Authors Jayne Gackenbach and Jane Bosveld tackle lucid dreaming at many, many different angles. While they explore the basic concepts of dreaming, what dreams are, interpretation, and techniques for working with your dreams on up to controlling your dreams via lucid dreaming, they go far beyond this.

The authors talk extensively on the connection between dreams and lucid dreaming to positive visualization, the power of the mind to heal the body, the similarities between meditation and the dream state, near-death and out of body experiences, and even the dreaded UFO abduction story. It is the discussion of all these additional subjects in relation to dreams that makes this book worth reading.

If you have an aversion to relate lucid dreaming with eastern mysticism or meditation, than steer clear of this book! It becomes apparent early on that the authors are fascinated by meditation and they relate its practice to lucid dreaming constantly throughout the book, more than any other subject mentioned above.

This culminates in the chapter entitled “Dreaming Buddhas” where we are given an in depth analysis of meditative practices, techniques, the results and the meditation experience itself as it relates to the higher states of consciousness present in both lucid dreaming and meditation.

One aspect of this book I’ve not seen in others is the citation of so many studies and research programs on lucid dreaming! The writing is liberally sprinkled again and again with stories of people using of lucid dreaming in many contexts I had never heard much about before. This includes the skater who used his lucidity to perfect his skating moves or people who used the lucid experience to focus on healing their bodies, which led to a corresponding change in their actual physical body.

I commend the authors for citing dozens of scientific studies and research projects on lucid dreaming as a basis for much of the material in this book. It’s great to see this in a book on dreams – and rare too, as most of the books on dreams are just…well, don’t get me started on that subject!

Yet it drives me crazy that they’re paradoxically and simultaneously guilty of referring to uncited sources throughout the book. I don’t see how you can get away with writing lines like “Two studies have found that people who have near death experience’s are more likely experience dream lucidity,” and then note cite the source or give any further informationon the study. I saw examples of this throughout the book, side by side with cited examples. What gives?

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ULTIMATELY, this book is about more than lucid dreaming. It’s about taking in our experience of reality and trying to make sense of it. Lucid dreaming then becomes just one piece of a bigger puzzle the authors navigate through in trying to solve the biggest questions of them all.

Buy the Control Your Dreams book from Amazon.com

This theory has been put together by psychologist Joe Griffin, co-author of the book Dreaming Reality, as well as the Director of Studies at MindsField college, and a big player in the field of psychotherapy in general, evidently.

I encourage you to take some time to read the entire theory as put forth on their website. I found it fascinating, well thought-out, and thought-provoking. I also appreciate that the theory specifically addresses lucid dreaming as a real phenomenon.

So What is the Expectatation Fulfilment Theory of Dreaming?

The website states 3 premises that summarize the theory:

• “Dreams are metaphorical translations of waking expectations”.

• “But only expectations that cause emotional arousals that are not acted upon during the day become dreams during sleep.”

• “Dreaming deactivates that emotional arousal by completing the expectation pattern metaphorically, freeing the brain to respond afresh to each new day.”

Below are the most interesting points I see in regards to this theory of dreaming.

Read up on the Why We Dream website and join in with what you think!

On Dream Interpretation and The Meaning of Dreams

“The key to identifying what the dream was about is its emotion.”

I think this is the most meaningful advice ever in regards to dream interpretation.

On Lucid Dreaming

“Theories of dreaming that do not allow for occasional lucidity are, necessarily, incorrect or incomplete, because lucid dreaming is an acknowledged phenomenon. Our view of the REM state and the function of dreaming does not exclude lucidity in dreams.”

“However, lucid dreaming is a fairly volatile and rare phenomenon, even for those who have experienced it, and so such hopes have not been realised.”

“Lucid dreaming occurs in the REM state like any other phenomenon involving memory, metaphor and imagination. The same effects can be achieved through hypnosis, a focussed state of attention that artificially accesses the REM state. Knowledge of how to do this has been around for perhaps 40,000 thousand years.””

Ah! Finally – a theory that actually addresses lucid dreaming without dismissing it!

But wait! Doesn’t that last bit almost sound like a dig at lucid dreaming?” i.e. “The same effects can be achieved through hypnosis…” Huh?

On FLYING in Lucid Dreaming

This one caught me off guard!

The author implies that flying in a lucid dream is common because we are touching upon an ancient, pre-mammalian template in our brains for…swimming!

To quote:

“They describe their limbs as pulling or propelling them through the air, as though swimming. It’s as if an ancient premammalian template for swimming, left over from a time when our far distant ancestors lived in the oceans, is still able to be co-opted by the brain for a metaphor.”

On the Similarities Between Dreaming and Hypnosis

They state 3 similarities between the two states:

Amnesia – Time Distortion – Trance Logic

I love this last term, trance logic.

It aptly describes how when dreaming and when hypnotized, people accept whatever is going on. It’s as if there’s no backdrop of what’s normal to compare the experiences against, and thus everything is accepted as it is, without question, no matter how absurd.

Side note : Based on these three points, this list can also be expanded as similarities between dreaming, hypnosis, and tripping.

On The Relationship Between Dreams and Depression

This theory states that excessive dream sleep and “reduced slow-wave sleep” causes depression. Check out their video about dreaming and depression.

On Dreams Being Actually Not All That Bizarre

This one surprised me too. The author claims that dreams are actually overwhelmingly NOT bizarre; most dreams are dreams of our routine experiences. We simply tend to remember the incredibly strange dreams, and forget the rest.

Unless it’s just true that I forget most of my dreams because they’re boring, this one just doesn’t vibe with what’s in my dream journal, so I have am skeptical about this one.

On Dreaming and…(not) Going Insane?

One point that is actually pretty funny is that Joe Griffin claims that dreaming keeps us from going insane. By derousing the autonomic nervous system every night, our stress levels don’t overwhelm us to the point of insanity. Whew – That’s a relief.

Questions I have about this theory

If this theory is right, it would be possible to create a scenario to cause an unfulfilled emotion that would then, by default, be fulfilled within that night’s dreams.

So couldn’t we purposely create unfulfilled emotions to cause a certain metaphor in the dream? To in effect, pre-emptively control our dreams?

But then how can you create an emotion and not fulfill it, for certain, before going to bed?

And then how can you actively measure if an emotion is even fulfilled?

Questions I would like to ask Joe Griffin in an interview

1) Is there a relationship between the mechanism behind dreams and the mechanism behind individual psychedelic experiences? Could the content of the “trip” be determined in the same way our dreams are i.e. from the days un-fulfilled emotional arousals to the nervous system?

2) Is there a connection between having many dreams each night and then waking up with headaches? Could I actually be causing my headaches by intensifying or prolonging the REM state with my intention to have, remember, and control my dreams?

3) Can you explain what you mean when you equate the effects of lucid dreaming and hypnosis? Are you saying that the experience achieved through lucid dreaming can be achieved through hypnosis?

What do you think about this theory of dreaming?