Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience

Lucid dreaming, like all conscious experience, varies greatly between individuals due to a combination of anatomical, physiological, and psychological factors. Anatomical limits include breath and sensory system development; physiological factors include sleep and REM sleep needs, along with inborn activation and damping tendencies; psychological variation arises from recent and long-term experiences, habits of interacting with the environment, and assumptions about how the world works. The quoted passages do not support any conclusions about the nature of eroticism in lucid dreaming, only that the experience itself is subject to individual variation.

Study at a glance

Abstract

What can we conclude from the above quotations? Certainly nothing regarding the nature of eroticism in the lucid dream state. Rather, they illustrate that the experience of lucid dreaming is subject to individual variation. This should not be surprising, since lucid dreaming, like all forms of conscious experience, is comprised of a flow of subjective events created by brain processes using input from sensory-perceptual modalities, internal algorithms or schemata and, perhaps, poorly understood neuronal activity associated with central nervous system homeostatic maintenance. Variability in individual experience is inherent at all levels: anatomical in the form of limitations imposed by breath and sensory system development, physiological as sleep and REM sleep needs, inborn activation and damping tendencies, and psychological variation caused by recent and long-term experiences, the development of habits of interaction with the environment, and assumptions about the way the world works.