Most persons have at least one lucid dream during their life, often in their childhood. However even with training, achieving such a dream state on a regular basis is uncommon. Lucid dreams are notable for their durability in memory, exceptionally more so than with regular dreams. Lucid dreamers regularly describe their dreams as exciting, colourful and fantastic (in the literal sense), and often compare their dream to a spiritual experience.
Despite the difficulty of achieving a lucid dream on a regular basis, techniques have been developed to achieve the state intentionally. A number of universities conduct research into both the condition and these techniques (notably Stanford?), as do some independent agencies such as [The Lucidity Institute]?. At present there are no known cases where lucid dreaming has caused damage on either the psychological and physiological level.
Lucid dreaming was often questioned scientifically in the past, until about the mid-1970's, when serious research was done on the subject. Before, the mystical works of tibetian dream yogis and - in the western world - [Carlos Castaneda]?, [Oliver Fox]? and others have raised interest, but had no scientific grounds. Later, from the 1970's until today, the research of Stephen LaBerge, [Paul Tholey]?, [Patricia Garfield]? and others proved experimentaly the existence of lucid dreaming. Moreover, research showed that most persons are able to learn how to reach the state of lucid dreaming, to maintain it and prolong it. A lot of different successful experiments have been done in the last two decades, such as signalling consciousness from within the dream to external experimentors by eye movement and body-mind relationships within the dream. Especially the research of Stephen LaBerge as head of the [Stanford university]? sleep laboratory was ground breaking [1] and today there is no scientific doubt about lucid dreaming.
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