The Best of Dream Studies 2011 Here’s hoping that your final days of 2011 are relaxing! As I look back what happened this year, I’m happy to report that 2011 has been a year of growth for me. Highlights: I started off the year by lecturing at Stanford University on the topic of sleep paralysis, published my first peer-reviewed article in March, and am now wrapping up the year with a new book launch on lucid dreaming. Other highlights include three sleep related articles of mine that went viral on Business Insider and an article about wolf dreams that was republished on Care2, one of the biggest healthy living sites on the web. 2011 was a big year for radio work too. I was interviewed 5 times via blog radio: all are still available to listen online and can be found in my Whereabouts page. As for DreamStudies.org, you may be interested to learn that: The top trafficked articles written this year were: And some personal favorite posts of 2011 that you may have missed: What’s ahead for 2012? Happy New Year!
CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf (application/pdf Object) Hypnagogia and Hypnopompia | The Dream Studies Portal Hypnagogia is the imagery, sounds and strange bodily feelings that are felt at “sleep onset.” This is a simplification though, as researchers have noted hypnagogic imagery in the lab at periods of quiet wakefulness as well as stage 1 sleep. Others have correlated hypnagogia with pre-sleep alpha waves and also REM intrusion into sleep onset. The truth is that the wake-sleep transition is still not understood. And neither are its trippy visuals. whispy lights, multi-dimentional geometric objects, or a sudden image like a stranger’s face Few people remember hypnagogic imagery. Strange noises, voices and rushing sounds are typical, as well as weird mechanistic sounds like beeps and boops. Some hear music — I personally have had lucid hypnagogic orchestras from time to time, with the ability to listen passively or focus on a particular instrument to induce a solo. Entoptica - by Ryan Hurd, 2005, acrylic: inspired by my hypnagogic imagery Some people are haunted by the hypnagogic imagery.
3D map of human brain is the most detailed ever - health - 20 June 2013 The folds, creases and intricate internal structures that make up the human brain are being revealed in unprecedented detail. A new three-dimensional map called BigBrain is the most detailed ever constructed, and should lead to a more accurate picture of how the brain's different regions function and interact. Until now, the precise placement of the neurons that make up our brain circuitry has been difficult to map, largely because the human brain's surface is covered with folds and creases. Slicing a brain exposes only two dimensions, so it is often unclear where and how the cells within these folds are organised in three-dimensional space. To make the new map, Katrin Amunts of the Jülich Research Centre in Germany and her colleagues embedded a 65-year old woman's brain in wax, sliced it into more than 7400 sections each 20 micrometres thick – one-fifth of the width of a human hair – and made digital images of the slices, also at a resolution of 20 micrometres. Tour de force
Lucid Dreaming Tips - How to Lucid Dream - Tips for Lucid Dreaming / Lucid Dreams The Six Basic Steps There are many techniques and methods that you can use for inducing lucid dreams, but there is an underlying process behind most, if not all of them. I have broken this underlying process down into six basic steps to serve as a foundation for your lucid dream training. Once you absorb these steps and start following them, it is only a matter of time before you have your first lucid dream. In case you are wondering how long it will take for you to have your first one, just follow through with the steps and have faith that you will have one. 1) Doing the Mental Prep-Work 2) Increasing dream recall 3) Keeping a dream journal 4) Becoming familiar with your Dreams 5) Adding Awareness to your Waking Consciousness 6) Linking your Awareness to your Dreams Step One) Doing the Mental Prep-Work This step involves setting up the right mental foundation and building a mental framework that will maximize your success. Here are four key questions that you need to ask yourself. 1.) 2.) 3.)
Lucid daydreaming | Snoozon.com Create account Sign in Create account We're working around the clock to give life to our upcoming online lucid dream journal. Please be patient and be the first to know about our progress, sneak previews and release date by subscribing to our free mailing list below. * Your email address will only be used for sending you updates on Snoozon. Sign in below Subscribe to our blog for the latest News, reviews and research studies We'll keep you updated on the latest lucid dreaming books, gadgets, research studies, and more. Share your thoughts! About Us Snoozon provides credible lucid dream training and dedicated online tools to support the science and worldwide practice of lucid dreaming. Contact us Rigelstraat 48 7522 HK Enschede Netherlands contact@snoozon.com +31 6 4675 7260 Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Follow Us Be the first to know about our backstage developments, product discounts and upcoming events by keeping in touch.
Instant Expert 31: The human brain Cookies on the New Scientist website close Our website uses cookies, which are small text files that are widely used in order to make websites work more effectively. Find out about our cookies and how to change them Log in Your login is case sensitive I have forgotten my password close My New Scientist Look for Science Jobs Instant Expert 31: The human brain (Image: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging)It took thousands of years, but our understanding of how the brain works has brought us to the brink of enlightenment. Milestones of neuroscience We now have a detailed understanding of the brain's building block – the neuron. More than one way to map a mind Injuries were once the key to learning how the brain worked, but advanced imaging techniques are now giving us detailed maps of where our skills ariseRead more From tiny neurons to expansive minds How does the brain generate a conscious mind? Looking over the neuroscience horizon Download a paper brain to build yourself REVIEW: 19:00 16 April 2014
Making a dream date - Dream Gates "At the Foothills of Mt Helen". B.K.Connelly, 1981 You’re separated from your sweetheart and you’d like to have some good private time together. Can you do that? Absolutely. If you are embarking on shared dreaming as home entertainment, you get to choose your category. I know what I am talking about. Want to try this? But shared dreaming doesn’t require you to start out from the same place, or even on the same continent. To keep this simple, let’s assume you have a friend who is not physically present, with whom you’d like to share a dream adventure. 1. You might simply agree to try to meet in your dreams on (say) Wednesday night. 2. If you’re new to this kind of thing, it’s probably best to start out with a place in the physical world that one or both of you know. 3. The idea of simply hanging out with your partner in a delightful locale – and not having to pay for the plane ticket or the five-star hotel suite – may be juicy enough. 4. 5. 6.
BREAKTHROUGH: DMT Found in the Pineal Gland of Live Rats In a major breakthrough in consciousness and psychedelic studies, Cottonwood Research Foundation has published a paper (soon to appear in the Journal Biomedical Chromatography) documenting the presence of DMT in the brains of living rats. For decades researchers have hypothesized that DMT may be one of the neurochemicals responsible for consciousness, dreams and visionary experiences. It’s certainly responsible for these and ever weirder experiences for those who have smoked it or taken Ayahuasca. DMT has been documented as naturally occurring in human blood, but this was not conclusive evidence that it is produced in the brain. DMT is structurally related to Serotonin, Melatonin and Pinoline, so the small traces in human blood could be an enzymatic breakdown product of these precursor molecules. Now we have clear proof of DMT being manufactured in the living Pineal Glands of rats, and that the genes responsible for this exist in the Pineal Gland and Retina! From the press release:
The Best Lucid Dreaming Techniques Movies like Inception and Avatar have made lucid dreaming a household word. The buzz around the idea that we can wake up in our dreams ripples outwards, rocking our collective boat as more us realize that the world as we know it is malleable and magical. But lucid dreaming can be difficult to learn. What I suggest is simple, but not necessarily easy. While dreams can open us up to new possibilities, most of the time our interests, preoccupations and cognitive abilities in dreams mirror the same constructs that we nurture in waking life. Towards Lucid Living Practice gratitude. Breathe. Feel your dreambody. See if you can give a name to this feeling: heart-achiness, burning belly, or fluttery chest. Lucidity is in the Mind and the Body Words confine, awareness defines This simple exercise, drawn from the work of psychologists Arnold Mindell and Eugene Genlin, puts us in direct contact with the dreambody. But in our dreams, the dreambody is front and center. The Path Up is Down
Rubber Hand Trick Reveals Brain-Body Link | Wired Science The rubber hand illusion is more than a vaguely creepy parlor trick. It’s a window into relationship between our mental and physical self-conception. During the illusion, a participant’s hand is hidden, and a rubber hand positioned so that it appears as her own. Suddenly the rubber hand literally feels like it belongs to her. Scientists have now shown that the hidden hand’s temperature drops during the illusion: its effects aren’t simply mental, but physical as well, and could even hint at as-yet-unknown processes of disease. "These findings show that the conscious sense of our physical self, and the physiological regulation of our physical self, are linked," write a team of researchers led by Oxford University’s G. At first, this may seem a retelling of mind-body linkage: embarrassment causes blushing, fear a burst of strength. When participants in the study confused a rubber hand for their own, their hidden hands became half a degree colder. Video: New ScientistImage: PNAS See Also: