I don’t blog about the topic of dreams and dreaming here very often, but it’s something that has been a keen interest of mine for years. I regularly record my dreams, analyse them for meaning/symbolism, and have, on occasion, had lucid dreams, though I admit I’m not very good at it.
Now I hear that Time Magazine (and others, apparently) has decided – apparently without any in-depth research, or they’d know better – that lucid dreaming is supposedly a sign of mental illness. WTF, Time?! You’re usually much better at fact-checking than that. What happened?
The analysis is based on Jared Loughner, the man alledgedly responsible for the recent Tucson shooting, who claimed to practice something he called “conscience dreaming”, and was/is quite possibly mentally ill. (Funny how the fact that Arizona allows people to buy and sell guns like candy hasn’t come up in the discussion, but I digress.)
Anyway, Ryan Hurd of the blog dream studies has written a very clear and, dare I say, lucid response to this misinformation. I recommend reading it, even if you have no interest in lucid dreaming. Dispelling ignorance is always a good thing, and this – the completely erroneous idea that dream awareness or lucid dreaming leads to or is a sign of mental illness – is a doozy.
Let’s be clear: becoming self-aware in your dreams has never been correlated with mental illness. Knowing when you are dreaming is not a slippery slope into self-delusion, nor a dangerous fantasy realm that leads to the inability to distinguish reality from dreams. Actually, lucid dreaming is a normal part of life for millions of healthy people.
I also recommend this pretty well-balanced and informative article from CNN: Can you control your dreams? At least CNN has a few researchers who are actually on the ball enough to do the work and get a few balanced facts, which is better than I can say for a lot of news agencies these days.
I will repeat, for the sake of search engines: Lucid dreaming, also known as conscious dreaming or dream awareness, is not associated with mental illness or psychosis or psychotic behaviour.
Some (probably) related posts:
Lucid Dreaming is not associated with mental illness
I don’t blog about the topic of dreams and dreaming here very often, but it’s something that has been a keen interest of mine for years. I regularly record my dreams, analyse them for meaning/symbolism, and have, on occasion, had lucid dreams, though I admit I’m not very good at it.
Now I hear that Time Magazine (and others, apparently) has decided – apparently without any in-depth research, or they’d know better – that lucid dreaming is supposedly a sign of mental illness. WTF, Time?! You’re usually much better at fact-checking than that. What happened?
The analysis is based on Jared Loughner, the man alledgedly responsible for the recent Tucson shooting, who claimed to practice something he called “conscience dreaming”, and was/is quite possibly mentally ill. (Funny how the fact that Arizona allows people to buy and sell guns like candy hasn’t come up in the discussion, but I digress.)
Anyway, Ryan Hurd of the blog dream studies has written a very clear and, dare I say, lucid response to this misinformation. I recommend reading it, even if you have no interest in lucid dreaming. Dispelling ignorance is always a good thing, and this – the completely erroneous idea that dream awareness or lucid dreaming leads to or is a sign of mental illness – is a doozy.
Let’s be clear: becoming self-aware in your dreams has never been correlated with mental illness. Knowing when you are dreaming is not a slippery slope into self-delusion, nor a dangerous fantasy realm that leads to the inability to distinguish reality from dreams. Actually, lucid dreaming is a normal part of life for millions of healthy people.
I also recommend this pretty well-balanced and informative article from CNN: Can you control your dreams? At least CNN has a few researchers who are actually on the ball enough to do the work and get a few balanced facts, which is better than I can say for a lot of news agencies these days.
I will repeat, for the sake of search engines: Lucid dreaming, also known as conscious dreaming or dream awareness, is not associated with mental illness or psychosis or psychotic behaviour.
Some (probably) related posts: