Re: Phase, LD, OBE: found neural correlates

Anton · Post by **Anton** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 3:56 am

Imaging transitions in consciousness: Neural correlates of lucid dreaming

Martin Dresler

Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Sleep Research, Munich, Germany
Common categorizations of consciousness distinguish between basal and higher-order aspects of this multifaceted concept. Basal consciousness comprises perceptions and sensations, whereas higher-order consciousness constitutes reflections on these perceptions. In rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, ordinary dreaming comprises only basal aspects of consciousness. There is conscious perception of dream content but higher-order aspects of consciousness are usually absent: The person does not realize that he is dreaming and has no perception of the self as an agent endowed with intentionality and free will. Higher-order consciousness therefore seems to be bound to wakefulness. However, a special type of dreaming - referred to as "lucid dreaming" - is characterized by full-blown consciousness, including all higher-order aspects: The dreamer is able to reflect on his state of consciousness and realizes that he is dreaming. Using a combined fMRI/EEG approach, we could reveal neural activity related to the genesis of higher-order consciousness by contrasting ordinary REM sleep with physiologically verified lucid REM sleep. We find increased activation in a range of neo-cortical regions, including bilateral precuneus, cuneus and parietal, prefrontal and occipito-temporal cortices, to be related to this categorical shift in consciousness. This activation shows remarkable overlap with neo-cortical regions that have highest expansion in humans relative to non-human primates.

http://www.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de/~codyb ... esler.html

Anton · Post by **Anton** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:01 am

Sleep. 2009 Sep 1;32(9):1191-200.
Lucid dreaming: a state of consciousness with features of both waking and non-lucid dreaming.

Voss U, Holzmann R, Tuin I, Hobson JA.

JW Goethe-UniversitÃ¤t Frankfurt, Bonn, Germany. [email protected]

STUDY OBJECTIVES: The goal of the study was to seek physiological correlates of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a dissociated state with aspects of waking and dreaming combined in a way so as to suggest a specific alteration in brain physiology for which we now present preliminary but intriguing evidence. We show that the unusual combination of hallucinatory dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness and agentive control experienced in lucid dreams is paralleled by significant changes in electrophysiology. DESIGN: 19-channel EEG was recorded on up to 5 nights for each participant. Lucid episodes occurred as a result of pre-sleep autosuggestion. SETTING: Sleep laboratory of the Neurological Clinic, Frankfurt University. PARTICIPANTS: Six student volunteers who had been trained to become lucid and to signal lucidity through a pattern of horizontal eye movements. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Results show lucid dreaming to have REM-like power in frequency bands delta and theta, and higher-than-REM activity in the gamma band, the between-states-difference peaking around 40 Hz. Power in the 40 Hz band is strongest in the frontal and frontolateral region. Overall coherence levels are similar in waking and lucid dreaming and significantly higher than in REM sleep, throughout the entire frequency spectrum analyzed. Regarding specific frequency bands, waking is characterized by high coherence in alpha, and lucid dreaming by increased delta and theta band coherence. In lucid dreaming, coherence is largest in frontolateral and frontal areas. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that lucid dreaming constitutes a hybrid state of consciousness with definable and measurable differences from waking and from REM sleep, particularly in frontal areas.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19750924
http://www.journalsleep.org/ViewAbstract.aspx?pid=27567

Post by **Summerlander** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 4:13 pm

Wow! This is interesting. No doubt that lucid dreaming is a hybrid state! By the way, have you checked out what happens to the dreams of split-brain patients! That's something else which certainly provides food for thought. Thanks for sharing this!

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:18 am

Summerlander wrote: Wow! This is interesting. No doubt that lucid dreaming is a hybrid state! By the way, have you checked out what happens to the dreams of split-brain patients! That's something else which certainly provides food for thought. Thanks for sharing this!

Can you provide a link for this?

Post by **Summerlander** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:14 pm

Sure:

http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/wh ... avior.html

"Split-brain patients have also taught us about dreaming. Scientists had hypothesized that dreaming is a right hemisphere activity, but they found that split brain patients do report dreaming. They found, therefore, that the left hemisphere must have some access to dream material. What was most interesting was the actual content of the dreams of the split-brain patients. Klaus Hoppe, a psychoanalyst, analyzed the dreams of twelve patients. He found that the dreams were not like the dreams of most normal people. " The content of the dreams reflected reality, affect, and drives. even in the more elaborate dream, there was a remarkable lack of distortion of latent dream thoughts. The findings show that the left hemisphere alone is able to produce dreams...Patients after commisurotomy reveal a paucity of dreams, fantasies, and symbols. Their dreams lack the characteristics of dream work; their fantasies are unimaginative, utilitarian, and tied to reality; their symbolization is concretistic, discursive, and rigid." (Segalowitz)"

Interesting, isn't it?

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:37 pm

Yes very interesting. Thanks for posting,I will read the article later today.

In the meantime, I wonder if this is due to the fact that the right hemisphere lacks the linguistic processing modules evolved by the left hemisphere. (Wernike's and Broca's areas.)

What I mean is perhaps the right hemisphere still dreams,but cannot report it verbally. The Left is maybe exposed as the filter or overlay that some suggest it is ?

From a nonmaterialist perspective:If we have a 'self' extended in a different order of reality,the right hemisphere would seem to interface-reflect-represent this possibility...

Post by **Summerlander** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:48 pm

Hmmm...I think everything that you said is logical. Have you read Thomas Campbell's My Big TOE? In the last book he speaks of a high entropy consciousness and a low entropy one. These could filter through the different brain hemispheres. In other words, the hemispheres are a physical representation of both which is still evolving. While the right hemisphere only processes digital data, so to speak, the left one tries to make sense out of it according to the external world that it has grown with and has been exposed to. While it may become conscious of unconscious material - such as our most "absurd" dreams - it may formulate its own which is more true to life and objective reality.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 5:04 pm

Absolutely! I love MBT,I read it in 2008-2009 and then reread a good deal of it. I really enjoy his website, I comment there mostly.

His model of reality is my favorite yet. I always end up coming back to it like a measuring stick....

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:47 pm

I like your idea about evolution and the hemispheres. Here is a book with lots interesting conjecture about brains and 'dark matter' that you might like.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50999697/Brai ... Jay-Alfred

BTW,the link didn't work but I'll do some searches on the subject.The split brain stuff is fascinating.

Post by **Summerlander** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 9:09 am

Oh cool! I'm currently reading like, four books at the same time, LOL, but I'll definitely give this a read and get back to you on it.

In the prologue it is mentioned that the world out there is multidimensional, a cacophony of waveforms that the brain can interpret. The brain, however, reduces our view of reality. This is exactly how I see it. By entering the Phase, we may be stepping into these extra dimensions and we get to see many possible worlds in the paradoxical full-void. These possible worlds, of course, can be probabilities in other PMRs (physical matter realities) within the Big Computer!

Oh man, there is stuff about the split-brain too! You are spot on - I'm gonna love this book!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I'm also still reading the last book of MBT.

In one of my most recent experiences I separated into a replica of my house and glided out into the back garden. Yesterday I realised that the big tree in my back garden had been missing in my Phase experience. I love that tree so why would it be missing in that burlesque version of this reality if I had created it. Then it dawned on me that my wife wishes it wasn't there because it casts a huge shadow on our house when it's sunny. Hmmm...I wonder if her wish somehow brought that possible version of reality to my attention, she could have created it instead of me. I'd imagine if it was mine, a better version of the tree would be there, but I don't know.

The Phase is so intriguing...