I've been studying lucid dreaming for a little over a year now. My purpose from the very begining, ever since I learned what lucid dreaming is, was to be able to do what I do, only in the dream state: compose music. Doing this in the dream state has distinct advantages, the greatest of which is being able to immediately 'hear' what is being created, as it's being created. To a composer such as myself, this would be ideal, and I intend to explore this to the utmost. The problem, it seems, however, is not the actual creation of the music, as lucid dreaming makes this very, very simple and very free. The problem is, retaining a detailed enough memory of the music created to write it down once awake, without the waking mind clouding it with it's own haze.

I would like to start a discussion on the best ways to bring back enormous amounts of information from the dream world to the waking world, in whatever forms it becomes. By large amounts I mean several minutes of music fairly complex orchestral music at a time. This usually consists of 40-100 players in a couple dozen parts. Literally thousands of notes.

Food for thought, anyway, for those interested. I am setting out to work on the problem straight away.

Regards, Richard deCosta, Composer http://rdecosta.hopto.org

Dear Richard

I just listen to your orchestral music, as I write this. I like it.

Congratulations to your WILD after that long time.

"Soon I felt that weird "disappearing body" sensation that happens at the beginning of WILD. Now, this part I've done before, but usually I'd get so excited at the knowledge that I was about to enter the dream, I'd wake up. This time, I just forced myself to remain calm, and next thing I know, I'm "awake" in my bed in a dream."

I should try that next time. Just be calm...

Surprising, that you were able to go back and have another WILD. I had that once or twice. The first time was my first longer LD at all. But why is it so? Anybody have an idea on that?

Are you still working on your LD - composing project?

Thanks for sharing

Ralf

Hi Ralf and Richard and other WILD Dreamers,

Richard: Congratulations on your double-WILD! Indeed, remaining calm certainly facilitates in such endeavours.

And dear Ralf: In your response to Richard's report on the double-WILD, you write:

Surprising, that you were able to go back and have another WILD. I had that once or twice. The first time was my first longer LD at all. But why is it so? Anybody have an idea on that?

It seems to me that sliding into a WILD after waking from one is not really too surprising. Consider that you've just awoken from a dream in which you knew you were dreaming from the get go. It's likely you have the most positive "Yes, I can do this!" attitude, and if this is occurring late in the sleep cycle, REM drive is strong and the return to dreaming can be quick.

By the way, this is one of the reasons why MILD, especially in the mid-night, is such a successful technique. Again, when you've just awoken from a dream (lucid or non), you have the freshest and clearest understanding of exactly what it means to be adream.

And you are a dream, you know! Keelin

ikNOWurbutwotmi? :p

YOU, dear Adastra, are an extraordinary one!

Aha - the writing keeps changing - clearly I'm dreaming!

But I had something to say about the challenge Richard's set for himself. From what some people have reported (e.g. Tibetan dream yogis bringing back multiple pages of memorized text from the dream world) I don't doubt it can be done. I practice sometimes by reading bits of text and insisting that it stabilize until I memorize it. Maybe with diligence, intentionally memorizing short passages could lead to an ability to bring back dozens of pages of text, or thousands of notes of music.

Another way would be to let the creative process begin in dream and trust it to carry over into waking. I once heard the first six lines of an original song in a dream; woke up thinking it was pretty good; went for a walk and the rest of it came along almost as easily as if I were dreaming it.

Good luck, Richard, and I hope you'll report back to us!

Joy

Dear extraordinary dreamers!

Lately I had the chance to stay calm and to succeed. I'll post it in the Prolonging - thread. Thanks for the tips, Keelin.

Ro Ylrusfa!

I once was experimenting on my ability to memorize things while dreaming: I was busy with a physics homework which I couln't solve the day before. The surprising thing was that I could imagine a paper and a pencil to write down my formulas, and they didn't change when looking at them several times. So actually I was easily able to memorize one page of mathematical work in tiny writing - by writing it down. After waking up (directly after this LD), I checked my results, which all were correct.

Look out for possibilities to save time you will otherwise spend learning through the daytime! =)

I'm sure if one tries this hard enough, he will be able to take larger amounts of memories into the waking world with each try. I don't know if there exists some special exercises or techniques, but it might work as well by simple repeatings. Maybe you are able to repeat your work over an over again in a lucid dream - until you can remeber every small part of it...

Good luck & happy new year to you all,

Natalie

Inspiring!! I can't remember any text, scripts, writing, or verbal words from my lucid dreams.

Thanks for the inspiration, Michael

hello~

This is one of the Grand Frustrations of the dream-state... lucid or not, it's impossible for us to grab a tape recorder, camera, or notebook to actually bring back those treasures in all their glorious and complex detail. Well, we could always grab a dream-device, but they aren't too reliable... and they have a nasty habit of disappearing completely when we wake up. :-)

I would expect that the most promising techniques are probably those that involve re-creating the original dream-state of mind while awake, armed and ready to download, immediately after the dream has passed. Combined with training ourselves to be scrupulous observers during the creative dreams themselves, it might be possible to attain some success with this goal.

One challenge with creativity in lucid dreams is the ongoing strategic concern of when to wake up and record, and when to postpone awakening to linger in that wonderful state. O dilemma!

I myself have a hard time making myself wake up from a lucid dream when they so hard to attain and so wonderful while they're happening.

zzzzzzdddLLLL/a/r VS zzzzzzdddLLLLLLLLddddzz/a/nr

"Reluctantly, I too awaken-- the villagers are pounding their autumn clothes."

Izumi Shikibu (974?-1034?) translated by Jane Hirschfield w/ Mariko Aratani

respectfully submitted, Reverie, a Lucidity Institute Irregular

The grand dilemma indeed. I liked your input Reverie. It's so hard to willingly step out of the bliss-fields of the lucid dream worlds. All is illusory--our dreams and waking lives. It's painful to hold onto anything when the bloodstream of existence is born of change and impermanence. Letting go is bliss. But I sure could work on wake-up/remembering techniques. I had a LD a while back in a bizzare arcitecture bldg., with bizzare colours, went into a bizzare room, into a bizzare cabinet, opened a bizzare wood box-thing, took out a bizzare, magical piece of paper, with just a few lines of bizzare script, only to forget it upon awakening. Could those words have changed my reality? Who can say? But words are as dust in the winds of the real anyway. We always take the feeling from the dreams at least, and many say: feeling is reality.

Thanks and take care, Michael

HI, Michael... at least you remembered that bizzare dream itself, and it sounds like you enjoyed it. Yes, I agree it is often the emotional tone of a dream that truly stays with us.

I appreciate your comments.

Written words in dreams are funny little things. Sometimes we actually do create dream-images, forming readable dream-words that appear in our dream-scenes, which we actually read... and other times we dream about the idea of reading, instead. Or both! Anyway, the written word is notoriously unstable in dreams, much to our dismay and interest.

I enjoy stumbling onto written words that are stable enough for my dream-ego to read. It happens so rarely for me that it always feels like such an acomplishment. So far the feeling I get from reading dream-words is the greatest thing about it... not the written messages themselves.

It's a rich subject and I could probably yakk about it at great length... but this is a forum, not a final exam essay, so I'll quit while I'm ahead. :-)

be well, Reverie

Hi, just an idea on bringing back detailed info from the dreamstate.

Wasn't Stephen Laberge (perhaps it was someone else) able to signal from lucidity with a prearranged eye movement cue to prove to the scientific community that lucid dreams were an actual occurence?

Couldn't one arrange an eye movement code for the alphabet, something like morse code? It would be laborious but one could probably transcribe words from the dreamstate or simply take notes during dreams with such a method. The code could perhaps work something like this:

eyes left-horizontal 1x=a, 2x=i, 3x=q, 4x=y eyes up-left-diagonal 1x=b, 2x=j, 3x=r, 4x=z eyes up-vertical 1x=c, 2x=k, 3x=s eyes up-right-diagonal 1x=d, 2x=l, 3x=t eyes right-horizontal 1x=e, 2x=m, 3x=u eyes down-right-diagonal 1x=f, 2x=n, 3x=v eyes down-vertical 1x=g, 2x=o, 3x=w eyes down-left-diagonal 1x=h, 2x=p, 3x=x 2 second pause=next letter 3 second pause=next word etc.

Theoretically, one could video tape one's own face while sleeping with a dim light and the camera suspended from above the bed and then attempt to transcribe the information recorded.

Is it possible to blink in a dream and simultaneously blink one's physical eyes? A blinking code or incorporating blinking into the code may work better. I don't know morse code, perhaps something like it would be easier or more streamlined than what I outlined above.

What kind of device would it take to directly monitor directional eye movement?

Another idea. Is it possible to make little sounds in the physical body while lucid dreaming?I know I've moaned and called out from time to time, talking in my sleep. Perhaps one could tape record one's sounds.

"Unh" =a "Unh", "Unh" =b etc.

You'd drive your bed mate crazy but they probably wouldn't be thrilled by a light and video camera above the bed either!

Here's another idea. I've heard that many of us subvocalize while we read. I wonder if one could subvocalize in dreams and somehow record this by picking up the vibration or by some other method.

I'm aiming this post primarily at Richard the composer, because if a method like this were actually feasible in some manner, I suppose he could fairly easily devise some kind of musical code instead of the alphabet and dictate the music directly or at least parts of it.

A means of dictating directly from dreams would be a fantastic tool.

Anyone have more ideas?

-Quinn

Hello, Quinn. I like the enthusiasm you've shown for this subject. It is frustrating that the beautiful jewels of Dreamland can't be tucked into our dream-pockets and pulled out into the light for our waking consideration in the morning.

Theoretically what you describe is possible. You're right that Stephen was the one who conceived and conducted the elegant eye-signal experiments and published the results. This was the first scientific proof that we can be awake in our dreams while truly sleeping; a startling truth was revealed, and lucid dreaming at last began to be taken more seriously by the scientific community.

Without question, eye signals work. Other types of signals have been used, as well, such as subvocalization and muscle twitches, although they aren't nearly as reliable and obvious. But yes, a basic toolbox is in place.

I don't want to put a wet blanket on the idea, and we shouldn't give up on the general concept, but there are many serious challenges to full-blown communication such as you're describing.

You, like LaBerge and Worsley and others, are looking at a logical extension of the signal idea: that is, of pressing into service these proven eye signals, and possibly signals of other kinds, into conveying more extensive communiques.

Where you would probably run into a wall in the real-world implementation of such a signal system, as least as far as relaying something as complex as describing multilayered orchestral musical passages is concerned, is first and foremost, lack of bandwidth (to use a crude analogy). Too much information, too subtle and complex information, needing to be conveyed in such a plodding linear way over too little time.

This challenge is made all the more daunting because part of the mind must remain joyfully engaged-- non-consciously-- in its creative romp. Meanwhile, back at the controls, the dreamer is furiously transcribing to the outside world.

Two things would happen, I think, even if the basic bandwidth problem wasn't there. One, even for the most illustrious lucid dreamer it would be hard to retain focus and concentration for such an extended period of time without losing track of where you were in your messaging; and two, the creative output itself would start to falter during these efforts to transcribe it. I would be hard-pressed while completely awake and aware to transcribe even the simplest musical experience with those kinds of signals. Asleep, this would only be more difficult. And as if that wasn't enough, lucid dreamers know only too well how easy it is to awaken.

Hope for this kind of communication, therefore, lies in overcoming certain roadblocks.

At the very, very least, we'd need a way to more reliably remain stable in a nice long lucid dream, as well as a far more powerful and elegant language than letter-by-letter transcription of words.

Even then, for the reasons I noted previously, this notion of elaborate communication may well remain an elusive Dream.

This reminds me of a final scene in "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster. King Azaz is congratulating Milo on the success of his epic quest, and as promised, is telling him something Milo didn't know at the outset... that is, that it was impossible.

SO...

Dream on, one and all... :-) Reverie

Dear Reverie,

I liked the comparison with bandwidth and think that it is very apt. There is a definate lack of bandwidth in the dreamstate as far as communication with the outside world is concerned. Richard's quest for transcribing thousands of notes in a multi-part orchestral harmony may well be impossible but my thought is that creatively outlining aspects of the music in a type of suggestive shorthand may well yield results. Again, on a theoritical level, what if Richard were able to identify elements in the music that were familiar and denote them:

first stanza - Bolero in c minor, long oboe solo, staccato finale

encoded as:

1 bolero cm obo stacfin

(Richard, excuse me if this is gibberish - while I play the guitar, I am for the most part musically ignorant!)

Though this is by no means a note for note transcription, something like the above could serve to capture a signigficant impression of the composition so that a semblance of it could be recreated in the waking state.

My interest in this topic ranges farther than musical dream dictation and transcription. In my last post I stated that the ability to dictate from the dreamstate would be a fantastic tool. I'm also a science fiction writer (aspiring) and so love to figure out how devices could theoretically work. Bear with me.

How about this idea?

Eye movements are used to draw simple glyphs (a picture says a thousand words) on a computer readout. When used in conjunction, the glyphs should be capable of conveying relatively complex information about the dreamer's experience to a dream researcher.

Some ideas that come to mind immediately are:

An arrow indicates that the dreamer is transiting a lenghty passage. A stick figure indicates coming in contact with another dream figure. A number after the glyph shows multiple figures. A wavy line indicates that the dream is destabilizing. A number afterwards shows the degree of destabilization from 1-dream is losing color, 2-darkness with hearing and feeling still operational 3-void space with feeling still operational. A spiral indicates that the dream scene is changing and becoming another environment. A half circle indicates beauty or pleasure. An exclamation point indicates fear on the part of the dreamer (drawn as a circle of the eyes with a vertical line drawn upwards). etc, etc.

I would imagine that eye movements aren't normally all that precise, even with simple connected line images. A bio-feedback unit that the intrepid oneironaut had access to in the waking state to practice drawing eye movement glyphs would be most helpful.

One final idea about retaining dream info upon awakening and I promise to quit openly theorizing! Maybe this idea has more merit for the average oneironaut without a million dollars on hand to build a dream transcription device:

What about creating a rhyming verse to describe the dream? Something in rhyming sequence is often easier to remember than straight data.

For example:

State tested yes, awake was I no. Yanked by the feet, up did we go. Maxfield Parish, angel boy, knew he wasn't the real McCoy.

The above doggerel is adapted from a lucid dream that I recently had in which I became lucid after state testing with the Nova dreamer. I had been seeking a guide as my intended action and upon realizing that I was dreaming found that I was being hauled into the air by my feet. I found myself flying over a Maxfield Parish type landscape accompanied by a little angel boy with an english accent who was teaching me to fly. After some time, I willed myself to awaken and before becoming completely awake I saw a large enigmatic Kachina like figure or Obelisk at the foot of the bed that I took to be the true guide that I had been seeking.

Now, I had little difficulty remembering the above dream without the use of verse but I think it's pretty clear how the above method could be adapted to contain more technical information that may be harder to remember. The oneironaut could quickly compose the verse in question, repeat it several times and will themselves to awaken.

And for Richard,

Bolero C Minor, transition to D, long oboe solo mournful and eerie, Bach's 9th Concerto, viola dominates, tempo increases from 3/4ths to 5/8ths

-Quinn the blatherer

Fascinating conversation here! I like the idea of a device that transcribes eye movements that are read out by a computer allowing one to draw things from within the dream!

Unfortunately all we have to work with at the moment would seem to be our own memory capabilities, which doesn't seem like such a bad thing to enhance and nurture as it were.

Also, learning to tap into creative potential while awake would seem to be a worthwhile goal.

Still, hook me up with a cool device like that and I'd use it all the time!

Hello everybody! I´m a newbie in here. Just got the password after signing up for this years Hawaian retreat. Can´t wait!

I have been thinking about this myself and stumbled upon some memorytechniques. Tony Buzan was the author i first read about them from. Anyway, i have found a page with quite some memory techniques. I have used some of them during the day, and there quite amazing(even though i´m not very good at them).

I´m not sure what problems can arise when using them in a dream, if the dream changes with the system or something but.. its feels worth experimenting with anyway.

Lets experiment, if none works, we could always form our own system, drawing on theese!

(i´ll start fiddling with the systems anyway. Tell you all if i have a lucid and remember;) to use one of the systems) http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html

Aloha, jon

HI folks!

This is my first foray into this forum, even though I've been lurking about for 2 or 3 months reading as many posts as I could. What fascinating people here!!! I had my first LD the night after reading an article in Omni magazine (years ago)about it. Wow! Who'da thunk an ADHD kid would learn how to fly?!?

Anyway, for Richard: An author named Harry Lorayne has a memory method that is truly astounding. After one evening of practice, I could, with one reading, recite a list of 20 items/words in any order requested. It's a powerful and easy method. I intend to use the method in LDs, once I get proficient at Lucid Dreaming.J

Patrick

Welcome! It's wonderful to have you here. The resources here are rich indeed, so I'm glad you're exploring them. We'll be interested to hear more about your lucid dreaming explorations.

Speaking of explorations, I trust you have the basic tools, such as Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, by LaBerge? I refer to that book again and again, and have done so through the years, and it's always inspiring and of tremendous practical help.

Again, it's a pleasure to have you here, Patrick.

Best regards, Reverie

Reverie,

Thanks for the warm welcome! It's great to be a part of the group!

I've read EWLD until the pages are worn. I purchased a Nova Dreamer 5 or 6 years ago, but didn't start to use it until last year (procrastination is contra-indicated for LDing), and when I did use it, I got no good results. Now that I'm applying greater effort in my dreaming life, I'm ready to give it a try again. The greatest obsticle for me is my work. To avoid a 140 mile round trip to the office each day, I stay at either a friend's or my brother's house during the week. It's not conducive to maintaining a good dream journal.

Again, Thanks for the warm welcome!

Patrick

Patrick, you've pointed out one of the greatest obstacles I think we have as dreamers... everyday life and schedules, and all this implies. It's a constant challenge.

For me, the ideal situation for lucid dreaming is:

Blackout shades on windows Nobody else around Not in middle of busy work period Not in middle of ANY work period No social obligations Complete control over my schedule and diet No phone calls or interruptions Perfect weather and complete physical comfort

...you might well imagine how infrequently these ideal conditions are met!

But we do the best we can.

Nice to hear from you, and I'll see you on the Dream-Trail!

Reverie

Hello everyone,

Last night I had about the longest LD that I ever have had and it was characterized by extreme mental and sensory clarity. In it, I tried my first attempts at a new hypothesis I have about bringing back wisdom, skills and experience from the dream world. I thought I would share the experience (a very brief summary) and the hypothesis.

This WILD started as a classic OBE experience. Full of strong vibrations and feelings that parts of my body were floating up in the air. I was lying on my right side and when I felt my lower half start to dislodge from my body, I consciously turned myself and sat up and walked briskly to the center of the room. When I turned and looked, there I was lying sound asleep looking totally undisturbed. "Well, no need to do a RC", I said and then I walked out of the bedroom and proceeded to jump over the upstairs railing and fly through the foyer window and land out on the street. The street looked dark and empty as you might expect at 3:30 in the morning. Just then my vision started to get a little blurry. I started to spin and think about going to Chicago. I did this to increase my clarity and because I needed plenty of dream characters around in order to test my hypothesis. As I spun I began to feel more and more energized and when I stopped I was standing on a busy downtown street with people moving all around me. "YES!"

My goal in this dream was to try to go with the flow as much as possible with one twist: I wanted to transfer my consciousness from my dream body to other dream characters. By my time estimates this LD lasted in excess of 40 minutes and during that time I tried to transfer my consciousness no fewer than a dozen times, two of which were temporarily successful.

The first success included an attractive woman who wanted me to hold her and to hug her (among other things). When I did so I let myself be absorbed into her. As soon as I did so I saw strong negative images of skeletons and darkness. I started to project as much love as I could and a few moments later found myself standing in front of her again. She smiled at me and said "thank you" and then turned and walked away.

As I turned I noticed that my vision was starting to get blurry. I stopped and carefully and slowly looked around at the street scene, trying to notice as many small details as I could. As I did this my vision cleared and I moved on.

After some incredibly cool and unbelievable experiences (too long to write them here) I found myself standing outside an open bar. I walked in and I found a slightly overweight African American man playing a piano. He was playing a wonderful style of jazz and blues. "Yes! This is exactly the sort of experience that I am looking for", I thought. I walked over to him and tried to literally climb inside his body (this approach repeatedly failed throughout this dream). His reaction was "What the H*** are you doing!" I apologized and said that I wanted to learn to play the piano. He got up with a look of disbelief in his eyes and said "Well sit down then and have a try". I sat down and started playing. I immediately heard this beautiful music coming from the instrument and thought for an instant that I was actually playing it, but when I focused closely on what my fingers were really doing I noticed that the motions didn't match the music and, in general were moving pretty clumsily over the keys. The piano man walked over to a keyboard and sat down and started to play again. His playing was ever so classy. "Let's try this again", I thought and I walked over and lightly placed my hand on his shoulder. I closed my eyes and literally let myself be absorbed into him. For the next few seconds I played the piano! Unfortunately, I suddenly found myself sitting alone on the seat with the piano man standing in front of me. The dream went on for little longer and then I awoke.

So you have probably figured out the hypothesis that I was trying to test. I theorize that it may be possible to bring back wisdom and skills from the dream world if you can find a dream character that already possesses the specific talent your looking for, transfer your consciousness into that person in such a way as to not disturb the situation or the person, and then allow your consciousness to absorb the wisdom/skill. The hope is that your consciousness will carry the information back to the physical world.

Upon reflection I see that my initial approach of transferring my consciousness was far to brash and unrefined. In my future attempts I am going to remind myself that the dream world is MY dream world. Every person and every thing in my dream world is a reflection of my own mind. In other words, they are already me and I am already them. That being said, the simple touch or hug method definitely seems to work better than trying to climb into a dream character. The best approach, I hypothesize, is to first leave the dream body altogether and become a point of pure consciousness that is then absorbed into the dream character of choice. I have had several non-LD experiences in which this has happened and once doing so I began to wholly experience the dream characters experience without interrupting the situation.

You'll be hearing more about this approach in the future.

Thomas

Thomas:

That's an excellent use of lucid dreaming; thanks for sharing! Your post did inspire a couple of questions, though:

First, since all the dream characters, and their inherent skills and knowledge, are from your own mind, will you really be "bringing back" something new, or will you simply be mining knowledge that you may have misplaced (or ignored when it was first given to you)? The latter is by no mean a negative, of course -- I've always felt LD'ing could be an outstanding tool for recovering lost knowledge, or memory, or even moments in time.

When you played the piano, did you consciously know that you were playing? Were you aware of the notes as you played them? In other words, when a musician plays a piece, he speaks the language of music (notes, chords, phrases, themes, etc) with the instrument, and his audience. Did you feel that language in you, or did your fingers just seem to know what to play?

I really liked your choice for the next approach -- to remind yourself that the dream world is your dream world. I think you'll achieve some interesting results with it. I look forward to hearing about how you did!

Best of Dreams,

Peter

So cool Thomas. Thanks for sharing!

I find your theory interesting, but I agree that even though these characters seem outside of us, they are aspects of our consciousness-play.

I had an LD a few weeks ago and asked a few characters if they were also lucid. They were and I asked them if they wanted to experiment with me. After that, I was kind of on my own because they couldn't stay lucid. Bored, I started searching for a point in time reference. I found a newspaper and it was from 1957. Also interesting was the fact that THIS part of the lucid dream became black and white. All the rest of it was in color. The dream world is quite fun and very full of details. More details than I have time to write about.

This is one NLD I journaled recently.

The dream lasted much longer than usual. The main theme was that of an annual festival/competition that I was participating in for the first time. There seemed to be an air of mystery and deceit, unfortunately, this mystery and deceit were used to manipulate me. Although, 'I', ultimately 'chose' to follow through with deceit, I felt mislead and still was left with unanswered questions.

It started off in a competition where we were running/walking some sort of path for several days leading up to the final competition. It almost seemed like a relay, where I was the running part of it. I was confident that I could complete this running part before anyone else because I had already completed 2 marathons (in waking life). But somehow, I kept getting distracted by things. Either the dreamscape would change to being inside and incorporating lunch, then twisting back into the competition by going through rooms or stairs. Either way, it was completed or I am unsure of the results, other than to say that I felt the 'distractions' resulted in my 'less-than' performance. The dream continued into two more competitions. Each team also had to be judged on both a film of some sort and a unique display. I was again manipulated both times. First, I was asked by one of the 'film' persons to secretly judge in favor of her films. After I filled out the judgment form (this was done by many), she approached me after the results and was upset. She showed the names of the two films, one was Cats and the other started with a T. I DID vote for Cats because I liked it, but didn't recall seeing the other, so I didn't vote for it. Next, I was approached by my older sister to foil the votes. She said this was prompted by my cousin Ronny. I didn't want to do it, but was sort of assured it was okay....I wasn't aware of the seriousness of such behavior. So, I snuck three sets of these special kittens, added the information to be 'chosen' on the forms, and a map or form. I gave each set to three children and told them what to do. I guess this was enough to foil the results because an investigation began and I was, in not so many words, accused. I was upset that I was sort of used to do something I knew nothing about, but I took responsibility for my actions. I remember looking over some of the displays. My sister's was like one of those waterfall types of things. It was made of small black shiny pebbles and water weaved through it like a river. My younger sister told me that her husband had helped my older sister with it. I then looked at the other displays. Most were very protective of their art and wouldn't let you get close to it. I remember visiting one display more than once and touching the soft black fabric. I heard that since the results were tampered with, that they would have to start the competition over. Boy did this cause strife. I was the target for all kinds of insults. I remember being out in a field where each team had tents. I was playing with a pet bird and heard them say "is your team going to save you?" and I hurled back "Jesus is!' This kind of caught them off guard as if they were convicted as Christians' picking on a fellow Christian. I'm leaving out quite a bit of detail such as eating french fries at lunch, another weird competition and some minor things that happened in between more significant events because this dream sequence was very long. Throughout the dream sequence, the theme was the same, that of my being a victim of other's intended deceit, my sensitivity to it, my choosing to come clean and explain my unfortunate choices that affected so many, and then my acceptance back into the masses as representing my true self, not the self that was portrayed through other's selfish deceit. The last part of the dream ended in my sneaking into one of the other team member's rooms. As I opened and walked in the door (it was a small white concrete building) she yelled at me not to go in there. I felt she was hiding something and locked the door behind me. I was looking for a restroom, but found a secret room that had an incinerator. I was looking down into it and felt that what she was hiding (maybe evidence to get me off the hook I was in) or evidence that was to show that her team had cheated too. At that time, she was peaking inside the window to the incinerator and was upset that I had found it. She told me she was embarrassed that I had uncovered something of her past. He mother used to be a nurse here and when the bodies died, she had to push them into the incinerator and pull the slats they had been on (I'm assuming they were part of their bed or cot) and prepare them for the next person. She deeply regretted her involvement. I just wanted to mention one more thing. I distinctly remember seeing two switched when I walked into the room. One was red both at the base and the toggle, and the other was white with an orange toggle. It just seemed to stand out somewhat. Again, I am going to skip some of the in between details and concentrate more on major details.

Kimberlee

RE Thomas's account, bringing back other people's learning from an LD may be a matter of profoundly held beliefs about identity that transcend our consciously held beliefs, more that a simple statement that "all the characters are creations of my own mind." If the mind is, in essence, non-local (and non-dual), how can we make use of non-local mind in regard to specific skills, attitudes, or experiences? When do we come to realize this nonlocality, non dual consciousness, in a lucid dream? What would happen if you just explore the request that you, Thomas, exist beyond your local self, outside of time and space as you have been construing them, rather than attempt to acquire any particular skill, knowledge, or experience? Could this be the problem of the cart before the horse? Thanks for sharing your experiment and I cannot help but look forward to your next post. Perhaps my own thoughts can be incorporated into your valuable insights. Your own abilities with maneuvering in your LDs far exceed my own, so please don't take my comments as at all knowledgeable about what you should do in your own explorations, and my best wishes to you, Thomas. What you are up to seems "way cool" to me!

Thomas, I have an idea/hint for making transference a little less difficult; Remember that even though you are dreaming you do still carry all the social etiquette schemas and "what is probable" schemas from the waking world. With this in mind your "climbing on in" method, whilst perfectly valid considering the situation, does force you to confront and break more of your assumptions about what is possible than perhaps (as you did) laying your hand gently on someone's shoulder and transferring your thoughts. What I would suggest is finding a way to do this that makes the most logical sense to you - if you REALLY could transfer your awareness between bodies what would be the method? Would it be psychic? Would you be in a high powered virtual reality machine (like the matrix) - ANYTHING as long as it is something you can believe and has less psychological barriers to overcome. I hope that makes sense? Of course over time your "what is possible" barriers diminish because you are more familiar with the freedom of the dream world...(or you develop a strong "what is possible in lucid dreaming" schema) but It can take time.

For me I have always imagined that what I am experiencing is happening in a Star Trek holodeck... I simply say "computer generate Paris City Street circa 1930" and it's done. Or in your case "Computer transfer viewpoint to character Louis Armstrong" and so on... It works for me because I am more prone to a scientific explanation and I am a Star Trek fan (yep, what a nerd!)... so it fits with certain schemas in my mind without breaking the "rules of possibility" within those schemas. It also has the added benifit of making my default lucid dream arena (when i use this method) a starship! so if my imagination is pushed for ideas, i simply leave the holodeck and there is a whole alien universe waiting. It's silly but it works.

Sweet Dreams, Daniel