Neurophenomenology (Part 2)

Dreamlike vividness and immersion are qualities of imaginative activity that we can also experience during wake, for example when day-dreaming or when absorbed by a work of art. According to Thompson, it is not the salience of the imagined stimulus, but the attention that we accord it that determines what comes to the fore of dream consciousness. And dreaming, both lucid and non-lucid, is a trainable skill: Western lucid dreaming techniques as well as Tibetan practices of dream yoga can change the way the dreamer attends and attunes to the dream world. Lucidity during the practices of dream yoga, instead of being a strange state of paradoxical co-existence of dreaming and wake, is, on the contrary, an opportunity to train attention to be aware of, explore and sustain the dream state all the while recognizing its oneiric, immaterial nature. In other words, dream yoga is a means of observing and recognizing the spontaneous imaginative activity of the mind. Instead of a dissociation, Thompson argues that lucid dreaming shows the necessity for further exploration of various qualities of the dream state and that 'REM sleep under the right conditions, can support the witnessing awareness of dreaming'. Lucid dreams, however, should not be fetishized and seen as the 'best' way to dream, warns Thompson. Non-lucid dreams, where the dreamer is completely immersed in the dream scenario unaware of the fact that she is dreaming, are equally an integral part of what it is to be an imagining human being. Reflecting on a dream may have its own value for creativity and insight.

Thompson draws inspiration from the philosophical traditions of Yoga and Vedānta to investigate the possibilities of seeing 'deep' or 'dreamless' sleep as a mode of consciousness with its distinctive phenomenal qualities. Going against the typical neuroscientific account of the 'levels' of consciousness and stages of sleep, he suggests that deep sleep is characterized not by the absence of consciousness but by 'consciousness without an object' or, in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, by 'subtle consciousness' without sensory or cognitive content. his 'subtle consciousness' is not diminished consciousness or a state of unconsciousness, but rather a substrate, the 'basis upon which dreaming and waking consciousness arise'. Most contemporary sleep neuroscience holds that in 'deep sleep' (stages 3–4 of the non-REM sleep) consciousness disappears, and that dreaming, at least the full-blown immersive spatiotemporal narrative experience, is impossible. Thompson, however, challenges the equation of deep sleep with the absence of consciousness and argues that at the very least there is a kind of quality of subtle awareness that characterizes dreamless sleep, and that while untrained/naive individuals may not be able to report on its phenomenal qualities, reliance on reports of long-term practitioners of meditation such as Vipassana or dream yoga may yet illuminate distinct qualities of experience possible even in deep 'dreamless' sleep. Awakening a research participant from deep sleep is not an easy task: the sleeper must change his/her electrophysiological state in a rather dramatic manner: from 1 Hz average EEG activity (delta waves) to the 12–30 Hz (beta waves) characteristic of awake consciousness. While difficult, it is, however, not impossible. Most reports collected from deep sleep do not contain dreaming, and even in cases when they do, participants report disjointed, simple images or thoughts. Detailed investigation of experiential phenomena that take place in deep sleep require not only state-of-the art brain imagery equipment, but also trained participants, who, by virtue of their sustained contemplative practice, may have a privileged, fine-grained access to their own contents of awareness.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cku9wb5_upM