Lucid dreaming as a method for living otherwise
Keywords:
Narcolepsy, Lucid dreaming, Hallucination, non-human care, night monsters.Abstract
This contribution explores lucid dreaming as an eccentric method for telling a different story of the pathologization of narcolepsy. Narcolepsy has been frequently misdiagnosed as a psychiatric disorder. The most conspicuous point of confusion is hallucinations and vivid dreams. This article is particularly interested in the ways in which the unusual combination of hallucinatory and lucid dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness allows to regain control of one’s reality and ownership. By introducing one of the authors’ personal experiences with narcolepsy and hallucinations and following Lisa Blackman’s (2012, 2014) and Grace Cho’s (2008) work on non-ordinary conscious states, this article examines lucid dreaming as a method that offers a particular art of living in dream-worlds that are sometimes impossible or terrifying to inhabit. Lucid dreaming opens up a window to explore non-human forms of care (Barad, 2012; Bellacasa, 2017; Dokumaci, 2017) that take place in unearthly worlds, which offer survival for those who inhabit a dream-world that terrifies them and a real-world that pathologizes.
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References
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Blackman, L. (2012a). Immaterial bodies: Affect, embodiment, mediation. Sage.
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Blackman, L. (2014). Embodiment and Voice Hearing. Interdisciplina, 2(3), 295-313.
Blackman, L. (2019). Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Brylowski, A. (1990). Nightmares in crisis: Clinical applications of lucid dreaming techniques. Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa: Revue De Psychiatrie De l’Universite d’Ottawa, 15(2), 79-84.
Cherry, K. (2020). Understanding Hysteria in the Past and Present. Verywell Mind.
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Dokumaci, A. (2017). Vital affordances, occupying niches: An ecological approach to disability and performance. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), 393-412. DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2017.1326808
Dokumaci, A. (2020). People as Affordances: Building Disability Worlds through Care Intimacy. Current Anthropology, 61(S21), S97-S108. https://doi.org/10.1086/705783
Douglass, A. B. (2003). Narcolepsy: Differential diagnosis or etiology in some cases of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia? CNS Spectrums, 8(2), 120-126. DOI: 10.1017/s1092852900018344
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McEwan, C. (2008). A Very Modern Ghost: Postcolonialism and the Politics of Enchantment. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(1), 29-46. DOI: 10.1068/d460t
Méndez de la Brena, D.E. (2021) «'Caring Matter' A love story of queer intimacies between (her) body and (cigarette) object» In Marjo Kolehmainen, Kinneret Lahad & Annukka Lahti (Coord.) «Affective Intimacies». Manchester University Press. (In press)
Pierre, J. M. (2010). Hallucinations in nonpsychotic disorders: Toward a differential diagnosis of «hearing voices». Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 18(1), 22⎯35. DOI: 10.3109/10673220903523706
Pyyry, N., & Aiava, R. (2020). Enchantment as fundamental encounter: Wonder and the radical reordering of subject/world. Cultural Geographies, 147447402090948. DOI: 10.1177/1474474020909481
Rak, M., Beitinger, P., Steiger, A., Schredl, M., & Dresler, M. (2015). Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy. Sleep, 38(5), 787-792. DOI: 10.5665/sleep.4676
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Romme, M. A. J., & Escher, A. D. M. A. C. (1989). Hearing Voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15(2), 209-216. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/15.2.209
Sacks, O. (2012). Hallucinations. New York: KNOPF.
Schädlich, M., & Erlacher, D. (2012). Applications of lucid dreams: An online study. International Journal of Dream Research, 5(2), 134-138. DOI: 10.11588/ijodr.2012.2.9505
Stengers, I. (2011). Thinking with Whitehead. Harvard University Press.
Stumbrys, T., & Daniels, M. (2010). An exploratory study of creative problem solving in lucid dreams: Preliminary findings and methodological considerations. International Journal of Dream Research, 3(2), 121-129. DOI: 10.11588/ijodr.2010.2.6167
Stumbrys, T., Erlacher, D., Schädlich, M., & Schredl, M. (2012). Induction of lucid dreams: A systematic review of evidence. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1456-1475. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2012.07.003
Talih, F. R. (2011). Narcolepsy Presenting as Schizophrenia. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(4), 30⎯34.
Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G., & Fadda, B. (2012). Women and Hysteria in The History Of Mental Health. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 8(1), 110-119. DOI: 10.2174/1745017901208010110
Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton University Press.
Tuccillo, D., Zeizel, J., & Peisel, T. (2013). A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics. Workman Publishing.
Voss, U., & Voss, G. (2014). A Neurobiological Model of Lucid Dreaming. En R. Hurd & K. Bulkey (Eds.), Lucid Dreaming. New Perspectives on Consciousness in Sleep Volume 1: Science, Psychology, and Education (pp. 23-36). PRAEGER.
Waggoner, R. (2008). Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self. Moment Point Press.
Waters, F., Blom, J. D., Dang-- Vu, T. T., Cheyne, A. J., Alderson-- Day, B., Woodruff, P., & Collerton, D. (2016). What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic–Hypnopompic Experiences? Schizophrenia Bulletin, 42(5), 1098-1109. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbw076
Waters, F., Collerton, D., Ffytche, D. H., Jardri, R., Pins, D., Dudley, R., Blom, J. D., Mosimann, U. P., Eperjesi, F., Ford, S., & Larøi, F. (2014). Visual Hallucinations in the Psychosis Spectrum and Comparative Information from Neurodegenerative Disorders and Eye Disease. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 40(Suppl_4), S233-S245. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbu036
Wilkie, A., Savransky, M., & Rosengarten, M. (2017). Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures. Taylor & Francis.
Won, C., Mahmoudi, M., Qin, L., Purvis, T., Mathur, A., & Mohsenin, V. (2014). The Impact of Gender on Timeliness of Narcolepsy Diagnosis. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine : JCSM : Official Publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 10(1), 89-95. DOI: 10.5664/jcsm.3370
Zadra, A. L., & Pihl, R. O. (1997). Lucid dreaming as a treatment for recurrent nightmares. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 66(1), 50-55. DOI: 10.1159/000289106
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801-831.
Barad, K. (2012). On Touching—The Inhuman That Therefore I Am. differences, 23(3), 206-223. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-- 1892943
Bellacasa, M. P. de la. (2017). Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds. University of Minnesota Press.
Bennett, J. (2001). The Enchantment of Modern Life Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. Princeton University Press.
Blackman, L. (2001). Hearing voices: Embodiment and experience. Free Association Books.
Blackman, L. (2010). Embodying affect: Voice-hearing, telepathy, suggestion and modelling the non-conscious. Body & Society, 16(1), 163⎯192.
Blackman, L. (2012a). Immaterial bodies: Affect, embodiment, mediation. Sage.
Blackman, L. (2012b). Listening to Voices: An Ethics of Entanglement. Ethics in Social Research Studies in Qualitative Methodology, 12, 173–188. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1042-3192(2012)0000012012
Blackman, L. (2014). Embodiment and Voice Hearing. Interdisciplina, 2(3), 295-313.
Blackman, L. (2019). Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Brylowski, A. (1990). Nightmares in crisis: Clinical applications of lucid dreaming techniques. Psychiatric Journal of the University of Ottawa: Revue De Psychiatrie De l’Universite d’Ottawa, 15(2), 79-84.
Cherry, K. (2020). Understanding Hysteria in the Past and Present. Verywell Mind.
Cho, G. (2008). Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, secrecy, silence and the forgotten war. University of Minnesota Press.
Dokumaci, A. (2017). Vital affordances, occupying niches: An ecological approach to disability and performance. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22(3), 393-412. DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2017.1326808
Dokumaci, A. (2020). People as Affordances: Building Disability Worlds through Care Intimacy. Current Anthropology, 61(S21), S97-S108. https://doi.org/10.1086/705783
Douglass, A. B. (2003). Narcolepsy: Differential diagnosis or etiology in some cases of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia? CNS Spectrums, 8(2), 120-126. DOI: 10.1017/s1092852900018344
Droogleever Fortuyn, H. A. (2011). Narcolepsy, aspects of the psychiatric phenotype. Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Enchantment. In Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.etymonline.com/word/enchantment
Fortuyn, H. A. D., Mulders, P. C., Renier, W. O., Buitelaar, J. K., & Overeem, S. (2011). Narcolepsy and psychiatry: An evolving association of increasing interest. Sleep Medicine, 12(7), 714-719. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2011.01.013
Gregg, M., Seigworth, G. J., & Ahmed, S. (2010). The Affect Theory Reader. Duke University Press.
Iudici, A., Quarato, M., & Neri, J. (2019). The Phenomenon of “Hearing Voices”: Not Just Psychotic Hallucinations—A Psychological Literature Review and a Reflection on Clinical and Social Health. Community Mental Health Journal, 55(5), 811-818. DOI: 10.1007/s1059701803590
Haraway, D. J. (2008). When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2019) It Matters What Stories Tell Stories; It Matters Whose Stories Tell Stories, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 34(3), 565-575, DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2019.1664163
Jalal, B., Romanelli, A., & Hinton, D. E. (2015). Cultural Explanations of Sleep Paralysis in Italy: The Pandafeche Attack and Associated Supernatural Beliefs. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 39(4), 651-664. DOI: 10.1007/s11013-015-9442-y
Jalal, B., Simons-- Rudolph, J., Jalal, B., & Hinton, D. E. (2014). Explanations of sleep paralysis among Egyptian college students and the general population in Egypt and Denmark. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51(2), 158-175. DOI: 10.1177/1363461513503378
Johnson, C. R. (2017). Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Lucid Dreaming: A Comprehensive Guide to Promote Creativity, Overcome Sleep Disturbances & Enhance Health and Wellness. Llewellyn Worldwide.
McEwan, C. (2008). A Very Modern Ghost: Postcolonialism and the Politics of Enchantment. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(1), 29-46. DOI: 10.1068/d460t
Méndez de la Brena, D.E. (2021) «'Caring Matter' A love story of queer intimacies between (her) body and (cigarette) object» In Marjo Kolehmainen, Kinneret Lahad & Annukka Lahti (Coord.) «Affective Intimacies». Manchester University Press. (In press)
Pierre, J. M. (2010). Hallucinations in nonpsychotic disorders: Toward a differential diagnosis of «hearing voices». Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 18(1), 22⎯35. DOI: 10.3109/10673220903523706
Pyyry, N., & Aiava, R. (2020). Enchantment as fundamental encounter: Wonder and the radical reordering of subject/world. Cultural Geographies, 147447402090948. DOI: 10.1177/1474474020909481
Rak, M., Beitinger, P., Steiger, A., Schredl, M., & Dresler, M. (2015). Increased Lucid Dreaming Frequency in Narcolepsy. Sleep, 38(5), 787-792. DOI: 10.5665/sleep.4676
Romme, M. A. J., Escher, S., Dillon, J., Morris, M., & Corstens, D. (2009). Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery. PCCS Books.
Romme, M. A. J., & Escher, A. D. M. A. C. (1989). Hearing Voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15(2), 209-216. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/15.2.209
Sacks, O. (2012). Hallucinations. New York: KNOPF.
Schädlich, M., & Erlacher, D. (2012). Applications of lucid dreams: An online study. International Journal of Dream Research, 5(2), 134-138. DOI: 10.11588/ijodr.2012.2.9505
Stengers, I. (2011). Thinking with Whitehead. Harvard University Press.
Stumbrys, T., & Daniels, M. (2010). An exploratory study of creative problem solving in lucid dreams: Preliminary findings and methodological considerations. International Journal of Dream Research, 3(2), 121-129. DOI: 10.11588/ijodr.2010.2.6167
Stumbrys, T., Erlacher, D., Schädlich, M., & Schredl, M. (2012). Induction of lucid dreams: A systematic review of evidence. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1456-1475. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2012.07.003
Talih, F. R. (2011). Narcolepsy Presenting as Schizophrenia. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(4), 30⎯34.
Tasca, C., Rapetti, M., Carta, M. G., & Fadda, B. (2012). Women and Hysteria in The History Of Mental Health. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, 8(1), 110-119. DOI: 10.2174/1745017901208010110
Tsing, A. L. (2005). Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton University Press.
Tuccillo, D., Zeizel, J., & Peisel, T. (2013). A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming: Mastering the Art of Oneironautics. Workman Publishing.
Voss, U., & Voss, G. (2014). A Neurobiological Model of Lucid Dreaming. En R. Hurd & K. Bulkey (Eds.), Lucid Dreaming. New Perspectives on Consciousness in Sleep Volume 1: Science, Psychology, and Education (pp. 23-36). PRAEGER.
Waggoner, R. (2008). Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self. Moment Point Press.
Waters, F., Blom, J. D., Dang-- Vu, T. T., Cheyne, A. J., Alderson-- Day, B., Woodruff, P., & Collerton, D. (2016). What Is the Link Between Hallucinations, Dreams, and Hypnagogic–Hypnopompic Experiences? Schizophrenia Bulletin, 42(5), 1098-1109. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbw076
Waters, F., Collerton, D., Ffytche, D. H., Jardri, R., Pins, D., Dudley, R., Blom, J. D., Mosimann, U. P., Eperjesi, F., Ford, S., & Larøi, F. (2014). Visual Hallucinations in the Psychosis Spectrum and Comparative Information from Neurodegenerative Disorders and Eye Disease. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 40(Suppl_4), S233-S245. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbu036
Wilkie, A., Savransky, M., & Rosengarten, M. (2017). Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures. Taylor & Francis.
Won, C., Mahmoudi, M., Qin, L., Purvis, T., Mathur, A., & Mohsenin, V. (2014). The Impact of Gender on Timeliness of Narcolepsy Diagnosis. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine : JCSM : Official Publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 10(1), 89-95. DOI: 10.5664/jcsm.3370
Zadra, A. L., & Pihl, R. O. (1997). Lucid dreaming as a treatment for recurrent nightmares. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 66(1), 50-55. DOI: 10.1159/000289106
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Published
29/12/2020
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Méndez de la Brena, D. E., & Schoenmann, C. (2020). Lucid dreaming as a method for living otherwise. Sociología Y Tecnociencia, 11(1), 125–151. Retrieved from https://revistas.uva.es/index.php/sociotecno/article/view/4922
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