It's pretty hard to stay awake at Dream Camp. But then, campers are encouraged to snooze and to recognize that they're dreaming while they're at it. The computer on the desk doesn't compare to the one in your head. Stephen LaBerge, a research associate in the Psychology Department who runs the Lucidity Institute, and Alan Wallace, a visiting lecturer in Tibetan Buddhism and language at the University of California-Santa Barbara, jointly ran the program that featured lectures, films, group discussions and meditation exercises. According to LaBerge, the flashing lights show up in dreams, giving the mask user a visual signal that he or she is actually dreaming.
Science is on our side.
But she adds that lucid dreaming also can be used to confront nightmares, deal with problems in the waking world and enhance general consciousness. Keelin, a camper from Napa who goes by only her last name, says she started lucid dreaming spontaneously when she was 11 years old after her father died. Before his death, Keelin says, her father had been confined to a wheelchair, but in her dreams after his death, he was not. The dream world was a different place, but that was the world where I had to be. Keelin used the dreams to talk to her father.