Problems with Studying Dreams from Primarily Within Your Dreams (from my experience)
- It's difficult to achieve the lucidity balance. Even if you think you are lucid or remember that you were lucid, there is always the possibility that you were not.
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- Memory of the dream quickly begins to fade as soon as you wake up.
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- The mindset which comes most naturally switches as soon as you wake up - slow enough that you know your dreaming mind is fading but even if you try to prolong it, it will eventually fade into waking life thoughts/emotions/task motivation. They can't seem to exist simultaneously.
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- Memory is an incredibly unreliable and fades quickly - but is the only way to currently study dreams. This is a similar principle to the measurement barrier in quantum physics - as soon as you perceive something you are changing it.
Potential Solutions:
- Find a way to record dreams in real time.
- Yukiyasu Kamitani of the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories lead a team that was able to use fMRI and EEG technology to formulate a rudimentary recreation of what their dreaming subjects were seeing.
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-Find a consistently successful way to consciously switch from being awake to dreaming