Sleep, Lucid Dreams and the
Prefrontal Cortex
The simple process of visualization, combined with naturally
relaxing sounds, will induce sleep onset. This technique has worked wonders
for me and is the central idea behind our website. While this site is
dedicated to helping people relax and sleep there is one interesting side
effect that occasionally happens. Every blue moon; while listening,
relaxing and visualizing, I find myself aware that I am dreaming. I am
awake, yet in a dream. I am lucid dreaming.
A scientific fact:
Visualizing and dreaming occur
in the same area of our big human brain. They both occur in the secondary
visual cortices (collectively called the cortex) that are
found in the occipital lobe of our gray matter.
Now, I am a relatively savvy dreamer. Lucid dreaming and I go way
back. I was lucid dreaming before lucid dreaming was cool. Last
night, however, I had a dream that should have made me LD (lucid dream). In
the dream I was at a sleepover with a bunch of folks. We were packed into a
small room. We were in sleeping bags. I noticed someone breathing heavily
on me, from above. I looked up and saw Dick Cheney (yes, the former V.P.) ,
head in hands, leaning over me. He was in distress. He was very thin as I
helped him lay down. I felt his heartbeat. It was racing. Someone came over
to me and said 'he will be okay now'. Keep in mind that I don't give a
rat's gobblie-goop for Dick Cheney. This dream was so outrageous that I
would have normally recognized it as such and proceeded to have some lucid
dream fun. But I did not. This is because my Prefrontal Cortex was
inactive.
Sleep and the Prefrontal
Cortex
The part of our big human brain that handles cognitive thought is
called the Prefrontal Cortex. It exists directly behind our
forehead. Normally this area of our gray matter is off during
dreaming, as was the case in my Dick Cheney dream. If this area did not
deactivate during dreams then we would all be quite insane. However, when
one is lucid dreaming the prefrontal cortex is still active.
Although there are certainly transcendental and spiritual implications to
lucid dreaming, they could be considered as an accidental look into the
mechanics of human perception. LD's are a dream anomaly... and quite
exhilarating.
Think of your prefrontal
cortex as your Internet browser. If you 'right click' on this web page and
select 'view source' you will see HTML code that probably looks like
a bunch of gobblie-goop to most people. That is akin to a dream with the
prefrontal cortex turned off. When you are awake and aware your
mental browser; decoding HTML and putting it into a format you can
understand, sees things in their proper format. When you are asleep
and dreaming your brain sees gobblie-goop and tries to make of it as much
sense as it can with the prefrontal cortex inactive.
I do not know why lucid dreams occur. Why the prefrontal cortex
occasionally remains active during sleeping and dreaming is beyond me. But
it sure is fun when it happens. Click here for our page on How to Lucid Dream.
P.S. If you are
writing a scientific or college paper, and reference the prefrontal cortex,
you might want consider leaving out the term 'gobblie-goop'.
