There has been quite a stir in the media this week about the use of gamma frequency radiation signals, to prompt the induction of lucid dreams and I would like to share my view on the matter. Where do we stand regarding technology and lucid dreaming?
I think we should approach this matter with caution, as the risk we face here is the often nebulous schism that seems to separate science and spirituality. The argument, I frequently hear, is that lucid dreaming should be pursued “naturally” and any technological interfacing of the process would allude to something less spiritual.
Well, to put things in perspective, I might ask how any of us have pursued our process today, did we take automated transport, have we employed cellular phone technology, what about the clothes we are wearing, did we hand stitch them or are the machine woven?
Technology is a word and what it implies is not somehow distinct from nature, as people of often imply, we are nature doing nature. If a bird builds a nest, how is that so different to us building a sky scraper?
Labeling lucid dreaming as an exclusively spiritual practice is neither very scientific nor is it spiritual as one is judging the process and tying it up with some cultural notion. The truth is that nobody really knows what lucid dreaming is, except that it is important and and looking increasingly like the next most logical place for the self reflective mind to explore.
So instead of standing on some proverbial Luddite platform, spouting cultural propaganda, we should consider the matter not as an “either/or” situation but instead a “both/and” as we should look first and foremost to make this process possible for people.
Now before anyone shouts “Yes but anyone can do it with enough practice!” - Can anyone jump 6 feet with enough practice? Let’s not be naive about matters which we simply cannot quantify. Lucid dreaming is amazing, it is probably the most interesting thing a conscious being can contemplate, so let’s embrace it together and keep cultural notions out of it.
I, for one, am a firm advocate of technology, as I see what we are doing as no more (and perhaps even less so) sophisticated than a plant turning light into energy, we are all nature doing its thing, so let’s keep doing it well.
In closing, I would like to announce to everyone that we have a new partner working with the site - iWinks - the creators of The Aurora Headband. They are a really productive team with their finger firmly pressed on the pulse of lucid dream technology and their game changing device scooped a massive $239,094 on Kickstarter. These guys are, in my view, the leading tech team on lucid dream research and I hope people support them by checking out and postng out about their product, which we are featuring on the home site. Link here - https://iwinks.org/
Dream Share Experiment is on the 31st this month, so passwords ready and let’s keep at this, who knows where the future will take us, but rest assured it will be exciting!!
R
Meditation means different things to many different people, so I guess all I can offer here is my definition of what it means to me. We live in a world that is constantly bombarded by stimulation and these stimuli, in turn cause us to behave in the way that we do. For the most part, that means that we are, in many ways, a product of our process. That is to say that we are all prone to acting out according to what we perceive to be our prevailing circumstances, without giving much thought to how our actions might actually affect other people.
