Dear Tracy,

I sincerely appreciate your sincere "wow" although I'm not sure which part of my message it applies to. I actually feel embarrassed whenever I recall that post because it might look way too much as if I were claiming to have experienced "clear light sleep" when all I really know is that I experienced something that sort of fit the description in some ways. I've been tempted to go back and delete it but no, there it stands as a reminder to me to be careful what I say and how I say it!

By the way, I very much liked your posting under "comments and conversation" describing your experiences with dream hawks, etc. -

Joy

Hello Lucid Dreamers:

Thank you for your interest in this sleep posture experiment. Yes, we are still accepting data for this experiment and we are very eager to receive your results. Please send them to us as soon as you can. We will be sending you the prepublished results of this experiment if you send in your data. If I can assist you in any way, please post your questions to this forum so others can learn from our dialogue as well. I will do my best to help you.

Thanks again Nancy Lund Research Assistant

Okay, here's my question: I've already sent in reams of data from July through February. Do you want me to keep participating or do you already have a disproportionate amount of data from this one person???????

Joy

Howdy everybody!

I had some questions about the nasal laterality / posture experiment, and Dr. LaBerge sent me a long email detailing the answers. He asked that I post the pertinent portions here, so here it goes:

Reading over the nosex2.pdf, I have questions. I usually wake 3 to 4 times per night and record dream notes and change positions. So it shouldn't be any problem to get enough dreams. Sleeping on my back will be a challenge, and I'll see if I can do it or not.

Supine position isn't required. I also find it very difficult to fall asleep in that position, but perhaps for that very reason, it seems to be a very favorable position for lucidity. There are other reasons why it's important that I can't tell you about without adding more expectation than you already have. ;)

My primary question has to do with lucid-morning-nap time. I've arranged my schedule to allow me an hour and a half nap every morning. It's fortuitous for my schedule that my partner wakes up at five, and I don't have to be up until after seven. During this naptime, I always sleep on my right side, hand under my cheek, in accordance with the instructions I read in a lucid dreaming book (one of yours? I'm not sure, but think so...) Should I alternate the morning nap sleep position between left, right, and (if possible) back? Because otherwise I can tell you for a certainty that about 95% of the lucid dreams in my report will be RS... at this point, I have only had one or two middle-of-night lucids, all the rest have been in the early morning nap. Honestly, I don't know what my numbers will be like with alternating sides, but that's what the whole experiment is about, isn't it?

Yes, please alternate as described above. And yes that's the whole point of the experiment. ;) Although some sources do say sleep on the right side "as the lion doth" other Tibetans say otherwise. Some suggest different sides for men and women. If there really is anything to the posture idea its likely to depend on sex and handedness as well. Also we don't know which is a stronger correlate: posture or nasal laterality. Hence the experiment.

Will send you a PDF on dream yoga and lucid dreaming that reviews this data when you're done.

A second question has to do with the DILD/WILD designation. In my lucid dreams naps, I often fade off to the sound of hypnagogic voices, then some flashes of imagery, then I seem to lose touch for a while before I find myself dreaming, and I can't tell if the dream has been going on for some time or not before I become lucid. I am unable to recall earlier dream scenes, but the dream scene that I start with seems to be in the middle of a story, as if I just fade in mid-scene. I usually become lucid without state testing; it seems like I just know that I'm dreaming. I'm aware that I am having my lucid nap, and where my sleeping body is... but I don't recall an unbroken stream of consciousness going from lying down to being in the dream. Is this considered a DILD, or a WILD?

As with all categories, there is a gray area here too. In the lab, we often see a few (2-30) seconds of unconsciousness following waking within REM and subsequent WILD. But the "just knowing" is characteristic of intention setting LDs, especially when using MILD.

The final question is in refernce to lucid designation. I have a number of dreams about lucid dreaming, or dreams where I become aware that I'm dreaming and then immediately wake. Are these considered lucid dreams for the purpose of this study? Do you want reports of them? I'll include (below my sig line) a couple of samples from my journal, so you'll know what I'm talking about. For my own purposes, I refer to the ones where I dream about lucid dreaming as "meta-LUCID" dreams, and the ones where I wake up right when I have the "a-ha!, I'm dreaming" moment as "pre-LUCID" dreams. The ones that I designate as LUCID have at least a couple of minutes of conscious, knowing-I'm-dreaming dream experience.

I'd count brief moments of lucidity as LDs. Dreams about LDs might be LDs or NLDs. Some transitions from NLD to LD are sudden, some very gradual. These days, for me, after thousands of LDs it usually takes the form of me noticing that I already know I'm dreaming. Reflection.

Thanks for sharing goes to both. Some interesting details. I have at least on row of experiments documented, but still have to send it.