" Dreams, Illusions, Bubbles, Shadows": Awareness of"Unreality" While Dreaming Among Chinese College Students

Abstract

In this somewhat abbreviated version of the original paper, we focus on three dreams from mainland China which are even closer to the minimalist definition of dream lucidity (awareness of dreaming while dreaming) than those published in Walters’ and Dentan’s (1985) article, "Are Lucid Dreams Universal? Two Unequivocal Cases. . . ." In the 1985 article, the authors point out that "the foregoing data are consonant with the speculation that lucid dreaming is a ‘universal,’ found in all societies regardless of whether it is valued in a society." Although the authors call the dreams presented here "quasi lucid" (and Charles Tart might call them "dreaming-awareness" dreams), the authors’ quasi lucid definition is the same as the minimalist definition of lucidity used for most laboratory or survey work. The first dream, especially, fits minimalist standards because of the phrase, "I knew I was having a dream."