Is Lucid Dreamless Sleep Really Lucid?

The concept of 'lucid dreamless sleep' has been proposed to explain the 'clear light' state described in Tibetan Buddhist traditions, a special consciousness during deep sleep where one recognizes the nature of mind. Some authors link this to lucid dreaming, appealing to a non-conceptual form of lucidity without reflective awareness or propositional thought. This paper argues that the term 'lucidity' used for this state is imprecise and distinguishes two theoretical notions: a technical notion requiring recognition of the hallucinatory character of experience, and a broader notion involving seeming recognition of direct acquaintance with the phenomenal character of experience. Only the broader notion could apply to clear light sleep.

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Abstract

AbstractRecently, the construct ‘lucid dreamless sleep’ has been proposed to explain the state of ‘clear light’ described by Tibetan Buddhist traditions, a special state of consciousness during deep sleep in which we’re told to be able to recognise the nature or essence of our mind (Padmasambhava & Gyatrul 2008; Ponlop 2006; Wangyal 1998). To explain the sort of awareness experienced during this state, some authors have appealed to the sort of lucidity acquired during lucid dreaming and suggested a link between both phenomena (Thompson 2014, 2015; Windt 2015a; Windt et al. 2016). Whilst these authors appeal to a non-conceptually mediated form of lucidity, which doesn’t consist of reflective awareness and propositional thought, the question as to whether the state of clear light should be considered a lucid state similar to lucid dreaming still arises. I argue that the concept ‘lucidity’ used to describe this sort of state is imprecise and that two theoretical notions of lucidity should be distinguished. The first one, which I call the technical notion, requires the recognition of the hallucinatory character of my current experience. The second, the broader notion, involves the seeming recognition of being directly acquainted with the phenomenal character of my experience. I spell out these two notions of lucidity and argue that only the latter could apply to the state of clear light sleep.