Dreaming Wide Awake

some people describe as their higher self, the Other, an alien, the dormant parts of the brain, divine intelligence, the mushroom spirit, the Mother, DNA, the Goddess, or God.

Fariba Bogzaran found a statistical correlation between the different concepts of what an encounter with the divine might be like and those lucid dreams later recorded by subjects after they experienced them.

Waking up in our dreams can be more enchanting than any fairy tale, more liberating than any social or scientific revolution, and more fun than any earthly adventure.

Olga Kharitidi

Both states of consciousness perceive the world, or our mental simulation of what we believe to be the world, as having less physical stability and greater responsiveness to our mental expectations and beliefs.

Intriguingly, psilocybin and ayahuasca tend to slow down brain waves, not speed them up, and they appear to shut down areas of the left hemisphere of the brain. Also, acquired savant syndrome—extraordinary mathematical or other mental abilities that suddenly appear after traumatic brain injury—usually occurs after damage to the left hemisphere.

Recent research demonstrates that the fastest brain-wave frequencies ever recorded by human beings occur during lucid dreaming. These ultrafast brain waves in the gamma range operate at frequencies as high as 50 Hz, or 50 cycles per second. This contrasts with waking consciousness, when our brains generally operate at frequencies between 14 and 40

condition worsens.

There is also evidence to suggest that DMT levels rise in the urine of psychotic patients as their