The Dreaming Voice Box — Micro -Screams and Mini Exultations
Have you ever had a nightmare in which you scream out and no matter how hard you try, no sound comes out? You can really feel the effort you are putting into that scream and that is because your voice box is actually making the micro-movements of a scream whilst you are asleep. The same applies when you speak words in dreams. Scientists are now decoding what you say in dreams by translating these silent voice box micro-movements into speech.
When I first read about dream researcher and scientist Daniel Oldis decoding dream speech by monitoring the micro-movements of the voice box, I felt very amazed. I explored the idea in my dreams the same evening.
I found myself in a great futuristic city at night, with beautiful architecture and dazzling lights. I became lucid and as I looked around at the awe inspiring scenery I shouted as loudly as I could — “This is amazing, this is AMAZING!” I could feel my voice box moving and I felt a deep wave of joy roll through my body. Intuitively I believe that the clearest micro-movements and defined voice box activity would be during lucid REM sleep.
I’ve experimented in many dreams since with becoming aware of the subtle physical sensation of the voice box moving as I talk, laugh and cry in dreams and it has added a rich new layer to the dreaming experience, it also aids in becoming lucid quickly. It makes me wonder about our abilities as human beings to become consciously aware of the most subtle phenomena.
The science of subvocal ‘inner speech’ has been around for a long time, and has been recorded using EMG (Electromyography). Combined with EEG it has been explored in the research of ‘Thought Helmet’ technology. This is a military initiative to enable operatives to communicate with one another silently.
As I’ve explored in previous articles here on Medium, during dreaming our body becomes hyper-sensitive of internal processes and cues, turning them into dream content and often representing them symbolically.
When I was a child, my greatest aspiration was to invent a machine that could record my dreams. My dream worlds gave me the most immense amount of pleasure and it was a powerful desire to see them as a film. I wanted to be a dream film director and to my mind, no one has ever captured perfectly the aesthetic, sonic or psychological experience of dreaming. Perhaps Jodorowsky comes closest and in my experience, each dreamer does have their own style — our dreams are the ouevre of our soul.
I had a thought recently about the impact of symbolic imagery on dream content. I have always been drawn to surreal art and strong symbolic imagery in films. I believe that by exposing ourselves to beautiful, awe-inspiring symbolic art and archetypal imagery, we are feeding our minds and souls with just the right kind of dream food that will help us make sense of ourselves, our world and our place within it. As we think better thoughts and dream better dreams, we can become better versions of ourselves.
I meet many people at my dream talks and workshops who have boring dreams, perhaps ones in which they are working all day at the office, or ones in which they are scrolling through Facebook feeds or texting someone.
If you want beautiful dreams, fill your eyes and ears with the most beautiful things.
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