Lucid dream science is it real? and Stephen LaBerge

lucid crossroads is changing

This page answers questions about, can Lucid dreaming be proved?, information on the history of lucid dreaming, classic dream interpretation, dream/spirit guides and a seizable chunk of web links to other resources at the bottom of the page.

Can Lucid dreaming be proved? ~ Yes, it was first scientifically proved by the scientist Stephen LaBerge and his team. When you sleep your bodies main muscles are in paralysis to stop you hurting yourself. One of the few muscles not to be effected are the eyes, the REM (rapid eye movement).

To prove lucidity LeBerge used himself as the first subject. Whilst in a lucid dream he signaled with a set pattern of eye movements the moment when he had achieved the lucid state. When he was lucid they recorded his brain waves and conducted various experiments. All very interesting read the text on this page to learn more.

History of lucid dreaming ~ Before lucid dreaming was scientifically proved the experiences of people claiming to have woken in their dreams where assumed to be pure fantasy or merely mistakenly thinking you were still dreaming when in fact you were awake.

In 1867 French scientist, le Marquis d’Hervey-Saint-Denys, book entitled, Les Rêves et les Moyens de les Diriger; Observations pratiques (Dreams and the Ways to Direct Them; Practical Observations.) was published. Although the Dutch writer Frederik van Eeden is generally credited for coining the term "Lucid Dreaming" the phrase was actually mentioned 50 years earlier by Saint-Denys.

Since that time other writers have contributed to Eeden and Saint-Denys work on lucid dreaming but it was left to Le Berge to scientifically prove the "reality" of lucid dreams following his acceptance to Standford university in 1977.

Of course no one knows when humans first became able to use lucid dreaming as a skill but it is noted throughout history and across all cultures. You could say that lucid dreaming could explain all "realistic" religious experiences and mystic and magic practices, personally it would be extremely hard to prove that but dream awakening and travel is used widely in the ancient world by shamans, seers and other mystics.

Classic dream interpretation ~ Everyone knows about Freud and his use of dream analysis in the understanding of his psychiatrist patients but is his way the correct way of understanding your dreams and does this methodology break down when you become lucid?

Freud stated that analysis of the dream allows access to buried parts of the brain that can reveal thoughts, emotions, fears and desires of what our fully conscious brain may mask in waking life.

Freuds approach was however very structured and attempted to apply sweeping generalizations to everyone's dreams. Jung the former pupil of Freud used "free association" to examine ones own dreams so that you would go through the dream and examine what the various components mean to you in your life.

When you dream the direction of those dreams and the subject matter contained in them is a complex mixture of various parts of your mind, memories and experience. (See the Dreamemporium for some standard dream symbols and meanings)

This could happen when you lucid dream as well but a classic dream interpretation about a bathroom might be "the need for cleansing/purging/elimination of something in your life that isn't quite working, or that has served it's purpose and now it's time to move on.". Where in a lucid dream you might have chosen to go there to look at yourself in the mirror in the bathroom. The addition of your consciousness makes everything slightly more complex but there are different ways of learning what your dreams may mean or what your subconscious is trying to tell you in a lucid dream, see below.

Dream/Spirit guides ~ When you lucid dream you are not always alone, in fact in most lucid dreams you will find characters from your original dream or your new lucid ones everywhere populating your mind created dream world. In a lucid dream these people (sometimes animals or sentient beings) are created and controlled by parts of your brain that you do not have access to in your conscious lucid state. This means that they act independent of your conscious free will, they seem to have a life all of their own. However they remain part of your mind and might have the same access to your mind and parts of your brain that you with your lucid free will also seem to have (why you might be able to make yourself understood without using words).

If you believe in the reality of astral projection then the people and beings you meet in your astrals are real souls/spirits. Both dream guides and spirit guides can tap into your deepest feeling and thoughts, hopes and fears even those that you might not be conscious of. Some people use dream guides to tell them the honest truth about them as people. Some people go further than this and think that these representations of your brain or higher guardians can make alterations in your mood and even more fundamental body changes like ordering your body to fight a particular illness. All of which is completely scientifically unproven but interesting.

How do you find Dream/Spirit guides ~ That can be more difficult but remember when you lucid dream every character (maybe) is part of your mind and can be interrogated to learn something of yourself. Having said that experienced lucid dreamers will know that there is a massive difference between lucid characters, some seem mindless shells and others seem like something entirely different. Try shouting out "I want to meet my guide, show yourself" or something similar, they could very well appear behind you.

Other relevant pages at the Crossroads

Pages on the internet similar to this one

Some info from this page

Interview with Stephen LaBerge at mavericks of the mind

Theory on the nature and functions of dreaming at ASD

NightLight experiments by Lynne Levitan

Other science websites on the internet