In the 1970s, Dr. Stephen LaBerge began researching lucid dreaming for his Ph.D. in psychophysiology. By the 1980s, he’d created a few techniques for initiating lucid dreams at will. Most notably, he’s the researcher who came up with the MILD technique. He subsequently popularized the idea of lucid dreaming in American culture by signaling to a colleague using previously agreed-upon eye movements while he was in REM sleep, thus demonstrating dream control was possible.