Lucid Dreaming

By R. Wy. Fra. Timothy Edwards, VIII June 20, 2008

Introduction
Lucid Dreaming is the ability to have control of the events that happen in your dreams. A lucid dream, also known as a conscious dream, is a dream in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress. During lucid dreams, it is sometimes possible to exert conscious control over the dream characters and environment, and have them perform feats which would be physically impossible in the waking world. Lucid dreams can be extremely real and vivid depending on a person's level of self-awareness during the lucid dream. 1

Hypnos and Thanatos Sleep and his half-brother death John Williams Waterhouse

A lucid dream can begin in one of two ways. A dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD) starts as a normal dream, and the dreamer eventually concludes that he or she is dreaming, while a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD) occurs when the dreamer goes from a normal waking state directly into a dream state with no apparent lapse in consciousness. Lucid dreaming has been researched scientifically, and its existence is well established.2 3 Scientists such as Allan Hobson, with his neuro-physiological approach to dream research have helped to push the understanding of lucid dreaming into a less speculative realm4. The projection of thoughts has always been a part of hermetic teachings in the Kabalah and the Corpus Hermeticum, the Golden Dawn system of Magic5 and the Works of Franz Bardon6. They talk of an Out of body experience (OBE) and contacting your holy guardian angel (HGA). What better approach than to use the existing visualization skills that you possessed since birth7. However we should not limit ourselves to the constructs of these old forms of thought because the realm of the unconscious mind is still Tarra incognito. We are called on to interpret without trying to understanding because the reasoning is fluid in the dream world8.

Greek Mythology9
Hypnos () was the personification of sleep; the Roman equivalent was known as Somnus. His twin was Thanatos ("death"); their mother was the goddess Nyx ("night"). His palace was a dark cave where the sun never shines. At the entrance were a number of poppies and other hypnogogic plants. Hypnos's three sons or brothers represented things that occur in dreams (the Oneiroi). Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos appear in the dreams of kings. According to one story, he lived in a cave underneath a Greek island; through this cave flowed Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Endymion, sentenced by Zeus to eternal sleep, received the power to sleep with his eyes open from Hypnos in order to constantly watch his beloved Selene. But according to the poet Licymnius of Chios, it was Hypnos himself who fell in love with the young shepherd Endymion, and allowed him to sleep with his eyes open, the better for the god to enjoy the beauty of his beloved boy. In art, Hypnos was portrayed as a naked youthful man, sometimes with a beard, and wings attached to his head. He is sometimes shown as a man asleep on a bed of feathers with black curtains about him. Morpheus is his chief minister and prevents noises from waking him. In Sparta, the image of Hypnos was always put near that of death.
Chaos Born of the 4 elements Nyx (Night) Hypnos = Somnus (Sleep) Oneiroi (Tribe of Dreams) Morpheus Thanatos (Death)

Phobetor (fear) Phantasos (Fantasy unreal inanimate objects)

Family Tree

Jungian Dream Analysis10

Like Freud, Jung believed that dreams are important gateways to unknown parts of our self11. Dreams are an expression of the personal unconscious through the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Whereas Freud believed that dreams were frequently distorted in a subconscious attempt at repression, Jung believed that any such distortion was usually unintentional. The dream was a direct message from the personal unconscious. Originally the dream was held to be the voice of God. Most indigenous cultures hold that the dream is sent by the Great Spirit and serves to offer advice and instruction. This idea of the divinity of the dream can also to be found in ancient Egyptian and Greek society. In the Old Testament Jacob interprets a dream for the Egyptian pharaoh. Jacob has a dream of a ladder12 also Jacob explains that God has spoken to the pharaoh and warned of seven years of prosperity to be followed by seven years of famine13. In Egypt and Greece the dream was considered as a message from the gods. There existed temples that one would dream in to receive healing and instruction from the gods in both Egyptian14 and Greek15 society. Homer's Iliad (8th century BC) tells the story of Agamemnon who receives instruction from Zeus through a dream. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, used dreams as a diagnostic aid. In the Christian epoch the church and its scriptures supplanted the importance of the dream. The dominance of Christianity obscured the divinity of the dream, which was now studied by only the superstitious. The rise of rationalism and science further undermined the value of the dream. To this day skepticism toward the value dream remains the predominant attitude. In the early part of this century, however, the dream was championed by two great psychologists, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. For Freud the dream revealed that which the dreamer would rather keep hidden. By exploring the dream one was forced to face that which was suppressed and rejected within oneself.

Stages of Sleep
Non REM Stage 1: Disappearance of Alpha waves. Theta wave of the EEG, Hypnic jerks or Flibbity Gibbets Stage 2: unconscious sleep (Lethe, the river of forgetfulness), sleep spindles and K complexes on the EEG Stage 3: Delta waves deep sleep Stage 4: slow wave sleep Delta waves. Parasomnia: caught in between a sleep and waking state include Confusional arousals (uncontrolled crying in children) Sleepwalking (somnambulism) Sleep terrors (night terrors) REM (Rapid Eye Movement) starts in 90 min, 20 25% of sleep, 90 -120 in duration, 4 -5 periods, and newborns experience 80% REM sleep starts with Sleep paralysis Hynogogic hallucinations Tonic tonic REM sleep and effort involve an increase in the metabolism of cerebral glycogen the stage where lucid dreaming occurs Phasic (delta REM activity and delta REM density) involve the transfer of glucose from the body to the brain. it seems clear that the primary function of REM sleep is to re-energize the brain. The primary functions of REM sleep Andrew E. Bernhard. High level of phasic REM sleep is linked to depression.

The Nightmare by John Henry Fuseli.

Method used to measure sleep metrics EEG16

The awake state: beta frequency (>13 Hz) dominates. Stage I: alpha waves (8-12 Hz) dominate. Stage II: sleep spindles and K-complexes appear. Stage III and IV (slow-wave sleep): delta waves (0.5-2 Hz) at 20-50% and more than 50%, respectively. REM phase: mixed but mostly high-frequency waves. Active part of the brain pontine tegmentum pons The monoamines are shut down Anti depressants inhibit REM Morphine increases REM Benadryl increases the chances of Lucid Dreaming17 Scopolamine delayed the onset of REM sleep18, as well as suppressed REM sleep and phasic REM activity to comparable extent in both adolescents and adults19.

Methods to induce lucid dreaming20

Dream Journal The act of keeping a journal will induce lucid dreaming and is necessary because you may have a lucid dream and yet forget you had one. So exercising your short term memory is necessary to your progress. Upon waking keep the stress low wake up naturally without an alarm clock. Go to bed early enough so that you are not stressed at waking. As soon as you think you are awake keep your eyes closed and reach for the journal let you mind recall the dream and write them down. Reality Testing Technique Even during the day check if you are dreaming by looking at your hands, looking at the words in a book then looking back. Look at the digital alarm clock. One lucid dreamer played her favorite CD and the Music was gibberish. Dream signs If your reality is distorted you may be dreaming, extra fingers or toes, superman type flying traveling at high speeds, thing that are impossible in waking life. These things are hard to recognize because we want them to be true and we enjoy the deception. Try to avoid this in waking life and you my do so in your dream world. Signal-verified lucid dreams (SVLDs)21 Once the dreamer recognizes that he is dreaming then an agreed upon eye signal is used. He starts the signal then counts to ten then ends signal using Morse code. NovaDreamer22 The NovaDreamer detects when youre in REM sleep, and then gives you a cue (flashing lights or sounds) to remind you to recognize you are dreaming. Cues enter your dream, becoming incorporated just like an alarm or radio will sometimes work its way into a dream. Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD) Chant a request I want to have a lucid dream, I will have a lucid dream. Find a ritual or object that satisfies your imagination so that you can convince yourself that you will have a lucid dream. Meditate on the Pons of the middle brain that are attributed luced dream brain activity. Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD) method Stay up all night. Focus you conscience on staying conscience. Say to your self what you are thinking moment to moment. Be aware of the stages of sleeping and where you are at the moment23 Staying Lucid As soon as you realize that you are dreaming you get so excited that you force yourself out of the dream and wake up. Here are some methods to stay lucid.

Dream Spinning When you are lucid and your dream seems to be ending start spinning in the dream after you stop the clarity returns. False Awakenings You dream that you are awake but you are not. Always perform your reality check when you appear to wake up. Breath Control Practice holding your breath and timing how long you can do it with the aim to increase this time, if you are a trumpet player try to play a song on a single breath. Try flight of the bumble bee in one breath24. Now analyze the mind set required to stay calm while holding your breath. This way of thinking helps you stay in the lucid dream25.

Steven LaBerges Research26

LaBerge (1990): "Lucid" dreamers (the term derives from van Eeden, 1913) 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. About 20% of the population reports having lucid dreams once a month or more. We [LaBerge et al.] provided the necessary verification by instructing subjects to signal the onset of lucid dreams with specific dream actions that would be observable on a polygraph (i.e., eye movements and fist clenches). Using this approach, LaBerge, Nagel, Dement & Zarcone (1981) reported that the occurrence of lucid dreaming during unequivocal REM sleep had been demonstrated for five subjects. After being instructed in the method of lucid dream induction (MILD) described by LaBerge (1980b) the subjects were recorded from 2 to 20 nights each. In the course of the 34 nights of the study, 35 lucid dreams were reported subsequent to spontaneous awakening from various stages of sleep. Lucid dreaming occurs during tonic REM sleep LaBerge, Levitan, and Dement (1986) analyzed physiological data from 76 signalverified lucid dreams (SVLDs) of 13 subjects. The polysomnograms corresponding to each of the SVLDs were scored for sleep stages and every SVLD REM period was divided into 30 s epochs aligned with the lucidity onset signal. For each epoch, sleep stage was scored and rapid eye movements (EM) were counted; if scalp skin-potential responses were observable as artifacts in the EEG, these were also counted (SP). Heart rate (HR) and respiration rate (RR) were determined for SVLDs recorded with these measures. For the first lucid epoch, beginning with the initiation of the signal, the sleep stage was unequivocal REM in 70 cases (92%). The remaining six SVLDs were less than 30 s long and hence technically unscorable "by the book". For these cases, the entire SVLD was scored as a single epoch; with this modification, all SVLDs qualified as REM. The lucid dream signals were followed by an average of 115 s (range: 5 to 490 s) of uninterrupted REM sleep. Physiological comparison of EM, HR, RR, and SP for lucid vs. non-lucid epochs revealed that the lucid epochs of the SVLD REM periods had significantly higher levels of physiological activation than the preceding epochs of nonlucid REM from the same REM period. Lucid dreams have been frequently reported to occur most commonly late in the sleep cycle. A regression analysis clearly demonstrated that relative lucidity probability was a linear function of ordinal REM period number (r = .98, p < .0001). There are two distinct ways in which lucid dreams are initiated. In the usual case, subjects report having been in the midst of a dream when a bizarre occurrence causes sufficient reflection to yield the realization that they are dreaming. In the other, less frequent case, subjects report having briefly awakened from a dream and then falling back asleep directly entering the dream with no (or very little) break in consciousness.

Famous Dream Journals27

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), My Education: A Book of Dreams (1995). Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Book of Dreams (1961). Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Trume: "Ringkmpfe jede Nacht" (1993, edited by Gaspare Giudice and Michael Mller). A dream diary compiled from Kafka's diaries and letters. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedenborg's Dreams, 1744 (1860, translated by J. J. G. Wilkinson), Emanuel Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams and Spiritual Experiences (1918, translated by C. Th. Odhner), Swedenborg's Dream Diary (2001, translated by Anders Hallengren). First published as Swedenborgs Drmmar, 1744 (1859). We discover intriguing phenomenological descriptions of dreaming experience in the Upanishads, the sacred Hindu texts that reach back to the seventh century b.c. (O'Flaherty 1984) The treatise On Dreams, written by Synesios, a Christian bishop of Ptolemais in the early fifth century a.d. (Lewis 1976). Freud, Sigmund. 1900. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Avon Books (1965). The Interpretation of Dreams O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1984. Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Further reading http://www.lucidity.com/ http://www.web-us.com/lucid/luciddreamingFAQ.htm http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_LaBerge http://www.dreamhawk.com/bible.htm Private Myths: Dreams and Dreaming (Paperback) God Dreams Revelation Christian Interpretation http://www.lucidipedia.com/misc/index.php?section=applications http://www.lucidipedia.com/misc/index.php The Lucid Dream Manifesto The Interpretation of Dreams and LUCID DREAMS http://www.here-be-dreams.com/psychology/jung.html http://www.dreamanalysis.info/ Jungian dream interpretation: a handbook of theory and practice by James A. Hall - Self-Help - 1983 - 127 pages C.G. Jung: Lord of the Underworld by Colin Wilson
Jung, Carl (1934). The Practice of Psychotherapy. "The Practical Use of Dream-analysis", 147. ISBN 071001645X. Bollingen Series 17

http://www.cgjungpage.org http://kybele.psych.cornell.edu/~edelman/Psych-231/week7.html Between the Gates Mark Stavish Feb 2008 Suggested reading from the fratres after the paper was presented. The Art of Dreaming Carlos Castaneda Harper Paperbacks Dream Yoga: Writings on Dreams and Astral Travel by Samael Aun Weor The Yoga of Sleep and Dreams by Aurobindo and The Mother The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Mark Dahlby

Appendix

Source28

Lucid Dreaming FAQ LaBerge, S. & Levitan, L. (2004). Version 2.3 Watanabe Tsuneo (March 2003). "Lucid Dreaming: Its Experimental Proof and Psychological Conditions". Journal of International Society of Life Information Science 21 (1): 159-162. 3 LaBerge, Stephen (1990). in Bootzen, R. R., Kihlstrom, J.F. & Schacter, D.L., (Eds.): Lucid Dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness during REM Sleep Sleep and Cognition. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, pp. 109 126. 4 Wikipedia Lucid Dreaming 5 Mark Stavish (Feb 2008) Between the Gates page 1 6 Richard Tschudis paper on Franz Bardon., Franz Bardon Introduction to Hermetics 7 Ibid page 2 8 Carl Gustaf Jung The practice of Psychotherapy Collected Works 16 chapter on the application of dream analysis 9 Hypnos Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnos 10 Jung's Rediscovery of the Dream http://www.dreamanalysis.info/ note: because this article doesnt site its sources and I was not able to verify the attribution Martin Luther or St. John Chrysostom on dreams. For instance I found Project Wittenberg silent on this and nothing on the Homilies of or St. John Chrysostom. 11 Carl Gustaf Jung The practice of Psychotherapy Collected Works 16 chapter on the application of dream analysis 12 Genesis 28:11-19 13 Genesis 41 14 Perchance to Dream by Anita Stratos http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/dream.htm 15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiareion_of_Oropos I think that Amphiaraos most of all dedicated himself to interpreting dreams: it is clear that, when he was considered a god, he set up an oracle of dreams. And the first thing is to purify oneself, when someone comes to consult Amphiaraos, and the purification ritual is to sacrifice to the god, and people sacrifice to him and to all those whose names are on (the altar), and - when these things are finished they sacrifice a ram and spread out its skin under themselves, lie down waiting for the revelation of a dream. Pausanias Description of Greece 1.34.5 16 Lecture 7: dreaming http://kybele.psych.cornell.edu/~edelman/Psych-231/pp-week7.html Electroencephalography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography 17 : YouTube anamomda vlog 18: my favorite lucid dream 18 Age-Related Effects of Scopolamine on REM Sleep Regulation in Normal Control Subjects: Relationship to Sleep Abnormalities in Depression. Neuropsychopharmacology (1999) 21 723730.10.1038/sj.npp.1395391. Uma Rao1,2,3 MD, Preetam Lutchmansingh1 Ph.D and Russell E Poland1,2,3 Ph.D 19 ibid 20 LUCIDITY INSTITUTE http://www.lucidity.com/ Dream Views http://www.dreamviews.com 21 Lucid dreaming: Evidence that REM sleep can support unimpaired cognitive function and a methodology for studying the psychophysiology of dreaming http://www.lucidity.com/slbbs/index.html 22 NovaDreamer http://www.lucidity.com/novadreamer.html 23 What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Phillips Feynman, Ralph Leighton, and Richard P. Feynman (Paperback - Jan 2001) pp 53-54 24 YouTube Zooter1940s (January 29, 2007) Rafael Mendez - Flight of the Bumble Bee & Mexican Hat Dance January 29, 2007 25 YouTube anamomda (January 17, 2007) VLog 17 Lucid Dreaming 26 Lucid Dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness during REM Sleep by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html 27 List of dream diaries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dream_diaries 28 NEW HORIZONS By /par Cdr A.R. Wamback http://wps.cfc.forces.gc.ca/papers/csc/csc30/exnh/wamback.htm
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