Hello Everyone, I'm Daniel Love, The Lucid Guide.
Today we're going to explore how our brains are constantly lying to us and how we can
use that information to better understand our minds and to take control of our dreams.
This video will contain several optical and sensory illusions so it's best to view it in full-screen.
One of the biggest hurdles would-be lucid dreamers face is the mistaken idea that the
world of dreams is a mysterious place; a strange and exotic state of mind, something very different
from waking life - but this couldn't be further from the truth.
What if I were to tell you that every experience you've ever had was a form of dream?
It sounds crazy, but when we explore the science of perception, this is exactly what we discover.
To investigate this further, let's take a look at a few perceptual illusions to prove
the point.
So, firstly, take a good look around you, and I want you to ask yourself the question...
"What is the resolution of reality?"
Now you're likely believe that the reality you perceive is incredibly high definition
In fact, you probably think that you experience the world much like the image in on the screen
bursting with sharpness and detail.
But, In truth, your eyes are providing only a very limited amount data - the information
provided by your eyes alone would look something more like this.
So, look at your room again, only this time, without moving your eyes, focus on a single
point, you'll notice your perception is very similar to the image on the screen, only the
smallest central point is sharp and detailed.
In fact, you even lose colour perception at the periphery of your vision.
If you don't believe this, ask a friend to hold unknown coloured item in the far corner
of your vision - you'll be unable to name the colours.
It is only through the movement of our eyes and the trickery of the brain, that constantly
updates our mental model of our world, that we live our lives ignoring our natural tunnel vision.
In fact, it is this principle that is behind the current push for eye tracking technology
in virtual reality - as only the smallest section of a VR display, the focus of attention
ever needs to contain high definition detail.
And, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are endless sensory illusions which demonstrate that our perception of reality
is a mental model.
At the extreme end, you have the psychedelic hallucinations caused by drugs in the tryptamine
family, such as LSD, Psilocybin, DMT etc.
But even the mind in its natural state can easily be tricked, revealing glitches in the
hidden processes that are tirelessly working behind the scenes to produce your experience
of reality.
So, for fun, let's take a look at a few simple illusions that do just this...
This first illusion relies on persistence of vision.
Stare directly at the eye in the centre of the image, and don't look away until I ask you to.
It takes about 20 seconds for this illusion to take effect.
As you're staring at the image, the photoreceptors in your eyes will grow tired from the unchanging
stimuli - this fatigue will create a compensatory visual effect that can cause a very powerful
optical illusion.
In a moment I will change the image, but please continue to stare directly at the eye.
So what you should now experience is a full-colour image of a flowering Japanese garden.
However now try looking at any different point on the image now - and you'll notice that the colour immediately vanishes.
Now, this image was black and white all along - It's a very convincing illusion, so
if you don't believe it, you can rewind the video and check for yourself.
It's a similar process causing the shimmering orange dots that you can see right now - they have absolutely
no reality outside of your mental model of the world.
This third optical illusion relies on the different way in which your mind processes sharp and
indistinct visual details.
Indeed, the principle behind this illusion was used in a popular television magic performance.
As you can see, the word written on the screen is "Awake", however, should you move away
from the screen, to the other side of the room, you'll notice a very different word
takes its place.
Now, both words exist objectively in the physical image, but subjectively the brain processes
and perceives the data differently depending on your distance.
Of course illusions are not limited to the visual sense alone.
The Aristotle illusion is one of the oldest that relies on the sense of touch.
Simply cross your fingers and use the tips of each to touch a small round object - such
as a pen or the tip of your nose.
You should notice that it feels as if you are touching two items rather than one.
Finally, lets explore an auditory illusion.
The following sound is known as the Shepard tone. It appears to fall forever, which is, of course, impossible.
What you're experiencing is the auditory equivalent of the old-fashioned barber pole.
These are just a handful of illusions that demonstrate the mental nature of our perception.
The truth is, we spend most of our lives unaware of the limitations of our senses - and this
is simply because the brain is so very good at what it does - creating a mental model
based on sensory information.
It is only when faced by illusions that draw our attention to the processes involved that
we are forced to accept the truth.
- that we inhabit a filtered mental model of the world, not the real thing.
While awake, our brain hand picks sensory data and then stitches it together with our
memories, this process creates the elaborate mental model of the world we experience, which,
in a very real sense, is a form of dream - it is this illusion that we experience and, because
it's our only option, we mistakenly consider as the true external world.
The crazy truth is, that we will never experience the universe directly, everything we'll ever
know is the end result of the clever processing of the brain.
Our life is lived entirely in a waking dream based upon sensory information - we see with
our brains, not our eyes, and this applies to all our senses.
When we dream at night, the only meaningful change is the source of the input for our
mental model - not the processes involved.
Dreaming is simply the mind doing what it does when awake, only without the guidance
of sensory information.
In short, your experience of the waking world is a mental model, your dreams are also a
mental model.
So, the next time you're lying in bed attempting to lucid dream - don't fool yourself into
thinking you're leaving a physical world and entering a mental world.
All you're doing is changing between one mental model to another.
Consider it the same as changing a television channel.
Or, better still, changing from a live video feed to a recording.
Whether you are awake or dreaming, your experience is mental in nature.
When you consider things this way, lucid dreaming seems far less mysterious and out of reach
- although on the flip side, waking life starts to feel just that little less solid.
So, that's it for today. If you've enjoyed this video, please be sure to like, comment, share and subscribe.
Also, if you're a fan of the channel and would like to ensure that I can keep making videos,
please consider supporting my work on Patreon, the link is on the screen now.
It takes a lot of time, effort and coffee to make these videos and I'd really love to do
this full time, and I can really only do with your help.
So thank you in advance!
I'm Daniel Love, The Lucid Guide, and until next time... Sweet Dreams!