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 achieve 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:Inactive
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 s
peed 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.
So cannabinoids and serotonin reuptake blockers act on opposite direction as
far as time perception is concerned.
On the other hand,psilocin has an usual effect on time perception as the
movements of people under psilocin seem to be decreased! People seem to move
more slowly than usual.
This may mean that the speed of attenuation is increased,contrary to
haschich.However,subjective time perception is not modified.
To be continued) Claude Rifat(with K.Grandchamp account)
