A lucid dream is a dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to have some control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment. (Wikipedia)
my drawing
In my previous posts I wrote about my psychedelic experiments. In this part, I want to touch upon the subject of lucid dreaming, since it is also the sort of mind-diving.
Over the years, scientists have been studying the state of the brain during sleep. Activity of the brain was detected and recorded and scientists were able to identify the phases of sleep.
These phases are characterized by a certain frequency of brainwaves:
It is a well known fact that humans dream in 90 minute cycles. When the delta brainwave frequencies increase into the frequency of theta brainwaves, active dreaming takes place and often becomes more experiential to the person. Typically, when this occurs there is rapid eye movement, which is characteristic of active dreaming. This is called REM, and is a well known phenomenon.
https://www.scientificamerican.com
At this theta-frequency we can get the lucid dreaming experience.
This phenomenon is well described by two of my favorit bloggers, 
I will try to develop this topic further.
I learned about lucid dreaming from the books of Carlos Castaneda, about 20 years ago. There is a lot of conflicting information about these books, but for me these books are very important. They changed my materialistic vision of the world. 20 years ago I did not have the Internet, I did not even have a PC. And those books were the first sources of valuable information with practical recommendations on independent spiritual self-development.
Practicing lucid dreamind I was able for the first time to dive into my subconsciousness and start to explore it.
The value of lucid dreams can not be overestimated. The experience of direct interaction with the subconscious is difficult to describe. Each person will have these experiences unique, but it will certainly be impressive.
I enjoyed lucid dreams for about several months. But after an unpleasant experience of waking up in dream several times, I was a little scared to be lost in dreams, and I stopped practicing. Later I knew that this is common phenomenon among lucid dreamers.
(this illustration is made by me)
For past 20 years I returned to these practices periodically. One of the reasons for the break in practices is the fact that the frequency of lucid dream experiences is unpredictable and depends on many factors like health, stress and emotional background - all this affects the frequency and quality of lucid dreaming.
Several years ago I saw very interesting project on kickstarter. It was a project dedicated to development of the special mask "Remee" for help people easily achieve the state of lucid dreaming:
Remee's rear-facing LEDs serve as your touchstone to the waking world. Using a series of smart timers, light patterns are displayed throughout the night, targeting your REM cycles where dreams most often occur. The patterns can be as gentle or as jarring, as bright or as dim, and as fast or slow as you like.
source: manufacturer's website
source: manufacturer's website
Now this mask is available on the site http://sleepwithremee.com/.
Sure I bought this mask. And I still have it.
picture taken 08 July 2018
So I acquired this mask and tried it.
The LEDs was too bright for me, in the moment of switching the lights on, my dream state was broken by the intensive flashes of light. Unfortunately, I did not try to adjust the intensity of the LEDs to get the lucid dream, because at that time I was very busy with work, and I needed to sleep well. And with a mask on my face I fell asleep uncomfortable. I still have not returned to using the mask. But I'll definitely try again with the right settings if I will need to get this state fast. Although past years I had several times the lucid dreams without using the mask.
Recently, neuroscientists have been able to examine the activity of the brain during lucid dreaming. These studies have made it possible to identify the characteristic activities of brain's work in this state, and then induce these states by stimulating certain areas of the brain:
...the shift from non-lucid to lucid REM sleep is associated with an increased activity of the frontal areas of the brain. Significantly, these areas are associated with “higher order” cognitive functioning such as logical reasoning and voluntary behaviour which are typically only observed during waking states. The type of brain activity observed, gamma wave activity, is also known to allow different aspects of our experience; perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and memories to “bind” together into an integrated consciousness. A follow-up study found that electrically stimulating these areas caused an increase in the degree of lucidity experienced during a dream.
source site: neurosciencenews.com
I hope that soon scientists will thoroughly study this question and everyone will be able to reach the lucid dreaming state at any time, when he wishes.
There is a lot of articles about the practical use of this phenomenon. But I would like to share some of my thoughts on dreams and lucid dreams, and why this topic is of great interest to me.
Some of you probably watched neo-noir science fiction heist film "Inception":
source: wikipedia
If you have not watched this movie, and you are interested in the theme of lucid dreams, then I recommend you to watch this film. Please leave reading this post for later, since I will refer to this film and warn in advance about the spoiler.
If you have already watched this film, then I want to remind you of the important idea of this film - the existence of sleep levels and a different time course at each of the sleep levels.
I think many of you have seen long dreams in a short time and were surprised that subjective time in a dream can differ markedly from the time in the real world. In lucid dreams, we can have all the features of normal dreams, including the ability to change the flow of time in a dream.
In a lucid dream, in fact, you can also fall asleep and go on deeper levels of sleep, I confirm this personally. One of the practices for improve the stability of lucid dream, oddly enough, is to fall asleep in lucid dream. I tried 3 times to fall asleep in a lucid dream, and I confirm that awareness is preserved, and the visualisation of dream becomes more stable.
Theoretically, with prolonged training, one could learn to create in a lucid dream his own Universe with Big Bang and Earth, and to be the god of this universe for billions of years, while in the real world he will only sleep for 3-4 seconds.
my drawing
The brain dies in a few seconds after the cardiac arrest. Some researchers suggest that at the moment of death, the pineal gland produces a large amount of DMT, that causes near-death hallucinations, described by some people who survived a clinical death. These assumptions they build on the basis of the fact that:
...endogenous DMT is naturally occurring in small amounts in rat brain, human cerebrospinal fluid, and other tissues of humans and other mammals.
source: wikipedia
Although this hypothesis is considered speculative and yet untested. But if this suggestion is true, then perhaps this psychedelic, produced by our brain, is the catalyst of a lucid dreaming at the moment of death, in order to create the new universe in a few seconds. Thus, even if after a few seconds the brain ceases to exist, consciousness will always exist in its universes created at the time of death.
And who knows, maybe we live in our universe, unconsciously created by the dying brain of previous incarnation? Perhaps we have already died many times and every time the brain creates a dream about the birth of new consciousness? Maybe we just go deeper and deeper into this eternal sleep?...
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It sounds fantastic. But everyone who practiced lucid dreaming will agree that sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish a dream from reality. Proven methods don't work sometimes. And only one method so far has worked steadily for me - the one mentioned in the movie Inception: you need to remember previous events before the actual moment. In the dream you don't have these memories.
Many people are afraid of death, because they do not know what will happen to them after the brain dies. But few people are concerned that we do not remember how we appeared here and what preceded the moment of our self-awareness. Could it be that we live in eternal dream?
I saw the power of the brain to create worlds in lucid dreams. Perhaps, dreams are given to us in order to learn to consciously create universes in a second, and at the time of death consciously move to a level deeper into a new incarnation with full awareness and joy?
my drawing
Thank you for your attention! I hope you enjoyed reading this post :)
Mind-diving. Part 1. My first psychedelic experience.
Mind-diving. Part 2. Salvia Divinorum.
Sorry for my English :)
If it is not difficult for you to correct my English text, as long as there is such a possibility within a week, please write in the comments the correct version of the wrong words or sentences, and I will be very grateful to you! Thank you! Have a great day!