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Show V - -4".'-. ' lucid dreaming: It's fun, free, and worth the effort by HEIDI WEST Record staff writer "Well, I suppose I should fly," I thought. Then, before I knew it, I was doing helicopters and overhead flips in fresh-fallen powder. If you've seen my skiing, you know I had to be dreaming. But my dream was a "lucid" one I knew I was dreaming when I was doing it. So, if flying was what I'd really wanted to do, or slaying some emotional dragon in my past, or romping through a million-dollar shopping spree, I could have. I had traded in my usual subconscious sleep state for a conscious one, and theoretically theoretical-ly I was in complete control of my dream destiny. This, according to contemporary dream theorists like Ernest Rossi, is the pinnacle in dreamhood. It's an ideal state because it allows the dreamer to interact with dream figures in "stimulating adventures." adven-tures." The experience is neither boring nor so bizarre it overwhelms what psychologist Dr. Patricia Garfield Gar-field calls the autonomous, or independent in-dependent process of dreaming. Instead, In-stead, says Garfield, lucid dreams are exciting because the dreamer experiences them with something like waking consciousness, with the freedom to create almost any event. And, they are not too bizarre because the dreamer has the power to turn them off or to alter the frightening aspects. The problem, says Garfield, is . that lucidity is a state not particularly particular-ly easy to attain. Because of this, many people doubt whether it is even a reality,' and some go so far as to class it as a "miracle." But, if a person believes the lucid state is possible, according to Garfield, it is. After the breakthrough of the first lucid dream it's likely to just keep getting better, she says. Most often, the dreamer will learn increasingly how to manipulate and control his or her dreams, and even how to induce lucid dreams at will. Another feature of lucid dreams, say psychologists, is they are tough to keep lucid. It's much easier to slip into a semiconscious or subconscious sub-conscious state than maintain the conscious awareness of a lucid dream. But, recent research has brought with it new techniques aimed aim-ed at inducing and maintaining dream lucidity. "It was then that the blessed discovery was made. I found it was just as easy to fly downstairs as to walk. n In 1983, German psychologist Paul Tholey reported the results of his study of 1,500 lucid dreams. He found the most important means of inducing lucidity took place in the waking state. Those subjects who asked themselves several times a day to evaluate how their waking situation differed from a dream state were more likely to be successful suc-cessful in accurately judging themselves to be dreaming when they were actually doing so. Tholey also found subjects imagining imagin-ing themselves to be dreaming and carrying out a simple action while dreaming, or auto-suggestions of lucid dreams right before going to sleep helped. With practice, Tholey's dreamers worked up to an average of one lucid dream per night. Another researcher, Stephen LaBerge with the Stanford Sleep Research Center in California, practiced prac-ticed a lucid dream-inducing technique techni-que on himself. He would awaken spontaneously from a dream in the early morning and engage in 10 to 15 minutes of activity which demanded wakefulness. Then he would return to sleep, giving himself a suggestion to remember he was dreaming. He would visualize himself asleep, and see himself both dreaming and aware he was dreaming. This technique helped LaBerge go from an average of one conscious dream per month to more than five. If it takes so much work to induce a lucid dream, why go to the bother? 111 kl" According to Garfield, lucid dreams are the most joyous and entertaining ones we can have. And, they can be valuable learning tools as well. The recorded observations of Mary Arnold-Foster, an early lay dream experimenter, attest to the importance lucid dreaming can have on alleviating the sometimes unrational fears we all have as children. In 1921, she remembered how dreaming helped her overcome her fear of one particularly gloomy section of a staircase in her childhood home. One night, as she Mary Arnold-Foster dreamt a recurring vision of herself alone and frightened on that staircase, stair-case, she made a sudden realization. "It was then that the blessed discovery was made," she writes. "I found that it was just as easy to fly downstairs as to walk." That discovery helped Arnold-Foster Arnold-Foster to "feel quite safe" when tackling the scary staircase from then on. This kind of experience is not unusual. In 1984, clinical psychologist Marie Doyle employed dream manipulation techniques in a conscious or semi-conscious state to see if waking behavior and emotional emo-tional state was altered. She had her subjects give themselves 'suggestions 'sugges-tions that their dreams would be pleasant, and instructed them to snap a rubber band on their wrist if they were unpleasant. She compared com-pared the scores on a "dream behavior survey schedule" both before and after 14 weeks of using these techniques, and between experimental ex-perimental and placebo groups. Both dream and waking behavior changed and improved over the course of the experiment. A particularly fascinating technique techni-que Doyle used was supposedly uncovered un-covered by anthropologist Kilton Stewart on a trip to Malaysia in the late 1960s. His work has since been upheld by some independent investigators in-vestigators like Garfield, and deemed deem-ed shaky by others. But the controversy con-troversy postdated Doyle's 1984 experiment ex-periment where the so-called Senoi V 1 I' 4 V?M,'wv. s dreamwork tools were employed on her subjects and found to be successful. suc-cessful. The Senoi are a Malaysian culture, who, according to Garfield, show "remarkable emotional maturity" and "extraordinary psychological adjustment. " One of the reasons the Senoi are so balanced, say Stewart and Garfield, is their attention to and unique system for dealing with dreams. Every morning is devoted to parents helping their children understand dreams from the night before. If the dream was frightening, the child is encouraged to try to have the same dream and confront whatever scared them. If it was a monster, say, the child is to try to turn the monster into a friend, and is to collect col-lect a token of that friendship in the dream. Whenever the friend threatens to turn back into a monster, the child can produce the dream token to make it retreat. Although some researchers debate whether the Senoi actually engage in such focused "dream-work," "dream-work," it is interesting to note that when Doyle taught her subjects these practices, they found them to be the most helpful of any they had learned in controlling dreams and reducing anxiety about them upon awakening. Garfield, who stresses the value of learning from lucid dreams by experimenting ex-perimenting in a world devoid of conscious limits, offers several pointers on how to achieve the state. First, she says, lucid dreams are almost exclusively experienced in the final few hours of sleep, i.e. from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. for most people. She also says there is a "prelucid" state lucid dreamers must beware. Signs include asking youself "Am I dreaming?" and testing the reality of the experience in a dream. For example, ex-ample, knocking on wood, turning on the light, or reading the clock are all characteristic of dreams which can easily turn into lucidity but which aren't quite there yet. Recognizing odd things happening in a dream, like the clock that reads funny, or the wood that isn't hard, is the bridge into lucidity. When the dreamer recognizes something is odd to the point of saying "this must be a dream," they have reached the conscious state. Garfield insists that with practice, everyone can have and hold on to lucid dreams. So, when the powder melts and you still have the bug to zip out a few 360s, create a slope with any conditions you want and go for it in your mind, naturally. St "J CSiary flnne Designs 4 0 on all items in stock (Thursday through Sunday only) fyiary flnne (Designs Interior Design Commercial & Residential 750 E. Highway 248 8 a 0 1 1 m VV.VAV.V.V. Park Record Interior Design Commercial & Residential A Unique Collection of Fine Furnishings, Antiques, Art, and Accessories for the Discriminating Home a P.O. Box 3510 Pari City, Utah 84060 (801) 643-0595 fcUi Thursday, March 19, 1987 Page A5 r r y-v HMMS |