ANOMALOUS COGNITION IN LUCID DREAMS (DRAFT TECHNICAL PROTOCOL)

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• Publication Date: December 20, 1991
• Content Type: RP

TedlopiptiarvadcBor Release 2000/0/NAFCIIA-RDP96-00789130311401_4(V0fb-2
Anomalous Cognition
in
Lucid Dreams
Prepared by:
Edwin C. May, Ph.D. and S. LaBerge
20 December 1991
AMIVM?N Th___?
Science Applications International Corporation
An Employee-Owned Company
Presented to:
The Scientific Oversight Committee
Submitted by:
Science Applications International Corporation
Cognitive Sciences Laboratory
1010 El Camino Real, Suite 330
Menlo Park, California 94025
1010 El Camino Real, Suite 330, P.O. Box 1412, Menlo Park, CA 94025 ? [phone]
?therAPOOVelefbEesikere4g6n2010/0011That veTA=RINDS6V9781R0031)001400011-2
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I OBJECTIVE 1
II BACKGROUND 2
III APPROACH 3
1. Receiver Selection 3
2. Target Selection 3
3. Thal Definition 3
4. Lucid Dream Protocol 3
5. AC Baseline Measures 3
6. Lucid Dream Thal Protocol 4
7. Analysis 4
IV DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 5
V GLOSSARY 6
REFERENCES 7
APPENDIX 8
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I. OBJECTIVE
The objective of this investigation is to determine if anomalous cognition can be ovserved during a lucid
dream.*
Definitions of terms can be found in Section V (i.e., Glossary) on page 6.
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II. BACKGROUND
Dreams involving putative anomalous cognition (AC) have been part of every human culture from the
times of ancient Greece to the present. The first serious attempt, however, to examine AC in dreams
under controlled conditions began under the direction of Montague Ullman, MD in 1962 at the Com-
munity Mental Health Center of the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. The re-
search of AC in dreams continued until 1972 where the dream protocol was abandoned in favor of a
simpler and more rapid approach to the study of AC. Child has summarized and critiqued this body of
research in the American Psychologist1+
In these studies, individuals were asked to sleep in a laboratory and be monitored for brain activity and
eye movement. From these records, it was possible to tell when they were dreaming. Upon the onset of
rapid eye movement (REM), an experimenter notified a sender, who was isolated in a remote laborato-
ry, to begin attending to a randomly selected target. At the end of the REM period, the dreamer was
awakened and asked to report the dream content. This procedure was repeated throughout the night
using the same target material for each separate dream (e.g., up to ten). The assessment of the AC
content was accomplished through independent judges. As described by Child, significant evidence for
AC was observed under a variety of conditions.
The dreamers in these studies, however, were not necessarily focused upon the AC task. They slept as
usual and, when asked, reported their dream content. In our pilot study we will focus the dreamer ex-
plicitly on the AC task using the methods of lucid dreaming.
A lucid dream is one during which the sleeper becomes conscious aware that the experience is a dream
as opposed to the waking state. LaBerge et al. (1981) have found that it is possible for dreamers to know
when they dreaming and to signal the waking world, through predetermined eye movements, indicating
their awareness.2 Using this ability, LaBerge et al. (1986 and 1988) conducted a number of psychophy-
siological studies to determine the differences between waking and dreaming from that prospective.3,4
They found that dreaming is similar to the waking state. Motor action is mostly inhibited from the brain
stem downward; however, the cerebral cortex appears not to "know" this.
In this preliminary pilot study, we will use the skills developed by LaBerge to teach individuals to lucid
dream. Differing from the earlier AC dream studies, our dreamers will be instructed to adopt a proac-
tive attitude to seek out and remember the AC target. In this way, we will determine the degree to which
lucid dreaming can facilitate the reception of AC material.
* References may be found at the end of the document and arc included in their entirety in the Appendix.
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III. APPROACH
1. Receiver Selection
We will use two specialize populations from which to draw receivers for this pilot experiment:
(1) Experienced dreamers from LaBerg's research subjects, and
(2) Receivers who have demonstrated significant ability in other AC studies.
Currently, five and seven individuals have volunteered, respectively.
2. Target Selection
Targets will be chosen randomly from the standard set of 100 National Geographic magazine photographs.
3. Trial Definition
A trial is defined as a successful lucid dream during which the target material was examined and later
transcribed in the waking state.
4. Lucid Dream Protocol
All receivers will undertake two forms of training in lucid dreaming: (1) They will complete a lucid
dreaming home-study course developed by the Lucidity Institute (i.e., a subcontractor to SAIC), and
(2) they will attend two weekend seminars, one at the beginning and one at the end of the proposed
three-month pilot study. The first seminar, which was held in December, 1991, introduced receivers to
lucid dreaming skills and the the use of the DreamLight, a lucid dream induction device. In previous
studies, the DreamLight has been shown to enhance the frequency of lucid dreaming. The DreamLight
consists of a sleep mask equipped with lights and eye movement sensors, which are attached to a small
battery-operated computer. When the computer detects the eye movements of dreaming (i.e., REM)
sleep, it causes the lights in the mask to flash briefly (i.e., either one or two flashes per second). The
dreamer frequently incorporates the flashes into the ongoing dream, and thus experiences a cue to indi-
cate that he or she is dreaming. Receivers will have free access to DreamLights during the duration of
the study.
5. AC Baseline Measures
Each receiver will be asked to contribute eight trials in a waking state in the Cognitive Sciences Labora-
tory as an AC baseline series. The targets for this series will be chosen at random from a standardized
target set that was developed from an earlier program. Each trial will be conducted as follows: After the
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III. APPROACH
1. Receiver Selection
We will use two specialize populations from which to draw receivers for this pilot experiment:
(1) Experienced dreamers from LaBerg's research subjects, and
(2) Receivers who have demonstrated significant ability in other AC studies.
Currently, five and seven individuals have volunteered, respectively.
2. Target Selection
Targets will be chosen randomly from the standard set of 100 National Geographic magazine photographs.
3. Trial Definition
A trial is defined as a successful lucid dream during which the target material was examined and later
transcribed in the waking state.
4. Lucid Dream Protocol
All receivers will undertake two forms of training in lucid dreaming: (1) They will complete a lucid
dreaming home-study course developed by the Lucidity Institute (i.e., a subcontractor to SAIC), and
(2) they will attend two weekend seminars, one at the beginning and one at the end of the proposed
three-month pilot study. The first seminar, which was held in December, 1991, introduced receivers to
lucid dreaming skills and the the use of the DreamLight, a lucid dream induction device. In previous
studies, the DreamLight has been shown to enhance the frequency of lucid dreaming. The DreamLight
consists of a sleep mask equipped with lights and eye movement sensors, which are attached to a small
battery-operated computer. When the computer detects the eye movements of dreaming (i.e., REM)
sleep, it causes the lights in the mask to flash briefly (i.e., either one or two flashes per second). The
dreamer frequently incorporates the flashes into the ongoing dream, and thus experiences a cue to indi-
cate that he or she is dreaming. Receivers will have free access to DreamLights during the duration of
the study.
5. AC Baseline Measures
Each receiver will be asked to contribute eight trials in a waking state in the Cognitive Sciences Labora-
tory as an AC baseline series. The targets for this series will be chosen at random from a standardized
target set that was developed from an earlier program. Each trial will be conducted as follows: After the
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receiver and an experimenter (i.e., called a monitor) enter the AC laboratory (i.e., an office with a single
desk and two chairs), an assistant will use a computer random number generator to select a target from
the baseline target pool. Both the receiver and the monitor will be blind to this specific choice. At a
pre-arranged time, the monitor will encourage the receiver to draw and write impressions of the target
material, which is located approximately 50 meters away. After approximately 15 minutes of casual
questioning, the trial will end; the data will be copied; the originals will be secured; and the actual target
will be presented as feedback to the receiver. The analysis will be discussed below.
6. Lucid Dream Trial Protocol
During the study, each receiver will attempt to provide six AC trials in a lucid dream state according to
the following procedure:
(1) Each receiver will receive a sealed opaque envelope containing a target photograph chosen ran-
domly from a predetermined set of 100. Receivers will place the target envelope in the room in
which they are sleeping.
(2) Using the DreamLight, they will attempt, while dreaming, to open the envelope, memorize its con-
tent, and awaken as soon as possible.
(3) In the waking state, they will write and draw their impressions in detail.
(4) During the next day, they will mail the unopened envelope and their response to the principal in-
vestigator (PI) for analysis. Upon receipt, the PI will send back a copy of the target photograph as
feedback and an additional sealed envelope for the next trial. This procedure will be repeated
until six trials are obtained from each receiver.
7. Analysis
liaditional rank-ordering will be the method of analysis. The set of 100 National Geographic magazine
photographs have been divided into 20 packets of five targets each. Within each pack, the targets have
been selected to be as visually different from one another as possible. (A series of fuzzy sets were used
to provide a quantitative method that was "fine tuned" by human judgment.) When a target is chosen
from one of the target packs, the remaining four targets are considered as "decoy" targets for an analyst.
For each trial, an analyst, is given the AC response and the target pack (i.e., five targets) from which the
actual target was chosen. The analyst is required to rank order the targets from best to least match to
the given response, regardless of the quality of the matches. The rank that is assigned to the intended
target represents the value of the dependent variable for the trial. A sum-of-ranks is then computed for
all the trials for each receiver, and effect sizes and p-values are determined from the known sum-of-
ranks distribution.
The effect sizes from the lucid dreaming trials will be compared to each receiver's base line data and to
historical AC data that is available for the experienced receivers.
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IV. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The primary purpose of this pilot study is to determine if AC is possible in the lucid dream state. Be-
cause the trials will be conduced in each receiver's home and is unsupervised, it is possible that the tar-
get material can be compromised. By using standard enclosure techniques it is possible to determine if
any casual attempt has been made to physically open the target material, but an experienced magician
could foil the detection precautions. Thus we will be unable to conclude the existence of AC in a formal
sense in this experiment.
Knowing the historical effect sizes from other AC studies and from the calibrations of the lucid dreamer
population can provide circumstantial evidence of AC. If the the lucid dreaming effect sizes are not
significantly smaller than the historical or base line effect sizes, then we will recommend that a careful,
laboratory-based study be conducted.
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V. GLOSSARY
Not all the terms defined below are germane to the this study, but they are included here for complete-
ness. In a typical anomalous mental phenomena (AMP) task, we define:
? Anomalous Cognition (AC)?A form of information transfer in which all known sensorial stimuli are
absent. That is, some individuals are able to gain access, by an as yet unknown process, to information
that is not available to the known sensorial channels.
? Receiver?An individual who attempts to perceive and report information about a target.
? Agent?An individual who attempts to influence a target system.
? Taraet?An item that is the focus of an AMP task (e.g., person, place, thing, event).
? Target Designation?A method by which a specific target, against the backdrop of all other possible
targets, is identified to the receiver (e.g., geographical coordinates).
? Sender/Beacon?An individual who, while receiving direct sensorial stimuli from an intended target,
acts as a putative transmitter to the receiver.
Monitor?An individual who monitors an AC session to facilitate data collection.
? Session?A time period during which AC data is collected.
? Protocol?A template for conducting a structured data collection session.
4) Response?Material that is produced during an AC session in response to the intended target.
? Feedback?After a response has been secured, information about the intended target is displayed to
the receiver.
? Analyst?An individual who provides a quantitative measure of AC.
? Specialty?A given receiver's ability to be particularly successful with a given class of targets (e.g.,
people as opposed to buildings).
? Lucid Dream?A dream during which an individual becomes aware of the dream.
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REFERENCES
1. Irvin L. Child, "Psychology and Anomalous Observations," American Psychologist, Vol. 40., No.
11, pp. 1219-1230 (November 1985).
2. S. LaBerge, L. E. Nagel, W. C. Dement, and V. P. Zarcone, Jr., "Lucid Dreaming Verified by
Volitional Communication During REM Sleep," Perceptual and Motor Skills, Vol. 52, pp. 727-732
(1981).
3. S. LaBerge, L. Levitan, and W. C. Dement, "Lucid Dreaming: Physiological Correlates of
Consciousness during REM Sleep," The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Vol. 7, Nos. 2 and 3,
pp.251-258 (1986).
4. The Psychophysiology of Lucid Dreaming, Ed. J. Gackenbach and S. LaBerge, pp. 135-153, Plenum
Press, New York (1988).
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APPENDIX
This appendix contains the full reprints of the following three papers:
(1) "Psychology and Anomalous Observations"
(2) "Lucid Dreaming Verified by Volitional Communication During REM Sleep"
(3) "Lucid Dreaming: Physiological Correlates of Consciousness during REM Sleep"
(4) The Psychophysiology of Lucid Dreaming, pp. 135-153
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Psychology and Anomalous Observations
The Question of ESP in Dreams
Irvin L. Child Yale University
ABSTRACT Books by psYchologists purporting to of-
fer critical reviews of research in parapsychology do
not use the scientific standards of discourse prevalent
in psychology. Experimerus at Maimonides Medical
Center on possible extrasensory perception (ESP) in
dreams are used to illustrate this point. The experi-
ments have received little or no mention in some re-
views to which they are dearly pertinent. In others,
they have been so severely distorted as to give an en-
tirely erroneous impression of how they were con-
ducted. Insofar as psychologists are guided by these
reviews, they are prevented from gaining accurate in-
formation about research that, as surveys show, would
be of wide interest to psychologists as well as to others.
In recent years, evidence has been accumulating for
the occurrence of such anomalies as telepathy and
psychokinesis, but the evidence is not totally con-
vincing. The evidence has come largely from experi-
ments by psychologists who have devoted their careers
mainly to studying these anomalies, but members of
other disciplines, including engineering and physics,
have also taken part. Some psychologists not primarily
concerned with parapsychology have taken time out
from other professional concerns to explore such
anomali&s for themselves. Of these, some have joined
in the experimentation (e.g., Crandall & Hite, 1983;
Lowry, 1981; Radin, 1982). Some have critically re-
viewed portions of the evidence (e.g., Akers, 1984;
Hyman, 1985). Some, doubting that the phenomena
could be real, have explored nonrational processes
that might encourage belief in their reality (e.g., Ay-
eroff & Abelson, 1976). Still others, considering the
evidence substantial enough to justify a constructive
theoretical effort, have struggled to relate the apparent
anomalies to better established knowledge in a way
that will render them less anomalous (e.g., lrwin,
1979) or not anomalous at all (e.g., Blackmore, 1984).
These psychologists differ widely in their surmise
about whether the apparent anomalies in question will
eventually be judged real or illusory; but they appear
to agree that the evidence to date warrants serious
consideration.
Serious consideration of apparent anomalies
seems an essential part of the procedures of science,
regardless of whether it leads to an understanding of
new discoveries or to an understanding of how per-
suasive illusions arise. Apparent anomalies?just like
the more numerous observations that are not anom-
alous?can receive appropriate attention only as they
become accurately known to the scientists to whose
work they are relevant Much parapsychological re-
search is barred from being seriously considered be-
cause it is either neglected or misrepresented in writ-
ings by some psychologists?among them, some who
have placed themselves in a prime position to mediate
interaction between parapsychological research and
the general body of psychological knowledge. In this
article, I illustrate this important general point with
a particular case, that of experimental research on
possible ESP in dreams. It is a case of especially great
interest but is not unrepresentative of how psycho-
logical publications have treated similar anomalies.
The Maimonides Research
The experimental evidence suggesting that dreams
may actually be influenced by ESP comes almost en-
tirely from a research program carried out at the
Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Among scientists active in parapsychology, this pro-
gram is widely known and greatly respected. It has
had a major indirect influence on the recent course
of parapsychological research, although the great ex-
pense of dream-laboratory work has prevented it from
being a direct model.
None of the Maimonides research was published
in the journals that are the conventional media for
psychology. (The only possible exception is that a
summary of one study (Honorton, Krippner, & Ull-
man, 1972) appeared in convention proceedings of
the American Psychological Association.) Much of it
was published in the specialized journals of parapsy-
chology. The rest was published in psychiatric or other
medical joumaLs, where it would not be noticed by
many psychologists. Most of it was summarized in
popularized form in a book (Ullman, Krippner, &
Vaughan, 1973) in which two of the researchers were
joined by a popular writer whose own writings are
clearly not in the scientific tradition, and the book
departs from the pattern of scientific reporting that
characterizes the original research reports.
November 1985 ? American Psychologist
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Ng- O. No. 11, 1219-12)0
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How, then, would this research come to the at-
tention of psychologists, so that its findings or its errors
might in time be evaluated for their significance to
the body of systematic observations upon which psy-
chology has been and will be built? The experiments
at Maimonides were published between about 1966
and 1972. In the years since?now over a decade?
five books have been published by academic psy-
chologists that purport to offer a scholarly review and
evaluation of parapsychological research. They vary
in the extent to which they seem addressed to psy-
chologists themselves or to their students, but they
seem to be the principal route by which either present
or future psychologists, unless they have an already
established interest strong enough to lead them to
search out the original publications, might become
acquainted with the experiments on ESP in dreams.
I propose to review how these five books have pre-
sented knowledge about the experiments. First, how-
ever, I must offer a summary of the experiments;
without that, my review would make sense only to
readers already well acquainted with them.
The experiments at Maimonides grew out of
Montague ULlman's observations, in his psychiatric
practice, of apparent telepathy underlying the content
of some dreams reported by his patients?observa-
tions parallel to those reported by many other psy-
chiatrists.. He sought to determine whether this ap-
parent phenomenon would appear in a sleep labora-
tory under controlled conditions that would seem to
exclude interpretations other than that of ESP. He
was joined in this research by psychologist Stanley
Krippner, now at the Saybrook Institute in San Fran-
cisco, and a little later by Charles Honorton, now head
of the Psychophysical Research Laboratories in
Princeton, New Jersey. Encouraged by early findings
but seeking to improve experimental controls and
identify optimal conditions, these researchers, assisted
by numerous helpers and consultants, tried out %Par-
lous modifications of procedure. No one simple de-
scription of procedure, therefore, can be accurate for
all of the experiments. But the brief description that
follows is not, I believe, misleading as an account of
what was generally done.
The Experimental Procedure
A subject would come to the laboratory to spend the
night there as would-be percipient in a study of pos-
sible telepathic influence on dreams. He or she met
and talked with the person who was going to serve as
agent (that is, the person who would try to send a
telepathic message), as well as with the two experi-
menters taking part that night, and procedures were
Requests for reprints should be sent to Irvin L. Child at the De-
partment of Psychology, Yalc University, P.O. Box I IA, New Hr.en.
Connecticut 06520-7447.
explained in detail unl the percipient was a repeater
for whom that step not necessary. When ready
to go to bed, the percip cot was wired up in the usual
way for monitoring o brain waves and eye move-
ments, and he or she d no further contac-t with the
agent or agent's expen enter until. after the session
was completed. The ex ? rimenter in the next room
monitored the percipie t's sleep and at the beginning
of each period ofrapid ye movements (REM), when
it was reasonably certai the sleeper would be dream-
ing, notified the agent sy pressing a bbuzzer.The agent was in a remote room in the building,
provided with a target icturc (and sometimes acces-
sory material echoing t e theme of the picture) ran-
domly chosen from a I of potential targets as the
message to be concent ted on. The procedure for
random choice of a targ t from the pool was designed
to prevent anyone else rom knowing the identity of
the target. The agent ? d not open the packet con-
taining the target until ?lated for the night (except
for the one-way buzzer communication). Whenever
signaled.that the percip ent had entered a REM pe-
riod, the agent was to incentrate on the target, with
the aim of communicati g it telepathically to the per-
cipient and thus influen 'rig the dream the percipient
was having. The percipie it was oriented toward trying
to receive this message. ut of course if clairvoyance
and telepathy are both is ible, the percipient might
have used the former? at is, might have been pick-
ing up information dir ly from the target picture,
without the mediation ?f the agent's thoughts or ef-
forts. For this reason, e term general extrasensory
perception (GESP) woul be used today, though the
researchers more often s the term telepathy.
Toward the approx mate end of each REM pe-
riod, the percipient was awakened (by intercom) by
the monitoring experi enter and described any
dream just experienced ( th prodding and question-
ing, if necessary, though c percipient of course knew
in advance what to do in each awakening). At the
end of the night's sleep, ?e percipient was interviewed
and was asked for impr "ons about what the target
might have been. (The interview was of course double-
blind; neither percipient nor interviewer knew the
identity of the target.) The dream descriptions and
morning impressions an associations were recorded
and later transcribed.
The original resear
book both present a nu
ities between passages
the picture that happen
These similarities merit
themselves yield no sen
transcript of a night's dr
striking similarity to any
be compared. The Mai
consisted of carefully pla
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h reports and the popular
her of very striking similar-
the dream transcripts and
to be the night's target.
ttention, yet they should in
of conviction. Perhaps any
ming contains passages of
icture to which they might
onidcs research, however,
ned experiments designed
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to permit evaluation of this hypothesis of random
similarity, and I must now turn to that aspect.
Results
To evaluate the chance hypothesis, the researchers
obtained judgments of similarity between the dream
content and the actual target for the night, and at the
same time obtained judgments of similarity between
the dream Content and each of the other potential
targets in the pool from which the target had been
selected at random. The person judging, of course,
had no information about which picture had been
randomly selected as target; the entire pool (in du-
plicate) was presented together, with no clue as to
which picture had been the target and which ones had
not. That is, in the experimental condition a picture
was randomly selected from a pool and concentrated
on by the agent, and in the control condition a picture
was left behind in the pool. Any consistent difference
between target and nontarget in similarity to dream
content, exceeding what could reasonably be ascribed
to chance, was considered an apparent anomaly.
The data available for the largest number of ses-
sions came from judgments made by judges who had
no contact with the experiment except to receive (by
mail, generally) the material necessary for judging
(transcripts of dreams and interview and a copy of
the target pool). For many sessions, judgments were
also available from the dreamer, he or she, of course,
made judgments only after completing participation
in the experiment as dreamer (except in some series
where a separate target pool was used for each night
and the dreamer's judgments could be made at the
end of the session). For many sessions, judgments were
made for the dream transcripts alone and for the total
transcript including the morning interview; for con-
sistency I have used the latter, because it involved
judges who had more nearly the same information as
the subjects.
The only form in which the data are available
for all series of sessions is a count of hits and misses.
lithe actual target was ranked in the upper half of
the target pool, for similarity to the dreams and in-
terview, the outcome was considered a hit. If the actual
target was ranked in the lower half of the pool, the
outcome was considered a miss. The hit-or-miss score
is presented separately in Table 1 for judges and for
subjects, in the first two data columns. Where infor-
mation is not supplied for one or the other, the reason
is generally that it was impossible for the researchers
to obtain it, and for a similar reason the number of
cases sometimes varies.'
10f course, usable judgments could not be obtained from the
subject in precognitive sessions, because at the time of judging he
Of She WOLLId already know what the urges had beat. Foe Line F,
the single subject was unable to give the extra time required for
judging, and for Line 0 one of the four subjects failed to make
Each data row in Table 1 refers to one segment
of the research, and segments for the most part are
labeled as they were in the table of Ullman et al. (1973,
pp. 275-277). Segments that followed the general
procedure I described?all-night sessions, with an
agent concentrating on the target during each of the
percipient's REM periods?are gathered together in
the first eight lines, A through H (in five of these seg-
ments, all but A, C, and H, a single percipient con-
tinued throughout a series, and in four of these the
percipient was a psychologist). Other types of segments
are presented in the rest of the table. Lines 1, .1, and
K summarize precognitive sessions; here the target
was not selected until after the dreaming and interview
had been completed. The target consisted of a set of
stimuli to be presented directly to the percipient after
it had been selected in the morning. Lines L and M
represent GESP sessions in which the percipient's
dreams were monitored and recorded throughout the
night, but the agent was attempting to transmit only
before the percipient went to sleep or just after, or
sporadically. Line N refers to a few clairvoyance ses-
sions; these were like the standard GESP sessions ex-
cept that there was no agent (no one knew the identity
of the target). Finally, Line 0 reports on some GESP
sessions in which each dream was considered sepa-
rately; these formed a single experiment with four
percipient& comparing nights involving a different
target for each REM period with nights involving re-
peated use of a single target.
Regardless of the type of session (considering the
five types I have described), each session fell into one
of two categories: (a) pilot sessions, in which either a
new dreamer or a new procedure was being tried out;
these appear in lines H, K. and N, or (b) sessions in
an experimental series, planned in advance as one or
more sessions for each of two or more subjects, or as
a number of sessions with the_same dreamer through-
out. Most of the researchers' publications were de-
voted to the results obtained in the experimental se-
ries, but the results of the pilot sessions have also been
briefly reported.
A glance at the score columns for judges and for
subjects is sufficient to indicate a strong tendency for
an excess of hits over misses. If we average the outcome
for judges and for subjects, we find that hits exceed
misses on every one of the 15 independent lines on
which outcome for hits and misses differs. (On Line
E hits and misses occur with equal frequency.) By a
simple sign-test, this outcome would be significant
beyond the 0.0001 level. I would not stress the exact
value here, for several reasons. There was no advance
judgments. In a few of the pilot sessions (Lines H, K, and N) only
the subject's judgment was sought, and in some sessions only that
of one or more judges: in a few the mean judges' rating was neither
a hit nor a miss but exactly at the middle.
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Table 1
Summary of Ma/mon/des Results on Tendency for Dreams to Be Judged More Like Target
Than like Nontargets in Target Pool
Judges' SubHos'
score score
Z or t requiem from Isdironto
Hit Meg Hlt Miaa Jud011e Sulltsi:to
Source,
GESP: Dreams monitored and recorded throughout night; agent "transmitting
' during each REM period
A. 1st screening
7 5 10 2 z g. 0.71"
z s. 1.33"
Ullman, Krippner, &
Feldstein (1966)
B. 1st Erwin
5 2 6 1 z = 2.53"
z = 1.90"
Ullman et al. (1966)
C. 2nd screening
4 8 9 3 z I= ?.25"
z = 1.17"
Ullman (1969)
D. Posin
6 2 6 2 z M. 1.05c
a = 1.
5'
Ullman (1969)
E. Grayeb
3 5 5 3 z = ?.63'
z = 0.?
Ullman. Krippner, &
Vaughan (1973)
F. 2nd Erwin
8 o t = 4.93'
Ullman & Krippner
(1969)
G. Van de Castle
6 2 8 0 z- 2.81'
t = 2.7
'
Krippner & Ullman
(1970)
H. Pilot sessions
53 14 42 22 z = 4.20?
z 2.
1b
Ullman et al. (1973)
Pr
nition? Dreams monitored and recorded throuohout n
h ?
taroet
xt da
_
I. 1st Bessent 7 1 t = 2.81 '
J. 2nd Bessent 7 1 t = 2.27
K. Pilot sessions ? 2 0 a = 0.67'
Krippner. Ullman, &
Honor/on (1971)
Krippner, Honorton, &
Ullman (1972)
Ullman et al. (1973)
GESP: Dreams monitored and recorded throughout night; agent active only at beginning
L. Sensory bombard- 8 0 4 4 z = 3.11 b z = 0.00`
ment
M. Grateful Dead 7 5 8 4 z = 0.61' z = 0.81'
or sporadically
Krippner, Horiorton,
. Ullman, Masters, &
Houston (1971)
Krippner, Honorton, &
Ullman (1973)
Clairvoyance: Dreams monitored and recorded throughout night; concealed target
N. Pilot sessions 5 3 4 5 z = 0.98? z = 0.00"
known to no one
Ullman et at. (1973)
GESP: Single dreams
0. Vaughan, Harris, 105 98 74 79 z = 0.63c z = ?.32'
Parise
Honorton, Krippner, &
Ullman (1972)
Note. GESP ii general extrasensory perception. take Silently results obtained with proofs:lures that preserve independarbe
For morns series. the published souroa does in this
of ludigments in a senes.
laboratory reports were also
not use the uniform measures entered table. sod frorriso;raphed
consult.d. Superscipts indicate which in
measure was available, order of priority.
? Ftatings. ? Flanitirips. ? Score (count of hits and misses).
plan to merge the outcomes for judges and subjects. sonably be ascribed to chance.
Moreover, the various series could be split up in other atic?that is, nonrandom
ways. Although I think my organization of the table semblance of dreams to target.
is very reasonable (and I did not notice this outcome Despite its breadth, this
until after the table was constructed), it is not the to vary greatly in strength.
organization selected by Ullman et al. (1973); their dreams?Line 0?suggest
table, if evaluated statistically in this same way, would other extreme, some separate
not yield so striking a result. What is clear is that the impressive. I will next consider
tendency toward hits rather than misses cannot rea- mately evaluate the relative
There is some system-
--source of anomalous re-
"hitting" tendency seems
The data on single
no consistency. At the
lines of the table look
how we may legiti-
statistical significance of
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against eventual replicability. In the Maim onides se-
ries, likewise, three successive replications (Lines C,
D, and E in Table 1) yielded no significant result, yet
they arc part of a program yielding highly significant
overall results.
If results or such potentially great interest and
scientific importance as those of the Maimonides
program had been reported on a more conventional
topic, one might expect them to be widely and ac-
curately described in reviews of the field to which
thcy were relevant, and to be analyzed carefully as a
basis for sound evaluation of whether replication and
extension of the research were indicated, or of whether
errors could be detected and understood. What has
happened in this instance of anomalous research
findings?
Representation of the Maimonides
Research in Books by Psychologists
II is appropriate to begin with E. M. Hansel's 1980
revision of his earlier critical book on parapsychology.
As part of his attempt to bring the earlier book up to
date, he included an entire chapter on experiments
on telepathy in dreams. One page was devoted to a
description of the basic method used in the Mai in on-
ides experiments; one paragraph summarized the im-
pressive outcome of 10 of the experiments. The rest
of the chapter was devoted mainly to a specific account
of the experiment in which psychologist Robert Van
de Castle was the subject (the outcome is summarized
in Line (5 of my Table 1) and to the attempted rep-
lication at the University of Wyoming (Belvedere &
Foulkes, 1971), in which Van de Castle was again the
subject. Another page was devoted to another of the
Maimonides experiments that was also repeated at
the University of Wyoming (Foulkes et al., 1972).
Hansel did not mention the replication by Globus et
al. (1968), whose authors felt that the results encour-
aged further exploration. Hansel gave more weight to
the two negative outcomes at Wyoming. than to the
-stirtroftrie?Mi rtiohid.Esearch,arguing that sensory
-ccreg-Stirrpq011y-15ermitted by the procedures at Mai-
monides, not possible because of greater care taken
by the Wyoming experimenters, were responsible for
the difference in results. He did not provide, of course,
the full account of procecTures presented in the original
Maimonides reports that might persuade many read-
ers that Hansel's-in-taw- citation is far from ,compeffing.
c-iTZ-d-he consider why some of the other experi-
ments at Maimonides, not obviously distinguished in
the care with which they were done from the two that
were replicated (e.g., those on Lines E, M, and 0 of
Table 1) yielded a close-to-chance outcome such as
Hansel might have expected sensory cuing to prevent.
Hansel exaggerated the opportunities for sensory
cuing?that is, for percipient to obtai n Y- -Ordinary
sensory means some information about the target for
the night. He did this notably by misinterpreting an
ambiguous statement in the Maimonides reports, not
mentioning that his interpretation was incompatible
with other passages; his interpretation vas in fact er-
roneous, as shown by Akers (1984, pp. 128-129).
Furthermore, Hansel did not alert the reader to the
great care exerted by the researchers to eliminate pos-
sible sources of sensory cuing. Most important is the
fact that Hansel did not provide any plausible ac-
count=oTherthan. fraud?' how the opporttiniffet
fofte-enia-ry cuing that he claimed existed would be
tireTy---i-Olcaillo the striking findings of the research.
For example, he seemed to consider important the
fact that at Maimonides the agent could leave his or
her room during the night to go to the bathroom,
whereas in Wyoming the agent had a room with its
own bathroom, and the outer door to the room was
sealed with tape to prevent the agent from emerging.
Hansel did not attempt to say how the agent's visit to
the bathroom could have altered the details of the
percipient's dreams each night in a manner distinc-
tively appropriate to that night's target. The only
plausible route of influence on the dream record
seems to lx deliberate fraud involving the researchers
and their subjects. The great number and variety of
personnel in these studies?experimenters, agents,
percipients, and judges?makes fraud especially un-
likely as an explanation of the positive findings; but
Hansel did not mention this important fact.
It...appears to me that all of Hansel's criticisms
of the Maimonides experiments are relevant only on
thElkp-6thesis of fraud (except for the mistaken crit-
icism I have mentioned above). He said that uninten-
tional communication was more likely but provided
no evidence either that it occurred or that such com-
munication?in any form in which it might have oc-
curred?could have produced such consistent results
as emerged from the Maimortides experiments. I infer
that Hansel was merely avoiding making explicit his
unsupported accusations of fraud. Fraud is an inter-
pretation always important to keep in mind, and it is
one that could not be entirely excluded even by pre-
cautions going beyond those used in the Wyoming
studies. But the fact that fraud was as always, theo-
retically possible hardly justifies dismissal of a series
of carefully conducted studies that offer important
suggestions for opening up a new line of inquiry into
a topic potentially of great significance. Especially re-
grettable is Hansel's description of various supposed
defects in the experiments as though they mark the
experiments as being carelessly conducted by general
scientific criteria, whereas in fact the supposed defects
arc relcv-ant only if one assumes fraud. A reader who
is introduced to the Maimonides research by Hansel's
chapter is likely to get a totally erroneous impression
of the care taken by the experimenters to avoid various
possible sources of error. The one thing they could
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not avoid was obtaining results that Hansel considered
a priori impossible, hence evidence of fraud; but
Hansel was not entirely frank about his reasoning.
_An_incidental point worth noting is that Hansel
did not himself apply, in his criticaLattacic,...the4taa-
-darfffbreviaeliee_he. demanded of the researchers.
His conclusions vvere based implicitly on the assump-
tion that the difference of outcome between the Mai-
monides and the Wyoming experiments was a genuine
difference, not attributable to random variation. He
did not even raise the question, as he surely would
have if, in some parallel instance, the Maimonides
researchers had claimed or implied statistical signif-
icance where it was questionable. In fact, the difference
of outcome might well have arisen from random error
for the percipient's own judgments the difference is
significant at the 5% level (2-tailed), but for the out-
siders' judgments it does not approach significance.
Another 1980 book is The Psychology of Tran-
scendence, by Andrew Neher, in which almost 100
pages are devoted to "psychic experience." Neher
dif-
fered from the other authors I refer to in describing
the Maimonides work as a "series of studies of great
interest" (p. 145), but this evaluation seems to be ne-
gated by his devoting only three lines to it and four
lines to unsuccessful replications.
A third 1980 publication, The Psychology of the
Psychic, by David Marks and Richard Kammann,
provides less of a general review of recent parapsy-
chology than Hansel's book or even Neher's one long
chapter. It is largely devoted to the techniques of
mentalists (that is, conjurors specializing in psycho-
logical rather than physical effects) and can be useful
to anyone encountering a mentalist who pretends to
be "psychic." Most readers are not likely to be aware
that parapsychological research receives only limited
attention. The jacket blurbs give a very different view
of the book, as do the authors in their introductory
sentences:
ESP is just around the next corner. When you get there, it
is Just around the next corner. Having now tutted over one
hundred of these corners, we decided to call it quits and
report our findings for public review. (Marks & Kammann,
1980, p.4)
Given this introduction to the nature of the. book,
readers might suppose it would at least mention any
corner that many parapsychologists have judged to be
an impressive turning. But the Maimonides dream,
experiments received no menti_oo,a/
Anu Notunie:63 psychologist James Alcock
(1981), quite clearly purports to include a general re-
view and evaluation of parapsychological research.
Alcock mentioned (p. 6) that Hansel had examined
the Maimonides experiments, but the only account
of them that Alcock offered (on p. 163) was incidental
to a discussion of control groups. By implication he
789R0031001400012
seemed to reject the Maimonides experiments because
they included no control groups. He wrote that "a
control group, for which no sender or no target was
used, would appear essential" (p. 163). Later he added,
'One could, alternatively, 'send' when the subject was
not in the dream state, and compare 'success' in this
case with success in dream state trials" (p. 163). The
tem ents suggests a relevant use o f con-
t_ errs in galling it essential; in other
escarch, Alcock would have doubtless
ized that Within-subject contra -can,
Vh-Erereable, be much more-efficient-and pertinent
_control_group...His second staterneni-
of experiment that is probably im-
se in satisfactory form it seems to re-
to dream whether awake or asleep
w whether he or she was awake or
ond kind of experiment, moreover,
ncnce only to a comparison between
king, not to the question of whether
ed in dreaming.
short, did not seem to recognize that
Maimonides experiments was based
ctly parallel to those used by innu-
ogists in other research with similar
(and even implied, curiously enough,
d suggestion). He encouraged readers
Maimonides studies are beyond the
le experimental design, whereas in
e examples of appropriate use of
ntrol rather than between-subjects !
of thinking with which Alcock con-
onides research appeared also in a
ot refer to it by name. Referring to
ed in The Humanist by Ethel Grod-
ote,
firs____Loigicas
PsYchole
readily recog
ihrn-a separat
_ .
suggests a t
possible (bcca
quire the subj
and not to kn
asleep). This
has special pe
dreaming and
ESP is manifes
Alcock, in
the design of th
on controls ex
merable psycho
logical structure
in his own seco
to think that th
pale of accepts
fact they are fi
within-subject
control.
The quality
fronted the Mai
passage that did
an article publis
zins Romm, he
Rornm (1977) argu
the dream telepath
is that the reports s
Language; she cited
in a room draped i
down his back. A
mediately judged t
panel. Yet, as she
"wet", or "icy" wou
obvious need is for
(p. 163)
What Romm d
preting events to fi
kind of error that i
of everyday occur
are psychic. But th
monides was well
by the painstaking
to have noticed. S
some other and ve
that a fundamental problem with both
research and the remote viewing tests
ffcr from what she called "shoe-fitting"
study in which the sender was installed
white fabric and had ice cubes poured
iver who reported "white" was im-
have made a "hit" by an independent
bserved, words suth as "miserable",
d have been better hits.. . . Again, the
control group. Why are they not used?
ribed as "shoe fitting" (misinter-
one's expectations) is an important
repeatedly made in interpretation
ences by people who believe they
dream telepathy research at Mai-
rotected against this kind of error
controls that Alcock seemed not
rely Romm must be referring to
y sloppy dream research?
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?
_Jigt_a_ap. The details in this paragraph, and
even rkireiri Romm's article, point unmistakably,
though inaccurately, to the fifth night of the first pre-
cognitive series at Maimonides. The actual details of
target and response would alone deprive it of much
of its value as an example of shoe fitting. As reported
by Krippner, Ullman, & Honorton (1971), the target
was a morning experience that included being in a
room that was draped with white sheets. The subject's
first dream report had included the statement, "I was
just standing in a room, surrounded by white. Every
imaginable thing in that room was white" (p. 201).
There is more similarity here than Rornm and Alcock
acknowledged in mentioning from this passage only
the single word "white."
More important, however, is the fact that the ex-
periment they were referring to provided no oppor-
tunity for shoe fitting. The procedures followed in the
experiment were completely misrepresented in a way
that created the illusion that the possibility existed.
There was no panel, in the sense of a group of people
gathered together and capable of influencing each
other. The judges, operating independently, separately
judged every one of the 64 possible combinations of
target and transcript yielded by the eight nights of the
experiment, not just the eight correct pairings, and
they had no clues to which those eight were. Their
responses are hardly likely to have been immediate,
as they required reading the entire night's transcript.
Because each judge was working alone and was not
recording times, there would have been no record if
a particular response had been immediate, and no
record of what particular clement in the transcript
led to an immediate response.
I looked up in a 1977 issue of The Humanist the
article by Romm that Alcock cited. The half page on
shoe-fitting language gave as examples this item from
? the Maimonides research and also. the...SR:Li-emote- _
viewifFg -experiments (Puthoff.& Targ,..1976)-done at
SRJ International.lkkoth cases what was said was
pure fiction, based on failure to note what y?as done
in the experimentiSWin PartiCiilar siliatthe.experi-
-Meiners were well aware of the danger of shoe-fitting
Iguage and that. the design &their experiments in-
corporated procedures to ensure that it could not oc-
cur. Romm's ignorance about the Maimonides re-
search and her apparent willingness to fabricate false-
hoods about it should be recognized by anyone who
had read any of the Maimonides research publica-
tions. Yet Alcock accepted and repeated the fictions
as though they were true. His presentation insthe con-
-kV or a-book iififiarently in the scientific tradition
seems to me more dangerous than Romm's original
article, for anyone with a scientific orientation should
be able to recognize Romm's article as propaganda.
Its title, for example, is "When You Give a Closet
Occultist a PhD, What Kind of Research Can You
Expect?" and it repeatedly speaks of "cult phuds,"
meaning people with PhDs who are interested in
parapsychological problems. Alcock's repetition of
Romm's misstatements in a context lacking these
clues may well be taken by many a reader as scholarly
writing based on correct information and rational
thought. Paradoxically, both Alcock's.paragraph and
Romm's article are excellent examples. orthe Om-
fiEMIT?rror that both decry in others who arc in fact
carefully avoiding it..
? The last of thc five books that bring, or fail to
bring, the Maimonidcs research to the attention of
psychologists and their students is Anomalistic Psy-
chology: A Study of Extraordinary Phenomena of Be-
havior and Experience, a 1982 volume by Leonard
Zusne and Warren H. Jones. This is in many ways
an excellent book, and it is also the one of the five
that comes closest to including a general review of
important recent research in parapsychology. Its brief
account of the Maimonides dream experiments, how-
ever, misrepresented them in ways that should seri-
ously reduce a reader's interest in considering them
further.
Zusne and Jones's description of the basic pro-
cedure made three serious errors. First, it implied that
one of the experimenters had a chance to know the
identity of the target. ("After the subject falls asleep,
an art reproduction is selected from a large collection
randomly, placed in an envelope, and given to the
agent" p. 260). In fact, precautions were taken to en-
sure that no one but the agent could know the identity
of the target. Second, the authors stated that "three
judges. . rate their confidence that the dream con-
tent matches the target picture" (p. 260), leading the
reader to suppose that the judges were informed of
-the identity of the target at the time of rating. In fact,
a judge was presented with a dream transcript and a
pool of potential targets and was asked to rate the
- degree of similarity between the transcript and each
member of the pool, while being unaware of which
member had been the target. Third, there was a sim-
ilarly, though more obscurely, misleading description
of how ratings were obtained from the dreamer.
This misinformation was followed by even more
serious misrepresentation of the research and, by im-
plication, of the competence of the researchers. Zusne
and Jones (1982) wrote that Ullman and Krippner
(1978) had found that dreamers were not influenced
telepathically unless they knew in advance that an
attempt would be made to influence them. This led,
they wrote, to the subject's being "primed prior to
going to sleep" through the experimenter's
preparing the receiver through experiences that were related
to the content of the picture to be telepathically transmitted
during the night. Thus, when the picture was Van Gogh's
Corridor of the St. Paul Hospital, which depicts a lonely
figure in the hallways of a mental hospital, the receiver (I)
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heard Rosza's Spellbound played on a phonograph; (2) heard
the monitor laugh hysterically in the room; (3) was addressed
as "Mr. Van Gogh" by the monitor; (4) was shown paintings
done by mental patients; (5) was given a pill and a glass of
water, and (6) was daubed with a piece of cotton dipped in
acetone. The receiver was an English "sensitive," but it is
obvious that no psychic sensitivity %inn required to figure
out the general content of the picture and to product an
appropriate report, whether any dreams were actually seen
or not. (pp. 260-261)
? If researchers were to report positive results of
the experiment described here by Zusne and Jones
and were to claim that it provided some positive ev-
idence of ESP, what would a reader conclude? Surely,
that the researchers were completely incompetent, but
probably not that they were dishonest. For dishonesty
to take such a frank and transparent form is hardly
credible.
Incompetence of the researchers is not, however,
a proper inference. The simple fact, which anyone
can easily verify, is that the account Zusne and Jones
gave of the experiment is grossly inaccurate. What
Zusne and Jones have done is to describe (for one
specific night of the experiment) some of the stimuli
provided to the dreamer the next morning, after his
dreams had been recorded and his night's sleep was
over. Zusne and Jones erroneously stated that these
stimuli were provided before the night's sleep, to prime
the subject to have or falsely report having the desired
kind of dream. The correct sequence of events was
quite clearly stated in the brief reference Zusne and
Jones cited (Ullman & Krippner, 1978), as well as in
the original research report (ICrippner, Honorton, &
Ullman, 1972).
I can understand and sympathize with Zusne and
Jones's error. The experiment they cited is one in
which the nocturnal dreamer was seeking to dream
in response to a set of stimuli to be created and pre-
sented to him the next morning. As may be seen in
Table I, results from such precognitive sessions (all
done with a single subject) were especially strong, This
apparent transcendence of time as well as space makes
the precognitive findings seem at least doubly impos-
sible to most of us. An easy misreading, therefore, on
initially scanning the research report, would be to
suppose the stimuli to have been presented partly in
advance (because some parts obviously involved a
waking subject) and partly during sleep.
This erroneous reading on which Zusne and
Jones based their account could easily have been cor-
rected by a more careful rereading. In dealing with
other topics, they might have realized the improba-
bility that researchers could have been so grossly in-
competent and could have checked the accuracy of
their statements before publishing them. Zusne and
Jones are not alone in this tendency to quick-misper-
ception of parapsychological research through pre-
IA-RDP96-00789R
?mxption.aacti2tc,itidi
Alcock's book. Alcock
Zusne and Jones's book
the book-review jou
ical Association, and he
error, even though very
Maimonides research
Discussion
The experiments at the
on the possibility of ES
ful attention from
reason, are interested in
believers in the impossi
lenge to skill in detecti
understanding of other
can conceive that ESP
suggestions about some
its appearance or absen
investigating it.
This attention is n
chologists whose knowl
comes from the books
that purport to review
Some of those books c
fitinOf the facts
WAY neglect them. I
Ii??e of these books has
in the Maimonides ex
evam only to the hypo
priate statistical reasoni
calculations from the pu
that the Maimonides ex
and execution. I have
design flaw that prevents
the experiments; and the
olated at one session, as
the basis of the full info
inal report. (Neither o
mentioned in any of th
here, an indication of
correct information abo
ments.)
Readers who doubt
treme as I have pictur
sources I have referred t
reduced by familiarity
research (1981, 1984). In
similar misrepresentatio
-ness of procedures of
Psychologists would not be thought to have nearly the
strength of preconceptioli that many are known to
have about ESP. How miich more likely, then, faLsi-
laden a topic as ESP is for
e earlier article, Bradley
ental evidence (for college
psychologists) that confi-
03100140001-2
?we have already seen it in
(1983) wrote the review of
or Contemporary Psychology,
of the American Psycholog-
'd not mention this egregious
slight acquaintance with the
ould suffice to detect it.
aimonides Medical Center
in dreams dearly merit care-
ologists who, for whatever
the question of ESP. To firm
ility of ESP, they pose a dial-
experimental flaws or to the
urces of error. To those who
ight be possible, they convey
f the conditions influencing
and about techniques for
t likely to be given by psy- .
ge about the experiments
y their fellow psychologists
parapsychological research.
ge in nearly incredible fal-
ut the experiments; others
lieve it is fair to say that
rrectly identified any defect
ments other than ones rel-
esis of fraud or on inappro-
g (easily remedied by new
fished data). I do not mean
merits are models of design
ready called attention to a
sensitive analysis of some of
control procedures were vi-
ers (1984) pointed out on
tion supplied in the orig-
these genuine defects was
five books I have reviewed
eir authors' general lack of
the Maimonides experi-
t the falsification is as ex-
it need only consult the
. Their doubt might also be
th some of James Bradley's
's 1984 article, he reported
of fact on a topic, robust-
'cal inference, on which
fic:ation on so emotional'
many psychologists! In
(1981) presented experi
students, in this case, no
1228
November 1985 American Psychologist
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den= in the correctness of one's own erroneous opin-
ions is positively correlated with the degree of expertise
one believes oneself to have in the field of knowledge
within which the erroneous opinion falls. This finding
may help in understanding why the authors of some
of these books did not find it necessary to consider
critically their own erroneous statements.
A very considerable proportion of psychologists
have a potential interest in the question of ESP. In a
recent survey (Wagner & Mon net, 1979) of university
professors in various fields 34% of psycholcw6s-ts were
found to consider ESP tither.an sstablislisstfactot.4.
ay possibility, exactly the_same.pr.oponion-as.con,
sidered it an impoiiibility. In this survey, psychologists
Trs rec''--R-.1enily expressed a positive opinion than did
members of other disciplines, a finding that may be
attributable to psychologists' better understanding of
sources of error in human judgment. There seems to
be no equally sound reason for the curious fact that
psychologists differed overwhelmingly from others in
their tendency to consider ESP an impossibility. Of
natural scientists, only 3% checked that opinion; of
the 166 professors in other social sciences, not a single
one did.
Both of these groups of psychologists have been
ill served by the apparently scholarly books that seem
to convey information about the dream experiments.
The same may be said about some other lines of para-
psychological research. Interested readers might well
consult the original sources and form their own judg-
ments.
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logical perspective. New York: Pergamon Press.
Alcock, J. E. (1983). Bringing anomalies back into psychology.
Contemporary Psychology. 28. 351-352.
Ayeroff. F., & Abelson, R. P. (1976). ESP and ESB: Belief in personal
sucorms at mental telepathy. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology: 34.240-247.
Belvedere, E, & Foulkes, D. (1971). Telepathy and dreams: A failure
to replicate. Perceptual and Maar Skills. 33. 783-789.
Blackmore, S. J. (1984). A psychological theory of the out-of-body
experience. Journal of Parapsychology 48, 201-218.
Bradley., J. V. (1981). Overconfidence in ignorant experts. Bulletin
of the Psychonomic Society, 17, 82-84.
Bradley, J. V. (1984). Antinonrobustness: A ease study in the so-
ciology of science. B.ulittin of the Psychonoenic Society 22. 463-
466.
Braud, W. (1977). Long-distance dream and presleep telepathy. In
J. D. Morris, W. G. Roll, & R.. L Morris (Eds.), Research in
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Chikl, I. L, Kanthamani, H., & Sweeney, V. M. (1977). A simplified
experiment in dream telepathy. In J. D. Morris, W. G. Roil, &
R. L. Morris (Eds.), Research in parapsychology 1976 (pp. 91-
93). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow.
Crandall, 1. E.. & Hite, D. D. (1983). Psi-missing and dispLicement:
Evidence for improperly focused psi? Journal of the American
Society for Psychical Research. 77.209-228.
Foulkes. D., Belvedere, E., Masters, R. E L., Houston, J., Krippner,
S., Honorton, C., & Ullman, M. (1972). Long-distance "sensory-
bombardment" ESP in dreams: A failure to replicate. Perceptual
and Motor Skills. 35,731-734.
Globus, G., Knapp, P., Skinner, J., & Heaky, J. (1968). An appraisal
of telepathic communication in dreams. Psychophysiology 4,365,
Hall, C. (1967). Expaimente zur telepathischen Beeinflussung von
Treumen. (Experiments on telepathic influence on dreams).
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Hansel, C. E. M. (1980). ESP and parapsychology A critical rt.
evaluation. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.
Honorton, C., Krippner, S., & Ullman. M. (1972). Tekpathic per-
ception of art prints under two conditions. Proceedings of the
80th Annual Converuion of the American Psychological Associ-
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Hyman, R. (1985). The ganrfeld psi experiment: A critical appraisal.
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Irwin, H. J. (1979). Psi and the mind: An information processing
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rsornalistic psychology: A study
ior and erperienix.Hillsdale,
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Perceptual end Motor Skills, 1981, 52, 727-732. C) Perceptual and Motor Skills 1981
LUCID DREAMING VERIFIED BY VOLITIONAL COMMUNICATION
DURING REM SLEEP1
STEPHEN P. LA BERGE, LYNN E. NAGEL, WILLIAM C. DEMENT,
AND VINCENT P. ZARCONE, JR.
Stanford University
Summary.?The occurrence of lucid dreaming (dreaming while being con-
scious that one is dreaming) has been verified for 5 selected subjects who
signaled that they knew they were dreaming while continuing to dream during
unequivocal REM sleep. The signals consisted of particular dream actions
having observable concomitants and were performed in accordance with pre-
sleep agreement. The ability of proficient lucid dreamers to signal in this
matter makes possible a new approach to dream research?such subjects, while
lucid, could carry out diverse dream experiments marking the exact time of
particular dream events, allowing derivation of precise psychophysiological
correlations and methodical testing of hypotheses.
That we sometimes dream while knowing that we are dreaming was first
noted by Aristotle. According to accounts of conscious or "lucid" dreaming,
as this phenomenon is commonly termed, the dreamer can possess a conscious-
ness fully comparable in coherence, clarity, and cognitive complexity to that
of the waking state, while continuing to dream vividly (Van Eeden, 1913;
Brown, 1936; Green, 1968; Tart, 1979; LaBerge, 1980b). As a result of
theoretical assumptions about the nature of dreaming, contemporary dream re-
searchers have questioned whether these experiences take place during sleep
or during brief periods of hallucinatory wakefulness. The purpose of the
present study was to give an empirical answer to this question by determining
the physiological conditions in which lucid dreaming occurs.
Our experimental approach was suggested by previous investigations (An-
trobus, et al., 1965; Salarny, 1970; Brown & Cartwright, 1978), showing that
sleeping subjects are sometimes able to produce behavioral responses highly
correlated with dreaming. Since these subjects have nor, according to Cart-
wright (1978), been conscious of making the responses, these earlier studies
do not provide evidence for voluntary action (and thus, reflective conscious-
ness) during sleep. However, we reasoned that what could be done uncon-
sciously could also be done consciously.
The experience of one of us (S.P.L.) indicated that, if subjects became
aware they were dreaming, they could also remember to perform previously
'The writing of this manuscript was supported, in part, by the Holmes Center for Re-
search in Holistic Healing. We are grateful to Drs. J. van den Hoed and R. Coleman
for helpful comments and Mr. R. Baldwin, Ms. S. Bornstein, and Mr. S. Coburn for
expert technical assistance. Request reprints from Stephen P. LaBerge, Ph.D., Sleep
Research Center, Stanford University, School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305.
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728 S. P. LA BERGE, ET AL.
intended dream actions. Because dreamed gaze and limb
times shown very good correlations with polygraphically r
meats and muscle activation (Rechrschaffen, 1973), it see
lucid dreamers could signal that they knew they were dr
intentional dream actions having observable physiological c
METHOD AND RESULTS
Five subcjects, trained in the method of lucid dream in
described by LaBerge (1980c), were selected on the basis
ability to have lucid dreams on demand, and studied for 2 to
nights (see Table 1). Standard polysomnograms (Rech
1968), i.e., electroencephalogram (EEG), electro-oculogram
electromyogram (EMG), were recorded, as well as left and
(for signaling). The subjects attempted to follow a predete
of signaling whenever they became aware that they were drea
of signals were specified, generally consisting of a combina
eye movements and a pattern of left and right dream-fist de
jects demonstrated the signals during pre-recording calibratio
not to practice further while awake.
In the course of the study, 35 lucid dreams were repor
spontaneous awakening from various stages of sleep as follows
ment (REM) sleep in 32 cases, non-REM (NREM) Stage
ing the transition from NREM Stage 2 to REM once.
The subjects reported signaling during 30 of these luci
each recording, the reports mentioning signals were submitte
respective polysomnogram to a judge uninformed of the tim
TABLE 1
SUMMARY OP LUCID DREAM SIGNALING EXPERIME
Subject
(age, sex)
Nights
recorded
Lucid dreams reported
(sleep stage)
tions have some-
orded eye move-
ed plausible that
ing by means of
relates.
uaion (MILD)
of their claimed
0 nonconsecutive
affen & Kates,
EOG), and thin
right wrist EMG
mined procedure
ing. A variety
tion of dreamed
aches. The sub-
but were asked
subsequent to
rapid-eye-move-
twice, and dur-
dreams. After
along with the
s of the reports.
ucid dream signals
erifieds/reported
S.L. ( 32 yr., M)
20
17 (REM)
14/15
R.K. (28 yr., M)
4
5 (REM)
3/5
L.L. (34 yr., F)
2
1 (REM)
0/0
2 (NREM-1)
0+/1
B.K. (27 yr., F)
6
6 (REM)
5/6
1 (NREM-2/REM)++
0/0
S.P. (26 yr., M)
2
2 (REM)
2/2
*Blindly matched for correspondence between reported and observed s
+On awakening from NREM Stage 1 sleep (2 min. after having awak
the subject reported performing the agreed-upon signal during a vivid
dream. However, neither her EOG nor wrist EMG showed any sig
signals, as might be expected from the normal lack of correspond
gaze and eye movements during descending Stage 1 sleep (Rechtsch
+ +The subject awoke, in this case, during the transition from
ignals.
ed from REM),
and lengthy lucid
of the reported
between dream
fen, 1973).
Stage 2 to REM.
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LUCID DREAMING 729
The judge was asked to determine whether one (or none) of the polysom-
nographic epochs corresponded with the reported lucid dream signal. In 24
cases, the judge was able to select the appropriate 30-sec. epochs (out of
about 1000 per polysomnogram) on the basis of correspondence between re-
ported and observed signals (Table 1). The probability that the selections
were correct by chance alone is astronomically small. All signals associated
with lucid dream reports occurred during epochs of unambiguous REM sleep
scored according to the standard criteria (Rechtschaffen & Kales, 1968). The
lucid dream signals were followed by an average of 1 min. (range: 5 to 450
sec.) of uninterrupted REM sleep.
Inspection of the polysomnographic epochs preceding the lucid dream
signal reports suggested the failures with blind matching (the "false nega-
tives") were due to high baseline EOG and wrist EMG activity, resulting in
an unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio. However, no clear instances of signals
were observed except where reported, i.e., there were no "false positives." On
the other hand, in many cases, the reported signals were unequivocal (see Figs.
1 and 2). The most reliable signal was a series of extreme horizontal eye
movements (left, right, left, right.)
EEG ?,w,
EMG
chin
EMG
isft
wrist
mist
LLL L L I.
tlf
1
FIG. 1. Polygraph record of a subject signaling that he knows he is dreaming. The
subject awoke approximately 20 sec. after this excerpt and reported recognizing that he
was dreaming and performing the agreed upon signal in the dream, i.e., he directed his
dream gaze upwards momentarily (U) and then executed a sequence of dreamed left (L)
and right (R) fist clenches, Morse code for S.L., the subject's initials. Note that unlike
the predominantly horizontal eye movements (above right), the extreme upward eye
movement (U) produces characteristic artifact in the EEG channel. All three of the
scoring criteria for REM sleep are met: low amplitude chin EMG, episodic REMs, and
low-voltage, mixed-frequency EEG (Rechtschaffen & Kates, 1968). The EEG shows
occasional 10-Hz (alpha) activity as is normal during REM sleep (Rechtschaffen, 1973);
integration of the alpha band-pass filtered EEG showed the amount of alpha activity
during the lucid dream did not significantly differ from that during the preceding non-
lucid portion of the REM period. (Calibrations: 50AV; 5 sec-)
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730 S. P. LA BERGE, ET AL.
The most complicated signal (shown in Fig. 1) consi
ward dream-eye movement followed by a series of left (
dream-fist clenches in the order "LLL LRLL." This segue
the subject's initials in Morse code (LLL = . . . = S;
L). The complexity of this signal argues against the poss
discharges might be spontaneous.
That all cases of lucid dream signaling occurred durin
REM sleep specifies, to a certain extent, the physiology o
"a relatively low voltage, mixed frequency EEG in conjun
REMs and low amplitude electromyogram (EMG)" (R
1968). This definition allows variation in the three par
of which will be reported elsewhere. In brief, the variatio
terns of the lucid dream polysomnograms were typical
sporadic "saw-tooth" waves as well as alpha and theta rhy
fulness. The occasional, but normal, appearance of alph
wave usually associated with wakefulness), in the EEG d
raises the possibility that lucid dreaming could occur duni
tial arousals or "micro-awakenings" (Schwartz & Lefebvre,
alpha rhythm need not be present during lucid dream si
by Fig. 2. Furthermore, some of the lucid dreams were
ruling out any explanation based on the notion of brief int
ness.
(A) AWAKE
G 4/04$44444444044644441110014
(B) LUCID DREAM
EQ 101 h P'triON'A,44.001441044111461,14,viii'!.
EMG
wrist
ed of a single up-
) and right (R)
cc is equivalent to
ility that the EMG
epochs scored as
lucid dreaming as
ion with episodic
tschaffen & Kales,
eters, the details
in the EEG pat-
f REM sleep, i.e.,
, and not wake-
rhythm (a brain
ing REM periods
g momentary par-
1973). However,
aling, as is shown
eral minutes long,
sions of wakeful-
FIG. 2. Comparison of EEG (C3/A2) during lucid dream si
mediately after awakening (A). The continuous waking alpha (
this subjea is clearly distinct from the mixed frequency patterns
Although other EEG patterns are compatible with wakefulness, the
the pattern normally exhibited when subjects awaken from sleep.
activity prominent in the lucid dream sample (B) is highly charact
(Calibrations: 50 ?V; 1 sec.)
DISCUSSION
How do we know that the subjects were "really asleep' when they com-
municated the signals? If we allow perception of the external world as a
ing (B) and im-
10 Hz) activity for
during REM sleep.
tracing illustrated is
e 2- to 4-Hz EEG
istic of REM sleep.
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LUCID DREAMING 731
criterion of being awake, we can conclude the subjects were indeed asleep:
Although they knew they were in the laboratory, this knowledge was a mat-
ter of memory, not perception; upon awakening, they reported having been
totally in the dream world and not in sensory contact with the external world.
Neither were the subjects merely not attending to the environment, e.g., as
when absorbed in reading or daydreaming; according to their reports, they were
specifically aware of the absence of sensory input from the external world. If
subjects were to claim to have been awake while showing physiological signs
of sleep, or vice versa, we might doubt their subjective reports. However, in
the present case, the subjective accounts and physiological measures are in clear
agreement, and it would be extremely unparsimonious to suppose that subjects
who believed themselves to be asleep while showing physiological indications
of sleep were actually awake.
The two principal conclusions of this study are that lucid dreaming can
occur during REM sleep and that it is possible for lucid dreamers to signal
intentionally to the environment while continuing to dream. These findings
have both theoretical and practical consequences. The first result shows that
under certain circumstances, dream cognition during REM sleep can be much
more reflective and rational than has been commonly assumed. Evidence in-
dicating that lucid dreaming is a learnable skill (LaBerge, 1979, 1980a, 1980b,
1980c), taken with the second result, suggests the feasibility of a new ap-
proach to dream research: lucidly dreaming subjects could carry out diverse
experiments marking the exact time of occurrence of particular dream events,
which would allow the derivation of precise psychophysiological correlations
aad methodical testing of hypotheses.
REFERENCES
ANTROBUS, J. S., ANIRosus, J. S., & FISHER, C Discrimination of dreaming and non-
dreaming sleep. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1965, 12, 395-401.
BROWN, A. E. Dreams in which the dreamer knows he is asleep. Journal of Abnormal
and Social Psychology, 1936, 31, 59-66.
BROWN, J. N., & CARTWRIGHT, R. Locating NREM dreaming through instrumental
responses. Psychophysiology, 1978, 15, 35-39:
CARTWRIGHT, R. [Response to review of Brown and Cartwright (1978).] Sleep
Reviews, 1978, 166, 30.
GREEN, C Lucid dreams. London: Hamilton, 1968.
LABERGE, S. Lucid dreaming: some personal observations. Sleep Research, 1979, 8,
153.
LABERGE, S. P. Induction of lucid dreams. Sleep Research, 1980, 9, 138. (a)
LABERGE, S. P. Lucid dreaming: an exploratory study of consciousness during sleep.
Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford Univer., 1980. (University Microfilms International,
80-24, 691) (b)
LABERGE, S. P. Lucid dreaming as a learnable skill: a case study. Perceptual and Motor
Skills, 1980, 51, 1039-1042. (c)
RECHTSCHAFFEN, A. The psychophysiology of mental activity during sleep. In F. J.
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McGuigan & R. A. Schoonover (Eds.), The psychophysiology of thinking. New
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RECHTSCHAFFBN, A., & 1CALEs, A. (Eds.) A manual of standa,iiized terminology,
techniques and scoring system for sleep stages of human smby cu. Washington,
D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1968. (N ional Institute of
Health Publication No. 204)
SALAWI, J. Instrumental responding to internal cues associated with REM sleep. Psy-
chonomic Science, 1970, 18, 342-343.
ScHwArrz, B. A., & LEFEBVRE, A. Contacts veille/P.M.O. II: Les P.M.O. morcelees.
Revue d'Electroencepbalographie et de Neurophysiologie Clinics, 1973. 3, 165-
176.
TART, C. S. From spontaneous event to lucidity: a review of attempts t control nocturnal
dreaming. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of dreams. New York: Van
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VANEEDEN, F. A. A study of dreams. Proceedings of the Society for sychical Research,
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Accepted April 7, 1981.
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IC I.,nrnal a
COGNITION AND
DREAM RESEARCH
Edited by
Robert E. Haskell, Ph.D.
The
Journal of
Mind and Behavior
SPECIAL ISSUE
Volume 7, Nunthem 2 and 3
SI g and S.,.,. 1Ynn. Volume 7. Number, 2 and I
Paw, 251 11211 258 11281
ISSN 0271 0117
ISBN 0.9/01115 02 7
Lucid Dreaming: Physiological Correlates
of Consciousness during REM Sleep
Stephen LaBerge
Stanford University and The Saybrook Institute
Lynne Levitan and William C. Dement
Stanford University
251 11211
Reports of lucid dreaming (dreaming while being conscious that one is dreaming) were
verified for I 3 selected subjects who signaled by means of voluntary eye-movements that
they knew they were dreaming while continuing to dream during unequivocal REM sleep.
Physiological analysis of the resulting 76 signal-verified lucid dreams (SVLDs) revealed
that elevated levels of automatic nervous system activity reliably occured both during
and 30 seconds preceding the onset of SVLDs, implicating physiological activation as
a necessary condition for reflective consciousness during REM dreaming. The ability of
proficient lucid dreamers to deliberately perform dream actions in accordance with pre.
sleep agreement makes possible the methodical and precise determination of psycho-
physiological correspondence during REM dreaming.
It is not the usual case for dreamers to know that they are dreaming while
they are dreaming. Nevertheless, significant exceptions sometimes occur when
dreamers realize while dreaming that they are dreaming. Although lucid
dreaming, as this phenomenon is called, has been known since the time of
Aristotle, it has only recently become the subject of scientific inquiry (LaBerge,
I985a). Studies in our laboratory and elsewhere have demonstrated that lucid
dreams occur almost exclusively during REM sleep (Dane, 1983; Fenwick,
Schatzman, Worsley, Adams, Stone, and Baker, 1984; Hearne, 1978; LaBerge,
Nagel, Dement, and Zarcone, 1981; Tyson, Ogilvie, and Hunt, 1984).
However, until now little light has been shed on the detailed physiology of
dream lucidity. The purpose of the present study was to investigate
physiological correlates of REM lucid dreams.
The volunteer subjects were seven males and six females (age ranging from
The authors would like to thank the Institute of Human Development for financial support.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., Sleep Research Center,'Stan-
ford University, Stanford, California 94305.
Swim! anii Stumm 'r 198i
Approvea ror Keibase z000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2
252 1122]
LaBERGE/LEVITAN/DEMENI12[1.1r?qQLQQY OF LUCID DREAMING
Approved For Release 2000/08/08 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003100140001-2
21-51; mean= 28), trained in the MILD technique of lucid dream induction
(see LaBerge, 1980). Subjects were selected on the basis of their claimed abil-
ity to have lucid dreams on demand and were studied in a sleep laboratory
for 2-25 non-consecutive nights. Standard polysomnograms (Rechtschaffen
and Kales, 1968) (i.e., electroencephalogram [EEG], electro-oculogram [E0G1,
and chin electromyogram [EMO]) were recorded, as well as, in certain cases,
a variety of additional physiological measures.
Before bedtime on recording nights subjects were instructed to immediately
signal whenever they realized they were dreaming. A variety of signals were
specified, typically two pairs of extreme horizontal eye-movements (left, right,
i. rive_cLakiditional instructions to carry,
out specific activities in the dream state once they became lucid.
In the course of the study, 88 lucid dreams were reported subsequent to
spontaneous awakenings from the following stages of sleep, scored according
to the standard criteria (Rechtschaffen and Kales, 1968): REM in 83 cases
(94.3%), NREM Stage-I in four cases (4.5%), and at the transition between
NREM Stage-2 and REM in one case (1.1%). The subjects reported signaling
in 80 cases (90.9%), all following REM awakenings (96.4% of the REM reports).
After each recording, reported lucid dream signals were verified by means
of a blind judging procedure previously detailed elsewhere (LaBerge et al.,
1981). Briefly, the reports mentioning lucidity signals were submitted along
with the respective polysomnograms to a judge who attempted to determine
which 30" epoch of the physiological records corresponded to a given reported
signal. The judge (blind to the times the reports were made) successfully
matched 76 (95%) of the reported signals to an epoch from the correct REM
period. The probability that such a large number of matches could have been
made by chance is infinitesmally small.
The 13 subjects contributed varying numbers of signal-validated lucid
dreams (SVLDs) ranging from 1-25, each with the median number of SVLDs
per subject being four. Although four subjects furnished a single SVLD each
while another two subjects together supplied 43 (56% of the total), the number
of SVLDs contributed by the two sexes did not significantly differ. Potential
problems arising from the unequal N of observations per subject were averted
by statistically analysing summary scores for all physiological variables (i.e.,
the mean of each subject's mean values, yielding a maximum N=13).
The polysomnograms corresponding to each of the SVLDs were sleep-
staged. Additionally, every SVLD REM period was divided into 30 second
epochs aligned with the lucidity onset signal; up to 60 epochs of data from
the preceding (non-lucid) REM period and 15 epochs from the lucid dream
were collected. For each epoch, sleep stage (STATE) was scored and rapid
eye movements (EM) were counted; if scalp skin-potential responses were
observable as artifacts in the EEG, these were also counted (SP). Heart rate
? ? l?
253 [123] .
(HR) and respiration rate (RR) were also determined for SVLDs recorded
with the relevant measures.
For the first lucid epoch (during signals), STATE was unequivocal REM
in 70 cases (92%). The remaining six SVLDs were less than 30" long and hence
technically unscorable by the orthodox (Rechtshaffen and Kales, 1968) criteria.
For these cases, the entire SVLD was treated as a single epoch and scored
as if they were of standard length; with this modification, all qualified as REM.
The lucid dream signals were followed by an average of 115 seconds (range:
5 to 490 seconds) of uninterrupted REM sleep.
Anecodotal reports indicate that lucid dreams are sometimes initiated from
-e-F4-1-968-
LaBerge, 1985a). Since lucid dreams initiated in these two ways would be ex-
pected to differ physiologically, SVLDs were dichotomously classified as either
"Wake-initiated" (WILD) or "Dream-initiated" (DILD), depending on whether
or not the reports mentioned a transient awakening (i.e., conscious percep-
tion of the external environment). Fifty-five (72%) of the SVLDs were classified
as DILDs and the remaining 21(28%) as WILDs. For all 13 subjects, DILDs
were more common than WILDs (binomial test, p0
Respiration Rate (RR)
RRL > RRN
RRLND >
(t(12)=4.36;
It(12)=3.93;
107)=4.07;
(t(7)=4.49;
K.00011
p SPN
(08)=3.00;
K.011
SPLND >
[08)=2.41;
K.011
epochs of SVLD REM periods are characterized by significantly higher levels
of physiological activation than are epochs of preceding non-lucid REM from
the same REM period (see Table 1).
In order to follow the temporal variations of physiology correlated with
the development and initiation of lucidity, for each SVLD REM period the
physiological variables were converted to Z-scores and averaged across dreams
and subjects. Figure 3 is a histogram of the resultant mean Z-scores for the
ten minutes before and the five minutes after the initiation of lucidity. Note
the highly significant increases in physiological activation during the 30
seconds before and after lucidity onset.
Physiological data (EM, RR, HR, and SP) were scored for 61 control non-lucid
REM periods (NLREMPs), derived from the same 13 subjects, in order to allow
comparison with SVLDs (LDRE1v1Ps). Mean values for EM and SP were signifi-
cantly higher for LDREMPs than NLREMP controls (RR and HR did not differ).
If lucid dream probability (LDPROB) were constant across time during REM
periods, lucid dreams should occur most frequently in the first few minutes
of REM. On this hypothesis, LDPROB should be a monotonically decreas-
ing function of time into REM, following the survivor function of mean REM
period lengths (REMLEN). Although REMLEN proved to be an excellent
predictor of LDPROB (r= .97, p