Lucid Dreaming and “Inception”: Fact or Fiction?
The premise of Christopher Nolan’s new movie Inception is that people can become conscious creators within the world of their dreams. Is that idea just a fantasy, or is it really possible?
According to the results of a new study, lucid dreaming is a reality in the lives of many, many people. In a survey of nearly 3000 American adults, 64.9% of the participants reported having a dream in which they were aware of dreaming, and 34.4% said they have experienced the ability to control what happens in their dreams.
This evidence suggests that lucid dreaming is not just a Hollywood fantasy or a fringe practice of new age mystics. Rather, the capacity for conscious awareness and/or volitional control within the dream state turns out to be a surprisingly widespread phenomenon among ordinary Americans.
Did Daniel Dennett predict “Inception”?
More than 30 years ago the philosopher Daniel Dennett predicted the invention of exactly the kind of dream-manipulating technology used in the new movie Inception. In a 1977 paper titled “Are Dreams Experiences?” Dennett envisioned a future in which scientists develop the ability to insert false dreams into people’s minds: “[W]e can imagine that the [future dream] researchers will acquire... [Read more of this post]
Detecting Meaning in Dream Reports: An Extension of a Word Search Approach
A new article I co-authored with Bill Domhoff is appearing in the latest issue of the... [Read more of this post]
14 Weirdest Dreams in Hollywood
The April 2010 issue of the British film magazine Empire includes a feature in which I... [Read more of this post]
Dream Book Review: Jung’s Seminar on Children’s Dreams
Children’s Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-1940 by C.G. Jung, edited by... [Read more of this post]
Dreaming in Christianity and Islam
At a time when Christianity and Islam appear to be mortal enemies locked in an increasingly... [Read more of this post]
