Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge.pdf

Lucid Dreaming

Stephen LaBerge

Lucid Dreaming

Contents

Foreword by Robert Ornstein, Ph.D.

1. Awake in Your Dreams

2. The Origins and History of Lucid Dreaming

3. The New World of Lucid Dreaming

4. Exploring the Dream World: Lucid Dreamers in the Laboratory

5. The Experience of Lucid Dreaming

6. Learning Lucid Dreaming

7. The Practical Dreamer: Applications of Lucid Dreaming

8. Dreaming: Function and Meaning

9. Dreaming, Illusion, and Reality

10. Dreaming, Death, and Transcendence

Epilogue: Alive in Your Life

Notes

[About this etext]

Acknowledgments

"Originality," it has been said, "is merely unconscious plagiarism." Because the ideas in this book derive

from so many sources, I have not always been able to remember whom to credit. My apologies to those

not explicitly cited, and my thanks to all.

Daniel Goleman and Robert Eckhardt provided early encouragement for the writing of this book. The

Holmes Center for Research in Holistic Healing and the Monteverde Foundation graciously awarded me

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grants.

I wish to thank Dr. William Dement who provided laboratory space at the Stanford Sleep Research

Center for my experiments, and Dr. Lynn Nagel for his crucial assistance at the beginning of our work. I

also wish to thank my research assistants for their help, and all of the Oneironauts who participated in

our lucid dream project, especially Dr. Beverly Kedzierski.

A number of individuals have my gratitude for reading and commenting upon various drafts of the

manuscript; they include Loma Catford, Henry Greenberg, Dorothy Marie Jones, Lynne Levitan, Robert

Ornstein, Howard Rhinegold and Jon Singer. I am also indebted to Jeremy Tarcher for sage advice, and

to Hank Stine and Laurie LaBerge who heroically edited the entire manuscript.

Finally, I am grateful to L. P. for only she knows how much.

Foreword

Stephen LaBerge has done something unusual: he has shown that what was once thought to be

impossible in the realm of consciousness is in fact possible. He has proven scientifically that people can

be fully conscious while remaining asleep and dreaming at the same time. How he has done this makes a

fascinating story told in the first section of this book.

LaBerge's proof is important because it shows, once again, that the possibilities of human consciousness

are greater than we had thought. Many scientists had believed that dreams were in their very nature

"irrational" and "unconscious." From this perspective, lucid dreaming was beyond the pale.

Incorrect conceptions frequently act as barriers to understanding, thereby concealing possibilities from

view. To give a parallel example, it was once considered impossible to run a mile in less than four

minutes. In fact, this idea seemed to form a real barrier for many runners until one man succeeded. Soon

after this conceptual barrier was broken, many others found themselves able to run four-minute miles.

We seem to attempt only what we assume to be possible.

The same principle holds for consciousness, and LaBerge's demonstration of the possibility of conscious

and deliberate action in the dream state may serve to inspire others to do the same.

For readers interested in developing the skill of lucid dreaming, LaBerge's book provides not only

inspiration, but also advice and techniques showing how to become a lucid dreamer and how to make

practical use of the state for stimulating personal growth, enhancing self-confidence, promoting mental

and perhaps also physical health, and facilitating creative problem solving.

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Dr. LaBerge has written a provocative and eminently readable book. Readers of the last section of Lucid

Dreaming especially will be richly rewarded with ideas and insights that forbid, in the words of William

James, "a premature closing of our accounts with reality." The author has shown that lucid dreaming—

as much as any other activity—if followed with an open and sensitive mind, can lead to a more unified

understanding of consciousness.

Robert E. Ornstein, Ph.D.

Awake in Your Dreams

As I wandered through a high-vaulted corridor deep within a mighty citadel, I paused to admire the

magnificent architecture.

Somehow the contemplation of these majestic surroundings stimulated the realization that I was

dreaming! In the light of my lucid consciousness, the already impressive splendor of the castle appeared

even more of a marvel, and with great excitement I began to explore the imaginary reality of my "castle

in the air." Walking down the hall, I could feel the cold hardness of the stones beneath my feet and hear

the echo of my steps. Every element of this enchanting spectacle seemed real—in spite of the fact that I

remained perfectly aware it was all a dream!

Fantastic as it may sound, I was in full possession of my waking faculties while dreaming and soundly

asleep: I could think as clearly as ever, freely remember details of my waking life, and act deliberately

upon conscious reflection. Yet none of this diminished the vividness of my dream. Paradox or no, I was

awake in my dream!

Finding myself before two diverging passageways in the castle, I exercised my free will, choosing to

take the right-hand one, and shortly came upon a stairway. Curious about where it might lead, I

descended the flight of steps and found myself near the top of an enormous subterranean vault. From

where I stood at the foot of the stairs, the floor of the cavern sloped steeply down, fading in the distance

into darkness. Several hundred yards below I could see what appeared to be a fountain surrounded by

marble statuary. The idea of bathing in these symbolically renewing waters captured my fancy, and I

proceeded at once down the hillside. Not on foot, however, for whenever I want to get somewhere in my

dreams, I fly. As soon as I landed beside the pool, I was at once startled by the discovery that what from

above had seemed merely an inanimate statue now appeared unmistakably and ominously alive.

Towering above the fountain stood a huge and intimidating genie, the Guardian of the Spring, as I

somehow immediately knew. All my instincts cried out "Flee!" But I remembered that this terrifying

sight was only a dream. Emboldened by the thought, I cast aside fear and flew not away, but straight up

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to the apparition. As is the way of dreams, no sooner was I within reach than we had somehow become

of equal size and I was able to look him in the eyes, face to face. Realizing that my fear had created his

terrible appearance, I resolved to embrace what I had been eager to reject, and with open arms and heart

I took both his hands in mine. As the dream slowly faded, the genie's power seemed to flow into me, and

I awoke filled with vibrant energy. I felt like I was ready for anything.

The dream I have just recounted is a sample of a little-explored and fascinating world of inner

experiences. Being "awake in your dreams" provides the opportunity for unique and compelling

adventures rarely surpassed elsewhere in life. That alone ought to be more than enough to spark the

interest of the adventurous in lucid dreaming, as this remarkable phenomenon of dreaming while being

fully conscious that you are dreaming is called. Yet adventure may prove to be the least important of a

variety of reasons you might find it rewarding to cultivate the skill of lucid dreaming. (It is learnable, as

you will see in Chapter 6.) For example, lucid dreaming has considerable potential for promoting

personal growth and self-development, enhancing self-confidence, improving mental and physical

health, facilitating creative problem-solving, and helping you to progress on the path to self-mastery.

The foregoing list may strike some as extravagant, but I believe there is substantial evidence supporting

these claims. The particulars will be dealt with in due course, but first it may be helpful to take a more

general approach. All of these applications of lucid dreaming sleep under the same blanket: They each

possess, to a greater or lesser extent, the potential for improving the quality of your life and enhancing

your sense of well-being by enriching, broadening, and even radically transforming the varieties of

experience open to you as a human being.

The suggestion that lucid dreams could improve the quality of your life applies to both your everyday

and everynight life. One reason for this is that whatever wisdom you acquire in your lucid dreams seems

to remain at your disposal to help you live your waking life. Moreover, the reverse is equally true: You

can remember the lessons you have learned in waking life in your lucid dreams. Unfortunately, neither is

usually the case for the ordinary dreamer, who experiences a lack of connection between dreams and

waking life. Typically, non-lucid dreamers suffer from a state-specific form of amnesia, so that while

awake they remember their dreams only with difficulty, and while asleep they recall their waking lives

through a carnival mirror, darkly and distortedly, or not at all. You might conceivably ask, Is this so

bad? Why should it matter whether we live two lives or one? By way of an answer, I would offer an

analogy: Suppose the odd and even days of the months were for some reason so unrelated for you that

on any given day you could only remember thoughts and actions from half (the even or the odd, as the

case might be) of your past. I leave it to you: Would this be so bad? In lucid dreams, however, the veil of

amnesia is lifted, and with the help of memory, lucidity builds a bridge between the two worlds of day

and night.

A skeptic might object that this analogy is misleading. After all, the odd and even days of waking life

are equally valuable, but what is the world of dreams able to offer that compares to the world of waking

reality? Is a bridge between our waking and dream worlds worth the trouble? Specifically, what sort of

return could you expect on the time and energy needed to seriously cultivate dreams in general and lucid

dreams in particular?

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A number of answers could be given. One line of argument might start from Freud's conception of the

dream as the Via Regia, or royal road to the unconscious mind. Anyone interested in personal growth

can hardly afford to ignore the insights derived from a study of his or her own dreams. And to reap the

fullest harvest from the dream state requires lucidity. In a word, dreams are a must for those interested in

self-development.

Mental health aside, what else does the world of dreams have to offer? The answer that springs first to

mind is "physical health." For one thing, the distinction between "mental" and "physical" is not always

easy to make, and is in fact based on outdated philosophies. The more modern, "systems" view sees

health as a matter of integration of the whole person. "Integration," here refers to the coordinated

functioning of the human biosystem as a unit. For Homo sapiens, this involves interactions among at

least three levels of organization: the biological, the psychological, and the sociological. The intuitive

appeal of this conception of health seems clear enough as it is. Still, it seems even more sensible if one

considers some of the synonyms of health, such as wholesome, sound, and hale: all share the root

meaning of integration or wholeness.

I stress the concept of wholeness at this point because it will help you appreciate the emphasis I place on

self-integration later in this chapter. Also, it sets the stage for presenting the fact that psychological

events of the dream can indeed affect biological functioning of the body, as the experiments at Stanford

University have shown. Considering that most diseases have at least a partial psychosomatic component,

there may even be reason to believe that lucid dreams can be used to facilitate the healing of

psychosomatic syndromes.

One more application of lucid dreaming should be mentioned: creative problem solving and decision

making. In the course of history, dreams have frequently been credited as an important source of

creativity in a wide range of human endeavors, including literature, science, engineering, painting,

music, cinema, and even sports. Among the first creative dreamers to come to mind is Robert Louis

Stevenson, who attributed many of his writings to dreams, including The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and

Mr. Hyde; an even more famous example is Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his opium-dream poem,

"Kubla Khan." Among scientists, we may cite the nineteenth-century German chemist Friedrich August

Kekulé's dream discovery of the structure of the benzene molecule, and Otto Loewi's dream-inspired

experiment demonstrating the chemical mediation of nerve impulses, which won him the Nobel prize for

physiology in 1938. In the field of engineering, there are several instances of inventions revealed in

dreams, including Elias Howe's sewing machine. Painters also attribute some of their works to dreams;

William Blake and Paul Klee provide two of the best-documented cases. Likewise, among composers,

we find that quite a number—including Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Tartini, and Saint-Saens—have

credited dreams as a source of inspiration. As for cinema, there are many instances of dream-inspired

films—to cite a few at random, Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad, Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the

Wolf, and Judith Guest's screenplay for Ordinary People. Finally, the famous golfer, Jack Nicklaus,

claims to have made a discovery in a dream that improved his game by ten strokes—overnight! These

examples will have served their purpose if you are now willing to accept the premise that people have

not infrequently received creative ideas in dreams.

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