Psychology Essay

[Lord of the Flies]

I know I don't post often -- but in fact I'm one of those lurking/hidden members who never says a peep... But now I'd like to ask for a little help. I'm doing an essay for my psychology class and, being a lucid dreamer since the age of 3 or 4, I want to give a good strong essay in regards to lucid dreaming from a scientific, empirical source. I need something that is peer-reviewed and, if possible, has available references. I was wonderring if there might be other college/university students out there who might be able to help me find any empirical information (in other words, not 'new-age', but rather related to the scientific field of psychology) on the net. I know that such works must exist because lucid dreaming's officially recognised by the scientific/psychological community -- but alas, not much is known. I thank you all for your help, ~Lord of the Flies

[Peregrinus]

Are you at a university where you have access to ISI Web of Knowledge, and more specifically, Web of Science? I&#39;m not sure whether public libraries subscribe to the service or not, but if you can gain access, that&#39;s a great place to start. It spans journals from the humanities and social sciences to the physical sciences, allows viewing of abstracts, and also lists all of the references cited by an article and all references to that article, so you can search upstream and downstream. Scan through the abstracts, and seek out the full text of articles that are relevant to your research. Out of curiosity, I did a search for "lucid dream*" and got 92 hits, including articles on the evidence of lucidity, the correlation between personality and lucidity, nightmares and lucidity, lucid dreaming and psychological healing, etc. Actually, a good place to start would be with these articles: <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Web of Science")</div> Title: Lucid dreaming: Evidence and methodology Author(s): LaBerge S Source: BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES 23 (6): 962-+ DEC 2000 Document Type: Editorial Material Language: English Cited References: 11 Times Cited: 4 Abstract: Lucid dreaming provides a test case for theories of dreaming. For example, whether or not "loss of self-reflective awareness" is characteristic of dreaming, it is not necessary to dreaming. The fact that lucid dreamers can remember to perform predetermined actions and signal to the laboratory allows them to mark the exact time of particular dream events, allowing experiments to establish the precise correlations between physiology and subjective reports, and enabling the methodical testing of hypotheses. KeyWords Plus: COGNITION; WAKING Addresses: LaBerge S (reprint author), Lucid Inst, Stanford, CA 94309 USA Lucid Inst, Stanford, CA 94309 USA Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 110 MIDLAND AVE, PORT CHESTER, NY 10573-9863 USA Subject Category: PSYCHOLOGY, BIOLOGICAL; BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES; NEUROSCIENCES IDS Number: 456VF ISSN: 0140-525X [/b] <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Web of Science")</div> Title: Similarities and differences between dreaming and waking cognition: An exploratory study Author(s): Kahan TL, LaBerge S, Levitan L, Zimbardo P Source: CONSCIOUSNESS AND COGNITION 6 (1): 132-147 MAR 1997 Document Type: Article Language: English Cited References: 55 Times Cited: 8 Abstract: Thirty-eight &#39;&#39;practiced&#39;&#39; dreamers (Study 1) and 50 &#39;&#39;novice&#39;&#39; dreamers (Study 2) completed questionnaires assessing the cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional qualities of recent waking and dreaming experiences. The present findings suggest that dreaming cognition is more similar to waking cognition than previously assumed and that the differences between dreaming and waking cognition are more quantitative than qualitative. Results from the two studies were generally consistent, indicating that high-order cognition during dreaming is not restricted to individuals practiced in dream recall or self-observation. None of the measured features was absent or infrequent in reports of either dreaming or waking experiences. Recollections of dreaming and waking experiences were similar for some cognitive features (e.g., attentional processes, internal commentary, and public self-consciousness) and different for other features (e.g., choice, event-related self-reflection, and affect). © 1997 Academic Press. KeyWords Plus: SELF-REFLECTIVENESS; CONSCIOUSNESS; ACTIVATION; HYPOTHESIS; MEMORIES; EVENTS Addresses: Kahan TL (reprint author), SANTA CLARA UNIV, DEPT PSYCHOL, 500 EL CAMINO REAL, SANTA CLARA, CA 95053 USA STANFORD UNIV, DEPT PSYCHOL, PALO ALTO, CA 94309 USA LUCID INST, STANFORD, CA 94309 USA Publisher: ACADEMIC PRESS INC JNL-COMP SUBSCRIPTIONS, 525 B ST, STE 1900, SAN DIEGO, CA 92101-4495 Subject Category: PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL IDS Number: XA770 ISSN: 1053-8100 [/b] <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Web of Science")</div> Title: Cognition and metacognition in dreaming and waking: Comparisons of first and third-person ratings Author(s): Kahan TL, LaBerge S Source: DREAMING 6 (4): 235-249 DEC 1996 Document Type: Article Language: English Cited References: 58 Times Cited: 7 Abstract: Two approaches to measuring dreaming and waking cognition were compared. Forty-three subjects wrote detailed descriptions of a dreaming and a waking experience and also used a questionnaire to evaluate the presence of particular types of cognition and metacognition in the target experience. Later, independent judges rated the subjects&#39; narrative reports for the incidence of the same types of cognition and metacognition. A lower incidence of some types of cognition was observed when assessment was based on judges&#39; ratings of the narrative reports than when subjects themselves assessed the incidence of these events. However, the basic relationship between dreaming and waking cognition was consistent for both measurement approaches. Subjects&#39; and judges&#39; evaluations of dreaming and waking experiences did not differ for internal commentary, sudden attention, focused attention, public self-consciousness, emotion, self-reflection, and thwarted intentions, although both subjects and judges attributed choice to waking experiences more often than to dreaming experiences. The value of using converging measures to compare dreaming and waking cognition is discussed as well as whether dreaming cognition is best conceptualized as continuous or discontinuous with waking cognition. Author Keywords: dreaming; self-awareness; metacognition KeyWords Plus: SELF-REFLECTIVENESS; RETRIEVAL; MEMORY Addresses: Kahan TL (reprint author), SANTA CLARA UNIV, DEPT PSYCHOL, 500 EL CAMINO REAL, SANTA CLARA, CA 95053 USA LUCID INST, PALO ALTO, CA 94309 USA Publisher: HUMAN SCI PRESS INC, 233 SPRING ST, NEW YORK, NY 10013-1578 Subject Category: PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY IDS Number: VW805 ISSN: 1053-0797 [/b] <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Web of Science")</div> Title: LUCID DREAMING VERIFIED BY VOLITIONAL COMMUNICATION DURING REM-SLEEP Author(s): LABERGE SP, NAGEL LE, DEMENT WC, ZARCONE VP Source: PERCEPTUAL AND MOTOR SKILLS 52 (3): 727-732 1981 Document Type: Article Language: English Cited References: 15 Times Cited: 35 Addresses: LABERGE SP (reprint author), STANFORD UNIV, MED CTR, SCH MED, SLEEP RES CTR, STANFORD, CA 94305 USA Publisher: PERCEPTUAL MOTOR SKILLS, PO BOX 9229, MISSOULA, MT 59807 Subject Category: PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL IDS Number: LY791 ISSN: 0031-5125 [/b] Together, those papers reference over 100 others, so that&#39;s a good place to start digging. Edit: I just checked out the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and there&#39;s a huge focus on dreaming, especially in the December 2000 edition (the one in which that first LaBerge article is published).

[Lord of the Flies]

Are you at a university where you have access to ISI Web of Knowledge, and more specifically, Web of Science?[/b] Thanks for everything! Unfortunately I don't have access to 'ISI Web of Knowledge' nor 'Web of Science'; I'm a Quebec student (erm..French Canada) and work with EBSCOhost. It's a strange thing that in the previous days I had found absolutely nothing and today I've located two articles ('solve problems in your sleep' and 'LUCID DREAMING REVISITED&#39. Unfortunately lucid dreaming doesn't seem to be well known (or believed to be possible) around here.. =p

[Peregrinus]

Unfortunately I don't have access to 'ISI Web of Knowledge' nor 'Web of Science'; I'm a Quebec student (erm..French Canada) and work with EBSCOhost.[/b] EBSCO should work, too. Try their search feature and/or use those articles I posted as a starting point, if you can get your hands on them. Just sift through their references and then find the cited articles that seem most applicable to your topic. It's a strange thing that in the previous days I had found absolutely nothing and today I've located two articles ('solve problems in your sleep' and 'LUCID DREAMING REVISITED&#39. Unfortunately lucid dreaming doesn't seem to be well known (or believed to be possible) around here.. =p [/b] I don't quite understand how people can believe it to not be possible. It's not some fringe topic - most people at some point in their lives will have a lucid dream. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine when people who know nothing about the topic lump it in with paranormal phenomena, claiming that it's an unproven, improvable load of bunk. Anyway, I wish you luck with your essay. Hopefully you'll be able to enlighten a few people

[Lord of the Flies]

Anyway, I wish you luck with your essay. Hopefully you'll be able to enlighten a few people [/b] Thanks for the well wishes and most of all for the help! With what you've given me (as well as some help from another friend) I've been able to find enough articles to make for an extremely good essay! ^-^ I guess it's up to us lucid dreamers of the world to make a scientific stand for ourselves; we're the X-Men!