Ian Barr

Altered States of Consciousness

10/8/09

Exploring Legal Altered States Project: Prospectus

For my research project I would like to study the practice of lucid dreaming. Two years

ago I was very interested in lucid dreaming and actively sought to have lucid dreams. Through

my research on the subject, and my own experimentation, I was able to achieve a lucid state in a

dream. I continued to actively seek out lucidity, and for a fairly longtime I was able to have, and

remember, lucid dreams about once a week. The largest problems I encountered, though, were

waking up too quickly after achieving lucidity and being unable to gain full control of the dream

state. Eventually I stopped actively spending time in my days to have lucid dreams and my

achievement of lucidity, as well as dream recall, became less frequent. Nowadays I occasionally

will have a remembered lucid dream, in which I become lucid but quickly fall out of lucidity.

The purposes of this project would be to have frequent lucid dreams, to remember these dreams,

and to achieve a high level of control over the dream state. The ultimate goal, for all intensive

purposes, would be to become skilled enough in my control of the dream state to use my dreams

as a gateway into my subconscious imagination.

Research for this project, aside from my personal attempts at lucid dreaming, would

involve looking into the scientific theories on dreaming, such as Activation Synthesis, as well as

the roles dream states have played in more traditional cultures. My personal attempts would

include incorporating multiple methods of lucid dream inducement throughout my day, as well as

attempting to have this altered state while I sleep at night. I would start keep a dream journal in

order to record the dreams I have as well as increase my dream recall. I would also begin to
preform reality tests throughout my day. For the final paper I would like to compare my

experiences with lucid dreaming and the dream state, with the beliefs and theories of others.

Bibliography
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