Book Review: Dark Intrusions by Louis Proud

Dark Intrusions by Louis Proud is a much needed investigation into the paranormal aspects of sleep paralysis visions. Proud digs deep and views SP within the philosophical and literary traditions of spiritualism, mediumship, ghost hauntings and channeling. Hands down, it’s pretty much the spookiest book I’ve read this year.

Proud is a sleep paralysis experiencer himself, so his narrative is grounded in his first-hand knowledge of what it feels like to be held down while you sleep by various unsavory entities. This is the classic sleep paralysis encounter, recounted by millions around the world in many cultures as the old hag, the incubus effect, and being ridden by the witch. Proud uses his experience as a touchstone as he reviews the connecting threads of SP with the fortean literature.

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Lucid Dreaming and Christianity: Entering the Light

The loudest voices of the lucid dreaming movement cite pleasure, power, and fulfilling fantasies as among the benefits of becoming more aware in our dreams.  Unfortunately this popular expression has added fuel to the smoldering and historic distrust of dreams by many contemporary Christians, who are told that dreams can only be temptations of the Devil.  However, lucid dreaming also has a modern development in Christian spirituality that is largely unknown but growing in influence.

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Lucid Dreaming: a Hybrid of REM and Waking Cognition

A study accepted in the journal Sleep last month (but not yet published) claims that lucid dreaming should be not be considered a REM dreaming phenomenon but rather a unique state of consciousness (Voss, et al., 2009). Poetically, the assertion that lucid dreaming has elements of waking consciousness and dreaming has been made for years.   But this study, conducted at the Neurological Laboratory in Frankfurt, Germany, backs the assertion with physiological data taken with an EEG.

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New lucid dreaming blogs

A couple quick blog recommendations today:

The first is a new blog about dreams and consciousness: Oneirology +.

The focus is on lucid dreaming and science of sleep. They post articles, images, and original blogs that explore the interconnection of mind and brain as well as cognition and consciousness in dreams and sleep states.

And for an original look at dreams and lucid dreams, go to Lucider Waking. Lucider writes about lucid dreaming from the perspective of transpersonal psychology, and also has some original pieces that explores the topic from an East-West vantage. He doesn’t update often, or have an RSS reader yet, but there’s plenty of material to whet your palate.

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Book Review: Lucid Dreaming by Robert Waggoner

My recent poll showed that you want more book reviews about dreams and consciousness – lovely! With so much information in the world, it is helpful to have a guide. With that in mind, I highly recommend Robert Waggoner’s new book: Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self.

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Humanists and Transpersonalists make out in the alleyway of the Academy

I was lucky enough to attend a historic meeting San Francisco last weekend at CIIS, where the Association for Humanistic Pychology and the Association for Transpersonal Psychology formally held hands and promised to play nice in the sandbox again. Even though these two associations (representing the third and forth forces in American psychology) have a lot in common, it’s been dicey ever since the humanists were invited over to play at the Academy back in the 1970s. Why the split? It’s more about personalities than values. But that’s water under the bridge, and the organizations promise an enthusiastic renewal of joint research ventures.

Psychiatrist Eugene Taylor gave an amusing presentation about the history of psychology in America, focusing on how experiental psychology has continued to operate under the radar all these years, despite the Academy’s love affair with torturing rats. The future, as Taylor sees it, includes a further cross-pollination of existential and transpersonal depth psychology, a renewed neurophenomenology, and a movement towards intersubjectivity as the foundation of a person-centered science.

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