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.

The Secret History of Sleep Paralysis

Strieber's visitors came to him after he was lying in bed, paralyzed.

Our Western culture, it has always seemed to me, is unique because there is no extant cultural expression of SP.  Most people who have the experience have no clue what’s happening to them, leading to a religious interpretation. Fewer know that sleep paralysis has biological correlates related to sleep hygiene and REM dreaming. On this point, sleep parlysis expert and medical anthropologist David Hufford commented in the documentary Your Worst Nightmare, “We have erased knowledge of these experiences from the cultural repertoire while these experiences are continuing to happen. That’s dramatic. That’s a level of social control that’s very impressive.”

Louis suggests that the SP narratives actually are highly represented in the literature of the West, but they have been marginalized from scientific inquiry. SP encounters can be seen spanning the centuries, from Swedenborg’s works, to 19th century spiritualist texts, to the voluminous writings of Chico Xavier, and most recently Whitley Streiber’s harrowing account of night visitors in Communion. Louis methodically reviews this literature, pointing out trends and similarities, as well as theorizing how sleep paralysis visions may be one of the authentic ways to contact spirits—or be terrorized by them.

Discarnate Entities, Psi and Quantum Psychics

Here is where I initially parted company from Proud, in his assistance that fearful SP encounters with demons, hags and aliens are proof positive of the existence of autonomous discarnate entities: spirits, in other words, who feed on the living and lead the way to madness. After all, I know from my own personal experience that entities can change form and become helpful when the sleep paralysis sufferer controls for his fear and sets strong boundaries or rules for contact. Expectation plays a major role in this phenomenon, just as it does with other altered states such as lucid dreaming and entheogenic reverie.

However, I began to see that Proud’s thesis is more complex, as he does not argue that all sleep paralysis encounters are the products of spirits. But a crucial and terrifying minority may be, he argues, especially those that yield information that could not have been known, information that is later verified from 3rd party sources.

Our current scientific paradigm ignores this sort of data, even though many studies using accepted controls have yielded statistical results. (For a great review of the status of the scientific enterprise of psi research, see Charles Tart’s The End of Materialism.)

Are poltergeists responsible for entity intrusions?

Yet I also think that there are other ways of receiving “uncanny” information through dreams and visions besides through the theorized action of malevolent spirits, including telepathy, remote viewing and other anomalies as theorized by the work of Carl Jung, Rupert Sheldrake and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. In these matters, it’s difficult to know where clairvoyance ends and telepathy begins, much less to distinguish between archetypal energies, the structure of the space/time continuum and the souls of the departed. Not that these perspectives are unknown to Proud — he cites specially the work of Stan Gooch — but he leans towards the spirit hypothesis at the end of the day.

In any case, I definitely agree with Proud in general that these sorts of encounters are more than the projected fears of a dreamer during REM intrusion, which is the “flatland” perspective espoused by mainstream materialism. My own work with sleep paralysis, informed by transpersonal psychology and anthropology, has focused on how dreamers can lessen their fears and transform negatively construed encounters with spirits, but this emphasis does not preclude the influence of other sources of influence during SP nightmares that may lay outside the personal psyche. Rather, accounting for our fears and biases allows us to view the “autonomous entity”—whatever its origin may be—more clearly.

The Shadow of Western Science

Dark Intrusions wades into some pretty weird and fascinating waters, including ghost rape, phantom voices, poltergeists and energy vampirism, but he always brings the material back to the experiences of sleep paralysis sufferers. There’s some particularly fascinating accounts of consensual spirit sex. Proud’s central thesis is that some sleep paralysis experiences are “attempts at possession by discarnate entities” that occur when one’s psychic guard is down. This is certainly a powerful meme that deserves review as its historical root are deep and influential, running parallel with western science as a kind of shadow culture for the last 200 years.

Science as an enterprise, we must remember, bracketed out first-person experiences long ago, so no amount of evidence from personal narratives will ever convince materialist skeptics of the veracity of these powerful internal visions and their hand in shaping the culture and folklore of spirits, ghosts and goblins.

Proud writes in his conclusion that the research of this haunting topic actually transformed his largely negative perception of sleep paralysis to a larger spectrum. “SP is a doorway to many possibilities,” he suggests, “some terrifying, some interesting and delightful, others simply weird and baffling. Over all I think the condition is a gift—a tool, which, when used properly, can be immensely rewarding.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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.

But first, some background in the history of Christianity and dreams is needed.

The Awkward History of Dreams and Christianity

The New Testament is chock full of dreams.  Dozens of dreams, in fact.  So is the Old Testament, for that matter.  From Joseph’s dream that told him of the divine importance of  Mary’s surprising pregnancy (Book of Matthew), to Paul’s dreams that inspired his missionary work in Macedonia (Book of Acts), dreaming is clearly depicted as connecting normal people to the divine for the purpose of guidance, courage-building, and reassurance.

By the way, some of the Old Testament sources include Ecclesiastes 5:3, Psalms 73:19, Isaiah 29:7, Deuteronomy 13, Genesis 28 and Joel 2:28.

Saint Augustine of Hippo, as depicted by Sandro Botticelli c. 1480

Interestingly, Jesus is not reported to have visionary dreams.  As Christian theologians have commented for hundreds of years, “Why would God need to send a message to himself?”

Long after the life of Jesus, dreams continued to be an inspiration to theologians, priests and monks.   For example, Saint Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 C.E.) left several writings clearly expressing his opinion that dreams can come from several sources: from the divine, from below, or simply from everyday life.

This folk psychology still has parallels in several dream theories, for instance that dreams can reflect, in turn, our waking concerns (see William Domhoff), our socially tabooed—and perhaps unhealthy–desires (see Sigmund Freud), as well as expressions from our higher Self (see Carl Jung).

St. Augustine also discusses lucid dreaming in one of his letters – as evidence of life after death.  Religion and dream scholar Kelly Bulkeley describes  this dream narrative in his book Dreaming Beyond Death: a guide to pre-death dreams and visions. He recounts Augustine’s story of Gennadius, who dreams of a city of angels.  In a subsequent dream, a young man approaches him and asks several questions:

The young man went on to ask, “Where is your body now?”

“In my bed,” Gennadius answers.

“Do you know,” the youth asked, “that the eyes in this body of yours are now bound and closed, and at rest, and with these eyes you are seeing nothing?”

“I know it,” Gennadius answers.

“What then,” the young man continued, “are the eyes with which you now see me?”  Unable to discover what to answer to this, Gennadius fell silent.

In this moment of uncertainty and paradox, the youth finally revealed to Gennadius the deeper truth of his experience. “As while you are asleep and lying on your bed these eyes of your body are now unemployed and doing nothing, and yet you have eyes with which you behold me, and enjoy this vision, so, after your death, while your bodily eyes shall be wholly inactive, there shall be in you a life by which you shall live, and a faculty of perception by which you still perceive. (Bulkeley, 2005, p. 27)

The Church Turns Away from Dreams

Despite Christianity’s rich intwining with dreaming, the Church began to turn away from dreams in the Middle Ages.  The historic reasons for this movement are complex and still mysterious, as Bulkeley recounts in his 2009 resource Dreaming in the World’s Religions.  Certainly it did not help that Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a medieval religious scholar, warned in Summa Theologica that dreams can contain temptations and that these dreams are impossible to differentiate from the occasional dreams that come from God. (Bulkeley, 2009, p. 183).   Note that Thomas Aquinas did not think that having impure dreams was a sin, but a reflection of a lack of spiritual purity in waking life. In other words,to the relief of Christian dreamers everywhere, sexual dreams are not seem as being sinful in themselves.

Martin Luther, the father of the protestant movement, also had a bone to pick with dreams, suggesting that they were superfluous, at best.  Interestingly, Luther complained of many dreams, visions and nightmares, but he rejected their hold on truth unless they mirrored the details of the Bible.  This attitude is probably the most decisive blow against the spiritual value of dreams in the modern Christian world.

St Jerome may have also played a role when he first translated the Bible from Aramaic to Greek, but scholars do not agree on his level of influence.  Read more about St Jerome and dream interpretation here.

Dreaming and Christian Mysticism

Today, there are a growing number of Christian writers who value dreams, although their influence is still minor compared to that of Martin Luther and the general idea that studying dreams is sinful.  Remember that nowhere in the Bible does it state that dreams come from the Devil or demons in order to tempt humanity; this is an idea that blossomed later in the history of the Church.

Christian dream interpretation is alive and well, as is evidenced by these recommended books by Christian dream workers and scholars Morton Kelsey, John Sanford, James Hall, and Louis Savary and Patricia Berne.

These authors do not all espouse the same message, but they generally agree that dreams can be interpreted spiritually and lead to self-knowledge, inspiration, and greater life enjoyment as a Christian living in the modern world.

Christianity and Lucid Dreaming Today

Likewise, — and boy it took me a while to get around to this point — several prominent lucid dream researchers have approached their extraordinary experiences from the vantage of Christian spirituality.  These scholars have shown that the major themes of Christian gnosis can naturally be explored within the safe space of the conscious dream.

Lucid Dreams As Mystical Experience

image by Mr. Michael

Psychologist Scott Sparrow is a good place to start because his 1977 book about lucid dreaming –Dawning of the Clear Light, available here for free –  is deeply spiritual in structure.   Sparrow was inspired by self-styled mystic and psychic Edgar Cayce, who suggested that the highest state of the human soul is the awareness of oneness with God.

Cayce writes, “It is for that purpose that He came into the earth; that we, as soul-entities, might know ourselves to be ourselves, and yet one with Him (3003-1).

In this vein, what Sparrow has espoused, and was joined by other lucid dreaming pioneers such as Patricia Garfield in her book Pathway to Ecstasy, is that lucid dreaming offers a chance to participate in a true mystical state.  This idea has gained ground with the support of the fourth wave of American psychology (also called transpersonal psychology), and is further influenced by Eastern perspectives of spirituality, especially Tibetan Buddhism.  In this tradition, communion with God is just not a theory for the afterlife, but a fruit of spiritual practice that includes prayer, meditation, and lucid dreaming.

Patricia Garfield (1977) puts it succinctly:  “lucid dreams are microcosms of mystic experience.”

The Experience of Light in Lucid Dreams

One of the most common mystical experiences in Christian lucid dreams is the experience of divine light.  Reverend George Gillespie, a practiced lucid dreamer, has outlined how some experiences of light involve feelings of union, ineffability, and awe – he calls this “the fullness of light.”   The notion of light being connected to God is an old one (“and then there was light!”), and is discussed by many lucid dreaming mystics.

Psychotherapist Ken Kelzer describes the correlation here in his fabulous book The Sun and the Shadow (1987):

More than anything else, the appearance of the light with its endless variations and the countless ways in which it works its way in and out, lover and under and through the fabric of such a lucid dream, eventually convinces the dreamer of the age-old philosophical/metaphysical premise that the essence of the material universe is light, and that matter and energy and light are, indeed, interchangeable…

I am convinced that the more anyone follows the path of the lucid dream, the more he or she will see that our prime human purpose in this world is to become enlightened, to fill ourselves with the essence of light, and to eventually become ONE with THE LIGHT. (al caps in the original).

Our traditional Judeo-Christian scriptures have prepared the way for this inner synthesis through such teachings as “God is Light,” “God is Love,” “and “God is One.”  The lucid dream state can carry us into the experience of these ancient truths, demonstrating how light and love are one, and how the ultimate grace is to be living in a state of mind where we are steeped in the oneness of love and light. (p 221).

The Brighter the Sun, the Darker the Shadow

Another common theme elaborated by Christian lucid dreamers is the truism that any spiritual path is beset by dangers.  Seekers have noticed that mystical lucid dreams also seem to bring on dark and troubling unconscious material.  Ken Kelzer reminds us the lucid dreaming path insists that seekers must face the “unresolved dark aspects” of inner life (p. 82). This is the work of facing one’s own human nature, and it is a part of any mature psycho-spiritual practice.

That’s why Kelzer and many other experienced psychologists recommend taking lucid dreaming seriously, and with precautions.  It’s important to have a safe home environment, the time to spend on inner work, and if possible, an experienced guide who has tread this path before.

By the way – here’s where to read more about my approach to dealing with these kinds of troubling lucid nightmares, regardless of religion or belief system.

Ultimately, it is up to the dreamer to decide if lucid dreaming as a spiritual practice is worth pursuing.  I am personally convinced that the practice of lucidity, if cultivated with respect for the dreamworld, humility of ego, and courage of heart, can enliven any dreamer who is looking for more first-hand gnosis of mystical experience.

Where does lucidity comes from? Image by ocean.flynn

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.

Despite the small sample size, Voss and company’s findings are intriguing.  Specifically, lucid dreams are shown to differ from ordinary (REM) dreams by an increased brain frequency in the 40Hz (or GAMMA) range in the frontal and frontolateral areas of the brain. These areas are considered by many scientists to be the seat of linguistic thought, as well as other higher mental functions associated with self-awareness.

This “hybrid state” of waking and dreaming fits in well with study co-author Allan Hobson’s AIM model for sleep cognition. The AIM model essentially maps and predicts possible kinds of consciousness in sleep based on three different spectra:

• whether the imagery created is external or internally sourced,
• the activation levels of the brain, and
• the modulation of the state by brain chemicals.

Lucid dreaming, the authors say, can therefore be mapped separately from ordinary dreams due, in this case, to the unique activation on the GAMMA level. The authors say the next step is to test lucid dreaming in the lab with brain imagery devices, such as a fMRI.

The Quest for Uniting the Mind and the Brain

The seat of the soul, according to Descartes.

Finding the unique physiological markers of consciousness has long been the holy grail of science.  We’ve had a few interesting theories along the way. For instance, Rene Descartes put his money on the pineal gland, while today other scientists say consciousness is a product of microtubules in the brain’s neurons.

Lucid dreaming research is really an off-shoot of this scientific tradition, especially as it looks for physical markers that coincide with subjective qualities such as self-awareness or free will.  (For an introduction to lucid dreaming, here’s my beginner’s guide.)

In the 1980s, many psychologists predicted that ALPHA level frequencies ((8-12 Hz) would clearly demark lucid dreams from ordinary dreams – but further studies showed that ALPHA levels remain more or less depressed through most of sleep, including even the most lucid of dreams. (Olgivie, Vieri, Small, 1991)

More recently, Holzinger, LaBerge and Levitan published a study (2006) emphasizing how the BETA-1 (13-19 Hz) frequency band is associated with lucid dreams, more so than ordinary dreams. They further isolated this small, but statistically significant, hiccup of activity to the parietal lobe, an area of the brain associated with spatial sense and navigation.

In any case, wherever consciousness may or may not “live”, the high levels of GAMMA range of activation shown in this study need more tests with larger pools of subjects before we can say with any certainty that lucidity has a reproducible physical signature.

Brain Entrainment, Intentionality and Lucid Dreaming

Interestingly, the 40 Hz bandwidth of brain activity has a popular following in brain entrainment, a form of neuro-hynotherapy whose adherents say induces brain synchronization by listening to music with frequencies that the brain matches in response.   Anecdotally, many lucid dreamers claim to have learned lucid dreaming with the help of these brain entrainment tools, such as binaural beats and light stimuli inside of sleep masks.

Now just because GAMMA may be correlated with consciousness does not necessarily mean that listening to GAMMA-inducing binaural beats will automatically increase your lucid dreams.  Actually, there’s no peer-reviewed study on lucid dreaming and brain entrainment.  However, there’s plenty of evidence that brain entrainment can increase concentration, memory, and induce relaxation: all states of mind that can indirectly lead to lucid dreams.

Most lucid dreaming brain entrainment tools available today focus on the DELTA and THETA waves, essentially paving the way for a relaxing yet alert descent into sleep onset and REM sleep.  Timing is important, too; I’ll discuss more about lucid dreaming incubation techniques using binaural beats soon.

There are some correlations for the GAMMA band and consciousness, so we may see some new products on the market soon.  The literature is tempting, as the 40hz band has been shown to be associated with high levels of meditation (Lutz, et al 2004)  as well as the ability to be hypnotized (De Pascalis, 1993). Reduced GAMMA synchronization, on the other hand, has recently been associated with autism (Rojas, 2008).

Keep in mind — I know I sound like a broken record about this point — no lucid dreaming pill, meditation CD, or expensive biofeedback software will make you lucid.  Lucidity comes by grace of intentionality, which in turn brings a cognitive habit of self-awareness.  Or vice versa, by grace of spontaneous awareness, calling for a habit of intentionality.

However, binaural beats for lucid dreaming can help with laying the cognitive foundation for a strong intention and for becoming more comfortable with self-awareness in other states of consciousness, which is by far the biggest hurdle in learning how to lucid dream.  The most successful binaural beats for lucid dreaming take this approach.   Entrainment (which can happen through the habit of many kinds of rituals and exercises) concretizes our intentions, — the idea is made external — while boosting the brain states that lucidity thrives within.

But still, we have to do the hard work of waking up ourselves.

Lucid Dreaming: A Separate State of Consciousness?

Where's your focus when lucid dreaming? Image by James Jordon

Beyond the possible application of future GAMMA brainwave entrainment, this study really makes a bold claim that lucid dreaming is not a dream, but a separate state of consciousness.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about this designation.

From a phenomenological perspective, self-awareness in dreams comes and goes.  Lucidity is not an On-Off switch, but a spectrum. In fact, there’s several kinds of spectra, from volition (dream control) to self-awareness (“I’m dreaming”) to emotional meta-cognition markers (“I am angry: I wonder why.”)  Voss’s and Hobson’s definition of lucid dreaming is too general to get a sense for what particular aspect of self-awareness is amplified during lucid dreams.

However, some lucid dreams really do feel like an unique state of consciousness with the best aspects of dreaming and waking cognition.  For this reason, anthropologist and neurophilosopher Micheal Winkelman (2000) has called lucid dreaming a “shamanic state of consciousness,” because it “integrates the potentials of dreaming and waking consciousness” (p. 135).  And consciousness scholar Harry Hunt (1988) has said that lucid dreaming is really a peak experience the way Abraham Maslow used the word, as a state defined by clarity, exhilaration, and openness.  So there is some support from the transpersonal psychologists (who study altered states for a living) on this idea of lucid dreaming as a distinct state in its own right.

In sum, because cultural styles of what “lucidity” means affect which brain areas activate during a so-called lucid dream,  the GAMMA signature should be taken with a grain of salt.   That said, if the 40 Hz signature can be repeated clinically, then lucid dreaming could help neuroscientists find other markers of conscious thought in sleep, leading towards a renaissance of directed and unconstrained brain mapping.  This, over time, has the potential to revise our understanding about the interaction between mind and matter.

Cited:

De Pascalis, V. (1993). EEG spectral analysis during hypnotic induction, hypnotic dream and age reduction. International journal of psychophysiology, 15(2), pp.153-166.

Holzinger, B. Laberge, S., Levitan, L., (2006) Psychophsiological correlates of lucid dreaming.  Dreaming. 16(2), pp. 88-95.

Hunt, H. (1989). The multiplicity of dreams: memory, imagination and consciousness. Yale University Press.

Hurd, R. (2009) Lucid dreaming science: new evidence of GAMMA band activation. Lucid Dream Exchange, Fall 2009.

Lutz, A., Greishar, L., Rawlings, N., Ricar, M., Davidson, R.J. (2004). Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice.  Proceedings National Academy Science, USA 101(46), pp. 16369-16373.

Ogilvie, R., Vierna, K., Small, R. (1991). EEG activity during lucid dreaming. Lucidity 10 (1&2), pp. 224-226.

Rojas DC, Maharajh K, Teale P, Rogers SJ. (2008).  Reduced neural synchronization of gamma-band MEG oscillations in first-degree relatives of children with autism. BMC Psychiatry. Aug 1;8:66

Voss, U., Holzmann, R., Tuin., Hobson, J.A. (2009). Lucid dreaming: a state of consciousness with features of both waking and non-lucid dreaming. Accepted but not published yet in Sleep. http://www.journalsleep.org/Accepted.aspx

Winkelman, M. (2000). Shamanism: the neural ecology of consciousness. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

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.

And if you haven’t found this site yet, check out World of Lucid Dreaming. Lots of articles, book recommendations, and opportunities for getting deeper into lucid dreaming. The site specializes in lucid products, such as Mp3 downloads on biurnal beats for meditation and lucid dreaming induction.

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.

Waggoner’s book has already caused a stir in the lucid dreaming blog community – so also be sure to check out Ben’s interview with Robert Waggoner as well as Hatter’s take on Ben’s interview. These articles bring up the most important points of Waggoner’s message about lucid dreams. I will focus on a few of my favorite aspects of the book before leading into my thoughts about how his perspective can be seen as an introduction into indigenous science and the transformational nature of the unconscious mind.

Lucid Dreaming Experts Caught in the Wild!

Rarely do we get to hear from seasoned, expert lucid dreamers about their process. They are like some rare tropical bird that has never been photographed. Usually, lucid dreaming is marketed to beginners, with a focus on how to lucid dream (preferably in seven days or your money back). Waggoner provides what we have been so desperately lacking: a battle-tested road map into advanced lucid dreaming.

My favorite tidbit that sums up Waggoner’s philosophy of lucid dreaming is neatly described here:

“One common assumption…. is that the [lucid] dreamer controls the dream. Yet, any thoughtful analysis shows that lucid dreamers direct their focus within the dream but do not control the dream (as the sailor does not control the sea). Those maintaining the assumption of control limit their experience and understanding, unless they are able to see through this assumption and broaden their viewpoint.” p.100

Waggoner goes on to explain how this promise of dream control may at first seem fulfilled, but as dreamers move deeper into lucid dreaming practice, they will begin to notice this control unravel before their eyes. The roadblocks to greater lucidity are pointed out, with many helpful exercises to help combat them.

A New Model for Lucid Dreaming Development

He then presents a developmental model for lucid dreaming, based loosely on humanistic psychology with a Jungian bent. In other words, the path of lucid dreaming leads us inevitably to our growth and wholeness, even though we may go kicking and screaming, and even though we meet many nightmares, monsters and roadblocks to growth along the way.

I resisted this developmental model at first, but then I had to laugh that part of my resistance is due to the fact that, using Waggoner’s model, I am “only” an intermediate lucid dreamer. Beyond that, my issues with Waggoner’s model are largely academic, having to do with the model’s assumption that the lucid dreamer is a Western person living in modern civilization.

Since then, my inner anthropologist has calmed down, (as well as my egotistical lucid self!) because I realize that Waggoner is making no claims at universality, but rather is addressing his experience as well as other Westerners’.

Indeed, my own experience fits well within his model of lucid dreaming as a movement from focus on dream control and the avoidance of pain, to the ability to lose control in order to meet the dream’s other autonomous characters who have much to tell me, to a focus on transpersonal experiences that are beyond the realm of representational dreaming and more in line with the experiences of advanced meditators. Now I know my resistance: Waggoner has got me pegged! And, like I said, this is just the first part of the journey that he lays out….

Lucid Dreaming and Psi

What also sets Waggoner’s book on lucid dreaming apart from the dozens of other books (most of which plagarize Stephen LaBerge’s 1991 classic the World of Lucid Dreaming), is his integration of lucid dreaming with other anomalous dream experiences such as psi dreams, mutual dreams, and dreams of the dead. Waggoner has plenty of stories that would be perfect to tell around the campfire, but his interest is not on convincing his readers that these extraordinary experiences happen.

Rather, he actively invites readers to use their lucid dreams to help devise rigorous dream experiments so they can swim in these waters themselves. (After all, Krippner and Ullman’s Dream Telepathy has been in print for 25 years, and has plenty of scientific data that test the limits of statistical significance and coincidence in regards to dream telepathy. As they say, you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t force a skeptic to read scientific studies that might challenge his paradigm).

The Universe is Alive

But my favorite part of reading Waggoner’s book on lucid dreaming is how he stumbles upon the basic tenets of indigenous science and the world’s wisdom traditions. These are the tenets laid out in hundreds of ethnographies of historic native peoples around the world, and still being taught in the few indigenous societies that have survived the global industrial culture. These tenets include these insights from lucid dreams that have transformed his life and the lives of hundreds of other lucid dreamers:

1. The universe is alive.
2. The universe is an inter-connected whole.
3. The human mind is also unified and harmonious.
4. Our senses, dreams, and thoughts are reflections of a reality that extends far beyond what we have so crudely determined as the “material world”

Waggoner didn’t read a book on shamanism to come to these tenets. Nor does he ever use the terms “pan-psychism” or “transpersonal psychology” although his work can easily be seen to reflects these philosophical systems. Instead, these ideas are the fruit of 30 years of experience in the dynamic, shifty, and altogether bizarre world of lucid dreaming.

Always humble, Waggoner suggests that he has much to learn still, and at the end of the day, he stresses that he’s just a guy “from Kansas, far from the centers of world power.” In my opinion, this book firmly locates Robert Waggoner in the center of the lucid dreaming world, and paradoxically, on the leading edge of lucid dreaming self-exploration.

Find Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self here.

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.

That’s a mouthful, but what does it mean for consciousness studies? It means it’s gonna get interesting again at the white coat conventions. Objectivity is under scrutiny in an unprecedented way. Introspectionism is making a comeback (although few would dare use the “I” word). Technology and meditation are becoming closely linked tools. As Andrew Weil would say, this is a marriage between the sun and the moon. Truthfully, the union of these two sister organizations is a small step towards a unified field of knowledge, that holy grail of Western thinkers, but it does mean we”re a little closer to bridge that gap between the sciences and humanities.

I”m most excited about the potentials for neurophenomenology, especially for dream studies. Lucid dreaming research, my first love, is one field of study that is poised to cross the divide between third-person science and first-person data collection methods. At the end of the day, our technology is only as useful as our ability to describe what is happening on the inside.

So let’s hear it for laying down arms and working together! Now on to the hard problem.