- seCtIon FIVe: BoRDeRLAnDs
Why does becoming lucid feel like waking up, or
becoming more conscious or more ‘myself ’? An
early suggestion was that high levels of cortical
activation might be needed to realise it’s a dream
(LaBerge, 1988). Twenty years later, EEG studies
found differences between lucid and non-lucid
dreams in the beta frequency band (13–19 Hz,
usually associated with waking), with the largest
difference in the left parietal lobe, suggesting
a link with language and perhaps the ability to
understand the words ‘I am dreaming’ (Holzinger
et al., 2006). As noted earlier, increases in the gamma range have also been found, espe-
cially at 40 Hz, as well as increased ‘global networking’ across the brain. In other words,
more long-range connections are made during lucid dreaming, which might mean
more links between self-processing, memory, and thinking (Voss et al., 2009).
In REM sleep, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), an area whose functions
include planning, working memory, and cognitive flexibility, is deactivated com-
pared with waking. If this explains our lack of insight in ordinary dreams, then we
might expect DLPFC to be more active in lucid than ordinary dreams, and this
was found in the first ever study of lucid dreaming in an fMRI scanner (Dresler et
al., 2012). As for the sense of self, the precuneus, on the inner side of the parietal
lobes, is also deactivated during REM (Dresler et al., 2012). Since this area relates
to self-referential processing, including first-person perspective and the sense of
agency, the greater activation of parietal lobes during lucid dreaming might help
explain why lucidity brings a sense of being more ‘myself ’. Although these are
only first hints of progress, lucid dreams are no longer considered beyond the
pale but are becoming a promising tool for investigating consciousness. We can
learn more in this direction by turning our attention to two kinds of experience
even stranger than lucid dreams: out-of-body and near-death experiences.
OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES
I was lost in the music, Grateful Dead or Pink Floyd I think it was, and
rushing down a dark tunnel of leaves towards the light, when my friend
asked ‘Where are you?’ I struggled to answer, trying to bring myself back
to the room where I knew my body was sitting. Suddenly everything
became crystal clear. I was looking down on the three of us sitting there.
I watched, amazed, as the mouth below said ‘I’m on the ceiling’. Later
I went travelling, flying above the roofs and out across the sea. Eventually
things changed and I became first very small and then very big. I became
as big as the whole universe, indeed I was the whole universe. There
seemed no time, and all space was one. Yet, even then, I was left with the
knowledge that ‘However far you go, there’s always something further’.
The whole experience lasted about two hours. It changed my life.
An OBE is an experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a loca-
tion outside their physical body. This definition is important because it is neutral as to
the explanation required. An OBE is an experience, so if you feel as though you have
left your body, you have, by definition, had an OBE. During an OBE you feel as thoughCount to 5HR 71 min-1 HR 81 min-1RR 19 min-1 RR 29 min-1 RR 22 min-1
3sExercising 10 squats Countto5
EEGEOGECGRESP
EMG
FIGURE 15.9 • Recording of a correctly signalled
lucid dream. Five clear left-right-
left-right eye-movement signals
are shown in the EOG channel.
Typical for REM sleep: EEG
channel shows low-voltage mixed
frequency and the muscle tone in
the EMG channel is very low. The
respiration rate and heart rate
increase while performing squats
in the lucid dreams (after Erlacher
and Schredl, 2008, p. 10).