly change focus - not to mention that other individuals have brains that differ and have also led different lives. The complexity of the brain to account for such experiences hasn't been ruled out.

In fact, I think it is only gaining strength the more we study it. If dreams are not a product of the brain then they are a product of the physical interactions in the universe that can range from the quantum to the macro and always through our brains. Perhaps there is a lot more to the physical reality system on a planck scale than we imagine and can account for dreaming tendencies and all sorts of conscious experiences. Why can't consciousness be merely a resultant force from certain physical interactions? Why does it have to be, as some have implied, eternal and the very foundation of reality. After all, consciousness is not evident everywhere...unless you believe that a rock has experience and that something like Toy Story is possible. Do you?

We need our brains to experience reality and a healthy one to experience the world coherently. It is what they are there for in my opinion. The universe may be fully connected and we may be one mind (like in the idea/theory/belief of oneness) but, the reality on the level that we experience so far only seems to permit subjective experience in the phase (often influenced by objective reality). Michael Persinger has a good theory, but even he may be seeing something which isn't really there. It is clear that he has made an association that he believes is within reason. I think that what is claimed may be possible only with future technological aids or even in evolution. Maybe... for now, not yet. We live in a world of illusions and many possible interpretations which is why I refrain from jumping to conclusions.

By the way, from that link you provided I found it very interesting that a correlation between multimedia/electronica and lucid dreaming has been found.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:25 am

SL:

"It is also not surprising that the majority of people seem to have this notion that coincidences are supposed to be rare and that, if they happen often it must mean something. The fact of the matter is this...such experiments with OOBEs should be verified all the time...but they are not, are they? "

Jeff:
I have had two instances in the phase that were certainly not coincidences.The one I linked to above being one of them.

More about this:
This 'dream character' imposed himself on me and actually harassed me.And I experienced him along side of a 'mindless' dream character of my wife at the same time in direct comparison,all totally by surprise.I had no intention of trying to confirm anything in my OBEs and Lucid Dreams as 'real'.At the time I did in fact believe that it was all in my brain and constructed from waking world input and memory.This belief was shattered afterwards.

I had no idea why this DC 'attacked' me and what it had to do with my wife? I was perplexed and it bothered me.Afterward I described him in vivid detail to my wife from the memory of my phase ,she finally recognized who he was and remembered that she had a picture somewhere. She found it at the bottom of an old picture drawer and when she showed me my heart sank.(She was able to find it only because my description was accurate and prompted the memory in her.)I did not at all expect that this was a real person or that he was now deceased.And I know and she knows that he was never ever discussed before this.I had zero knowledge of this person before the phase experience.

And yes,I am 100% certain that the DC from my phase was the man in the picture.The only thing different was his hair.In his photo his hair was brown.My wife and family confirmed that he in fact dyed his hair and that it was really white,as I had experienced.Another 'coincidence' was that this was the only deceased friend from my wife's past who spoke english...

Now why shouldn't these things happen all of the time? I don't know.Answers could lie with the fact that reality is probabilistic and there are constraints on knowledge,levels of uncertainty and such.Information theory,noise to signal ratios and entropy could have something to do with it all.But I do know that people have various experiences that do get confirmed in waking reality,some trivial and some not. (I've had many 'trivial' ones that I don't really even count.) When taken collectively I believe these instances form a body of evidence that deserves serious consideration without being dismissed as mere coincidence.

Does this mean that I believe the phase is some afterlife zone? No.I'm not totally convinced of this either.But it could be a storehouse for human memory and probabilities related to the waking world.There is also the so called "super psi" explanation that can't be totally ruled out. This man's (Morris was his name.He was an English mine engineer.)memory existed in my wife's mind at the time of the experience.I agree that conclusions shouldn't be jumped to;but stuff like this certainly deserves to be pondered.

About drugs ,the mind and reality.If you're not aware,a recent study showed reduced brain activity,particularly in highly integrated areas,at the same time as expanded states of awareness.Check this out:

"Bernardo Kastrup: The current paradigm says that conscious experience is an epiphenomenon, a by-product, of brain activity. So you should always be able to find a tight correlation between conscious states as reported by the subject and measurable brain states as measured, for instance, with an FMRI scanner. Usually this correlation is there, but there are instances, like this study you mentioned, where this correlation is not there in a very spectacular and repeatable way. What it suggests is that we have to find another model of reality, if you will, to accommodate this. A model that accommodates both the fact that normally, ordinarily, conscious experience is modulated by brain states, but also sometimes there is a lack of correlation in a spectacular way.

Alex Tsakiris: So these anomalies youâ€™re talking about, for example, with psilocybin and reduced brain functioning, or brain injuries that lead to increased consciousness, these have to be explained. We canâ€™t just sweep them off the table and say, â€œwell, materialism seems to work pretty well in the general sense,â€

Post by **Summerlander** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:20 am

[img]http://More about this:
This 'dream character' imposed himself on me and actually harassed me.And I experienced him along side of a 'mindless' dream character of my wife at the same time in direct comparison,all totally by surprise.I had no intention of trying to confirm anything in my OBEs and Lucid Dreams as 'real'.At the time I did in fact believe that it was all in my brain and constructed from waking world input and memory.This belief was shattered afterwards.[/img]

Just because you are lucid doesn't mean that you are aware of everything that goes on in your mind. Perhaps your belief was not strong enough. I've have demons attack me too before but I was able to turn them into docile creatures afterwards until they no longer came. Lucid nightmares were more frequent during my childhood. You may be in the same position as Frederick Van Eeden where he believed he was being harassed by intelligent beings of a low moral order. I'm sorry but I don't believe in such things as I have had more evidence that it is all subjective experiences arising from the mind. You need confidence that you can control and overcome anything in the phase. Describing something as harassment in the phase reflects your leniency towards powerlessness. Perhaps it was always radically there and you just never managed to obliterate it.

I had no idea why this DC 'attacked' me and what it had to do with my wife? I was perplexed and it bothered me.Afterward I described him in vivid detail to my wife from the memory of my phase ,she finally recognized who he was and remembered that she had a picture somewhere. She found it at the bottom of an old picture drawer and when she showed me my heart sank.(She was able to find it only because my description was accurate and prompted the memory in her.)I did not at all expect that this was a real person or that he was now deceased.And I know and she knows that he was never ever discussed before this.I had zero knowledge of this person before the phase experience.

When you described it to her she still did not have a visual image of the character you saw. She never did. The more time has elapsed, on your part, the more time you have to convince yourself that what you saw was indeed the same as the picture as our minds are more prone to false memory syndrome.

Does this mean that I believe the phase is some afterlife zone? No.I'm not totally convinced of this either.But it could be a storehouse for human memory and probabilities related to the waking world.There is also the so called "super psi" explanation that can't be totally ruled out. This man's (Morris was his name.He was an English mine engineer.)memory existed in my wife's mind at the time of the experience.I agree that conclusions shouldn't be jumped to;but stuff like this certainly deserves to be pondered.

It may indeed have more to do with how memories are stored rather than afterlife zones. I personally don't believe in an afterlife...at least not in the way that a religious or spiritual person would. My postulation is that, if there is an afterlife, it would be the universe bringing back your perspective in a different organic form...after having been unconscious from having died previously. Nothing to do with spirits reincarnating...more to do with popping in and out of existence like quantum nuggets in a vacuum. Then again, this is only an idea. Perhaps we never come back (though I struggle with this concept because it would mean that any sort of universe would simply cease to be forever but the forever cannot be experienced when you are unconscious. Still, death could really mean death.

Back to the drugs, brain activity and the studies on consciousness... we don't yet have a complete model of reality that works and explains everything. Here is an idea though: The correlation may not always be there or in other words not be so apparent. Measurable and increased brain functioning may not necessarily equate with intense experiences. The frequency of energy could come into play. Intense bursts can be short-lived whereas decreased or faint levels can last and even leave an impact. Then again, perhaps we are swimming through electromagnetic fields of information and the brain is simply picking up and holding on to what it deems more convenient. Anyway, I'm not a neurologist nor a physicist.

Thanks for the links though.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:18 pm

SL:
"all subjective experiences arising from the mind. "

Jeff:
umm,no kidding

Is everything experienced in the mind a creation of your own brain? Is it 'causally closed' ? These are the questions I'm asking and some of my experiences answer no.All experiences are in the mind.This is true of any philosophy and is not a real explanation for anything....

You seem to think that I've never controlled things in the phase and I'm not sure why.This isn't what I'm talking about.Yes,things can be controlled in the phase to certain degrees;but my point is that this is not always true. No matter how much you want to believe that you create everything the truth is that you do not.You do not choose the words spoken to you.The scenery details.The colors.The dimensions of objects,etc.You can influence these things if you choose,but you don't 'create' them. You can say "the subconscious mind" creates this and creates that;but this explains nothing.What is 'the subconscious mind'? Is it Carbon,Sulfer,Calcium,Sodium,Potassium..? (Is it an electric field? Why isn't my wall socket conscious?)

You say a rock isn't conscious,well no argument there.How the mind 'emerges' from matter faces the same problem if you didn't notice..

It's funny.You can tell your DCs that they are a creation of your brain and they will stare at you like you are crazy and deny this! I'm wondering if anyone here has had any real conversations with DCs?(The sentient seeming ones not the ones that are easily controlled.)Funny how your brain (the 'subconscious mind')doesn't admit to being the puppet master.In fact the whole idea of a subconscious mind is flawed. There is plenty of evidence that the divisions are vertical and dissociative rather than horizontal with the ego on top.

People with MPD/DID have personalities that are in fact always conscious.They know the others but the others don't know them.They are called "internal self helpers' and they never say they are really a brain.As well there is the 'hidden observer' phenomenon from hypnosis.The hidden observer knows the ego and is present when the ego is not.The hidden observer doesn't claim to be the brain though....Weird stuff it is.

SL:
"When you described it to her she still did not have a visual image of the character you saw. She never did. The more time has elapsed, on your part, the more time you have to convince yourself that what you saw was indeed the same as the picture as our minds are more prone to false memory syndrome."

Jeff:
I don't know what you mean here,but you are wrong.I didn't need any time to convince myself of anything.The moment I saw his photo I recognized him just as I would from a waking life situation.Thats ok you're free to accept what I say or not.

One point in my experience is that this 'DC' demonstrated his own will and imposed it upon me.I was not attacked,but it seemed that way at the time.I've only been 'attacked' a couple of times and yes,I have been able to 'control' the situation.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:28 pm

Ok,so this is about my experiences and we began to discuss the reality or unreality of dream characters and conversations.So I'll post an example of one of my more favorite dialogues in the phase.

A few years back I became lucid in the dream state and began to float down a hallway.Unexpectedly a voice from behind me said "You're pretty good at that." I turned and extended my hand to shake his while I introduced myself and said that I was dreaming.Instead of shaking my hand; surprisingly he fist bumped me-I never do this in waking life.I then asked him "where are you when I'm not here?" He replied "I was wondering the same about you!" Then he started telling me that he was going along a curve or corner in his RV and suddenly "BOOM! I found myself here."He had dirty blond hair and prison style tattoos on his knuckles.Seemed to be in his mid-late 40s. A light approached from behind him and other 'dream characters' who did not seem to be nearly as self aware looked on in horror for some reason,then I woke up with full continuity of consciousness.

I've always felt this was a really curious experience so I've looked alittle on the web for RV accident articles but have been unable to confirm anything.But I did find this which I think is very interesting-but I'm not holding my breath:

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/rv-cras ... ion/nDrSW/

Now I'm not claiming that this was his 'spirit' or anything and I don't know if this is really the same guy.But it is curious,I'd like to see his photo.Regardless,this guy engaged me,I told him I was dreaming and he volunteered everything he told me.The surrounding DCs appeared stupified,I could have 'controlled' them if I'd wished to I'm sure...I've had many other really interesting conversations with 'DC's too....there is a clear distinction with this type of person encountered in the phase as opposed to other,lesser so called 'thought forms' from the occult lingo...

Now could this have been a coincidence? In this case I certainly think so.But this doesn't detract from the way this person was animated and intelligent.He entered my perceptual space unexpectedly and was every bit as intelligent as someone encountered in waking life.

SL:
"You need confidence that you can control and overcome anything in the phase. Describing something as harassment in the phase reflects your leniency towards powerlessness"

The argument cuts both ways.If you see the phase as some sort of narcissistic mental playground then this too will influence what you get.

Post by **Summerlander** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 1:06 am

Jeff, when you say "it's funny that the subconscious doesn't admit to being the puppet master" you are basing such statement on the assumption that the subconscious works in a conscious and logical way. Here is something for you to ponder... there has been a curious case of many celebs reporting that, at the peak of their careers, they often had dreams about Faye Dunaway. Some even admitted that they were baffled as to why their dreams kept bringing her up when they didn't even like her.

Here is the funny thing about dream psychology - a lot of evidence has been gathered to support the view that dreams often use "puns" to express what one is feeling and thinking (both consciously and unconsciously). Psychologists suggested that Faye Dunaway was a pun for "fading away"...the fear that preyed on all the celebs minds at the time.

There is a lot of evidence for the fact that the conscious and logical mind has a lot of trouble understanding the unconscious mind. The trouble is that the conscious always tries to make sense out of things by assessing and measuring, but, by focusing on one thing the lose everything else. On the other hand, anything goes in the counterpart side of the mind. When both minds merge and the potential for communication is greater, in wakefulness you feel inspired and focused. If such happens in your sleep, you lucid dream (enter the phase).

So, you see, you cannot dismiss the subconscious hypothesis. I think it is quite strong and more viable. I don't think the argument, as you said, cuts both ways at all. Either the mental playground is fully yours or it isn't. And to me there is more evidence that it is. Since I have moved away from all that New Age malarkey and explored the views of Stephen LaBerge and Michael Raduga, I have never looked back. My dream characters have never been the same because I know I can control them if I want to. Sure, some can argue and tell you that you are not dreaming, but then you have to question yourself: "how lucid am I?"..."am I allowing my imagination to run wild?"...Wouldn't we all find it intriguing if we experienced something like Alice in wonderland. Perhaps this influences and inspires such scenarios in the metaphysical realm. Think about how much stuff you have been exposed to all your life, how at night or when it's quite in meditation you notice how noisy your mind is with its myriad thoughts all begging for your attention and how you are only able to focus on a small portion of them...

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:11 am

SL:
"So, you see, you cannot dismiss the subconscious hypothesis. I think it is quite strong and more viable. I don't think the argument, as you said, cuts both ways at all. Either the mental playground is fully yours or it isn't"

Jeff:
I will disagree here,I have personal proof that some content does not originate in the personal mind-brain.As well, I'll provide scientific evidence (outside of 'new age malarkey' )below to back up my position.But first let me say that I do agree that what ever, or however, our phase experiences are created involves some process that can certainly utilize puns -and symbolism also.No doubt about this. For me this is most apparent in regular dreams.

This process,outside of our ego awareness,can draw upon scattered elements of waking world experiences to form content into plots,puns and senarios that can quite often seem nonsensical when recalled upon waking.So whatever is 'behind the scenes' organising content is necessarily outside of our ego awareness,and because of this we say it is the 'subconscious' or it is 'imagination'.At this point an assumption creeps in.It is that our ego awareness is superior to the 'subconscious' imagination and both are somehow the 'outputs' of data processing within a causally closed material brain. This faces logical inconsistencies and circular reasoning.The mind-brain problem is even more accute when we speak of dreams or the phase because there are no sensory inputs during them,so the materialist position is to appeal to memory (in the brain).Here's just one problem with that:

"And there is an insuperable problem with a sense of past and future. Take memory. It is typically seen as being "stored" as the effects of experience which leave enduring changes in, for example, the properties of synapses and consequently in circuitry in the nervous system. But when I "remember", I explicitly reach out of the present to something that is explicitly past. A synapse, being a physical structure, does not have anything other than its present state. It does not, as you and I do, reach temporally upstream from the effects of experience to the experience that brought about the effects. In other words, the sense of the past cannot exist in a physical system. This is consistent with the fact that the physics of time does not allow for tenses: Einstein called the distinction between past, present and future a "stubbornly persistent illusion".

http://integral-options.blogspot.com/20 ... sness.html

So,anyway.Here's more of my personal proof that all content does not originate in the personal mind-brain.Years ago I was sleeping and was roused to lucidity by the ring of a dream telephone.My grandfather's voice was on it when I answered.His voice said "Jeff,I'm just calling to tell you goodbye".Just then there was a knock on the door by my girlfriend's mother who said I had an emergency phone call.This woke me up and I said "it's about my grandfather" before she said that my mother was on the phone for me.When I got to the phone I learned that he had had a massive heart attack and was intubated and sedated in an ICU 1,200 miles from me in Philadelphia.It was sudden and there was no indication of illness or warnings beforehand.Therefore I had no 'subconscious' anxieties to *somehow* create a coincidence like this.

Moreover,many,many,many people experience dreams just like this around the world.Are they all coincidences? If you believe so then I will believe you are in denial that something more than local brain activity is going on.

And finally,here is evidence that can most reasonably be interpreted to mean that all content does not originate in brain material:

[â€œItâ€™s very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [someone with no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs. Human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity canâ€™t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about themâ€

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 3:57 am

So the accusation I'm getting is that if I experience sentient entities in the phase I just must not be lucid.This is pure 100% bullshite!!

Here's an experience I had back when I was big into Stephen Leberge.( I still very much like him )At the time I was convinced that the phase was all in my head. I had been on a streak of early fouling and I was sick and tired of it,so my goal was to OBE or get Lucid and then spin,spin and spin and spin some more.This is what I did. I had stoped in a stable place,but I spun even more for good measure. Needless to say I was extremely lucid....

I found myself at a beach resort/condo complex.I floated about and heard distant music playing like an outdoor concert.I sat in the sand and felt its texture as I dug a shallow hole.It got wetter and more clumped together and cold as I got deeper.I sat back in it and listened to the music.As I did I wondered "can my dream body take a piss??" ( why not right? Its all in my head so wtf?

) So I 'whipped it out' ,was glad to see it ..LOL,and produced a healthy yellow stream.Just then a disembodied female face appeared with an angry look.She might have said something like: "hey asshole,this is a public place!"

Still LucidI stood up and actually felt alittle embarrassed and surprised at the same time.Then she got more annoyed with me.By now she had a full body,she pointed to my foot.Still Lucid,I was suprised "What did she want with my foot?" I wondered?? She became impatient and pointed again,when I looked I noticed I had stepped on some strange black ,small creature or insect that scurried off as I picked up my foot in surprise! I looked back at her and she folded her arms ,stormed off and faded quickly.She might have said "stupid tourist" or something if she had spoken.

Still Lucid I spun some more to maintain.I floated over to an outdoor stage where there was a crowd of people enjoying this concert.The music was alot like U2.( Not a big fan at all.I like metal and classical )Then I floated back toward the condo area near some trees.Still Lucid I noticed how my floating dreambody casted a shadow from the street lights behind me.I turned back and was stretching my dreambody arms on the a lamp post and playfully swinging on tree branches enjoying the music and maintaining by palpation.

Still Lucid I noticed some dream characters boarding a bus nearby at a street.I noticed that they noticed me.Then I heard one say "what are we gonna do with him?" Still Lucid ,all of my visual perception became scrambled and dream-like as if they somehow kicked me out of there.Then I woke up with continuity of consciousness.

The environment had been stable,I encountered DCs with their own sense of purpose and agency and I was extremely lucid throughout.I've had many other such experiences.I've literly had hundreds and hundreds of OBEs and Lucid dreams.I'm pretty sure I know when I'm lucidly aware....

Post by **Summerlander** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 3:07 am

Jeff, firstly...

Shape-memory polymers such as PTFE return to their original shape as though they have a memory (hence the name), but we all know that the plastic substance is not a living/conscious organism.

In the same vein but with more "oomph", the electric stimulation of brains can trigger vivid memories and I still can't see why the synaptic modification theory for the way memory works isn't viable (which, ironically enough, is similar to Rene Descartes hydraulic theory of memory).

I also can't see why the brain can't identify certain experiences as having already happened when it currently obtains sensory input from the present. Surely it can distinguish the two especially when the physical body has already moved on from all the factors that it was exposed to previously.

Secondly...

So the accusation I'm getting is that if I experience sentient entities in the phase I just must not be lucid.

No. You have clearly misunderstood. Experiencing the apparent sentience of people in the phase does not mean that you are not lucid. In fact, such a statement is oxymoronic as being in the phase is to be lucid dreaming. In SOBT, there is a whole chapter on how to obtain information from characters in the phase as a way to get in touch with your subconscious reservoir. To conclude, you can interact with seemingly sentient beings in the phase and still retain your lucid state...but...

We must also remember that, in the phase, we will see what we expect to see and also what we believe - even if we think we don't believe, but understand that beliefs, even if minimal, are enough because of their potential to grow - and the phase has a tendency to confirm our suspicions with its grandiose illusions!!

That's what I meant by running the risk of letting our imagination run wild. It is also a fact that too much involvement with people in the phase and its events can increase our chances of becoming less lucid or even losing our lucidity completely (yes, an exit from the phase and falling asleep). It is easy to slip into a mindless dream by being swayed by plots.

Still, what you recounted above could have happened in a short period of time in the phase and also not impossible for your mind to create such scenarios where characters seem to go by their own volition...

It can happen in the phase and it happens all the time in non-lucid dreams. Just last night, in a mere dream, someone was very angry. In another dream, white wolves were attacking me, though I wouldn't call it a terrible nightmare because I didn't experience full-on fight-or-flight.

I find that people in dreams tend to have more life than those in the phase. The phase often appears to be a slowed down dream, more stable and this factor possible stems from our eagerness to study the environment when we are lucid. It is also worth taking into account that the more we lose our mindful state, the more alive the others will become (which could well be the strongest subjective evidence for dream characters being aspects of ourselves that become more prominent as the unconscious takes over the conscious mind).

Yes, seemingly real and sentient people in the mindlessness of non-lucid dreams. And I'm pretty sure I know when I'm drunk.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 4:50 pm

Summer,
The material in our brains and bodies are literly not the same one moment to the next.There are thousands of proteins (including ligands that act as neurotransmitters) manufactured each second.Without Quantum Mechanical explanations (outside of objective space and time),it is simply impossible for them to find the correct shape to fold into.If the most simple amino acid chain were to try each possible shape one by one,it would take about the same amount of time as the known universe's existence just to find the correct shape!
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26421/

There is no doubt that we need a brain and it's sensory inputs to experience the waking world,but given the evidence I think there is a greater role for the relational processes ;rather than anything intrinsic to matter itself.
SL:
"You have clearly misunderstood."

Jeff:
Oh,I see what you mean now.But I think for your statement to be true for me, this belief would 'belong' to the subconscious mind,whatever it really is.This shows the superiority of the subconscious mind.This is what we seek to interact with when we use the techniques for finding people,objects and information.We depend on it to yield some object of perception for us.So I think its a bit dishonest to claim ownership of this intelligent process completely.No doubt,its results are 'about' us,which shows intentionality btw,but it is not us (the ego) that is 'behind the scenes' making it all happen.

I don't think 'mere matter' can be the total explanation for the DCs ,scenery-landscapes,senarios,puns,colors,sense of motion,spatial separation,etc. This is because matter doesn't possess the secondary qualities we experience.It has mass,charge,spin,lawlike behavior,etc,...;not intention,purposefull and intelligent behavior,qualia,etc...

Here is a talk by neuroscientist Ray Tallis about this.Of course what he says is controversial in today's climate of scientism but it is perfectly sound reasoning.He is an atheist btw too...:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku-GmndXDXo

SL:
"I find that people in dreams tend to have more life than those in the phase. The phase often appears to be a slowed down dream, more stable and this factor possible stems from our eagerness to study the environment when we are lucid. It is also worth taking into account that the more we lose our mindful state, the more alive the others will become (which could well be the strongest subjective evidence for dream characters being aspects of ourselves that become more prominent as the unconscious takes over the conscious mind)."

Jeff:
I think these are valid observations.I've made similar ones too.The answer will lie in why it is that we need sleep to begin with IMO.I like Antoine Suarez's "Quantum Homeostasis Hypothesis" on page 5 below that addresses this question while giving strong evidence for the existence of free will in his 'before-before experiment'.
http://www.quantumphil.org/SuarezRandFinQM

I just think that the brain is not even close to being a full account for why this is so sometimes.I think we must share something with these DCs.Maybe consciousness is a finite shared phenonmenon.One of my conjectures is that we have 'ground states' and 'excited states' of consciousness.Whether matter reflects this from fundamental consciousness or vice versa is still wide open IMO.

Currently I'm finding this speculation to be very plausible:
http://www.bernardokastrup.com/2012/02/ ... sness.html

Post by **Summerlander** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 12:03 am

The last link is quite valid. Please don't take me for fully endorsing the materialist view, I just don't dismiss it. At the heart of it all I feel that we are finite expressions in a sea of possibilities that may or may not become or already are and will always be. Perhaps we are currently experiencing one potential. Perhaps conscious experience is simply the universe experiencing itself.

Maybe the void from which all things come is alive and I find myself going back to the Buddhist notion that intrinsically we are empty awareness... notice that it is awareness and not unconsciousness. This awareness can have periods of consciousness or unconsciousness through the ideas that radiate from it. If this is true, there is no real death. What do you think about this possibility.

Btw, today I watched Tron Legacy for the first time. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. One man's creation spawned an entire reality that evolved. The characters just popped into being. Very odd and quite profound. But our reality is comparable to that... it seems to be of an almost magical nature.

Thanks for the debate, Jeff and do continue to post your experiences.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:52 am

Summerlander,
I don't discount what you said here at all.I think the idea of the universe or 'absolute existence' forming structures and relationships with itself to experience itself is an idea I find reasonable.I think it still leaves alot of mystery though.

But,yeah,I've read quite a bit of buddhist material too like the Book of the Dead,The Dhammapada and the more recent and excellent Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep.I've also been swayed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and the Pantanjali Sutras.So,yeah, we could all be the same "I" percieving from many points of view.Like the analogy about the 'moon that is reflected in many windows or bodies of water but there is really only one moon'... and all that.

And please don't think that I don't think the brain is important.I think we can be sure that it is and that brains do process information.Who or what 'the knower' of this information is......the how,when and where this comes about is a more difficult question that remains open for me.

I'm always happy to discuss this stuff and I don't mind the friendly debates at all.Interesting information usually emerges this way

Bottom line is we'll find out in the end anyway right? All we can do for now is try to figure out what it all means,if anything...

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 4:53 pm

2 nights ago I OBEd from a dreambody within a version of my old bedroom in my parent's house.My dreambody seemed to be in a 'superposition' state of my waking world body plus my dreambody.I know this because I could sense my WW body in bed and the dream copy of it in a phase bed both at once.My dreambody was in a similar position in its bed.I can remember the dream leading up to all of this which also took place in this setting.My nonlucid dream self had just layed down to go to sleep in the dream when 'I' became very Lucid.

I just stood up and walked from it.Its hard to tell which body the separation sensations were correlated with.I was in a version of my parent's house,that is consistent with its WW state about 10-15 years ago.I spun and rubbed my hands together to deepen.

I decided to go to a neighbor's house to see 'who' would be inside since I didn't have a plan this time,but I didn't make it from the driveway.A strange vehicle was backing away,so I waved down the female driver to interrogate her.I hopped on this open topped vehicle and maintained by palpating a 'metal' post. She called me a monster for some reason? I asked her why but fouled back to the phase bed.

Continuing lucidly,I got up again and deepened as before.This time I was met by my mother and my recently deceased dog.She (the dog) was accompanied by several puppies just like her.They ran up to me and licked me.

We went outside to the sidewalk and I decided to resume my provisional goal of going to a neighbor's house. ( I have systematically explored most of this phase neighborhood and its boundaries in the past.) Then my mother said "here comes your grandmother!" (her long deceased mother who I have met before in the phase) She approached quickly on a three wheel bike.When she got to us we hugged,I maintained by feeling the texture of her blouse as we did.

As we started to chat I noticed a paper sign in a window of a house nearby.I got distracted and tried to read it which resulted in a foul.This time I knew I was in the waking world and it was time to get up for work

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:30 am

I have had alot going on the phase lately,too much to write at the moment.But I want to share one interesting thing from last week.I'll skip to the best part:

after a foul I came back to the front of the house and some dream characters met me that were apparently present before.They seemed sentient to me,they engaged me while I had another goal.(They seemed to know what it was)After some discussion I asked "what do you see when I disappear from here?" "What happens?" One answered "A flash of light"

I thought that was pretty cool

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:05 am

Rather than post every detail of every phase (again,because they're in my journal) I instead like to share new unusual experiences and ideas:

So this morning while doing 'indirect techniques' I spontaneously performed an unusual exit. My dream body was rotating longitudinally but I didn't feel that immediate separation was possible.I kept going around 360 degrees a few times slowly like I was roasting on a spit.When I felt free I just allowed my dreambody to drop to the floor.This was unusual because most often I 'just get up' and walk away.I've spun countless times around the sensation of my body in bed ;but this is always while fighting off a foul to the last moment.So this was something new.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:46 pm

Well,I've been lazy about posting here but I wanted to share this because it was so funny to me

The night before last I became lucid in my old neighborhood.(A starting point for most of my LDs and OBEs) I remembered my plan to ask DCs about a terminally ill family friend.There were some on the street and they had guns for some reason(?) As I approached one he/she pulled a pistol on me.(This has happened before.I know I can't be hurt but I didn't want to play or let them shoot me this time.)I flipped the gun on the DC and it fired -a squirt of water- in he/she's face ! XD I got an indignant look back like "ooh noo ho hoo you DIDN'T just do that!"Next thing I knew ALL of the DCs around swarmed me ,rushing me backwards before I could fly up.Then I woke. LOL,they kicked me out!

This morning was way better.I had a very interesting conversation with a DC.But there is one thing they won't divulge to me.Like they have a gag order or something!!??Weird.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 2:49 am

Ah,I see the site is finally back up.Well I've been busy in OBE land but I'll post this short experience:

Funniest entrance to the void ever this morning.I became lucid on a stairway that was reminiscent of grand central station.as I emerged on a platform atop the stairs I spot none other than plastic dashboard Jesus! he waved me over with that big cheesy grin on his face and off I went, since I had no plan of action or goal planned.he took my hand and covered my eyes with his other and I was in the void rightaway. I felt my body in bed, and under usual circumstances I would convert to an Obe at such a point; but I've been achy lately and the sensations broke through too much....Plastic dashboard Jesus guy sabotaged my phase!Where does this shit come from!!??

Post by **Molecule** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:06 am

Hahahahaha..........that's a funny one indeed! Reminds me of that movie with Alanis Morisette playing God.