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1993-06-29
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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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