Meaning of a Dream

Since it has existed, music has been used by humanity as a tool to enter altered states of awareness. Even the common example of a teenager hooking up to their iPod to relax and forget the fight they just had with their parents is a way of changing self perception, by shifting attention away from certain situations.

The central nervous system (CNS) has two different functions: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). They are not separate neural pathways, but two distinct, complementary functions.

The SNS is activated by adrenaline and is needed in extreme situations to ensure our survival. It helps us react faster when we need to fight or flee. When it is active our heartbeat and breathing accelerate, and our visual and auditory perceptions become sharper. Our muscles tighten.

The PNS is activated by noradrenaline and is needed to help us rest and recover. When it is active, all our muscles relax, and our breath becomes deeper and slower. Our heartbeat decelerates.

These systems work in the same way that a complementary pair of muscles work. Both have to play their role so that we can be balanced. But if we are stressed all day long - if our SNC is active for longer than it should be - this depletes our energy. We run out of adrenaline, and when we need it, it's not there.

As adrenaline and other substances related to the SNC accumulate in our muscles, we enter a state of perpetual stress. Our muscles are chronically contracted - and this takes a LOT of energy!

Naturally, the PNS should be primarily active during sleep. Our capacity to remain alert in our dreams depends largely on how deeply we can relax. But if our muscles are permanently stressed out, there is no way we can achieve profound relaxation, and there is no way for our dreaming attention to flourish.

Playing, singing, dancing, or simply listening to music is a very direct way to shift into the PNS. In this sense, it can be described as a direct pathway into the world of dreams and enhanced self perception - even during wakefulness.

It can be no coincidence that so many cultures have made music and sound the focal point of their search for the indescribable. For these traditions, sound is the border that divides the physical world and an underlying world of energy.

Traditions from the world over have used music, chants and dance as ways to glimpse other realities. From the Aboriginals of Australia, to the Shamans of the steppes of Russia; from the Sufis to the Hopis, we can find this search for the unknown through our intrinsic connection to sound. Although the musical styles, instruments and specific interpretations and cultural edifices around music and sound vary immensely, the basic truths remain constant.

Music has always been a basic part of human culture, a basic building block of society, and a channel to achieve a deeper connection to ourselves and the universe. Sadly, music in the western world, and everywhere else, through its influence, is becoming merely a commercial product, with no deeper significance, and its true power goes unperceived by more and more people every day.

Alexander Cortes is a composer and guitarist, with a keen interest in exploring all the facets of human consciousness. He is editor of Guitar Theory in Depth, a website that explores musical theory as it relates to the guitar, from a fresh perspective. He currently lives in Mexico, and can be contacted via his website.

Is it possible to create original music during a lucid dream? Yes, it certainly is. Not necessarily more possible than while you're awake, but definitely possible.

I know this because I've managed to create music while dreaming, on multiple occasions. Music that has been described by random YouTube users as ‘fantastic', ‘great' and even ‘awesome'. How did I do it? Can you do it too? Yes to the latter and the former will be explained post haste.

One night, a few years ago, I was making an introductory video for this website. The video needed a musical soundtrack that would be simple and unobtrusive, yet tuneful and hopefully pleasant. At risk of sounding vain, I admit that I am very vain. Especially when it comes to my music. So I decided that I would make a bone-rattlingly good tune that would nicely fit the fantastical lucid dreaming video.

I put together four chords that I've always liked and started creating a song. It started nicely enough, but nothing was clicking. I kept repeating the chords in the hope that my brain would autopilot its way to something decent, but no such luck. I was tired, it was late, so I went to bed and subsequently to sleep.

Now! We've all done that thing where our brains replay the last song we heard on persistent auto-repeat. Yes? And we've all done that thing where we spend some time doing a repetitive activity in the evening, then when we go to sleep we dream about doing the same activity. I dreamed about playing the four chords over and over. I was not lucid at this stage. To the hazy recollection of my repeatedly impact-damaged brain, I spent the rest of the night dreaming about random other things, probably such as flying carpets, mountain climbing, waterfalls and swimming.

In the early morning, probably an hour or two before I woke, I realized I was dreaming. Those chords were still playing on my brain's one-song-on-an-endless-loop (TM) radio station. Being lucid, I wiped out everything and stood in the clouds. I constructed a huge piano out of light and started conducting it. I say conducting rather than playing, because I didn't have to touch the piano to make it play. I was waving my fingers at it like a wizard. Every time I played a key, that note would send light up into the sky.

I played the four chords with my left hand and the music became louder and warmer. Then I started playing the other parts of the song. This continued for at least twenty minutes. My mood lifted with the pace of the music. Drums joined in out of nowhere. A soft bass hummed underneath us and buzzed in elation at the end of each bar. I made fills and solos and flourishes. It was awesome. But I wasn't trying to remember any of it, I was just enjoying conjuring my lucid dream song.

I woke up some time later and thought about the song I had played in my sleep. I hopped on my piano and tried to work out how I was playing the song. After I had worked out the gist of the note patterns, I got on my computer's piano and made an attempt to record what I remembered from the song. Let me tell you, most of that amazing lucid dream song is lost forever. The complexity of it was too great to remember.

The parts I did remember (and some that I embellished) went into the final recording of the track Lucid (click to listen). So far, Lucid is my most successful and popular song. I've sold upwards of fifty copies over the internet, which I don't have to tell you is a pretty big deal. I was even forced to make myself my own Grammy award for best song written while asleep.

Another attempt at a lucid dream song was my more recent piano piece Abresolute. Same as the last time - I was in the clouds - but instead of playing a piano of light I was trying to explain the song to a future being, most likely my firstborn child. Pretentious? Moi? Not only that, I wanted to name him Basil, which I still maintain is a perfectly good name.

Pete Casale is a lucid dreamer and musician, among many other things. Listen to his music for free here, including the lucid dream-inspired songs Lucid and Abresolute.

You can hear his latest musical works by subscribing to his YouTube channel or joining his Facebook page. All of his music is free and donations are welcome.