CONSCIOUS DREAMS,SCHIZOPHRENIA,etc

[Keneth Grandchamp]

Rêve Conscient
Conscious Dreams
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I have discovered conscious dreams in I976 and published about that in 
I979/I98O/I98I in France.In my articles I described what distinguishes 
this form of dream from normal oneiric phenomena.Conscious dream 
is,wrongly,called "lucid" dream in english.I will describe,here,a simple 
and efficient method in order to induce this kind of dream.Moreover,I 
strongly believe that when most people will be able to 
enter,voluntarily,in the virtual world of their dream world this will 
change,drastically,society.Manipul
ating your own mind in conscious dreams cannot be compared with the 
highly primitive manipulations of computer generated virtual realities...
It is far more easy to enjoy the virtual reality which is in your own 
mind than trying to enjoy primitive virtual realities generated by 
computers! To that effect,you need no money,nothing,except exercising!

How to achive conscious dreams
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In order to become proficient in conscious dreams you need to exercise at 
least one hour per night,very,very regularly.Regularity is of prime 
importance in order to be able to penetrate,voluntarily,in your 
endogenous world or ENDOREALITY.Going,at will,in your endoreality is one 
of the most rewarding experience you can have in your life as you enter 
in the reality which is completely yours and where no body,no Inquisitor 
can follow you to prevent you from just enjoying yourself.When you can 
achieve this,t
he exogenous reality or EXOREALITY become less "real",less stressing,less 
borring as you can,now,consider willingly exoreality as dream-like,even 
it is not a dream! But being able to consider exoreality as 
oneiric-like,oneiric-mimetic,gives you much more freedom and 
self-confidence as you have now new values,new ways of seeings things.
So here are the exercises you should,regularly,do in order to learn to 
penetrate consciously in your endoreality:
I.Before going to sleep,sit or lie in your bed for at least 3O minutes.
2.In total darkness,just FOCUS your attention on darkness and try to 
VISUALISE simple images,like the image of a triangle,a square,a leaf,or 
something which gives you pleasure.For instance,focusing your visual 
attention on sexual images will ameliorate your concentration!
If you are a man you can focus your attention on images of a breast,of 
buttocks,of legs,etc
If you are a woman focus your attention on a part of man's anatomy which 
triggers your sexual desires.
The purpose of this exercise is to teach you how to 
activate,specifically,some of your memory zones in order to achieve the 
generation of controlled hallucinations.This is a very difficult exercise 
but it will train your consciousness to control itself.
In the beginning if you focus your attention on,let say,a triangle,you 
will observe the appearance of a faint triangular shape in the darkness 
and you will discover that this triangle will have a strong tendency to 
move,rotate,or simply disappear to be replaced by another faint 
image.Such faint images are called DISSATENUATED images.A clear and 
controlled hallucinated image is called a completely disattenuated 
image,while faint images are called partially disattenuated images.We 
will explain this later.

To see a memorised image as clearly as a real image means that you 
activate the metabolism of a memory zone where this image is 
stored.Selective metabolic activation of memory zones gives you a lot of 
power in your dreams and,also,surprisingly,in the exoreality where we all 
live.
3.While focusing your attention on INFORMATIONAL OBJECTS(a stored image 
of an object perceived in exoreality is called likewise)try your best to 
forget the boundaries of your body.
4.Try not to move at all and breathe deeply and regularly,like someone 
who is sleeping.
5.When 3O minutes or more have elapsed,just go to sleep but you still 
have to wake up in the early morning!
6.Wake up early in the morning,between 4 or 5 and just repeat the whole 
exercise.
After some weeks or months of such a training it will,once,happen that 
you will make your first conscious dream,in the second phase of your 
exercise,that is in early morning.You will remember that as an 
extraordinary experience as you will discover that reality is only made 
of perceptions.Reality for all of us is what we consciously perceive.It 
does not matter from where the incoming information flows,from exoreality 
or endoreality.Evolution has put in our central nervous system(C.N.S)a 
mechanism which e
rases the consciousness of our dreams.If it did not do so,all of us would 
have chosen to live in our respective endorealities and our species would 
just be extinct!
Just see how people are running into exceedingly primitive 
computer-generated virtual realities.Imagine what would happen if all 
people could go,at will,in the ultimate virtual reality of their own 
mind!!! The mercantilistic society which now prevails would just become 
extinct as,in our endoreality,we can achieve everything we want at no 
cost at all.The only cost is learning.Life would me more tranquil as 
people would cease to compete and to run,desperately,after "exoreal" 
objects in order to run,instead
,after their own informational objects...
The discovery of our endoreality will be the new "alphabetisation" of the 
human kind as this will be a complete revolution which will transform our 
societies in ways we cannot yet imagine.

There are two ways of penetrating into a conscious dream
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I.In the first case,when you will do your second round of exercises,now 
lying in your bed,you will notice the following phenomena which will tell 
you that you are on the verge of crossing the frontier between exoreality 
and endoreality:you may notice a buzzing sound in your ears or,more 
often,you will feel,suddenly,that your body "becomes light" and moves 
upwards.Then you may,all of a suddeen,see a very bright three dimensional 
image just in front of your eyes.Do not become excited,do not panic! Stay 
ver
y calm because if you become excited or even just move your finger,then 
the marvellous image will instantly disappear and you will have lost the 
opportunity to make your first exploration of your endoreality! Be 
tranquil,observe the image.Suddenly,you will become a part of this image 
and you will find yourself with an informational body,that is an oneiric 
body which is,exactly,like your exoreal body.Do not be too 
excited.Breathe slowly now that you are in your dream reality!Then go for 
exploration.
2.In the second case,you will feel the same phenomena but no image will 
appear and you may just think you are still in your exoreal bed.Don't be 
so sure! Leave your bed and try to put some light.If you fail,this may 
mean you actually penetrated in your endoreality as,often,in conscious 
dreams lights do not turn on.If there is no light,just open your 
window.Then look at your room for details.Is everything in its correct 
place? If your room differs from your normal room,then you can be sure 
you are in a dr
eam and,of course,if you slept at let say 4:3O and when you opened your 
window you discovered a full sunny day,with modifications of the 
surroudings,you will now,for sure know that you successfully 
penetrated,consciously,into your own memory!Then do the same as explained 
before:go for exploration,quietly.If you do not remain calm,you may just 
wake up.

What to do in a Conscious Dream?
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This is not an obvious question.The first thing you should do in a 
conscious dream is just to observe your endoreality and compare it with 
exoreality.Try to meet oneiric people,speak with them,kiss them if you 
like,etc! After a while you will fully realise that endoreality and 
exoreality are similarly vivid,"real" and that you were,before,just like 
a child who never learned to read.You did not know that so many things 
happened in your mind when you were sleeping!You 
always,erroneously,believed that "drea
ms" were "only" dreams and could be distinguished from exoreality.And you 
believed so because you suffered from amnesia due to lack of training.You 
will realise,especially if you are a neuroscientist,that there are no 
clear-cut differences between the two realities except that both obey to 
different laws:exoreality obeys to the physical laws discovered by 
Science and endoreality obeys to the laws of the neurophysiology of 
memory.You will soon discover that exoreality is devoid of 
EXTRAORDINARITY while en
doreality is full of extraordinarity.In your endoreality any 
extraordinary thing can happen:you may speak to a cat or be transformed 
into a woman,if you are a woman;you may transform yourself in another 
person or in a passion-fruit flower,you may become,simultaneously,two or 
three persons AT THE SAME TIME,etc.
You can divide yourself into two persons,let say a woman and a man,and 
just,then,make love with yourself! This is an extraordinary fullfilling 
experience which cannot be described in exoreal terms.You have to 
discover it by yourself.All these virtual experiences will make you see 
exoreality into a totally transformed way as,endoreality,will then be to 
you like a space of great freedom while exoreality will be considered 
like a form of prison,because exoreality is,totally,devoid,of 
extraordinarity.
Slowly,slowly you will also get a sense that exoreality is,perhaps,not as 
real as we think but that it might be just a part of an unknown 
hyper-reality of which we are totally unaware.Already modern physicists 
can guess of such hyper-realities into which our own reality would only 
be a small,"illusory",part.For instance,Andréï Linde,a renown 
physicist,described a model of the universe(called the inflationnary 
fractal universe)which just looks like what we could guess of 
hyper-reality.
When you are in a conscious dream,you will first enjoy,meet loving women 
or men,make oneiric friends,visit Tahiti or Havai'i(Hawaii),the moon or 
mars,etc.Of course all these experiences are imaginary but so is 
imaginary your own life in exoreality!
After that,you should analyse the oneiric world,for instance you can try 
now to evaluate what is the degree of freedom that you and your oneiric 
partners have in the endoreality.Doing this,you will,one day,discover 
that oneiric people are HYBRIDS between yourself and between what you 
think you know about others.For instance,oneiric people can answer to any 
question the same exoreal people could not answer.They can be influenced 
by your thoughts,etc.They are not always free to behave like they do 
and,most
 often,their volition is very weak in front of your own volition.
There are a lot of things to explore and analyse in conscious dreams. I 
will explain,now, some of the things I have discovered,since I976,when I 
first penetrated into a conscious dream.

About different states of consciousness and "new" concepts(I976)
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I will explain,later,in more details,why I call hallucinations 
"disattenuated images".Basically,this stems from the fact that our brain 
is equipped with a structure called the ATTENUATOR of which the function 
is to control,like a kind of potentiometer,the quantity of information 
flowing from memory to consciousness.An imaginary image of an exoreal 
object is,thus,a fully attenuated image while the same hallucinated image 
is called a fully disattenuated image.When we dream the Attenuator ceases 
functioning
 and so information flows freely and unhampered to 
consciousness.Hallucinogens are,in fact,disattenuating molecules while 
serotoninergics,like the specific serotonin re-uptake blockers,are 
pro-attenuation molecules meaning that they increase the degree of 
attenuation of recalled stored memories.Conversly,disattenuating 
molecules increase the degree of informational flow from memory to 
consciousness.This process is called "disattenuation".
The brain is also equipped of another very important structure called,in 
French,the Dérepixélisateur,which could be translated,into english,as the 
"Disrepixelisator" or D.R.P.The DRP is responsible of the continuity of 
our consciousness during waking time.During dreaming,the DRP also stops 
functionning,thus introducing discontinuity in our thoughts which become 
fragmented,like in schizophrenia.In fact,schizophrenia is,essentially,a 
disease of the DRP which is malfunctioning.The DRP is so responsible for 
the normality of our consciousness during our waking time.We do not know 
yet which brain structures are involved in the DRP but one structure 
which seems to be a part of this system is the hippocampus.
The DRP controls the informationalal structure of our consciousness and 
maintains the stability of this structure.The DRP is,very probably,a 
system which controls the intensity of metabolism in those zones which 
give rise to consciousness.When metabolic activity is low in these 
zones,then we have our normal structure of cousciousness.The structure of 
consciousness is also called a "pixelisation pattern"(motif de 
pixélisation,in French).When metabolic activity becomes elevated,then our 
consciousness disso
lves into a mosaic of unrelated informational events.During our waking 
time,the DRP maintains a low metabolism in the zones of our brain 
responsible for consciousness.So the DRP(and also the Attenuator!)is a 
metabolic modulator.Understanding how the DRP works is understanding many 
different states of consciousness,from the normal waking type of 
consciousness to the dream or schizophrenic types of consciousness.The 
functioning of the DRP and the Attenuator are interelated.Depending on 
these interelations 
you will get different states of consciousness.There is also another 
system which is fundamental in order to understand different states of 
consciousness.It is called the S.B.E.M(système de blocage des éfférences 
motrices)in French and I will keep the same acronym in English.

Different states of consciousness are generated via the mutual 
interactions of the Attenuator,DRP and S.B.E.M.
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The way the DRP,the Attenuator and the S.B.E.M work together determines 
differents states of consciousness,depending upon the states of activity 
or inactivity of these integrated structures.
For instance, the normal waking state of consciousness will be defined 
likewise:
Attenuator:Active
DRP:Active
S.B.E.M:Inactive
The normal dreaming state will,thus,be:
Attenuator:Inactive
DRP:Inactive
S.B.E.M:Active
The conscious dream state will be:
Attenuator:Inactive
DRP:Active
S.B.E.M:Active
The hallucinatory schizophrenic state will be:
Attenuator:Active
DRP:Inactive
S.B.E.M:Inactive
The non-hallucinatory schizophrenic state will be:
Attenuator:Active
DRP:Inactive
S.B.E.M:Inactive
Hallucinatory states, drug induced, will be:
Attenuator:More or less inactive
DRP:Active
S.B.E.M:Inactive
 Make yourself proficient in conscious dreams as this will be the next 
human revolution to come,a revolution as important as the discovery of 
fire or of writing.


Continuity and Discontinuity of Consciousness
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The main characteristic of the dream and schizophrenic state of 
consciousness is discontuinity.When we are awake our consciousness is 
continuous and this is the reason why we can express ourselves in a 
verbally "logical" way.On the contrary the consciousness of the 
schizophrenic or the dreamer is made of continuous and discontinuous 
parts,alternatively.The nature of these discontinuities come from the way 
our memory is organised and structured.Biological memories are not 
sequential memories:they store in
formation both in a continuous and discontinuous way.Discontuinity comes 
from the fact that our memory classifies information through 
motifs,patterns.In fact,the brain has nothing to do with the computer 
analogy as a brain is,actually,a pattern analyser not a sequential 
analyser like computers.Computers will become intelligent only when they 
will work as artificial pattern analysers.As long as they will work 
sequentially they will continue to be complete imbeciles,just machines!
Our memory so stores information according to patterns.For instance 
spherical objects will be stored in the same memory area,triangular 
objects will be stored in their own memory area,etc.
An area which stores homologous pattern is called,in French,a "Domaine 
d'homologie motifielle" which may be translasted as  "homologous pattern 
domain".For instance all the heads off people we have seen in our life 
are stored in a common homologous pattern domain which can be called,for 
convenience,a "pattern domain of heads"!
In the consciousness of normal people,those domains are,always,in a very 
low metabolic state.Thus,the patterns stored in these domains do not 
RADIATE outside.Metabolically inactive patterns,then,do not enter into 
consciousness making our consciousness rather continuous.If the metabolic 
status of these domains is increased,then these domains start to radiate 
in all directions of our memory,introducing discontinuity,as our 
consciousness will start to flow according to pattern homologies.This can 
be very we
ll observed with the psychotropic cannabinoids as 
cannabinoids,specifically,enhance the metabolism of homologous pattern 
domains thus giving rise to the typical discontinuous thoughts of a 
person intoxicated with cannabinoids.This,in fact,is the beginning of 
madness as pure madness will be characterised by a still higher metabolic 
activity in these domains.The thoughts of  schizophrenics will so 
be,essentially,discontinuous and this discontinuity will ,naturally,put 
them  in a state of total confusion as
 their consciousness will,then,become ILLUSIONISED.

The Illusionised Consciousness
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When your consciousness is illusionised you can no longer recognise what 
you perceive from exoreality. To be properly conscious of an exogenous 
pattern this specific pattern should be compared to its endogenous 
counterpart stored in our memory.If is is,erroneously,compared to a 
different pattern then our consciousness is illusionised:we are no more 
in adequation with the external(exogenous)reality.This is the essence of 
madness.
When homologous pattern domains are very active metabolically then proper 
recognition of exogenous patterns is disturbed and consciousness becomes 
"fragmented" because it,in fact,radiates in different stored homologous 
patterns.So,schizophrenia is a state of hypermnesia.There is a limit to 
the quantity of homologous patterns which can be recalled per unit of 
time.When this limit is crossed,then we become crazy or we start,also,to 
dream!This means that no drug will ever be invented which could intensify 
o
ur recalls indefinitely as indefinite recall just generates consciousness 
radiation,that is confusion! Cannabinoids are memory enhacers but,under 
their influence,we remember so many things that we just forget them 
nearly as soon as we have remembered them!!! To the outside observer,this 
looks like amnesia but this is,actually,hypermnesia.

When two forms of drug-induced amnesia mutually cancel...
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This explains why the combination of benzodiazepines and cannabinoids(two 
molecules inducing "amnesia")can lead to mutual suppression of their 
side-effects on memory as benzodiazepines lower metabolism,meaning that 
they also diminish consciousness radiation.By adjusting the doses of a 
benzodiazepine(like clonazepam,for instance)and of a cannabinoid you can 
enhance your recall abilities without falling into pseudo-amnesia,and get 
interesting scientific or philosophical insights.
Introspective observation with cannabinoids gives you a good 
understanding of the dreaming,or schizophrenic,mind  as cannabinoids 
are,primarily,illusiogenic molecules.You do not get the same insight with 
hallucinogens as hallucinations and illusions are completely different 
phenomena.An illusion is a state in which an exogenous pattern is not 
correctly identified while a hallucination is a state in which you 
perceive something which just exists in your memory.In an hallucination 
you memory adds something
 to the exogenous perceived reality while in an illusion your memory 
wrongly identifies an exogenous pattern.
Illusions are fundamental in order to understand the oneiric and 
schizophrenic states of consciousness.
The only known illusiogens are,till now,the psychotropic cannabinoids.
Cannabinoids have a lot of properties different from the 
hallucinogens.For instance,they disrupt the speed of attenuation.This 
speed is decreased under cannabinoids and this phenomenon gives rise to 
"time dilatation" observed under these drugs.
Time perception is strongly modulated by serotonin.For instance,the 
specific serotonin re-uptake blockers,such as fluvoxamine or 
zimelidine,suppress the perception of time as thoughts are decreased in 
consciousness.The number of spontaneous thoughts per unit of time is 
essential in our subjective perception of time flow.When we have few 
thoughts per unit of time,then time flow seems slowed.On the 
contrary,when we have a lot of thoughts per 
unit of time,then time flow seems augmented.
Okay!More next time!
Claude Rifat,using Kenneth Grandchamp's account!