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Lucid Art and Hyperspace Lucidity
by Fariba Bogzaran
This article explores non-representational, multidimensional lucid dreaming and its parallel imagery in modern art paintings. Developed from a series of successive qualitative experiments on art and lucid dreaming, the study brings together phenomenological and narrative approaches to reveal a relationship between imagery in a particular lucid dream experience (Hyperspace Lucidity) and a particular type of modern art painting (Lucid Art). This article attempts to open new dialogues for investigation of the interconnection between the dreaming mind and art.
1 Correspondence should be directed to Fariba Bogzaran, Graduate School for Holistic
Studies, John F, Kennedy University, 12 Altarinda Road, Orinda CA 94563
INTRODUCTION
This article addresses the connection between Lucid Art, a special category of visual art, and hyperspace lucidity, a subset of experience in lucid dreams. Drawing from my experience and from on-going interdisciplinary studies that I have conducted, I will discuss important parallels between the two. My general thesis is that Lucid Art, previously referred to as “inner world painting” (Bogzaran, 1996), even though not necessarily "dream art" per se, offers us a visual representation of particular kinetic, non-representational, light-filled and numinous dream experiences that are otherwise difficult to describe. The implication is that Lucid Art as a mode of inquiry can play an important role in informing us about dreams.
My interest in hyperspace lucidity started as a result of a series of impactful lucid dreams in the early 1980s. I have been compelled, as an artist and researcher, to study and express these lucid dream experiences. Similar types of transcendental and spiritual dreams have been observed and discussed by others, notably Tart (1969, 1991), Sparrow (1976), Garfield (1979), Gillespie (1986), Gackenbach (1989), LaBerge (1985, 1990), Hunt (1989, 1991) and Bulkeley (2000). Although I assume that these dreams are relatively rare, they tend to be highly transformative. Attempting to express their sheer luminosity and multidimensionality has tested and expanded my creative abilities.
While researching and exploring these impactful hyperspace lucid dreams, I encountered what I call Lucid Art paintings, whose imagery was similar to that of hyperspace lucidity. These paintings, which I saw in a book, Creation, were not directly dream-related art and were referred to as “inner world paintings” (Onslow Ford, 1978). Inner world paintings were developed out of two historical movements that seek the expression and exploration of the unconscious in art: Surrealism and Dynaton.
Since my recognition of inner world paintings and hyperspace lucidity in 1989, I have been in dialogue with many pioneer inner world painters, in particular Gordon Onslow Ford, to explore the relationship between the two. Although the term “lucid” was not in his vocabulary and he has not recalled lucid dreams, he was intrigued with this connection. In some ways Lucid Art brought our life’s work together. In an attempt to define Lucid Art, we collaborated word by word on its poetic meaning: "Lucid Art is the convergence of the universal creative force expressed in a spontaneous work of art that elicits in the viewer a sudden awakening of an aspect of the inner worlds" (Bogzaran & Onslow Ford, 2001).
Lucid Art explores impersonal and subtle energies of different layers of the inner worlds through mindful creation, highly rooted in contemplative philosophy and practice, fostering a systematic yet spontaneous creative flow. This state of flow allows the artist to bring forth images from the depth of the unconscious. Poetically, one can say that Lucid Art is the meeting of the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown, the conscious and unconscious.
If the surrealists were seeking to explore the personal unconscious, lucid artists seek to explore impersonal collective consciousness. Lucid Artdeals with the personal transformation of the artist. Ken Wilber gives a definition of a similar direction in art that represents transcendelia: “First, the development or growth of the artist’s own soul, right up to the point of union with universal Spirit and transcendence of the separate self or individual ego; and second, the artist’s depiction/expression of his spiritual dimension, particularly in such a way as to evoke similar spiritual insights on the part of the observers.” (Wilber, 210, 1990)
IMAGES IN HYPERSPACE LUCID DREAMS
Lucid dreaming -- dreams in which we know we are dreaming (van Eeden, 1913) -- opens the dreamer to a vast range of potential visual experiences, including hyperspace lucidity, which deals mostly with non-representational, multi-dimensional and subtle energies. To describe the imagery of hyperspace lucidity is somewhat challenging, as there are few outer references to these inner images.
Hyperspace lucidity can also have the quality of transcendent experience. In hyperspace lucidity the spatial dimension of the experience is often characterized by shifts from the regular narrative of the dream to transformation of the space and form to disintegration of the known images into non-figurative forms and particles. This transformation can happen suddenly or gradually. These experiences can also be seen in dreams, meditation, waking visions, hypnagogic imagery (Tart, 1969; Hearne, 1978; Gackenbach, 1978), Kundalini openings (Garfield, 1979; Metzner, 1986), and drug induced
experiences, such as with ayahuasca (Metzner, 1999; Shanon, 2002).
Particular images are reported in non-representational experiences in lucid dreams, including abstract imagery, mathematical equations, concentric circles, light dots, light phenomena, and oscillating lines, followed by a sense of “awe” and “spiritual opening” (Bogzaran, 1990). In his diamond model, Harry Hunt refers to similar states in lucid dreams under the rubric of "archetypal, mandala and white light" (Hunt, 1989).
Many researchers have reported similar experiences. George Gillespie (1986) has experimented with a variety of lucid dreams and transpersonal experiences. His experiences include: light patterns, with color and movement, and "disks of light." (Disks of light often appear in the shape of a moon or planet, stationary or moving.) Gillespie also describes his encounters with “the light," which he claims appears to him only in lucid dreams. Often it appears while he is in darkness or when he is in some religious activity. The experience of "the light," according to Gillespie, is a moment of bliss and joy. Gillespie has developed a sixteen-category model for describing light in lucid dreams (Gillespie, 1991).
Linda Magallón has reported imageless lucid dreams in which there are no symbols or imagery. She writes, "This 'undifferentiated area' is that part of the dream universe in which all awareness of the self as body or special entity leaves. It is also characterized by peace, silence, and absence of visual stimuli." These imageless dreams can be empty, filled with "nothing," or they can be part of a deeply involved spiritual experience (Magallón, 1991).
Kenneth Moss described a "vortex phenomenon" in lucid dreaming. The experience of whirling through a vortex has been reported in altered states, drug-induced hallucinations, and artistic works. Moss separates his experiments in dream induction into three categories: "field acceleration," where he accelerates his body movements and whirls through a vortex; "field accent," where he enlarges the visual elements, which brings the dreamer into close connection with these elements (e.g., becoming one with a cloud through the vortex); and "field involution," in which he gathers the visual field inward to create the vortex (Moss 1991). Moss claims that the vortex shape appears in many forms: "tunnels, funnels, spirals, cones, star fields, kaleidoscopic fields, geometric patterns, lattices, cobwebs, spectral arrays, entoptic patterns and light rays" (Moss, 1991, 50).
Moss’s categories of vortex phenomena can be seen in hyperspace lucidity. A personal example illustrates the phenomenology of these dreams. In this prolonged hypnagogic experience I became lucid:
“Hyperspace Hypnagogia” (1994)
“I begin whirling through a vortex and speed upward. As I start to move I hear a sound starting with a low pitch. The faster I whirl the higher the pitch becomes. I whirl so fast that I transform into the shape of a vertical line. I am being lifted upward at the same time the sound is at its highest pitch. I go straight vertically and shoot up like a rocket in the inner space. Suddenly ‘I,’ the line, burst into ‘light dots’ dispersing in all directions in space with absolute Silence. The dots move away from each other at a very slow pace, keeping a gravitational distance from one another. My consciousness is there, but my body is shattered into pieces of dot/energy in a vast space. I wonder how I can get back to my body. As soon as I have this thought, my will, like a magnet, brings all the pieces together. Then I find myself whirling back and hear the same high-pitched sound. I begin to feel my body as the speed slows down and the pitch becomes lower.”
My personal experience and experiments in hyperspace lucidity and also the reports of many lucid dreamers show that a shift in dream content typically occurs during the dream experience, following this general pattern: from narrative dreams to lucid dreaming to abstract imagery and then hyperspace lucidity.
Gackenbach and Bosveld (1989) interviewed a long-term practitioner of Transcendental Meditation who also suggested a stage-like process moving from lucidity to witnessing in dreams. He noticed that often the body is floating in the air in the dream, or else the body disappears in the intensity of the experience and only consciousness remains. This experience begins with the dreamer's becoming conscious of dreaming and viewing the images as something outside the self, and proceeds to recognizing that the images are inside the dreamer.
The last stage is the entrance into a transcendental state, or what is referred to as pure consciousness. In this state, the interviewee claimed that one encounters forms that one has not seen in non-lucid dreams. "They will be much more abstract and have no sensory aspects to them, no boundedness to them. One experiences oneself to be a part of a tremendous composite of relationships" (Gackenbach & Bosveld, 1989, 184). By composite of relationships he means a sense of knowing that there is a connection between him and the entities he is encountering. "There are no ways to gauge motion by; it is just expansiveness. There are no objects to measure it. The expansiveness is one of light -- like the light of awareness" (Gackenbach & Bosveld, 1989, 185).
Inner world painting (now referred to as Lucid Art )was the art that came closest to capturing this phenomenon of hyperspace lucidity. Of course, other artistic media such as film, animation and music have invoked similar imagery, but here I focus only on the medium of painting.
DREAM ART, LUCID ART
Visual art that attempts to represent or illustrate dreams often tends to depict the narrative and symbolic aspect of the dreaming mind; for example, Giorgio de Chirico, Double Dream of Spring (1915); Delvaux, Appel de La Nuit (1938); Valentine Hugo, Reve du 21 Décember 1929 (1929); Bogzaran, Conscious Dreaming (1982); Dorothy Rossi, New Perspective of the World (1995). This type of dream art is studied in depth in a book by Gamwell (2000), who archived an impressive number of "dream artists" together with surrealists and artists who capture dream-like images.
The expression of the unconscious in painting can be seen as a form of inquiry in visual language. The painter becomes the researcher, the explorer who looks inside rather than relying on outside events. A brief overview of the history of dream-related art in the past 100 years and the shifting perception from outer to inner will provide an essential ground to reflect on the development of Lucid Art.
In the early 1900's, Picasso and Braque challenged the viewer to see many sides of object at the same time. Cubist painting suggests a different relationship to time and space. Perceived images are no longer representative of an external perspective. The subject matter seems unimportant; Braque and Picasso often talked about suppression of the subject. This "abandonment of subject" was a new idea, as they experimented in seeing the external subject as illusion and finding a way to discover and express internal reality. "Cubism was able to create a new continuum of space-light in which light and shade are no longer illusionist means, but are integrated in the plastic matter like the polarity of graphic rhythms and color rhythms; the appearance of objects being no longer an end but only a point of departure" (Paalen, 1944, 6).
The painter Giorgio de Chirico's early work (1911-1917) explored dream-like scenes, a symbolic narration that continued from one canvas to the next as if the artist were haunted by a recurrent dream. In his paintings, we no longer observe the painting of a person dreaming about a dream image; the painting is the dream image (Bogzaran, 1990). This point of departure was inspirational and influenced the Surrealist idea of looking into the enigmatic world of dreams. As André Breton, the founder of the Surrealist movement clearly stated: "I believe in the future resolution of the two states of dreams and reality into a sort of absolute reality or surreality” (1924, 14). Breton was aware of lucid dreaming and had knowledge of the work of Marquis d’Harvey Saint-Denys (1982). In Communicating Vessels (1933), Breton reflects on Saint-Denys' exploration of lucid dreaming, which compelled him to question the nature of reality and wonder about the nature of the unconscious.
There was great interest in mysticism, the occult and dreams among the Surrealists, but little exploration of lucid dreaming and the imagery of the non-representational aspect of dreaming within the group. Paintings were focused on the personal symbolic and mythic realms. Such images can be seen in the paintings of Victor Brauner, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, René Magritte, Jean Miro, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, and other surrealists.
A subset of the surrealist group was interested in metaphysics, Carl Jung, and Ouspensky's work on the Fourth Dimension. They attempted to capture images beyond personal symbolic dream images. Among these artists were Yves Tanguy, Wolfgang Paalen, Roberto Matta and Gordon Onslow Ford. This group sought possibilities of transcending the personal and moving into transpersonal dimensions of the inner worlds. The development of Lucid Art grew out of the study and work of these painters.
Roberto Matta’s paintings of the early 1940s dealt with an inner space similar to hypnogogic imagery and aspects of hyperspace lucidity. He called these inner phenomena "Psychological Morphology" and saw them as a spontaneous creation of the mind:
“All forms as they are represented graphically are the resultant of the adaptation of internal energies in movement to the obstacles created by the milieu. The morphology of spiral motion, osmotic growths, and periodical precipitation indicates the line and form of the meetings of bodies that do not mix” (Matta, 1938)
Matta insisted that “If we are not using poetry, we are repeating ourselves” (1993). His early (30s and 40s) and later (80s and 90s) paintings deal with the structural frameworks of the inner worlds. In his spatial paintings the elements seem to be in a state of movement alternating between the very fast or the very slow.
From 1937-1938, the youngest members of the surrealist group in Paris, Matta and Onslow Ford, spent months studying, dialoguing and creating images that moved beyond symbolic personal dreams to explore the impersonal aspect of the inner worlds.
"The inner-worlds include all the wonders that are sometimes called 'indescribable' (too fast to talk about) or 'beyond understanding' (too fast to think about). Those with experience in meditation speak of the nature of the inner-worlds as being "empty" or "void," and as being formless. On the canvas, for the painter, emptiness becomes a space that is full, and formlessness is manifest in structure and form." (Onslow Ford, 1978, 63)
For Paalen, art was no longer a representation of what we see, but an important act of self-knowledge. "No work of art can be universal in the sense in which a scientific formula is universal, but art is universal to the extent to which it is primordial expression”(1951). Art does not belong only to the field of aesthetics but to a realm that brings forth images of the "impossible," the mystery. "Our pictures are objects for that active meditation ... a state of self-transcending awareness, which is not escape from reality, because it is an intuitive participation in the formative potentialities of reality." (Paalen, 1951, 26)
Abstract Expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko, Piet Mondrian, Richard Pousette-Dart, and Sam Francis, and other painters such as Mark Toby, also sought to explore the inner worlds by abstracting the subjective out of their paintings. This abstraction of the subjective to arrive at the impersonal and non-representational dates back as far as 70,000 years. In a recent discovery in South Africa, archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood and his team found pieces of ochre engraved with patterns that researchers believe “depict abstract concepts -- unlike literal pictures of animals and hunters usually found in caves” (2002). Non-representational images related to inner worlds can also be seen in ancient Chinese, Persian, Islamic, Celtic and native arts. The breakthrough exhibition “The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Paintings” (Tuchman, 1986) gathered many modern artists whose paintings expressed the spiritual in non-representational forms.
Gordon Onslow Ford’s theory of “line, circle, dot” gives us insight into how this pioneer inner world painter arrived at images similar to hyperspace lucidity. While studying Asian philosophy and metaphysics in 1951, he became aware that the simple marks "line, circle, dot" constitute the seed that leads to the inner-worlds. He began experimenting with spontaneous paintings and discovered that the fastest painting always took the form of lines, circles, and dots.
It took ten years of experimentation and years of contemplation to realize that, as he increased the speed of lines in painting, he allowed himself to be in the moment without thinking. He created images that were "faster than thought.” He called this "Painting in the Instant.” The "Instant" is that moment of creation in which the Mind is totally present to the act of creation. He states: “The new world is a place of no dimension. It transcends the interchangeability of microcosm and macrocosm.... Boundaries of space and time only exist at the distance of thought. In the instant there are no boundaries, space-time found is space-time occupied. The way to get into the new world in words is through poetry.” (Onslow Ford, 1964, 49)
Onslow Ford refers to the painting of dream imagery as depiction of “poetic vision” in which “the unconscious is expressed symbolically in known images”(1978. P.35). In his cosmology, there exist in the inner worlds definite steps of unfoldment. The painter moves from the known to the unknown, and "brings back" images of the unknown, the invisible (1978).
Onslow Ford became convinced that the inner world is as real as the outer world. He called this direction in art "Inner Realism." By that time he had explored the inner worlds through painting for fifty years. He wrote: “The inner-worlds that underlie dreams are invisible and intangible, but they exert powerful influence. They are ignored on pain of becoming disillusioned with life -- the more the inner worlds are ignored, the more they surprise, shock and astound when they assert themselves” (1980, 21).
Twenty years later he updated his statement on Inner-Realism:
“In spontaneous painting the Mind acts directly through the hand of the painter to the painting and never-seen-before images appear. The painter, as a separate individual, becomes an instrument of the Mind Shared by All, the creative spirit of the cosmos.... The principle preoccupation of Inner Realism is to express the nature of an Inner World as directly as possible from the Open Mind.” (Onslow Ford, 2001)
Onslow Ford’s painting, writings and theory of line circle dot offer a connection between the phenomena of the inner world and art. In his elaborate explanation of the stages of the inner world (1978), this connection from narrative dream to hyperspace lucidity is easily detected. According to Onslow Ford, if we slow the line we have a tendency to depict known and recognizable images; as we speed the line to its fastest capacity, the three elements “line, circle, dot” appear. On several occasions, I have replicated the experience of speeding up the painting with art students. Results are inevitable: if we speed the drawing to its maximum speed, we inevitably end up with straight lines, circle or dots. In the transition from narrative symbolic imagery in dreams to hyperspace, a transformation of images occurs at high speed or in an instant. The known images transform into lines, concentric circles, dot patterns and other non-representational imagery (Bogzaran, 1996).
The evolutionary sequence of cubism, surrealism, abstract expressionism and inner realism reveals art as a way of knowing and a new way of seeing. If we construe art as a form of knowing, and, in some sense, a method of research -- that is, a qualitative and systematic inquiry seeking to express the inner phenomena -- then perhaps art can be an essential vehicle to study the mind.
EXPERIMENTATION, EXPLORATION, OBSERVATIONS AND VIEWERS' RESPONSE
Looking at the connection between hyperspace lucidity and Lucid Art, I have been experimenting with viewers' response to assess how other lucid dreamers, artists and art lovers in general react to inner world paintings, here called Lucid Art paintings. These experiments and observations present qualitative evidence of the connections between Lucid Art and hyperspace lucidity. I relied on self-selected viewers, and used phenomenological methods (Kidd & Kidd, 1990) well suited to the study of art and dreams. While these phenomenology is better apt to capture subtle meaning and the detailed contours of experience, the nature of studies are exploratory and descriptive rather than explanatory.
Charles Tart suggests that “because various phenomena of consciousness have powerful affects on science, personal life, values and culture, they must be studied in their own right, especially the effects of altered states of consciousness (ASC),” and he proposes “using the state-specific perceptions and logics of these states to form a variety of state-specific, complementary sciences that will expand our understanding of both consciousness and world" (Tart, 1998, 1).
The use of phenomenological methods to collect descriptions of dreams can be seen as a particular instantiation of state-specific science. A parallel runs between the various states of creativity encountered in Lucid Art and hyperspace lucidity. Both forms of inquiry necessitate a surrendering to the process that gives rise to spontaneous acts of creation.
In a series of three different investigations, I have tried to convey how asking people to carefully describe their responses when they surrender to the viewing experience can reveal the relationship between art and dreams. These experiments took place in a period of eight years following my own recognition of a Lucid Art painting and my experience of hyperspace lucidity in 1989.
In the first investigation, I collected interviews from four known inner-world painters (John Anderson, Roberto Matta, Lee Mullican and Gordon Onslow Ford) and four experienced and published lucid dreamers (Daryle Hewitt, Patricia Keelin, Ken Kelzer, and Eric Snyder). The lucid dreamers were selected based on the reports of transpersonal/hyperspace experiences in lucid dreams (Bogzaran, 1989). Slides from the four artists were shown to the lucid dreamers mixed with narrative dream art and symbolic dream imagery. The lucid dreamers recognized the Lucid Art painters’ images as familiar. According to them, the spaces depicted in the paintings had strong correspondence with their non-figurative spiritual experiences in lucid dreams. The experience of hyperspace in their lucid dreams was accompanied by themes of letting go of control and opening to mystery. They conveyed visual themes in their interview by describing experience of light, energy lines, transparent circles, vast space, white light dots, spheres and spirals, and dreambody transformation (Bogzaran, 1996).
In the second investigation, seven long-time lucid dreamers and meditators were selected for a studio visit of Lucid Art painters. Six paintings from different lucid artists were selected and participants were asked to contemplate each painting separately for 15 to 30 minutes and write about their experiences. A total of 10 paintings were shown and 51 descriptions of different paintings were collected. (All participants were encouraged to write about three main paintings and had the option of their choice with the other paintings).
The third investigation took place during an art exhibition I organized called “Through the Light” (1997). This study engaged the public at large to respond to Lucid Art images. I did not self-select the participants, as I wondered if these Lucid Art paintings elicit similar experiences to those in hyperspace lucidity or meditation.
Six paintings from the previous study and several other paintings from the same artists were selected for the exhibition. The viewing public was encouraged to choose one or two paintings in the exhibit, spend some time contemplating them and write about their experiences. A total of twenty-nine people participated. 1997)
Similar themes emerged from the descriptions of the viewers. The paintings invoked forgotten dreams. Some participants experienced vibration in their body and heard music. The sense of being overwhelmed by the presence of the paintings was common and inevitably viewers wrote in poetic writing. Many reported the paintings reminded them of experiences of hypnagogic imagery, dreams, and lucid dreams, and the imagery described was similar to hyperspace lucidity.
DISCUSSION
In this article I’ve made an attempt to connect Lucid Art and hyperspace lucidity by giving personal examples and reporting many years of experiments and observations. I have argued for a connection between the creative inquiry in paintings, dreams and phenomenology. The more I explored these two areas by experiencing hyperspace lucidity and expressing myself as a lucid artist, the more my writing has tended towards poetic expression.
I addressed Lucid Art as a way of knowing -- a methodology of inquiring into the dreaming mind. I suggested art is a mode of expressing subtle and unexplored aspects of the lucid mind. By describing and using exploratory experiments, the study became an art itself and as “a viewer,” you are also invited to draw your own meaning.
As Surrealists expressed the “unconscious,” Lucid Art painters express “the flow of consciousness.” Lucid Art can be the ground for articulation of subtle inner experiences that are otherwise labeled ineffable. Many lucid dreamers, once exposed to these paintings, could articulate their experience in hyperspace lucidity with more clarity and in more details (Bogzaran, 1996).
Based on my own experiences as a painter and numerous interviews with other Lucid Art painters (e.g. J. Anderson, B. Blunk, R. Bowman, M. Hamel, R. Matta, L. Mullican, G. Onslow Ford, and J. Wright), I have noticed similar intentions in our paintings. These intentions are: to explore the non-figurative dimensions of the inner worlds; to express the universal mind-the creative force of the universe; to be open to mystery; to be in harmony with the spirit of nature; to create works mindfully; to surrender to the process of creation. For some of the artists the intention is also to transcend the personal.
Although this research on Lucid Art and hyperspace lucidity brings together two seemingly obscure aspects of art and dreaming, it encourages us to look deeper into subtle experiences and images in both art and dreaming. It is in this connection of inner experiences and inner world art that a new form of art is being suggested -- Lucid Art. This type of art arises from the “eye of contemplation” which Wilber suggests “discloses the spiritual, transcendental, and transpersonal world”(Wilber, 201, 1990).
Lucid Art is a direct exploration of the subtle mapping of non-representational images of the inner worlds and it also deals with a much larger question about the nature of reality. As Wolfgang Paalen wrote half a century ago: "Art, in order to be great, has to deal with something greater than art—and that something greater can not be less any longer than a wider comprehension of reality" (Paalen, 1951, 21). Lucid Art can give us a possible vehicle to express the depths of the mind.
Wilber pronounced years ago that “The next great movement in Western art lies waiting to be born” (Wilber, 214, 1990). Perhaps Lucid Art is that movement that brings the unconscious to consciousness, elicits spiritual insights to the viewer, evokes forgotten dreams and brings the feeling of openness, awe and ecstasy similar to transcendent and spiritual experiences.
I believe consciousness is a continuum of waking, dreaming and creating. My hope in this essay is to open further dialogue on the interconnectedness of the dreaming mind, waking mind and creative mind. Future explorations into the unknown territories of the mind will bring us closer to unraveling the mystery of dreaming and creation.
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