The kiss you share with the exquisite stranger is electric, deep and seemingly endless -- that is until you open an eye and see drool on your pillow.
If only you could have slept long enough to consummate the seduction. Then again, you had no idea you were dreaming. Besides, you cannot control the nightly ride on the wings of your subconscious. Or can you?
Maybe, if you learn to practice "lucid dreaming," a state in which a sleeping person becomes aware he or she is dreaming and may even be able to direct the action. Those who regularly experience the phenomenon say that like the physics-defying characters in "The Matrix," they are able togenerate or manipulate the events that unfold. They can fly without wings, play instruments they never learned, go bowling with T.S. Eliot -- and, yes, indulge sexual fantasies.
It is likely some people have always had such dreams, said Jayne Gackenbach, a professor of psychology at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta, who conducts research into lucid dreaming. But the esoteric practice, which has been acknowledged in the West since at least 1867, seems on the verge of becoming much better known.
Growth factor
"It has gone from this very obscure type of dream to being discussed at the various dream and consciousness conferences," Gackenbach said.
There are movies, such as "The Good Night" (opening Oct. 5) in which the lead character, depressed by his waking life, is determined to master the art of lucid dreaming to escape to an inspiring, sensual unreality with a lacquer-lipped knockout. There are lucid instructional seminars, such as "Dreaming and Awakening: Lucid Dreaming, Consciousness and Dream Yoga" in Hawaii, and soon-to-be published books, such as "Lucid Dreaming for Beginners: Simple Techniques for Creating Interactive Dreams" and "Between the Gates: Lucid Dreaming, Astral Projection and the Body of Light in Western Esotericism."
Other films, including "Waking Life" and "Vanilla Sky," have woven lucid dreaming into their plots. So have television series such as "Alias," "Star Trek" and "Ed." Novelists including Stephen King, William Boyd and Graham Joyce have written about lucid dreaming, and the Verve, a British rock band, sang about it in "Catching the Butterfly."
"Lucid dream" is the name of pop and jazz CDs, small businesses, modern artworks, even a sex toy.
Still, many people have never heard of it. Established sleep researchers say lucid dreaming is occasionally reported by subjects, though it is difficult to validate scientifically. "Yes, lucid dreaming exists," said Dr. Rodney Radtke, the medical director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Duke University. "Yes, people certainly can, within their dream, realize 'this is just a dream' and continue to participate."
Designing a dream
"Do I believe that someone could potentially alter or interact with their dreams in such a way that they could change the dream? Yes," he said. "Do I think that you could essentially design a dream -- 'Oh, I want to go to Honolulu and have this big hunk hit on me'? It's a bit of a stretch. But I can't say it can't happen."
Stephen LaBerge, a psychophysiologist and the founder of the Lucidity Institute (www.lucidity.com), conducts lucid dream research and teaches people to do it.
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible," LaBerge said. "Fly. Dream sex. That's what everybody likes to do. There's also the possibility of creative problem-solving, overcoming nightmares and anxieties."
Interest in these potential real-world benefits and the otherworldly freedoms of lucid dreaming has spurred the invention and evolution of seemingly wacky dream aids. There are masks with lights and sounds; Orwellian devices that announce this is a dream! in the middle of the night; and pills.
LaBerge has created the NovaDreamer, a mask meant to light up during REM sleep and cue the person entangled in the sheets that he or she is dreaming. It is based on the notion that people can make a plan while awake and then execute it in their dreams. A light or sound is meant to remind them of their goal of lucid dreaming without actually waking them up.
Lucid-dream researchers say there are myriad mental exercises a person can do during waking hours to try to become cognizant while dreaming. One technique involves performing various reality checks many times a day -- such as looking at the numbers on a watch, looking away, and then looking at them again to make sure that night has not suddenly become day. The theory is that if a person does this regularly while awake, he or she will likely repeat it while dreaming and will recognize inconsistencies -- if, say, the watch is melting in a Dali-esque way. Then the sleeper will think: "This looks surreal. I must be dreaming."
