Lucid Dreaming Research Paper

Ciara Young
Professor Doree Robinson
English 101
22 April 2013
Living Out Your Dreams
“We are asleep. Our life is a dream. But we wake up, sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.” (qtd. in Wikipedia) Ludwig Wittgenstein, a famed Austrian philosopher of the early 20th century (Anat, Matar), acknowledges a mystical level of consciousness that the vast majority of the general population is unfamiliar with. That level of consciousness is none other than lucid dreaming. By definition, a lucid dream is a dream in which one is aware that they are dreaming. (Lucidity Institute) Much unlike a regular dream, a lucid dream enables dreamers to be mentally conscious within their own dream world. They are in addition capable of controlling
Chronic nightmare sufferers have been treated with lucid dream initiation and their symptoms have been shown to decrease. Scientists are unsure whether their improvement was caused by the mere act of lucidity alone or because of the dreamer’s ability to change the nature of their dreams. (Holzinger 221). In 2006, a small-scale study disclosed that lucid dreaming therapy was successful in reducing nightmare occurrence. The treatment given by the study was comprised of introduction to the idea, the practicing of lucidity exercises, and mastery of the process. (Wikipedia) As the preceding scientists were unsure of what exact part of the treatment was responsible, these scientists were stumped as well. Nonetheless, both groups knew that it had
(Been, Garg 583) The man in question was a depressed alcoholic suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, insomnia, and nightmares. He had seen more than a handful of trauma, including but not limited to finding a dead baby in a bathtub, and being one of the first at the scene of a serious car accident where there were two people decapitated. These horrific events correlated with his ongoing nightmares that prevented him from sleep. After trying multiple medications for his addiction, alcohol withdrawal, and relentless nightmares, he became open-minded to alternative treatment. Greg Been and Vikas Garg, of the Mirrabook Mental Health Unit in New South Wales, Australia, provided him with lucid dreaming treatment for his nightmares. Their thought was that teaching him how to lucid dream would permit him to alter the goings-on of his dreams, which would eventually result in breaking the ties between the trauma he had experienced and the negative feelings they evoked. He was then equipped with a copy of the Wikipedia entry on lucid dreaming for informational purposes and told to keep a log of his dreams, falling asleep shortly afterwards picturing them. While picturing the dreams, he was ordered to reconstruct them to include him realizing that he was dreaming within them and