Lucid Dreaming Research Paper

1. Introduction

Starting from the ancient times humans has always been interested in strange phenomena of sleeping and dreams. Dreams can be explained psychologically as images of subconsciousness and feedback of neural processes in human's brain. For most of us, dreaming is something quite separate from normal life. When we wake up from being chased by a monster, or being on a date with a movie star, we realize with relief or disappointment that "it was just a dream." Although in most dreams we are not aware of the fact that we are dreaming, a remarkable exception occurs in "lucid dreams" in which the dreamer “attains a clear cognition that he or she is dreaming while dreaming” (LaBerge 2000). This state can be viewed as being awake while

The modern science of lucid dreaming covers last forty years and it starts with the work of Keith Hearne at the University of Hull and Stephen LaBerge at Stanford. What they separately realized was that “a dreamer could become lucidly aware in a dream and possibly ‘signal’ his awareness by moving his eyes left to right a predetermined number of times” (Blackmore, 1991). Hearne, working in the sleep lab with the talented lucid dreamer, Alan Worsley, captured this eye-signal verification evidence in April 1975 on the rapid eye movement polygraph readout. LaBerge, using himself as the lucid dreaming subject in the Stanford sleep lab, captured his first lucid eye-signals in February 1978. The studies proved that the subjects had indeed been lucid during uninterrupted REM sleep, which became the first evidence that being consciously aware in the dream state is possible. Looking back at that first scientifically acceptable evidence, Keith Hearne said, “It was like getting signals from another world. Philosophically, scientifically, it was mind blowing.” Before the evidence from LaBerge and Hearne, the idea and experience of lucid dreaming existed; however, the lack of scientific evidence left it doubted and even considered ‘impossible’ by many, it simply

There are a few people who can have lucid dreams at will. Although it might be difficult to master, lucid dreaming is indeed learnable (LaBerge, 1980). There are few simple and successful techniques for becoming consciously aware in the dream state. Over the years of research two distinct approaches was developed on which all techniques to induce a lucid dreaming are based. These are auto-suggestion and prospective remembering. The first basic step in your journey to start lucid dreaming is to track your dreams. Most of us forget 95 to 99 percent of our dreams, and usually a person dreams at least four to six times per night. To change that you should keep a dream journal by your bed so you can write down everything that you can remember about your dreams the second you wake up, before any other thoughts clutter your mind. It helps your brain to better remember dreams in the future. Once you start taking more notice of your dreams, you may start to have control over your consciousness in them. Dream journal is also a great way to find patterns in your dreams that can help you later realize that you are dreaming. These are so called “dreamsigns” – typical for you anomalies that occurs in your dreams. They are distinct for everyone, that’s why it’s so important to recognize what are yours. It might be pink flying elephant or meeting your passed away