What is Possible in a Lucid Dream? Results of the April, 1987 OMNI Experiment

Abstract

About 1,000 people from across the nation responded to us about an experiment we designed for OMNI Magazine on lucid dreaming which appeared in the April 1987 issue. In the experiment we suggested that the participants do the tasks as often as possible over a two week period before they filled out the accompanying questionnaire (a copy of the questionnaire is available in Table 1 of the Appendix to this article). It was also pointed out that some people may need to practice the technique for weeks before getting results, while others may succeed on the first night. Finally we asked the OMNI readers to fill out the questionnaire whether they managed to have a lucid dream or not. We asked the readers to try four exercises: inducing lucid dreams by waking suggestion and dream reliving; flying in lucid dreams, spinning while lucid in order to stabilize it and/or reach a target and creative problem solving. The exact instructions for each exercise are given in Table 1 in the appendix of this article.