Have you ever had a magical dream waking up the next morning and you cannot remember it? Have you ever felt worried about forgetting your dreams? Ever wondered why you cannot remember what happened during your sleep then carried a sensation that it was something important? What if someone gave you the power ball numbers while dreaming, but you cannot remember it? If you cannot remember your dreams, blame it on the toothpaste you are using or practice a magical method that is going to make you dream in a lucid state. Interesting right?
Remembering your dreams is not easy. Most of the time, what you remember are the funny parts or the unusual things that you try to put together in order for it to make sense. Sometimes you cannot remember anything at all. The reasons for these problems could be a calcified pineal gland.
“The pineal gland, also known as the pineal body, conarium or epiphysis cerebri, is a small endocrine gland in the vertebrate brain. It produces the serotonin derivative melatonin, a hormone that affects the modulation of sleep patterns in the circadian rhythms and seasonal functions. Its shape resembles a tiny pine cone (hence its name), and it is located in the epithalamiums, near the center of the brain, between the two hemispheres, tucked in a groove where the two rounded thalamic bodies join”.( Pineal Gland) . Also known as the ‘Third Eye’ it is considered a bridge between physical and metaphysical, this gland acts like a clock regulating the sleep-wake cycle. It produces melatonin, which helps you to stay awake during the day and makes you fall asleep at night. The pineal gland could be calcified or blocked after many years and could be also affected by other reasons.
At this point you should kn...
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• Aitchison, Steven.“ 5 Ways To Start Lucid Dreaming “. Change your Toughts. n.d. Web. 22 March.2014
• Aitchison, Steven.“ 7 Steps to Strat Lucid Dreaming". LifehackRSS. Stepcase Limited. 25 August 2012. Web. 22 March 2014.< http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/7-steps-to-start-lucid-dreaming.html>
• Alex.“Why Lucid Dream?“ . Lucid Dreaming Dream Views RSS . n.d. 4 Apr. 2014< http://www.dreamviews.com/content/why-lucid-dream-18/>
• LaBerge, S. & Levitan, L. Lucid Dreaming FAQ. The Lucidity Institute, 16 July 2004. Web. 22 March 2014.
• Shetiyah, Eden.“Activating your Pineal Gland“. Welcome to in5d. 3 September 2013. Web. 26 March 2014.
In 1977, Drs. Allen Hobson and Robert McCarley of Harvard University presented a neurophysiological model of the dream process called: The Activation- synthesis Model of Dreaming. This paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggested that the occurrence of dreaming sleep is physiologically determined by a "dream state generator" located in the brain stem. The main emphasis of the Activation-synthesis theory is dreaming is not psychological but physiological. This totally contradicts all that Freud preached, however he was absolutely correct about one aspect of dreaming, which is every stage involves sexual arousal. Hobson/ McCarley's extensive research proves dreaming to be physiological on the basis of the predictability of dreaming sleep. The duration of dreaming sleep is also constant, which suggests the dreaming process as not only automatic and periodic but metabolically determined. This find contradicts the classic Freudian theory of a driving force behind all dreams. Hobson and McCarley see our poor ability to recall our dreams as reflecting "a state-dependent amnesia, since a carefully effected state change, to waking, may produce abundant recall even of highly charged dream material." So with that logic in mind if you are rapidly awakened out of REM sleep, you are likely to remember dreams that you would otherwise forget.
Webb, W. B., & Cartwright, R. D. (1978). Sleep and Dreams. Annual Review of Psychology, 29(1), 223-252. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.29.020178.001255
Blackmore, Susan, ed. "Lucid Dreaming: Awake in Your Sleep?." Dr. Susan Blackmore. Skeptical Inquirer . Web. 13 Apr 2014. .
Dimethyltriptamine, better known as DMT, is the most common drug in existence, seeing as how the human brain produces it naturally. DMT is produced in the pineal gland, also referred to as “The Third Eye” because of its position in the center of the forehead. In addition to DMT, the pineal gland also secretes melatonin and serotonin. Those two hormones are responsible for feelings of happiness and bliss, and meditative states of consciousness or sleep. DMT is what is responsible for the feeling of time slowing down, traveling through time, or traveling to alternate universes or separate planes of existence. It is also thought that when you come face to face with a near death situation, the feeling of seeing your life flash before your eyes is a result of an intense DMT trip. Dr. Strassman proposed that, after death, decomposing pineal tissue might empty DMT directly into the spinal fluid, which allows it to reach the brain's sensory and emotional centers, thus causing residual awareness. "The consequence of this flood of DMT upon our dying brain-based mind", Strassman wrote, "is a pulling back of the veils normally hiding what Tibetan Buddhists call the bardo, or intermediary states ...
studying the subject, the origins in the brain responsible for sleep are still not fully understood and thus, facilitate continual probes
Sleep is an extremely interesting phenomenon in which the mind almost completely departs from the usual realm of consciousness. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness and a decreased ability to react to stimuli where we become less aware of our surroundings. However, it is more easily reversed than being in hibernation or a coma. It is a function that has been extensively researched by many. After all, we would not have evolved a mechanism that forces us to spend one-third of our lives sleeping unless sleep did us some good. What good does it do tough? Over the years, many theories have been proposed as to why we need sleep. The simplest is that it saves energy. An individual’s energy expenditure and demand is reduced during the day, or night, as an animalistic instinct when they are least efficient to search for food. This is also supported by the decrease of body temperature and caloric demand throughout sleep. For example, when NASA sent a robot to mars, it was programmed to shut down at night so exploration would not waste energy. This is like our bodies, as they need time to recuperate and to slow down. In addition, sleep provides an occasion for restorative functions of the brain where the body is allowed sufficient time to repair and rejuvenate itself. For example, animals that are deprived of sleep entirely lose all their immune function and will soon die in a matter of weeks. Other findings have shown that many restorative functions in the body like tissue repair, muscle growth, and growth hormone occur mainly during sleep. When people are deprived of sleep, inhibitory transmitters accumulate in the brain, interfering with attention and learning. People that are well rested will notice when their attention lapses, a...
Kales, A. (1972). The evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders : Pharmacological and psychological studies. In M. Chase (ed.)The Sleeping Brain. Los Angeles : Brain Information Service.
LaBerge, Stephen. "Lucid Dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies Of Consciousness During REM Sleep." (1990). Web. 30 Apr. 2014
Rodríguez, Leonardo S. "The Interpretation Of Dreams [1900]." Australian & New Zealand Journal Of Psychiatry 35.3 (2001): 396-401. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
...esults. One interesting thing found, is that although it is though that dreams happen in a blink of an eye that they actually happen in a realistic time span (General Information). Another is that dreams generally take place in familiar settings and are random leftover thoughts from the previous day. What’s interesting though, is that during studies in which participants were woken on a regular basis, scientists found that the dreams remembered the following morning were “more coherent, sexier, and generally more interesting” than the dream descriptions that were collected in data for research. Most participants remembered very little of their dreams and only about the last fifteen minutes of dreaming before awoken.
Despite the large amount of time we spend asleep, surprisingly little is actually known about sleeping and dreaming. Much has been imagined, however. Over history, sleep has been conceived as the space of the soul, as a state of absence akin to death, as a virtual or alternate reality, and more recently, as a form of (sub)consciousness in which memories are built and erased. The significance attributed to dreams has varied widely as well. The Ancient Greeks had surprise dream encounters with their gods. Native Americans turned to their dreams for guidance in life. Shamans dreamed in order to gather information from the spirits.
In the novel, Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M Coetzee, the magistrate’s progressive, non-linear dreams are a parallel to his growing involvement with the barbarians and his growing distaste for the empire. The great psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud said, “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious.” In every dream there is a hidden meaning and when the reader starts analyzing the magistrate’s dreams he reveals that he is oddly attracted to the barbarians and knows he should not get involved and it will be a trial to get close to them.
Dreams are series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Dreams occur during a certain stage of sleep known as REM. Several different psychologists, including Freud and Hobson, have studied dreams. Psychologists have provided many theories as to what dreams are and the meanings behind them.
We spend one third of our lives sleeping and 15-20% of that time is spent dreaming. (1) Dreams are a sequence of images that appear involuntary to the mind of somebody who is sleeping, often a mixture of real and imaginary characters, places, and events, according to the Encarta dictionary. There are many types of dreams. Lucid dreams can be the most fascinating if one can master them. In lucid dreams you realize that you are dreaming and instead of automatically waking up you stay asleep and control every aspect of your dream. Your thoughts can effortlessly paint any dreamscape and you have full mental faculties as you would if you were awake.(4) Your imagination is the limit! Another more mysterious type of dream is precognitive dreams. This is where time and space no longer seem to fit any rational logical meaning. Precognition is an ability to know and experience a future event before it ever occurs (4) Many experience this type of dream and slowly forget it over time, until it happens in real life. When it occurs in real life you automatically feel a sense of déjà vu and you notice something familiar about the s...
To sum up, lucid dreaming happens when the brain switches into waking mode inside the dream. In comparison to normal dreams, where one’s self awareness is shut down, the conscious brain in lucid dreaming wakes up during sleep. Based on scientific research, this is a safe and natural state and it is not a literal out of the body experience as the dreamer always remains asleep in bed. Furthermore, when one becomes lucid in a dream state, their senses become more alive and are free to explore the inner workings of their subconscious mind. Lucid dreaming has also proved to be a powerful mental tool. To conclude, lucid dreaming exists and in no way should equate to belittle the subject at hand.