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Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain pp 27–35Cite as

Lucid Dreams in Tibetan Buddhism

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Abstract

Lucid dreaming is discussed in centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist texts. A simple definition that comes out of our present scientific studies is that lucid dreaming is “awareness of dreaming while in the dream state” (Gackenbach, 1980, p. 253). Traditional Tibetan religion and modern psychology are very diverse contexts for discussions of lucid dreaming. To show that the Tibetans are discussing the same subject that our contemporary dream researchers describe, I quote (in translation) a sample statement from a Tibetan text.

Keywords

  • Breathing Exercise
  • Yogic Practice
  • Dream State
  • Dream Experience
  • Yogic Posture

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    George Gillespie

Authors
  1. George Gillespie
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA

    Jayne Gackenbach

  2. Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Stephen LaBerge

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© 1988 Plenum Press, New York

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Gillespie, G. (1988). Lucid Dreams in Tibetan Buddhism. In: Gackenbach, J., LaBerge, S. (eds) Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0423-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0423-5_3

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