Lucidity Letter, June, 1989,
Vol. 8, No. 1
Oneiric Health and Oneiric Lucidity
Christian
M. Bouchet
Paris,
France
Oneiric
Lucidity as a Means of Finding an Evaluation Criterion of
Mental “Health”, Highlighting the Notion of Oneiric Health
The study of the relation between mental health and oneiric lucidity is an important part of the research on lucid dreaming. Perhaps because most of the researchers in this area are psychologists, and that the possibility of using a new and efficient tool for psychotherapeutic practices is important to them.
We know the evidence for a relation between lucid dreaming and psychic equilibrium is circumstantial. Some subjects, with strong psychological problems, dream lucidly, regularly and spontaneously, while apparently well balanced subjects do not succeed in their attempts to induce lucidity. The contrary is also true. This leads us to the following remark: lucid dreaming is not in itself an indicator of mental health. Nevertheless, we know that it can contribute to the recovering of one’s psychic equilibrium, by following an appropriate method.
Garfield’s, LaBerge’s and Tholey’s works have demonstrated the usefulness of such methods which suggests that an indicator of mental health can be found with the help of a specific method. I will suggest the following hypothesis: since oneiric lucidity allows us to observe dream phenomena directly, it should be possible to discover from within the dream, in the course of the dream itself, an indicator of mental health. Such an indicator must be able to be found in any lucid dream, whatever its contents. We know indeed that this hypothesis is proved correct regarding unpleasant dreams, which show clearly that the dreamer has a psychic conflict. During a nightmare, for instance, a dreamer might recover lucidity to compel himself to wake up or to confront his dream. These are “extreme” cases and do not represent the common type of lucid dream in which conflicts are rather unusual. The content of the common type of lucid dreams does not allow evaluation at first sight of the dreamer’s degree of psychical equilibrium.
Hereafter I shall analyze the “harmless” lucid dreams. I do not wish to consider mental health in terms of pathology. My aim is more modest. It concerns, above all, “health”. (I would like to insist on the word “health” because curiously we refer to it only when we are sick.) Therefore, I shall not describe the way to use oneiric lucidity to overcome any serious psychical problems. But I shall use some examples to illustrate how to determine the degree of mental health. In other words, I am looking for an evaluation criterion for mental health with the help of oneiric lucidity.
The Origin of the Notion of an Evaluation Criterion
Mental Health in Lucid Dreaming
To explain what I mean, I must first explain how I came to this idea. I shall rely on a lucid dream of Patricia Garfield’s related in Pathway to Ecstasy, entitled “The Great Steering Wheel”:
The day is bright and beautiful. I’m driving my car down a street in San Francisco, where I live. It’s an ordinary city scene on an ordinary sunny, windy day, and I’m thinking ordinary thoughts about some arrangements I must make for a contractor to inspect a house we want to buy (all current events). I whiz along the street, feeling the wind blowing hard.
At that moment, for some unknown reason, I realize that it’s not an ordinary day, place, or feeling: I am in a dream. Still driving, I command: “Up!” and my body lifts from the ground. The car is gone. I now whiz through the air as I lie on my stomach about ten or fifteen feet above the earth. I’m no longer driving but I still grasp the upper part or the steering wheel, which has become huge, a great circle. I hold the top rim, and the lower part rests on my thighs, above the knees. I feel the sun and the wind. I see the pavement clearly as I sail along. Everything is sharp, bright. It’s a glorious sensation. I ask myself, “Are you happy?” and I know that I am. “And you know you’re dreaming?” and I know that I am. I start to wonder what to do with this lovely lucidity as I zip through the air with the sun and wind in my face. However, the scene fades, like a light dimming, and suddenly I’m awake in bed.
This
lucid dream is “typical” as it shows several characteristics that are common to
most lucid dreams and that have not been well examined.
1. The “I don’t know what to do” in lucid dreaming. The first surprising detail in Garfield’s
dream, if we think about it, is the following remark: “I start to wonder what
to do with this lovely lucidity”. There are two different ways of understanding
this question in the dream: 1) with respect to the dream itself and 2) with
respect to the dreamer’s consciousness. Garfield’s dream can be understood in
both ways.
In
the first case, the dream can be included in the dreamer’s everyday life through
interpretation, as underlined by Garfield:
True, in symbolic terms,
‘The Great Steering Wheel” dream was ordinary enough, and understandable. At
the time I had this dream, I was (as I am now) living with my beloved husband
in a splendid city. My days were full and mostly happy: I felt able to resolve
whatever problems confronted me. Furthermore, my career was advancing. I had
just finished writing my first book and was busy with plans for its forthcoming
publication. As a symbolic expression of satisfaction with the way I was
“steering” myself through life, this dream is
straightforward indeed.
Garfield’s dream is first of all a
reflection of her existence in waking life: emergence of lucidity demonstrates
an access to a new dimension of her existence. Nonetheless, the dream must also
be understood in relation to the dreamer’s consciousness (which is manifested
here in oneiric lucidity). As any typical “situation dream”, it shows a new
situation, to the dreamer. Commonly, a dreamer does not ask himself what to do.
He is completely taken in by his dream, like a man awake busy with his daily
life (for example going to work, answering mail, the telephone. etc.. all kinds
of activities that do not make us think of what we are doing, but how we are
doing it). On the other hand a lucid dreamer is confused by his freedom, like a
poor man would be on suddenly receiving a huge amount of money. This new
situation needs adaptation.
This
question, asked by Garfield, is often repeated by persons who have obtained
oneiric lucidity through a method of induction. They tell themselves: “When I
dream, now I know that it is a dream. But what do I do now?”
Thus,
Garfield’s question should not surprise us. Reaching lucid dreaming is like
penetrating into an unexplored area. At some time, a need for a map of the new
territory is felt by the dreamer.
Nevertheless, although these two
explanations are correct in their context, they do not lake into account
another element: the difference between a natural lucid dreamer and one who becomes a lucid dreamer
by learning. Let’s take the example of someone who used to have lucid
dreams without knowing it and examine what it teaches us about the freedom of
action in his dreams.
I
was myself a lucid dreamer without knowing it, until I read Garfield’s first book,
Creative Dreaming. When I had lucid dreams, I merely noted the
fact. I assumed sometimes that I was in “the astral world” but this was, for
me, a vague term, without any precise meaning. like
the literature itself concerned with this term, I did not ask myself: “What am
I going to do now?” Instead I saw myself acting with great determination. I
was, in fact, the conscious witness, but not the actor of my own deeds.
This state of things changed after reading Garfield’s book.
Having completed the book, I said to myself: “I know how to do that”. And I laid down to obtain a lucid dream and got one immediately.
However something had changed! To be able to appreciate this change, let us
view this lucid dream that had been “provoked”.
(The distorted
room, lucid dream, 1981).
(I am lying on my back on the bed in my room). Images
floating in front of my eyes. I fall asleep and from time to time I am
half-awake...
I attempt to go out of my
body by sliding towards my feet but something holds me back and wants me to
come back. I feel I have an elastic body, and I can stretch my feet farther
than possible, like rubber, and now I try to go out of my body from my feet. I
hold on. But the minute I let myself go, it starts again. Still like rubber I
feel myself being brought back. Well. I let this happen because I tell myself
that my subconscious knows better than me what I need. I get back into my body
and turn suddenly on my side and go out again. This time I touch the ground
next to the bed, I know that I am conscious in a dream, more than ever because
everything around me is totally deformed. The objects and the window are very
curiously distorted. I am caught between the table and the cupboard. The
disposition of my room is very strange, like a labyrinth. I know that it is a
dream and start by getting my view into harmony because I sense that my arms
are distorted. I don’t see my hands in their usual place. The accommodation of
my eyes is done as if I was focusing on a projector,
then everything falls into place except for the labyrinth which is still there.
Then I try to make someone come from the labyrinth, to make an oneirical character appear. (A call from outside wakes me
at this moment).
In
my dream diary, following this narration, there is a series of remarks, of
which two of these explain the change in the “quality” of my oneiric lucidity.
1) My initial intention was to have a lucid dream. Just before
lying down, I had finished the book by Patricia Garfield, Creative Dreaming,
and desired to have these sort of dreams more
regularly. But, once asleep, I spontaneously tried in a state of
semi-consciousness to “go out” (of my body). For me, these two things are
related. Very often, to induce a lucid dream I strive to go out of my body,
which means that I start this dream in a state of semi-lucidity which becomes
totally lucid once I have “gone out.”
2) In my view one sentence should be given particular attention: “Well,
I let this happen because I tell myself that my subconscious knows better than me
what I need. I get back into my body and turn suddenly on my side and go out
again.”
Almost
instinctively I outsmarted myself. Something inside me refused this experience.
I did as if I had given up and almost immediately I turned on my side to “go
out”, taking myself by surprise.
This
second point is remarkable in this respect: it was if I was two, as if the old
spectator wanted to become the actor, and was obliged to fight against the one
he wanted to take the place of. This point of view is confirmed by the first
remark which specifies that I wanted to apply my usual method of “going out of
my body”, in spite of the fact that I was totally conscious that I was in a
lucid dream, and not out of my body. Here there is a confusion between the
types of action (i.e., between that of the spectator and that of the actor).
Which
leads to the following idea: The state of “not knowing what to do” in a lucid
dream is not quite normal. It is the result of a substitution of a mode of
action (active consciousness) into a mode of being (observing consciousness).
This difference (between mode of action vs. mode of
being) is not noticed until the change begins. But once the change has taken
place, a sort of disarray could overcome the consciousness which does not know
how to use itself. This process is in itself the consequence of a retroactivity with waking life, especially when lucid
dreaming is the result of learning. No doubt I would not have taken a nap to
have a lucid dream (oneiric life) that day, if I had not read Garfield (in my
waking life). The more important the retroactivity becomes, the more problems
arise to the lucid dreamer, problems which do not
concern the dream itself nor waking life but the passage from one to the other.
This passage takes place in a conscious state and requires the dreamer to adapt
himself to a totally new situation,
2. Bright colors and shades of
grey. Another point strikes
me in Garfield’s dream as it does with most other dreams described by oneironauts. “Everything is sharp, bright” she says. “It’s
a glorious sensation”. Stephen LaBerge, in his Lucid
Dreaming, described it in the same
way: In general the lucid dream seems to be more perceptually vivid than the
non-lucid dream.
LaBerge’s choice of wording “in general” is apt,
because in fact we can have lucid dreams of different types: bright colors or
very dull colors or even faded, for instance: total absence of images coupled
with paralysis. In fact LaBerge gives an example of a
dream of this type in Lucid Dreaming. “I slept very well indeed, and
after seven and a half hours in bed had my first lucid dream in the lab. A moment before, I had been dreaming--but then I suddenly realized
that I must be asleep because I couldn’t see, feel or hear anything. I
recalled with delight that I was sleeping in the laboratory...”
As
indicated in the passage, the lucid dream is not necessarily colored and the
perceptions are not always felt strongly. Therefore the quality of perceptions
cannot be taken into consideration as a typical characteristic of lucid
dreaming.
On
the other hand the question of the relation between the degree of vividness and
color of a dream and the problem of “not knowing what to do” or how to act” are
not asked in dull lucid dreams but appear more and more as the dreams get
brighter and brighter. I will analyze this phenomenon later. For the moment I
would like to give a few examples.
(To
escape from my body, lucid dream, 1981). I am lying on my bed turned to my right,
curled up, but my inner body goes back into a lying position. I strive to
release myself from the side to go out of my body and fall into the darkness. I
start crawling away from my body and avoid being taken back by it. I cross a
place near the door of my room where there are electric wires. I hope to get far
away from the room by crossing the next room.
(“Be Good”, lucid dream, 1981). (I am lying on my
bed). I try to get out of my body. I feel that I am being held back by a rubber
band. I reach the balcony. (It’s night outside). Everything is solid, except for
the window, when I want to pass through it. I remind myself that I should look
at my body. I throw a passing glance (behind me in my room), clinging to the
rails of the balcony, and I see a form under the blanket. A
funny sensation.
I continue to move down
the balcony towards the Palais de Chaillot. Near the kitchen I can see a brightly lit
apartment, and men who appear to be businessmen standing in it. My physical
body tries to get me back...(Pieces of semi-lucid
dreams follow).
When I find myself in my body and try to get out, a voice inside me
tells me not to do this. I ask
with an anxious voice: “Why, is it dangerous?” The voice replies: “Be good”.
(Opening
towards the unknown, lucid dream, 1981). My room (seen from my bed) is open to
mysteries more than in the ordinary world. (On the left, the window side,
things are as usual, but to the right, towards the door, plunged in total
obscurity there is an opening towards the unknown which I feel, is intensely
deep). To go out of my body I don’t force myself but just repeat that I can do
it.
All these dreams have one
thing in common: they are “initial” dreams. They start in the room, in the bed.
In these cases it is quite frequent that the dream starts by a total paralysis
which gives a feeling of “going out of body experience”. Here we are dealing
with falling asleep consciously, either in the beginning of the night or just
after waking up in the night. In this type of dream, it is either night or
dark, and the colors are not particularly outstanding. They appear only once
the dreamer has left his room. As long as he stays near his bed, everything is greyish. As soon as he goes out of his house the colors
appear. The following is a dream which shows this type of transition from a
world without colors to a world full of colors.
(Side-track,
lucid dream, 1982). I
ask to go out of my body. I leave my bed and go through the window of my room
which has disappeared just as I passed through it. This takes place during the
night in my room, but it is different outside, it is bright daylight. It is a
beautiful day. I am flying over the avenue, and the buildings take on a
magnificent aspect that I did not know before. In fact I do not really
recognize what is in front of my eyes, the neighborhood has changed. I want to
fly down a road (or a boulevard), but am carried away by my own momentum I take
another direction towards another boulevard. My flying speed is such that I
cannot avoid a building which is in my way. I rush into a garage, without
wanting to, the opening of which looks like an obscure big rectangle. I
continue my flight up in the building and from time to time I see lights
flickering through the windows which make me feel that I am in a courtyard.
Then everything becomes black. Finally I see a staircase...
In this dream, like in many others, the passage from the room to
the outside is the passage from obscurity towards light: “This takes place during
the night in my room, but it is different outside, it is bright daylight.
It is a beautiful day.” On the contrary the way from outside to inside is the
one from the lightness to the darkness: “I rush into a garage, without wanting
to, the opening of which looks like a big dark rectangle...Everything
becomes black.” Is this characteristic of “initial dreams” unique to me? What makes me think that these are
not the secondary characteristics that I share with other lucid dreamers who
have these “initial dreams”.
One
of these secondary characteristics is the feeling that my oneiric body is stuck
to my physical body as if with a big rubber band. This tension remains strong
in a certain area (my room and a pan of the apartment) and is sometimes
associated with complete or partial blindness. The tension which pulls me back
stops when I have crossed the limit of the area, and then I get my (oneiric)
sight back. (Or more precisely it’s only at this moment that I realize that I
see although I was already seeing, but not consciously. This phenomenon is
difficult to explain, slightly similar to the sudden awakening which follows
the becoming aware of the hypnagogic imagery which nevertheless lasted for
quite some time). It’s also beyond this area that colors begin to appear.
This
point seems to me particularly important because it emphasizes an opposition
between a dull oneiric world, where one feels impeded, and a colorful oneiric
world, where one feels free to move (especially to fly), such that one does not
know what to do with one’s freedom. The difference between impediment and
freedom is the same as between grey and color. This freedom manifests itself by
holding (or not holding) some oneiric elements which give way to the freedom of
moving. There is no freedom in emptiness, but it increases with the amount of
information in a given situation.
For
example in an “initial dream” where I was going out of my body, I found myself
in darkness. I was more or less feeling without seeing it, the room around me,
and I crossed the door to be in the corridor. But I had the feeling that I was
moving into thick syrup, as if I was an insect caught in glue and desperately
fighting to escape, and I was thinking that if this was the condition after
death, to die would not be something very pleasant. This dream illustrates the
secondary characteristics already mentioned but to an extreme stage: complete
darkness, and almost total impediment.
The
difference between this lucid dream and Garfield’s, is obvious here: I did not
have the opportunity to wonder “what to do”. What was most urgent was to get
out of there!
Here
the question “what to do” is not to be asked, in spite of the presence of
lucidity, because there is an urgent problem to solve. In other words
the question of “what to do” indicates freedom of action, and, most of the
time, takes place in a colorful world.
3. The problem of the “prior condition”. But things are not always so simple thus
it is necessary to make some distinctions. In some lucid dreams we know there
is something to be done. In other lucid dreams we have all the liberty to do
what we want. But in some of them we have to do something but we don’t realize
it due to the retroactivity previously mentioned (which introduces into
consciousness irrelevant choices). In my opinion this is the case of lucid
dreams followed by false awakenings. Especially when the false awakening is of
the type in which the individual dreams they have awakened and proceed to think
about the just finished lucid dream.
A
possible objection to my above argument is that my conception of liberty is in
fact a property of the situation and not the state of consciousness, which is
such that the dreamer can take whichever decision he wants. Thus it could be
argued that even in the “grey stage”, the lucid dreamer being lucid can make a
decision--which implies freedom. But in fact quantity of available information
seriously limits the decision(s) the dreamer can make (and therefore the
freedom of the dreamer).
For a long time, during some
“out-of-body” dreams, I could not leave my room. (Afterwards I read that Robert
Monroe had gone through the same difficulty; he imputed it to a psychological
problem). Being a lucid dreamer, why could my decisions not change? I tried
many things: to smash a window, to go through the wall. Sometimes it worked,
but I frequently had the same problem when the lucid dream was an “initial
dream” (and was experienced as an “out-of-body experience”).
Why was I going through
this difficulty? No doubt something could be done to get over it. But I did not
have the information which would have helped me to take the right decision as I
realized soon afterwards,
To be clearer, I will
make a comparison. Before being able to go down a skiing-track, first we have
to take the lift to go up. A lucid dreamer can be in a situation where, to get
a result, he has, first, to go through an intermediate stage. For example, to
get out of my room in a dream, I needed a prior condition. But I had no problem
to do other things which did not require a prior condition: for instance, to
move into my room or to get into another dream.
Let’s go back to our
skiing. A skier in his chalet decides to go down a skiing-track. Let’s imagine
that he is a beginner and that his chalet is down the skiing track but higher
than the city. If, by ignorance, he does not fulfill a prior condition, which
is to take the lift he will never succeed even if he has made a firm decision.
On the other hand he can always do something else which does not require such a
prior condition: for example to talk around the city. But if the door of his
house is blocked by snow, then the prior condition will be the same as that of
the ski or the outing in the city. If he is not aware of the problem, he is
stuck for both activities.
In the same way, in lucid
dreaming, we can consider that there are either more and more specific prior
conditions, or more and more general prior conditions.
This idea of a prior
condition became obvious for me during an out-of-the-body dream. In this dream
the prior condition was the quality of the oneiric surroundings and was
discovered by chance, I was floating outside in front of a building like a
flying kite. I was called back by my body, or my room, struck by the idea that
I lacked certain energy to make my “journey” last. At the same time I was
getting in my oneiric mind the Castaneda’s notion of “power”. Garfield talks about
the energy which is circulating inside her oneiric body during lucid dreaming.
This energy is most probably a necessary condition, a “prior” condition which
must be fulfilled to go out of a room in a dream.
So the question became:
when a lucid dream does not progress satisfactorily (apart from an
impossibility which would be peculiar to lucid dreaming) how does one know what
is wrong and which condition must be fulfilled first to improve future dreams?
This prior condition
seemed to be of internal character, but not discernable in waking life, just as
we cannot distinguish a lucid dreamer from a non-lucid dreamer on an
electroencephalographic printout (except of course in the case of voluntary
ocular signals). But this question was transformed in its turn because the
existence of these unresolved prior conditions seemed to indicate what could be
called “psychic and energetic blockages” due to lack of information. In combining the three factors, l.) freedom
of action, 2.) colors, and 3.) prior
conditions, it appeared that we have arrived at criteria for evaluating mental
health.
Determination of the
Level of Oneiric Mental Health Health
We now have to specify
how oneiric lucidity can help us to appraise the various elements which have
been identified above as criteria for mental health: 1) liberty of action, 2) quality
of the surrounding light and colors, 3) previously obstructed situations. Is it
enough to record the presence of these elements and, should the occasion arise,
test their “resistance”? To do so, we must have a standard, a norm for mental
health. We must know what is mental health.
1. Direct and indirect
appreciation of mental and physiological health. It would probably be more
exact to say that we do not know what is mental health, even if we have an
intuitive idea of it for ourselves, We have no criteria to define mental health
satisfactorily. Its definition is often shown by negation in the shape of the
description of one’s behavior. That is, in waking life, some kinds of behavior
show that mental health is impaired but there is not behavior that definitively
indicates good mental health. In general, we know when we are not well, but we
are never sure that everything goes right!
It
is not the same for physiological health that is defined as a good
physiological state when the human body works regularly and harmoniously for a
long period. In this case, the organs may be observed medically by technical
means. The observation is thus objective.
During
waking life, then, we have an objective appreciation of physiological health,
and a subjective appreciation of mental health through the observations of
behavior,
Now the state of lucid dreaming, the schema is reversed. We have a “subjective” appreciation of
physiological health and an “objective” appreciation of mental health. This
assertion has a meaning if we call “objective” what is directly observable, and
“subjective” what needs an interpretation.
Several instances in literature on lucid
dreaming show that the appreciation of physiological health is not “direct”. We
must remember that in dreams physiological illness is more often not seen
as it is, but represented or acted out. In spite of this, taking some
dream action with regard to the representation can allow a change in the
physiological problem itself, which is rather surprising. It is rather like in
waking life: directly modifying neurotic behavior allows one to act on the
underlying neurosis. In both cases, we act on the sign of the thing to reach
the thing itself.
On
the contrary, in oneirical psychic life, it is not
necessary to act on the signs of a lucid dream for the elements of a lucid
dream are those of mental health. The freedom of acting during a dream is an
obvious criterion of mental health. But as it is not easily appraised, it would
be easier to seek a corollary in lucid dreaming: the absence or the presence of
colors. One can even, afterwards, go further and make a parallel between the
degrees of colors and those of mental health.
2. Waking Mental Health and Oneiric Mental Health. We must notice another point: even if the
appreciation of freedom and colors gives an evaluation of mental health in
dreams, we can’t use this fact in waking life. This criterion is effectively
concerned with mental health during a dream that is to say dreaming mental life
(oneiric mental life).
It
would appear to be impossible to contest the fact that dreaming mental health
and waking mental health are connected. But are the criteria of evaluation the
same? The comparison can be done at another level: If we try to compare mental
health and physiological health without taking into account their connections,
can we put them in parallel? Do mental organs and organism exist? And if yes,
are they observable? By what means?
We
can already answer the first question: these mental “organs” exist, or more
exactly we have their trace in the shape of symbols, rather like the physicist
who observes the trace (or finds the equation) of an elementary particle
without ever watching the particle itself. As for the interconnections that
would constitute a mental structure (organism), the events represent their
impulse.
The
system of comparison between physiological health and mental health of waking
life applies in turn to the connections between mental waking life and mental
dreaming life. It is indeed striking, if one works on waking dreaming, to find
out the differences of process between the two types of mental life. We are
thus compelled to consider them as belonging to separate fields. However,
analogical structures remain.
Notice the following phenomenon: in some cases it seems possible to solve
problems of physiological health by acting on mental life. The opposite is more
delicate, to change mental life itself, as it needs a wider view. It implies
the necessity to remain outside mental life. This kind of wider view is what
the lucid dreamer takes when he is able to realize that his dream is a lucid
one, From that point of view, it seems logical that a psychological change
gained through lucid dreaming may have effects on waking mental life, as mental
transformations in waking life may have effects on the body.
It
seems that the main process is the transformation of dream contents by a kind
of turning over: Images become symbols and sequences become events.
3. The Observer’s Position. To make this turning over work, keeping a
distance is necessary. Marquis Hervey de Saint Denys’s Les Rêves et les Moyens les diriger gives
us the example of the same problem viewed in dreams from two different aspects.
In one case, the problem is incorporated by the dreamer while, in the other
case, it is kept at a distance (refer to the narration of these two dreams in
the appendix). In “the dream of the gargoyle”, Hervey
de Saint-Denys is facing a devil which has a wound in
its shoulder, while in “the dream of the shoulder” his shoulder is painful and
he is suffering during the dream from different kinds of shocks. If we adopt
the position in which each element of the dream is the dreamer itself we will
have to admit that the devil is part
of Hervey de Saint-Denys.
In this case the image of the devil, and consequently of its wounded shoulder,
is kept at a distance: it turns into a symbol, without of course losing its
image quality. On the contrary in the second dream this image (which becomes a synaesthetic sensation) is experienced and therefore
incorporated. In both dreams there is a fairly high degree of displacement but
their outcome is very different.
Conclusion
The
appraisal of mental health during lucid dreaming looks like the test of
lucidity during a pre-lucid dream (that is to say a dream where one does not
succeed in stating if it is a dream or not). To be able to decide if a dream is
lucid, the dreamer goes through a set of tests like switching on lights,
jumping from a chair, etc. In the present case, we are no longer testing
lucidity. For us, its principle is acquired. We have only to set into motion
the elements mentioned above. A systematic study is yet to be done and one can
only suggest ideas of what can be done:
1. Setting a value on surrounding light and colors, evaluating their
change with regard to the distance from the starting point, being able or not
to make them more or less bright.
2.
Appraising the freedom of action and its evolution from the starting point.
3.
Seeking the previous condition that allows one to get out from a situation,
which may demand several lucid dreams. For instance, from what distance or
starting point does, a lamp, that does not want to light up, end up by lighting
up?
This
data must be modified by taking into account the observer’s position. Will it
be judicious for example to incorporate a symbol or, by contrast keep a
distance from an image? The methodical study of the psychical changes obtained
by lucid dreamers as they attempt the above (and other related exercises) will
teach us a lot about the process of changing psychic life.
Will
we succeed in understanding the nature of the process itself? To be lucid in
dreaming does not at all mean that we understand how a dream is made. On the
contrary, the dreamer is rather astonished by what he lives in his dream and by
what he is able to do in it. Maybe the methodical changes obtained by lucid
dreamers will help us to understand partly the nature of this process of
transformation.
Appendix
In
this appendix, are given two dreams of Hervey de
Saint-Denys that illustrate two possible points of
view for a same oneiric phenomenon. In “the dream of the Gargoyle” the Marquis
is confronted with an oneiric image which shows a wounded shoulder -- this
image is thus kept aloof -- , while in “the dream of the shoulder”, he has a
direct perception of this path. The difference of point of view does not
require a relation between these two dreams; however it is difficult not to
briefly examine the given correlation.
One
of the most dramatic lucid dreams of Hervey de Saint-Denys - and also one of the most famous could be titled
“The Dream of the Gargoyle”. In this recurring nightmare, the marquis is
“pursued by horrible monsters” worthy of Lovecraft.
He gets rid of them as he returns to oneiric lucidity. This dream is
fascinating for more than one reason, especially because it is a typical use of
lucidity working on an aggressive dream, and because it illustrates the use of
lucidity that two opposite schools make to fight against nightmares. I would
like to quote this dream extensively because, like most famous texts, it is
unfortunately ill-known through having been so often quoted. But as we will
see, it shows surprising characteristics which could interest the researcher
more than the historian.
The Dream of the Gargoyle
(I) I did not realize I
was dreaming, and I thought I was being chased by abominable monsters. I was
running away from them through a series of rooms, having each time difficulty
opening the doors between the rooms, and when I managed to close one, I heard
it being opened behind me by these horrible creatures who were trying to catch
me, and were making dreadful noises, I felt that they were catching up with me;
I woke up with a start, breathless and wet with sweat.
(II) I do not know what the origin and starting point of this
dream was; it is probably that some pathological cause was behind it the first
time, but after that, and several times over a six week period, it obviously
came back because of the strong impression it had made on me, and because of
the instinctive fear I had of seeing it come back. If I found myself alone in a
room in a dream, the memory of this dreadful scene was immediately awakened; I
would glance at the door, and the thought of that which I so feared to see
appear had the precise effect of making it appear, the same spectacle and the
same terrors came back. I was all the more affected when I awakened by the fact
that, as if by a sort of fatality, this awareness of my situation I had during
my dreams, was lacking in the case of this particular dream.
(III) One night, however, the fourth time it reappeared, and just when my persecutors were about to begin their chase, all of a sudden a feeling of truth came into my mind, a desire to fight these images gave me enough strength to overcome my instinctive fear. Instead of running away, and by an effort of will obviously very characteristic in this situation, I leaned against the wall and resolved to take a good look at the phantoms I had previously only glimpsed, rather than actually seen. The initial shock was quite violent, I admit, such difficulty the mind has, even if forewarned, to fight off such a fearful image. I looked directly at the first aggressor who looked like one of those prickly grimacing demons one sees sculptured on cathedral, and my desire to understanding won out over emotions, I was able to observe the following: the terrible monster stopped a few steps ahead of me, whistling and leaping, in a way which became ridiculous as soon as it was no longer terrifying. I noticed that there were seven clearly defined claws on one of its hands or paws, whichever they should be called. His eyebrows, a wound he appeared to have on its shoulder, and a number of other details were perfectly clear and made this one, one of the clearest visions I had. Was it a recollection of some gothic bas-relief? In any case my imagination had added movement and color to it. I had paid so much attention to this central figure that the others appeared to have vanished into thin air. The monster itself appeared to slow down, become less clear, appear woolly, and change gradually into a sort of floppy corpse, like those faded costumes you see on stalls which sell disguises at carnival time. There were a few more insignificant images, and I woke up.1
The text has been divided into three parts;
(I) A
description of the causes of ordinary dream process: chase-escape-awakening.
(II)
Observations of the causes of the dream: pathological causes and fear.
(III)
Lucid dreaming and use of lucidity; facing the aggressor.
The
most striking fact in this dream is its “classical” character which signifies
inner conflict for modem psychologists, whereas Hervey
de Saint-Denys only attributes it to circumstances,
probably of physiological origin like those in the nightmares discussed by Winsor McCay2: “It is likely that a pathological
cause was at the origin initially” (II). By “pathological cause” one should
understand “organic disorder”. Hervey do Saint-Denys gives the example of an orientalist
who dreamed that he was walking on water each time that his cook put oil in his
food without his knowing it.3
1 (1867) Hervey de Saint-Denys. Les rêves et les moyens les diriger. Paris:
Tchou. 1964. pp. 245-7. (Editor’s Note: For the
material referenced in this note and also in some of the subsequent notes,
copies of the original French versions and a first English translation are
available to scholars from the senior editor.)
2 Winsor McCay is the
author of Little Nemo in Slumberland.
3(1867) Hervey de
Saint-Denys. Les rêves et
les moyens les diriger. Paris: Tchou. 1964. p. 300. (Against fat!
I can finally quote a very curious communication which was
Hervey de Saint-Denys even goes as far as
distinguishing between various types of correlations between dreams and
physical sensations in formulating the two following hypotheses:
…what connection can one
imagine there to be between a rocky shore and a migraine, between morphine and
visions of wild beasts, between the introduction of a bit of grease into a
stomach and the idea of walking in water? Could it be a coincidence that having
established a connection between a morbid sensation one night, and a dream one happens
to have that same night, that a reappearance of that
same dream would bring back the same sensation? Or are there strange analogies
amongst internal sensations, which might account for certain nerve reactions,
certain internal movements in our bodies corresponding to impressions which
seem so different?
In the first case, the
correlation between a given dream and a given physical disorder would be
fortuitous and different for each individual.
In the second hypothesis,
on the contrary, experience could reveal unchanging and mysterious affinities
the knowledge of which would become a real science. 1
The
“real science” which would result from the knowledge of these constant and
“mysterious affinities” should be worked out in relation with work on
hallucinations as this type of correlation appears with acuteness in the “dream
of the shoulder” (quoted below).
The
following text specifies the way he faces this study:
There are some dreams
that are common to all men. Physiologists generally agree to place the causes
in the sensations produced by the more or less natural effect of the functions
of heart and stomach. This being due to an erroneous
appreciation by the mind of these sensations. Typical of such dreams are
those in which one feels one is flying, jumping with great ease, going down
flights of stairs in a few steps, or, on the contrary, those in which we feel
we are held back by an invisible force and cannot accomplish the simplest
tasks.
reported to me very recently by one of our most
famous orientalists, a scholarly professor and first
class philologist. He does not like food prepared with fat. He thinks it is bad
for health, and strongly forbids the use of fat in his home. However, his cook
did not share the same idea. She was in the main less strict,
and thought that from time to time small quantity of the prohibited substance
could be subtly introduced into the food without Sir realizing it. Here was her
big mistake. It was true that he could not realize it on the same day; but a
mysterious message was inevitably given to him during the following night. The
next morning the cook was called; she vainly tried to deny the facts to her
master. Her master stopped her short with these words: “Rosalie, I dreamt last
night that I was walking on the water.”
The
smallest quantity of fat had the inevitable result of making the scientist
dream that he was forced to go on foot across flooded grounds, marshes or rice
fields. He had noticed that he never had this dream without his cook admitting
that it had been motivated. She admitted as well that this stubborn dream had
never failed to betray her when she was in a situation deserving reprimand.)
1 (1867) Hervey de
Saint-Denys. Les rêves et
les moyens les diriger. Paris; Tchou.
1964. p. 301.
I feel that experience
would not only enable us to prove psycho-organic correlations in each of this
type of dream, but also that serious interpretations of many others would
provide us with a key to dreams, if we could assemble and study a sufficient
number of examples.
We feel at times in life
nervous annoyances accompanied by a physical sensation which is much like what
we feel when we try to do some precise small bit of work and our fingers cannot
manage it, or when we see people clumsily undertaking some delicate job. If we
have dreams where we do or see such things, might not the cause very likely be
some morbid agitation of our nervous system? I give this example as a specimen
amongst numerous others, which it would be worth exploring.1
For Hervey de
Saint-Denys “the dream of the gargoyle” fits
perfectly into this pattern. In the text which follows the one we quoted and
which deals explicitly with the correlation between dreams and physiological
problems, it is stated: “The simple fact of a dream or a type of dream being
repeated persistently. is the indication of a state of
suffering for which it is worth seeking the cause”. This suffering can be
physical or “moral”, In (II) Hervey de Saint-Denys states, concerning the “dream of the gargoyle”: “But
after that, and several times over a period of six weeks, it was obviously brought
back by the simple fact of the impression it had left on me, and by the fear I
instinctively had to see it come back”. In spite of the fact that he does not
take the organic hypothesis into account concerning the repetition of the
dream, he does not suppose that this fear can have an origin other than the impression
the dream made on him. But is this necessarily the case?
It
would be too easy to criticize Hervey de Saint-Denys’ understanding of his own dream in the light of what
we know today about the way the subconscious functions. Such criticism would
only be valid if we found in Hervey de Saint-Denys elements which permit a different interpretation. We
seem to find such an element in a dream described by this author and which involves
interesting correlations with “the dream of the gargoyle”, but when we examine it more closely, we see that if
it introduces questions concerning a possible pathological cause, this is not
sufficient.
If
we apply a gestalt approach which maintains that each element of the dream is
the dreamer, we can suggest the hypothesis that the prickly, grimacing monster
is Hervey de Saint-Denys.
Let us turn back to the passage in question (III): “I looked at the main
aggressor ... I noted ... a wound which he appeared to have on the shoulder,
and a multitude of other details which make this vision among the most lucid.”
The monster has a wound on his shoulder, as indicated in the phrase in italics.
Another dream presented by the author speaks specifically, in a clearer manner, of a wound
he had on his own shoulder.
The
Dream of the Shoulder
A piece of wood having
fallen on my shoulder, I had applied some medicine which contained belladonna
to calm the pain of the deep bruise. At first I had several short dreams in
which I thought I was carrying a heavy gun on my shoulder, Lifting
the corner of a heavy painting someone was trying to hand, etc. Towards the
morning, I had the following dream:
I was traveling and had
arrived wherever I was going. I looked for a place to stay, walking around with
a suitcase on my shoulder, and found no one
1 (1867) Hervey de
Saint-Denys. Les rêves et
les moyens les diriger. Paris: Tchou. 1964. pp. 301-302.
to carry it or to indicate an inn. I spotted a sign indicating a white
horse on a nice looking building, but the door was so low that I had to bead
down considerably to go in through a long corridor; in this uncomfortable
position I hit my shoulder against the wall several times. Once inside the inn,
I am greeted by a young maid who explains that there are many guests and that I
will have to stay in one of the rooms upstairs. I accept to take whatever they
have and putting my suitcase back on my shoulder, I follow the girl along never
ending corridors and stairways. We finally come to a room with a high ceiling
like a church with walls from which metal bars protrude horizontally one above
the other, serving as handles and
steps. “Don’t you trust me and want to follow me?” asks the girl as she begins
to climb this ladder, “I will follow you to the end of the world”, I answered.
Already I had forgotten about my suitcase, the inn, the room I was to rent. I
was overcome by a growing exaltation. This was no longer a maid who was showing
me my way, it was a type of heroine, I climbed up
easily. As we reached the ledge, my guide rested her hand heavily on my
shoulder slipped through a narrow window and invited me to follow her, and
showed me at a distance, at the other end of the platform we were crossing, a
second climb we would have to undertake. This time it was a mountain which
seemed to climb to the sky. There were places where one could grasp onto
handles, as there had been in the wall we had already climbed. But this time
they were covered over by bushes, roots and irregularities in the rock. My
guide gave me her hand to kiss before showing me this new path. I was electrified
and set out behind her, unconcerned by the vertiginous heights we were
attaining, unimpressed by the tremendous precipice below. I only saw my guide’s
slim foot as it gracefully moved ahead, brushing my cheek from time to time; we
continued to climb and it seemed to me that my mind, my strength and my
exaltation continued to grow. Just before we reached our goal, there was a
ledge we had to cross: my guide told me to stay put and she placed her foot on my
shoulder in order to climb and then gave me her hand…1
We
therefore have two dreams of Hervey de Saint-Denys in which the matter is about a shoulder. Each of
these dreams involves extremely intense emotional states, “The dream of the gargoyle”
reaches an extreme of horror, and “the dream of the shoulder” involves a height
of ecstasy, as illustrated at the end:
I bent over so she could lean completely on me; I was shaking with fear that she might fall into the abyss, where I would not have hesitated to follow her. I felt terrible anguish. Finally, I felt her lift her foot and I helped her: I stood up and observed her unspeakable beauty. The ledge had leveled out, ahead of us lay a beautiful garden, full of light and just for us. I put my arm around the one who had brought me there. My lips met hers. I was overcome by such intense joy that I seemed I would lose my reason. I had no regrets, I sincerely thought I had lost my mind. I said to myself “Madness is happiness”. The intensity of this pleasure woke me up.
The
emotional intensity of this dream evokes the reverse of “the dream of the
gargoyle”. A lucid dream in which one victoriously confronts an adversary is
often associated with what I call a “dream of conclusion” which is not necessarily
lucid but
1(1867) Hervey de
Saint-Denys. Les rêves et
les moyens les diriger. Paris: Tchou. 1964. pp. 303-305.
which reflects a victory in another intense
dream, and in which various elements of the psyche attain harmony. This
harmonization can take place in the dream of aggression; the first lucid dream
described by Stephen LaBerge in Lucid Dreaming is
a typical example. I relate to LaBerge’s dream here
separately from the conclusion he draws concerning it.
1. Setting of the dream. “As I
wandered through a high-vaulted corridor deep within a mighty citadel…I was
dreaming!...”
2. Meeting the adversary.
“Several hundred years below I could see what appeared to be a fountain
surrounded by marble statuary … Towering above the fountain stood a huge and intimidating genie, the
Guardian of the Spring, as I somehow immediately
knew.”
3. Implied encounter and use of the lucidity. “All my instincts cried out “Flee!”. But I
remembered that this terrifying sight was only a dream. Emboldened by the
thought, I cast aside fear and flew not away, but straight up to the apparition.”
4. Direct encounter.
“As is the way of dreams, no sooner was I within reach than we had somehow
become of equal size and I was able to look him in the eyes, face to face.
Realizing that my fear had created this terrible appearance, I resolved to
embrace what I had been eager to reject, and with open arms and heart I took
both his hands in mine,”
5. Conclusion. “As the
dream slowly faded, the genie’s power seemed to flow into me, and I awoke filled with vibrant
energy. I felt like I was ready for anything.
Notice
the similarity between the conclusion of Hervey de
Saint-Denys’ and LaBerge’s
dreams: “I resolved to embrace what I had been eager to reject, and with open
arms and heart I took both his hands in mine” corresponds to “I put my arm
around the fairy princess who had brought me there. My lips touched hers”; and
“As the dream slowly faded, the genie’s power seemed to flow into me, and I
awoke filled with vibrant energy. I felt like I was ready of anything”
corresponds to “I was overcome by such intense joy that I seemed I would lose
my reason, I had no regrets. I sincerely thought I had lost my mind. I said to myself “Madness is happiness”. The intensity of this
pleasure woke me up.”
The
presence or the absence of this type of conclusion often indicates whether the
lucid dream has fulfilled its role in re-establishing psychic balance after the
disturbance indicated by the unpleasant dream. It must be noted that in the
case of Hervey de Saint-Denys’
dream, we do not know the order in which he had those dreams. If “the dream of
the shoulder” precedes “the dream of the gargoyle” the wound on the monster’s shoulder can be clearly understood, but either the
conclusion contained in the shoulder dream would be premature, or it does not
refer to “the dream of the gargoyle”. If, as in the book, “the dream of the
gargoyle” precedes “the dream of the shoulder”, then the monster’s wound can be
considered as anticipatory, not in that it
predicts the future, but rather in that it indicates an “element” in the
psychic life of Hervey de Saint-Denys
which can manifest itself either in a dream, or in waking life. The conclusion
of the “dream of the shoulder” would then be in its proper place. But, in the
absence of other elements confirming this hypothesis, we cannot defend this
point of view.
It
would certainly be possible to find other elements which would give Hervey de Saint-Denys’ dream a
larger interpretation than that of a pathological cause (organic disorder),
without evoking the hypothesis or a correlation between the two dreams. But
even without pursuing the analysis any further, it is clear that Hervey de Saint-Denys was able to
resolve a psychological problem by lucid dreaming without knowing the nature
of his problem and in fact without even suspecting its existence.