April/May 2002
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THE CONSCIOUS EXPLORATION OF DREAMING: Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg |
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Scientific understanding of “lucid dreaming,” or knowing that one is dreaming while dreaming, is still in its infancy. The authors of this book, a wife-husband team, and their friend Ruth Sacksteder, honed their skills in lucid dreaming over several years, recorded their experiences in more than 2000 lucid dreams, and compared notes with each other. Though not academically trained in dream research, they designed numerous experiments to assess their control of their dreams. Their observations and those of others, they contend, help illuminate the nature of dreaming, as well as the mind’s underlying perceptual processes. Many lucid dreamers, they report, enjoy on occasion such pleasures as romancing desirable partners, flying, and zero-calorie feasting. The trio set tasks for themselves in their dreams including passing back and forth through dream mirrors and walking on water. Not all lucid dreams are pleasurable. While some may be frightening, the ability to recognize that “it’s only a dream,” the authors say, often tames dream demons. Indeed, they say, people often find the ability to vanquish enemies or escape catastrophes to be empowering. To experience lucid dreams, you first need to allow yourself to be open to the possibility of having them, and then tell yourself at bedtime that you want to recognize that you are dreaming while a dream proceeds. The authors say they performed “reality tests,” to confirm whether or not they were dreaming. They found that attempting to turn on a light or to read, for example, were hard to do on command in a dream. They also succeeded in performing feats one can only do in a dream, such as float in midair or change sizes or shapes. In one dream, Vogelsong realized he’d left his keys behind and willed them to appear in his hand. Such skills take practice, the authors say, much like learning to ride a bicycle. Becoming lucid doesn’t necessarily mean intruding into a dream. The authors say they sometimes simply watched a dream unfold, aware they were dreaming, but able to view dream events with critical detachment. Whether watching or actively shaping a dream, they stress, all of us need to acknowledge that we are responsible for the content of our dreams. Certain sensations common to sleepers, the authors suggest, may elicit specific dream imagery. The experience of floating in a dream, for example, may be tied to the fact that the sleeping brain receives little input from the body, particularly lack of pressure on the soles of the feet to remind us that we are standing on the ground. Perceived “weightlessness” may also be expressed in dreams of flying or falling. The authors found they sometimes incorporated into dreams sensations such as cold or heat, and noises such as a phone ringing, a spouse’s snoring, or a passing fire-engine. In 1977, Harvard researchers J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley proposed that dreams reflect the brain’s cleverness in making sense out of brainstem signals that are randomly generated in REM sleep. While Brooks and Vogelsong suggest that such activity is only one of many sources of dream input and argue that conscious control also is crucial, Hobson liked their book enough to write its foreword. “Brooks and Vogelsong,” he says, “are true scientists in both their adherence to value-free description and their state-of-the-art interpretation of their data. The Conscious Exploration of Dreaming is a healthy antidote to the abundant New Age hyperbole on this important and serious subject.” |
Copyright (c) 2002
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