Vor genau 10 Jahren war ich für ein Praktikum an der Stanford University bei Stephen LaBerge. Während der vier Monate verbrachte ich einige Nächte im Schlaflabor. Um mir die Zeit zu vertreiben, habe ich ab und an einen NightReport verfasst und an alle geschickt, die in meinem E-Mail-Verteiler waren. Nun will ich das 10-jährige Jubiläum nutzen, um die alten Reports in meinem Blog erneut zu veröffentlichen. Hier nun der fünfte NightReport:
Welcome,
Hi there and who are you?! It is time for another night-report. It is almost like a morning-report, because Nathen kept me up all night long. I can tell that I will be a good daddy. If my child is crying in the night….. No Problemo!!! So, tonight’s topic is about mind, consciousness, you, the rest and the truth….
This topic goes back to Paul Tholey*, but it is apparent connected with lucid dreams, so that you have to think about it sooner or later. Reality? In recent times a lot of movies wanna open our eyes and question reality. X-files, Trueman Show, The Matrix, Existence… what is real and how real is your life? In the most of those movies there is a close connection to dreams. Thus, how real are your dreams? Suppose you are dreaming and I’m one of your dream characters. Well, now assume that I face you and talk to you about that stuff I’m just writing. So, I’m in your dream!!! How would you find out that I’m not real? How do you know that I do not have my own consciousness? How do we know that dream characters we see all night in our dreams have not a consciousness of there own and therefore are not only illusions of our mind? How would you find out that I’m (me as a dream character of your dream) not aware of your dream?
Okay, okay here is one possibility to find it out, ask me (your dream guy from your dream) if I can draw a picture of you?! This would show that I have an own perspective in your dream. Here is another good question. Ask me if I can tell you a word you never heard before! Or, think about a rhyme or poem and tell it to me! Or, just tell me how I came here! Initially, there is the point that you talk to me at all. That you CAN talk to me without knowing what I will tell you. In other words, that we have a kind of conversation. Far before that, that I’m encountering you in your dream or any other dream character. Assume there is something like a unconsciousness and this part of you (probably a part of your brain) puts me in your dream because of an occasion from your waking life. E.g. you know tomorrow is Wednesday and this means a new night report from DAEN, so that’s the reason why your brain puts me in your dream. But what about dream creatures you never saw before in your life? Assume your mind finds a way and we skip the unanswered question about why do we dream about what we dream about?
Let’s focus on the questions you asked me before. Here are the answers: I will show you a picture of you, come up with a totally strange word, which you never heard before, but if you check it in a dictionary you will find it and I tell you a very nice poem or rhyme from 8 lines. These are results from Paul Tholeys studies. Nothing of that proofs really that I have my a consciousness of my own, as dream guy in your dream, but how would you proof it in real life? At least I could show in your dream a bit of memory ability, own perspective, and creativity. Is this psychic… transcendental? Maybe, there is another explanation. Think about how many different characters you can play in your ‘real life’? You can act like me, you can pretend that you are DAEN (which is probably not that hard, all you have to do is to talk big deal of bullshit :) ) . Or you can feel like you felt with 16.
Our mind can mimic an infinite amount of different characters, so that the real question should be: “How can we identify ourselves?”. Multiple-personality-disorder, people lost about this ability and ‘can’ switch between different personalities (voluntary or not). Some of those people have up to 200 different characters. The cause for this disorder is in the most cases a traumatic event e.g. rape, witness of severe accidents, etc. and the victim tries to displace himself… Well, what did we learn tonight? Nothing, which is more than absolutely nothing. For further reading a very interesting link to: Conversation Between Stephen LaBerge and Paul Tholey in July of 1989.
* Tholey, P. (1989). Consciousness and abilities of dream characters during lucid dreaming. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 68, 567– 578.
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