Lucid Dreaming Part 6

And the ill favoured and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.

In other cases, the dreamer may not be present in the dream at all, as in the dream Pharaoh had when he went back to sleep:

And he slept and dreamed the second time: and behold, seven ears of corn came up on one stalk, rank and good.

And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them.

And the seven thin ears devoured the seven rank and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was a dream.

I call this disembodied perspective the "dream observer." The dream observer is not contained in the dream proper but stands outside it.

Every dream contains at least one point of view with which we identify: the part we are playing in our dream theater. The nature of the role we play or choose to play in our dream allows us varying degrees of involvement, ranging from the complete partic.i.p.ation of the dream actor to the uninvolved detachment of the dream observer. So the answer to "Who is the lucid dreamer?" seems to be that he or she is a composite figure-partly the dream ego or dream actor, and partly the dream observer.

There are usually other characters present in the dream besides the one we think we are. These are the animate and inanimate characters that make up the remainder of the dramatis personae of the dream. And, of course, if there is a single dream character with whom we fully identify at any given moment, this becomes the dream ego. We may dream, for example, that we are watching a play from the audience. Our identification at this point is with an outside observer. But if we sufficiently identify with one of the actors onstage, the results may be our suddenly becoming that character. Usually this happens in such a way that we forget that a moment earlier we were dreaming we were someone else. Our tendency to identify is so strong that we forget ourselves in the roles we play.

Which of these states of identification characterizes the lucid dreamer-partic.i.p.ant or observer? The answer is, a combination of both. Putting it all together, we could say that the dream ego is experientially in and part of the dream world, while the dream observer is neither. The combination of these two perspectives is characteristic of lucid dreaming and allows the lucid dreamer to be "in the dream, but not of it."

Lucid dreaming seems to require a balance between detachment and partic.i.p.ation. A person who is too rigidly attached to a role while dreaming will be too involved to step back far enough to see the role as a role. On the contrary, a rigidly detached person will be too uninvolved and "out of it" to care.

In my own experience, partic.i.p.ation seems a virtual requirement for lucid dreaming. Although I occasionally have dreams in which I am simply an observer, in none of these have I ever become lucid. In nearly all of the nearly nine hundred lucid dreams that I have recorded, I have been embodied in the dream in the accustomed guise of myself. In only three cases was I playing a role other than "Stephen L.aBerge" when I realized I was dreaming. The exceptions are interesting: in one I dreamed I was simply a disembodied point of light; in another, a magic set of china; and in the third, I was Mozart-though only until I realized that I was dreaming. Then, I felt like "Stephen as Mozart"-an actor playing a role I knew was only a role. But somehow, behind the mask, I was not someone else, but me. There may be individual differences in this respect, but for me, being fully embodied (and the center of action, usually) seems a virtual prerequisite for attaining lucidity.

At the same time, a certain degree of detachment seems necessary in order to step back from the dream ego role and say, "This is all a dream." To say this is to observe-with a part of oneself, at least-the dream. So becoming lucid requires the observer's perspective, as well, and the lucid dreamer thus seems to possess at least two distinct levels of awareness.

In my own lucid dreams, I have sometimes found the emergence of this dual awareness perplexing. Recall the example from the beginning of this chapter: I first had the thought that if I were to become lucid, I would have no reason to fear. And then a moment later, I realized I was dreaming.

The fact that fully lucid dreamers realize their dream bodies are not who they really are has important implications, to be taken up in a later chapter. For now, it is sufficient to point out that such lucid dreamers realize their egos are only models of themselves, and cease to mistake them for the real thing.

Cognitive Functions

The form taken by lucid dreams is also determined by the lucid dreamer's mental state. Just as the quality of our memory, thinking, and will power varies in the waking state, so it varies in the dream state. At best, lucid dreamers can reason clearly, remember freely, and act as they wish to upon reflection; however, they do not always possess these mental abilities to a great extent. There are, in fact, degrees of lucidity, and probably only relatively experienced lucid dreamers function on a level comparable to their better moments while awake.

Minor flaws in thinking are not infrequent during lucid dreams. Some lucid dreamers, for instance, have problems keeping a clear distinction between their dream worlds and the physical world. Saint-Denys wrote that he experienced great difficulty remembering that the other characters in his lucid dreams were not actually real people sharing his experiences. He described a dream in which he was visiting a church tower with a friend and admiring the splendid panorama before them. He explained that he knew very well it was only a dream, but nonetheless asked his dream friend to remember the dream so they could talk about it the next day when they awoke.

Most lucid dreamers, however, have little difficulty realizing that the characters they find in their lucid dreams are imaginary. More commonly they are confused about the character they themselves play, and think they are real, but treat other dream characters as figments of "their" imagination. Nevertheless, fully lucid dreamers readily recognize that all the characters in their lucid dreams, including their dream egos, are nothing more than images.

A variation in how well we remember things also leads to differences in what occurs in dreams, lucid or otherwise. It may not be obvious, but levels of consciousness and memory are connected. The low level of consciousness of the usual dream state is accompanied by the dreamer's forgetting that he or she has recently gone to sleep. Questions concerning recent happenings are apt to be met with "confabulation"-a likely story mistaken for memory-rather than actual memory. For example, if someone were to ask you in a dream where you found all the money you had in your hand, you might answer, "I found it lying in a gutter," instead of remembering that you actually found it in a dream! In contrast, the full emergence of self-consciousness in the lucid dream brings with it continuous memory access; for example, the lucid dreamer can recall where he or she is sleeping at the moment-a useful fact when in the sleep laboratory.

There are individual differences in memory access during lucid dreaming, just as there are with thinking and volition. One relatively experienced lucid dreamer reported that "in none of my lucid dreams could I reason as clearly or remember as fully as when awake." Contrary to the scores of experiences of our lucid dream subjects at the Stanford Sleep Laboratory, the same lucid dreamer claims that "in a series of experiments in which I tried to recall where I was sleeping, I never could remember very specifically."3 We must keep in mind that there may be considerable individual differences in the mental abilities accessible to the lucid dreamer; nevertheless, they generally appear to approach those available to the individual while awake.

Motivation and Expectation

Motivations are what move us to act. They take many forms in the dream as well as in the waking state. We may distinguish four levels of motivation that can affect what happens in dreams, whether lucid or not. On the lowest level, there are drives, which, for example, motivate us to dream that we are visiting the bathroom when we need to. Then there are desires, which could lead us to find ourselves in bed with our favorite movie star. Next we find expectations, and finally, ideals or goals. While expectations are characteristic of the habitual level of our behavior, ideals are by their nature deliberate. We can only follow them if we are conscious; thus, it is only in our lucid dreams that we are able to act fully in accordance with our ideals. This ability will prove extremely useful to us later, when we discuss transpersonal dreams in Chapter 10. Since much more of our behavior is habitual than deliberate, expectations exert a more pervasive influence than ideals on our dreams as well as on the rest of our lives.

The general set of expectations guiding our ordinary waking experience also governs our ordinary dream state. We tacitly a.s.sume, in both cases, that we are awake, and so our perceptions during dreaming are distorted to fit this a.s.sumption. As an example of this, let us use psychology's most famous card trick. In a 1949 study, Bruner and Postman briefly flashed playing cards on a screen in front of subjects who were asked to identify what they saw. But the catch was that some of the cards were nonstandard-for instance, a red ace of spades. At first the subjects saw the anomalous card as an ace of hearts. Only after the cards were flashed for longer intervals did the subjects become aware that there was anything odd about the nonstandard cards. Still longer exposures were necessary for most subjects to correctly perceive the cards as unconventional. When given hints by the experimenters-along the lines of, "Although spades are usually black, they don't have to be"-some subjects were able to modify their perceptions and correctly perceive the unorthodox cards at very short exposures. But some subjects, when given the same hint, were unsure and required more exposure before they finally perceived the cards correctly.

The a.n.a.logy to lucid dreaming is this: just as the subjects had the tacit expectation that spades are black and hearts are red, so we, as dreamers, normally a.s.sume that we are awake. When bizarre dream events occur, as they frequently do during REM sleep, we somehow a.s.similate them into what we consider possible. If we happen to notice or experience them as somehow unusual, we are usually able to rationalize them. The a.s.sumption is that "there must be a logical explanation," within the (delusional) conceptual scheme of the dreamer.

On several occasions, people have told me that on the very night they had a conversation with me about lucid dreaming, they had their first lucid dream. These people correspond to the psychology subjects who easily took the hints-they now knew that although apparent inconsistencies usually have "logical explanations" in the physical world, sometimes the explanation for anomalies is that we are dreaming.

Your expectations and a.s.sumptions, whether conscious or unconscious, about what dreams are like, determine to a remarkable extent the precise form your lucid dreams take. As I have said, this applies just as much to your waking life. As an example of the effect of a.s.sumed limitations on human performance, take the myth of the four-minute mile. For many years, it was believed impossible to run that fast ... until someone did it and the impossible became possible. Almost immediately, many others were able to do the same. A conceptual barrier had been broken.

There is reason to believe that in the dream world, a.s.sumptions play an even more important role. After all, in the physical world there are actual limitations built into our bodies, not to mention the constraints of the laws of physics. Although the barrier of the four-minute mile was not insurmountable, there are absolute limits to human speed: with the bodies we have today, for example, a one-minute mile is probably impossible. In the dream world, however, the laws of physics are followed merely by convention, if at all: there is no gravity in dreams.

Nevertheless, there are equivalent laws of physiology that constrain a lucid dreamer's action, deriving from the functional limitations of the human brain. For example, lucid dreamers appear to find reading (more than a word or two) virtually impossible. As Moers-Messmer pointed out, letters in lucid dreams just won't hold still. When he tried to focus on words, the letters turned into hieroglyphics. (Note that I am not saying we can never read in dreams. I myself have had dreams in which I have done so, but these were not lucid dreams, in which the writing was being produced in response to voluntary intention.) Another example derives from Saint-Denys, who found that he was often unable to alter the level of illumination in his lucid dreams. I have experienced the same difficulty, which has been dubbed the "Light-Switch" phenomenon by Hearne. However, physiological constraints such as these seem to be far fewer than those imposed in waking life by physical laws, leaving more room in dreams for psychological influences, such as a.s.sumptions, to play a limiting role.

That expectations exert a powerful influence on the phenomena experienced by a particular dreamer is vividly ill.u.s.trated by the following examples. The Russian philosopher Ouspensky believed, on theoretical grounds, that "man cannot in sleep think about himself unless the thought is itself a dream." From this he concluded that "a man can never p.r.o.nounce his own name in sleep." It should therefore come as no surprise that Ouspensky reported, "as expected," that "if I p.r.o.nounced my name in sleep, I immediately woke up."4 Rather than an experiment, Ouspensky's exercise should probably be seen as a clear instance of the influence that experience can have on the events of the dream state.

One of Celia Green's informants, referred to as "Subject C," heard of the philosopher's experiences and tested the effect of repeating her own name during a lucid dream. She reports that "I thought of Ouspensky's criterion of repeating one's own name. I achieved a sort of gap-in-consciousness of two words: but it seemed to have some effect; made me 'giddy,' perhaps; at any rate I stopped."5

Patricia Garfield described a lucid dream of her own that also bears on the issue: "... in 'Carving My Name,' I proceeded to do just that on the door where I was already carving. I read it and realized why Ouspensky believed it is impossible to say one's name in a lucid dream: the whole atmosphere vibrated and thundered and I woke."6 Garfield, who was also familiar with Subject C's experience, concluded that it is "not impossible to say one's own name in a lucid dream, but it is disruptive."

When I read Ouspensky's account, I didn't accept his reasoning or his original premise, and I could see no reason why saying one's name while dreaming should present any difficulty at all. I decided to test my expectation, and in one of my early lucid dreams I spoke the magic word-"Stephen, I am Stephen." Beyond hearing my own voice, nothing happened. The conclusion would seem to be that the experiences of Ouspensky, Subject C, and Garfield were all influenced by their prior expectations. An alternate explanation might be that we normally hear our names in sleep only when being waken up by someone, and may make that a.s.sociation in the dream.

Another ill.u.s.tration of the effect of a.s.sumptions on lucid dreams can be found in two contrary views of s.e.xuality in lucid dreams. In the first case, a subject declared that "realization that one is dreaming brings a wonderful sense of freedom-freedom to try anything in the extended range of experience." She added, "The nature of lucid dream experience may range up to the mystical, whilst there seems to be an inherent resistance to anything erotic [my italics]."7

Patricia Garfield's experiences present a striking contrast. She reports that in "fully two-thirds" of her lucid dreams, she feels "the flow of s.e.xual energy; this arousal culminates in an o.r.g.a.s.mic burst on about half of these accounts." Garfield writes, "o.r.g.a.s.m is a natural part of lucid dreaming [her italics]: my own experience convinces me that conscious dreaming is o.r.g.a.s.mic," and adds that "too many of my students have reported similar ecstatic experiences during lucid dreams to attribute the phenomena to my individual peculiarity."8

The point is not whether lucid dreaming is "naturally" erotic or the opposite, because the answer is probably that it is neither. Instead, it's most likely a matter of "as the dreamer, so the dream."

There are two related lessons to be taken from these examples. The first is that the a.s.sumptions a dreamer makes about what can happen during a lucid dream may wholly or in part determine what does happen. The second lesson follows as a corollary: namely, that individual differences may be very significant in the phenomenology of lucid dreaming.

Varieties of Action: The Question of Control

The actions of lucid dreamers vary over the same range-from simple to complex-that they do when we are awake. Some of our actions are reflexive, as when we walk around in our lucid dreams without losing balance. Others are instinctive, as when we run because we are afraid. Still others are habitual, as when we continue to drive our cars to work even though we know we are dreaming. Finally, some of our actions are deliberate, as when we resist running away even though we are frightened by the events of the dream. (Not acting can itself be a form of deliberate action.) I have ordered these four forms of action from most unconscious and automatic to most conscious and voluntary. The higher the level on which we act, the more freedom we have. Freedom, however, means choice, and we do not always wish to have to choose-and in many cases, we always choose the same thing anyway. On the other hand, there are times when deliberate action is much more adaptive than habitual or instinctive action, as when we choose not to run away when afraid, but decide to face our fears voluntarily and master them. Most of our behavior consists of complex combinations of all four levels of action. The highest level of action available to us depends upon how conscious we are at the time.

Voluntary and conscious action is much more available to lucid dreamers than to non-lucid dreamers. The experienced lucid dreamer seems to be able to exercise at least as much free choice while dreaming as while waking. Just as you are free to read the next sentence or not, the lucid dreamer is able to choose what he will do next, as is ill.u.s.trated by the following dream of Saint-Denys:

... I dreamt that I was out riding in fine weather. I became aware of my true situation, and remembered the question of whether or not I could exercise free will in controlling my actions in a dream. 'Well now,' I said to myself, This horse is only an illusion; this countryside that I am pa.s.sing through is merely stage scenery. But even if I have not evoked these images by conscious volition, I certainly seem to have some control over them. I decide to gallop, I gallop; I decide to stop, I stop. Now here are two roads in front of me. The one on the right appears to plunge into a dense wood; the one on the left leads to some kind of ruined manor; I feel quite distinctly that I am free to turn either right or left, and so decide for myself whether I wish to produce images relating to the ruins or images relating to the wood.9

In any case, the capacity for voluntary action seems to be one of the most fascinating features of lucid dreams. Lucid dreamers are often overjoyed to discover they can seemingly do anything they wish. They have, for instance, but to declare the law of gravity repealed, and they float. They can visit the Himalayas and climb to the highest peak without ropes or guides; they can even explore the solar system without a s.p.a.ce suit!

This brings up two questions regarding control of lucid dreaming. The first is, how much is possible? This appears to depend upon a number of factors: how experienced the lucid dreamer is; what degree of psychological development he or she has reached in the waking state; what a.s.sumptions he or she has about lucid dreams and their control.

Aside from these psychological factors, there appear to be physiological determinants as well. The momentary state of the lucid dreamer's brain limits the degree of deliberate control available; this is especially true in regard to voluntary control of the dream environment as distinct from the dream ego. Saint-Denys himself admitted that he had never managed to master all the parts of a dream. On the other hand, the Tibetans claim that masters of the lucid dream yoga can do just about anything in their dreams, including visiting any realm of existence they desire.

The second question regarding dream control involves what kind is desirable. A distinction can be drawn between two kinds of dream control. One involves magical manipulation of dream characters other than the dream ego-controlling "them" or "it." This is just the type of control that does not always work (for any of us except the most advanced masters), yet this limitation may actually be a blessing: if we learned to solve our problems in our lucid dreams by magical alteration of dream content, we might mistakenly hope to do the same in our waking lives. Suppose, for instance, in my "ogre dream," I had chosen to turn my adversary into a toad, and I was in fact able to dispense with the unpleasantness that way. How would it help me if at another time I were to find myself in conflict with a boss or other authority figure whom I might well see as an ogre, in spite of my being awake? Turning him into a toad would hardly be practical; however, a change in att.i.tude might resolve the situation.

The other kind of control open to lucid dreamers is self-control, exercised over our own dream egos. We are free to regulate our responses to dream content, and what we learn in so doing readily applies to our waking lives as well-thus we dream in order to learn how to live better both by day and by night. For example, in my "ogre dream," I gained a measure of self-control and confidence by confronting the monster that could serve me well in the waking world. For this reason, among others, I would advise the lucid dreamer who would be wise: "Control yourself, not your dreams."

Emotional Quality

What does it feel like to be in a lucid dream? This is a question many readers may be asking. As has already been said, feeling in lucid dreams, while generally positive or relatively neutral, can vary over the entire range of human emotions-from agony (mitigated by the realization that "it is only a dream") to the ecstasy of s.e.xual or religious bliss. The realization that one is dreaming is frequently accompanied by very positive emotions, as the following sample of quotations should make clear. For Rapport, the emergence of lucidity "instantly" transformed his dream into "an incommunicably beautiful vision."10 For Faraday, "immediately the light became almost supernaturally intense ... s.p.a.ce seemed expanded and deeper, just as it does under psychedelic drugs."11 Similarly, for Yram (1967), "... the transformation was instantaneous. As if under a magic spell I suddenly became as clear headed as in the best moments of my physical life."12 Fox (1962) described the onset of his first experience of lucidity this way: "Instantly, the vividness of life increased a hundred-fold ... never had I felt so absolutely well, so clear brained, so divinely powerful, so inexpressibly free!"13

Of course, these are the most extraordinary cases. However, even the most prosaic lucid dreams tend to begin with an unmistakable sense of excitement and delight. This is still true for me even after hundreds of lucid dreams-although the novelty is gone, the thrill seems somehow to remain.

The emotional arousal characteristically accompanying the beginning of lucidity presents all lucid dreamers, and especially novices, with a certain problem. This is the tendency to awaken immediately, particularly if lucidity begins during a nightmare. The solution is simply expressed: "Don't panic! Remain calm." At first this is more easily said than done, but with practice the response becomes automatic and eventually effortless.

According to Celia Green, "Habitual lucid dreamers almost unanimously stress the importance of emotional detachment in prolonging the experience and retaining a high degree of lucidity."14 There are two issues involved here. Guarding against loss of lucidity is one. One danger of emotional involvement is that the lucid dreamer's consciousness may be reabsorbed by the dream, and as the lucid dreamer becomes emotionally absorbed, he reidentifies with the dream role. This is a problem more often experienced by beginners than experienced lucid dreamers, and with practice, one can easily learn to maintain lucidity during intense emotional involvement with the dream.

The second issue, prolonging the lucid dream state, also requires a degree of emotional control. However, lucid dreamers are by no means unanimous about the extent to which this is necessary. At one extreme, Green's "Subject A" claimed that "emotional detachment is of paramount importance."15 Oliver Fox seemed to feel the same:

It was so difficult to maintain the role of an impersonal observer in this strange Dream World, to realize that if I allowed my emotions to get the better of my mental control the dream would come to an abrupt end. I would enter a restaurant and order a meal, only to wake after savoring the first few mouthfuls. ...

Similarly I would visit a theatre, but could never stay in the dream more than a few minutes after the curtain had risen, because my growing interest in the play broke down my mental control of the experience. I would encounter a fascinating lady and even talk to her for a little while, but the mere thought of a possible embrace was fatal.16