Objective Vs. Subjective Approaches to Investigating Dream Lucidity: A Case for the Subjective

Abstract

In lucid dreams we are dealing very much with images and ideas, feelings and imagination, desire and will. Although, obviously, statistics can be applied there is much scope for discussion on a literary rather than a mathematical level though it is harder to appear scientific in some contexts unless figures can be quoted. I do realize that the phenomenon of lucid dreams is one which is particularly susceptible to suggestion and that objective verification is even more important than usual but at the same time we are at the beginning of the exploration of the subject and provided reported observations are suitably qualified the stimulating effect of exciting discoveries can be retained without embedding a whole collection of misguided preconceptions into the lore of lucid dreams as seems to be the case with astral projection and ritual magic.