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Lucid Dreaming - A Brief Introduction

WHAT IS LUCID DREAMING? Lucid dreaming meansdreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. The term was coined by Frederik van Eedenwho used the word "lucid" in the sense of mental clarity. Lucidity usually begins in the midst of adream when the dreamer realizes that the experience is not occurring in physical reality, but is adream. Often this realization is triggered by the dreamer noticing some impossible or unlikelyoccurrence in the dream, such as flying or meeting the deceased. Sometimes people becomelucid without noticing any particular clue in the dream; they just suddenly realize they are in adream. A minority of lucid dreams (according to the research of LaBerge and colleagues, about10 percent) are the result of returning to REM (dreaming) sleep directly from an awakening withunbroken reflective consciousness. The basic definition of lucid dreaming requires nothingmore than becoming aware that you are dreaming. However, the quality of lucidity can varygreatly. When lucidity is at a high level, you are aware that everything experienced in the dreamis occurring in your mind, that there is no real danger, and that you are asleep in bed and willawaken shortly. With low-level lucidity you may be aware to a certain extent that you aredreaming, perhaps enough to fly or alter what you are doing, but not enough to realize that thepeople are dream representations, or that you can suffer no physical damage, or that you areactually in bed. IS LUCID DREAMING THE SAME AS DREAM CONTROL?

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Lucidity is not synonymous with dream control. It is possible to belucid and have little control over dream content, and conversely, to have a great deal of controlwithout being explicitly aware that you are dreaming. However, becoming lucid in a dream islikely to increase the extent to which you can deliberately influence the course of events. Oncelucid, dreamers usually choose to do something permitted only by the extraordinary freedom ofthe dream state, such as flying. You always have the choice of how much control you want toexert. For example, you could continue with whatever you were doing when you became lucid,with the added knowledge that you are dreaming. Or you could try to change everything--thedream scene, yourself, other dream characters. It is not always possible to perform "magic" indreams, like changing one object into another or transforming scenes. A dreamer's ability tosucceed at this seems to depend a lot on the dreamer's confidence. As Henry Ford said,"Believe you can, believe you can't; either way, you're right." On the other hand, it appears thereare some constraints on dream control that may be independent of belief. See "Testing theLimits of Dream Control: The Light and Mirror Experiment" for more on this. HOW ARE LUCIDDREAMS RELATED TO OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES (OBEs)?

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A mysterious and highly controversial phenomenonsometimes occurs in which people experience the compelling sensation that they havesomehow "left their bodies." The "out-of-body experience" or "OBE", as this fascinatingphenomenon is usually termed, takes a variety of forms. In the most typical, you are lying inbed, apparently awake, when suddenly you experience a range of primarily somatic sensations,often including vibrations, heaviness, and paralysis. Then you experience the vivid sensation ofseparating from your "physical body" in what feels like a second body, often floating above thebed. It is important to note the distinction between the phenomenal reality of the OBE and thevarious interpretations of the experience. What is really happening when you feel yourself"leaving your body"? According to one school of thought, what is actually happening is just whatit feels like: you are moving in a second body out of and away from your physical body--inphysical space. But this "explanation" doesn't hold up very well under examination. After all, thebody we ordinarily feel ourselves to be (or if you like, to inhabit) is a phenomenal or mental bodyrather than a physical body. The space we see around us is not physical space as "commonsense" tells us, but as modern psychology makes clear, a phenomenal or mental space. Ingeneral, our consciousness is a mental model of the world. OBE enthusiasts promote luciddreaming as a "stepping stone" to the OBE. Conversely, many lucid dreamers have had theexperience of feeling themselves "leave the body" at the onset of a lucid dream. From a laboratory study, we have concluded that OBEs can occur in the same physiological state aslucid dreams. Wake-initiated lucid dreams (WILDs) were three times more likely to be labeled"OBEs" than dream initiated lucid dreams. If you believe yourself to have been awake, then youare more likely to take the experience at face value and believe yourself to have literally left yourphysical body in some sort of mental or "astral" body floating around in the "real" physical world.If, on the other hand, you think of the experience as a dream, then you are likely to identify theOBE body as a dream body image and the environment of the experience as a dream world.The validity of the latter interpretation is supported by observations and research on thesephenomena. WHY HAVE LUCID DREAMS? Upon hearing about lucid dreaming for the firsttime, people often ask, "Why should I want to have lucid dreams? What are they good for?" Ifyou consider that once you know you are dreaming, you are restricted only by your ability toimagine and conceive, not by laws of physics or society, then the answer to what lucid dreamingis good for is either extremely simple (anything!) or extraordinarily complex (everything!). It iseasier to provide a sample of what some people have done with lucid dreaming than to give adefinitive answer of its potential uses. Adventure and Fantasy Often, the first thing that attractspeople to lucid dreaming is the potential for wild adventure and fantasy fulfillment. Flying is afavorite lucid dream delight, as is sex. Many people have said that their first lucid dream was themost wonderful experience of their lives. A large part of the extraordinary pleasure of luciddreaming comes from the exhilarating feeling of utter freedom that accompanies the realizationthat you are in a dream and there will be no social or physical consequences of your actions.One might think that this is a rather intellectual concept, but an ecstatic "rush" frequently ariseswith the first realization that one is dreaming. Overcoming Nightmares

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Unfortunately for many people, instead of providing an outlet for unlimited fantasy and delight,dreams can be dreaded episodes of limitless terror. As is discussed in the books LucidDreaming (LaBerge, 1985) and Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (EWLD) (LaBerge &Rheingold, 1990), lucid dreaming may well be the basis of the most effective therapy fornightmares. If you know you are dreaming, it is a simple logical step to realizing that nothing inyour current experience, however unpleasant, can cause you physical harm. There is no needto run from or fight with dream monsters. In fact, it is often pointless to try, because the horrorpursuing you was conceived in your own mind, and as long as you continue to fear it, it canpursue you wherever you dream yourself to be. The only way to really "escape" is to end yourfear. (For a discussion of reasons for recurrent nightmares, see Overcoming Nightmares from EWLD.) The fear you feel in a nightmare is completely real; it is the danger that is not. Unreasonable fear can be defused by facing up to the source, or going through with thefrightening activity, so that you observe that no harm comes to you. In a nightmare, this act ofcourage can take any form that involves facing the "threat" rather than avoiding it. For example,one young man dreamt of being pursued by a lion. When he had no place left to run, he realizedhe was dreaming and called to the lion to "come and get him." The challenge turned into aplayful wrestling match, and the lion became a sexy woman (NightLight 1.4, 1989, p. 13).Monsters often transform into benign creatures, friends, or empty shells when courageouslyconfronted in lucid dreams. This is an extremely empowering experience. It teaches you in avery visceral manner that you can conquer fear and thereby become stronger. Rehearsal Lucid

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dreaming is an extraordinarily vivid form of mental imagery, so realistic that the trick is to realizeit is a mental construct. It is no surprise, therefore, that many people use lucid dreaming torehearse for success in waking life. Examples of such applications include public speaking,difficult confrontations, artistic performance and athletic prowess. Because the activity of thebrain during a dreamed activity is the same as during the real event, neuronal patterns ofactivation required for a skill (like a ski jump or pirouette) can be established in the dream statein preparation for performance in the waking world. See EWLD for examples. Creativity and

Problem Solving The creative potential of dreamsis legendary. The brain is highly active in REM sleep and unconstrained by sensory input, whichtogether may contribute to the novel combinations of events and objects we experience asdream bizarreness. This same novelty allows thought to take on forms that are rare in wakinglife, manifesting as enhanced creativity, or defective thinking depending on one's point of view(As Roland Fisher put it, "One man's creativity is another's brain damage."). The claim ofenhanced creativity of the dream state is supported by LI research: One study found wordassociations immediately after awakening from a dream to be 29% more likely to be uncommoncompared to word associations later in the day (NightLight, 6.4, 1994). Another study comparinga variety of kinds of experience including daydreams, memories of actual events, and dreams,found that dreams were judged as being significantly more creative than both daydreams andmemories (NL, 4.1, 1992). In any case, many lucid dreamers report using dreams for problemsolving and artistic inspiration; see EWLD for a variety of examples. Source

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