Stephen LaBerge's Lucidity Institute

03/04/2026

01/30/2026

🩵 Why It Matters How We Treat Our Dream Characters 🩵

If you suppose that the people in your dreams are no more real than the characters in a novel or a video game, what does it matter how you treat them? Why should you be concerned about the feelings of "figments of your imagination?" Since it's your dream, what's wrong with acting like a Roman Emperor or a god?

Setting aside for the moment the question of the reality of dream figures, there are good arguments for not lording over your dreams. Practicing actions makes them come easier in the future; what we make a habit of in dream life will manifest in waking life as well. Where better to begin the practice of compassion than within your own mind, in your own dreams, to your own creations?

The enlightened sages, as in the above quotes, teach us that we are all not simply alike, but one. What we do to others, we do to ourselves. Again, nowhere is this more obvious than in dream worlds, where those we may think of as "others," are reflections of our minds.

Consider what it means to be "you" or "other" in a dream. Remember, the person you are in the dream is just the person the sleeping dreamer is dreaming him- or herself to be! Those other beings, or objects, in the dream are other manifestations of the self. That you identify with one character at one particular moment does not mean that you are not also everything else in the dream. The same likely applies in what we call "waking life" as well.
..See what happens when you try to discuss this sort of thing with dream figures in your next lucid dream.

❝
"Considering others to be just the same as yourself helps you to open up your relationships and give them a new and richer meaning. Imagine if societies and nations began to view one another in the same way; at last we would have the beginnings of a solid basis for peace on earth, and the happy coexistence of all peoples." (Sogyal Rinpoche)

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"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." (Albert Einstein)

--Stephen LaBerge, Lucidity Flashes Newsletter, February 2011

Photo: Stephen and long-time retreat facilitator and friend, Keeiln, at Hawaii Volcano National Park, 2016

12/22/2025

12/06/2025

One of the most nostalgic moments from the early science of lucid dreaming:
Stephen LaBerge describing the shift from “I missed my chance tonight” to suddenly becoming aware in the dream and flying over a field of flowers.
A perfect snapshot of how lucidity can arrive when you least expect it — and how those early lab recordings changed everything.

05/21/2025

"The experience of lucid dreaming teaches us that our perception of reality is fluid and malleable, encouraging us to be more flexible and creative in our thinking."

~Stephen LaBerge

04/09/2025

Limited Edition Dr. Stephen LaBerge: Lucid Dream Expert Action Figure – $19.99
Includes dream journal, memory supplements, blinking light mask, and more. Now with 8 fingers per hand for maximum metaphysical grip.

Grab yours before it’s gone like the lucid dream you forgot to write down!

…or wait.
Could you be dreaming now?
How do you know for sure?
How can you tell what’s real anyhow?

03/25/2025

⭐️ New collab standardizing EEG processing in lucid dreaming studies— Huge thanks to Stephen for his help in continuing to drive consciousness studies forward! 🧠⚡️

03/15/2025

REALITY CHECK

If you want to cultivate the skill of lucid dreaming, you need to develop a critical mind set about your current state of consciousness. For example, whenever anyone mentions dreaming or lucidity, it should raise a question: How do you know that you aren't dreaming right now? It's not enough to say "I just know I'm not dreaming". You need to actually test your state.

There are numerous ways people do state-tests, some more reliable than others, but only one has been scientifically tested and proved effective: the Re-Reading State Test (RRST). You may have heard that you can't read in dreams. That isn't so, but re-reading dream text without the text changing becomes less probable with each repetition. This is what makes the RRST so effective.

Here is how to do a RRST: first, read the words in any sentence, for example, this one: "Is this a dream?" Then, look away and look back, carefully observing the words and letters to see if they change in any way. Try to make them change while watching them. Research shows that if you are dreaming, text changes about 75% of the time on each re-reading. So if the text does change, then you are probably dreaming. (In which case, enjoy!) However, if the text stays exactly the same after three re-readings (RRST3), there is less than a 1% chance that you're dreaming.

So we can presume you're not dreaming at the moment for a number of reasons. First, if you've actually just done the RRST as described above, that would make you 99% sure you're not dreaming. However it could have been in error (one chance in 100), in which case you'd be dreaming now. But that would raise some serious metaphysical problems, like how did this e-mail get into your dream? d-Mail?! Of course, if you were dreaming, you might well be reading, or trying to read, what would appear to be a message on what would appear to be your computer, in what would appear to be a room, and so on. It just wouldn't be THIS message. And don't forget, it wouldn't really be YOU either, doing the reading etc., but a dream of you, a dream image appearing to be you. And so forth. No wonder you don't usually know you're dreaming while you are still doing so.

But while this all seems endlessly complicated, lucid dreaming is simple: If you realized that you were dreaming right now, then you would be in a lucid dream. What comes next is up to you. Remember, the usual laws of physics and society don't apply.

~From Lucidity Flashes Newsletter March 2012

01/27/2025

Join Ed O'Malley, Ph.D., Danny Lewin, Ph.D., and Geshe Tenzin Wangyal for an insightful exploration of dreams in Tibetan Buddhism and Bön. This live online dialog will uncover the spiritual and psychological significance of dreams, introducing

02/02/2024

Happy Groundhog Day! 🐾 Not just a day, but a reminder of the classic movie that brilliantly mirrors the concept of lucid dreaming. It shows how a just touch of lucidity, memory, and intentionality can transform recurring dreams (or nightmares) into the extraordinary. A perfect day to reflect on altering our paths and patterns, just like Phil did.

This is one of the lucid dream-like movies Dr LaBerge would show to close our evenings at the Dreaming and Awakening Retreats. 🎥 🍿 ✨

12/15/2023