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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 LUCID DREAMING 731 criterion of being awake, we can conclude the subjects were indeed asleep: Although they koew they were in the laboratory, this knowledge was a mat- ter of memory, not perception; upon awakening, they reported having been totally in the dream world and not in sensory contact with the external world. Neither were the subjects merely not attending to the environment, €.g., as when absorbed in reading or daydreaming; according to their reports, they were specifically aware of the absence of sensory input from the external world. If subjects were to claim to have been awake while showing physiological signs of sleep, or vice versa, we might doubr their subjective reports. However, in the present case, the subjective accounts and physiological measures are in clear agreement, and it would be extremely unparsimonious to suppose that subjects who believed themselves to be asleep while showing physiological indications of sleep were actually awake. The two principal conclusions of this study are that lucid dreaming can occur during REM sleep and that it is possible for lucid dreamers to signal intentionally to the environment while continuing to dream. These findings have both theoretical and practical consequences. The first result shows that . under certain circumstances, dream cognition during REM sleep can be much more reflective and rational than has been commonly assumed. Evidence in- dicating that lucid dreaming is a learnable skill (LaBerge, 1979, 1980a, 1980b, 1980c), taken with the second result, suggests the feasibiliry of a new ap- proach to dream research: lucidly dreaming subjects could carry out diverse experiments marking the exact time of occurrence of particular dream events, which would allow the derivation of precise psychophysiological correlations aad methodical testing of hypotheses. REFERENCES ANTROBUS, J. S., ANTROBUS, J. S., & FISHER, C. Discrimination of dreaming and non- dreaming sleep. <Archsves of General Psychiatry, 1965, 12, 395-401. BROWN, A. E. Dreams in which the dreamer knows he is asleep. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1936, 31, 59-66. BROWN, J. N., & CARTWRIGHT, R. Locating NREM dreaming through instrumental responses. Psychophysiology, 1978, 15, 35-39: CARTWRIGHT, R. [Response to review of Brown and Cartwright (1978).] Sleep Reviews, 1978, 166, 30. : GREEN, C. Lucid dreams. London: Hamilton, 1968. TABERGE, |S. Lucid dreaming: some personal observations. Sleep Research, 1979, 8, 153. LABERGE, S. P. Induction of lucid dreams. Steep Research, 1980, 9, 138. (a) LABERGE, S. P. Lucid dreaming: an exploratory study of consciousness during sleep. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford Univer., 1980. (Universiry Microfilms Iaternational, 80-24, 691) (b) LABERGE, S. P. Lucid dreaming as a learnable skill: a case study. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1980, 51, 1039-1042. (c) RECHTSCHAFFEN, A. The psychophysiology of mental activity during sleep. In F. J. Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2