page_title: Secondary consciousness
section_title: Research
hierarchical_section_title: Secondary consciousness / Lucid vs. non-lucid dreaming as a model / Research
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a screenshot of a polysomnographic record (30 seconds) representing Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. EEG highlighted by red box. Eye movements highlighted by red line.
context_page_description: Secondary consciousness is an individual's accessibility to their history and plans. The ability allows its possessors to go beyond the limits of the remembered present of primary consciousness. Primary consciousness can be defined as simple awareness that includes perception and emotion. As such, it is ascribed to most animals. By contrast, secondary consciousness depends on and includes such features as self-reflective awareness, abstract thinking, volition and metacognition. The term was coined by Gerald Edelman.
context_section_description: Experiments and studies have been taken out to test neural correlations of lucid dreams with consciousness in dream research. Although there are many difficulties in conducting lucid dreaming research (e.g. number of lucid subjects, 'type' of lucidity achieved, etc.), there have been studies with significant results.
  In one study, researchers sought physiological correlates of lucid dreaming. They showed that the unusual combination of hallucinatory dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness and agentive control experienced in lucid dreams is paralleled by significant changes in electrophysiology. Participants were recorded using 19-channel Electroencephalography (EEG), and 3 achieved lucidity in the experiment. Differences between REM sleep and lucid dreaming were most prominent in the 40-Hz frequency band. The increase in 40-Hz power was especially strong at frontolateral and frontal sites.  Their findings include the indication that 40-Hz activity holds a functional role in the modulation of conscious awareness across different conscious states. Furthermore, they termed lucid dreaming as a hybrid state, or that lucidity occurs in a state with features of both REM sleep and waking. In order to move from non-lucid REM sleep dreaming to lucid REM sleep dreaming, there must be a shift in brain activity in the direction of waking.
  Other well-known contributing scholars involved with lucid dream research and consciousness, yet primarily based in fields such as psychology and philosophy include:
  Stephen LaBerge- most known for his lucid dreaming education and facilitation. His technique of signaling to a collaborator monitoring his EEG with agreed-upon eye movements during REM sleep became the first published, scientifically-verified signal from a dreamer's mind to the outside world.
  Thomas Metzinger- known for his correlate of neuroscience and philosophy in understanding consciousness. He is praised for his ability to probe and link fundamental issues between these fields.
  Paul Tholey- most known for his research on rare, non-ordinary ego experiences and OBEs that arise with lucid dreaming. He has also studied the cognitive abilities of dream characters in lucid dreams through various experiments.
caption: Polysomnographic record of REM Sleep. EEG highlighted by red box. Eye movement highlighted by red line.
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