Problems in the Historical Research of Lucid Dreaming

Abstract

The historical dimension to lucid dreaming (and dream research in general) is one that has been sadly neglected. Recent writings have not given an adequate account of the development of lucid dreaming, even limiting such an account to within the historical context of this century alone. As an opening to what is hoped will be a fruitful area of debate, there are some issues which need to be raised and discussed further. The four points that I want to cover in this article concern: the limited explanatory power of describing the history of lucid dreaming purely in terms of "events"; the validity of using the term "lucid dreaming" in a retrospective manner; the problems associated with evaluating any text that has undergone translation; and the potential problems associated with the changing meaning of certain "key words" within the lucid framework which need to be highlighted.