Lucid dreaming A concise guide to awakening in your dreams and in your life

This book is a strange hybrid of scientific fact and Tibetan dream yoga. This will undoubtedly confuse any reader who is unable to separate the two. Despite this very serious flaw, the book is recommended for its two strongest points. First, the author presents a concise summary of the field of sleep and dream research, including his own research contribution. By using voluntary eye movements during REM sleep, LaBerge has proved that conscious and voluntary movements can occur during dreams. Second, LaBerge advocates the interpretation of lucid dreaming as a means of obtaining self-knowledge, and this may stimulate a healthy interest in understanding dreams. It is on this point, however, that LaBerge abandons a scientific approach and begins to advocate Tibetan dream yoga, which he does not support with scientific fact. This is ironic given that he debunks the psychoanalytic theory of dreams because it is not proved sufficiently scientific. Also, a couple of factual errors are made. Specifically, the author discusses the purpose of dreaming in animals (although animals have the equivalent of REM sleep, this does not prove they dream) and he discusses dream telepathy as if it were a scientifically proved fact. General and all levels of academic audiences.-F. Smolucha, Moraine Valley Community College