Waking the Dreamer
"In the lucid dream you look around and realize that the whole world... is all something that your mind is creating."
with Stephen La Berge
Stephen LaBerge is the first scientist to empirically prove the existence of the phenomena of lucid dreaming. His work has developed this technique into a powerful tool for studying mind-body relationships in the dream state and he has demonstrated the considerable potential for lucid dreaming in the fields of psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine. His book on the subject, Lucid Dreaming, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming and his more academic Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain have received enormous popular interest
Born in 1947, he obtained a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Arizona. At the age of 19 he began graduate studies in chemistry at Stanford University, but in 1968 took a leave of absence to pursue his research interest in psychopharmacology. In 1977 he returned to Stanford to begin studies on dreaming, consciousness and sleep, and received his Ph.D. in Psychophysiology from Stanford's Graduate Special Program in 1980.
He has taught courses on sleep and dreaming, psychobiology and altered states of consciousness at Stanford University, the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and San Francisco State University. Currently, Stephen is a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, and Director of Research at the Lucidity Institute; a center he founded to further explore the potential of lucid dreaming. Here he is developing user-friendly technologies such as the DreamLight® to help people to learn the art of lucid dreaming and disseminating information on the conscious dream-state through a quarterly newsletter.
Stephen 's energy and enthusiasm for his work is highly contagious and he has a way of dissecting information so as to always speak to the heart of the matter. His large eyes and animated features reveal an impish, child-like spirit and at the same time, an extremely sharp and analytical mind.
This interview began at the Lucidity Institute on July 8, 1992, and was completed on the evening of the same day, in the impressive grounds of Stanford University. In the evening after-sunset glow, Stephen addressed the questions of why we sleep, where we really are when we think we 're out of our body, and the spiritual implications of taking responsibility for our dreams.
RMN