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RE: The future of brain-computer-interface technology could help you lucid dream

in #science7 years ago

It would be very interesting of we could influence dreams with technology like that. The implication in my mind, is that we will be able to understand a lot more about something as elusive as dreaming. How great would it be if we understood more about what and why we dream. I think it would give us knowledge about who we are.

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Yes! There is much to learn about human consciousness by studying the dream state. Dreams have been ignored far too long in the West and from scientists, despite the fact that dreams make up a significant portion of our lives.

Lucid dreaming particularly can shine new light into the dream-state because it allows us to conduct experiments from within the dream and communicate results to researchers in real-time. I agree with you that lucidity can better help us understand who we are and what are we doing here. More practically, lucid dreaming is an underutilized tool by scientists for studying the hard problems of consciousness, and exploring the difference between top-down/internally generated aspects of experience and bottom-up/externally generated components. There is much to learn!

In the end, I do believe advancing technologies can better help us access and benefit from this state, and I'm excited to see what is to come. But I also know that most people do not have sufficient training in the induction skills that we know work, which doesn't require the aid of any equipment at all (besides your brain). So there is no need to wait for a new age in lucid dreaming tech to start having more lucid dreams.

This makes me very enthusiastic because I think if we understand dreams, I expect we also understand more about imagination and inspiration.

Lucid dreams are so inspirational! Dreaming is the most creative mental state, and lucidity not only makes creativity more accessible, but also enhances it, too. I see you are an artist yourself. Do you ever draw from your lucid dreams or regular dreams to help you with your work?

I am not sure but I believe so. Although I have not been able to dream lucid yet. So that would be regular dreams if so.

The reason why I think I probably do is because I never had no idea what to make. I think my head goes into some sort of meditation, flow, dreamstate when I create. Although sometimes when I try to take control and worry if it will be good enough I become to tense. I also have noticed (like many artists with me) that inspiration likes to come when we need to sleep.

I do dream the future now and then so I can not believe a dream is just random firing of neurons.

Sleep deprivation can easily bring on more creativity too. You should definitely look into lucid dreaming if you are ever looking for other avenues of inspiration. Once in a lucid dream, I decided to look at a piece of art I was working on in waking life to see what the end result could look like. I expected it to look the same in the dream, but it was so much more beautiful than I ever could have imagined in waking life. The final piece never ended up looking exactly like the one from the dream (I'm not that talented!) but I integrated parts of the art from the lucid dream into the real one. That will always be one of my more memorable lucid dreams.

That sounds wonderful! I see how that can be very beneficial. Thank you for giving the idea why I should go explore.

Glad to hear! I hope you will share some experiences on steem with us if you have some lucid luck.