weuennuiW LABERGE tions and signal to the laboratdhpgoxeveck AaBdye leas 2AN0{D 310 ac to dream research: Lucid dreamers, he proposed, could carry out diverse dream experiments marking the exact time of particular dream events, allowing the derivation of precise psychophysiological correlations and the methodical testing of hypotheses. (LaBerge, Nagel, Dement, & Zarcone, 1981, p. 727) This strategy has been put into practice by the Stanford group in a number of studies summarized by LaBerge (1985a). . LaBerge first of all pointed out that the data Teported in LaBerge, Nagel, Dement, and Zarcone (1981) and LaBerge, Nagel, Taylor, Dement, and Zartcone (1981) indicate that there is a very direct and reliable relationship between gaze shifts reported in lucid dreams and the direction of polygraphically recorded eye movements. It should be noted that the results obtained for lucid dream ae Ay eee psyLtur eset -Cc -RDPAfy 0028 OROOS 106-114 0004 adzinal dream. One might say that the . a mer’s body responds to dreamed actions with movements that are but shad- drea the originals. . ows Other support of this notion comes from a study (Fenwick et al., 1984) of ighly proficient lucid dreamer (Alan Worsley, who had aso been e’s [1978] subject) who carried out a variety of dreamed muscular move- Hea while being polygraphically recorded. In one experiment, Worsley ex- nn ovements during lucid dreams involving finger, forearm, and shoulder ecu rou s (flexors) while EMG was recorded from each area. The results muse Sistent: The axial muscles showed no measurable EMG activity, where- an forearm EMG ‘‘consistently showed lower amplitude and shorter bursts a od to the finger EMG. A similar experiment with the lower limbs yielded Cat results In addition to the finding that REM atonia shows a central- “Dane, 1984; Fenwick et al., 1984; Hearne, 1978; Ogilvie, et al., 1982) are much stronger than the generally weak correlations demonstrated by earlier investiga. tions testing the notion that the dreamer’s eyes move with his or her hallucinated dream gaze, which had to rely on the chance occurrence of a highly recognizable eye movement pattern that was readily matchable to the subject’s reported dream activity (e.g., Roffwarg, Dement, Muzio, & Fisher, 1962). This would seem to illustrate the methodological advantage of using lucid dreamers. LaBerge (1980a, 1985a) reports having straightforwardly approached the problem of dream time by asking subjects to estimate various intervals of time during their lucid dreams. Signals marking the beginning and end of the subjec- tive intervals allowed comparison with objective time. In all cases, LaBerge reported, time estimates during the lucid dreams were very close to the actual time between signals. In another study, LaBerge and Dement (1982a) demonstrated the possibility of voluntary control of respiration during lucid dreaming. They recorded three lucid dreamers who were asked to either breathe rapidly or to hold their breaths (in their lucid dreams), marking the invertal of altered respiration with eye movement signals. The subjects reported successfully carrying out the agreed- upon tasks a total of nine times, and in every case, a judge was able to correctly predict on the basis of the polygraph recordings which of the two patterns had been executed (p < .002). Evidence of voluntary control of other muscle groups during REM was found by LaBerge, Nagel, Dement, and Zarcone (1981) while testing a variety of lucidity signals. They observed that a sequence of left and right dream-fist clenches resulted in a corresponding sequence of left and right forearm twitches as measured by EMG. However, the amplitude of the twitches bore an unreliable relationship to the subjective intensity of the dreamed action. Because all skeletal muscle groups except those that govern eye movements and breathing suffer 4 profound loss of tone during REM sleep, it is to be expected that most muscular responses to dreamed movements will be feeble. Nonetheless, these responses peripheral gradient with motor inhibition least for the most EG neapose to ick ef al. reported that similar experiments comparing i med arm and leg flexions and extensions suggested that flexors were less wibited than extensors. In addition to EMG, an accelerometer was utilized in several experiments demonstrating that Worsley was able to Produce minor movements of his fingers, toes, and feet during REM, though not of is ces. Fenwick et al. also presented the results of a single experiment suggesting t a dream speech may be initiated in the expiratory phase of respiration net usually does during waking. In still another experiment they demons m voluntary production of smooth pursuit eye movements during a luci a ia LaBerge (1986) has carried out related experiments in which two subjects ar ‘ ed the tip of their fingers moving slowly left to right during four conditions: awake, eyes open; (2) awake, eyes closed mental imagery; (3) lucid reaming and (4) imagination (‘‘dream eyes closed”’) during lucid dreaming. The su se s showed saccadic eye movements in the two imagination conditions (2 an ), and smooth-tracking eye movements during dreamed or actual tracking (condi- nn enwick ct al. also showed that Worsley was able to perceive and respond to environmental stimuli (electrical shocks) without awakening from his lucid dream. This result raises a theoretical issue: If we take perception of the external world to be the essential criterion for wakefulness (LaBerge, Nagel, Dement, & Zarcone, 1981), then it would seem that Worsley must have been at least par- tially awake. On the other hand, when environmental stimuli are incorporated into dreams without producing any subjective or physiological indications of arousal, it appears reasonable to speak of the perception as having occurred during sleep. Furthermore, it may be possible, as LaBerge (1980c) has sug- gested, for one sense to remain functional and ‘‘awake’’ while others fall “asleep.”’ As long as we continue to consider wakefulness and sleep as a simple dichotomy, we will lie in a Procrustian bed that is bound at times to be most uncomfortable. There must be degrees of being awake just as there are degrees of Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2
150 ween en LABERGE AYU ee Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789 being asleep (i.e., the conventional sleep stages). Before finding our way out of The 0789R003 10014000152. is probably local reflex irritability this muddle, we will probably need to characterize a wider variety of states of males: : ae ; yse wet dreams do not necessarily involve dream content of a sexual nature, consciousness than those few currently distinguished (e.g., dreaming, Sleeping a sq contrast to lucid dream orgasms, which are obviously sexual; it appears waking, and so on). have two extreme cases: ‘“‘bottom-up"’ versus “top-down” orgasms. Because many researchers have reported cognitive task dependency of later. we All of these results support the conclusion that the events we experience alization of EEG alpha activity in the waking state, LaBerge undertook a pito, te asleep and dreaming produce effects on our brains (and to a lesser extent. study to determine whether similar relationships would hold in the lucid dream wht «) remarkably similar to those that would be produced if we were actually to state. The two tasks selected for comparison were dreamed singing and dreamed bodies . - dence the corresponding events while awake. The reason for this is probably counting, activities expected to result in relatively greater engagement of the e ' the multimodal imagery of the dream is produced by the same brain systems subjects’ left and right cerebral hemispheres, respectively. me produce the equivalent perceptions (cf. Finke, 1980). Perhaps this is why Integrated alpha band BBG activity Wit derived from electrodes placed over reams seem so real: To our brains, dreaming of doing something is equivalent to right and left temporal lobes while four subjects sang and counted in their lucid cally doing it. dreams (marking the beginning and end of each task by eye movement signals). ae The results supported the hypothesized lateralization of alpha activity: The right hemisphere was more active than the left during singing; during counting the REFERENCES reverse was true. These shifts were similar to those observed during actual . we : ae . d ting (LaBerge & Dement, 1982b) Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. singing an coun B B , ; . Antrobus, J. 5. (1986). Dreaming: Cortical activation and perceptual thresholds. Journal of Mind Sexual activity is a rather commonly reported theme of lucid dreams (Gar- and Behavior, 7, 193-212. field, 1979; LaBerge, 1985a). 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