Consciousness is born in the pause
Lessons from lucid dreaming
Consciousness is born in the pause.
In an operative mode — washing dishes, checking a budget, driving, programming, shopping, house cleaning — , the brain is just trying to resolve every little task as it comes, glance at the situation, taking little decisions. In other words, just doing.
It’s until the moment we can make a pause that the brain starts thinking about the experience itself — considering that the brain can’t stop thinking. Then, consciousness arises.
I’m not even sure if we can call experience the operative mode. In that case, it’s an unconscious experience.
Lessons on lucid dreaming
I’m thinking about my experience with lucid dreaming and how consciousness arises. Let me explain.
I’m a natural. I started to have lucid dreams—dreams where you know you are dreaming—since a was a teenager, perhaps. I don’t exactly remember because it was natural to me. For one reason or another, I was accustomed to not share these kinds of things to avoid mockery. I might share it with my mother, in a casual way, but she wasn’t judgmental about my experiences, so if she commented something, it wasn’t relevant because I don’t remember.
I was sixteen or seventeen when a friend told me about a book by Carlos Castaneda where he described lucid dreaming. Only until that moment, my lucid dreams made sense. In fact, until that moment, I didn’t have a name for that kind of experience.
My friend told me an exercise you can do when you are lucid dreaming. Try to watch the palm of your hands. It’s a way to confirm you are lucid dreaming and to help you keep your lucidity — according to my friend or Castaneda, I don’t remember.
I did that the next night. And is as easy as that, I watched the palm of my hands.
As I grew up I kept having lucid dreams spontaneously from time to time. I never planned to have lucid dreams, they were just part of my life.
But I always have learned something about them in an indirect way.
I knew that usually, a lucid dream experience was a sign of a good night’s sleep, for example.
As I experienced more lucid dreaming, I could take my nightmares without too much emotional disturbance. If a monster appeared in a dream I usually noticed I was dreaming so fear went away. Sometimes I even confronted the monsters.
But one of the most important and relevant learnings from lucid dreaming was how it was related to my venture into meditation and yoga.
I didn’t know at that time but meditators use to have lucid dreams. Developing your attention and focus helps you to be more aware of your everyday experiences, including your dreams.
So, during those years of intense meditation practice, I was lucid dreaming almost every day.
Even the nightmares almost disappear. I mean, dreams are in part a way to digest your problems and emotions, and sometimes those problems and emotions take the form of monsters or nightmares during your dreams. That never has changed. What changed was my reaction to the monsters or nightmares — I was just an observer, a spectator of them.
I lost the pause
Recently, my lucid dreaming has stopped happening. I’m almost sure it’s because at this time I’m running non-stop all day because… well, the crisis we are living. I use to pass my days doing one thing after another, no matter if it’s work, house, family, etc.
My mind isn’t taking pauses. As soon as I stop doing something I think, “What’s next, what else”.
I think that “operative mode” is repeating during my sleep. I’m always running. I’m always chasing something in my dreams. No pause. And, no pause, no consciousness.
The experience of experience
That makes me think that consciousness, in general, is only possible when we can make a pause in our activities in order to be able to observe ourselves and our experience.
Or in other words, to experience the experience, a distance is necessary. A step away requires some kind of pause from the first experience.
That’s why I think pause makes consciousness.
