Lucid Dreaming and the Illusion of Control

(by Joe)

Lucid dreaming refers to the experience of being aware and in control of your dreams. The term was coined by Frederik van Eeden (1913), who discusses his own numerous experiences of such dreams. Snyder & Gackenbach (1988) report that only 20% of the population naturally experience regular lucid dreams, although it is also possible to induce them artificially. The precise neural mechanism behind them is not fully understood, but there appear to be distinct neurobiological differences between regular dreams and lucid dreams. In any case, lucid dreaming presents us with a number of intriguing philosophical puzzles, as well as potential insights into the nature of consciousness.

I am particularly interested in whether the experience a lucid dreamer has of being in control of their dream is genuine, or whether it is merely an experience. It seems quite possible that when a lucid dreamer reports being able to choose how their dream progresses, all they are actually reporting is the sensation of being in control. Studies into schizophrenia and related disorders such as alien hand syndrome suggest that 'being in control' and 'experiencing being in control' are distinct phenomena. So we should not necessarily take a lucid dreamer's word for it when they say that they are in control of their dreams – although it would be difficult to deny that they at least experience or recall being in control.

Stephen LaBerge has conducted extensive research into lucid dreaming, including systematising the use of eye-movements to establish contact between a lucid dreamer and an experimenter (see, for example, LaBerge 2000). The fact that a lucid dreamer can communicate in what appears to be a purposeful manner would seem to validate their claim of being in control of the dream. Kahan & LaBerge (1994) use such evidence to suggest that the traditional distinction between non-conscious dreaming and conscious wakefulness might be flawed. Whilst they take the control of lucid dreamers as a given, one might instead want to question the way in which conscious control is being classified in the first place.

In a famous series of experiments Benjamin Libet discovered that the conscious decision to press a button was reported to occur several hundred milliseconds after the neural activity that was associated with the action began (Libet et al, 1979). The experiments were widely reported to disprove free will, but Daniel Dennett has offered a more subtle explanation. We only have access to the subject's reported experience of initiating the button push, and it might be possible that their decision to push the button actually precedes their conscious experience of control (1991: 154-162). Of course this calls into question the very definition of consciousness, but that is Dennett's intention. Given that there's no homuncular 'centre' to the brain, it might be that decision making occurs separately to conscious awareness of decision making, or that we rapidly lose track of having consciously made a decision.

Similarly, experience of control as reported by lucid dreamers does not unambiguously equal actual control. Whilst Dennett is keen to retain the possibility of free will, others might not be so happy with the apparent detachment of conscious awareness from the actual initiation of actions. When a lucid dreamer tells us that they are able to control their dreams, it would be more accurate to say that they have experienced being in control of their dreams. Whether they actually have, and what that even means, is a much more difficult question to answer.

Dennett, D. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Little, Brown and Company.

Kahan, T. L., & LaBerge, S. 1994. “Lucid dreaming as metacognition: implications for cognitive science.” Consciousness and Cognition, 3/4: 246-264.

LaBerge, S. 2000. “Lucid dreaming: Evidence and methodology”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23/6: 962-3.

Libet, B., Wright, E., Feinstein, B., and Pearl, D. 1979. “Subjective Referral of the Timing for a Conscious Sensory Experience.” Brain, 102: 193-224.

Snyder, T. & Gackenback, J. 1988. In J. Gackenbach & S. LaBerge (Eds.), Conscious Mind, Dreaming Brain: 221-259. New York: Plenum Press.

Van Eeden, F. 1913. “A study of dreams.” Proceeding of the Society for Psychical Research, 26: 431-416.