MacEwan Open Journals (MacEwan University)
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Techniques and Antecedents: A Response to Giesler
No full textThe editor of the Lucidity Letter has asked me to respond to Giesler’s insightful comment on Ann Faraday’s and John Wren—Lewis’s (henceforward F&WL) “The Selling of the Senoi”
Lucid Dream Definition
No full textAs a result of discussions following experiments carried out in the last few months at St. Thomas’s by a medical student, who is doing a project on lucid dreams using other medical students with no special lucid dreaming ability, I have been reconsidering the definition of lucid dreams.
The Lucid Dreaming Ability and Parasympathetic Functioning
No full textThe thesis of the present inquiry is that superiority in parasympathetic functioning, especially in women, will be related to lucid dreaming. The hypothesis is based on several lines of evidence. First, age leads to a progressive decrease in sympathetic reactivity and an increase in parasympathetic reactivity (Gelhorn & Loofburrow, 1963). Correspondingly, Gackenbach (in press) reports that among adults, older women were more likely to report experiencing lucidity of dreams. Sympathetic functioning as evidenced by the release of adrenaline has been associated with feelings of anxiety (Cohen & Silverman, 1959). The data on anxiety for women is consistent with the hypothesis whereas for men data are mixed. Specifically, adult women who frequently have lucid dreams reported less covert and overt anxiety (Gackenbach, in press) and less social anxiety (Gackenbach, et al., 1983) while men reported less overt anxiety (Gackenbach, in press) but more social anxiety (Gackenbach, et al., 1983). Finally, the lack of neuroticism has also been related to parasympathetic functioning (Lester, 1980) and the lucid dreaming quality (Gackenbach, in press)
Negative Air Ions and Lucidity Induction: Additional Data
No full textIt has been reported that using a negative ion generator in ones bedrooms may be detrimental to falling asleep. The general influence of negative air ions on the brain may be a lower arousal threshold. Too much arousal keeps us awake; but by controlling the negative ion concentration individuals may find that they are able to sleep while retaining a tendency for heightened arousal in dreams. In this way negative ions may be conducive to lucidity. Adler reports that the frequent appearance of rain in his dreams in an ionized environment may also express this arousal effect. Sometimes this “rain” assumes bizarre forms: emeralds falling out of the sky, thousands of birds descending, but usually it is ordinary rain. Falling water and rainstorms are the natural source of negative air ions
Objective Vs. Subjective Approaches to Investigating Dream Lucidity: A Case for the Subjective
No full textIn lucid dreams we are dealing very much with images and ideas, feelings and imagination, desire and will. Although, obviously, statistics can be applied there is much scope for discussion on a literary rather than a mathematical level though it is harder to appear scientific in some contexts unless figures can be quoted. I do realize that the phenomenon of lucid dreams is one which is particularly susceptible to suggestion and that objective verification is even more important than usual but at the same time we are at the beginning of the exploration of the subject and provided reported observations are suitably qualified the stimulating effect of exciting discoveries can be retained without embedding a whole collection of misguided preconceptions into the lore of lucid dreams as seems to be the case with astral projection and ritual magic
An Historical Note on Lucid Dreaming
No full textBy way of introduction, I am Director of the Parapsychology Sources of Information Center. One of our activities is to collect and index articles or chapters on or relevant to parapsychology and altered states. (The data base now numbers some 34,000 items.) In reading an article from the last century preparatory to assigning index terms for it, I found I had in my hands an interesting account of self—training in lucid dreaming dated 1886. Because of its possible historic interest, I would like to bring it to the attention of readers of Lucidity Letter
Birth, Lucid Dream and the OBE
No full textHonegger (1983) recently put forward the theory that the OBE is a form of lucid dream in which the cord, tunnel and out—of—body imagery result from a fetal OBE occurring during the stress of birth. This theory pre-dicts that people born by Caesarean section should be less likely to have these experiences
The Relationship of the Lucid Dreaming Ability to Mental Imagery Experiences and Skills
No full textA review of research pertaining to the relationship of waking imagery abilities and experiences to the lucid dreaming ability will be presented. This work includes both spontaneous waking images such as hypnagogic images, hallucinations and daydreams and experimentally produced waking images, such as mental rotation tasks