Included in the presentation

a) Recent lucid dreaming research and descriptions of studies focused on technology-based induction of lucid dreams using electrodes; improvements in signaling technology and techniques between researchers and lucid dreamers interacting consciously within their dreamscape. What does the possibility of conscious communication to awake researchers while lucid during sleep imply about the nature of REM dream states?

b) Research on sleep paralysis, discussing both the biological aspects of why the body can’t move during sleep in addition to widespread accounts of using sleep paralysis as a springboard into out-of-the-body states and lucid dreaming. We will focus on the questions this raises, for example, why are out-of-the-body experiences, sleep paralysis, and lucid dreaming experienced as three distinct states or phases of awareness? What do these accounts imply about the coherent realities one experiences in these states?

c) A number of books have been published over the past few years describing the first-hand accounts of long-time meditators and others who experience lucid dreaming, out-of-body-experiences and other forms of conscious sleep on an ongoing basis. Ben proposes to weave the experiences from these authors with my own experiences, the experiences of audience members, and also with current research on dreams, lucidity, and sleep paralysis to provide an evidence-based map of the nature of the phenomena experienced during sleep and dreams.

d) As a point of focus, Benjamin will provide examples of how to discern among phenomena that are reflections of our own mind (“thoughtforms”) and phenomena that appear to be part of a consensus-reality dreamscape, in which we might experience visitations, shared dreams, precognitions of physical-world events, and other phenomena not attributable to our own thoughts.