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Title: Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming
ISBN: 034537410X
Author:
Stephen Laberge
Publicate Date: 1991-11-13
Publish: 1991-11-13
List Price: $7.50
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.56
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.56
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.50
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Lots of interesting information
There is a lot of interesting information. The author hasn't verified a number of things to which he refers and some of the references are cursory, for example those to Castaneda's techniques.
I applied his procedure, starting with keeping a note book, etc. While I have several vivid dreams every night, probably as a result of remembering them by writing them down, none of them have been lucid. Perhaps it just requires more time and diligence.
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2: Entertaining and easily
The book is one the reader's best tools both for understanding lucid dreaming and for holding one's own experiments. Laberge has conveyed the complexities of sleep research in a way that is both entertaining and easily understood, without omitting the necessary details of his Stanford research.
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3: Scientific Perspective
I've only had one lucid dream so far and it was before reading this book, so I can't speak to the effectiveness of the techniques presented. But I can say two things. One, the authors seem to know what they are talking about and have plenty of experience with the subject matter both from personal lucid dreams and scientific research and the book brings that across loud and clear. Two, this one is written from a scientific and not a metaphysical perspective. The authors believe all altered consciousness is a lucid dream and there is no such thing as out of body experiences. I'm fine with that and will be making my own decision, but there are others who believe we are out of our body every night and that all lucid dreams are actually OBE's to some extent...or at least that true OBE's and dreams overlap. I think both views are important for making your own decision. There is no doubt true OBE's happen at least to those who have been Near Death. Whether they can be induced apart from lucid dreams is another question which I haven't answered. Good luck.
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4: Absurd Affirmation
Consider this affirmation:
"The next time I'm dreaming, I will recognize that I'm dreaming."
The problem with this self-referential, paradoxical, circular reasoning, is that, when you "wake up in a dream," you do NOT think, "I am dreaming now, so what was it I was gonna recognize?"
That's why you would need the last part in the first place. You need to recognize your dreaming FIRST, before you can prepare yourself for what to do when it happens.
Instead, I would recommend you ask yourself while AWAKE, "Am I dreaming?" At every hour. Contract that habit and soon it will reside in residual droppings in your dream.
Also get into the habit of flipping lights on and off. It won't work if your dreaming.
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5: Techniques to Achieve Higher Consciousness
LaBerge begins where his first book, LUCID DREAMING, left off, by recapping exactly what lucid dreaming is: the mind realizing that it is dreaming while the body remains asleep, producing a far more vivid dreamscape, one that can be controlled with enough practice.
The book is first and foremost a user's guide: how can we access that wonderfully altered state called the lucid dream? Drawing upon his own research at the Lucidity Institute at Stanford University, as well as techniques drawn from psychology and Tibetan dream yoga, LaBerge has dozens of suggestions for entering the greatest themepark in existence: our dreaming brains. We dream about one-third of our entire lives, so why not make use of this time to enhance the quality of one's life?
LaBerge provides a great deal of sound psychology behind his explanations and techniques, explaining the basic reasons why all humans dream in the first place. He acknowledges that lucid dreaming may be used for pure enjoyment if we want experience adventure, pleasure, or romance. Likewise, he notes that lucid dreaming can also be used to embrace our darker sides (as Jung suggested), turning darker dreams and nightmares into learning experiences to enhance self-knowledge and confidence, ultimately producing personality integration. Additionally, lucid dreaming may be used to practice for athletic or artistic events of any kind. There's simply no limit to the applications of "waking dreams."
LaBerge goes beyond these applications, however, to more serious considerations, showing that lucid dreaming can have the same type of transformative effect on people as near-death experiences if we surrender our egos and allow the dream to take us where it wants instead of trying to always control it. It is in these exciting chapters that we see lucid dreaming as a tremendous technique to reach states of higher consciousness without gurus, how-to books, or seminars. It's all right within our brains.
Some of the techniques are very simple, such as "reality checks" during the day, when we ask ourselves whether or not we are dreaming. Others are as easy as autosuggestion or keeping a dream diary to increase dream recall (very important in all techniques). Other techniques get a bit more involved and can be frustrating (although LaBerge has since manufactured several kinds of dream masks worn at bedtime which detect REM sleep and signal the brain that it is dreaming via tiny blinking lights that do not awaken the dreamer).
Other metaphysical aspects are discussed, such as whether or not the physical body can be healed of disease if the dream body is healed since lucid dreams tap into the brain at a very deep level. And can we share lucid dreams with others or make contact with other dreamers who are aiming for the same dream traget on any given night? LaBerge even notes that he has had at least one precognitive lucid dream that probably saved his son's life.
The practice of lucid dreaming has become more popular over the past decade, but this book remains the most reliable source of information on the phenomenon as well as the best place to research ways to enter the lucid dream state.
It's probably the finest, most comprehensive book on dreams that's in print.
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