Don’t worry Lucy. It’s only a dream. Take control of it!

As someone who entered their teens at the dawn of the New Age era, I was exposed to lots of crazy things like EST, Carlos Castaneda, and the sight of post-hippy nutjob entrepreneurs standing in bookstores’ newly-created self-help sections muttering “OM” to themselves. By the mid 80′s, although I had – for better or worse – integrated a lot of this stuff into my daily experience, I jokingly referred to myself as “Post New Age”. For a brief time I even opportunistically bought quartz crystals at about $5/lb and turned them over at a hefty $20 per crystal to people who believed they had magical powers. In spite of my original fascination with all these metaphysical meanderings, I ended up with a more cynical spirit for a long time, or at least a more pragmatic one. However, some of these crazy ideas ended up becoming scientifically documented, and amongst these was one of my favorites: Lucid Dreaming. I so completely integrated this concept into how I sleep, think and dream, that I forget that others have never even heard of it. Which is why I was surprised to run across the post Lucid Dreaming: A Beginner’s Guide on Tim Ferriss’ blog (he’s the guy that wrote The 4-Hour Workweek) that passionately extols the virtues of Lucid Dreaming. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Ferriss is into it, I guess if you only work four hours a week, you have plenty of time to dream and sleep. In any case, his post sent me on a refresher course; I had no idea that one of the first scientists to seriously study lucid dreaming – Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. -went on to form the Lucidity Institute, and that the concept actually is a documented phenomena with such an extensive history. If you’re interested in learning more about LaBerge’s work with lucid dreams, check out his book Lucid Dreaming, or check out the very thorough Lucidity Institute FAQ. Me? I’m going back to sleep. If I’m not already. Sweet dreams!