Thread: Quick Review of the Scientific Litterature on Lucid Dreaming 2021

I think I will give my thoughts on these articles one at a time as I read them, because the thoughts on each will likely be long. Any critique is welcome on my thoughts, too.

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Horton's review is interesting and I appreciate the fact that it allows me to learn and think about what's being done in research. I feel I want to put under question or disagree with some elements of the review, under the consideration that the two main problems with me doing so are: a) any statement from a non-scholarly individual like myself is likely considered anecdotal at best and b) I am a layman with bias.

The hypothesis that there is continuity to thought and mental processes, defined as "mental content" or "mentation" makes sense to me. From my experience, how focused I am or how memorable something is, varies from moment to moment not only while dreaming but also while awake and my experience with "daydreaming" or "visualisation" suggests that even while fully conscious and waking, in a state of trance, a lot of detail will be gone in terms of recall even if I try to make mental note of that detail. In that sense, I think all experience, dreamt or waking, shares an aspect of selecting and discarding or consolidating information, be it internal or external.

Despite some grammatical errors, the review is coherent and the arguments for its conclusions seem sound... At first my thoughts on this were "it's acceptable enough", given that English isn't my native language, but on discussing the review with my partner, he argued that the grammar should be precise, because this is a paper of scientific relevance and because in principle, matters of supposed scientific merit should be as specific and coherent as possible (while remaining concise). In his argument, he thought that poor grammar indicated that neither Horton, nor the reviewer of Horton's article, had sufficiently proof-read the article, which I am inclined to agree with.

I presume that the conclusions drawn by the author are based on the evidence that was available to her, in the referenced content, but I feel as though some bias can be read into it. I was disappointed to find that although the importance of regular non-lucid sleep is highlighted, the author made no mention of sleep quality other than the possibility that lucid dreaming may interfere with regular sleep and its presumed functions; perhaps there isn't enough, or any, research on that, but maybe there should (could) be.

I'd like to highlight the fact that, despite any grammar issues, I believe the author makes some decent and appropriate distinctions and definitions between/around awareness and control, because people do seemingly come into or discuss lucid dreaming thinking more about control than about awareness. When I have discussed the topic with those not practised in lucid dreaming, they often misunderstand and assume that I am discussing dream control (as a result of awareness) with them, so my personal suspicion is that people may have secret obsessions about control that they are either not consciously aware of, or that they do not divulge to others. I often try to highlight to others the potential value of not having absolute control over one's dreams.

And on control, one point I disagree with is the claim that control is (necessarily) an artificial experience, although I feel this aspect of artificiality is not well defined; because of this feeling of being inadequately defined, I would argue that control can be a natural experience. I am not arguing that control is always a natural experience, just that it's possible for it to be natural, too. Consider for instance that human beings, collectively, end up seeking and having control not only over other members of the species but also over the environment, even at small scales, with a seemingly natural goal of increasing the sense of safety and security. I am not arguing on whether that is morally/ethically correct or not, since that can depend on specifics. I think that we can feel, at a non-conscious level, a certain drive to improve our conditions so that we can survive in a "better" way. I think the threshold for whether control is natural or artificial relates to our "instinct" and drive for certain things, because a drive to do something relating to control, in dreaming or waking, can rise up, initially, from non-conscious feelings or intuition. Regardless, my main objection to this claim about dream control, is that it can and does seem to happen even during regular "non-lucid" dreaming, how often and how much, seems to vary from person to person. My own dream control even when non-lucid has increased over the years and while we might think this might have to do with my interest in lucid dreaming, based on discussions I've had about lucidity and control with others both practised and not practised, I am made to think more of a pre-determined trait for natural dream control in the same way that natural lucidity seems to be more pre-determined for some people than others; likewise, some people seem to have more drive and ability to control situations in their life, versus others.

In addition, during lucid dreaming, non-conscious content can continue to arise even when there are willing attempts to suppress it. My thoughts on this are that this follows the "mentation" logic mentioned, because while awake we can also suppress unwanted non-conscious thoughts, imagery and feelings to a certain degree, though if we do, those suppressions may just reinforce the content to reappear, maybe even more often. Although arguably dreaming awareness may have a knock-on effect regarding what kind of content will continue to arise while dreaming, whether one chooses to suppress "involuntary" content or not is up to the dreamer and so I see natural processes as seemingly continuing to occur even when we cross the threshold required for "lucidity", in the typical sense.

So personally, I cannot understand the claim that control of dream content is necessarily unnatural; at least, there seems to be no consideration on both sides of this matter from the author, which is why I think there may be some bias (or lack of supporting evidence to consider the other side) involved. Like many other "actions" we can take, is it not possible that control is as much choice as it is partly an impulse? If one has a non-conscious impulse to control something, it takes conscious self-control to stop that non-conscious intent, which part of this situation should be considered unnatural?

However, moving away from that, I do generally agree with the cautions urged around focusing on dream control and the points made under the final "Discussion" heading. I do not personally believe that dream control is always beneficial when it comes to exploring one's dreams and other non-conscious imagery, partly for the reasons I mentioned above regarding suppression of non-conscious mental content. I also believe that the author is trying to promote future investigations around dreaming to not have as much emphasis being placed on control, which I think is a valuable thing to promote.