“A Dream within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe
Take
this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus
much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days
have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in
a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less
gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the
roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my
hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they
creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I
weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O
God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we
see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
"A Dream Within a Dream" is one of Edgar Allan Poe's (1809-1849) most famous poems. The poem expresses doubt and uncertainty about the nature of reality, questioning whether life itself is just an illusion – "a dream within a dream."
“I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: I’m going to tell it – but take care not to smile at any part of it.”
Dreams are mysterious experiences famous writers like Poe, Bronte, Dickens, and Shakespeare have pondered and employed in their work. Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College, who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion, once said: “Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream.”
For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. The Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers.
What are these involuntarily images and emotions that occur in our mind during sleep? And, would it surprise you to know humans may be able to exhibit some control over their vivid dreams? Let's explore what the Bard called these “galloping” visions of Queen Mab, the fairies' midwife.
Science And Dreams
A medical definition of dreams is offered by Melissa Conrad Stoppler, MD – chief medical editor of eMedicineHealth.com and co-editor-in-chief of Webster's New World Medical Dictionary, Year 2008 Third Edition …
“Dreams occur during that part of sleep when there are rapid eye movements (REMs). We have 3 to 5 periods of REM sleep per night. They usually come at intervals of 1-2 hours and are quite variable in length. An episode of REM sleep may be brief and last but 5 minutes. Or it may be much longer and go for over an hour.
“About 20% of sleep is REM sleep. If you sleep 7-8 hours a night, perhaps an hour and half of that time, 90 minutes, is REM sleep.
“REM sleep is characterized by a number of other features besides REM, including rapid, low-voltage brain waves on the electroencephalographic (EEG) recording, irregular breathing and irregular heart rate and – what may be most evident to someone else – involuntary muscle jerks.
“Dreams are penetrable; it has been found experimentally that one can communicate with a person who is dreaming. The content of dreams is sometimes the topic of psychoanalysis. While this method of therapy is less common than it once was, some doctors still look at dreams as a diagnostic clue to medical disorders.”
(Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD. “Medical Definition of Dreams.” MedicineNet. March 29, 2021.)
While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing – the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning.
Lucid, Penetrable Dreams
Even though the term "lucid" means clear, “lucid dreaming” is more than just having a clear dream. “Lucid dreaming” refers to the phenomenon of becoming aware of the fact that you are dreaming during ongoing sleep. You’re aware that the events flashing through your brain aren’t really happening. But the dream feels vivid and real. You may even be able to control how the action unfolds, as if you’re directing a movie in your sleep.
Studies have found physical differences in the brains of people who do and don’t have lucid dreams. The very front part of the brain, called the prefrontal cortex – the site of high-level tasks like making decisions and recalling memories – is bigger in people who have lucid dreams. That suggests that folks who are most likely to have lucid dreams tend to be self-reflective types who chew over thoughts in their heads.
(Benjamin Baird, Anna Castelnovo, Olivia Gosseries & Giulio Tononi. “Frequent lucid dreaming associated with increased functional connectivity between frontopolar cortex and temporoparietal association areas.” Scientific Reports volume 8. 2018.)
A review article reports that roughly 55% of adults have experienced at least one lucid dream during their lifetime, and 23% of people experience lucid dreams at least once per month.
(David T.Saunders, Chris A.Roe, GrahamSmith, and HelenClegg. “Lucid dreaming incidence: A quality effects meta-analysis of 50 years of research. Consciousness and Cognition Volume 43, July 2016.)
Some research has pointed to potential benefits of lucid dreaming, such as treatment for nightmares. However, other studies argue lucid dreams may have a negative impact on mental health because they can disturb sleep and cause dreamers to blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
Perhaps the most fantastic thing about lucid dreams is how realistic they seem. “Lucid dreams could have evolved as a form of threat simulation and in order to practice what it’s like being in the world while asleep, you have to believe that the simulation is real,” says Professor Mark Blagrove, a sleep scientist from Swansea University.
Michelle Carr, a sleep researcher at the University of Rochester, says, “It’s just so exciting and unbelievable to be in a lucid dream and to witness your mind creating this completely vivid simulation.” Carr is frequently plagued by tidal waves in her dreams. Now she is learning to control her lucid dreams. She relates the following:
“What should be a terrifying nightmare, however, can quickly turn into a whimsical adventure – thanks to her ability to control her dreams. She can transform herself into a dolphin and swim into the water. Once, she transformed the wave itself, turning it into a giant snail with a huge shell. 'It came right up to me – it was a really beautiful moment.'”
(David Robson. “Can lucid dreaming help us understand consciousness?” The Guardian. November 14, 2021.)
Neuroscientists and psychologists today may balk at the term “dual consciousness,” but most would agree that lucid dreams involve an increased self-awareness and reflection, a greater sense of agency and volition, and an ability to think about the more distant past and future. These together mark a substantially different mental experience from the typically passive state of non-lucid dreams.
Unfortunately, it has been very hard to get someone to lucid dream inside constrained environment of an fMRI scanner. Nevertheless, a case study published in 2020 confirmed that it can be done. The participant, a frequent lucid dreamer, was asked to shift his gaze from left to right whenever he “awoke” in his dream – a dream motion that is also known to translate to real eye movements. This allowed the researchers to identify the moment at which he had achieved lucidity.
(Sergio Arthuro Mota-Rolim. “On Moving the Eyes to Flag Lucid Dreaming.” Front Neurosci. 2020; 14: 361.)
Promoting Lucid Dreaming
Building on their own previous research, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Lucidity Institute in Hawaii wanted to investigate how chemicals called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEls) might promote lucid dreaming.
Volunteers for the study weren't just everyday people, but enthusiasts with an established interest in lucid dreams, who also had undertaken training with lucid dream induction protocols (including what is known as the MILD technique).
The MILD technique involves creating a prospective memory intention to remember that one is dreaming by repeating the phrase “next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming” (or some variation). The MILD technique is performed during a brief awakening after 5 or so hours of sleep
(Denholm J. Aspy. “Findings From the International Lucid Dream Induction.” StudyPsychol., July 17, 2020.)
When this cognitive training was combined with galantamine, lucid stuff started to happen. Galantamine is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor currently used to treat mild to moderate dementia, the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Galantamine slows the breakdown of ACh, so it can build up and have a greater effect. However, as Alzheimer's disease gets worse, there will be less and less ACh, so galantamine may not work as well to improve thinking in patients.
The combination of the induction technique paired with the Alzheimer's medication looks to indeed help trigger lucid dreams, and the higher dosage delivered a stronger result.
"This combined protocol resulted in a total of 69 out of 121 participants (57 percent) successfully having a lucid dream on at least one out of two nights on an active dose of galantamine," the researchers wrote in their 2018 paper. "This protocol is one of the most effective methods for inducing lucid dreams known to-date, and holds promise for making lucid dreaming available to a wider population."
(Stephen LaBerge, Kristen LaMarca, and Benjamin Baird. “Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study.” Plos One. August 08, 2018.)
Until more is known about the safety of this technique, nobody should be experimenting with galantamine on their own. But once more research is done, these findings may ultimately beckon an almost limitless world of imaginary fun and adventure.
(Peter Dockrill. “There's a Reliable Method For Triggering Lucid Dreams, Scientists Have Found.” Science Alert. September 25, 2021.)
"As I ran my hand along a brick wall… I could feel the coarse texture and the outline of individual bricks."
– Cognitive neuroscientist Benjamin Baird from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, recalling his own experience of galantamine.
One Unique Case Study
Lucid dream researcher Beverly D'Urso, Ph.D. – who calls herself a combination mystic and scientist” and who is also known as “the world’s most prolific lucid dreamer” – has been a lucid dreamer since she was seven years old. She has worked with psychophysiologist Stephen Laberge, the founder of the Lucidity Institute. D'Urso holds the distinction of being the first person to have a recorded orgasm during a dream.
LaBerge was studying lucid dreams at Stanford. Throughout the 80s, camera crew after camera crew would travel to the Stanford sleep lab to watch D'Urso – hooked up with about 50 wires to brainwave monitors, which ensured she was actually dreaming – as she performed tasks in her sleep. D'Urso could move her eyes, which she used to signal that she had started or completed a task in her sleep.
In 1983, working with LaBerge and another scientist, she was hooked up to a vaginal probe and signaled with her eyes that she was going to attempt to have an in-dream orgasm. In her dream, she later said, she floated over the Stanford campus, saw a man wearing a blue suit, tapped him on the shoulders, and they had sex right there in the walkway. (Talk about some kinky safe sex – sorry, I couldn't resist.)
D'Urso once described having sex with The Earth in a dream, as she "flew at its edge, one leg dragging into the dirt." During her lucid dreams, she has also tasted fire, visited the sun, and overcome a writer's block.
Beverly D'Urso has largely moved beyond lucid dream sex now—she's in a seminary program, where she's focusing on the belief that life, itself, is a dream—but other women have picked up where her research left off.
(Dave Simpson. “The Women on a Quest to Orgasm During Their Lucid Dreams.” FYI. Vice.com. January 19, 2016.)
"In interviewing women, and certainly I know from my own experience, sleep-related orgasms for women are typically very physical, very strong," said Dr. Franceen King, a clinical sexologist in Florida who coined the term "sleep-related female orgasm," referring to those that occur in lucid dreams, non-lucid dreams, or even unrelated to dreams at all.
King theorizes that the intensity of the dream orgasm, which many others confirmed, may be in part due to the fact that it's easier, in sleep, for women to let go.
"I have worked with some women for whom sleep was their only orgasm and who gradually, through relaxation and training were able to begin to experience orgasms while awake," she said. "Part of this relates to a much bigger issue when we talk about female sexuality."
(Dave Simpson. “The Women on a Quest to Orgasm During Their Lucid Dreams.” FYI. Vice.com. January 19, 2016.)
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