Many Eastern cultures view lucid dreaming as a vehicle or step to enlightenment. Although not all of us may experience enlightenment, we all have the ability to dream lucidly and explore that state between waking and sleeping, giving us a glimpse at enlightenment and a taste of what being truly awake is like. Godwin supplies the reader with a quick history of lucid dreaming in all cultures up to the present day research of Dr. Stephen LaBerge and other dream researchers. The reader is also given an update on how the mind and body operate while sleeping. Godwin continues presenting several theories on why we dream.
Some researchers feel dreaming is purely physiological.
Our dreams are meaningless debris and serve as some sort of biological upkeep of our brain s neural pathways. Other researchers, including Sigmund Freud, believe dreams serve a psychological purpose. Dreams supposedly are meaningful images of our inner health and well being. Godwin proposes that dreams fall somewhere between physiological and psychological and presents several new theories on how the brain operates. Out of these new theories we learn that dreams process memory, updating strategies of behavior necessary for survival.