The Sense of Self in Lucid Dreams: “Self as Subject” vs. “Self as Agent” vs. “Self as Object”

Abstract

Kunzendorf (1987-1988, 2000) asserts that nocturnal dream images are not accompanied by any definitive self-consciousness that one is imaging, rather than perceiving, and that “lucid” dreams are indiscriminatively inferred to be imaginary. Consistent with this assertion, 35% of the 93 lucid dreamers in this study knew it to be true that “[d]uring a lucid dream, [they] have heard a real noise (an alarm clock, e.g.) and have believed the noise to be part of [their] lucid dream … without any immediate self-awareness [of] actually perceiving the noise.” Also consistent with Kunzendorf's assertion, every participant reportedly inferred the imaginary nature of his or her lucid dreams—8% of the time because his or her “experience was too nightmarish to be real,” 6% of the time because his or her “secret wishes were realized in the dream,” and so on. Focusing on the sense of self as agent, rather than self-consciousness or the sense of self as subject, Georgieff and Jeannerod (1998) suggest that concordance between the wishes of the lucid dreamer and the actions in the lucid dream can be attributed to an illusory self as agent controlling the dreamed actions. Consistent with Georgieff and Jeannerod's suggestion, 34% of the 93 subjects knew themselves to be a self as agent “able to control” a lucid dream, whereas almost none of the subjects knew themselves to be a self as agent “able to control” a non-lucid dream.