ABSTRACT
The experience of dreaming lucidly, that is, awareness of dreaming while dreaming, has been suggested by Hunt (1989) to be a form of meditation in sleep. He identifies this dream state as “involving the attainment and maintenance of an attitude identical to that sought within the insight or mindfulness meditative traditions” (Hunt & McLeod, 1984, p. 3). Although empirical evidence in support of this view is briefly reviewed here, the focus of this chapter is a potential neurocognitive model for dream lucidity. The degree of interhemispheric balance (EEG coherence) reflecting an efficient transfer of information between the hemispheres will be examined. This construct has been associated in the meditation research literature (Orme-Johnson, Wallace, Dillbeck, Alexander, & Ball, in press) with a state of mind thought to be developmentally related to dream lucidity (Alexander, 1987; Alexander, Boyer, & Orme-Johnson, 1985). Three major hypotheses will be considered:
REM sleep shows a close coordination of the electrical manifestations of activity of the two hemispheres, higher EEG coherence, for selected frequencies.
As a result of increases in alpha/theta interhemispheric EEG coherence during the practice of meditation, which is not the same as Stage 1 sleep, there is less need to experience as much REM sleep.
The emergence of consciousness in sleep (lucidity) is enhanced by the practice of meditation and is most likely to occur during the stage of sleep that shows interhemispheric balance in the alpha/ theta range, REM. Further, lucidity is likely to be accompanied by additional increases in interhemispheric coherence over normal REM levels similar to those reported during key points in meditation.
