Are Lucid Dreams Good for Us? Are We Asking the Right Question? A Call for Caution in Lucid Dream Research

Lucid Dreaming – Dreams of Clarity

Although the concept of ‘lucid dreaming’ was fi rst coined by Frederik Willems van Eeden, a Dutch psychiatrist, and introduced at the meeting of The Society for Psychical Research held on 22 April 1913, the phenomenon of lucid dreaming was already known in earlier historical periods and its descriptions can be found in writings of Aristotle. However, modern lucid dreaming research was establish...

Are we asking the right questions?

Are We Asking the Right Questions?

Questions about computers replacing teachers sound a lot like the old class size issue. Some wonder if online learning is too focused on drilling fundamentals rather than exploring concepts. Budget issues now involve expensive technology replacing other costs or whether we even need textbooks. And we fully expect a news story soon about whether kindergarten is too early to introduce students to...

Reflection for the undergraduate on writing in the portfolio: where are we now and where are we going?

Introduction: The portfolio can be seen as a tool for assessmentof a variety of learning activities that differ in content, usage, andassessment. The portfolio not only meets the learner’s educationalneeds but also the political and public reassurance demand thatthe health professional has achieved the required competency ofthe curriculum that allows him or her to practice safely with orwithout...

Dreams, reality and memory: confabulations in lucid dreamers implicate reality-monitoring dysfunction in dream consciousness

INTRODUCTION Dreams might represent a window on altered states of consciousness with relevance to psychotic experiences, where reality monitoring is impaired. We examined reality monitoring in healthy, non-psychotic individuals with varying degrees of dream awareness using a task designed to assess confabulatory memory errors - a confusion regarding reality whereby information from the past fee...