THE HISTORY OF LUCID DREAMING
For most of us such lucid dreamsare rare and beyond our
abilityto induce. Is there any way of cultivatingour abilityto awaken in our
dreams at will? A variety of contemplative traditions and dream explorerssay
yes. In the fourth century,the classicalyoga sutrasof Patanjali recommended "witnessing the process of dreaming or
dreamless sleep" (Shearer, 1989). Four centuries later Tibetan
Buddhistsdevised a sophisticateddream yoga. In the 12thcentury the Sufi mystic
Ibn El-Arabi, a religious and philosophicalgenius known to the Arab world as
"the greatest master," claimed that "aperson must control his
thoughts in a dream. The training of this alertness ... will produce great
benefits for the individual, Everyone should apply himself to the attainment of
this ability of such great value" (Shah, 1971). More recently a number of
explorers and spiritual masters such as Sri Aurobindo (1970) and Rudolf Steiner
(1947) also reported success with lucid dreaming.
For decades Western
researchers dismissed such reports as impossible. However, in the 1970s, in a
breakthrough in the history of dream research, two investigators provided
experimental proof of lucid dreaming. Working independently and quite unknown
to each other, Alan Worsley in Britain and Stephen LaBerge in California both
learned to dream lucidly (Laberge, 1985). Then, while being monitored
electrophysiologically in a sleep laboratory, they signaled by means of eye
movements that they were dreaming, and knew it. Their electroencephalograms
showed the characteristic patterns of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, during
which dreaming typically occurs, validating their reports. For the first time
in history someone had brought back a message from the world of dreams while
still dreaming. Dream research has never been the same since. Interestingly,
for some time LaBerge was unable to get his reports published because reviewers
simply refused to believe that lucid dreaming was possible.
Since then, with the aid of eye movement signaling and
electrophysiological measures, much progress has been made, such as in studies
of the frequency and duration of lucid dreams, their physiological effects on
brain and body, the psychological characteristics of those who have them, the means
for inducing them more reliably, and their potential for healing and
transpersonal exploration.
SHEARER, P. (transl.) (1989). Effortless being: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,
London: Unwin.