Thread: Enjoy this article, it makes some valid points.

I found this perusing the interwebs, There is no more
from Psychology Today, October 1989, pp. 27-32

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THE TECHNIQUE OF LUCID DREAMING

CAN HELP YOU USE YOUR

DREAMS TO EXPLORE YOUR PSYCHE



by Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Bosveld



It was late Sunday night and Jill Day was having a nightmare.

She had watched a violent movie about a serial murderer and,

recognizing that her dreams were often affected by such stories,

she knew as she fell asleep that she had probably not seen the

last of the killer. Perhaps because of that awareness, when the

movie psychopath appeared in her dream and threatened to kill her,

Day suddenly recognized he was not real. "I know this is a

dream," she yelled at the man. "Now go away. Get out of here!"

The image of the man dissolved, as did all other imagery, and she

slowly drifted into the obscurity of dreamless sleep.



Banishing evil from a dream...challenging frightening

characters...jumping through a window and flying away from a

heated argument...such things are possible in the paradoxical and

alluring realm of lucid dreaming. Unlike ordinary dreams, which

seam real to the sleeper having them, lucid dreams occur when

dreamers suddenly become *aware* that what they are experiencing

is unreal, a dream. The intrusion of consciousness changes every

aspect of the dreamworld. Lucid dreamers often speak of a

hyper-real quality to their dreams, which elicit stronger

emotional reactions than their nonlucid relatives. In the lucid

state, dreamers can even gain some control over dream content;

they may decide to soar over the Great Lakes, for example.

Conscious awareness also allows the dreamer to work

therapeutically with dream material, in a relatively safe setting

in which he can maintain a large measure of control. Finally,





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lucid dreaming is a skill many can learn. In fact, we estimate,

based on our own research and a survey of the available

literature, that 58% of all men and women will spontaneously

experience a lucid dream at least once in their lives.





Discoverers of the Lucid Dream



The ancient Greeks and Romans visited dream temples, where

they searched their dreams for messages from the gods (to dream of

having one's throat cut meant good luck), and it seems reasonable

to assume some people have always had lucid dreams. But no

extensive study of the phenomenon exists in the West before 1867,

when the Marquis Hervey de Saint-Denys, a French professor of

Chinese literature, published *Dreams and How to Guide Them*, the

first serious work on conscious dream control. Though the Marquis

reports dreams in which he was able to "call up the shades of the

dead and also transform men and things according to my will," it

was not until 1913, in a paper presented to the British Society

for Psychical Research, that the Dutch physician Frederik Willems

Van Eeden wrote of having a "lucid" dream.



Van Eeden may have coined the term, but it was Hugh Calloway,

and English contemporary, who was the first to explore the

aesthetic contours of the lucid state in dreams. Written under

the name Oliver Fox, Calloway's description of his first lucid

dream (at age 16) trembles with the excitement that many have

subsequently felt. "Instantly," he wrote, "the vividness of life

increased a hundredfold. Never had sea and sky and trees shone

with such glamorous beauty; even the commonplace houses seem alive

and mystically beautiful. Never had I felt so absolutely well, so

clear-brained, so inexpressibly *free*! The sensation was

exquisite beyond words; but it lasted only a few minutes and I

awoke.



Lucid dreamers often speak of the thrill of observing their

own dreams. Daryl E. Hewitt, a counselor and a veteran lucid

dreamer from San Francisco, is typical. He recalls learning "to

fly very fast and very high, to pass through walls, including

steel (and to burn holes through them with lasers from my

fingertips!), explore other planets, and especially to alter the

dream environment at will, making things appear, disappear, and

change shape and color." It's as if the dreamer were making an

interactive movie, creating fantasy and watching it unfold at the

same time. The dreams themselves may often be short-lived, but

their sheer intensity often indelibly impresses them on the

dreamer's memory.





What Lucid Dreams Can Tell Us



Freud called dreams the royal road to the unconscious, and

today virtually all forms of psychotherapy use the patient's





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remembered dreams in the therapeutic struggle for insight and

self-awareness. But only through lucid dreaming can you yourself

"will" a confrontation with difficult emotional issues and try to

resolve them. For the first time, this makes possible what

psychologist Joseph Dane of the University of Virginia calls

"intra-personal psychotherapy," in which you enlist both "waking

and dreaming consciousness" to work on your own psychological

fears and dilemmas firsthand -- in your own mind. Potentially,

this could be a therapeutic breakthrough.



Using dream analysis to identify the source of your problems

is usually not simple, though, and you may quite innocently

mislead yourself. If, for example, you confront your brother in a

dream and for the first time confess you have always feared him,

you may feel some relief. But you may also be missing some more

profound issue. Perhaps it is not your brother you're afraid of,

but an aspect of yourself that your brother represents. In many

instances you may be entirely shut off from your deeper feelings,

and a professional therapist may be required to guide you in the

direction of emotional truth.



Also, paradoxically, the pleasure of lucid dreams, together

with the power of the conscious mind to control them, may lead the

dreamers into the habit of turning nasty dreams into sweet ones.

As psychologist Gayle Delaney points out, the very appearance of

consciousness contaminates the dream with the attitudes and coping

strategies that are employed by the dreamers while awake.



"The single most destructive advice is to encourage people to

manipulate their dreams to have happy endings," Delaney says. "I

encourage people to use lucidity to explore the dream rather than

to control it." In this regard, she believes it is often better

for people to start up terrified from a nightmare than to awaken

calm from a lucid dream that they have sugarcoated. The nightmare

forces the dreamer to recognize that he or she is conflicted or in

trouble.



Like Delaney, Erik Craig, a Massachusetts-based existential

psychologist, worries that lucidity may serve as "a narcissistic

flight from one's fuller, though perhaps less appealing,

possibilities." Craig recalls a high-school student who dreamed

that her father was a ship's captain oblivious to a raging storm

that threatened to sink his vessel. At this point, the woman

turned lucid: She realizes that she could stop the storm and did

so. This made her feel great, but by altering the dream, Craig

believes, the woman was avoiding her distress over her father's

alcoholism. Lucidity, says Craig, allowed her to "bolster her

defenses against the awareness of these painful but important

truths."













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The Power of Dream Dialogue



That lucid dreamers often employ the same defensive actions

during a dream as they do while awake is one reason most

clinicians argue that it's important to engage dream characters in

conversation. By posing questions to the characters or to other

aspects of the dream, you may be able to get in touch with and

work through sensitive emotional issues. And if the dialogue is

productive, you may see the dream character change shape, become

less fearsome, get smaller, disappear, or merge with your "self"

in the dream.



The importance of dream dialogue is emphasized by West German

psychologists Paul Tholey, of the University of Frankfurt, and

Norbert Sattler, who together train students and patients to

lucid-dream. They have found that most people can learn to

lucid-dream, and once having done so they can learn to deal

effectively with unconscious conflicts. Tholey, who has been

studying lucid dreaming since 1959, first began investigating the

therapeutic potential of what he called Klartraume (clear dreams)

when he encountered both helpful and menacing figures in his own

lucid dreams. For example, Tholey recalls that, after his

father's death, he often dreamed about him as a threatening,

insulting figure. "When I became lucid, I would beat him in

anger. He was then sometimes transformed into a more primitive

creature, like an animal or a mummy. Whenever I won, I was

overcome by a feeling of triumph. Nevertheless, my father

continued to appear as a threatening figure in subsequent dreams.



"Then I had the following decisive dream. I became lucid

while being chased by a tiger and wanted to flee. I then pulled

myself together, stood my ground, and asked, 'Who are you?' The

tiger was taken aback, but was transformed into my father and

answered, 'I am your father and will now tell you what you are to

do!'



"In contrast to my earlier dreams, I did not attempt to beat

him, but tried to get involved in a dialogue with him. I told him

that he could not order me around. I rejected his threats and

insults. On the other hand, I had to admit that some of my

father's criticism was justified, and I decided to change my

behavior accordingly. At that moment, my father became friendly,

and we shook hands. I asked him if he could help me, and he

encouraged me to go my own way alone. My father then seemed to

slip into my own body, and I remained alone in the dream."



This dream, Tholey reports, had a "liberating and

encouraging" effect on his dreams and his life. "My father never

again appeared as a threatening dream figure," he says. What's

more, "In the waking state, my unreasonable fear and inhibitions

in my dealings with persons of authority disappeared."









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Lucid Dreaming as Therapy



Tholey has found that the lucid dream has several therapeutic

advantages. First, lucidity seems to create an environment in

which the dream ego is less afraid of threatening figures or

situations and is more willing to confront them. Second, the

ability to manipulate dream content allows the dream ego to "get

in touch with places, times, situations or persons" that are

important to the dreamer and that he or she desires to

investigate. In addition, when conversing with other dream

figures, the dreamer's ego is often capable of recognizing the

complex dynamics that may occur within these interactions.



It is not lucid dreaming *per se* that allows self-healing

and growth, Tholey contends, but the resolute and mature action of

the dream ego. When this is absent, the lucid dream will have

little therapeutic value. Some dreamers become overly aggressive

with hostile dream characters and kill them; others become totally

submissive and allow themselves to be killed. These are unlikely

to be constructive responses, says Tholey.



Battling and defeating hostile dream characters and

situations are common response in lucid nightmares. Elaine Smith

of Matewan, WV, used physical violence to handle the following

nightmare: "I was in a building with a group of people. The

building was surrounded by a group of zombies. I had a gun that

misfired every time a tried to shoot a creature. They managed to

break in and we were quickly surrounded. I knew that our escape

depended on my gun working. Suddenly, I realized that I was

dreaming and that I could force the gun to work by willing it to

do so. The gun began firing and we escaped."



Guns, however, are not required for a successful escape from

dream peril. Patricia Garfield], author of several popular books

on dreaming, explains that "by yielding, by providing no solid

resistance, the intended victim can render an attacker helpless.

He fails to get at a person who is so supple, so light, so quick,

so like water, that there is nothing to receive the brutal action.

Exhausted the attacker quits."



Beyond that, psychotherapist Scott Sparrow points out that

although one can easily escape from or destroy a dream figure, the

skill should not be thought of as an end in itself. "Such

actions," he says, "often fit into a developmental continuum as

intermediate accomplishments. As the therapist, I encourage the

dreamer not to get stuck in such intermediate stages, and ton

continue working toward dialogue, reconciliation, and

integration."



What is the most enlightening way to respond to a fearful

dream figure? Tholey suggests the following:









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o Do not attempt to flee. Rather, openly, confront the dream

figure and ask in a friendly way, "Who are you?" or "Who am I?"



o If it is possible to address the dream figure, try to achieve

reconciliation through dialogue. If agreement is impossible, try

to frame the conflict as an open dispute. Refuse insults or

threats, but recognize justifiable charges made against you.



o Do not surrender to an attack by a dream figure. Show your

readiness to defend yourself by taking a defensive position and

by staring the dream figure in the eyes. If a fight is

unavoidable, attempt to defeat the dream enemy, but do not try

to kill. If victorious, offer reconciliation.



o If reconciliation is not possible, separate the figure

physically and/or in thought and word.



o After reconciliation, ask the dream figure if he can help you.

Then mention specific problems in your waking or dream life with

which you need help.



However beneficial holding a dialogue with a dream character

may be, Tholey believes a still more effective technique is for

the lucid dreamer's "ego" to enter the body of another dream

character. He illustrates this with a teenager who was having

trouble with a potential boyfriend. She said, "I asked myself . .

. why didn't he return my feelings and wanted to get an answer to

this question in the dream. It was then that I became aware of my

spirit, that is, that part of me I think of as my 'self,'

detaching itself from my body and floating across to his body and

entering into it . . . . As time went on, however, I got used to

being in his body . . . . I saw how he perceived me . . . the

conflict he was in. After all, he had, I suppose, become aware of

my feelings for him and was very fond of me, but he did not want

to go out with me as such . . . . I understood why he had been so

reserved with me, and I realized that he would never return my

feelings."



Tholey often describes dream figures as having independent

consciousnesses, with individual personality traits and behavior

patterns. But he does not mean to imply that they are somehow

autonomous beings. Rather, they are conflicting ideas and

emotions from the dreamer.



For this reason, Tholey says, lucid dreamers should never

resort to aggression, though self-defense may be necessary. Every

effort should be made to discuss disputes openly. "The appearance

of a hostile dream figure may reflect, in symbolic form, a

psychological conflict," he explains. "The threatening figure is

often the personification of an 'off-split,' a repressed, or

isolated, subsystem of the personality." Conversation may begin a







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process of integration. By contrast, battle with a dream

character may only serve to bury the problem it represents deeper

within the unconscious.





Unconscious Dream Healing



Behavioral psychology holds that it's possible to change an

individual's behavior by rewarding, or reinforcing, the desired

actions and punishing, or negatively reinforcing, undesirable

actions. Understanding the reasons underlying one's actions,

behaviorists contend, is not necessary to change. Although most

psychologists now view a purely behaviorist perspective with some

skepticism, it can play a role in lucid-dream therapy.

Psychologist Peter Fellows, for one, never teaches dream

interpretation at all as part of lucid dream therapy.



"Time in a lucid dream is a precious commodity and I do not

like to waste it," Fellows says. "If, as I am dreaming, I become

lucid at a point where someone is sitting on my head, I do not

begin to question him on the symbolic meaning of the experience.

I act, and quickly.



"When symbolic dreams work for us, a waking-life conflict is

acted out in symbolic guise and resolved. Somehow, that

resolution is translated back into real like with real effect.

What lucidity enables us to do is to resolve the dream conflict

and to reap the benefits in self-confidence that come from doing

so consciously.



"Interpreting the dream, knowing what area of one's like the

dream conflict is related to, is fine, but when the work is

actually done, the result will be experienced whether or not the

interpretation was correct," he says.



Tholey, too, has found that a patient can reap the benefits

of a dreamed action without understanding why. For example, a

28-year-old student came to therapy complaining of nightmares.

She showed signs of anxiety and depression, a result perhaps of

her failing marriage and her difficult relationship with her dying

father. In the course of several therapy sessions, Tholey

discussed ways of dealing with the frightening characters that

haunted her nightmares, and soon after the woman had a lucid

dream.



She was in her childhood home, awaiting the arrival of a

group of people who intended to harm her. She remembered that

this setting often occurred in her dreams, a thought the gave rise

to lucidity. "Despite the fact that she was struck with fear and

wanted to flee," explains Tholey, "she overcame this fear and

courageously stood her ground." Then people in long robes

approached. As she looked at the first figure to come close -- a

gigantic man with a cold, blue face and glowing eyes -- she





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followed Tholey's instructions and asked him, "What are you doing

here? What do you want from me?"



The man looked at her sadly and helplessly as he said, "Why,

you called us. You need us for your anxiety." At this, the man

shrank to normal size. His face turned flesh colored and his eyes

ceased to glow. Since then, the woman has had no more nightmares

and has felt less anxious in her waking life. Nonetheless, she

remained unable to make conscious sense of the dream.



Tholey has several theories about how apparently meaningless

dreams may help us to heal. The courage needed to confront a

hostile dream figure may bolster the dreamer's ego in a way that

affects his or her waking life. Or it may be that confronting our

fears desensitizes us: Talking about nightmares in waking therapy

sometimes helps to quell the unconscious fears that give rise to

them.



This desensitization may be particularly useful in treating

phobias. One lucid dreamer learned to temper his fear of heights

in this way. When he first began flying in his lucid dreams, the

man explains, he ascended too quickly and woke up badly

frightened. So he began to experiment with varying the altitude

of his dream flights, learning gradually to control how high he

flew. "Now," he says, "When I'm awake and climbing or standing at

a serious height, I don't feel nearly as frightened as before."



Sattler, Tholey's collaborator, also believes that

intellectual insight is not essential to positive therapeutic

outcomes. In his view, lucid dreamers are working on formative

experiences, long buried in the unconscious. The dreamer then

acts out his conflicts and attempted resolutions of them in an

alternative reality (the dream). As Sattler says, "You have to

get in contact with all this old stuff. It's the one way out...to

live through something." When you wake up from the dream, you may

then experience behavioral changes without understanding why.





The Best Way to Use Lucidity



Obviously, lady dreaming is not a panacea for life's

problems, nor a replacement for traditional psychotherapies.

Indeed, working with lucidity may be the most beneficial when use

in moderation *and* in conjunction with other therapy. One reason

for this is that no one's control of dream content is perfect. As

Jungian analyst James Albert Hall has observed, "The waking ego is

like a gatekeeper who can *permit* or *deny* entrance into the

boundaries which he guards, but who is powerless to *command* the

appearance or disappearance of a particular entrant (content),

however much he might desire it.



Joseph Dane believes the issue is not whether to control the

content of a dream, but rather learning how to control one's





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response to dream events as they appear and enhancing cooperation

between waking and dreaming consciousness.



Despite the present limitations of lucid dreaming as a

therapeutic technique, it can nevertheless be a valuable tool for

individuals seeking self-understanding. The essential question to

ask, as Craig has stated, is, "How may we best acquire and use the

knowledge of this human territory in a way that respects and

conserves its essential structure and nature?...There are very,

very few opportunities to have life completely thrown at us, to

have life explode around us, and for us to be tossed in the middle

of it." Lucid dreaming is such an experience, and if we learn to

use it well, we do not yet know how far along the path to

self-enlightenment it will carry us.



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Excerpted from the book *Control Your Dreams* by Jayne Gackenbach

and Jane Bosveld. To be published by Harper & Row Publishers,

Inc. Copyright 1989 by Jane Gackenback and Jane Bosveld.

Psychologist Jayne Gackenbach, a leading researcher in lucid

dreaming, teaches social psychology at Athabasca University in

Alberta, Canada. Jane Bosveld is a contributing editor to

*Psychology Today.*































































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