3 ms·

Active dreaming is better than meditation and safer than psychedelics

47 points by superb-owl 4y ago

davesque 4y ago
Meditation seems like a fundamentally different thing to me with different benefits. Kinda seems like apples to oranges. I think part of the problem is that the whole mindfulness movement has sometimes sold meditation as a kind of self hypnosis. But I've always liked to think of it as just doing nothing on purpose. Active dreaming seems not so much like doing nothing.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  The "doing nothing" aspect of meditation is kind of paradoxical. On the one hand, many meditation instructions will explicitly tell you to abandon any intentions or goals, as they will almost certainly get in the way. On the other hand, nearly everyone who starts meditating does so with a goal in mind. They want to improve their mental health, achieve some personal insight, or access the strange mindstates described by expert meditators. Both Active Dreaming and psychedelics address those same goals. But the way they go about it is very different--there is definitely a lot more "doing" involved.
  - CrypticShift 4y ago
    As I understand it, there are two phases in meditation that should be clearly distinguished to avoid confusion. - Phase 1. When you engage in it, you indeed need to "abandon any intentions or goals" and “do nothing on purpose" because your goal is that emptiness. - Phase 2. Once you attain that state of "emptiness", you are now (and only now) able to very sharply focus the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity. Active dreaming could be seen as one of those activities. You need at least a minimum degree of that meditative "emptiness" for unlocking the process you called "Active dreaming". I think "Active imagination" [0] is a term Jung used for a similar technique. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination
  - aatd86 4y ago
    It's not doing nothing actually. It's about observing one's own thoughts (basically brain chatter and sometimes sensations, perceptions) from a distance. Meta-cognition. :)
    - superb-owl 4y ago
      This is definitely one form of meditation. There are plenty of others though!
calculated 4y ago
Nice article, I haven't heard before of this concept. Only one thing is that for some reason I expected a guid on how to get into the process of active dreaming.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  I planned on including something like that here, but the article was getting pretty long. Stay tuned for a followup!
  - calculated 4y ago
    Great! Will do.
skydhash 4y ago
I do lucid dreaming, mostly when I wake up one or two hours before I intended. It's often the most pressing things on your mind, and it seems like a weird oscillation between being awake and asleep (I sometime achieve the same state when falling asleep with stimuli like having the TV and the lights on). It feels like your unconscious create a world using the figments of the things on your mind. And you're just a character experiencing the unfolding events. Then your conscious thought emerges and notices the irregularities and tries to fix them. I'm a visual person, so for me the “edits” feels like what you see on TV when altering time. Until you got tired again, and things go back to the first state. The peculiar thing is that you do not question the constructed reality and try to wake up. You just feel that you can alter it, and indeed do so. I'd like to have a scan of my cerebral activity because I often wake up very mentally tired after such sessions.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experience! You're lucky that you have a foot in the door with lucidity. There are ways to modulate that feeling so it's more productive, and doesn't leave you feeling exhausted. I'd encourage you to experiment with different ways of interacting with the dream world to see what works best for you.
leobg 4y ago
“Active imagination” has been a big thing in Jungian therapy. There are quite a few books on the topic from the 1970s etc. if you search for that term.
- superb-owl 4y ago
  For sure! I took the "Active" in Active Dreaming from Active Imagination.
  - leobg 4y ago
    Oh cool. I thought it was coincidence. BTW, there is also “active meditation”. And there’s “shadow work” and Gestalt therapy, which are both forms of actively playing out the contents of your subconscious mind (though in different forms).
_c3ag 4y ago
science barely knows if psychedelics are effective treatment for mental diseases. heck, we even have difficult with drugs made specifically for the purpose! you cited studies with less than 20 participants, is this science or just a blog post with a click-bait title? despite all, great insights…
- superb-owl 4y ago
  Thanks! We actually have some great evidence that psychedelics are very effective at treating mental illness. See [1] for a meta-analysis. Nothing has reached phase 3 clinical trials, but MDMA is on its way [2]. If you look at the addendum, which goes through all the studies, I'm pretty candid about how horribly underpowered most of them are. My main goal with this article is to convince folks that this is a promising line of research, and we should be doing more to explore it. But also yeah...kind of a clickbaity headline. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32529966/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32529966/ [2] https://maps.org/mdma/ptsd/phase3/ https://maps.org/mdma/ptsd/phase3/
  - to1y 4y ago
    To me it always seemed like most of my progress caused by psychedelics was because I was terrified I had gone mad and was going to die(or worse; stay in that state) and that allowed me to let go of things that didn't matter. What are your thoughts?
    - superb-owl 4y ago
      Yeah the “letting go” seems to be a very common thread in positive experiences. Conversely, challenging trips seem to happen when you refuse to give up control. The fear of having gone permanently mad is common—one of the best things you can do for someone having a bad time is remind them that it’s only temporary. I’m glad you were able to let go and get something out of it!

47 points by superb-owl 4y ago

Meditation seems like a fundamentally different thing to me with different benefits. Kinda seems like apples to oranges. I think part of the problem is that the whole mindfulness movement has sometimes sold meditation as a kind of self hypnosis. But I've always liked to think of it as just doing nothing on purpose. Active dreaming seems not so much like doing nothing.

superb-owl 4y ago
The "doing nothing" aspect of meditation is kind of paradoxical. On the one hand, many meditation instructions will explicitly tell you to abandon any intentions or goals, as they will almost certainly get in the way. On the other hand, nearly everyone who starts meditating does so with a goal in mind. They want to improve their mental health, achieve some personal insight, or access the strange mindstates described by expert meditators. Both Active Dreaming and psychedelics address those same goals. But the way they go about it is very different--there is definitely a lot more "doing" involved.
- CrypticShift 4y ago
  As I understand it, there are two phases in meditation that should be clearly distinguished to avoid confusion. - Phase 1. When you engage in it, you indeed need to "abandon any intentions or goals" and “do nothing on purpose" because your goal is that emptiness. - Phase 2. Once you attain that state of "emptiness", you are now (and only now) able to very sharply focus the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity. Active dreaming could be seen as one of those activities. You need at least a minimum degree of that meditative "emptiness" for unlocking the process you called "Active dreaming". I think "Active imagination" [0] is a term Jung used for a similar technique. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination
- aatd86 4y ago
  It's not doing nothing actually. It's about observing one's own thoughts (basically brain chatter and sometimes sensations, perceptions) from a distance. Meta-cognition. :)
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    This is definitely one form of meditation. There are plenty of others though!

calculated 4y ago

Nice article, I haven't heard before of this concept. Only one thing is that for some reason I expected a guid on how to get into the process of active dreaming.

superb-owl 4y ago
I planned on including something like that here, but the article was getting pretty long. Stay tuned for a followup!
- calculated 4y ago
  Great! Will do.

skydhash 4y ago

I do lucid dreaming, mostly when I wake up one or two hours before I intended. It's often the most pressing things on your mind, and it seems like a weird oscillation between being awake and asleep (I sometime achieve the same state when falling asleep with stimuli like having the TV and the lights on). It feels like your unconscious create a world using the figments of the things on your mind. And you're just a character experiencing the unfolding events. Then your conscious thought emerges and notices the irregularities and tries to fix them. I'm a visual person, so for me the “edits” feels like what you see on TV when altering time. Until you got tired again, and things go back to the first state. The peculiar thing is that you do not question the constructed reality and try to wake up. You just feel that you can alter it, and indeed do so. I'd like to have a scan of my cerebral activity because I often wake up very mentally tired after such sessions.

superb-owl 4y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience! You're lucky that you have a foot in the door with lucidity. There are ways to modulate that feeling so it's more productive, and doesn't leave you feeling exhausted. I'd encourage you to experiment with different ways of interacting with the dream world to see what works best for you.

leobg 4y ago

“Active imagination” has been a big thing in Jungian therapy. There are quite a few books on the topic from the 1970s etc. if you search for that term.

superb-owl 4y ago
For sure! I took the "Active" in Active Dreaming from Active Imagination.
- leobg 4y ago
  Oh cool. I thought it was coincidence. BTW, there is also “active meditation”. And there’s “shadow work” and Gestalt therapy, which are both forms of actively playing out the contents of your subconscious mind (though in different forms).

_c3ag 4y ago

science barely knows if psychedelics are effective treatment for mental diseases. heck, we even have difficult with drugs made specifically for the purpose! you cited studies with less than 20 participants, is this science or just a blog post with a click-bait title? despite all, great insights…

superb-owl 4y ago
Thanks! We actually have some great evidence that psychedelics are very effective at treating mental illness. See [1] for a meta-analysis. Nothing has reached phase 3 clinical trials, but MDMA is on its way [2]. If you look at the addendum, which goes through all the studies, I'm pretty candid about how horribly underpowered most of them are. My main goal with this article is to convince folks that this is a promising line of research, and we should be doing more to explore it. But also yeah...kind of a clickbaity headline. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32529966/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32529966/ [2] https://maps.org/mdma/ptsd/phase3/ https://maps.org/mdma/ptsd/phase3/
- to1y 4y ago
  To me it always seemed like most of my progress caused by psychedelics was because I was terrified I had gone mad and was going to die(or worse; stay in that state) and that allowed me to let go of things that didn't matter. What are your thoughts?
  - superb-owl 4y ago
    Yeah the “letting go” seems to be a very common thread in positive experiences. Conversely, challenging trips seem to happen when you refuse to give up control. The fear of having gone permanently mad is common—one of the best things you can do for someone having a bad time is remind them that it’s only temporary. I’m glad you were able to let go and get something out of it!