WEBVTT 00:00:10.590 --> 00:00:13.590 Let's start with a seemingly easy question. 00:00:14.930 --> 00:00:18.280 Who, here, is convinced to be dreaming, right now? 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:22.600 Raise your hand, one, two - 00:00:24.040 --> 00:00:25.540 not many, thankfully. 00:00:25.540 --> 00:00:27.750 (Laughter) 00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:34.000 Another question, linked to the first - even though it doesn't seem so. 00:00:34.660 --> 00:00:38.292 Who of you would trust someone 00:00:38.292 --> 00:00:40.900 who betrays you every day? 00:00:41.940 --> 00:00:48.440 Every day, every night actually, it fools you into believing false things. 00:00:49.960 --> 00:00:52.100 Is there someone who would trust that person? 00:00:52.810 --> 00:00:56.305 No, we all agree on this. 00:00:57.335 --> 00:01:01.320 Yet this is what we do: 00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:05.040 we trust someone who deceives us every day. 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:10.000 This is what we all do, because our mind fools us 00:01:10.430 --> 00:01:16.010 every day, every night, when we sleep, for about an hour and a half. 00:01:17.800 --> 00:01:20.560 That is the duration of the so-called REM phases, 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:24.840 the sleep's dreaming phase. 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:27.960 Which kind of experience is dream? 00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:31.720 We all know that, we believe what we see. 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:34.680 If we're having a nightmare, we are afraid, 00:01:35.240 --> 00:01:38.440 because that monster is chasing us, we believe it is true. 00:01:39.620 --> 00:01:44.070 If we have a love affair with someone, we believe it. 00:01:45.160 --> 00:01:48.872 And the experience we are living, we live it intensely. 00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:57.240 Our mind deceives us in an extremely convincing way, 00:01:57.240 --> 00:01:59.240 involving all our senses. 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:03.480 It involves sight, involves hearing, 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:07.569 involves touch, involves emotions. 00:02:09.449 --> 00:02:13.570 Our brain and our mind create for us, when we dream, 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:20.840 some sort of movie, natural virtual reality. 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:24.108 Some of you may have tried to use virtual reality, right? 00:02:24.108 --> 00:02:28.240 We are immersed in it, we believe in it. Even more so in a dream. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:32.847 It is a "natural" technology, so to say, and it's even more effective. 00:02:34.370 --> 00:02:38.080 Yet during the day, when we are awake, 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:41.040 we trust our mind, 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:44.200 which is the same that betrayed us in the night, 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:46.760 the same that deceived us, 00:02:46.760 --> 00:02:49.600 that perhaps inspired us during the night, 00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:53.480 but still generating something that just is not true. 00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:57.520 It is fake, it is illusory, it is a shadow. 00:03:00.458 --> 00:03:04.150 This idea that our mind deceives us 00:03:04.150 --> 00:03:09.880 has deeply crossed our entire Western culture 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:14.240 generating two approaches, two ways of thinking 00:03:14.240 --> 00:03:16.440 extremely important for all of us. 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:18.205 We could not be here now 00:03:18.205 --> 00:03:22.520 if we had not reconsidered the deceptive nature of our senses. 00:03:23.252 --> 00:03:25.080 One approach is science. 00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:27.280 With the scientific method, 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:32.560 science wants to go beyond the limits of the individual mind, 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:34.080 the deception of our senses, 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:35.853 That's why we use a meter. 00:03:35.853 --> 00:03:38.805 If I guess by naked eye, something is five feet meter long, 00:03:39.478 --> 00:03:42.200 I know I can deceive myself, my mind is not that accurate, 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:44.410 I need to use a tool 00:03:44.410 --> 00:03:47.840 to objectively measure that length. 00:03:48.603 --> 00:03:50.690 This holds true for everything in science. 00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:54.320 We set up models, but we do not trust them. 00:03:54.320 --> 00:03:57.920 We must run experiments, we must take measures 00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:01.280 so that our idea, our fantasy, 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:05.020 is somehow confirmed by the external reality. 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:08.130 So the scientific method 00:04:08.130 --> 00:04:10.760 is totally aware of how deceptive our mind is. 00:04:11.700 --> 00:04:14.160 And it doesn't count a single scientist's opinion, 00:04:14.160 --> 00:04:16.160 because she may have made a mistake, 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:20.279 she might have made experiments, let's say, only in a certain direction. 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:23.040 Another scientist is needed 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.980 who questions, tries to falsify, 00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:30.109 what the first scientist stated. 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:34.080 Another discipline that strongly takes into account 00:04:34.080 --> 00:04:36.680 the deceptive nature of our senses 00:04:37.280 --> 00:04:39.560 is Western philosophy. 00:04:40.050 --> 00:04:41.480 There's also the Eastern one, 00:04:41.480 --> 00:04:44.362 but we are more familiar with the Western one. 00:04:44.362 --> 00:04:46.520 Think of Descartes, René Descartes, 00:04:46.520 --> 00:04:50.960 a great French philosopher, one of the fathers of modern thought. 00:04:50.960 --> 00:04:56.200 He starts his philosophical study, his philosophical exploration, 00:04:56.200 --> 00:05:02.600 precisely from the fundamental doubt about the relatability of his senses 00:05:03.320 --> 00:05:08.760 and tried to find a sounder base than his senses, 00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:12.280 one that a philosophical system can later be built upon. 00:05:13.060 --> 00:05:15.600 And so he starts saying "I think therefore I am", 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:16.610 which is well known. 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:19.720 You see, science and philosophy, 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:24.090 and various philosophical approaches that we do not explore now, 00:05:24.090 --> 00:05:27.690 are fully aware of our senses' deluding nature. 00:05:27.690 --> 00:05:29.910 But we, as individuals, 00:05:30.730 --> 00:05:33.320 we rarely ask ourselves during the day: 00:05:33.320 --> 00:05:34.800 am I dreaming or not? 00:05:35.900 --> 00:05:41.040 Instead, we believe in what our senses, all the time, 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:45.120 make us see, hear, feel, touch. 00:05:48.440 --> 00:05:50.760 But I'd like to stress with you now 00:05:50.760 --> 00:05:55.520 a particular method we can use 00:05:56.440 --> 00:05:58.520 to become more aware 00:05:58.520 --> 00:06:00.920 of our senses' deceptive nature. 00:06:01.960 --> 00:06:04.880 And this happens just while we dream. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.970 That is, while we are having a normal dream, 00:06:08.980 --> 00:06:11.690 trying to nurture the ability 00:06:11.690 --> 00:06:15.080 to wonder if that is a dream or not. 00:06:16.161 --> 00:06:19.460 Let's assume I'm chased by a nightmare's monster; 00:06:19.460 --> 00:06:25.000 while I'm running away, I contemplate the situation 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:27.860 and ask myself: is this a dream or not? 00:06:28.960 --> 00:06:30.840 And I turn my face to the monster. 00:06:33.560 --> 00:06:37.620 It is an extremely difficult change of conscience, it is not easy, 00:06:37.620 --> 00:06:40.440 but perhaps some of you will have experienced it. 00:06:40.973 --> 00:06:42.990 Some of you may have had a dream 00:06:42.990 --> 00:06:47.487 where you felt it was a dream and maybe you guided it a little bit. 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:49.890 Those are called "pre-lucid dreams". 00:06:50.430 --> 00:06:53.480 A lucid dream is an extremely intense experience, 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:57.880 where we are fully aware of the fact that we are dreaming. 00:06:59.400 --> 00:07:02.840 You see, as a teenager I had that experience 00:07:03.520 --> 00:07:06.480 as I clumsily practiced 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:09.120 meditation techniques during the day 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:12.914 and one night I happened to have a lucid dream 00:07:12.914 --> 00:07:15.210 of this extremely intense type, 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.800 which shaped a bit, let's say, 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:22.480 the way I saw, and still see, 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:24.560 consciousness and awareness. 00:07:25.700 --> 00:07:27.520 With the first dream then, 00:07:27.520 --> 00:07:30.560 immediately reported on the lucid dreams's book, 00:07:31.240 --> 00:07:35.400 was the first in a series of hundreds and hundreds of lucid dreams 00:07:35.400 --> 00:07:38.690 that I had in my life and still continue to have. 00:07:39.630 --> 00:07:42.040 And they have a great transformative power. 00:07:43.560 --> 00:07:48.040 Initially with the first dreams, you learn a little to play. 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:49.640 One thing I did, for example, 00:07:49.640 --> 00:07:52.120 was to get up a few inches off the ground. 00:07:52.840 --> 00:07:55.160 So I tried to challenge the laws of physics 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:58.240 and move from one place to another 00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:02.200 of that extremely detailed dream reality, by sliding. 00:08:03.052 --> 00:08:04.640 But then, why stop at that? 00:08:04.915 --> 00:08:07.080 So in later dreams I elevated myself more, 00:08:08.320 --> 00:08:10.560 and even passed through walls. 00:08:11.540 --> 00:08:14.200 I had the chance to fly over a city, 00:08:14.610 --> 00:08:17.080 to go from one city to another, 00:08:17.520 --> 00:08:19.520 always with extreme realism. 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:24.960 Meeting people generated for us by our dream world - 00:08:24.960 --> 00:08:27.480 we cannot control the people in the dream, 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:30.880 they have a strange independence of thought; 00:08:30.880 --> 00:08:32.960 but we can decide to go to them. 00:08:35.558 --> 00:08:38.039 We can transform our body, 00:08:38.568 --> 00:08:41.280 because we have a dream body, 00:08:41.280 --> 00:08:43.280 which is the same one of when we are awake, 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:46.560 but if we look at our dream hands 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:51.997 we can transform them, with an effort of lucidity and awareness, 00:08:51.997 --> 00:08:54.600 giving them six or ten fingers, 00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:58.040 or the hands of an animal, to become a wolf. 00:08:58.760 --> 00:09:00.240 One can become an eagle, 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:03.900 not only to fly but also to have the body of an eagle. 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:07.345 It is possible to become a dog, 00:09:07.345 --> 00:09:10.280 a woman if you are a man, or the other way around. 00:09:11.410 --> 00:09:14.160 It is possible to be in two places simultaneously, 00:09:15.090 --> 00:09:19.480 being aware of that - and why not, even three places. 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:22.292 Once it happened to me to be in three different places, 00:09:22.292 --> 00:09:24.270 I was flying in one, walking in another, 00:09:24.270 --> 00:09:26.295 and melted with the floor in the third one. 00:09:27.520 --> 00:09:31.520 Not so pleasant but interesting. 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:35.960 And anyway, you're in control. You can wake up at any time. 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:41.000 So, we said about philosophy. 00:09:41.810 --> 00:09:46.650 There are various traces of our awareness' ability 00:09:46.650 --> 00:09:48.520 to move into the world of shadows. 00:09:49.360 --> 00:09:53.680 And the best allegory for this idea is a very famous one 00:09:53.680 --> 00:09:56.720 I am sure that many of you will have heard or studied. 00:09:56.720 --> 00:09:58.880 It is the Plato's Cave, 00:09:58.880 --> 00:10:02.160 or the Allegory of the Cave, as it is also known. 00:10:02.790 --> 00:10:04.720 It's a story, I recapitulate here, 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.280 written by Plato 2,400 years ago in his Republic, 00:10:08.690 --> 00:10:12.760 staged in a cave deep within the Earth. 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:15.880 There are prisoners in chains 00:10:16.640 --> 00:10:20.600 who are forced to look only at the bottom of the cave, 00:10:21.160 --> 00:10:24.680 with no chance to move or look back. 00:10:25.253 --> 00:10:26.360 That is their world. 00:10:28.250 --> 00:10:30.800 Behind them, unbeknownst to them, there is a huge fire 00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:33.130 and between fire and prisoners 00:10:33.130 --> 00:10:36.080 there are people passing with objects. 00:10:37.600 --> 00:10:40.560 So the prisoners see, at the bottom of the cave. 00:10:40.560 --> 00:10:42.450 a number of moving shadows. 00:10:42.450 --> 00:10:44.000 That is their reality, 00:10:44.560 --> 00:10:47.480 and they therefore believe that this is the only reality. 00:10:48.268 --> 00:10:50.000 Those shadows are all that is there. 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:53.060 It just so happens, one day, 00:10:53.060 --> 00:10:56.520 one of those prisoners is released from the chains. 00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:02.000 He is able to get out of his limited world. 00:11:02.760 --> 00:11:05.640 The first thing he does, he sees that there is a huge fire 00:11:06.140 --> 00:11:08.920 and he sees there are three-dimensional objects 00:11:08.920 --> 00:11:11.320 he had absolutely no idea of before, 00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:12.880 And he understands that shadows, 00:11:12.880 --> 00:11:15.430 once thought to be the objects of the world, 00:11:15.430 --> 00:11:20.280 are only a projection of the actual three-dimensional reality. 00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:24.000 Then, at a distance, he sees a light, 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.400 which is the entrance to the cave he had lived in until then, 00:11:29.180 --> 00:11:31.430 he goes there, he comes out 00:11:31.430 --> 00:11:34.880 and sees that the world is much more complex 00:11:34.880 --> 00:11:38.280 and very rich, colorful, full of light 00:11:38.280 --> 00:11:41.880 and there is a large fire, much larger than that of the cave, 00:11:41.880 --> 00:11:44.680 which is the sun, which enlightens everything. 00:11:45.680 --> 00:11:49.480 And he can interact with these objects, he can run, he can touch them. 00:11:50.880 --> 00:11:54.800 Awakened as it is - you see, this is a metaphor for awakening - 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:57.720 but there is another passage, 00:11:57.720 --> 00:11:59.947 which is what also happens in lucid dreaming, 00:11:59.947 --> 00:12:03.830 that is, he decides to get back to the world of shadows. 00:12:03.830 --> 00:12:05.640 He returns down inside the cave 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:08.610 where his inmates are still prisoners, 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.360 and he wants to tell them 00:12:12.010 --> 00:12:14.960 that the reality of the shadows is not the real reality 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:18.760 but there is a much more complex reality, much richer, much finer, 00:12:18.760 --> 00:12:20.920 much more true, out there. 00:12:21.710 --> 00:12:25.640 As you can see, allegories describe mental processes, 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:26.720 just as dreams. 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:29.960 indeed allegories and dreams overlap, they have a close connection. 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:31.760 In this allegory of Plato 00:12:31.760 --> 00:12:35.000 there is this mental process of awakening, 00:12:35.430 --> 00:12:37.130 A hard process, 00:12:37.130 --> 00:12:39.320 also because initially it's hard to wake up, 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:41.360 blinded as we are by light; 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:44.160 but little by little, we wake up completely. 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:46.700 But then you see, there's this second passage, 00:12:46.700 --> 00:12:49.070 the return to the world of shadows, 00:12:49.070 --> 00:12:52.806 the return to sleep, the return to the illusory condition 00:12:52.806 --> 00:12:56.360 where we try to interact but from an awakened standpoint. 00:12:56.920 --> 00:13:00.170 So you see how it is like to wake up in a dream. 00:13:02.420 --> 00:13:05.700 Recent neuroscientific research 00:13:05.700 --> 00:13:07.940 has focused on this phenomenon. 00:13:07.940 --> 00:13:10.650 It used to be the exclusive realm of philosophy 00:13:10.650 --> 00:13:13.400 or maybe some anecdote told here and there. 00:13:13.400 --> 00:13:16.230 Then it became a mostly psychological field, 00:13:16.707 --> 00:13:18.950 and now even of neuroscience. 00:13:19.290 --> 00:13:23.200 So what happens in a lucidly dreaming brain? 00:13:24.160 --> 00:13:27.015 Well, the message is this, 00:13:27.015 --> 00:13:29.870 we have a part of the brain that is critically important, 00:13:29.870 --> 00:13:31.909 called the prefrontal cortex, 00:13:31.909 --> 00:13:33.737 the one we have behind the forehead. 00:13:33.737 --> 00:13:35.680 And you can imagine its role 00:13:35.680 --> 00:13:40.650 as a sort of conductor of all of our mental abilities. 00:13:40.650 --> 00:13:42.290 It directs the vision, 00:13:42.290 --> 00:13:45.030 which decides when to pay attention, 00:13:45.030 --> 00:13:48.160 what we must pay attention to in our visual range. 00:13:48.660 --> 00:13:50.200 So the conductor - 00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:53.000 as it doesn’t play an instrument itself 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:57.240 but regulates, let's say, the productions of all the other instruments. 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:01.640 Thus it is a kind of boss of our mind. 00:14:02.160 --> 00:14:05.440 That's when we have normal, ordinary dreams, 00:14:05.860 --> 00:14:07.940 the prefrontal cortex is off, 00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:12.040 while the rest of the brain is normally active 00:14:12.040 --> 00:14:13.440 almost as if we were awake. 00:14:14.088 --> 00:14:17.600 So it's a very active brain, but in the prefrontal cortex. 00:14:18.770 --> 00:14:22.200 What has been discovered is, when we have a lucid dream - 00:14:22.200 --> 00:14:25.720 a very rare event, very hard to reproduce in labs, 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:30.260 prefrontal cortex gets activated, 00:14:30.260 --> 00:14:33.040 not just as completely as if we were awake, 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:37.960 but in many substantial parts it's more active, consumes more oxygen. 00:14:38.920 --> 00:14:40.010 It was also found, 00:14:40.010 --> 00:14:42.800 those who are most prone to lucid dreaming 00:14:42.800 --> 00:14:46.980 or developed this ability to be conscious in their dreams, 00:14:46.980 --> 00:14:50.000 have a thicker prefrontal cortex, 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.720 we can measure it with an MRI, 00:14:53.440 --> 00:14:56.000 which signals a greater predisposition 00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:00.136 to be the conductor, 00:15:00.136 --> 00:15:03.080 to have an active conductor in their mind. 00:15:03.792 --> 00:15:06.310 Many studies - and many are still ongoing, 00:15:06.310 --> 00:15:08.720 is an extremely recent research topic. 00:15:09.720 --> 00:15:13.600 The prefrontal cortex is my favorite research topic, 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:15.300 so I started dealing many years ago 00:15:15.300 --> 00:15:19.360 on how the prefrontal cortex regulates and directs our behavior. 00:15:21.210 --> 00:15:24.520 So what can we do, in order to increase 00:15:24.520 --> 00:15:28.600 our ability to be aware while sleeping, in the dream? 00:15:29.290 --> 00:15:32.652 Well one technique is that of asking yourself, even when awake, 00:15:32.652 --> 00:15:34.080 if we are dreaming or not. 00:15:34.080 --> 00:15:37.440 I mean, all of a sudden, am I dreaming or not? 00:15:38.630 --> 00:15:42.000 Asking the question, rather than giving the answer, 00:15:42.880 --> 00:15:44.510 casting some doubt 00:15:44.510 --> 00:15:47.560 on how actually real is what we see. 00:15:48.120 --> 00:15:52.800 If it is our projection or is an objective fact. 00:15:54.040 --> 00:16:00.280 Repeating it several times during the day makes us, say, create a kind of habit. 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:05.560 And it may happen, one of these times we ask that ourselves, 00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:07.810 that we are actually dreaming. 00:16:08.420 --> 00:16:11.920 And so I'm talking to someone in my dream world, 00:16:12.520 --> 00:16:14.160 and I stop for a moment, saying, 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:19.160 am I really talking with this person, am I really watching a TED talk 00:16:19.940 --> 00:16:21.640 or is it a dream? 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:27.000 And try to give youself a valid answer. 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:31.280 Doing this several times during the day - 00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:35.520 but let me get this straight, not to escape in a dream world! 00:16:35.520 --> 00:16:37.620 Exactly for the opposite purpose: 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:41.465 enhance awareness, lucidity and presence 00:16:41.465 --> 00:16:43.640 in what we are experiencing. 00:16:44.680 --> 00:16:48.440 By doing so, we can become experienced lucid dreamers. 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:52.620 And which advantage do we have in our conscious world? 00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:56.520 Think of a situation when you're hit by a negative event: 00:16:56.520 --> 00:16:58.320 for example, you're fired. 00:16:59.040 --> 00:17:00.920 Bad, objectively bad. 00:17:01.520 --> 00:17:07.000 But how much negative projection we create around such an objectively bad event? 00:17:07.760 --> 00:17:11.239 We began to underestimate ourselves: why have they fired me? 00:17:11.239 --> 00:17:14.369 I didn't deserve that job, 00:17:14.369 --> 00:17:18.444 I never showed that I was good at it, or at that other thing, 00:17:18.444 --> 00:17:21.740 I have no more chances left. What will my family think about me? 00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:24.749 All this, you see, is dream-like: 00:17:24.749 --> 00:17:27.800 it is a dream dress 00:17:27.800 --> 00:17:31.080 we put on real and concrete facts. 00:17:31.960 --> 00:17:33.560 Training to lucid dreaming 00:17:33.560 --> 00:17:38.570 helps us to tell objective reality from our projection. 00:17:38.570 --> 00:17:42.363 In this way we can live better. 00:17:42.363 --> 00:17:45.640 Not to escape in a distant world, 00:17:45.640 --> 00:17:47.760 but to be more present in reality. 00:17:48.220 --> 00:17:49.920 Thus getting closer 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:53.920 to the freed prisoner of Plato's Cave 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:58.240 and be able to go around, out in the outside world, 00:17:58.240 --> 00:17:59.320 in light of the sun, 00:17:59.320 --> 00:18:04.560 or even return to the world of shadows and not let them to capture us again. 00:18:05.320 --> 00:18:11.029 So I say goodbye to you with a wish for a good awakening in dreams. 00:18:11.029 --> 00:18:15.428 (Applause)