Richard Catlett Wilkerson
This excerpt is from a chapter in _A Brief History of
Dream Sharing: Theory, Techniques and Cyberspace_. 1999, DreamGate Publishing.
"I have been dreaming for some time and suddenly
I realize that I am dreaming. As soon as I become lucid, I feel a flow
of tingling energy rising up into my head and settling in my forehead.
The dream images shift suddenly and now I see an amazingly beautiful evergreen
tree in from of me. "
Ken Kelzer
If the writings
of the Ancient Eastern mystics are to be considered, the first mention
of lucid like dream control comes from about 1000 BCE in the Upanishads
"...having subdued by sleep all that belongs to the body, he not
asleep himself , looks down upon the sleeping senses. Having taken to
himself light, he goes again to his place - the golden person, the lonely
swan." (Shafton, pg 431).
The doctrines moved from India into Tibet and as Gillespie
(1988) has published, became part of the complex systems of enlightenment
in Buddhism. Though generally unknown in the West, they were know to esotericists
from Evans-Wentz's 1935 book Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines.
Both the Greeks and the Romans spoke about lucid dreaming, but the
credit for the first full description is usually given to St. Augustine
who in 415 AD recounted two dreams of a former Roman physician Gennadius.
In the first dream appeared a guide and the next night the guide returns
and when Gennadius recognized him, the guide said they had met in the
previous night's dream. The guide goes on to instruct him that he is
dreaming, though his body is lying asleep, and that this is what it
is like after death.
Hervey de Saint-Denys investigated and wrote in France
about lucid dreaming in _"Dreams and how to Guide them_" which
Freud knew of but didn't read. Freud should have read him as it would
have perhaps gave him pause in saying it just wasn't possible.
Actually, it was Frederick Van Eeden that brought the
issue up to the mainstream Western public in 1913 at a meeting for the
Proceedings for the Society of Psychical Research, but the audience was
small and reacted much in the same way they had to dreams in general -
"So what?"
Other writers and individual pioneers like Hervey de
Saint-Denys and Mary Arnold-Foster tried to bring public attention to
lucid dreaming, but without success.
But by the 1960's Western Culture had reached a degree
of self awareness that allowed us to see that excessive material gain
didn't necessarily increase the meaning in one's life. Alternative realities
were explored, some with success and some with disaster. Charles Tart
was at the center of this exploration and published Altered States which
among other articles, included one on how the Senoi tribe controlled their
dreams and a reprint of Van Eeden's article "A Study of Dreams".
A few other writers also were able to reach people, including
Patricia Garfield and her chapter on lucid dreams in Creative Dreaming,
Celia Green's 1968 Lucid Dreams and Sparrow's 1976 Lucid Dreaming: Dawning
of the Clear Light. Another influential stream were the popular Castaneda
books, particularly the 1972 Journey to Ixtlan where Castaneda is supposedly
taught the secret of lucid dreaming by the guide Don Juan. The now famous
technique is to become conscious of one's hands while sleeping and thereby
become lucid. What was actually suggested was to pick *any* pre-sleep
selected object. It's just that the hands were something that would always
be available.
But it wasn't until two independent researcher groups
were able to actually signal from the lucid dream statein laboratories
that the first objective evidence was available. The first was a subject
named Alan Worlsely who signaled to Keith Hearne in the English sleep
laboratories of Hull University. But Hearne held off on publishing his
work and it was unknown to the parallel work being done in California
at Sanford by Stephen LaBerge. Both had drawn on the current REM dream
research that found that while most of the body is pretty much cut off
from movement during dreaming, the eyes are actually quite active (thus
REM or Rapid Eye Movement). Why not signal from the dream state with a
pre-chosen series of eye movements that would be obvious and statistically
significant? The only question was whether or not the lucid dream eye
movements would correspond or connect with the psychical eye.
LaBerge describes the first night he was sleeping in
the lab and was able to signal after some initial problems:
"I slept very well, indeed, and after seven and
a half hours in bed had my first lucid dream in the lab. A moment before,
I had been dreaming- but then I suddenly realized that I must be asleep
because I couldn't see, feel, or hear anything. I recalled with delight
that I was sleeping in the laboratory. The image of what seemed to be
the instruction booklet for a vacuum cleaner or some such appliance floated
by. it struck me as mere flotsam on the stream of consciousness, but as
I focused on it and tried to read the writing, the image gradually stabilized
and I had the sensation of opening my dream eyes. Then my hands appeared,
with the rest of my dream body, and I was looking at the booklet in bed.
My dream room was a reasonably good copy of the room in which I was actually
asleep. Since I now had a dream body I decided to do the eye movements
that we had agreed upon as a signal. I moved my finger in a vertical line
in front of me, following it with my eyes. But I had become very excited
over being able to do this at last, and the thought disrupted my dream
so that it faded a few seconds later." (1985, pg 70)
Two large eye movements were found on the polygraph and
the results were sent to the Association for the Psychophysiological Study
of Sleep. But then the research began to come up against skepticism by
reviewers in the journal where LaBerge and his mentor Lynn Nagel tried
to publish. A reviewer for the <i>Science</i> Journal kept
saying that it was impossible and therefore invalid, not on technical
grounds, but philosophical ones! But they continued research, doubling
efforts and finally by around 1981 the sleep research community could
no longer deny the evidence.
Now lucid dreaming is a large sub-branch of dreaming
in general. The lucid dreaming papers and symposiums are quite popular
at the annual ASD (Association for the Study of Dreams) conventions and
besides the Lucidity Institute in Palo Alto, there are multitudes of smaller
groups run by interested and informed individuals. The Internet has spawned
not only several web sites devoted to lucid dreaming, but two newsgroups,
alt.dreams.lucid and alt.dreams.castaneda which continually discuss lucid
dreaming.
The benefits of learning and practicing lucid dreaming
are still being debated, but some positive trends are becoming clear.
Generally, they follow the benefits of becoming mindful & conscious
in general:
Nightmare Control. Bringing consciousness to dreams
allows the dreamer to feel more empowered. This can be especially helpful
to those who suffer from nightmares.
Increase Life Expectancy. Usually we see this increase
as living longer. But what if you could be conscious an extra 10% of
your sleeping time and feel more refreshed than ever?
Amazing Adventure for Free. How often in waking life
do we get the chance to fly, to breath under water, to walk through
walls and cuddle up next to movie stars?
Rehearsal. Just as practice visualization helps before
an event, so to can rehearsal in a dream.
Health. Lucid dreamers tend to resist disease more and
have shorter periods of illness when they are sick.
Advance Enlightenment. Many lucid researchers have now
connected lucid dreaming with states of consciousness promoted by Tibetan
Buddhism.
Lucid dreaming, which once shared the shelf with esoteric
and occult beliefs, has now been brought out onto the table of verifiable
knowledge and teachable skills. We now have the platter before us, and
a nightly feast awaits.
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