Lucid Dreaming, Consciousness and Non-duality
Part 1 - 2:00pm-6.00pm
Ted Esser, Ph.D.(c)
Lucid Dreaming Meditation: Invited Experiences of Kundalini, the Divine, and NondualityWhat happens when a group of experienced spiritual practitioners who are regular lucid dreamers attempt to have lucid dreaming experiences of kundalini and nondual perception? From this research question, a whole universe of experience emerged for the participants of a thematic and structural narrative study that qualitatively examined their experiences during the initial two week study period and over the following year. The perceived meanings of their experiences, how they were affected by them, and some phenomenological differences between their waking and lucid dreaming kundalini experiences will be examined. Some implications for spiritual practitioners and transpersonal psychotherapists working with clients going through the kundalini process will also be discussed. Details about the study’s dreaming method and its long-term use are topics that may also be brought up during the question-and-answer session following the presentation.
George Gillespie, MA, M.Div.
A Pilgrimage Into Dreamless SleepGeorge has a Masters in Journalism from Syracuse University and has studied Sanskrit at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and the American Baptist Seminary of the West and has taught the history of religions at seminaries in India. He spontaneously began having lucid dreams in 1975 while living in India. He now writes on the phenomenology of perception, dreaming, lucid dreaming, hypnopompic imagery, religious experiences of light, and mysticism. His phenomenology is largely based on the introspective analyses of his own experiences. His work has been published in the Lucidity Letter, Dreaming Journal and a chapter in the book Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain.
Jayne Gackenbach, Ph.D.
Video Game Play Effects: Dream Lucidity and Other States of Consciousness
The idea of consciousness as tied closely to the notion of the construction of reality is oft noted and is especially relevant to experiences in technologically constructed realms or virtual worlds. The most widely used, interactive and fully immersive experience of such virtual worlds is in video games. Needless to say video game play has left the sofa in the basement where a teen boy sat and is now front and center in the family living room. This engagement in interactive virtual worlds is not only limited to video game play, as life online takes various forms including social networking. But common to all these electronically mediated activities are that they are increasing, if at times problematic.
In the last decade Gackenbach has been exploring video game play effects on consciousness. After an early survey of the game studies research she hypothesized that video game play may be a form of meditative state. Since that formulation she has focused on dream impacts with gamers reporting more lucid and control dreams, more bizarre dreams and less frightening nightmares. But she has also found that gaming is associated with flow, absorption, superior attentional skills and mindfulness. In this presentation she will briefly summarize her research into the consciousness effects of “being in” technologically constructed realms from early childhood.
Individual difference variables studied as potentially representative of consciousness include presence and immersion in the virtual reality literature, absorption and flow in the psychological and communication studies literatures, and imagination and magic circle in the game studies literature. All of which have been investigated as related to video game play.
Daniel Deslauriers, Ph.D.
Discussant
Daniel Deslauriers will give a synthesizing summary of the presentation and facilitate discussion between the presenters and the audience.
Patricia Garfield , Ph.D.
Closing PresentationDr. Garfield leads us in closing the day's program with poetry and puppetry from her sixty-three-year long dream journal.
Speakers Bios
Ted Esser, Ph.D.(c) Ted Esser has managed the Spiritual Emergence Network (founded by Christina & Stan Grof in 1980: www.spiritualemergence.info) for the last seven years. He has taught psychology and philosophy courses at Casa Loma College and is a spiritual counselor in Marin County, CA. He was an independent producer for public television in Seattle, WA before receiving an M.A. in Philosophy & Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in East/West Psychology (Consciousness Studies) at CIIS, focusing on the transdisciplinary study of lucid dreaming and kundalini.
George Gillespie, MA George is a graduate of Rutgers University and has a Masters in Journalism from Syracuse University and has studied Sanskrit at the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught the history of religions at seminaries in India. He spontaneously began having lucid dreams in 1975 while living in India. He now writes on the phenomenology of perception, dreaming, lucid dreaming, hypnopompic imagery, religious experiences of light, and mysticism. His phenomenology is largely based on the introspective analyses of his own experiences. He is an ordained American Baptist minister.
Jayne Gackenbach, Ph.D.Jayne is a professor at Grant MacEwan University, Alberta, Canada. For the first 20 years of her career she focused on research into dreams, and especially lucid dreams, with several books and many articles and book chapters. Her books included: “Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain: Perspectives on Lucid Dreaming” and “Control Your Dreams”. She is one of the past presidents of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. In the last decade she has shifted her attention to technology and is currently editing a book “Video Games and Consciousness”. She has focused upon the impact of video game play on various states of consciousness including lucid dreams, flow, and absorption.
Daniel Deslauriers, Ph.D. Daniel is Professor in the Transformative Studies Doctorate at CIIS and former chair of East-West Psychology program. His interests in consciousness studies include traditional and contemporary approaches to dreams and imaginations, spiritual intelligence, and integral psychology and he has published articles on epistemology and narrative research. Daniel Deslauriers won a Templeton Course Award for his course "Consciousness, Science and Religion.” He is the co-author of Le rêve, sa nature, sa fonction et une méthode d’analyse (1987) and the forthcoming book Integral Dreaming (SUNY Press).
Patricia Garfield, Ph.D. Patricia Garfield is a pioneer and renowned expert in the study of dreams. She is a prize-winning author of eleven books on dreams. Her first, the bestseller Creative Dreaming (1974), is considered a classic. The revised edition appears in fifteen languages. Among her books are: Pathway to Ecstasy; The Dream Messenger: How Dreams of the Departed Bring Healing Gifts; Your Child's Dreams; The Healing Power of Dreams, Women's Bodies, Women's Dreams; The Universal Dream Key: The 12 Most Common Dream Themes Around the World; Mourning Dove: Dream Poems. Dr. Garfield is a Co-Founder (one of six) and President (1998-99) of the Association for the Study of Dreams (now the International Association for the Study of Dreams). Dr. Garfield appears in media interviews internationally.
