A newcomer to this eclectic Forum and a novice in Lucid Dreaming ' since I started to keep a dream journal in July 2001 I recorded ca. 25 LDs (all NON-[super]nova generated; I am an old fashioned dreamer) - I am still very much intrigued by the appearance of cartoon-like images in some of my (earlier) LDs. Having come across occassional references to cartoon-like imagery here and there in the literature/texts offered via the LI's webb-site, I haven't come across any clear, physiological explanation for this phenomenon (other than that it is a sign of fading of the LD). Would it be easier or more difficult for the brain to produce cartoon-like imagery instead of "real" images? And why? I also wonder - although in today's television dominated world a near impossibility to test- what kind of imagery an individual, who has never seen movie cartoons, would have had in its stead in a LD? Appreciating your dream thoughts on this, and with thanks to Keelin for guiding me to this Forum, best, Edwin.

Hi! Welcome to the forum, Edwin. You ask an interesting question.

We had a discussion in here some months ago about why it is that the dreaming mind can create incredibly detailed, absolutely realistic imagery, when the waking mind can't do the same. Awake, if I have an object in front of me I can make a drawing that's indistinguishable from a photograph (doubters see fatooh.org/art). If I don't have the object but try to draw it from imagination or memory, I can't produce anything nearly as realistic - I can't "see" it in front of me with the requisite level of detail. But my dreaming mind - anyone's dreaming mind - does this effortlessly, all the time.

At dream camp I asked Stephen why this would be. He said it's because the waking mind has a mechanism to suppress overly-realistic visualizations - presumably to prevent us from doing things like sitting down on an imaginary chair, or driving out onto a non-existent bridge. When we're asleep, sleep paralysis prevents us from physically acting in response to non-physical imagery; so we're freed to visualize perfectly.

From what you and others mentioning cartoon-like images say, I get the impression that they most often occur at the very start of a dream or on the verge of waking. I wonder if, in such an in-between state, that realism-suppressing mechanism is partially operative? Let's hear from you and other people who've experienced cartoon dreams - does that seem plausible?

My only related experiences are with practicing creating a visual image of my choice within a lucid dream. Often it starts out rather crudely drawn - as I might try to paint it from imagination or memory - and then the dream seems to take over and makes it "real." My favorite example is the time I was trying to make a red rose, and it suddenly became perfect in every detail - but pink! Generally I find it easier to create things in a dream by starting with a tactile/kinesthetic/proprioceptive experience and letting the visual image appear on its own.

I wonder if there's anything in literature from pre-film-animation cultures describing dreams that look like paintings or some other art form? Apparently literature on dreams is as old as literature: I recently learned there are Egyptian papyri on dream interpretation - as an Egyptologist, can you tell us anything about that?

Joy

Hi Joy, Thank you for responding to my question concerning cartoon-like images in LDs. I'll have to check with my dream journal at what specific point(s) in my LDs cartoon-like imagery is showing up. As a matter of fact my 2nd LD ever was mainly one big, colorful cartoon-like dream scene; I'll post this dream tomorrow, together with the results of my check on other cartoons in my LDs (do people also have them in nonLDs by the way?) in the hope more people will react to this (admittedly minor) topic. Although beside the point here (cartoons), I have to confess that I don't have the faintest idea what proprioceptive means/implies. It sounds good. Does it mean "by means of autosuggestion? In any case, it doesn't appear in my Oxford English dictionary. Your suggestion about checking pre-animation-film literature about dreams is a good one; instead of running to a library, however, I wonder (pure laziness of-course on my part) if there are dream researchers amongst this Forum's members who have already looked into this question? Concerning your question about dreams and dream interpretation in Ancient Egypt, well I am afraid I have to leave you "at least temporarily - in uncertainty. I am indeed an Egyptologist, but specialized only in the late prehistoric to protohistoric periods (formation of the state, earliest writings etc.); not that people weren't dreaming in those early days "I assume they were- but they didn't have the means/ the mind set (yet) to write anything down concerning dreams or anything else for that matter. Besides the point here, but the earliest papyrus was found in a First Dynasty tomb in Saqqara (near Cairo),'in pristine condition and'empty, blank (like a dream forgotten?). In any case, I'll do some asking around with colleagues; hopefully they can come up with some references/data. I also have to confess that I am not so much in dream interpretation; analyzing your own dreams okay, analyzing other peoples dreams also okay, interpreting your own dreams, if you have to, but interpreting other people's dreams, impossible. Take care, Edwin.

Hey, maybe it's a minor topic, but I'm glad at least one person shares my curiosity about the visual qualities of dreams!

My Merriam Webster defines proprioceptive: "of, relating to, or being stimuli arising within the organism."

Don't do any special research in response to my casual questions unless you're curious too! I threw them out (lazily) in case anyone who reads them has an answer.

That's interesting that the first known papyrus was blank. Maybe for the departed to write his dreams?

I agree with you about staying away from interpreting other people's dreams. This forum has an informal rule to that effect. Seems like a good thing: people can post a dream to discuss the lucidity aspects without anyone saying, "Yikes, do you know what that MEANS!??!"

Dear Joy, returning to your posting from 2 days ago, I went back to my journal and counted cartoon-like images in five LDs (out of 24 LDs so far). My first acquaintance with this phenomenon was in my 2nd (recorded) LD and is copied down below in full. The next three instances are only referred to with relevant quotes where the word "cartoon" popped up in my dream journal. But my last/latest cartoon LD, which I had with 8 months in between the time that the penultimate cartoon-like images showed up, is copied here also almost in extenso. I hope I am not straining the eyes or the attention of the reader(s?) with too much text. I do hope for some reactions of identification or similar cartoon-recollections or, quite possibly, the very absence of them.

July 24, 2001. 4:30 AM; a real LUCID DREAM, at last. I was laying on my back and was descending slowly (being moved rather than moving myself) in horizontal position and inflexible as a wooden shelve through a dark, narrow, black/white/grey-colored tunnel or shaft downwards. I had been in this tunnel already once before during the night and had realized (why actually?) that I was dreaming, but that LD lasted only few seconds, while I tried to focus on the (texture of the) walls of the tunnel. Anyway, I am descending, lying on my back, through a tunnel of stone or cement and I thought by myself that I should now try to see my body: and indeed, I saw myself from head till toe (I wasn't naked, I think, but dressed in a skin-colored kind of nylon). On that very moment my body started to tilt over into a vertical (i.e. standing) position; I also see my penis, erect and not unlike the ityphallic ancient Egyptian god of the dead, Osiris or Min (but this is of-course only an after thought). I continue to descend through the black/white tunnel/shaft and finally arrive in a cartoon-like ancient Egyptian tomb painted in very bright colors. All the walls display Egyptian scenes and texts. Here and there an occasional coffin on the floor; a lot of (small, dwarf-like) people are walking around in the tomb. People are fleeing away from me. Then ' after many more details I am too lazy to write down now ' I thought by myself that I should go somewhere else. I grab a brownish rug and fly over a very high wall ' of a castle? ' after I stood on top of it and look straight down the steep wall, which frightens me, but this time I do have the courage "to let myself go'; somewhat inexperienced, and before really taking off, I yield to a man passing me by on a kind of flying Christmas slee (?). I think to myself that I should go to visit somebody, either myself or S., my wife. Then I loose lucidity, though the dream continues with a different dream scene (a party with my colleagues).

August 6, 2001 In the middle of an LD I see my head in the mirror; it actually doesn't look like my familiar self and it gradually changes into a cartoon-like image of a man's head, unfamiliar to me. Then I see myself in another mirror, this time as a boy of 14/15 years old (in reality I am 48); this mirror is hanging beside a t.v. set being watched by a cartoon family; the father of this family wants me out of the house and threatens me with a pistol. I am worried how to remember tomorrow that I had this LD. I tell myself to look for a draftsperson who can draw me; I would then put the drawing in my pocket and upon awaking I would find the drawing and remember and realize that it hadn't been "just a dream'.

August 8, 2001 Again in the middle of an LD: While flying I passed the front of a building with 2 women standing behind one of its windows (on the second floor?). One was an elderly lady, the other was young, but a cartoon-like one. I said to myself that I wanted to make love to her, and flew through the side wall (?) of the building towards the woman; I try to hold her'end of the dream. In a next fragment, which is totally cartoon-like but with very bright "mainly blue ' colors, I (?) am dancing with the lama (from the Emperor's new groove), almost spinning, bodies twisted around each other. Then this image fades and I remember I read about spinning in order to revive a dream. So I spin "mentally more than physically- and the image comes briefly back.

January 26, 02: again well away in a LD: On my left a bus full with (near-cartoon like) people passes me.

October 9, 2002, 6:15am. I was LUCID once again, probably around 5:00am this morning. Right from the start (i.e., upon entering this dream) I knew I was dreaming. I was driving on a bicycle in a dark street lined on both sides with cars. No real dream-sign which could have given me the realization that I was dreaming/awake, but I recognized that I was in a dream, with a shock- right away from the beginning of the dream. It was dark and I tried to discern things/details; at the end of the street I very briefly saw the sun coming up (?) behind the mountains, and I saw for a brief moment a very short, green (?) object (trees?), and I thought by myself, this is going to be a great dream; but it turned dark again and I had to strain my eyes to see something in the darkness. Then there were 1 or 2 light flashes bumping of against a wall (?) and gradually I started to see. I was (in reality) sleeping/lying on my back, and the first clear pictures and colors came as a projection on the ceiling above me (in my dream); it started as a kind of drawing-like/cartoon like childish road map in many colors of a town or village, with people moving on the roads. I saw my both hands (while I was riding the bike in the beginning of the dream) and I remember that I pinched myself in my arm/stomach to check whether I was awake or sleeping. In the same time I realized that ' being asleep in reality- I couldn't actually move my body. Pinching myself didn't give me a pain feeling; it was a numb feeling, if anything at all. The cartoon-like moving street plan changed into a projected, realistic movie on a screen (now not above me on the ceiling, but in front of me) with a middle aged, fat man in front of it, and various people (men, a woman and two children) appearing "life-size- on the screen itself. I noticed that if ' in my dream - I put my head backwards (as if looking up to the ceiling/sky) the picture(s) got much clearer. More brilliant. My body was vibrating, though not strongly"

Well, finally, concerning the existence of ancient Egyptian papyri dealing with dream interpretation, you were right; In the Lexikon der Aegyptologie there is an entry on dream (German: "Traum") written by a French prof. Vernus. References used there to Egyptian dreamwork include RAERG, 835-838; Aksel Volten, Demotische Traumdeutung (German for: Demotic Dream interpretation) (Pap. Carlsberg XIII et XIV vso), AnAe 3, Copenhagen 1942; Serge Sauneron, Les songes et leur interprétation dans l'Egypte ancienne, SourcesOr 2, Paris 1959; Sarah J. Groll, dans Pharaonic Egypt. The Bible and Christianity (ed. Groll), Jerusalem, 1985, 71-118. The papyri you were referring to are dealt with in the Demotic Dream interpretation reference above; I'll try to get a copy of this text(s), and if you succeed in the mean time to learn German,you might even be able to read it" Best, Edwin. PS. Since in your last you talk about visual qualities if (LD)dreams, did you ever give an (after)thought about color variety in dreams? I do not mean so much degrees of intensity (from dull to very bright,but the color of the colors themselves; some of my dreamsscenes are dominated by a specific color; frequently green or orange, sometimes yellow; and what about totally black(out), as if your visual screen is turned off,no visuals whatsoever your LD(s)?

Hi, lucid friends!

Edwin, welcome to the forum.

I'm looking forward to share thoughts and experiences with you. I'm quite interested in the ancient Egypt, they have influenced our culture more, than we are mostly aware of. I wonder, what details on dreaming come from that source of knowledge. They did have a concept of subtle bodies and it seems, they had a culture of using them for travelling. At least the high priests and an inner circle. This would be related to lucid dreaming, of course.

Interesting discussion!

What if it was the other way round? The earliest traces of art do show paintings that were comic - like, abstracted, symbolic, sketchy. Figures, sculptures were more subject to psychological processes, I think. Realism like we define it didn't seem to be the aim. I speculate, that impressions from dreams did lead the artists in their doing. And from all I have heard of primitive psychology, they were dreaming all the day (like we certainly still do...), seeing spirits everywhere, in all things, being the spirit. But in an undifferentiated way.

I agree with Joy in the case of cartoon like being connected to onset and end of dreams. But would add the related state of hypnagogia, where such images may more frequently appear. BTW: Cartoon like is not my common style of fading, but it is loosing colour and blurring.

Another reason in my experience is seeing comic like pictures in daytime. So they appear in dreams, too. I had that, when I played PC games all the day.

A third reason could be, that they are part of physical reality, perceived during dreams. This seemingly was the case for one of my dreams, where I correctly perceived the comic - like nature of the target image in a precognitive dreaming contest.

Just to throw in a few dimes.

Yours Ralf

P.S. I only remeber one (non lucid) dream, that was dominated by one colour. Must be fifteen years ago or so. The fact I still remember it shows, how extraordinary this is for me.

Hi, all. I had an LD where I was flying and the scenery below became exactly like model trees and such for train sets. Does that fit in with cartoon-like images? Successful dreams, Kate

Ralf! You're becoming a bigger spender. A few dimes? I hope that reflects your financial reality. Regards, Kate

That must have been precognitive. Today I received my salery account. ;-)

Excellent! Kate

Edwin and friends - good to see you all here - especially Ralf whom I trust will be willing to read the texts you cite and give us a summary!

I do have dreams and dream scenes that are dominated by one or two colors. My lucid dreams that occur early in the night are often very abstract and colors are major features. Here's a collection of them:

0000 The vague memory of having been lucid, with no detail recalled, only colors, yellow and orange and rust-red...

0030 This is verbatim from my scrawled notes with a few words added in brackets. "I'm at a loss how to describe this incredibly beautiful phenomenon'. Going along in the course of some dream about normal trivial human concerns I've forgotten except for walking upward while spiraling inward, e.g. around hill toward hilltop, or inside a [roofless] tower [in sunlight, with someone dressed in light red]'. Came upon the underlying structure of all phenomena, perceived as turning a corner and suddenly seeing/feeling [large] abstract, complex, 3D brown or black curvilinear forms in groups of 3, each set of 3 almost identical ' a certainty that I was seeing the underlying rhythm which is the basis of everything available to the senses ' instantly knew I was dreaming and could perceive this again and again via dream-intent, which I did [feeling very charged with the wonderful energy of it in a way I can't describe] ' reluctantly and gradually waking up at last'."

0300 This was a strange interval: I felt that I was lucid all along, with a highly-charged mental sensation, but passively and with intermittent surges of appreciation. A certain spoken phrase (now forgotten) with a strong syncopated rhythm recurred and seemed very important, more for its rhythm than its meaning; with it came a sense of a small amber sphere of light and a great happiness at being lucid. Despite the energized feeling I was also very sleepy and knowingly went on dreaming instead of interrupting my dreams to record them.

1045 Another long lucid night of sleeping in the open back of a truck in the mountains. Here's what I jotted down at my first waking: "Juggling awareness, rolling it down arms to hands & tossing from 1 side to another ' knew dreaming, chortling w/ delight, can't explain.' This dream was definitely lucid although devoid of familiar objects or events and had a good, strange, strongly energized feeling of light within darkness, and there is a sense of the "awareness" with which I was playing having the appearance of balls of amber light that would elongate when in motion.

0430 Sleeping in the mountains following night work capturing sage grouse. As with the last couple of times I slept up here, the first or one of the first dreams of the night is entirely lucid but also entirely abstract, composed of light and color with which I interacted. While I was falling asleep I saw two matrices of white diamond-shaped points of light on a dark red ground. I thought that I would know I was fully asleep and dreaming when the "real" (brighter) and "imagined" (dimmer) ones lined up perfectly in one bright matrix. It was as if I was looking at an unfocused double image with one strong eye and one weaker eye, and bringing them into focus. By "real" I meant vividly dreamed, and by "imagined" I meant merely visualized. When I did bring these together, I was indeed deeply asleep and lucid but proceeded into other dreams without much lucidity; however, throughout those dreams I made an effort and succeeded in remembering the diamond matrices.

0120 Night work in the mountains again, and I slept in another aspen grove. Abstract first dream: There were two highly energetic images, or presences: a rectangular blue shape like a doorway filled with brilliant blue light, occupied by a feminine spirit-entity that could barely be seen in the dazzling light as an almost human-like shape; and a complex circular geometric pattern like a huge, intricately detailed line drawing. I was aware that I was dreaming and I could and did call up either image voluntarily and repeatedly, even though the energy accompanying each was almost frightening. There was also a sense of a huge amount of information coming with each image, more than I could assimilate. I committed to remembering this amazing dream and recalled the images from time to time during a couple hours of basically non-lucid sleep until I finally woke to write it down.

2200 Surprised and pleased to find on drifting off that I could induce the same blue color and energy as in last night's first dream; a very excited, highly charged feeling; also went in and out of various dream scenes at will, though can't recall them now; proceeded into deeper sleep.

2330 Sleeping in truck in mountains (this time in cab, due to cold north wind). I hesitate because recall is so poor and (again) so abstract: all I remember is repeatedly arriving at places where lucidity radiated out in concentric circles around me. Orange-brown. Each time aware anew.

2200 I almost abandoned my resolve to acknowledge and record the weird abstract ones. This time, I kept seeing a brilliantly yellow autumn aspen grove while feeling an intense surge of energy move upward through me. I would think, "There's the aspens, there's that energy again,' and eventually after several iterations thought, "When am I going to get on to normal dreams?' I woke up, wondered how in the world to characterize this, thought "Aw heck, just skip it" and turned over on my side and went on sleeping.

26/27 November 2001 Early in the night I had a long abstract lucid dream with fascinating red line-drawing circular mandala-type patterns, turning, changing and multiplying as I marveled at the strangeness and complexity of this dream....

..........

Here are two later-morning ones:

I was (in reality) trying to get back to sleep after an early morning awakening... A dog was barking, cars were starting to drive by, and I thought, "There's a lot going on out there.' But realizing that thinking like that wasn't going to get me anywhere, I did an attitude adjustment and thought "There are also a lot of dreams out there" and visualized myself surrounded by dark unknown dreams.

Immediately, to my surprise, I found myself in a lucid dreaming state: my sensory awareness of external reality was gone, my body awareness was pliant as to position, and I had the light-footed feeling. I was surrounded by a warm darkness which bristled with thousands of little lines of vibrant energy, oriented toward me, that I could sense but not see: these were the dreams.

Surprised by this, and aware that I must be barely asleep, I slipped back into normal sensory awareness ' lying down, hearing sounds ' and then experimentally repeated the same quick visualization, with the addition of intentionally inducing the light-footed feeling and got the same result: there I was in the bristly energetic darkness again. Once again I slipped back awake and thought, "If I really want to dream I'm probably going to have to go into a deeper sleep. I may or may not stay lucid but if I lose lucidity I can pick it up again.' So I did the same thing a third time, came into the bristly darkness, and this time I stayed and let the dreams proceed.... [They were lucid.]

0800 Trying to get a little more sleep, two or three times I become aware of bright red, realize I'm dreaming and immediately wake. Then, near the path by the canal in town (40 miles away), I see a flowering shrub buzzing with shiny black wasps or bees. I can't see them clearly because of the light reflecting off them and because of the absolute brilliance of the blue sky behind them ' bright cerulean blue blending upward to indigo. Again I realize I'm dreaming, appreciate the beauty of the dream and the sense of spiritual significance, blue being special to me and bees especially since meeting the shiny black bees living in the Buddha shrine at Kalani. I wake, almost as quickly as from the red dreamlets, but this time with the sense that I need to wake to be sure to remember this vivid and wonderful image.

Kate,

model like looking would I see as similar to cartoon - like. The thing in common is, that it is less vivid, more simplified.

Joy and Edwin

I will do that if it isn't too much effort. I see a lot of other work coming on me, but at least I will see, if there is something with lucid dreaming in these texts. If not for Edwin it is much easier. I think, you can read German, can't you?

I'll read your dreams later, have to dream fast now, only four hours until waking time...

May Isis guide us all this night and may the scarab hold the sun and carry it through the night until the break of dawn.

Walk like an Egyptian...

Dear all, over the weekend (here in Israel friday/saturday) at home I had written up some remarks and answers to your responses. Unfortunately I forgot to copy it on to a disket, so that now, in my office (where I have my e-mail connection), I don't have anything to send you. It will have to wait until tomorrow. Till then, dream well, Edwin. PS. Ralf, yes I do read German; don't bother to look up the Egyptological dream stuff I referred to (unless you have seas of free time). I'll look into it myself and will report back to all of you (much?)later on. As for Kate's model-trees being part of the same phenomenon as cartoon-like images, I think you are only partly right (or partly wrong depending whether you take an optimistic or pessimistic view of life). See what I wrote about it in tomorrow's mailing. Best, Edwin.

Dear Joy, Ralf and Kate, thank you for responding and for your suggestions! If I may start with Ralf, sorry but I do not understand what "it" in your remark: "what if it was the other way around'? refers to. But although I miss the connection here (mea culpa no doubt), and even though I have to disagree with you concerning especially the "abstracted" and "sketchy'-ness of "the earliest traces of art" (unless you confine yourself to 20th century A.D. art) ' take a look at the very realistic paintings of various animals painted on the walls of prehistoric caves in the south of France (e.g. the famous caves of Lascaux) and Spain, dating back 20.000-40.000 years ago where realism certainly was the very aim or means to secure "with the aid of magical practices [like painting human hands touching the animal depictions] - a rewarding hunt for pure survival), I do like the idea ' if this is what you intended to say ' of going back to (deeper levels of) possible earlier mental templates (present within each one of us) inherited from a past culture or cultures; the idea certainly would have attracted Jung, I assume; hmm, "The archeology of the dream-mind" would be a catchy title for an essay in this vein. Anybody interested in writing something up about this? I suppose I'll have to accept Joy's and Ralf's observation/opinion that cartoon-like imagery apparently can be either the A or Z of a dream (or the Aleph and the Omega), but usually not somewhere in the middle. The few LDs I have had are so brief anyway, that to talk about a beginning, middle and end is perhaps exaggerating the length of most of my LDs. As for Ralf's reference to hypnagogia, I suppose I have to accept that one as well for the time being, since I never have (tried to) enter(ed) such a stage (by e.g. counting 1, I dream, 2, I dream, 3, I dream etc. right?), even though it precedes the actual sleeping phases, if I understand it (= the term hypnagogia) correctly? PC games as a potential source for such-like cartoonish images in one's dream sounds very plausible (or watching the cartoon-channel on cabel t.v.); I for one, however, hardly ever played computer games or watch cartoons (my loss, of-course). Now, please don't laugh at me, but as an novice in LDing and a near-total ignoramus as far as dream literature (and many, many other things by the way) is concerned, I have a hard time to follow some of the jargon used by you when you talk about correctly perceiving "the comic-like nature of the target-image in a precognitive dreaming contest'; do you mean that you told yourself before going to sleep that you want to see (precognitive), say, Mickey Mouse (target-image of comic-like nature) in a dream contest (contest with whom by the way? Yourself? And about what: who can dream up the biggest Mickey Mouse? I am joking a little bit of-course, but without any intention to offend you, but in the hope you'll have the patience to explain me a little bit about things I don't have knowledge off (like this contest thing) and yearn to learn (now I also start to rhyme [also a first timer for me]; I really don't know what is coming over me when I am writing to this forum, but it seems a great outlet for some verbalism and it definitely stimulates my LD-ing; usually having 2 LDs in a month, I had four during this last week, after starting my first posting in this Forum. So please, do have patience with me, I assume that gradually I will cool down and come easier and quicker to the point(s). PS. Ralf did you record your one-colored dream (which color by the way?); perhaps you would be willing to post it? Hi Kate, I certainly can relate to "model-like trees and such for train sets" as seen from above while flying; I had this perception once or twice myself, also during dream flights; and though not related, I could associate with this also my experience when for the first time in my dreams ' I must have been 19 or 20 then - I succeeded (a la Castaneda) to see one of my hands; this realization catapulted me "like a rocket- in a single movement upwards into the atmosphere (the only time I have got up that high); looking down I see the earth from very far away, glooming with infinite numbers of small reddish lights in the dark, comparable to the view of a satellite/Landsat image-view of the earth (writing this up on this very moment, makes me realize that I didn't see any blue though, that is no water or oceans, so perhaps I didn't have a total overview of the earth as I assumed but "only" of part of a continent, that is, I must have been catapult up less high than I (then) assumed. In any case, the connection between this experience and your tree models perceived while flying is not related to cartoon-like images but the connections is that in both situations we do have an (attempt of the brain for an) approximate correct measure of scale, that is, the farther away or the higher above a scene, the smaller the objects become. Something natural and logic in daily life, but not always in dream land. Dear Joy, thank you for sharing your color-dominated dreams. What strikes the mind first of course is the totally abstract visualization of these dreams; does this only apply to "colored" LDs or are some/many/most of your (early night) LDs so abstract? Perhaps you deal professionally with geometry or geometrical shapes in your daily life and this is simply part of your mental frame of references? Are you a teacher perhaps, or a painter? Although, the former would not fit very well with "sleeping in the open back of a truck in the mountains" nor with "working at night in the mountains'. Or perhaps the correlation is you were gazing to the sky and the stars before falling asleep in the back of a truck in the mountains; perhaps the emptiness, vastness of the night's sky stimulated abstract dream visualizations? In any case, dreaming colors seems to be highly energetic/highly charged for you. Although I enjoy my LDs enormously as they are, they are rather flat in terms of dreamscapes / dream contexts compared to what you describe here. And for now, goodnight to all of you, Edwin.

Color's prominent in all my dreams and most of my early-morning dreams are very abstract, so color ends up being one of their few reportable elements. Click on my name or anyone's up above our posting and you get a profile - that's how you find out what I do, same way I found out you're an Egyptologist!

Gotta go to work, alas... more later Joy

Dear Edwin!

I'm glad you enjoy posting here, glad that it sets something free for you and increases your LD frequency. Communicating here did push me forward in developing my lucid dreaming skills right from the beginning.

Sorry I seem to have been too lax in my last posting. I'll try to be better understandable now:

When I wrote: "'what if it was the other way around" I meant that referring to your primary posting: "I also wonder - although in today's television dominated world a near impossibility to test- what kind of imagery an individual, who has never seen movie cartoons, would have had in its stead in a LD?"

And meant by this: What if dreams were the primary source of inspiration for artists in painting comic like pictures. That would say dreams were prior to art, and maybe no individual needed to see movie or painted cartoons to dream like that. And then I went on: "The earliest traces of art do show paintings that were comic - like, abstracted, symbolic, sketchy. Figures, sculptures were more subject to psychological processes, I think."

When I talked about sketchy, I had even these paintings in Lascaux before my inner eye. This link includes a virtual visit to the caves:

http://www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/index.html

The art looks to me like a mixture of all styles, sometimes realistically, even 3d - like, partly cubistic, partly sketchy. Compared to the realism of the old masters or current realistic paintings like these ...

http://www.classicalrealism.com/ASCR_home/artists_guild.htm

... I still find the Lascaux paintings sketchy, maybe they have lost realism, lost colour and details due to the long time? I'm not sure, whether "realistic or not" should be the main point of our discussion. The question is, whether the ancient painters had the aim to be realistic. My impression is, that these works aimed at creating a certain atmosphere and like you said, had a religious context. Maybe they tried their best in some of the paintings to be most realistic. But somehow it seems to me, the paintings are not well proportioned.

Quote from the Lascaux - website: "There are very few sanctuaries where the human figure is reproduced several times. Lascaux is true to this tradition: in fact, there is only a single anthropomorphic representation at this site, in the Shaft of the Dead Man. The very stylised treatment of the silhouette gives it a caricature-like appearance. "

Another picture in my mind was the "Venus von Willendorf", dated ca 18,000 - 25,000 BC:

http://www.venusderfruchtbarkeit.de/index.htm

I think this one shows, that psychological processes did have some influence on the look of the sculpture, I don't see this as a realistic portrait. But I must confess, there are some quite realistic sculptures among the earliest known makings of art such as the "Dame de Brassempouy"

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/brassempouy/eg_musee.htm

I agree in that Lascaux art is partly realistic and I thank you for the mentioning of realism in the earliest art, that I didn't include in my thoughts in my foregoing post. I think there is a deep interweaving of art and dreams, that I feel like having been there from the beginning of human consciousness. Do we agree in this?

And let me speculate, that different forms, styles of art relate to the way, men perceived reality since ancient times, influenced by common and altered states of consciousness including dreams. I somewhere read, that some of these early painters were in altered states of mind, maybe even induced by the substances, they had in their mouth while doing their "airbrush" techniques.

And now the precognitive thing:

"I have a hard time to follow some of the jargon used by you when you talk about correctly perceiving "the comic-like nature of the target-image in a precognitive dreaming contest" "

Edwin, you could leave this thing out of my list of influences leading to comic like dream images without spoiling the meaning of my message. But just to make clear, what I meant (and of course to finally say something more detailed about what was going on there and what I still have to digest):

In September / October I took part in the online "PsiberDreaming" conference of the Association for the Study of Dreams (ASD)

http://www.asdreams.org/psi2002/index.htm

Part of this conference was a contest in precognitive dreaming. We were to dream a target picture, which was to be chosen in the future. One of my six (non lucid) dreams I posted to the jury before the target picture was being selected:

It is like an advertisement on TV. A young man (looks cartoon like, hideous) with a very broad grin has moved to San Francisco. There is a young woman (same style), she has a piece of lump sugar between her front teeth. She phones him. He speaks without opening his moth, but I can see the line of his teeth. Seems he wants to escape her by moving, but she follows him using her nose. There are some plugs in her nostrils, seemingly meant to amplify here sense of smelling. Looks even more hideous. I see her walking with her head bent back, snuffling the way to him.

And this is a link to the target picture:

http://www.cartoonbank.com/cover_closeup.asp?pf_id=48114&dept_id=1002&mscssid=H5FAJ2KRVMJS8NPS12V9C64FKLFQ3QM2&cartoon=2142&s_keywords=&findby=popular&s_artist=&s_id=&s_imageType=&color=&s_fromdate=&s_todate=&NewYorkerOnly=&s_topic=

The consonances of my dream with the target picture were assessed place 3 of I guess (don't know) more than 50 participants.

"As for Ralf's reference to hypnagogia, I suppose I have to accept that one as well for the time being, since I never have (tried to) enter(ed) such a stage (by e.g. counting 1, I dream, 2, I dream, 3, I dream etc. right?), even though it precedes the actual sleeping phases, if I understand it (= the term hypnagogia) correctly?"

I think you got the definition right. Some say hypnopompic, too. Some dreamers report the same kind of images while waking up, so it can happen at the end of sleep / dream, too.

"Ralf did you record your one-colored dream (which color by the way?); perhaps you would be willing to post it?"

I think I don't have written that dream down. But the colour was magenta. And it was one of the rare dreams, where I really felt hurt in a battle. Someone attacked me with laser beams in a muddle of hundreds of fighting people. I nearly died in that dream.

So, now I have written much on subjects, that only indirectly deal with LD.

Nonetheless I think, I had to answer your questions in detail and I hope, that some people profit in their LD life by our postings in this topic.

Yours Ralf

Hi, fellow dreamers. I re-read my dream in which the scenery became like scenery for model train sets, just to get the context. Much of the above discussion I find difficult to follow. (Which is a good argument for NOT watching much television in our formative years, Edwin. I don't think you missed much.) But I did grasp the concept about cartoon-like images tending to be at the beginning or end of the dreams. In this way, my model scenery experience fits. It occured at the end of my dream, when I had already had a forced landing and blanking out of scenery. I tried to keep the dream going and in fact took flight again, but after the scenery became unreal I awoke. I thought the scenery becoming like model train accessories was pretty neat, because it was so different from even a "normal" LD. It seems possible that when close to the waking edge, different dreamers have different non-realistic images. I may have dreamed about models rather than cartoon-like images because I alway liked minatures and those train set trees very much, whereas I'm not that crazy about cartoon things, even though I enjoyed cartoons as a child. I really don't relate to them. I can't think of any other time this has happened in any of my dreams. Maybe it has something to do with the greater level of ocnsciousness involved in lucid dreaming. Since we Know the dream isn't reality, we come up with unrealistic images? Lots of lucids, Kate

Dear dreamers, As Joy suggested, I took a look at her bio (and BTW upgraded my own), and I fear it will keep me guessing (not about who is who in the picture; I am sure Joy is the lady with the grey/white hair and sunspectacles) but as from where you get this overdosis of abstract dreams. If you were a molecular biologist I would understand it, but there are not too many abstract forms in wildlife; perhaps it is the combination with being an artist as well (if this would include e.g. making colorful paintings). Ralf, you can be pretty damned explicite if you want too. Thanks for the deserved lessons in Lascaux paintings etc., and I'll ponder the general thrust of what you intend to say tonight on my way to a one week conference on archeology in Toronto, Canada. It is worth reflecting on. I'll be back to you afterwards. Concering cartoon-like images per se, even though I didn't get the ("scientific') physiological explanation I had hoped for, I learned something from these discussions and I assume that Kate's words are more or less the final saying on this subject/thread. And Kate, concerning your remark that the cartoon-discussion is hard to follow, I agree and I apologize for as far I am the blame for this. Part of this difficulty stems from the linguistic structuring of my brain. I speak "normal" (at least I hope so), but when I write things down, sentences tend to grow, words start to agglutinate, subsentences are poppping up and I need more coma's ,,, on my way to a final period" I realize that sometimes I use it as a smoke screen, but usually I just want to compress to much information/strands of thought in a single sentence. Take good care, hope to catch up with you all in a week, best, Edwin.

Hi, Edwin. Did not mean to make my comment on the difficulty of following the conversation seem like a criticism. I don't have trouble understanding what people on the forum are saying - it's the concepts I was having trouble with. I felt that the "blame" is mine. That's why I made the crack about t.v watching - just gently mocking myself. And maybe it's just a difficult subject to "pin down." I was looking for something concrete where there was no such set answer - just thought-provoking conjecturing. Which is a large part of what the forum is all about. Dream on, Kate

Kate:

You have no need to retreat from your point. I think that it was valid, and may have succinctly clarified this discussion (and your "model train" dream was a good example). Though Edwin and Ralf's exchange is interesting, and touches on some interesting art theory and history, I would bet that the source of cartoon-like images is indeed from a far humbler region of human intellect and creativity.

Dreams are all about perception ' subjective interpretations of what our imaginations are currently passing off as reality. Those perceptions are by definition in thrall to our current state of consciousness, the depth of our sleep, and the interest our sleeping minds have in actually creating decent images at a particular time. In other words, if a sleeping mind isn't inclined, for whatever physiological reasons, to provide a perfect image of reality for you, the pictures it does produce could very well be simplified. This simplification could be a black and white presentation, or missing details, or a "rough draft" of an actual image. A cartoon.

A cartoon is, by its nature, a casual interpretation of reality. So, if your mind has backed off from projecting perfect images, the images it produces could appear cartoonish. This is especially true when lucid dreaming, because LD's often require or allow us to create dream images on our own, consciously. Since this is not an easy thing to do (and dreamers often are not interested in duplicating reality anyway), images can be much different from reality. Even cartoonish.

I know this is a simplistic explanation, but perhaps the question of these images requires such an answer.

Peter

Joy:

I know this is off subject, but are you going to tell Edwin which one you really are in the picture?

;)

I don't know - think I should? More fun to be a mystery. I liked it when someone wrote to me saying he had no doubt I was the one with the beard!

I don't actually have a preponderance of abstract dreams, except for my first sleep period of the night as was the case for most of those I posted. I gleaned those from 155 pages in 10 point type of LDs from the past year and a half - as my dreamcampmates know, I'm big on detail and most of my lucid dreams are not only story-like, but rather long stories!

My art isn't usually abstract either; it's mostly realistic, surrealistic or hyperrealistic. I do some scientific illustration. (You, Edwin of the Antiquities, might like the obsidian projectile points on the B&W page of my web site.)

So, I don't think my abstract dreams relate to any of my professions or the type of brain I have. I think all our dreaming minds are capable of coming up with incredibly realistic, detailed imagery, and also sometimes simplified imagery - abstract or cartoon-like or even colorless - under different circumstances, as Peter suggests. My abstract dreams tend to be early in the night and to be abstract in concept as well as imagery. The abstract style seems ideal for conveying strong emotional or energetic states. Anyone else get these?

Joy

Hi, Peter. Thanks! But I really did not mean to say anything more than to note that I was having difficulty following things. I think I will be more careful next time, because I absolutely don't want to come on the forum and seem to criticize anyone else. It's supposed to be a safe, pleasant and civilized outpost in cyberspace. Now I think I'm understanding better. I had never thought about the dreaming mind's limitations in creating scenes, because they always seem like real life in my dreams. Often distorted, but i figured there were psychological and other reasons for that. I never have abstract dreams. The thing that I noticed the most about my dreams that's different from waking life is the frequently dim lighting. When indoors, anyway. I figured my dreaming mind was just using stored images from real life and rehashing them, often very creatively. Sometimes, my dreaming mind re-creates the waking scene perfectly, as in a very brief LD period I had this am. Other times the scenes are distortions of scenes I recognize, or unfamiliar scenes that still look perfectly realistic. I really like the distortions. Anyway, I do recall an LD where my dreaming mind was unable to create anything interesting outside and the scene had in fact gone black and white. But I think that part of the reason for this was a message I was being given regarding my limiting of myself. In this instance, the loss of color and backround was not at the end of the dream. Once i got rid of my limitation and re-ented the building, I was able to get color and manipulate the scene to a degree, and the dream was back in full swing. So I guess I'm now introducing the psychological concept to the discussion. Hi, Joy! I never get abstract at all in dreams, although my emotions in general seem stronger. Good ones, like happiness and laughter. Actually the more negative emotions are possibly less strong, and less nagging. And as for picures that go with bios, Owen's seems a very nice example of cyberportraiture. Live long and lucidly, Kate

Kate

"It seems possible that when close to the waking edge, different dreamers have different non-realistic images." I agree with that possibility. "Since we know the dream isn't reality, we come up with unrealistic images?"

Expectation can of course play a role. There are different styles, that maybe relate to different expectations. But we have to think of ultra realistic LDs, too. There must be something special to onset and end of LDs, which is independent from expectation.

Edwin

I hope my pretty damned explicit way didn't offend you, it wasn't meant to do so. "... I assume that Kate's words are more or less the final saying on this subject/thread." It is hard to say here, when a final word is put ... "Part of this difficulty stems from the linguistic structuring of my brain." I think we'll get used to each others styles of discussion quickly, don't worry.

Peter

"This simplification could be a black and white presentation, or missing details, or a "rough draft" of an actual image. A cartoon."

A simplistic interpretation is very successful sometimes. Thanks for shedding a light on this aspect of the subject. I support your view by adding, that all our perception is a more or less good guess of what is going on. And I will repeat here a comment of Joy in the second posting of this thread: "He [Stephen LaBerge] said it's because the waking mind has a mechanism to suppress overly-realistic visualizations - presumably to prevent us from doing things like sitting down on an imaginary chair, or driving out onto a non-existent bridge."

And to go deeper into speculating the physiological reasons of comic like images, I will add the observation, that different modes of perception sometimes appear on their own, pure. So - similar to a draft outline of some stags in the Lascaux cave - we might perceive (and I think some of you have) in dreams only the outline of an object. The reason, we can do so, might emerge from brains way to process visual information. I think I remember having read somewhere, that the outline of objects is computed in different neural networks, than their colour or shading, etc. So it may be (remember this is speculative) no wonder, that we can dream of only colours, only shades, only forms, or black and white, and have different patterns of visual modes disappearing on entering a LD or on waking up physically. So the same brain physiology might be responsible for our waking and dreaming perception and for the way we express these perceptions in arts. This is a simplistic explanation, too, isn't it?

Dream clear and funny

Yours Ralf

P.S.

Joy, I thought you were the one with the beard. wern't you?

HI, Ralf! Sorry, I wasn't clear. I agree that the less realistic images occuring at end or onset of LD is significant. And I think that still ties in with my dream where color and creativity faded in the middle maybe as a lesson I was giving myself. Thanks for pointing out again that all perception is a guess. Very interesting about the different neural areas being in charge of different aspects of image creation, such as color and shape. It actually made me envision something going on in the brain that looks very much like what the cartoonist does - starting with lines, then filling in color, etc. The mechanics of perecption. Cosmic... Edwin is in for at least two surprises when he returns. Not only is Joy not the lady in the sunglasses, but this conversation is still going on. Dream well, Kate

Ralf, that's a good observation about the different neural networks. I've never dreamed in black and white and always wondered how it was possible - and did people dream in black and white before black and white TV? I've read about individuals with damage to a certain area of the brain who lose the ability to see colors. Seems likely the same area might be inactive during some dreams.

Kate, quit apologizing all the time - just shut up and talk! (Next entry from Kate: "I'm sorry I apologize so much...") We are all just tossing ideas out and batting them around like ping-pong balls, and your ideas are as good as everyone else's and everyone's welcome to hit someone else's idea and keep the volley going - that's what makes it fun! I always like reading your ideas, and the way you express them. I too find most of my dreams to be happy, and the lucid ones happiest of all.

I'll go dream some now....

Joy

p.s. Did I say I wasn't in the sunglasses? Did I say I didn't have a beard?

(Peter, shhhh...)

I currently began reading an interesting article on visual perception putting forward a new though for me, or at least a new aspect of a known idea:

Different parts of the brain / modes of perception may sleep in or wake up at different times in the run of the sleep / dream process. So we might lay on the bed, feeling actual physical body but dream of an angel entering the room.

Dreaming or waking depends in this point of view simply on how close different modes of perception / neural networks are connected to the physical sensing organs and / or the perception process at a given point of time. The idea of the article (I have only begun to read) is, not to see dreaming as a simple off / on phenomenon, but as a differentiated cascade of processes leading from physical awake perception to dreaming and body asleep.

Source: John Woolman's Light in the Night: An Analysis; George Gillespie; Dreaming, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2000.

Peter and Joy

Joy seems to be what all people displayed by the print are sharing. So: Where is joy?

Joy - Thanks! I needed that. Ralf - Thanks for the continued info. Kate

Ralf - I think I see now why text dances in dreams. Becasue it's difficult for the dreaming mind to maintain the image it created? It's funny but I never thought about that. About how when we're awake we are perceiving real images that are in front of us, while when dreaming, we have to manufacture the images. Based, I guess, on stored memories of images we perceived while awake. Maybe that's why we have to keep moving in LD's - because if we stayed in place we'd be faced with dissolving scenes. Is that why movement is so important in terms of prolonging? That kind of reminds me of Stepehn King's The Langoliers, where the characters have to keep ahead of the world that's being systematically eaten by the custodians of time. This new information about different areas of perception coming into play at different times is very interesting. And, I can follow it! Thanks again for sharing your research with us. Regards, Kate

Ralf, the article sounds intriguing - will you give us all a review when you're done reading it?

Kate, your idea about why moving is important for prolonging definitely has merit! My guess would be that's part of it, another part being that it engages the internal sense of body motion - because it also works in the "dark."

As for my profile: The confusion no doubt arises from the fact that at least three of the people in the photo are me. Therefore I am beside myself with Joy.

I hope this abysmal pun is not lost on those less familiar with English idioms.

Felicitations, Joy

Hi, Joy! We seem to have two conversations going that have overlapped - this one and one on the prolonging site. Please explain about why "engaging the internal sense of the body motion - because it also works in the 'dark'," is important in terms of prolonging LD's. I'm not clear what you mean, but it seems to tie in with what Ryan wrote - that in order to prolong it's important to "involve the dream body in some kind of dramatic movement that explains the loss of visual context to the mind as well as gives a prolonged sensation of movement." The second part of that I don't understand either. P.S. I haven't read your meteor shower dream because I was saving it to read before I went to bed last night. I forgot, but will read it tonight - am hoping it will be more effective for me that way. Hoping all three of you - especially the one with the beard - continue to be lucid, and best wishes to your delusional calico.

Hi, Kate!

Here's another way to put it:

To stay in a dream, there has to BE a dream. A dream consists of apparent sensory input - you seem to be seeing, hearing, feeling, and so on.

The more of these you have going, the easier to stay in the dream.

When you lose ALL of that, you lose the dream. BUT - same as in waking life - if you suddenly can't see or hear or feel anything, you CAN still feel your own body moving.

Keep that dream body moving, and you're still dreaming. Soon you may be able to see and hear again.

Hey, that's nice you remember my mad cat! I'll tell her hi from you!

Joy

Joy:

Though you're totally correct about there needing to be some sensory input present to more easily prolong a dream, and movement is a handy (and, as noted somewhere above or in the prolonging thread, innate) tool for maintaining some perception and thus the dream, I must differ slightly on the presence of some stimulation being required in a dream.

One of my LD'ing goals is to empty my dream environment of all stimulation, including awareness of my body, and see what happens when my universe consists of nothing but consciousness. I've been successful at this a couple of times over the years, so I can confirm, at least anecdotally, that you can maintain a dream with no stimulation beyond awareness of your own spiritual existence. It is not easy, but, after everything is gone, the dream can indeed still be there. As long as you are.

Sorry about being contrary (again!) to accepted definitions.

Peter

P.S. Shouldn't this stuff be in the prolonging thread?

Yeah? Don't you find awareness of your spiritual existence stimulating?

I've been once in just darkness and awareness, and I think once in just light and awareness. No apology necessary for questioning definitions - I like to play with words. I don't know if what I said is an accepted definition; I just made it up. If it is - just to keep having fun with words - one could also say our experiences are lucidity without the dream!

This conversation cross-references a lot with the prolonging thread. This morning I posted something there that could have come under this discussion of the dream senses. When I was writing the above to Kate about seeing, hearing, feeling, I thought, "...and I've tasted in dreams, but what have I smelled?" Such a splendid opportunity presented itself in my very next dream!

I must admit that I haven't been following the postings on this particular thread but based on the title I keep seeing (Cartoon-like images) I felt the need to share a lucid dream/cartoon-like experience I had recently.

I was dreaming lucidly that I was flying over Disneyland park in Anaheim, California. I was heading to an area of the park where I knew a friend of mine was working (she really does work at D-land, it wasn't a detail of the dream). Anyway, as I flew high over the park I noticed that the view below was a mix of "real" looking images, that is, what Disneyland would really look like but it was also balanced by what could only be described as cartoon representations of what was down below. I was in half "reality vision" and half "cartoon world." For example, the Matterhorn was a giant cartoon that jutted up from the earth as I flew by it, rather than appearing as a large structure of rock that human hands had built to resemble a mountain. It was purely animated, very pastel in color and soft and 2 dimensional in it's appearance.

I continued flying and ahead of me was a large, cartoon fountain. It was spraying "fake" cartoon water into the air in front of me. For some reason I flew right through it, expecting to get wet from the cartoon water but instead the droplets passed through my body, piercing me and gave me the most intense, all-over body sensation that I can only now vaguely remember the intensity of. Spotting another cartoon fountain ahead of me, just like that first one, I flew directly into it and found that sensation once again engulfing my whole body. I remember giggling like a child as I did this for the second time for indeed, something very child-like and humourous was happening to me. I felt like a kid again. I imagined this might be what it would feel like to be young again and visit Disneyland for the first time. (I'm now 31 and have literally visited the park hundreds of times as my wife used to work there).

This has remained one of my most satisfying and physically gratifying LD's ever. I only hope to experience the cartoon-like images again some time soon as I feel they can be a key, at least for me, to returning to the innocent feelings of childhood.

Joy:

"Stimulating," by, um, definition might not be the right word for the experience. But the unique awareness that I encountered a couple of times is no doubt what spurs me to develop my lucid dreaming skills. It's not easy to describe the feeling of being perfectly clear, reamed of all mundane distractions, so I won't. Suffice it to say that it is a rush, and, after the rush, it is nothing less or more than an open door to limitless creativity (after all, what better blank slate to work from than nothing at all?). Unfortunately, the moments were too brief to allow for activity. Maybe next time, if I ever get there again, I'll be able to add time to the nothingness. Then I can create, or perhaps search for other souls open to communion at that level.

And I must commend you on an excellent choice for a smell vehicle (from the prolonging thread)! Very dramatic. I won't ask why you found yourself, plus a box of prayer and love in a dumpster, though"

Sweet dreams (or not, as it were!),

Peter

Micheal:

Thanks for getting this thread back on track! Excellent dream, and excellent example of cartoon-like images. Since these images were classically cartoonish, and not just imperfect renditions of reality, the question to ask at this point is: did you expect the images, or did they come on their own? Since Disney is a cartoon factory, you might have fully expected half of Disneyland to be rendered as cartoon. However, if the images surprised you, maybe there is something more to look at here...

Peter

Peter

I absolutely did not expect the cartoon images, they just appeared on their own. But obviously something in my subconscious created the connection between Disney and cartoon and it manifested in the lucid dream of its own volition. I can not even think of another dream I've had with cartoon imagery other than the Disneyland dream. I think it may have been a special occurance based on the location my dream was taking place in. But I would certainly love to experience the cartoon image again in some capacity as it was wholly intriguing and memorable. I suppose I could make it a goal for my next lucid dream to incorporate cartoon imagery into it and see how that works for me.

On a side note: A friend of mine who has never previously had lucid dreams has had a handful in recent weeks. He tells me that somehow I end up in his dream which causes him to become lucid. This is certainly a result of the talks about LD'ing that we've had. One amusing dream he had the other night involved him dreaming about receiving a free snowboard from some stranger. He was so excited to be getting this free gift and at the moment he was going to take posession of it he says that suddenly I appear out of nowhere and point at him saying, "Jonathan...you're DREAMING right now!" At that point he becomes lucid and I disappear!

Hi, Peter. Shutting down sensory input and becoming aware of your spiritual self sounds like an amazing experience and totally worthwhile use of lucidity. That this opens the door for limitless creativity for you means to me that creativity is something than we can attract and allow to flow through us and out, like electricity. I like that idea a lot. Thanks. Michael, what a wonderful dream! And how fascinating that you appear to be your friend's dream guide. Surely that's a first here? Has his run of LD's continued? I'd like to hear more about that... And as for me, I think this thread had an affect on my dreaming mind in a small way. The other night I had a nonlucid dream with a storyline that I can't recall much of. But there was something about some Harry Potter books, which I wanted because I loved the illustrations. I was looking at them, and the story turned out to be about a kindly old wealthy man in the 18th or 19th century adopting a boy baby - very Dickensian. The illustrations were all a solid orange background with black ink line drawings. Happy dreams, Kate

Dear fellow dreamers, just a short note to let you know that I just returned from my Toronto trip. It is gratifying to see that the cartoon-discussion is still going on and right back on track and very focussed in the last couple of messages. I don't know whether I have anything to add, but I'll first have to try to catch up with/to digest what you dreamers and thinkers have written since my departure. Until after the weekend, Edwin.

Haven't seen my friend in a few days to see if I've reappeared in his dreams but I'm sure I'll see him this weekend. I'll keep you informed...

Had a Non-LD this morning that has me kicking myself! I was hanging out in a living room with Stephen and Keelin and they were discussing the idea of an impromptu LD'ing meeting that night with some locals in my town. I was thrilled that they were there with me and trying to figure out who to invite. Meanwhile a friend of mine was pacing the room on her cell phone, complaining as she was checking her messages that, "Arrghh...My Lucid Dreamer is not Lucid Dreaming!" I thought, "What an odd statement, what does THAT mean? What is her 'Lucid Dreamer' and how does she know it's not dreaming?" I was confused to say the least. I even thought it was odd enough to warrant a reality check. But as is the nature of some dreams IT FELT SO REAL that I skipped my chance, instead feeling wrongly secure in the "fact" that I was awake, which I wasn't. So a lesson learned for myself and just a reminder that even when you are so certain of something, you really aren't. At least with dreams.

Hi Mike,

What a delight to be in your dream -- even if it was only as a dream character! Glad to see you wondered how odd when reflecting on the woman's statement. I expect NEXT time you'll do that reality check. Maybe you're even doing one now.... Or do you think you're really awake? ;)

And to others contributing to this thread: Thanks for the new topic, Edwin! I can add that cartoon imagery in my dreams is quite rare -- mostly occurring as hypnagogia, or as a dream dissolves, it may lose its dimensional quality. Considering that similar imagery is readily available in waking life, it doesn't surprise me that the brain is able to conjure it up in a dream (lucid or non). I would expect that the frequency of it in dreams might be related to the extend of a person's exposure to it in waking life. It would be interesting to ask those who've seen films such as "Waking Life" if their dreams contained similar animated imagery after the viewing. I don't recall this happening personally, but maybe others would like to respond?

May we all dream beyond the usual dimensions, Keelin

Hi, Everyone- I prithee have not been collectively drugged into non-lucicity by wild, alchemical turkey juices. I've not checked in due to a million blues in a million hues, but got me limbs and a home and me belly is full, eh? So much to catch up on and I've got to crash (and mayhap explore?) to get up for Dojo time in a.m. Howevah...wanted to jest at Joy and tell her that she'd be welcomed at Callahan's Saloon for the lovely pun (any Spider Robinson readers out there?) and to also toe the etiquette line concerning the placement of subject matter as I am just getting down with this Forum cruising. Two things: my Sensei up here in Humboldt/Mendo. had a dream and got lucid and realized that all of the characters about him were dream folks. He stated this out loud and just then, one of our "Master Senseis" from the City, jumped out from behind an invisible wall and yelled, "BULLSHIT!" So much for giving over our power to others, eh? Heeheeheehahahoho. Yes, Joy, we's got to dig our own God/dess Selves and peruse that energy for answers from within. What a gift, however, to have "those who have gone before us" on whatever paths to Infinity that we choose. Also, to have each other to share about dream tales like bread and cheese hunkered under the tree of the Material Plane. WAYfarers, yes? A final word. I must have missed several references to holy felines as I've not had to time to peruse the Forum in full this eve and catch up on all the words, but I'd like to share a non-lucid about my fudgey son, Katana. I was away at Summer Aikido Retreat a couple of years back and had briefly moved to Whale Gulch for the Summer leaving Aengys, Hanmi and Katana in charge of the abode. Katana is my magical baby (he is still with me, I've lost the other two, sadly) and I was missing them after about 4 days into the seminar. There is a 25 year old rosemary plant on my friend's land where we were staying and it has a wonderful energy inhabiting it. I dreamed that I was standing on the dirt road to the homestead and that my boy came running up the road, zigzagging from a great distance and he rushed past me and behind me. I turned to see him hop into the center of the bush and gaze lovingly at me. I am certain this was my cat directly responding to my feelings and he reached out a paw through the finer realms to soothe his "Mama". Also, some magical disciplines associate the herb rosemary with contentment. Interesting. Forgive my jumbled digressions and tangle of the thread o' subject, but I just wanted to plug back in and share. I hope to be here more frequently throughout the coming Winter. I should like to hear more about your different "psychic" experiences in the Dreamtimespace. The stock market tale tickled me for some reason. I also really dig the notion that the one cat (cat?, dude, y'know, ha) is his own homey's Dreamguide. What a gas. Great Gorgeous Love to you all and Infinite Magic-Tif

Dear fellow dreamers, In order not to lose my (and your?) way in these discussions, I have re-read a little what has been written so far by this forum concerning cartoons and summarized below a few, selected points which seem significant to me. I fear it is the editor in me who drives me to do this. It is indeed a pleasant surprise that the discussion is still on, and, perhaps we'll get closer and closer to an explanation of the source(s) for this phenomenon. Joy's reference to color blindness is as unexpected as it could perhaps be relevant to our cartoon and black and white versus color discussions. I wonder whether there is someone amongst the members of this forum who actually was born color-blind and could give a comment? Or perhaps someone of you knows somebody who is color blind and could ask him/her about their dream imagery? Given the frequently mentioned (and self-experienced) bright and colorful imagery of LDs, I wonder how this particular intense, bright aspect of dream imagery translates into a black and white, color-less world? In any case, it seems clear that most of you see cartoon-like images as something less than "real" images, given the following quotes from your letters mentioning i.a. a loss of visual context; non-realistic images; simplification; missing details; simplified imagery "abstract or cartoon; rough draft of an actual image; casual interpretation of reality; Simplified imagery ' abstract or cartoon-like or even colorless. I wonder what Walt Disney, were he still alive, would have to say about this "dis-appreciation" of cartoons (just kidding). A good (visual) example of interaction between cartoon-like and "real imagery" can be seen in a movie like Who Killed Roger Rabbit (if I remember the title correctly); could this actually have been a potential source of cartoon dream inspiration? Questions asked in these discussions include: would it be easier or more difficult for the brain to produce cartoon-like imagery instead of realistic images? And why? Could pre-cartoon grown people dream up cartoon like imagery? (Edwin); What if dreams were the primary source for artists in painting comic like pictures? (Ralf); and, herewith: could it be that Micheal's casual remark on the 2-dimensional appearance of his cartoon dream adds another dimension (2 vs. 3 dimensional) to try to understand the nature of this kind of cartoon-like imagery?

Assumptions made during these discussions: cartoons most often occur at the very start of a dream or on the verge of waking (Joy; Ralf), contradicting, however, e.g. my own and Michael's dream experiences of (narrative) lucid dreams entirely or in part in cartoon-like imagery (cf. my own Egyptian tomb dream and Michael's Disneyland dream - even though Michael assumes that his subconscious created the connection between Disney and cartoon-); Cartoon images may more frequently appear in the state of hypnagogia (Ralf) or at the end of the sleep/dream (Ralf).

Explanations offered during the discussions: is there a realism-suppressing mechanism at work? (Joy); PC games stimulate cartoon-like dreams (Ralf); Some cartoon images could be part of physical reality, perceived during dreams (like in Ralf's dreaming contest); A deep interweaving of art and dreams from the beginning of human consciousness (Ralf); Since we know the (lucid) dream isn't reality, do we come up with unrealistic images? (Kate); If a sleeping mind isn't inclined, for whatever physiological reasons, to provide a perfect image of reality for you, the pictures it does produce could very well be simplified. This simplification could be a black and white presentation, or missing details, or a "rough draft" of an actual image. A cartoon. (Peter).

The closest physiological explanation on visual perception/ visual qualities of dreams so far was offered by Ralf: "The reason (for different modes of visual perception) might emerge from brain's way to process visual information (') objects computed in different neural networks" and is best summarized by Kate's "the mechanics of perception': different neural areas being in charge of different aspects of image creation, such as color and shape (Kate).

As a by product we further learned that Ralf had only a single color-dominated (magenta) dream in his whole (?) dreaming life; that Joy has early morning dreams and dream scenes (all very abstract) dominated by one or two colors and that "in fact- color's are prominent in all her dreams ("I have never dreamed in black and white" (Joy); and, finally, that Kate never has abstract dreams yet introduced a color-psychological concept to the discussions.

I think we are in dire need for more cartoon-like dream reports (like e.g. Michael's) to get closer to the possible source(s) of the phenomenon. Concerning colors in dreams I would like to raise the question whether certain colors are harmonious with certain dreams/dream-scenes, let us say red color for a warm dream-scene (e.g. a bright summer day), blue for a cold dream-scene (e.g. winter landscape) etc. And, beyond yes or no dream-color harmony, could dream colors convey certain (hidden?) dream symbolism? Do certain colors appear in and/or support certain types of dreams? And if there would be a certain dream color-symbolism, would this be the same (archetypical) for every dreamer? So many questions, so few answers at hand'Take care, Edwin.

I also have as editor in me who often wrests control of the driver's seat! Said editor wishes to clarify that I never assumed cartoon-like images occurred on the fringes of sleep, but asked if this was the case before speculating on what it might imply if they do. Maybe an incident of premature speculation. Also - when I describe dreams in the "early" sleep period I mean soon after first falling asleep for the night, not necessarily early-morning (though my work hours are so weird, I sometimes first fall asleep for the night at 4 a.m.).

Colors definitely carry symbolic meaning in my dreams, especially in the past few months while my daily meditation includes visualizing a specific color associated with each chakra, which in turn is associated with a specific aspect of the mind's activities - giving me a very handy vocabulary for recognizing a color's meaning! For instance, often lately I find a dream character wearing a solid-color shirt which indicates his or her symbolic role.

It would be interesting to explore whether these are universal or learned associations. It seems that aura readers fairly consistently associate the same colors with the same chakras and types of mental activities, which also produce consistent and distinctive electromagnetic wave signatures that correlate with the colors that aura readers simultaneously report (see research physiologist Dr. Valerie Hunt's work at UCLA). Intriguingly, this suggests a measureable archetype!

I could look over old dream reports from before I learned my color vocabulary, and see if they correspond. Anyone else? Should I post my learned color associations or wait and see what others report?

This might seem to be getting off the track from lucid dreaming, except that now that my color vocabulary is pretty familiar to me I can sometimes use it to help interpret a dream while I'm still in it. You know: "Oh, you're the guy in the purple shirt! Okay, let me ask you this...."

Joy

Dear Joy, thanks for pointing out a few corrections. And please do look up your (especially lucid) dreams reports before you learned the buddist (?)color vocabulary and see if there is a correlation for you between different colors and types of dreams (which is different from a dreamtype...). And for all your dreamers, as promised a week or so ago, and although totally outside the scope of cartoon-like dreams, herewith a minor, first installment on recorded dreaming practices in Ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptian term commonly referring to a dream is rswt (in Coptic: rasou). Notably it derives from the verb r(j)s, meaning to wake up. The dream, therefore, is considered as a state of awakeness during sleep, something that of course comes to no surprise to us LDers! This (apparent) paradox is alluded to in ancient Egyptian literature for instance in a section of the so called "Teachings for Merikare': "God gave them magic as a weapon against incidents of which one is aware (rst) during the night (that is asleep) as well as in day time (that is awake)'. In literature the dream is also used as a comparative term to illustrate illusion and the ephemeral state of the moment. The dream is also considered as the interface between the world of the living and that of the dead and the gods. During the ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth, for instance, the priest relates to his assistants of his meeting with the soul of the deceased during his sleep. The gods appear in the dreams of mortals to make clear their wishes, to predict a future advent (accession to the throne, a military victory, birth of a child, day of death), and to offer solutions to various problems. Dreams can be spontaneous, or provoked by dream incubation within the context of sleeping in a temple or "sanatorium" (a proto dream lab?). The latter practice is recorded especially for Ptolemaic Egypt. Nihil nove sub sole, it would appear. Sleep well, dream well, Edwin.

Hi, Joy. I would like to hear about the colors, particularly violet and green. I think colors are among the most wonderful things in life. Did you see Pleasantville? I always recall the diner owner wondering if people who see colors all the time realize how lucky they are. As to when cartoon-like images occur, I seemed to notice a few different instances in the above discussion. Some cartoon-like images in dreams seemed to me, theoretically, to be the result of the dreamer being in "the borderlands" between waking and sleeping. I feel the borderlands are home to much low-level lucidity. Then there was Michael's Disneyland dream, which I tend to think was a result of his fully dreaming mind making a connection between Disney and cartoons. Then there was my experience of dreaming of cartoon illustrations in a book, which I think was suggested to me from reading these posts. I guess that's basically the same as what I'm saying about Michal, although somewhat different. Do you think your odd work schedule helps in terms of your LD frequency? Edwin - how fascinating that the ancient Egyptian word for dreaming was based on the word for waking up! As you said, it fits perfectly with lucid dreaming. Wasn't there another culture that used dream temples for purposes of seeing the future? I'm connecting this with one of the ancient Greek peoples, but maybe I'm confused...Either way, I think it's significant that the older cultures held dreams in a lot more respect than the modern ones. The Bible has stories of the importance of dreams in ancient Semetic cultures. "In literature the dream is also used as a comparative term to illustrate illusion and the ephemeral state of the moment." This sounds a lot like the Tibetan culture beliefs that are frequently discussed on this forum that waking life is as much of a dream state as what we experience in our sleeping dreams. "The dream is also considered as the interface between the world of the living and that of the dead and the gods." This reminds me of the shamanistic approach to dreaming, as Adastra (Aldara Godbody)put it. The belief that spiritual entities come to us in dreams to guide us and give us messages, even sometimes harrass us about something. All of it sounds reasonable to me. Sweet, possibly prophetic dreams to all, Kate

Hi Joy,

Finally had a chance to search (as you suggested 12/3/02) for information regarding Dr. Hunt. Found her website, but no scientific documentation. :? Do you have other reference links that would show actual data for what she claims?

Color-filled dreams to you! Keelin

Must be this thread causing my first cartoon-like dream today g

Thanks anyway, it was fun... Looked like the characters in waking life. But ... I have a question in mind: Does it happen to you fellow dreamers, that you find yourself looking in bird perspective on yourself in dreams (non-lucid and lucid dreams)? Or that you are somebody else? Somebody with another gender, another looks etc. ? I almost never dream being myself in a dream...

What about you?

Greetings from Natalie

Keelin, sorry to say I haven't seen Dr. Hunt's data online - only in her book "Infinite Mind," and even there I wished to see more hard data and less metaphysical speculation. But the data seem good.

Edwin, the color vocabulary I mention comes from Dr. Hunt, Barbara Brennan, Rosalyn Bruyere and others who see certain colors in relation to each chakra and its functions. (By the way, Dr. Hunt says she developed the ability to see auric colors after developing the technology to detect corresponding variations in our subtle electromagnetic fields.)

I do hope to eventually find time to search past dreams for color language as I said I would!

Kate, I do sometimes think my constantly-varying sleep patterns might influence lucid dream frequency - my mind is never sure at any given time whether it's going to be asleep or awake! I envision a sort of swirling-together of sleeping and waking consciousness so that they're in contact at many points along a complex border....

Natalie, that's interesting! I'm almost always within my familiar self in dreams and would love to spend more time in other perspectives and personas.

Joy