Contemporary Hypnosis
Contemp. Hypnosis 26(4): 216–224 (2009) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ch.390
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LUCID DREAMING – DREAMS OF CLARITY
Brigitte Holzinger Institute for Consciousness and Dream Research, Vienna, Austria Abstract
Although the concept of ‘lucid dreaming’ was first coined by Frederik Willems van Eeden, a Dutch psychiatrist, and introduced at the meeting of The Society for Psychical Research held on 22 April 1913, the phenomenon of lucid dreaming was already known in earlier historical periods and its descriptions can be found in writings of Aristotle. However, modern lucid dreaming research was established only after LaBerge introduced his method for physiological investigation of lucid dreaming through eye signals in 1980. Current attempts in the field are directed at defining the neuro-physiological correlates of lucid dreaming, an aim that still has yet to be achieved. One of the possible applications of lucid dreaming is in the field of psychotherapy where it is usually used in treating nightmares. However, other possible therapeutic potentials of lucid dreaming are still in the process of being discovered and therefore constitute a fertile area for future researchers. Copyright © 2009 British Society of Experimental & Clinical Hypnosis. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: cognitive restructuring techniques, lucid dreaming therapy, neuro-physiological correlates of lucid dreaming, nightmare treatment, therapeutic applications of lucid dreaming
Historical origins
Lucid dreaming is a state of consciousness which could be called altered: it happens while we are sleeping. We owe to a few courageous oneirologists – pioneers of dream research – that today in both personal experience and scientific research we have begun to understand the potential of lucid dreaming, conscious dreaming, or dreams of clarity (Klarträume), as this fabulous state is also called. The term lucid...