[1]
See Voss and Hobson’s target article in this collection, and their development of the LuCiD (Lucidity in Dreams) scale in Voss et al. (2013).
[2]
See Schredl & Erlacher (2011), as well as the Voss & Hobson target article (this collection).
[3]
Voss and Hobson don’t discuss the possibility of there being varying degrees of lucidity, and thus how these features might relate to such varying degrees. For a discussion of this, see Noreika et al. (2010).
[4]
There are rare cases where some of these aspects do occur in non-lucid dreaming states. See Voss et al. (2013) and Voss et al. (2014).
[5]
We might not, however, be warranted to make a similar empirical claim, i.e., that insight is empirically essential and sufficient for lucid dreaming. Indeed, there is controversy over whether insight is empirically sufficient for lucid dreaming. See Voss et al. (2013) and Windt & Metzinger (2007) for further discussion of this issue.
[6]
For a review of the ways in which lucid dreaming is trainable see Stumbrys et al. (2012).
[7]
Focused attention meditation involves developing one’s ability to concentrate on an object for an unlimited amount of time. Open presence/awareness meditation involves opening one’s awareness to all experiential aspects of the moment, e.g., mental states, bodily sensations, environmental stimuli, etc., and not attending to anything in particular.
[8]
The Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream yoga is a particularly interesting area worthy of exploration in relation to this issue. See LaBerge (2003) for a discussion of dream yoga in relation to lucid dreaming research.
[9]
The “self” in self-awareness here does not refer to an ego or any robust notion of a self. Moreover, the kind of awareness I’m suggesting is not a categorical awareness, i.e., an awareness of the experiential moment as belonging to a category of consciousness (see Metzinger 2009). Rather, it is meant simply to point to a reflexivity of awareness (see the concept of “pre-reflective self-awareness” in Zahavi 2005).
[10]
Thanks to Thomas Metzinger for pointing out this issue.
[11]
See Lutz et al. (2007) for a more detailed account of the various styles of meditative practice and their historical roots.
[12]
This very idea has been explored in Windt & Metzinger (2007), as well as in Noreika et al. (2010).
[13]
In particular, the case of Tibetan dream yoga mentioned earlier, which involves using meditative practice in the dream, might be an instance of exploring just how meditation and lucid dreaming can come together, and could be informative for our understanding of both the nature of meditative states and that of lucid dreams. As LaBerge notes, “for more than a thousand years Tibetan Buddhists have believed that it is possible to maintain the functional equivalence of full waking consciousness during sleep. This belief is not based on anything as tenuous as theoretical grounds but upon firsthand experience with a sophisticated set of lucid dreaming techniques collectively known as the Doctrine of Dreams or dream yoga” (2003, p. 233).
[14]
See Evan Thompson’s entry in this collection, as well as Thompson (2014).
[15]
The shift in experiential perspective might even be more complex than this; see Rosen & Sutton (2013) for an interesting discussion of self-representation in dreams.
[16]
This, as Metzinger would point out, would be another instance of theory contamination.
[17]
Thanks to Metzinger for pointing out this classical description of a lucid dream experience.
[18]
A philosophical tradition most often associated with the work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, etc.
[19]
I develop this distinction further in my thesis, “Embodiment and Subjectivity—the Origins of Bodily Self-Awareness”.
[20]
The place and role of the body, and our bodily awareness in lucid dream states, is far more complex than I can show here—in fact, there are instances of bodiless dreams. Although a complete consideration of these issues is beyond the scope of this commentary, an excellent discussion of this topic can be found in Windt (2010).
[21]
This is also how lucid dreams are commonly described in the literature, i.e., as a balancing act. See LaBerge (1985) and Brooks & Vogelsong (2000).