The Dreamachine (or dream machine) is a stroboscopic flicker device that produces visual stimuli. Artist Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs's "systems adviser" Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter's book, 'The Living Brain'.
In its original form, a Dreamachine is made from a cylinder with slits cut in the sides. The cylinder is placed on a record turntable and rotated at 78 or 45 revolutions per minute. A light bulb is suspended in the center of the cylinder and the rotation speed allows the light to come out from the holes at a constant frequency of between 8 and 13 pulses per second.
This frequency range corresponds to alpha waves, electrical oscillations normally present in the human brain while relaxing. The Dreamachine is the subject of the National Film Board of Canada 2008 feature documentary film 'FLicKeR', by Nik Sheehan.
A Dreamachine is "viewed" with the eyes closed: the pulsating light stimulates the optical nerve and alters the brain's electrical oscillations. The "viewer" experiences increasingly bright, complex patterns of color behind their closed eyelids. The patterns become shapes and symbols, swirling around, until the "viewer" feels surrounded by colors.
It is claimed that viewing a Dreamachine allows one to enter a hypnagogic state. This experience may sometimes be quite intense, but to escape from it, one needs only to open one's eyes.
 |
| The Mind Alive David PAL-36. Note the SEIZURE WARNING on the glasses. |
The Dreamachine may be dangerous for people with photosensitive epilepsy or other central nervous system disorders. It is thought that one out of 10,000 adults will experience a seizure while viewing the device; about twice as many children will have a similar ill effect.
"Brainwave Entrainment"
There are also numerous other products, such as the Mind Alive, Procyon, Zen Master and iLightz devices, which utilize combinations of light and sound frequencies to induce altered states of consciousness.
The following is an example of how these products are being sold as being strictly beneficial to their users:
What is Brainwave Entrainment?
"Would you like to listen to a CD, and have it transport you easily and quickly to a meditative state? Do you like the idea of getting all the proven benefits of meditation, without the self discipline and work normally required? I do, and I've tried the new brain wave entrainment products. Guess what? They work!
You've probably read how brain wave frequencies vary according to mental state. Daydreaming and light meditation take place in the "Alpha" range of frequencies, for example. So if you listen to music containing beats at a frequency of 10 Hz it will feel very relaxing, because your brain will begin to follow this frequency and reproduce the rhythm in the music. You will automatically generate more brain waves at a 10 Hz frequency and enter a relaxed Alpha mental state.
States Of Consciousness:
Beta (14 - 30 hertz) - Dominant rhythm when awake, alert or anxious, with eyes open.
Alpha (8 - 14 hertz) - Relaxed alertness; normally is induced by closing the eyes and relaxing.
Theta (4 - 8 hertz) - Drowsiness, first stage of sleep; not common in awake adults, but common in daydreaming children.
Delta (below 5 hertz) - Deep sleep.
Meditation can stimulate these states. Sounds can as well. The latter is the principle behind brain wave entrainment technologies.
What these new products do is embed music, or the sounds of water or wind, with beats and pulses that entrain your brain waves to a specific frequency.
It is well established that our brain wave frequencies change with our mental states and vice-versa. It is has also been clearly demonstrated that meditators can go into an alpha state at will, and that this has beneficial effects (lowering of stress, blood pressure, etc.)."
The Hypnagogic State
Hypnagogia, often misspelled hypnogogia, is a term coined by Alfred Maury for the dissociative, transitional state between wakefulness and sleep.
Transition to and from sleep may be attended by a wide variety of sensory experiences. These can occur in any modality, individually or combined, and range from the vague and barely perceptible to vivid hallucinations.
Sometimes the word hypnagogia is used in a restricted sense to refer to the onset of sleep, and contrasted with hypnopompia, Frederic Myers' term for waking up.
However, hypnagogia is also regularly employed in a more general sense that covers both falling asleep and waking up, and Havelock Ellis questioned the need for separate terms. Indeed, it is not always possible in practice to assign a particular episode of any given phenomenon to one or the other, given that the same kinds of experiences occur in both, and that people may drift in and out of sleep. In this article hypnagogia will be used in the broader sense, unless otherwise stated or implied.
Other terms for hypnagogia, in one or both senses, that have been proposed include "presomnal" or "anthypnic sensations", "visions of half-sleep", "oneirogogic images" and "phantasmata", "the borderland of sleep", "praedormitium", the "borderland state", "half-dream state", "pre-dream condition", "sleep onset dreams", dreamlets, and "wakefulness-sleep transition" state (WST).
Among the more commonly reported, and more thoroughly researched, sensory features of hypnagogia are "phosphenes", which can manifest as seemingly random speckles, lines or geometrical patterns, including form constants, or as figurative (representational) images. They may be monochromatic or richly colored, still or moving, flat or three-dimensional (offering an impression of perspective).
Imagery representing movement through tunnels of light is also reported. Individual images are typically fleeting and given to very rapid changes. They are said to differ from dreams proper in that hypnagogic imagery is usually static and lacking in narrative content, although others understand the state rather as a gradual transition from hypnagogia to fragmentary dreams; i.e., from simple "eigenlicht" to whole imagined scenes.
Hypnagogia can be induced with a Dreamachine, which uses light pulsing at a frequency close to that of alpha waves to create this effect.
Descriptions of exceptionally vivid and elaborate hypnagogic visuals can be found in the work of Marie-Jean-Léon, Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys.
The Tetris Effect
People who have spent a long time at some repetitive activity before sleep, in particular one that is new to them (such as video games) may find that it dominates their imagery as they grow drowsy, a tendency dubbed 'The Tetris Effect'. This effect has even been observed in amnesiacs who otherwise have no memory of the original activity. When the activity involves moving objects, as in the video game Tetris, the corresponding hypnagogic images too tend to be perceived as moving.
The Tetris Effect is not confined to visual imagery, but can manifest in other modalities also. For example, Robert Stickgold recounts having experienced the touch of rocks while falling asleep after mountain climbing. This can also occur to people who have travelled on a small boat in rough seas, or swum in waves, shortly before going to bed, and they "feel" the waves as they drift to sleep, or people who have spent the day skiing who continue to "feel snow" under their feet, also people who have spent considerable time jumping on a trampoline will find that they can feel the up and down motion before they go to sleep.
Auditory Hallucinations
Hypnagogic imagery is often auditory or has an auditory component. Like the visuals, hypnagogic sounds vary in intensity from faint impressions to loud noises, such as crashes and bangs (exploding head syndrome).
People may often imagine hearing their own name called or a doorbell ringing.
Snatches of imagined speech are common. While typically nonsensical and fragmented, these speech events can occasionally strike the individual as apt comments on—or summations of—their thoughts at the time. They often contain word play, neologisms and made-up names. Hypnagogic speech may manifest as the subject's own "inner voice", or as the voices of others: familiar people or strangers. More rarely, poetry or music is heard.
People who take the sleeping pill, Ambien (Zolpidem tartrate), report many of these features, and are said to regularly engage in "crazy talk", for lack of a better term, soon after taking the hypnotic, sleep-inducing drug.
Sleep Paralysis
Humming, roaring, hissing, rushing and buzzing noises are frequent in conjunction with sleep paralysis (SP). This happens when the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) atonia sets in sooner than usual, before the person is fully asleep, or persists longer than usual, after the person has (in other respects) reached a fully awakened state. SP is reportedly very frequent among narcoleptics. It occurs frequently in about 6% of the rest of the population, and occurs occasionally in 60%.
In surveys from Canada, China, England, Japan and Nigeria, 20 to 60% of individuals reported having experienced SP at least once in their lifetime. The paralysis itself is frequently accompanied by additional phenomena. Typical examples include a feeling of being crushed or suffocated, electric "tingles" or "vibrations", imagined speech and other noises, the imagined presence of a visible or invisible entity, and sometimes intense emotion: fear or euphoria and orgasmic feelings. SP has been proposed as an explanation for at least some alien abduction experiences and "shadow people" hauntings.
Other Sensations
Gustatory, olfactory and thermal sensations in hypnagogia have all been reported, as well as tactile sensations (including those kinds classed as paresthesia or formication [persistent itching of the skin]. Sometimes there is synesthesia; many people report seeing a flash of light or some other visual image in response to a real sound. Proprioceptive effects may be noticed, with numbness and changes in perceived body size and proportions, feelings of floating or bobbing, and out-of-body experiences.
Perhaps the most common experience of this kind is the falling sensation, and associated hypnic jerk, encountered by many people, at least occasionally, while drifting off to sleep.
Subjective Interpretation
Hypnagogic phenomena may be interpreted as visions, prophecies, premonitions, apparitions and inspiration (artistic or divine), depending on the experiencer's beliefs and those of their culture.
Cognitive and Affective Phenomena: Receptivity and Suggestibility
Thought processes on the edge of sleep tend to differ radically from those of ordinary wakefulness. Hypnagogia may involve a "loosening of ego boundaries...openness, sensitivity, internalization-subjectification of the physical and mental environment (empathy) and diffuse-absorbed attention."
Hypnagogic cognition, in comparison with that of normal, alert wakefulness, is characterized by heightened suggestibility, illogic and a fluid association of ideas. Subjects are more receptive in the hypnagogic state to suggestion from an experimenter than at other times, and readily incorporate external stimuli into hypnagogic trains of thought and subsequent dreams. This receptivity has a physiological parallel; Electroencephalogram (EEG) readings show elevated responsiveness to sound around the onset of sleep.
Autosymbolism
Herbert Silberer described a process he called autosymbolism, whereby hypnagogic hallucinations seem to represent, without repression or censorship, whatever one is thinking at the time, turning abstract ideas into a concrete image, which may be perceived as an apt and succinct representation thereof.
Insight
This process can even lead to genuine insight into a problem, a well known example being the story of August Kekulé's discovery of the structure of benzene.
Many other artists, writers, scientists and inventors, including Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Walter Scott, Thomas Edison and Sir Isaac Newton have credited hypnagogia and related states with enhancing their creativity.
I have personally awakended suddenly in such hypnagogic states, and immediately written down ideas, grabbed a guitar and/or stumbled over to a piano to consciously capture creative ideas, before they escaped and vaporized back into my subconscious. Some of these ideas turned out to be among my best lyrical and musical creations.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem 'Kubla Khan' was (according to its author) "a fragment" inspired by an opium-induced dream, its composition interrupted by a person from Porlock after which Coleridge found he had forgotten all but some "eight or ten scattered lines and images".
Amnesia
A feature that hypnagogia shares with other stages of sleep is amnesia. But, this is a selective forgetfulness, affecting the brain's hippocampal memory system, which is responsible for episodic or autobiographical memory, rather than the neocortical memory system, responsible for semantic memory.
It has been suggested that hypnagogia and REM sleep help in the consolidation of semantic memory, but the evidence for this has been disputed. For example, suppression of REM sleep due to tricyclic and SSRI antidepressant drugs and lesions to the brainstem has not yet been found to produce permanent, detrimental effects on cognition, although such temporary effects have been noted.
Physiology
Physiological studies have tended to concentrate on hypnagogia in the strict sense of spontaneous sleep onset experiences. Such experiences are associated especially with stage 1 of non-REM (NREM) sleep, but may also occur with pre-sleep alpha waves. Davis, et al, found short flashes of dreamlike imagery at the onset of sleep to correlate with drop-offs in alpha EEG activity.
Hori, et al, regard sleep onset hypnagogia as a state distinct from both wakefulness and sleep with unique electrophysiological, behavioral and subjective characteristics, while Germaine, et al, have demonstrated a resemblance between the EEG power spectra of spontaneously occurring hypnagogic images, on the one hand, and those of both REM sleep and relaxed wakefulness, on the other.
To identify more precisely the nature of the EEG state which accompanies imagery in the transition from wakefulness to sleep, Hori, et al, proposed a scheme of 9 EEG stages defined by varying proportions of alpha (stages 1–3), suppressed waves of less than 20µV (stage 4), theta ripples (stage 5), proportions of sawtooth waves (stages 6–7), and presence of spindles (stages 8–9). Germaine and Nielsen found spontaneous hypnagogic imagery to occur mainly during Hori sleep onset stages 4 (EEG flattening) and 5 (theta ripples).
The "covert-rapid-eye-movement" hypothesis proposes that hidden elements of REM sleep emerge during the wakefulness-sleep transition stage. Support for this comes from Bódicz, et al, who note a greater similarity between WST (wakefulness-sleep transition) EEG and REM sleep EEG than between the former and stage 2 sleep.
Respiratory pattern changes have also been noted in the hypnagogic state, in addition to a lowered rate of frontalis muscle activity.
Daydreaming and Waking Reveries
Microsleep bursts (short episodes of immediate sleep onset) may intrude into wakefulness at any time in the wakefulness-sleep cycle, due to sleep deprivation and other conditions, resulting in impaired cognition, amnesia.
Gurstelle and Oliveira distinguish a state which they call daytime parahypnagogia (DPH), the spontaneous intrusion of a flash image or dreamlike thought or insight into one's waking consciousness. DPH is typically encountered when one is "tired, bored, suffering from attention fatigue, and/or engaged in a passive activity." The exact nature of the episode may be forgotten even though the individual remembers having had such an experience.
Gustelle and Oliveira define DPH as "dissociative, trance-like, but, unlike a daydream, not self-directed" — however, daydreams and waking reveries are often characterised as "passive", "effortless", and "spontaneous", while hypnagogia itself can sometimes be influenced by a form of autosuggestion, or "passive concentration", so these sorts of episodes may in fact constitute a continuum between directed fantasy and the more spontaneous varieties of hypnagogia. Others have emphasized the connections between fantasy, daydreaming, dreams and hypnosis.
In his book, 'Zen and the Brain', James H. Austin cites speculation that regular meditation develops a specialized skill of "freezing the hypnagogic process at later and later stages" of the onset of sleep, initially in the alpha wave stage and later in theta.
Investigative Methodology
Self-observation (spontaneous or systematic) was the primary tool of the early researchers. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this has been joined by questionnaire surveys and experimental studies. All three methods have their disadvantages as well as points to recommend them.
Naturally, amnesia contributes to the difficulty of studying hypnagogia, as does the typically fleeting nature of hypnagogic experiences. These problems have been tackled by experimenters in a number of ways, including voluntary or induced interruptions, sleep manipulation, the use of techniques to "hover on the edge of sleep" thereby extending the duration of the hypnagogic state, and training in the art of introspection to heighten the subject's powers of observation and attention.
Techniques for extending hypnagogia range from informal ones (e.g. the subject holds up one of their arms as they go to sleep, so as to be awakened when it falls), to the use of biofeedback devices to induce a "theta" state, characterized by relaxation and theta EEG activity. The theta state is produced naturally most when we are dreaming.
It has also been linked to paranormal activities and is believed to trigger the release of DMT (dimethyl tryptamine) from the pineal gland in the brain, causing a dreaming state. DMT is a naturally-occurring psychedelic drug of the tryptamine family. This drug is found not only in many plants, but also in trace amounts in the human body, where its natural function, if any, is yet undetermined.
Structurally, it is analogous to the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT) and other psychedelic tryptamines such as 5-MeO-DMT, bufotenin (5-OH-DMT), and psilocin (4-HO-DMT) [i.e., Psilocybin Mushrooms]. DMT is created in small amounts by the human body during normal metabolism.
Lucid Dreaming
The following is an excerpt from a paper by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D, of The Lucidity Institute, entitled 'Lucidity Research, Past and Future':
"Although we have shown that lucid dreaming is a learnable skill, currently available methods, involving mental concentration, require considerable investment of time and effort. Therefore, we have sought methods for helping dreamers to realize that they are dreaming by means of external cues applied during REM sleep that become incorporated into dreams and remind dreamers that they are dreaming.
We have tested a variety of stimuli, including tape recordings of the phrase "This is a dream", conditioned tactile stimuli, and light. Light appears to be an excellent stimulus. We have developed computerized lucid dreaming induction devices (the DreamLight, DreamLink, and most recently, the NovaDreamer) that have produced highly promising results. By further developing and perfecting these and new devices and techniques, we hope to make lucid dreaming widely available.
Lucidity cue type and mental preparation: Preliminary studies on the DreamLight device have been promising: 55% of 44 subjects had at least one lucid dream during one study. Unpublished research indicates that combinations of the light cue with mental exercises specifically designed to increase one's awareness of the nature of dreaming tend to be more effective than using the cue alone. At this point we do not know what rate of flashing will be most effective.
Therefore, we plan to compare four different flash rates (1, 2, 4, and 8 flashes per sec) and three different kinds of mental preparation (MILD, discrimination training to recognize the light stimulus, and post-hypnotic suggestion) in a group of 40 subjects. We also are planning testing cues in other sensory modalities such as sound and vibration.
Physiological correlates of dream content and incorporation of stimuli: Four channels of EEG and four channels of autonomic physiology is being collected from each of 12 to 24 subjects as they are stimulated with flashes of light during REM sleep. Reports of incorporation of light as well as other dream content will then be correlated with the EEG and other physiological measures.
Sometimes the subjects will see the light flash in their dreams, but sometimes they will not. Using a computer, we will analyze the EEG and autonomic physiology immediately prior to the time that the stimulus is triggered, looking for differences between the cases when the light is incorporated, and when it is not. By showing us which are the optimal times for applying cues to the dreamer, this research should teach us how to more effectively induce lucid dreams with light."
Silent Lucidity
The word "lucidity" means "a clear state of mind, not confused", or, "free from obscurity and easy to understand; the comprehensibility of clear expression".
You may recognize the word "lucidity" from the 1990 song 'Silent Lucidity', by the band Queensryche.
The song, which has a very deep and dreamy, Pink Floyd-esque feel, was the band's most commercially successful hit, and was written about the concept of lucid dreaming.
Having worked in the music business in my past, specifically with producer Peter Collins, who produced the Queensryche album, 'Operation: Mindcrime' (a great concept album about a mind-controlled assassin!), I was quite interested in this idea of lucid dreaming at the time the song was released, and inquired about it further.
I was able to confirm at that time that the song was, indeed, written about this concept of lucid dreaming, and I was also told by Dr. Stephen LaBerge of The Lucidity Institute (who does dream research at Stanford University) that certain of the bandmembers were among his clients, and had used his lucid dreaming products.
'Silent Lucidity' was written by band member Chris DeGarmo, co-founder of Queensryche and guitarist from 1981 through 1997. In a June, 1990 interview in Kerrang! magazine, Degarmo said: "'Silent Lucidity' is probably one of the most genuinely out there things we've ever done. It's about what they call 'Lucid Dreaming', or 'Dream Control'. Basically, just opening up the doors to your subconscious mind, and learning how to master your dreams...actually be able to steer them."
Toward the end of the song, a whispered voice says: "Visualize your dream. Record it in the present tense. If you persist in your efforts, you can achieve dream control."
Chris DeGarmo is someone I've admired and appreciated over the years, not only for his strong musicianship and songwriting abilities, but also as a pretty nice guy. He did something in 1997 that very few people in the entertainment business ever do - he quit and left the fame and fortune behind "for undisclosed reasons" - but, it was apparently to spend more time with his family - which I also deeply admire.
Speculation about the reasons he left the band, fame and media attention behind includes marriage problems, internal ego conflicts in the band and record company pressures.
All I can say for certain is that the entertainment business, and perhaps especially the music side of it, is often a very ugly and dirty business. Any person who can be successful, make some good music, earn a few dollars along the way and get out with their family life and sanity intact has a level of wisdom that many people don't, and they have my respect.
 |
| Chris DeGarmo, then and now. |
Chris DeGarmo currently lives in the Seattle area with his wife and children, and works full-time as a professional charter aircraft pilot. As is evident in the above picture, he looks genuinely healthy and happy now. Good for you, Chris.
Final Thoughts
On the surface, it is easy to see how attractive and beneficial it could be, in a therapeutic sense, for a person to be able to consciously and directly interact with their dreams and achieve a state of "dream control". Some people have claimed all kinds of positive results, ranging from general stress relief to reducing or eliminating anxieties and phobias they experience in the "awake" portion of their lives.
I think we can all see, too, that it could be a lot of fun to be able to control and direct your dreams, allowing us to not only escape and conquer the villains of our nightmares, but also to regularly design our dreaming experiences in ways that would be entertaining - "action movie" type adventures and sexual fantasies come to mind, for starters. A sort of personal cinema in your mind, every night, with full mental control and far better graphics and audio quality than 3-D HD Imax and Dolby THX digital surround sound could ever achieve.
However, while all of this seems very interesting and is quite tempting on one level, it is important to remember that all forms of altered mental states, whether awake or asleep - including the use of drugs (whether hypnotic, psychedelic/hallucinogenic, narcotic, etc.), transcendental meditation (Trance) techniques or technological devices that artificially induce dissociative, hypnagogic states utilizing strobing lights and/or sound frequencies to trigger alpha-wave (and other) activity in the brain - all of these lead to highly suggestible and vulnerable states of consciousness that can be extremely dangerous, spiritually.
All Original Content (C) Copyright 2010 LVB Research,
All Rights Reserved.
