Unconscious consciousness

I can't do it, but probably possible.

Ah, you need to rephrase that, but I think what your saying is, "Can you be consciously thinking about something while dreaming?" If that's what your asking, the answer is yes.

I think so but it takes much work to get it fine tuned - IMO

truth
Have you ever, during a dream, had the "awareness" that you were asleep and dreaming? I have. Is this an equivalence of actual awakeness, or is it merely part of the dream?
Buddhism, as I understand it, teaches that we are always dreaming, even when we are not asleep, and we are always trying to turn bad dreams into good dreams. Buddhism teaches that what we should do is "wake up". The title, Buddha, means "awakened one" in this sense of the term. I don't want to turn this into a conversation on Buddhism, just wanted to make this point for what it's worth.

A self proclaimed intellectual once told me "It is Impossible to have conscious of your unconsciousness, just as it is impossible to memorize a book from having a recording of it play while you are asleep..." He is a robust, elderly man, who drinks in his off time, and I'm afraid he'd have made me soil my pants at the thought of questioning him.

I am sometimes concious of my unconciousness in the moments in-between sleeping and waking. When you know you're about five minutes away from being fully awake, but you are still fully participating in the dream.

Once I had really bad nightmares for awhile and taught myself to pull my eyelids open in real life. I would do it both in my dream and in reality, and it would wake me up.

But this sounds like it wants to be a reality question, which, (in the denial of reality) is Fresco's specialty.

Re: Unconscious consciousness


I don't think this is possible for humans. But Dolphins and Whales accomplish this by sleeping with half their brain at a time (left/right hemisphere divergence). This is necessary because they have to sleep, but they also have to breath, so they have evolved brain structures which match the survival requirement.



When people experience consciousness while sleeping, I think what you suggest above is actually what is happening. When this happens to me, if I focus strongly on the "being awake" feeling, then I invariably wake up (for real). The dream kind of dissolves, and is replaced by "awakeness". On a bit of a side note, I've also noticed that I can't read in a dream. I sometimes see signs or written material in my dreams, and in my dream, I actually understand what it says, but if I try to really focus on written material in a dream, I see that the words are actually nonsensical symbols which don't really spell anything. It's odd that in my dreams I have the sense of "reading" something without actually seeing the words. Dreams are very deceptive because they are a perception which is formed from internal assumptions, rather than from external stimulus. I've always assumed that the reason for writing to appear as jibberish in a dream was that the "word-processing/symbol recognition" portion of my brain is not active during dream state.

Interesting topic though. Thanks.

truth
Rosborne, very perceptive observations. I too have experienced in my dreams writings that were nonsensical. I recall a dream wherein I was trying to read a street sign to determine how to arrive at some destination. But it told me nothing more than that it was a sign. New realistic and useful information only occurs when one is awake. This is a great criterion/answer to the conundrum: how do we know that we are awake or just dreaming that we are awake?
I do think that we exaggerate the line between consciousness and unconsciousness. I suspect the boundary between the two is more permeable than generally acknowledged. Our waking/conscious moments are saturated with unconscious processes and vice versa.

Re: truth


Interesting point JL, and I think I agree. Since we have the ability to move back and forth from dreaming to being awake, I would guess that there is always a little kernel off the alternate process running in our brains, and that we simply shift the majority of (but not all of) our processing back and forth between them.

I think that the dream portion of our processing feeds the conscious state with things like creativity, and randomness. I also think that the conscious state feeds the dream state with bits of structure upon which to weave our dreams. I'm guessing that without these structures (from the waking world), that our dreams would consist primarily of feelings and impressions rather than images and stories.

Re: truth


Ah, interesting. I wasn't sure if it was a purely personal effect or if others noticed this as well. Thanks, that's nice to know.

Aressler, I have not actually tried lucid dreaming, but it is possible to be conscious while in a dream state. Here is some information on how to go about it, if you would like to give it a try:

Principles and practice of lucid dreaming

Inducing lucid dreams

truth
Oh, Terry, why couldn't I have heard of 'lucid dreaming" in my youth when my entire love life consisted of cherished wet dreams?

I have lucid dreams all the time, thus my initial post that yes it is possible to be conscious while unconscious. Often times I get into funny conversations with people in my dreams about how I am dreaming and they are not real, sometimes they argue with me. I too had noticed difficulty in reading words in dreams too, until I started thinking about reading words, then it became easier. I actually have a pretty stolid theory of what dreams are and how they function and I have yet to disprove myself. If you'd all like to hear it just say so and Ill type it out.

truth
OZ, by all means. Please do.

JLN,

OZ, yes, we'd like to hear your dream theory.

Aressler -- Lucid Dreaming is pretty easy to practice and train.
Lots of books are written about it (just search Amazon.com for "lucid dream").

I used to create dreams about Star Wars happening all around my neighborhood -- basically just playing around in a very big, realistic video game, without having to own a computer.

The dreams even had commercials in them, from watching too much TV!

I occassionally use dreams to do homework, by reading some complex problems before bed, and asking that I dream about it. The next morning I can wake up with a clear answer.

That kind of subconscious problem-solving sounds a lot like prayer, doesn't it? That's why prayer can often work well, even if one is an atheist! No gaurentees, but it's an interesting and fun tool.

Portal Star, (et al)

I don't think I deny "reality". I say "reality lies at the interface between internal and external states" meaning that neither is "real" on their own. The analogy is "you can't have one side of a coin" (mobius strips excluded !) or you cant have "an individual island/person without an ocean/context to define its boundaries.

As regards "consciousness" there seem to be differing levels or embedded structures which have progressively more "control" as we move from inner to outer states. However what this "control" operates on, or whether successive levels see lower levels of control as illusiory remains the central issue.

Portal Star, (et al)

I don't think I deny "reality". I say "reality lies at the interface between internal and external states" meaning that neither is "real" on their own. The analogy is "you can't have one side of a coin" (mobius strips excluded !) or you cant have "an individual island/person without an ocean/context to define its boundaries.

As regards "consciousness" there seem to be differing levels or embedded structures which have progressively more "control" as we move from inner to outer states. However what this "control" operates on, or whether successive levels see lower levels of control as illusiory remains the central issue.

If your philosophy states that reality lies at the interface between internal and external states, that sounds reasonable because it takes into account the differences between individual perception and perception and reality.

"However what this "control" operates on, or whether successive levels see lower levels of control as illusiory remains the central issue."

I think the problem with this argument is not its logic, but its inability to define. There is no reasnoable stopping point, or level, it seems that you have to end up reasoning that things either do exist outside of the mind (material) or that they only exist inside the mind (immaterial.) And if everything is immaterial, or, existing soley of perception in the mind of the individual, then there can be no reasoning of constants within that percieved reality. And that is unhelpful to the very nature of rational thinking, which makes learned assumptions based on constants.

How would you answer the question of the difference between conciousness vs. unconsciousness under your view?