Category: The Mind

Dreams Posted on

1993: TESTING THE LIMITS OF DREAM CONTROL: THE LIGHT AND MIRROR EXPERIMENT

[From NIGHTLIGHT 5(2), Summer 1993, Copyright, The Lucidity Institute.] TESTING THE LIMITS OF DREAM CONTROL: THE LIGHT AND MIRROR EXPERIMENT by Lynne Levitan and Stephen LaBerge Lucid dreaming offers the promise of enhanced control over dreams. Yet the question remains quite unanswered of how much dream control is possible. The ability to have lucid dreams also makes possible a way to study this issue. After having attained lucidity in a dream, dreamers can choose to carry out predetermined experiments testing their ability to achieve certain goals. In the “Free Fall” issue of NightLight (Vol. 4, No. 4) we asked lucid dreamers to attempt certain tasks in lucid dreams and to report on the outcome. An introduction to the many viewpoints on dream control will […] Read More

Dreams Posted on

1991: OTHER WORLDS: “Out of Body experiences” and Lucid Dreams

by Lynne Levitan and Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. “Out of body” experiences (OBEs) are personal experiences during which people feel as if they are perceiving the physical world from a location outside of their physical bodies. At least 5 and perhaps as many as 35 of every 100 people have had an OBE at least once in their lives (Blackmore, 1982). OBEs are highly arousing; they can be either deeply disturbing or profoundly moving. Understanding the nature of this widespread and potent experience would no doubt help us better understand the experience of being alive and human. The simplest explanation is that OBEs are exactly what they seem: the human consciousness separating from the human body and traveling in a discorporate form in the physical […] Read More

Dreams Posted on

1989: How To Remember Your Dreams

Remembering your dreams is the starting place for learning to have lucid dreams. If you don’t recall your dreams, even if you do have a lucid dream, you won’t remember it! And, in order to be able to recognize your dreams as dreams while they are happening, you have to be familiar with the way your own dreams work. Before it will be worth your time to work on lucid dream induction methods, you should be able to recall at least one dream every night. Getting plenty of sleep is the first step to good dream recall. If you are rested it will be easier to focus on your goal of recalling dreams, and you won’t mind so much taking the time during the […] Read More

Music Posted on

WHAT CAN MUSIC TELL US ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE MIND?

A PLATONIC MODEL Brian D. Josephson Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K email: bdj10@cam.ac.uk and Tethys Carpenter Department of Music, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham, Surrey TW2 0EX, U.K. (conference proceedings to be published by MIT Press) ABSTRACT We present an account of the phenomenon of music based upon the hypothesis that there is a close parallel between the mechanics of life and the mechanics of mind, a key factor in the correspondence proposed being the existence of close parallels between the concepts of gene and musical idea. The hypothesis accounts for the specificity, complexity, functionality and apparent arbitrariness of musical structures. An implication of the model is that music should be seen as a phenomenon of transcendental character, involving […] Read More

Beliefs Posted on

The Purpose of Human Life!

We are Spiritual Beings on a Human Journey. All Spiritual Beings are aspects of Manifested Creation. Manifested Creation is Consciousness Evolving to higher Levels of Awareness. The Purpose of Human Life on Planet Earth is to give Human Souls the opportunity to live in physical bodies and by means of this process awaken them to higher levels of awareness. The ultimate state of human awareness is the Christ Consciousness or Buddhahood. This is the highest state of awareness possible for human beings. To raise more than 30 billion Human Souls to this level is the task of many Co-Creators and Higher Entities. They are in charge of this planet and its population. To raise these Human Souls to maturity and beyond is an enormous […] Read More

The Mind Posted on

The Elusivity of Nature and the Mind-matter problem

ABSTRACT This paper examines the processes involved in attempting to capture the subtlest aspects of nature by the scientific method and argues on this basis that nature is fundamentally elusive and may resist grasping by the methods of science. If we wish to come to terms with this resistance, then a shift in the direction of taking direct experience into account may be necessary for science’s future complete development. Paper What is matter and what is mind? Ren’e Descartes regarded these entities as being of totally different orders and completely separate from each other, although nowadays the conventional view is to consider mind function as reducible to the behaviour of matter. In this paper I want to propose a new theme in the mind-matter […] Read More

Consciousness Posted on

2012: The Elusivity of Nature and the Mind-matter problem

ABSTRACT This paper examines the processes involved in attempting to capture the subtlest aspects of nature by the scientific method and argues on this basis that nature is fundamentally elusive and may resist grasping by the methods of science. If we wish to come to terms with this resistance, then a shift in the direction of taking direct experience into account may be necessary for science’s future complete development. Paper What is matter and what is mind? Ren’e Descartes regarded these entities as being of totally different orders and completely separate from each other, although nowadays the conventional view is to consider mind function as reducible to the behaviour of matter. In this paper I want to propose a new theme in the mind-matter […] Read More

The Mind Posted on

Finding Reality Through Meditation

  By Ansley Roche January 18, 2006 When I first started to practice meditation, part of me dreaded taking a seat in the circle. I knew it was good for me, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing with my chatty little mind, and I was frustrated with the fact that sitting down to meditate brought out a narcoleptic tendency I didn’t know I had. The meditation leader would sound a bell to initiate the session and within 2 minutes, I would start the sway—sitting upright as I drifted off to sleep only to be jerked awake by my head falling forward: the sway. It didn’t take long to learn that during these sleep-deprived college years, I would need caffeine […] Read More

Beliefs Posted on

Why I Am An Agnostic

Clarence Darrow An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith. I would say that belief in at least three […] Read More

The Mind Posted on

Belief and Reality: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I am the creator of my reality – this belief is a very empowering one and one that is the cornerstone of many a mystical school. But what does it actually mean? “I am the creator of my reality” – it means that I am responsible for my thoughts and feelings, my attitudes and beliefs. Yes, fine. How do these create my reality? Well, my thoughts, feelings etc. are certainly responsible for my inner reality. But if  “I am smart and poor and you are rich and stupid” to borrow a line from the heroine of Erich Segal‘s “Love Story” I cannot change that external reality, or can I? If I am really smart I can use that smartness to become rich. If I […] Read More