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~—_——Sehwartz-; 136 STEPHEN LABERGE psYCHOMn rons PUP PU Dineen ohenomenon made phitosophicaAPPFOV.EG,F OF, Release, 2000/08/08 : GIA-ROP9GAATESRANS 1001400082 ofthe 34 nights ofthe study, 39 sional reports in which dreamers claimed to have been fully conscious that they were dreaming while they were dreaming, the orthodox view in sleep and dream research as. sumed (until very recently) that anecdotal accounts of lucid dreams must be somehow spurious. Nevertheless, people still reported dreaming the impossible dream, so the question was raised: ‘‘Under what presumably abnormal physiological conditions do reports of ‘lucid’ dreams occur?’’ In the absence of empirical ence bearing on the question, speculation largely favored two answers: either wakefulness o, NREM sleep. Most sleep researchers were apparently inclined to accept Hartmann’s ‘‘impression”’ that lucid dreams were *‘not typical parts of dreamin thought, but rather brief arousals’’ (Hartmann, 1975, p. 74; cf. Berger, 1977). jucid dreams were reported subsequent to spontaneous awaking from various stages of sleep as follows: REM sleep 32 times, NREM Stage-1, twice, and during the transition from NREM Stage-2 to REM, once. The subjects reported signaling during 30 of these lucid dreams. After each recording, the reports mentioning signals were submitted along with the respective polysomnograms to a judge uninformed of the times of the reports. In 24 cases (90%), the judge was able to select the appropriate 30-second epoch on the basis of correspondence between reported and observed signals. All signals associated with lucid dream reports occurred during epochs of unambiguous REM sleep scored according to the conventional criteria (Rechtschaffen & Kales, 1968). A replication of this study with two additional subjects and 20 more lucid dreams produced identical results (LaBerge, Nagel, Taylor, Dement, & Zarcone, com- mon during REM sleep and proposed these ‘‘microawakenings”’ as the physiolog- ical basis for lucid dream reports. Although no one had put forward any evidence for this mechanism, it seems to have been the received opinion (cf. Foulkes, 1974) up until the last few years. A similar view was put forward by Antrobus, Antrobus, and Fisher (1965) who predicted that recognition by the dreamer of the fact that he or she is dreaming would either immediately terminate the dream or continue in NREM sleep. Likewise, Hall (1977) speculated that lucid dreams may represent “‘a transition from Stage-1 REM to Stage-4 mentation”’ (p. 312). Green (1968) seems to have been alone in reasoning that, because lucid dreams usually arise from nonlucid dreams, ‘‘we may tentatively expect to find lucid dreams occur- ring, as do other dreams, during the ‘paradoxical’ phase of sleep’’ (p. 128). Empirical evidence began to appear in the late 1970s supporting Green’s speculation that lucid dreams occur during REM sleep. Based on standard sleep recordings of two subjects who reported a total of three lucid dreams upon awakening from REM periods, Ogilvie, Hunt, Sawicki, and McGowan (1978) cautiously concluded that ‘‘it may be that lucid dreams begin in REM”’ (p. 165). However, no proof was given that the reported lucid dreams themselves had in fact occurred during the REM sleep immediately preceding the awakenings and reports. Indeed, the subjects themselves were uncertain about when their lucid dreams had taken place. What was needed to unambiguously establish the physi- ological status of lucid dreams was some sort of on-the-scene report from the dream, an idea first suggested by Tart (1965). LaBerge and his colleagues at Stanford University provided this verification by arranging for subjects to signal the onset of a lucid dream immediately upon realizing that they were dreaming by performing specific patterns of dream actions that would be observable on a polygraph (i.e., eye movements and fist clenches). Using this approach, LaBerge, Nagel, Dement, and Zarcone (1981) reported that the occurrence of lucid dreaming during unequivocal REM sleep had been demonstrated for five subjects. After being instructed in the method of lucid dream induction (MILD) described by LaBerge (1980b), the subjects were 1981). LaBerge et al. argued that their investigations demonstrated that lucid dreaming usually (though perhaps not exclusively) occurs during REM sleep. This conclusion is supported by research carried out in several other laboratories (Dane, 1984; Fenwick et al., 1984; Hearne, 1978; Ogilvie, Hunt, Kushniruk, & Newman, 1983). Ogilvie et al. (1983) reported the physiological state preceding 14 spon- taneous lucidity signals as unqualified REM in 12 (86%) of the cases; of the remaining 2 cases, | was ‘‘ambiguous’’ REM and the other appeared to be wakefulness. Keith Hearne and Alan Worsley collaborated on a pioneering study of lucid dreaming in which the latter spent 50 nonconsecutive nights in the sleep lab while the former monitored the polygraph. Worsley reported signaling in eight lucid dreams, all of which were described by Heame (1978) as having occurred during unambiguous REM sleep. Brylowski, LaBerge, Levitan, Booth, and Nelson (1986) monitored a single skilled lucid dreamer for four nights while measuring the subject’s H-reflex. The reflex was evoked every 5 seconds and later measured and analyzed for dif- ferences in suppression between lucid and nonlucid REM. They found that the H-reflex was significantly suppressed during lucid REM as compared to nonlucid REM (p < .00i). Because H-reflex suppression is often considered a unique hallmark of REM sleep, this finding should finally lay to rest the notion that lucid dreams do not occur during REM. However, demonstrations that signaling of lucid dreams occurs during REM sleep may raise another kind of question for some readers: What exactly do we mean by the assertion that lucid dreamers are ‘‘asleep?"’ Perhaps these “*dream- ers’’ are not really dreamers, as some argued in the last century; or perhaps this ‘sleep’? is not really sleep, as some have argued in this century. How do we know that lucid dreamers are ‘‘really asleep’’ when they signal? If we consider Perception of the external world as a criterion of being awake (to the external world), we can conclude that they are actually asleep (to the external world) because, although they know they are in the laboratory, this knowledge is a Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : QIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2