OBE & Lucid Dreaming Text Resources Thread

Please post links to text files (journal papers, Web articles, etc.) here.

Not about lucid dreaming, but dreams in general. Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page, here's a short article by Alice Gregory, a colleague of Chris French, about sleep paralysis and "exploding head syndrome" (not as alarming as it sounds). The tone is in line with French's quoted opinion that sleep paralysis can explain "a huge number of [spontaneous] paranormal accounts":
https://theconversation.com/what-lies-be...hers-93534

Obviously this is a plug for Gregory's new book about the science of sleep, published a week ago, entitled "Nodding Off":
https://bloomsbury.com/uk/nodding-off-9781472946188/

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, Science Alert reports a study finding that the anti-Alzheimer's drug galantamine increases the frequency of lucid dreams by as much as a factor of three (from 14% to 42%), when used by those with high dream recall and an interest in lucid dreaming, in conjunction with the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams technique:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-...mer-s-drug

Here is the full paper at PLOS ONE:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article...ne.0201246

Courtesy of the Daily Grail, Science Alert reports a study finding that the anti-Alzheimer's drug galantamine increases the frequency of lucid dreams by as much as a factor of three (from 14% to 42%), when used by those with high dream recall and an interest in lucid dreaming, in conjunction with the Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams technique:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-...mer-s-drug

Here is the full paper at PLOS ONE:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article...ne.0201246

I use Galantamine, its highly effective. Have had hours long lucid and out of body experiences with it. I wake up quite tired afterwards though.

Courtesy of the SPR Facebook page - here's a new paper in Frontiers in Psychology:

Lucid Dreaming, Nightmares, and Sleep Paralysis: Associations With Reality Testing Deficits and Paranormal Experience/Belief
Kenneth G. Drinkwater, Andrew Denovan and Neil Dagnall
Abstract: Focusing on lucid dreaming, this paper examined relationships between dissociated experiences related to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (lucid dreaming, nightmares, and sleep paralysis), reality testing, and paranormal experiences/beliefs. The study comprised a UK-based online sample of 455 respondents (110 males, 345 females, Mean age = 34.46 years, SD = 15.70), who had all previously experienced lucid dreaming. Respondents completed established self-report measures assessing control within lucid dreaming, experience and frequency of nightmares, incidence of sleep paralysis, proneness to reality testing deficits (Inventory of Personality Organization subscale, IPO-RT), subjective experience of receptive psi and life after death (paranormal experience), and paranormal belief. Analysis comprised tests of correlational and predictive relationships between sleep-related outcomes, IPO-RT scores, and paranormal measures. Significant positive correlations between sleep and paranormal measures were weak. Paranormal measures related differentially to sleep indices. Paranormal experience correlated with lucid dreaming, nightmares, and sleep paralysis, whereas paranormal belief related only to nightmares and sleep paralysis. IPO-RT correlated positively with all paranormal and sleep-related measures. Within the IPO-RT, the Auditory and Visual Hallucinations sub-factor demonstrated the strongest positive associations with sleep measures. Structural equation modeling indicated that Auditory and Visual Hallucinations significantly positively predicted dissociated experiences related to REM sleep, while paranormal experience did not. However, paranormal experience was a significant predictor when analysis controlled for Auditory and Visual Hallucinations. The moderate positive association between these variables explained this effect. Findings indicated that self-generated, productive cognitive-processes (as encompassed by Auditory and Visual Hallucinations) played a significant role in conscious control and awareness of lucid dreaming, and related dissociative sleep states (sleep paralysis and nightmares).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00471/full

There is also an "Opinion Article" in the same journal by the same authors, entitled "Dark Triad Traits and Sleep-Related Constructs: An Opinion Piece" - though I didn't find it easy to understand from it what their opinion was:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....00505/full

[Laird]

Here's a nice article today on lucid dreaming from Australia's public broadcaster, the ABC, by Len Gordon:

What are lucid dreams, and how does your brain become aware that it's dreaming?

Because experiences in the dream can feel real to the brain and body, lucid dreaming is used by some people as a source of creativity and growth.

People have used lucid dreaming for artistic inspiration, and athletes have harnessed them to practise their skills during the night.

Laura is a dancer, and she uses her lucid dreams to come up with choreography or learn a new step.

"I practised it and see myself doing it in the lucid dream, and it makes it easier to tackle in real life," she says.

She also has musician friends who have used lucid dreaming to write songs and music.

Additionally, some research suggests there are mental health benefits, with the dream world providing a safe space to self-reflect, try new things, face fears and solve problems.

People can even use the ability to control the dream to stop a nightmare in its tracks.

For anyone wanting to start lucid dreaming, Dr Aspy primarily recommends improving your ability to remember your dreams.

"We found that general dream recall abilities are usually the strongest predictor of how successful you will be in learning lucid dreaming," he says.

"If you're able to remember your dreams most nights of the week or even every night of the week, you're probably going to have more success than someone who can only remember one or two dreams per week."

[Laird]

Navigating the Out-of-Body ~ Lucid Dream Continuum

By Samantha Lee Treasure for her Zombies in PJs blog on Sep 2, 2017.

(It's an older article but I happened to see its title and thought it might be interesting, which it was.)

However, as time went on, the transition process would seem more streamlined or I would skip it entirely; leaving the body became easier or immediate. I had now become somewhat familiar with each of these states, so I could normally guess which it was. But without the characteristics of the transition state as a reference point, and because there seemed to be some overlap in the experiences, I would at times be unsure whether I was in an OBE or a LD.

To make matters more complicated, I would also sometimes transition from an LD into an OBE. Was I dreaming about having an OBE? I would still have the vibrations, the rising out of my (dream) body, but could this be explained by the continuity hypothesis, i.e. you dream about what you experience - and if you experience OBEs, couldn't you dream about them too?

Sometimes what seemed to be a full-blown OBE would, given enough time, start to develop the qualities of an LD. I had intentionally switched between the two states before, but when it happened spontaneously it seemed to be more gradual.

This was especially interesting to me because the closest I've had to a real OBE occurred from what was probably a dream state, although not strictly lucid simply because I was confused into thinking I was really awake. It seemed real because it began with the sense that I was in a state to potentially leave my body, so I tried the "roll your astral body out of your physical body" technique and it seemed to work. I'm pretty sure though that it was "just" a dream, because even though it started with a generally recognisable local physical environment as expected, after I flew out my window and started to explore, it very quickly became clear that this just wasn't my town. I can't remember how it ended, but it definitely wasn't with a return to the body - neither by "snapping" back nor any more gradual and gentle route. I think I just eventually woke up. That's another reason why I think it was a dreamt-up rather than real OBE.

[P.S. The survey to which Samantha links in that blog post is no longer available on her site, but can be accessed via the Wayback Machine here. I haven't (yet?) read it]

[Laird]

Mediums Who Reported Out-of-Body Experiences

By Mark Mahin on his Future and Cosmos blog on July 26, 2025.

Gladys [Osborne Leonard] stated this:

"Then I felt a tingling sort of thrill as if a slight current of electricity were passing through my body, and I again had a sensation of not resting on the bed. I could think quite clearly, but taking a lesson from my previous disappointment I held my mind under quiet control, saying to myself that I would notice anything that happened but would not anticipate or wonder. What happened I shall never forget; it was wonderful ! I did not move consciously in any way, either limb or muscle, and my eyes were closed. I wondered how far my body might be above the bed, and by a little mental effort I opened my eyes and looked down and saw my physical body resting on the bed, while I in my astral body seemed to be resting above my physical body. To show you how clear my thoughts were, I noticed that the head of my physical body was lying on a particular nightdress case with an embroidered corner. I was surprised at seeing it there, because I was not aware of its having been changed that morning for the one I had been using. I thought, too, how funny it was that my head was resting on it, because I don’t usually do that. I was pleased at myself for noticing these things."

Another case of a female medium reporting an out-of-body experience can be read in the 1936 book 'Twixt Earth and Heaven by Annie Britain, which you can read here. On page 50 she states this:

"When I leave my body my mental volition is not entirely suspended, although my consciousness is directed towards certain things, and away from others. I am sometimes aware of my 'spirit body' and sometimes not. On one occasion I had sufficient volition to try an experiment. I tried to grasp and move some cups and saucers in the room, but my fingers passed through them as if they were shadows. On the same occasion I tried to slap and pinch the faces of the people in the room but could make no impression on them, and they did not take the least notice of me. I walked through a table as though it were an optical illusion. I remember feeling amused to think that I was so superior to flesh and blood, which usually comes off second best in encounter with wood, stone or steel. Tables, chairs, walls, the bodies of humans, seem as unsubstantial as shadows when one is out of the body. Yet whenever my attention is directed to my own spirit body, it seems solid and real, and as far as I have been able to observe, an exact replica of my earthly body."

A wide variety of mysterious psychic phenomena were reported in connection with Frederica Hauffe, a visionary (dubbed the Seeress of Provost) born in 1801. In an 1845 work by the physician Justinus Kerner, we read about such phenomena. Hauffe reportedly did quite a lot of spirit seeing, so we can classify her as a medium. On the page here and the next one we read that she had out-of-body experiences (like manyothers):

"She was frequently in that state in which persons, who, like her, have had the faculty of ghost-seeing, perceive their own spirit out of their body, which only enfolds it as a thin gauze. She often saw herself out of her body, and sometimes double. She said, ' It often appears to me that I am out of my body, and then I hover over it, and think of it ; but this is not a pleasant feeling, because I recognize my body.' "