sleep as a form of ego death (attachment to reality)

[chilli]

It is possible to over do these techniques.

Quite a few times I've been in a dream and practicing the techniques, and closed my eyes (in the dream) and dreamt a second dream where I'm practicing the techniques and realise I'm dreaming, then wake up from the second dream and try to 'fall asleep' again so I can go back to dreaming... these dreams within dreams are interesting and quite fun, but also very disorientating and recursive... I can see how people could believe that reality is a dream. All we really ever do is percieve in one form or another, so it's a hard question to answer. I often wonder if I'm a blob in a tank somewhere, but can't think of an experiment to test that hypothesis...

A particularly funny incident happened when I was explaining to my friend the lucidity techniques and saying "I can tell when I'm dreaming most of the time' - My friend gave me a really quirky knowing smile - and only after I'd woken up did I realise that I was talking to a dream friend - So funny, I can recall the look even now, it was a 'haha yeah sure you can, except right now ya dill' - I love dreaming

Qualia: Practicing lucid dreaming has by far been the most rewarding thing I've done, it also helps to take your mind of the daily grind and switch into sleep mode. I'm terrible at sitting and meditating, but I find my meditation is done before, during and after bed time - I find lucid dreams to be the most relaxing and life changing experiences - you can re-wire yourself whilst you're sleeping, solve problems, etc...

 

Yes as you say, it is not always easy to tell if you are dreaming in a dream, especially when false awakenings and dreams within dreams are involved.

Nevertheless. it is quite straightforward to rule out the possibility you are dreaming when awake.

Waking life could be something like a dream but regardless of the similarities it is distinguishable from the dreams we have when we are asleep.

[bogfrog]

I dunno if this is relevant to the OP (sorry if its not!

I'll try and get there) but in regard to lucid dreaming and awareness, i am often very concious during dreams but i never really exert much control, is the next step here to play with it and change situations?

I always find so much is going on around me and i am so emersed in the enviroment and interactions with the people there, that i never consider trying to do things like flying around.

Or is this not really lucid dreaming at all?

Whitewind, very interesting that you mentioned that salvia-esque experience, as i had a very similar thing happen to me the first time i smoked salvia.

I literally fell out of my body through the wall into a succession of many similar yet very unique forms of my self. it seemed like my spirit was meeting and experiencing the conciousness of each of these other "me's" from alternate realities.

Eventually it stopped and i was transported back to my body, to go "what the fuck!"

I don't know if you could really call my experience a form of ego death, but it seems to me that the realms of dreaming and the realms of psychedelics are closely related, if not the same as each other.

Qualia, I hope your efforts bring you many more restful nights of sleep. You definately hit the nail on the head with recognising the neccesity of down time before bed after serious thinking time.

Best of luck to ya.

[C_T]

i guess what i'm trying to say, is its more dis-association than ego death, i mean for me atleast, ego death means like your reborn, your conscious but without any previous knowledge or "programming"

when your lucid dreaming (which is just a term for being aware your dreaming, able to guide the dream), your conscious and although in a different place or whatever, you know who you are.

so i don't see that as ego death at all... atleast thats how ive found the term ego death.

[IndianDreaming]

C_T: I have trouble understanding the term 'ego' To me the term refers to the pumped up manly man that wants to fight people all the time...

If the term 'ego' is synonymous with 'individual' - Then I have experienced the feeling of 'ego death' - I was a thread in a web of immeasurable dimensions that were all interconnected, where thoughts and matter were the same thing. It was quite pleasant.

That didn't come from dreaming though... and I still had a sense of 'me' - even though the distinguishing lines of my body weren't there and 'me' was about 10 million light years across - and even that didn't touch the sides of the 'immeasurable dimension' I was in. There was definately a blurring of the boundary of where i finished and where everything else started, but I still felt like 'I' was there.

With dreaming, I've been able to take on many forms, the most pleasant of which was water. I trickled down a set of stairs and leaked out into a room from underneath a door, that was the one of the most delicious feelings I think I've had. (If you get the chance bogfrog, I highly recommend liquefying yourself and dribbling all over something )

[qualia]

yeah perhaps ego death was a wrong term for it, more i meant the 'ego' in terms on the self as it exists in momentary reality, and how it may become attached to the nature of that reality. of course there's an ego in dreams, and an 'I', but it's different to the normal waking 'I'.

it's interesting, i think "ego-death" is one of those terms which get thrown around easily and probably has an ambiguous meaning at best. at least in almost every trip report i read someone mentions ego-death (regardless of dosage), and almost flippantly it seems. there was one time i experience what i would call true ego death, and i simply ceased being. there was no me, no life and no meaning; no possibility for thought or feeling or conceptualising. everything just simply stopped. i even stopped tripping for a brief period, like being in the eye of a great hurricane. what a crazy trip that was.

edit: looking at Freud's model i think i'll call the above "death of the id"

Edited October 1, 2012 by qualia

[chilli]

bogfrog it's common to experience different levels and to slip in and out of lucidity. I have been lucid in dreams that still seemed to be 'on tracks' and have become fully lucid and then slipped back into accepting the dream as real.

As a point of interest, Jung thought dreams were compensatory, so flying dreams might indicate an underlying sense of powerlessness or inferiority for example.

'ego' is a variously defined word, but the sense in which people usually refer to ego death generally means the loss of a sense of a discrete self.

[C_T]

as we initiate sleep our muscles relax. this is why you can feel like falling or floating etc. (aka sleep starts, feel like falling then jolt awake)

when we hit REM we are completely paralysed, only the diaphragm moving up and down making us breath... yet we can feel in rem, like if you need to pee you'll feel the pressure on the bladder and dream about pee'n, then wake up and holly shit you need to pee! or the phone rings and you dream the phone's ringing then awaken and it is.

so if you are in that transition between wake and sleep and being conscious, thats the real reason your feeling of floating or falling etc.

[CβL]

I honestly think my flying dreams are just because I freaking love the idea of flying around the skies. I can perch on buildings, avoid danger, cross rivers quickly, go overseas while avoiding merciless airfares, and just feel all-round incredible.

And my only truly lucid experience was this year, and it was brief, but amazing. I was in New York (in the dream) and I was running away from general people (like projections in Inception) who were after me. I then realized I was lucid dreaming, and that "I had the power!". So in my dream, I decided to "teleport", and I closed my eyes, and opened them, and was in London. I can't quite recall what happened after this, but basically the lucidity ended here (either I awoke, or I kept dreaming). But I awoke feeling ecstatic, so that was good.

I think the simplest thing you can do is to recite "I will remember my dreams" before going to bed for a minute or so. Mean what you say though, and you'll probably have a more vivid recollection of your dreams. For me, taking a dream journal is extremely hard work, as I'm normally near-catatonic the moment I wake up (at least since being addicted to caffeine).

[bogfrog]

Ha that reminds me of one dream where i was running from some evil scientest guys then suddenly i thought wait, this is a dream so i can do anything i like so i turned around and blasted a huge bolt of energy at them which threw them into the the air and smashed them into the walls. Felt really good!

I have kept a dream diary before, not so much to enhance memory (my dreams r very vivid in general) but to keep track of the stranger things that come up like portals and precognition.

Some dreams are waay to intense (or naughty) for me to want to write down, let alone remember.

I'd really like to persue lucid dreaming as i believe it will help with my nightmares.

Edited October 2, 2012 by bogfrog

[ThunderIdeal]

as we initiate sleep our muscles relax. this is why you can feel like falling or floating etc. (aka sleep starts, feel like falling then jolt awake)

 

CT i remember you once commented on something like this being the reason we frequently snap awake whilst nodding off. for instance, often my hypnagogia or early dreaming will present, say, a sudden wild animal, and my limbs actually move abruptly and i'm awake again. what is the explanation for that?

another thing that's probably relevant is your frequent sleep paralysis, which could really alter how you're inclined to act when you're nodding off. if you're accustomed to fighting off sleep paralysis, then it's not a big leap to say you're accustomed to fighting off sleep.

yeah, people like me and you have some impulse that seems to avoid sleep at the last moment. i don't think it's far from the mark to say sleep requires ego death so the ego avoids it. that little voice that likes to hang onto things may not like his control being handed over to sleep.

generic advice for insomniacs is my suggestion.

i've noticed we have a lot in common along these lines qualia but i don't share your strong attachment to the waking world. my dreams are so creative i can hardly believe i'm the author, i really treasure them.

Edited October 5, 2012 by ThunderIdeal

[∂an]

I feel your pain qualia; good deep sleep is absolutely critical to wellbeing. but it sounds like your on the right track. ever noticed how yawning is often accompanied by spontaneous stretching? meditation and stretching before sleep can help relax the mind and the body, as you found. make your body fill nice and comfortable, and not all stiff and knotted up.

pharmacologically, melatonin can really help some people reset their sleep rhythm or induce sleep. I find a good strategy is to go through your usual pre-sleep routine of drinking tea, stretching, brushing teeth, reading a book etc and then when you have attained a degree of sleepiness naturally that might allow you to go to sleep, then take maybe 1mg of melatonin to push you over the edge. works very well.

also low dose amanita muscaria and plant based MAOI's can help with the anxiety associated with sleeping problems.

I have noticed that the quality of my sleep (i.e. how good I feel in the morning) is directly proportional to the vividness and lucidity of my dreams. often 6 hours of sleep where I go deep into what I assume is REM with vivid imagery and interaction with other people/entities is worth more than 8 hours of not so deep sleep. the latter can often happen after too much booze or weed.

to be honest, dreaming is probably now my favourite altered state. where we go in this state, every night, is a total mystery. what are all these weird beings and places that are strangely familiar? why did I dream of a creature with a gapping void where their chest should have been last night? in what universe do they have oblong shaped amanita mushrooms that ooze blood? i guess my in the universe of twisted psyche...

[C_T]

the mechanism in the brain controlling sleep and awake, and sleep and rem, are seperate

so sometimes (mostly when sleep deprived) there's a chance of the above process happening out of order...

so a range of sides can effect from its poss posabilities, i won't spell them out and let your imagination take wild

Edited October 6, 2012 by C_T

[whitewind]

My partner is an incredibly light sleeper, and her sleep patterns have improved no end since she started taking melatonin. She can't recommend it enough..

[C_T]

think you've said that atleast 3x already, sounding like advertising yo

[whitewind]

Me? Never said it before in my life. Just reinforcing everyone else's recommends.

[chilli]

think you've said that atleast 3x already, sounding like advertising yo

 

you will find melatonin mentioned regularly in any informed discussion about sleep