dal mio amico tommy, ho ricevuto e volentieri inoltro.
Rimini, 21 febbraio 2003
alla Stanford University stanno sviluppando un software che aiuta la gente ad essere conscia che sta sognando e quindi a dare corpo alle proprie fantasie durante la fase REM.
Con una adeguata preparazione, insomma, è possibile pilotare i sogni e quindi visitare luoghi esotici o mangiare 200 gelati senza sollevare la testa dal cuscino.
E’ stato creato un Lucidity Institute che insegna alla gente come fare per avere dei “sogni lucidi”.
Stephen La Berge, fondatore dell’Istituto, ha anche scritto un libro sull’argomento (adesso cerco di rimediarlo) e dice che i sogni lucidi possono avere un effetto benefico sulla salute oltre ad evitare gli incubi.
I monaci tibetani ricorrono a quest’arte da più di mille anni…
qui di seguito allego l’articolo tratto da WIRED….
For lucid dreamers, sleep can be even better than reality.
Researchers at Stanford University are now developing software to help
people become aware that they are having a dream so that they can then live out their fantasies during REM sleep.
Oneironauts, or lucid dreamers, are conscious when they are having a
dream and can control how the dream develops. During lucid dreams, people are “awake” within their dreams, and can sometimes direct what happens next in the dream.
With enough practice you can fly, visit exotic places, experience
vivid colors, or eat all the ice cream you want, all without taking your head off the pillow.
Being awake during a dream may seem like a contradiction, but to those
involved in lucid dream research, it’s all, well, crystal clear.
“Lucid dreaming lets you make use of the dream state that comes to you
every night to have a stimulating reality,” said Dr. Stephen LaBerge, founder of the Lucidity Institute at Stanford University, a research lab that teaches people how to have a lucid dream.
LaBerge said that controlling dreams can also have therapeutic value.
Potentially, he said, people can overcome nightmares that haunt them repeatedly. It may even help a person improve in sports, enhance self-confidence or confront problems that elude being solved in waking life.
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, a book co-authored by LaBerge
and Howard Rheingold, is one of many books to help wannabe lucid dreamers get started. The Lucidity Institute offers a variety of tools for people set on taking charge of their subconscious life.
The Institute’s SuperNovaDreamer kit includes a copy of LaBerge’s
book, and the kit recommends reading a few chapters before getting started. The book asks that you learn to recognize “dreamsigns,” or signals within a dream that alert you to your altered state. One common dreamsign: elements within your dream are out of context. Objects are not where they belong within a room, or certain people are in locations they normally wouldn’t be — how often do your parents drop in at the office?
The NovaDreamer includes a mask that tracks eye movement to recognize
when you’re in REM as well as to determine the amount of time you take to get to sleep.
Depending on how you configure NovaDreamer (a determination made
partially on the basis of how light or heavy a sleeper you are), the NovaDreamer flashes a series of red lights into your (hopefully closed) eyes, providing yet another signal that you are dreaming and can now do whatever you please in the dream.
LaBerge advises novice lucid dreamers to be patient, adding it can
take as long as four months or more to regularly have lucid dreams.
LaBerge’s research indicates that when a person does something in
their dreams, the experience may be closer to reality than you’d think.
Early experiments show that lucid dreamers have a good comprehension
of time while dreaming. Researchers that asked lucid dreamers to move their eyes in a specific pattern, and then repeat the pattern 10 seconds later, found they did so in about the correct amount of time.
LaBerge said dreaming of doing something causes the same reaction in
your brain waves as actually doing it. During REM sleep, says LaBerge, “the brain is working full-tilt, yet it is disconnected from the outside world. If you dream of doing a long jump, your brain reacts the same way it would if you actually did it.”
LaBerge, who is studying the mind-body relationships of lucid
dreamers, believes that controlling your dreams may also improve your health.
“It’s totally possible we’ll find a way to use it to enhance healing,
because there’s a very strong mind-body connection during REM sleep,” LaBerge said. Although he admits that the ability to use dreams to cure illness is mere speculation at this point, he said there is anecdotal evidence that lucid dreamers may be able to contribute to their own healing processes.
Most applications of lucid dreaming remain in the very early research
stages, LaBerge said. “We’ve been focusing on access to the state (of lucid dreaming),” he said. How practical those other applications are will depend in part on how easy it is to get people into a lucid-dream state.
For example, Tibetan Buddhists, avid practitioners of lucid dreaming
for more than 1,000 years, devote years to meditative practice that helps them refine their techniques.
For the rest of us, learning to control your dreams is something like
learning to play the piano — some will find it easier than others. “But it’s a lot easier than it was 20 years ago, when there weren’t any techniques,” LaBerge said.
Lucid dreams are also helping scientists understand the nature of all
dreams. “By watching the signals provided (by the lucid dreamer), we can come a little closer to getting information about a dream as it occurs,” said Dr. Alfred Kaszniak, a neuropsychologist, and the director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. Monitoring a lucid dream provides more accurate information than waking a subject up since people will forget or edit their dreams.
“Lucid dreaming also gives us a very different way of asking questions
about the nature of consciousness during sleep,” Kaszniak adds. “(A lucid dream state) actually satisfies certain criteria of consciousness.”
With enough effort, just about anyone can induce lucid dreaming,
Kaszniak said. But some people are more predisposed to it than others, he said. Those with sensitive inner ears have a better chance of lucid dreaming. People with a greater sensitivity to the force of gravity are more likely to vividly conjure up images of flying, which in turn helps them become lucid in their dreams.
Last summer, Stanford University hosted a 10-day conference that
included lectures, lucid-dreaming practice and a visit to the dream lab to watch research in action. In May, the Lucidity Institute will take enthusiasts on a seven-day trip to Hawaii for a lucid-dreaming retreat.
