MacEwan Open Journals (MacEwan University)
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Empirical work Introduction
No full text"Experientia docet," asserts the proverb, but all experiences do not teach equally consistently. The scientific method of controlled observation and experimentation is designed to elicit reliable answers from the questions we put to nature. Part III contains a sample of the scientific research on lucid dreaming. Most of the empirical studies on the topic have focused on three major aspects of the phenomenon: induction, physiology, and individual differences; this selection is arranged accordingly
Dreaming: Lucid and Non
No full textI restrict my comments to two areas where LaBerge’s remarks have implica-tions for the study of ordinary (nonlucid) dreaming (which must comprise at least 99.44% of human dream experience). The first area is the potential of lucid dream techniques in addressing problems in mainstream dream psychology, and the second is where LaBerge discusses ordinary dreaming per se
The Multiplicity of Dreams
No full textWhat I’d like to do today is to try to place lucid dreaming within the context of overall dream studies and dream research—and within the multiplicity of dreams. I want to show how a cross-comparison of the different forms or types of dreaming might give clues to the cognitive processes that may be involved in all dream formation. And in that context I want to look especially at the place of lucid dreaming, namely the special relation of lucid dreams to nightmares and so-called archetypal-mythological dreams. I will try to show, both descriptively and in terms of a small research study, that these three kinds of dreams seem to be the points where the process of dreaming is maximally intensified. Such maximal intensifications may help to show fundamental dimensions of all dreaming that get crystallized in these relatively infrequent special forms
The Selling of the Senoi
No full textIt has been said that when religions are faced with new discoveries challenging their authority, they react in three predictable stages: first, "It’s not true"; second, "It’s wicked"; and third, "We knew it all along so why make a fuss about it?" A remarkably similar process is currently taking place amongst True Believers in the religion of so called "Senoi dream control.
Letter to the Editor [The Importance of Lightheartedness]
No full textI would now like to comment briefly on "Proceedings from Lucid Dreaming Symposium" (Lucidity Letter, June 1986). . . . I come to an important statement by Bouchet, that for "those who see life as a movie, a drama or game, something to be played," the question "Am I dreaming or not?" is not a problem
Ordinary Dreams, Lucid Dreams and Mystical Experience
No full textIt is difficult to give a definition of mystical experience that would satisfy every scholar. I use the expression mystical experience to mean an apparent experience of some reality greater than oneself that comes by transcending, to some degree, awareness of one’s own physical and mental self and one’s physical surroundings. This reality may be understood as God or some other spiritual being, brahman, Being, the universe, oneness, the void, or nirvana. I would distinguish for my purposes here between the phenomenon that is seen as the mystical experience itself and other more incidental phenomena that precede or accompany the mystical experience, such as visions of disks of light, the feeling of levitation, or bliss
Experimentation With the Vortex Phenomenon in Lucid Dreams
No full textThe "vortex phenomenon" is an experience in which there is the sensation of whirling through a vortex. . . . The commonly reported "tunnel experience" I feel is a subsection of the fully developed vortex. This phenomenon and various equivalents have been reported as an associated finding in a variety of situations such as neardeath experiences, out-of-body experiences, artistic works, mystical experiences, drug-induced hallucinations (Siegal, 1977), epileptic and schizophrenic twilight states (Mayer-Gross, 1969), hostage hallucinations, hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, and dreams. It is usually transitional in nature and sometimes associated with feelings of bliss, creativity and the sense of a new beginning or of a major advancement. Early in my lucid dreaming research, this phenomenon occurred sporadically; following my increased interest, it occurred approximately five to ten times a month
Dream Lucidity Induction And Control
No full textAlan Worsley was the first dreamer to use specific Rapid Eye Movement (REM) signals in a sleep laboratory to indicate that he knew he had started a lucid dream. These excerpts from a somewhat longer essay tell us about his childhood development efforts, specific personal experiments, and some conclusions from his experience as an "oneironaut" in lucid dream research laboratories
Dream Light: Categories of Visual Experience During Lucid Dreaming
No full textI have put into sixteen categories visual experiences associated with my lucid dreaming. The basic difference between lucid dreaming and ordinary dreaming is that in lucid dreaming I know I am dreaming, and in ordinary dreaming I do not. Lucid dreaming often has the visual characteristics of ordinary dreaming. On the other hand, lucid dreaming may lead to some experiences of light similar to what is reported in mystical or supposed mystical accounts (Gillespie, 1986). Therefore, the categories actually apply to a continuum from ordinary dreaming through lucid dreaming to phenomena associated with mystical experience