Gongist´s dream less?

[Former castleva]

I guess this is telling me I should be dreaming (refers to "sleep") since I´m actually pondering on this but I remember reading one Qi-Gong site in which they less or more seriously point out that practitioners of Qi-Gong see less (or no?) dreams than "average" ppl.
This strange of a claim they were backing up by saying something to the direction of "state of mind" etc. you know (maybe someone has seen it,I ain´t searching for it )
Naturally as a person with an "eye" for (neuro)sciences,this interests me (maybe unnecessarily)

Well,if you have any weight on your mind concerning-,please post.

[Cheese Dog]

FC, that is so weird! I was just thinking a few days ago that I very rarely dream anymore. Less that once a month. Thinking back I think it did start a couple of years ago when I first started doing chi gong regurally.

Maybe it has something to do with when you are doing chi gong your mind is in a dream state already? Don't know to much about neuroscience so I could be full of it!

[Former castleva]

Thanks Cheese Dog.

Interesting insight.
I was expecting for something like "haha,well that´s freaky" but that lights some thought.
I guess this is what we will ultimately receive since it is unlikely that a study on qi-gong´s effects on brains dream state activity will be made.

It would help a certain deal if we would at least know what qi-gong exactly does in us,maybe some literature has been published?
And when I talk about effects,we certainly need more than genre related chi explanations (they cannot do anything for us in this sense)

Thanks for replying.

[Former castleva]

Thanks guohuen.

I respectfully disagree,dreams are complex.There is a lot to find out still.
Anyways,thinking about this I feel like this may have to do with........metabolism.
There may be some myth to /go gong-dream less> but I´m not dissing it.
It is not too rare for us at all to tell "not having had any dreams at all" or to recall "seeing X".
This is quite strongly linked to metabolism,naturally enough.
While it may not cover the whole deal of course.
Huh,keep those posts coming please.

[prana]

oops just caught on this thread.

Itis described that the initial sleep process involves the winds entering the central nerve., hence you become less aware of your gateways such as eyes, hearing etc. During deep sleep, the winds abide by the heart chakra, and ascend towards the throat chakra. It is here that dreams begin. During the waking stages, the energy then abides by the secret chakras, and the crown chakra 9Like birth but in a small way), hence men usually wake up with the usual "stiffy".

I have noticed this effect about twice, when inducing sleep, and you can watch yourself fall asleep (though twice in about 10 years is a very poor effort). Also you can definitely induce dreams by watching the throat chakra and going to sleep like this. Dreams become clear and vivid, and varying your "intensity"
of concerntration helps gets you to sleep.... and is the trick. There comes a time when you can "alter" your sleep.

Had a frightening dream once, but I could alter the dreams by using this method, and ask for the help of a deity.... this is a very important ability in Tibetan Buddhis, and must be developed...

[[Censored]]

If you practice, you can choose when to dream and how to dream it. If you don't practice, then you have no choice.

[Former castleva]

"If you practice, you can choose when to dream and how to dream it. If you don't practice, then you have no choice."

Interesting enough.I have never heard of any any evidence though.
I´ve read and know that in certain times,the dream can be "directed" and also your thoughts on whatever may very well affect it,so this should hold some water then.
However,these are very complex things and require education of some sort to understand well.
This is also linked to brain chemicals (surprise,surprise lol)
Certain medication or whatever responsible,may affect certain chemicals (such as dopamine I think) which in turn may radically effect sleep,reducing actual visualization of dream states to that of none.
Damage to frontal brain is also likely to cause the very same effect.
While sleeping,one goes trough REM state in which the dreaming mostly happens,which as far as I know,can go trough a cycle happening various times (thus to pass this state would probably require some very strange abnormality )
We could say that one shall dream every night.
When one awakes and related things though,do have things to do with what comes up.
We often wake up saying "well I did not dream any that night" which may not hold buckets of water since activity of central nervous system/endocrine system varies,chemicals as noradrenaline are associated with forgetting the dream effectively (which is also rather evident in cases where a person wakes up during REM state)
Well,this for now it seems.
Thanks.

"oops just caught on this thread.

Itis described that the initial sleep process involves the winds entering the central nerve., hence you become less aware of your gateways such as eyes, hearing etc. During deep sleep, the winds abide by the heart chakra, and ascend towards the throat chakra. It is here that dreams begin. During the waking stages, the energy then abides by the secret chakras, and the crown chakra 9Like birth but in a small way), hence men usually wake up with the usual "stiffy".

I have noticed this effect about twice, when inducing sleep, and you can watch yourself fall asleep (though twice in about 10 years is a very poor effort). Also you can definitely induce dreams by watching the throat chakra and going to sleep like this. Dreams become clear and vivid, and varying your "intensity"
of concerntration helps gets you to sleep.... and is the trick. There comes a time when you can "alter" your sleep.

Had a frightening dream once, but I could alter the dreams by using this method, and ask for the help of a deity.... this is a very important ability in Tibetan Buddhis, and must be developed..."

Thank you too.
First remarkable findings about dreams were created around fiftee´s.
There is a lot of solid,basic knowledge being done by those responsible on these things you mention (to study dreams was quite difficult before there was any state of the art equipment for this)

[_William_]

Can you guys do lucid dreaming?

Its the ability to "wake up" in your dream and achieve semi-consciousness within the dream, so you can completely control what happens. You can summon a Ferrari, kick your neighbour...

Haha, personally I can't do it. Actually its probably because I never really practiced it.

[Former castleva]

I have done that "willing" dreaming too.

[Nexus]

guohen,

I love your suggestion: Try reading while your dreaming. I once saw on the cartoon, batman, that he realized he was still in the dream world because he couldn't read any of the books on the shelves in this place he was being kept. After that, for years I tried reading in my dreams whenever I had a book around, and I always saw garble and impossible letters. It wasn't until the last two years that I have read anything coherently in my dreams, though its usually small phrases.

As far as controlling dreams, why not? Who needs proof of such things, simply put forward the intent of doing so, and it will eventually happen. Even if we had scientific proof that dreams could be controlled, it doesn't mean you can do it without practice and proper mind intent. I've done it on countless occasions, and it was almost always when I set the intent of doing so before I went to sleep. For a week or so about two years ago, I was controlling my dreams willfully every night, literally changing the entire scenery from one thing to the next, like a movie screen flickering from one movie to the next. It gave me some really cool ideas for architechtual designs of buildings, and is a great way to test out interiod decorations of a new home (LoL).

As far as not remembering your dreams or becoming dream less: A lot of people claim to be dreaming less but the truth is that they actually have a very poor memory. Almost all people do not remember their dreams when they wake up because they have such anxious and overexecited minds. They wake up, and immediately they have things to do, brush the teeth, take a shower, make the coffee, get the newspaper from outside... What you were dreaming about for the last 6-8 hours was skipped over fairly early on. The best way to remember your dreams, and realize that you are actually dreaming is to tell yourself before you go to sleep "I want to remember my dreams when I wake up. I will remember my dreams when I wake up." This is your conscious mind planting the seeds in the subconscious letting it know that you consider your dreams important, and want to make them part of your conscious everyday life. Your subconscious will get the message, even if it takes you telling yourself that for a week or two. Before you know it, you'll be remembering the most vivid dreams ever, and wonder how it was possible you were looking them over all these years. Dreams are cool. We all have them, don't let mysticism try to tell you otherwise.

Take care, and keep on dreaming =)

[Former castleva]

As far as not remembering your dreams or becoming dream less: A lot of people claim to be dreaming less but the truth is that they actually have a very poor memory. Almost all people do not remember their dreams when they wake up because they have such anxious and overexecited minds. They wake up, and immediately they have things to do, brush the teeth, take a shower, make the coffee, get the newspaper from outside... What you were dreaming about for the last 6-8 hours was skipped over fairly early on. The best way to remember your dreams, and realize that you are actually dreaming is to tell yourself before you go to sleep "I want to remember my dreams when I wake up. I will remember my dreams when I wake up." This is your conscious mind planting the seeds in the subconscious letting it know that you consider your dreams important, and want to make them part of your conscious everyday life. Your subconscious will get the message, even if it takes you telling yourself that for a week or two. Before you know it, you'll be remembering the most vivid dreams ever, and wonder how it was possible you were looking them over all these years. Dreams are cool. We all have them, don't let mysticism try to tell you otherwise."

Freudian?

Well,I guess we covered this one up already but thank you for replying.

[Nexus]

Former,

As far as the source of the information, Fruedian would be a fair term as far as the labels I used such as conscious and subconscious. However, in order to communicate with the audience appropriately, you have to use terminology they will understand. If the audience was a private class of Oriental Medicine students, we might use terms such as Po, Shen, True Self and such. In a general forum, I think terms that are more commonly known help readers understand the concepts more easily, which is the goal.

[Former castleva]

I see.
I´ll have to keep that in mind.

[David Jamieson]

what's in a dream?

it is current thought that dreams are comprised of unprocessed information collected by the brain and sorted while in a resting state.

the qigong practitioner works toward clarity of thinking and casting off of the extraneous.

This would then lend itself to not having as much unprocessed thought left over at the end of the day and possibly to less "dreaming".

On the other hand...Dreams are in the realm of the mystical. Some people remember them vividly and others believe they don't dream at all. Even though R.E.M state sleep is closely associated with dreaming. Everybody experiences R.E.M state sleep to some degree and with that line of thinking, everybody dreams.

So does qigong decrease dreams? I hope not, I have some great fun in my dreams.

cheers

[Former castleva]

"On the other hand...Dreams are in the realm of the mystical. Some people remember them vividly and others believe they don't dream at all. Even though R.E.M state sleep is closely associated with dreaming. Everybody experiences R.E.M state sleep to some degree and with that line of thinking, everybody dreams."

Simply put,kind of.
I think we covered this one up already though.



"it is current thought that dreams are comprised of unprocessed information collected by the brain and sorted while in a resting state.

the qigong practitioner works toward clarity of thinking and casting off of the extraneous.

This would then lend itself to not having as much unprocessed thought left over at the end of the day and possibly to less "dreaming"."

Very simply put,kind of.
There is research to be done,and there is more to this.
No comments on qi-gong.

Thanks for the reply.