From Culture to Science
As the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment gave way to the modern era , the study of lucid dreaming began to evolve from a philosophical and cultural pursuit to one of science.
Marie-Jean Leon, Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys (1822 to 1892) was one of the first Oneirologists (a specialist in the study of dreams) to emerge. He began recording his dreams at only 13 and a year later began to actively study them. His 1867 work ‘Dreams and How to Direct Them: Practical Observations’ contained the first practical guide to lucid dreaming.
Due to more than 30 years of introspective research on his own dreams, Hervey de Saint Denys was able to describe the gradual development of his ability to recall his dreams, become lucid and assert increasing levels of dream control. This showed that it was in principle for anyone to learn how to lucid dream.
Frederik Willem van Eeden (1860 – 1932) was a Dutch writer and psychiatrist credited with coining the term ‘Lucid Dream’. He first published his ideas around lucid dreams in a fictional book titled The Bride of Dreams, and then later clarified these idea furthers in formal scientific works.
In 1913, he presented a paper ‘A Study of Dreams’, to the Society for Psychical Research reporting on his own recordings of more than 500 dreams. He classified these into 9 distinct types of dreams, including false awakenings which he called ‘Wrong Waking Up’, and of course lucid dreams. In this paper he writes:
"The seventh type of dreams, which I call lucid dreams, seems to me the most interesting and worthy of the most careful observation and study…..In these lucid dreams the reintegration of the psychic functions is so complete that the sleeper remembers day-life and his own condition, reaches a state of perfect awareness, and is able to direct his attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition”
Modern Research
By 1952, intensive research into sleep and dreaming has begun. Different stages of sleep were identified, and it was soon discovered that it was generally, although not quite exclusively, only when a person was awakened from the 4th stage of sleep, Rapid Eye Movement, that they recalled dreaming.
The first empirical study of lucid dreaming came through the work of Celia Green. In 1968 she published her first book ‘Lucid Dreams’ which include both her own and four subjects experiences. She correctly predicted that lucid dreams would be associated with REM sleep, and that it should be possible to set up a signalling system between a person in a lucid dreamer and a waking observer.
These predictions were realised less than a decade later in 1975, when the first truly scientific proof of lucid dreaming was produced at the University of Hull. Using a pre-determined series of eye movements, Alan Worsley was able to signal to researcher Keith Hearne that he was both aware of his dreaming state and able to consciously control his actions.
Hearne also observed that lucid dreams occur in real time, that light switches will usually not work in a dream and he pioneered the FAST technique for inducing dreams (False Awakening and State Testing). He also produced the first ‘dream machine’, using the idea that an artificial stimulus, such as a flash of light would be overlaid into a dream and could be used as a reference point to trigger lucidity.
Shortly after Hearne’s initial experiments, his work was being unknowingly replicated by Stephen LaBerge at Stanford (Hearne had yet to publish his findings). During a three year period while working towards his PhD, LaBerge trained himself to have up to 3 lucid reams a night, using a technique he developed known as the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams.
After gaining his PhD in 1981, Dr LaBerge continued his research on lucid dreams and went on to found The Lucidity Institute in 1987, with the aim of promoting lucid dreaming practice and research. Through his research and the work of the institute, the reality of lucid dreaming has been proven beyond any doubt, and established as a legitimate psychological phenomenon.
Today LaBerge’s name is almost synonymous with lucid dreaming. You can read more about LaBerge’s subsequent work, along with other current studies and active areas of lucid dream research in the lucid dreaming research section.
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