Stephen

laberge &

lucid dream

induction

 From Chapter 12 of The F-Model of Dreaming:

LUCID DREAM INDUCTION: Qs & CLUES. In the Foreword section to Lucid Dreaming (1985), mind field specialist R.E. Ornstein[1] wrote that “Stephen LaBerge has done something unusual: he has shown that what was once thought to be impossible in the realm of consciousness is in fact possible. He has proven scientifically that people can be fully conscious while remaining asleep and dreaming at the same time.” Lucid Dreaming—LaBerge’s first book detailing his Work with lucidity—begins with a dream report in which the dreamer becomes “perfectly aware it was all a dream,” while inside of the dream, and maintains this perspective without immediately waking up (p1). As the dream report continues, the dreamer—LaBerge, I presume—descended down a flight of stairs and finds himself in “an enormous subterranean vault” (p2). In the distance, the dreamer notices a marble statue, but upon closer inspection the “inanimate statue now appeared unmistakably and ominously alive” (actually, I’ve dreamt that...#me2). Seeing this stone turn alive, LaBerge’s instincts (or whoever’s) told him to “Flee!,” though, being lucid, he recognized these were dream-forms and “cast aside fear and flew not away, but straight up to the apparition.” With this, “as is the way of dreams,” Stephen had become the same size with this foe and was standing eye to eye with it. Rather than reject the image, LaBerge took its hands in his own and embraced it, and as the dream faded, “the genie’s power seemed to flow into me, and I awoke with vibrant energy. I felt like I was ready for anything.”

Freud may have called dreaming the Via Regia, the “royal road to the unconscious,” but LaBerge gave us a fresher rendition with: “In Lucid dreams...the veil of amnesia is lifted, and with the help of memory, lucidity builds a bridge between the two worlds of day and night” (p4). Alright, that’s long for a catch-phrase, but anyway, LaBerge gave us such a sentiment, more so than any other single person. What he and most in his wake did not emphasize was the obvious nature of dreaming, all the difficult aspects of dreaming, and how any efforts to increase dreaming intensity can exacerbate these darker characteristics of the sleeping mind— even though it was there in the first presented account in Lucid Dreaming. Ever since, it is as if lucid dream enthusiasts expect all the glory but are unprepared to face the challenges that may come up along the way. But the promise?

LaBerge wrote of a dreamer who described their experience as an “expanded sense...brought about by the lightning flash of lucidity”— felt as “a sense of freedom ‘as never before,’” and, trying to label the ineffable, said the dream was “filled with such vital animation that ‘the darkness itself seemed alive’” (p10). This is like Neo in The Matrix (1999) realizing he can stop bullets in mid-air with his thoughts. This is Dr. Fuller in The 13th Floor (1999) recognizing that his world— in which he had built a virtual reality Universe program, filled with people—is itself, along with his waking avatar and everyone he knows, a simulation which exists in some other place; he was a ghost in the machine. LaBerge has called lucidity “the ghost in the dream” (p62).

MILD & OTHER -ILDS. LaBerge was “interested in the possibility—first raised by Charles Tart—of communicating from the lucid dream to the outside world, while the dream was happening” (1985, p68). It occurred to LaBerge that, maybe, if he moved his dream-eyes while lucid, his real-eyes would move likewise. In the fall of 1977 LaBerge began working on his dissertation research at Stanford University, his faculty committee consisting of Karl Pribram, Roger Shepard, Vincent Zarcone Jr., and William Dement, but Stephen worked closest with his “de facto principal advisor”— Lynn Nagel (p69). First time in the lab, with Stephen as the sleeping participant and Nagel watching and intervening, the two decided to wake LaBerge “at the beginning of each REM period in order to remind” Stephen “to dream lucidly.” All this did was disrupt REM sleep. The next lab-slot was not available until one month later.

On Friday the 13th, January of 1978—after lots of practice at home—Lynn hooked LaBerge “up and watched the polygraph recording” as he slept (p70). After seven-and-a-half hours in the lab bed, LaBerge had his first successful laboratory lucid dream with affirmation signal while being recorded. Though the initial results were not easy to duplicate in the lab—at first—success rates increased considerably after LaBerge concocted and practiced using his Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams—MILD—method. Installing a polygraph at his home, during the Christmas vacation of 1979, LaBerge “successfully captured another dozen lucid dreams,” as verified by pre-decided eye signaling (p71). Word spread about the work LaBerge and Nagel were doing, and interested people, some with their own expertise in lucidity induction, were brought in for lab recordings. LaBerge and his circle called themselves oneironauts—pronounced “oh-nigh-ro- knots”—a Greek-ish invention meaning “explorers of the inner world of dreams.”

Alike the parallel discoveries made by Darwin and Wallace—the details of which were unbeknownst to each other, at first—Stephen ended up with most of the historical credit for the “eye-signaling” technique, although another researcher also had success with this (and a little earlier, to boot), on the other side of the world. LaBerge acknowledged the work of Keith Hearne and his lucidly-gifted participant, Alan Worsley, as soon as LaBerge became aware of the overlap between their research and his own. As part of the data-gathering for Hearne’s dissertation project in Liverpool, Worsley successfully signaled via EOG during eight lucid dreams, over the course of 45 nights of lab recordings. Hearne, claiming “he wanted to make a few discoveries first,” appears to have “swore to secrecy those few professionals who knew about his work,” and LaBerge went on to be the nucleic source from which most modern lucid dreaming knowledge emanated (p76).

“MILD is based on nothing more complex or esoteric than our ability to remember that there are actions we wish to perform in the future” (p155). Because we cannot write and leave ourselves memos stuck on a mirror in the waking world

and read these later (stuck to the same dream mirror), we must seek other connections to facilitate prospective memory within dreams. Mnemonic devices are memory aids that serve just this purpose; an example could be visualizing yourself as remembering to walk the dog, and then visualizing starting to do the activity when noticing Rover is staring at the front door. Then, when you actually do notice this, the intended action should be more readily triggered. Easy to do, to practice. Easy not to do. As LaBerge said, the simple formula is: “When such-and- such happens, I want to remember to do so-and-so,” or “Next time I’m dreaming, I want to recognize I’m dreaming.” As a four-step plan, the MILD technique involves: 1., Late in the sleep-cycle—near morning, after spontaneously waking from a dream—recall its details and repeat the episode over and over in your mind, memorizing it; 2., Still lying in bed, tell yourself that “next time I’m dreaming, I want to remember to recognize I’m dreaming;” 3., Imagine yourself back in that dream and this time recognizing you are dreaming; and 4., “Repeat steps two and three until you feel your intention is clearly fixed or you fall asleep” (p156). Ever since this formula was presented to the public, MILD has served as the basis for most other lucidity induction techniques, or else, has been used to complement other approaches.

In 1990 we received LaBerge’s follow-up to Lucid Dreaming (1985)— Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, co-authored by Howard Rheingold. I received my copy, along with my NovaDreamerTM, in the mail one fine day. Exploring was written as a “self-teaching curriculum” to follow at one’s own pace (p5). “As far as we know,” according to the authors, this was the first detailed manual on lucid dream induction “widely available to the general public” (p6). From the beginning, it was warned: “Like most anything else worth learning, lucid dreaming requires effort.” Unlike LaBerge’s confidence that lucidity should be obtainable for anyone—with correctly directed effort—I am not sure this is so. People vary on all sorts of capacities. And people hold different interests, which lend to motivations, which affect outcomes as well. You don’t know until you try. LaBerge and Rheingold included lucid-promoting activities and exercises in all 12 chapters of Exploring, with an emphasis on cataloging “dreamsigns” from one’s dream-journal entries. There are goal-setting and scheduling methods and relaxation techniques, and in Exploring we are also introduced to the distinction between wake-initiated lucid dreams—WILDs—and dream-initiated lucid dreams—DILDs (p95).

DILDs are the typical oh, this must be a dream! method of lucid dream occurrence. As originally described, “WILDs always happen in association with brief awakenings (sometimes only one or two seconds long) from and immediate return to REM sleep.” As such, based on LaBerge-and-friends’ studies in the 80s, WILDs were not only rare, but were rarely initiated while first going to sleep, and were “most likely to occur in the late morning hours or in afternoon naps.” It was recommended that, in an effort to induce a WILD, one should focus on “the

hypnagogic imagery that accompanies sleep onset,” and at first you may see not- much, and then perhaps flashing lights and even geometric and fractal patterns, and if this can be followed, “gradually more complicated forms appear: faces, people, and finally entire scenes” (p96). A thorough compendium and explanitorium of most induction techniques (many stemming directly from LaBerge’s work— though, there are also novel additions developed by the author), is Daniel Love’s Are You Dreaming?: Exploring Lucid Dreams: A Comprehensive Guide (2013).

FAILURE IN LUCID DREAMS. “As Moers-Messmer pointed out, letters in lucid dreams just won’t hold still. When he tried to focus on words, the letters turned into hieroglyphics” (LaBerge, 1985, p112). LaBerge made it clear that he had himself been able to read in dreams, on occasion, “but these were not lucid dreams, in which the writing was being produced” with waking-like voluntary intention. This text-stability—or lack thereof—is a well-known issue for experienced lucid dreamers, as is the “Light-Switch” phenomenon (coined by Keith Hearne), in which switches rarely work correctly in dreams, or at least, during the first few attempts. It is almost impossible—in my own experience and from what I’ve heard—to have a light-switch (or most devices) to operate correctly on the first go whilst fully lucid in a dream. This extends to all kinds of mechanical and electronic devices— phones, computers, digital clocks, cars, all of it. Even when “awake” in a dream, the Failure Mechanism of the Dream Generating System is alive and well. Warning: Listen to what people say but trust your own experience. Who can say definitively what is and what is not possible in your dream? Some results are largely due to our expectations— we act in ways that force certain outcomes, whether we notice so or not. Some things are just following natural, timeless law, and don’t care what we expect to happen. However, with the reliability of things (like the word-permanence-test and the Light-Switch reality test), I would be very concerned if—in a dream, or what should be a dream—these mechanisms suddenly ceased to be un-reliable. Fortunately, there are other reality tests to differentiate the worlds, and those should work even if the Failure tests did not.

Once a person is pre-lucid—suspecting that a dream is underway—they could test their suspicion by attempting to fly. An easy variant of this, shared by LaBerge, was to hop into the air. If in a dream and you hop up off of the ground, you may stay afloat a little too long. Other means for induction support are audio or light stimulation, sleep-rhythm manipulation (to instigate increased REM sleep density or REM sleep rebound), and chemical “augmentation.” Tactile stimulation is also promising, and “movement during sleep” has the potential to affect dream cognition. Stand firm, and...

ROCK ON. Based on the fact that movement sensations such as spinning around tend to stabilize lucidity in dreams, I suspected that, maybe, movement of the sleeping body may act in a similar fashion, from the other direction, supporting dream lucidity. Looking into this, I found that this premise has been tested. Control participants sleeping in a stationary lab hammock were compared against dreamers who were rocked in a rigged-hammock during their REM periods (Leslie). All participants were awakened 10 minutes after they had entered a REM period and were asked about any recalled sleep mentation/dreaming. The authors reported “there was a pronounced increase in both peak self-reflectiveness and lucidity mentation” scores associated with rocking vs. the stationary condition. Rocking was also incorporated into dreams, “leading to a higher incidence of vestibular imagery and dream bizarreness.”

AUDIO INDUCTION. Collaborating with Lynn Nagel in 1978 at the Stanford Sleep Lab, LaBerge experimented with an audio induction method, whereby Dr. Nagel monitored Stephen’s EEG as he slept, and, when REM was detected, a tape recording would be played with the message (recorded in LaBerge’s own voice): “Stephen, you’re dreaming,” continuing with instructions to remain asleep and recognize a dream was afoot (1985, p161). The first successful audio induction resulted in the pre-recording being incorporated into the dream, followed by LaBerge recognizing the cue for what it was, and then because the speaker volume was too loud as the recording continued to play—Stephen woke up. From there, the protocol was adjusted, and new participants were brought in, and each was asked to record “this is a dream” in their own voices, repeatedly and with short pauses between affirmations. Five to 10 minutes after REM was detected, the recordings were played for participants, and if they recognized the audio as a lucidity cue, they were to signal with eye movements— a pair of left and right gazes. Out of 15 trials with the recorded audio, about half of the participants did not hear the tape until “after they had been awakened by it” (p163). In one-fifth of cases there was audio incorporation in a dream that was followed by lucidity. Two audio playings resulted in no lucidity but were incorporated into a dream, and in another two trials lucidity was achieved, but there was no report of noticing audio incorporation.

NOVADREAMER. LaBerge wrote in Lucid Dreams (1985), “I believe it is only a matter of time before someone perfects and markets an effective lucid- dream induction device; this is currently one of the top priorities of my own research” (p165). LaBerge and his team at the Lucidity Institute did develop a rather nice lucid-dream induction goggle-set. I probably read about it for the first time in my first edition of Garfield’s Creative Dreaming. When I experienced my first spontaneous lucid dream, I knew right then and there upon waking that this

was something worth pursuing. I ordered the NovaDreamer mask and it arrived a few days later in my mailbox.

I was still in the same primed mind-state which had facilitated the first lucid dream only nights earlier, when I read the quick-start instructions, dialed the NovaDreamer to my desired settings, and sat back in an easy chair— fully reclined. It was early afternoon, just a nap. A little later I noticed the NovaDreamer LEDs flashing. The mask has a button on its front, opposite the face-side, which you can press as a reality test. When pressed, this causes the LEDs near your eyes to flash. Except, in dreams, the reality test fails. Electronic devices almost always fail to work as they should, when in dreams. When I pressed the test-button...nothing. I took the mask off and began adventuring in my second lucid dream. At first, many of my earliest lucid dreams were aided by the NovaDreamer.

The Lucidity Institute stopped producing their masks a while back. For years now, an improved version has been “about to ship.” There have been imitations out there, some with interesting upgrades. Having a cue, or a clue, can go a long way when trying to clarify which world you are in. It also behooves us to develop our inner-compass and rely as little as possible on gadgets and contrivances. Learn about your cycles, and your ebbs and flows, and how to maximize your time spent in each field.

DEMON-DREAMS. LaBerge warned us in Lucid Dreams (1985) of the importance of owning our own dreams— to take “responsibility for even the ‘shadow’ elements in one’s own” (p175). He reminded us that even a pioneer lucid dreamer like Frederik van Eeden was forever plagued by dream difficulties. Frederik would have the most perfect lucid dreams, and then these might be followed, in his words, by “demon-dreams,” wherein “he was mocked, harassed, and attacked” by seemingly “intelligent beings of a very low moral order.” Eeden could not accept responsibility for “all the horrors” within these dreams—“it must be someone else”—and it was because of this perspective, or so thought LaBerge, that van Eeden “was never able to free himself from his demon-dreams” (p176).

In contrast to van Eeden’s failure in accepting liability for his own dreams, the other patriarch of pre-LaBergian lucid dreamers—the Marquis de Saint-Denys— faced his monsters. In a recurring dream, the Marquis would be “pursued by abominable monsters” as he fled “through an endless series of rooms,” while having “difficulty opening the doors that divided them,” and soon as he closed one door behind him he could hear the “procession of monsters” open them again, gaining on him (LaBerge, p176). The fourth repeat for this dream played as usual, at first, with the Marquis in fright, and then he “suddenly became aware” of where he was—in a dream—and instead of running, “making a great effort of will,” looked the monsters in their faces and made “a deliberate study of them” (p177). At first, the appearance of these forms was still dreadful, creating “a fairly violent emotional shock,” yet, Saint-Denys stood firm. What began as forms resembling “bristling and grimacing demons which are sculpted on cathedral porches,” became reduced by his attention—“as if by magic”—into “the faded costumes used at street-signs by fancy dress-shops at carnival-time” (p178).

“ADVANCED LUCID DREAMING.” People have become lazy with their words. The meanings have blurred, collapsed, uprooted, and become co-opted by their opposites. What is a “medicine,” and what is a “drug?” It’s no wonder adults confuse, say, symptoms from origins; “soft” and “hard” science-majors graduate today ignorant of the distinction between independent and dependent variables.[2] Parents don’t know negative-reinforcement from punishment. We confuse foods, drugs, medicines; prevention, treatment, “cures.” It all depends...on what? On what the screens say? Just like any overgrown bureaucracy, the medical-complex seems to be in bed with the very dangers it is supposed to regulate. Use your own

senses— what are the results of your actions? What is the interaction of you plus [fill-in-a-behavior]?

Seems to me, from what I can see, there is a great confusion. Many people treat their drug-use like medicine-use and use medicine as if it were a drug. Meaning: Medicines—as framed here—are interventions intended to heal from dis-ease and return one to health/baseline. And a drug is used with the hope it will disrupt cognitive or physical homeostasis. But doesn't it appear that many millions of people take "medicines" with no expectation of ever achieving a glowing health? And depend on their drugs to “get back” to baseline?

A new-classic among lucid dream aficionados is Thomas Yuschak’s Advanced Lucid Dreaming: The Power of Supplements (2006). If you are interested in a chemical approach to induction—once the basics of lucidity have been well- practiced—Yuschak’s book is worth a read. I don’t agree with all of the conclusions contained therein—nor does the author, anymore—and some of the conjectures have proven incorrect (e.g., that Huperzine-A might support lucid induction similarly to Galantamine HBr, being they are both AChE-Inhibitors). Here are a few considerations on pervasive recreational “substances” and their interactions with the Dream Generating System, from my perspective...

MARIJUANA. I told you back in the “FOReWARD” I’d get back to more words on cannabis. In brief— first, if you don’t respond well to a thing, don’t do it, especially if the interaction doesn’t improve with use. Second, be true to your own ethical code—and you better have a good code—but be scared, also, of the penal code. Legality aside (and it basically is today, in many places), I happen to have a strong affection for Mary Jane. For so many of her strains. And we have a deeply cultivated history together. But that’s us. If—and only if—you already enjoy cannabis, then this may be useful to know, though, chances are you already do...

Chronic cannabis use—dusk till dawn all week long—eliminates dream recall, to a large extent, in most people. It may be hard for some people to believe this, but it is very possible for some individuals to lead good, productive lives, even to thrive, as regular partakers of “devil’s weed.” But it is not as common for that same folk to see their night-dreams through the smoke. Is this a problem? Not necessarily. For adults, chronic strong dreaming is probably more problematic and indicative of psychic disturbance than is any typical affect from long-term marijuana use.

The recall-disturbance characteristic of heavy cannabis use may not be apparent to the dabbler. The occasional, randomly-timed puff would be unlikely to elicit any profound recognition of this plant’s dream-perturbing effects. However, after a steady adaptation to nights-on-end of “dreamless-sleep,” the rebound following in the wake of cannabis cessation can be...pronounced. It may not be the first night

of abstinence, but soon, the void of formless slumber shatters apart, and the dream world rushes up and slams against your soles.

When my first—and spontaneous—lucid dream dawned on me, it was during a marijuana sabbatical. I like to take breaks, periodically, from almost everything. This worked towards inducing lucidity, even if I hadn’t asked it to, because, in addition to the REM-rebound effect following chronic cannabis cessation— I really like the green-flowers. For me, my mind sees even the occasional break as a threat (I know, I know...). And what do we dream about? That’s right, things that we need to deal with. Perceived threats. In my heightened dream-state, a couple-hundred moons ago, there was a central image which summed-up what I was dealing with at that time in my life. It kind of just “happened,” but I did make the time and help create the space for my first big lucid dream to appear.

TRYPTO-FAM. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid. It is converted into 5- hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP)—the precursor of serotonin (AKA 5HT)—in the brain. The effects of 5-HTP on sleep were reported since back in 1971 (Wyatt). In all 12 young-adult participants receiving 5-HTP, REM sleep activity increased, improving from 5–53% above baseline, and “Non-REM sleep decreased slightly, apparently compensating for the increased amount of REM sleep.” Although the role of Thanksgiving turkey and its tryptophan content may be over-blamed in its contribution towards the post-thanking coma, it is generally reported that tryptophan and 5-HTP supplements can soften anxiety and moderate stress levels. And in this way, it may help create a sleep-welcoming state. Alone, an anxiolytic effect (anti-anxiety producing) is probably not sufficient for supporting cogent, lucid mental operations, but it can work wonders for washing away worries. Temporarily. However, chemicals such as 5-HTP, taken as dietary supplements, have been used to instigate REM-rebound, and in this way may benefit as complementary adjuncts within a lucid dream induction program.

GALANTAMINE. A variety of lady rats were treated with “moderate doses” of the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (AChE-I) di-isopropyl-fluorophosphate every few days for nearly 2 weeks (Gnadt, 1985). The rodent participants displayed similar waking and slow wave sleep quantities as controls, yet “increased amounts of REM sleep.” The researchers wrote that the increased REM quantity was “due to increased number of REM sleep episodes and not an increase in the average length of the REM sleep episodes.” The AChE-I better known to dream explorers, however, is called Galantamine. If ever there were a Red Pill for the world of dreams, it would probably contain some Galantamine in it.

Giving retrospective accounts, experienced lucid dreamers (self-declared) responded to an online questionnaire asking about the influence of galantamine on their lucid dreaming (Sparrow, 2016). Participants reported “significantly more vividness” and longer lucid dreams after ingesting galantamine, and less fear, with

fewer threatening figures, violence, and darkness. Of the 14 respondents, all but one agreed with statements like “galantamine lucid dream mental images were crisper” than non-galantamine lucid dreams. Overall, these dreamers felt as though Galantamine increased the stability of their lucid dreams and it eased the “transition into lucidity from waking.”

Choline dietary supplements are often paired with Galantamine Hydrobromide (G-HBr) for lucid induction purposes. As the raw ingredients for acetylcholine (ACh) production, choline supplements are believed to saturate the brain with building blocks for making the cholinergic currency of REM sleep (ACh), ensuring ample reserves for spending during lucidity. In contrast to combining a choline source, say—α-GPC[3]—to G-HBr, when given α-GPC choline alone, in one recent study there was no significant effect found for successful inductions (nor in dream content), compared to participants not given α‐GPC (Kern, 2017). This suggests that augmenting available choline reserves, alone, is not sufficient to nudge induction efforts significantly. What the choline does, in some way (as many claim and I have experienced in my own experiments), is “smooth-out” the harshness of a “heroic cholinergic situation”— which is essentially what we put ourselves into when taking G-HBr. Pairing G-HBr with a choline also helps to temper a possibly “fuzzy” mind, which could accompany the come-down once your metabolism over-swings back towards baseline. Whether this is dependent on how cholines like α‐GPC replenish depleted ACh levels, or if they have a mediating effect directly on synaptic action or axonic transmission, in some way cholines help Galantamine do something special. This combination is not guaranteed to hand lucidity to all who cannot enter, but even if it increased the odds of success by ten or twenty-percent...that is actually huge. And if the idea of “chemical augmentation” scares you? Perhaps we could interest you in “meditation,” instead?

DEEP MEDITATION. “In solitude, whatever one has brought into it grows— also the inner beast. Therefore, solitude is inadvisable for many. Has there been anything filthier on earth so far as desert saints? Around them not only was the devil loose, but also swine” (Nietzsche, p404). Warning taken. I myself, am a proponent of Working in solitude, and also of practicing regular “meditation,” but

of course there are many varieties to such practice, possibly with some methods fitting particular persons better than others. In my opinion, the “listening” and “breathing” exercises we call meditation are truly practices— their benefit is increasingly apparent over time, and initial results may not be obvious until after some proficiency has been attained. Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and his peers have reported “that long-term practice of meditation produces significant alterations in cerebral blood flow in parts of the brain related to attention, emotion, and some autonomic functions" (Sacks, p248). I suppose, just focusing “real hard,” and regularly, on any one thing, does something similar. If you keep asking, you shall receive— unless you are not paying attention when the “answer” arrives.