Hi,
I have been interested in lucid dreaming for some time. I found this forum and thought that someone can give me some answers to some questions.
Here is my whole thought process on how the brain works while lucid dreaming:http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/lucid-dreams-33391-2.html
I also sent some e-mails to Professor Allan Hobson on this topic, I got in reply a document attached in this topic.
I wouldn't be suprised if someone gives or doesn't have much time or will to answer this topic. Any ways thanks a lot for any replies.
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"Willowz: This will be a shot, maybe a long shot at a pragmatic way of looking into the the way the
brain works while dreaming. I heard that the activity between connections in the frontal
cortex and the posterior perceptual areas of the brain during sleep are lowered
dramatically. Can arousing of these connections/areas be done chemically or maybe some
other way?... Why am I asking this? When we fall asleep our awareness falls, we just "go
with the flow". You don't realize how stupid or farfetched some things are in a dream.
These areas (Frontal cortex and posterior per. area), I think (and read) are responsible for
evaluation and eventually realizing that you are dreaming."
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"Mars Man: A system is firing (a map) and exchanging signals when realizing anything, as
far as can be seen, and not any single area, really. I would say that the hippocampal and
limbric systems are major players, along with the prefrontal association areas, in
comparing ncoming sensory information (internal signals from memory too) and judging it
against memory."
.......
"Mars Man:The prefrontal association cortical area projects, in part, to limbic association
cortex, which projects with other systems to amygdala and hippocampal formation, each
receiving dissimilar sensory information."
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"Willowz:Since going into sleep the brain doesn't need the prefrontal association cortical
area(:Association areas function to produce a meaningful perceptual experience of the
world) working. But this area is probably essential in deciding and realizing that this dream
is just some mumbo jumbo. I was looking into Brodmann's 46 area because it might be the
area where the "waking"begins.Here I will site a book I found: Conclusion: "One organizing
premise of this brief update is the combined study of phenomenology , cognitive
neuroscience and neurochemistry across a wide variety of normal (e.g dreaming, waking),
alterable (e.g meditation, hypnosis)...one such hypothesis suggested here is that the
deactivation of prefrontal cortical areas and possibly, a recriprocal intensification of cortical
or subcortical limbic and posterior perceptual cortical activity may underline a wide variety
of dream-like states...as well as dream states as close as possible to waking (e.g full
lucidity in experienced practitioners of lucid dreaming).
"[Page345]:http://books.google.com/books?id=DTf1sA1zaTUC&printsec=frontcover#PPA345,M1
Lucid Dreaming Revisited.doc