Has anyone tried to solve a mathematical, physical, etc. task in dreams? How successful? If so, it could be a real motivation.

Although I've never tried to solve a mathematical or physical equation in a lucid dream, I have noticed that my "left-brain" seems to be a bit tuned out. I've tried simple things like arithmetic, etc. and have had much trouble. This may be related to the fact that whenever I look closely at written text, it always turns out to be total gibberish.

On the other hand, I've found that problem solving in general is the most valuable aspect of lucid dreaming for me. I've gone to sleep at night (or back to sleep in the middle of the night) asking myself a specific question that I hope to have answered in a dream. I've asked myself such things regarding my health, relationships with my kids and wife, existence of the Soul, etc. (actually asking out loud before I fall asleep). As I become lucid, I remember the question, and then present it to a dream character (demand that they answer sometimes), and it works! When I wake up and apply the solution given to me by a dream character, the results have been great (e.g., dramatically improved my relationship with both of my kids -- from separate lucid dreaming questions). The answers are sometime so simple, it seems silly (but then again so do a lot of the things Lao Tzu said!).

Getting back to the original question about solving more cerebral problems, such as mathematics, etc., I have been able in a lucid dream to sit and listen to what seems to be fully orchestrated symphonic music which is completely original (music I've never heard before). I'm a professional composer, so to me that seems amazing! When I'm listening to it in a dream, I suddenly realize that I am the one that is composing this music, and in real-time! The problem is that it's so rich and complex that I haven't been able to bring any back with me. It's almost as if composing music is very "right-brained", but analyzing it and remembering it is very "left-brained," and as I said before, I have trouble even doing simple arithmetic in a lucid dream.

Has anyone out there been able to bring back things such as music compositions? Has anyone been able to solve more general problems by asking a dream character to solve them for you?

Thanks, dv

Don, I am David H. Let me tell you you are lucky to be able to lucidize so easily. I am an artsy brained guy and I have trouble getting there. I am not complaining. I have glimpsed the other side of the mountain and it keeps me going. I saw Billy Joel on TV say that some of his best songs were created in the night. Have you ever thought to have some dream transposer put your self-created pieces in real simpe form and go over them with you. At least enough to write them down in the morning? .....David

David, It's a bit strange... only a few weeks ago, I was having several lucid dreams per week. However, they started getting really, really "heavy," so much that I decided to chill for a while. Then I heard about Stephen LaBerge's book, started reading it, and became interested again. But the really strange thing is that I haven't been able to have a lucid dream since! It may be that I'm trying too hard (using the various techniques from the book), but it's more likely that it's because I'm sleeping much better these days. You see, I'm what you might call a borderline insomniac. I quite often wake up in the middle of the night (around 4am) and can't go back to sleep until about 7 or later. But when I do... WHAM! And it's almost always the of the WILD flavor (interestingly enough, I just read about this flavor last night). As soon as I start dozing, they start and continue one after another all morning (sometimes I have to wake myself up from the dreams so as not to sleep the whole morning away). For some reason, I'm sleeping much better lately (work-related I believe). No lucid dreams... but I'm not complaining! I'm sure they'll be back as soon as I start my next project.

Anyway back the music topic... I've also heard of musicians getting ideas from dreams, and I do get ideas, but no specifics. But I like your suggestion, if I understand it correctly, about getting one of the dream characters to simplify the music for me. This might not be so far fetched, because the last time I had one of these music dreams, I started telling all the characters in the room (that were helping me with a problem) to listen to the music that I was creating. They were all very quick to let me know that I wasn't creating it... WE were creating it!

Thanks for the suggestion, dv

Dear Don,

While I've not brought back any musical compositions per se, I have noted that singing is not an uncommon element in many of my lucid dreams. What amazes me most, however, is the ability to "self-harmonize" while in that state. In one rather memorable episode, it was as if my body held an entire choir of angels. The complexity of the melody and the beauty of "their" harmonizing in sweet, high voices was absolutely stunning and held me in complete awe. I suppose if one were into dream analysis, this may appear a good sign -- all those separate voices singing in harmony...

As for general problem solving via the aid of dream characters: A few years back, Lucidity Institute conducted an experiment researching access to memory via lucid dreaming. Part of the experiment included trying to recall a "forgotten fact" (something you once knew but had forgotten) while in a lucid dream. Each participant chose their own personal goal -- mine was to recall the name of a Turkish village I visited several years ago.

While engaged in this experiment, I had several lucid adventures in which I asked dream characters either directly for the village name or for their assistance in helping me locate it. In one dream, I even tried spinning myself to Turkey and asking "foreign" dream characters! The answer finally came in a completely unexpected way (without character assistance) a couple of years after the experiment ended. I was awake and remembering the last lucid dream I'd had about the search, when it occurred to me that if I'd written "big" (the word that first came to mind) and not purposely substituted the word "large" (which I did simply out of word preference), I'd have actually written the village name in my dream journal.

When I'd become lucid in that final dream, I'd decided that the answer would be in a box that I would conjure on a shelf above my head. Expecting to pull down a simple wooden box, I was stunned by my own dream conjuring to find a very ornately carved, multi-sided container. When I opened it, to my further surprise, I found a smaller, duplicate box. Okay, I thought, this is just my brain, stalling while it searches for the answer. I took a breath and opened the inner box to find only a "BIG A"methyst. The image of that sizeable gemstone stayed in my mind for a long time until the day when it's meaning was suddenly revealed: The name of the town was "BIGA". A name I'm not likely to forget ever again! And in reflecting back, I'm amused to realize that the answer came in such a clever way. You see, in some dreams, I'd actually asked dream characters to write the name of the town -- and as we all know, text can be rather frustratingly unstable in dreams -- even in lucid ones. So in the end, it took a different approach to solve the problem.

Wishing you great dreaming adventures, Keelin

Keelin,

Regarding your "choir of angles," this is what is so amazing to me" I don't know how to orchestrate Stravinsky, and you most likely don't know how to harmonize a choir; yet, for some reason we are able to do it while dreaming. This leads me to believe that (perhaps) the great minds of the world may only differ from the rest of us in that they are in closer contact with their unconscious minds, not smarter or more talented. This is one of the reasons I find lucid dreaming so intriguing. It seems to be the porthole to the other 90% of our brain.

dv

Dear Don,

Indeed I wouldn't know where to begin with such harmonic arrangements (especially involving angels), but I wonder if in the dream, I'm not simply accessing musical memories (from this world or?).

I should add that angelic harmony isn't all I've experienced via lucid dreaming. There have been instances of incredibly corny, rhymey lyrics and loony tunes that I must also take some credit for! Unfortunately, these seem to be much easier to "bring back".

• Keelin

zzz

Don,

Did you ever think that may be the reason we can create such amazing things in a dream and not be able to bring them back may be that we are not actually creating anything. May be we just assume it is created. So, the music or songs are not actually there; it is only our impression that we are hearing a wonderful melody, which is there.

My theory about it is that some part of the brain is creating a plot with a specific idea, and anything in the plot that the part of the brain can not create, is just forced to be "assumed" to be there. As they say it is the right part of the brain that handles dreams and intuition, but not logic and language, the latter are not there at all, but only assumed to be there.

Anyway, that's what I thought the most likely answer is to why I can't bring much back.

Dmitri

Hi, Dmitri

"My theory about it is that some part of the brain is creating a plot with a specific idea, and anything in the plot that the part of the brain can not create, is just forced to be "assumed" to be there."

I agree. Often we only have the impression, that something must be there. But this is an ability of the brain to fill the largest gaps... But I know from an LD of mine, when I listened to simple music in a wonderful way, that music can be there. And it was music, I already knew, made up by an existing song.

Just my one cent

Ralf

Hi, whoever I see this is a discussion from a couple weeks ago but I only just read it. Fascinating! I had a nonlucid dream a few mornings ago w/ a scene where a child and a man were performing on stage, dressed in tuxedos and tophats with canes. They each sang, and their faces were very clear. When I first woke up, I'm positive the tune the man was singing was still there in my mind, although not the words. Then I forgot it. I was always intrigued by the story of the poet Coleridge writing the poem about Xanadu after an intense dream. I thought something like that would be a wonderful gift. I still do. I know he was supposed to have been influenced by coke or whatever it was, but I don't think that has to be necessary. Kate

I just posted a message in another forum on this exact topic- remembering music composed in a LD. I am a composer myself, and am currently pursuing this. I agree with Don, that perhaps the "gifted" among us are simply more in touch with what comes naturally to everone. Don, I'd be interested in discussing this further. Input from a fellow composer would be very valuable. As I recall reading that Richard Wagner was one very tuned to the subconcious. His goal was to "make the unconscious conscious".

My current attempt to "bring back" music from a LD (or non-LD) is similar to the Patricia Garfield's practice of writing in her dream journal in the dark, immediately after awakening. While writing music on a staff may be impossible in the dark, writing immediately after awakening, while still in the "dream mind", simply letting the music write itself, is something I am attempting (while looking at the staff, natually). Granted I wont get volumes at a time, but if I can bring one melody back, it'll prove that there IS something there, not just assumptions (I dont believe that for a second).

Richard deCosta http://rdecosta.hopto.org

Hi, New to the discussion board but wanted to add that I do not believe music heard in dream to be merely an assumption. A number of years ago, I awoke naturally from dream and lie in bed staring at the ceiling as the most beautiful classical music played. At first, I assumed the music was playing somewhere nearby me but after a moment, I realized that the music was "in my head" though I was hearing it as if it were objective. I am a musician though not a composer and followed each note of the multi-part harmony marveling at the fact that I was creating this somehow. A moment later, my alarm clock went off and the beeping startled me out of my revelrie and the music was gone.

Hi Keelin and everyone! I have been noticing every evening I scan the forum or anything else on the net or read in the library I find my eyes going shut then I re open them its like Im sorta nodding out..you might say.Lately When this happens in evening after a long hard day Im seeing images [like people] [houses]or any thing ect..It feels like Im entering the dream state sometimes only for 10 to 15 seconds at a time? Then I open my eyes till It happens again.. I know Im a little tired from the days activitys but then Il turn on the tv for 2 or three hours after reading and not have that problem then go to bed.. Has anyone else experianced this ? I notice that when I read I seem to get VERY RELAXED when my eyes close or nod out]] you might say.. Can a person read them selves into a dream?

In reply to Tom:

That sounds more like hypnogogic imagery than a "dream" per se. Hypnogogic images are the dreamlike sensations people experience when falling asleep or just relaxing. Usually these are visual, but the other senses can become involved as well. Meditation, reading, and just sitting still (especially if sleep-deprived) are notorious for prompting such images.

That said, some of the WILDer folks on this forum seem to have had a great deal of success using these images as doors into LDs. I've not personally had much luck with it, being more of the MILDer type. You should be able to find something about it on these forums, though.

As for why watching TV stops those images from happening, I recall a study I read once. A team in Japan studied the effects on sleep brainwave activity from watching TV or playing video games for one hour before going to sleep.

The results: the subjects showed a huge reduction in alpha waves prior to and during Stage I sleep (Alpha waves are often associated with feelings of relaxation).

I haven't read any follow-ups on that study as to why that is the case, but I'll make a conjecture:

Since alpha waves are associated with relaxation, and since one of the symptoms of true relaxation is a shutting out of incoming sensations, anything that puts the sensory regions of the brain on alert (like interpreting images from many tiny colored dots of light that are constantly changing) could put a temporary damper on relaxation and the neural patterns associated with it.

Someone who knows this subject better than I, please correct me on anything I've butchered. WILD folks might also comment.

Now then, to get on topic:

The night before I went to my chosen college to compete for a scholarship, my mother was hounding me and telling me I was going to be very nervous when it came time for the two interviews. She didn't think I had "prepared" enough for it (i.e., that I hadn't let her ask me enough of those pre-packaged questions college interviews tend to ask).

I took her concern seriously enough to tell myself before falling asleep that I was going to have a dream in which I'd "prepare" myself for an interview. I didn't specify whether it'd be lucid or not.

I woke up at 4:00 AM or so and went back to sleep, quickly ending up in a dream set in an elegant plaza with a pretty marble fountain at its center. Several people resembling professors from the college were sitting on rolly-chairs in front of it. Non-lucid, I approached them and ended up being "interviewed" by a woman whose face I thought I recognized. I didn't know her name, though.

The interview consisted of the other "professors" vanishing, leaving my deluded dream-self to talk to her one-on-one. Some of the topics I recall from the dream included my credentials, what kinds of reading material I liked, and what I thought of studying foreign languages (all of these, by the way, were topics I had seen on one of those lists of things college interviewers might ask about).

My responses seemed to please her. After I finished the "interview," the other "professors" reappeared, spinning on their chairs as they did so. Then fireworks went up in the background. Suddenly lucid, I put a hand on my hip and said, chuckling, "Right. Dream. Well, brain, thanks for the pep talk." I didn't do anything to prolong the dream and woke up, just seconds before my alarm would have normally gone off.

Awake and refreshed, I went to the college for the competition and wrote a pretty good essay on the personal and global benefits of studying foreign languages (it was one of the available topics, so I pounced on it).

Then I had two interviews. The first was with a woman not wholly unlike the one from the dream, and she just happened to be from the English department. I then told her about some of my favorite authors/novels, much like in the dream, with a very good result. My seeming "knack" for discussing literature, together with my prompt answers to her other questions and academic credentials led her to tell me outright that she was giving me full marks on the interview. This was extremely reassuring and reality-check-prompting. Finding out it was real made me giddy with happiness.

The second interview didn't contain anything related to the dream, and I didn't do as well in it, but after nailing the essay and wowing the first interviewer it didn't really matter, and I won my full tuition scholarship.

That's my best example of problem-solving out of all the dreams I've journaled, and it had a reassuring lucid moment. Yes, I got very lucky on the topics, but it still makes me VERY glad I took a psychology class (and thereby found out about TLI) just to think about it.

I've also written poetry for local publications before, and several of my poems have been inspired by dreams (some lucid, especially LDs that resulted from nightmares).

Currently, I'm trying to dream up a way to learn my dance steps for the musical I'm in. I seem to remember the steps better after focusing on dance as a subject for my dreams--though actually doing them on stage, with a partner, while singing, and in rhythm with the music is another matter. ;)

Thanks for the reply Andrew..You may be right about hyp images but I must say the images I experianced were VERY CLEAR and in full color. It was like I was taking a short peak at dream as it was happening ?I was experiancing this nodding out that night almost every 4 or 5 minutes that night.. Reading just puts me to sleep sometimes whether I like it or not.. reply any time.. Tom

Hm.

I'd still say they're probably hypnogogic images, but in your case they tend to be very lifelike, which could make them good material for inducing wake-initiated lucid dreams (aka WILDs). Once again though, I'm no expert on WILDs.

Usually, transitioning into a full-blown WILD is accompanied by weird kinesthetic/audio/tactile sensations, too...though I'd think those images could be a good starting point.

Try playing around with 'em, if nothing else.