Peer-Reviewed Dream Studies Coming Right Up

This is just a heads-up about a new feature of this blog. I just signed up with Bloggers for Peer Reviewed Research Reporting. What this means is that when I blog about some peer-reviewed research article, I’ll have a flashy icon embedded in the post. The real benefit of this system is that tagged articles will be cross-referenced in the BPR’s library, so people who are looking for research about a certain topic will have a much easier way of finding them on the web.

Good dream and consciousness research is hard enough to find, so hopefully this tagging system will catch on. If not, forget I mentioned it.

Guardians at the Door

Anthropologist C. Riley Aug has announced her new web page about “exploring the role of thresholds in negotiating identity through archaeology, folklore and literature.” I presented her fascinating research a few months ago in my post about lucid dream reality checks. Now you don’t have to take my word for it, as many of her papers are available for download on her new site.

I find this work so interesting because how we navigate space is a huge part of how we discriminate between self and other. Ever walked into a room and forgotten why you are there? You left that part of yourself at the doorway. That’s a glimpse into how memory, identity and space interact on a daily level, even here in the rational West.

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Lucid Dreaming Lunacy

From the recent press release by the Global Lucid Dreaming Experiment:

What effect does the moon have on our dreams? A team of researchers at the College of Metaphysics are seeking to find the answer in the next two months as the positioning of the earth, moon, and the sun move through a sequence rarely seen in human history. Within 48 days, we will experience a full moon, a new moon on a solar eclipse day, an eclipsed full moon, and a new moon.

“Our task is to receive, tabulate and analyze records of dream activity on each of these days,” says project creator Barbara Condron. “Physical science is just beginning to acknowledge what females have known for millennia ” that the pull of the earth’s moon affects our biological cycles, our emotions, and our attitudes. The data we collect in the next three months will open dialogue on the moon’s effect on the consciousness we call dreaming.”

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Lucid Dreaming, Shamanism and the Paleolithic

I just uploaded a new essay about the deep history of lucid dreaming and its potential role in Paleolithic rock art.

There’s always a danger of projecting our ideas about dreams into the past, especially the deep past, but as archaeologist David Lewis-Williams has reminded, humans cannot refrain from dreaming. I take this a step further and suggest that our ancient ancestors were quite capable of incubating visionary states within their dreams.

Click here to read: The Prehistory of Lucid Dreaming.

Nature Awareness as a Field Technique for Anthropologists

Great news! My proposal has been accepted by the Anthropology of Consciousness for this year’s annual SAC meeting at Yale Divinity School. The conference is March 19-23, 2008 for anybody in the area who is interested in this year’s research focus on shamanism, spiritual crises, spirit possession, and the interface between spirit and matter. In general, be prepared for a spirited bunch.

Here’s my title and abstract:

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Babies and Nightmares: New Research Findings

Canadian dream researchers have confirmed a link between babies” personalities and their nightmare frequency later in childhood, as reported in the January 1, 2008 issue of the journal Sleep. In general, anxious babies are more likely to continue having bad dreams and nightmares as they reach preschool age.

This study backs up Ernest Hartmann’s research with nightmares; over twenty years ago Hartmann catagorized nightmare sufferers not as neurotic people, but people with “thinner boundaries.” Interestingly, Hartmann has also suggested that nightmare sufferers are more likely to be creative and artistic people as well. The Canadian research, led by Dr. Tore Nielsen, combined with Hartmann’s widely approved findings, basically pushes the inception of anxiety and thinner boundaries (and possibly creativity along with it) back into early infancy.

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