Lucid Dreams

A detailed Summary of Lucid Dreams

"Lucid dreamers report being able to freely remember the circumstances of waking life, to think clearly, and to act deliberately upon reflection, all while experiencing a dream world that seems vividly real" (LaBerge, 1990). In lucid dreaming, people become conscious enough to realize what they are dreaming, and therefore can change the dream they are having.

A theory widely accepted by many researchers, is "That lucid dreams are not typical parts of the dreaming thought, but rather brief arousals" (LaBerge, 1990). The researchers came up with the fact that the arousals were frequently happening during REM sleep and this became the platform for lucid dreams. In the late 1970's, evidence started showing up that lucid dreams occur during REM sleep. To test this hypothesis out, 4 scientists by the names of: LaBerge, Nagel, Dement and Zarcone got together and set up an experiment. In this experiment, the scientists had to use some sort of signal or response to determine the exact time the lucid dream was occurring. In the experiment, the scientists used five subjects and studied each from two to twenty nights, depending upon how long the scientists thought they needed. All in all, they studied the subjects a total of 34 ni

Many other researchers were also studying lucid dreaming and the time of their occurrence. Two such researchers, named Keith Hearne and Alan Worsley, designed a study of lucid dreaming. In their experiment, the subject spent 50 non-continuous nights in the Hull University sleep lab while the experimenter monitored the polygraph. From their studies, there was a total of eight lucid dreams and they said all of the dreams occurred during REM sleep. Another researcher, named Olgilvie, also studied lucid dreaming. "Olgilvie reported the physiological state preceding 14 spontaneous lucidity signals as unqualified REM in 12 (86%) of the cases; of the remaining two cases, one was ambiguous REM and the other appeared to be wakefulness" (LaBerge, 1990). According to Olgilvie's research, lucid dreams normally occur during REM sleep, but there is always a slight chance they occur at other times. Many other laboratories that study lucid dreaming agree with LaBerge, Hearne and Worsley, and Olgilvie that lucid dreams take place during REM sleep.

There are many explanations for what exactly OBEs are. One explanation is that the human consciousness separates from the body and travels in a separated form in the physical world. "Another idea is that they are hallucinations, but this requires an explanation of why so many people have the same delusion" (LaBerge and Levitan, 1991). Others think the OBEs are natural happenings coming from normal brain processes and they happen to healthy people. There has been much support by many psychologists for this explanation because they say people who experience OBEs are 'the average healthy Americans.'

OBEs are similar to dreams, but they seem more real than dreams and they occur less frequently. "Common aspects of the experience include being in an out 'out-of-body' body much like the physical one, feeling a sense of energy, feeling vibrations, and hearing strange loud noises" (LaBerge and Levitan, 1991). Many scienti

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Approximate Word count = 1331
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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