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Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2 Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain Perspectives on Lucid Dreaming Edited by Jayne Gackenbach University of Northern Iowa Cedar Fails, lowa and Stephen LaBerge Stanford University Stanford, California Pade Plenum Press ¢ New York and London The Psychophysiology of Lucid Dreaming STEPHEN LABERGE LUCID DREAMING PHYSIOLOGICALLY VERIFIED Although we are usually unaware of the fact that we are dreaming while we are dreaming, at times a remarkable exception occurs, and our consciousness be- comes lucid enough for us to realize that we are dreaming. Lucid dreamers report being able to freely remember the circumstances of waking life, to think clearly, and to act deliberately upon reflection, all the while experiencing a dream world that seems vividly real (Green, 1968; LaBerge, 1985a). This is all in contrast to the usual characterization of dreams as typically lacking any reflective awareness or true volition (Rechtschaffen, 1978). Indeed, the concept of conscious Sleep can seem so self-contradictory and paradoxical to certain ways of thinking that some theoreticians have considered lucid dreams impossible and even absurd. Probably the most extreme example of this point of view is provided by Malcolm (1959), who argued that if being asleep means experiencing nothing whatsoever, ‘‘dreams’’ are not experiences during sleep at all but only the reports we tell after awakening. This concept of sleep led Malcolm to conclude that the idea that someone might reason while asleep is ‘tmeaningless.’’ From here, the philosopher reasoned that If ‘‘] am dreaming” could express a judgment it would imply the judgment ‘I am asleep,’ and therefore the absurdity of the latter proves the absurdity of the former.”’ Thus “‘the supposed judgement that one is dreaming"’ is ‘‘unintelligible’’ and ‘‘an inherently absurd form of words (Malcolm, 1959, pp. 48-50) The point of this example is to show the skeptical light in which accounts of lucid dreaming were viewed before physiological proof of the reality of the STEPHEN LABERGE « Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2