Until the 1970s scientists were very sceptical about the possibility of controlling dreams. Sleep and dream researchers didn't believe it was possible to sleep and at the same time be conscious while dreaming. Lucid dreams where dismissed as fantasy, or micro awakenings where you think you are sleeping, but in fact are awake for a very brief period.
In the second half of the 19th century Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denis described his lucid experiences in a book titled Dreams and how to guide them. He describes how in a period of 20 years he had learned to recall his dreams and how he was able to awake within his dreams to control them.
The scientific community of his age wasn't very enthousiastic about it and his work was dismissed sceptically.
In 1913 The Dutch writer and poet Frederik van Eeden presented his paper to the British Society for Psychical Research in which he described more than 350 of his own lucid dreams, written down in a period of 14 years. It is in this paper where he coined the term lucid dreams.
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van Eedens paper 'A Study of Dreams' is available .
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Stephen LaBerge has changed their minds. He is the first scientist to empirically prove the existence of lucid dreams. He himself was his first testcase. In a lucid dream he tracked his dreamfinger with his eyes; moving his slowly and deliberately up and down. The pattern he made with his eyes appeared to be clearly visible on the output of the measuring instruments.
LaBerge has done several experiments on lucid dreaming using the eye-movement signaling method, demonstrating interesting connections between dreamed actions and physiological responses.
Stephen LaBerge is founder of the . On their site you can also find elaborate information about lucid dreaming experiments and research.