This research was directed toward the contradiction sustained by cognitive dream psychology, which on the one hand regards dreaming as higher symbolic activity and, on the other, sees its organizational and functional characteristics as derivative and/or inferior to those of waking consciousness. Study 1 evaluates the degree of self-reflective meta-cognition in dreams from different sleep stages. Subjects were 24 college students selected such that half were self-reported high-frequency dream recallers and half were low-frequency recallers. Both groups were composed equally of men and women. Greater self-reflectiveness (SR) was found in REM dreams as compared with those from stages 2 and 4, which did not differ. High-frequency recallers showed more dream SR than did low-frequency recallers. Study 2 assessed the extent to which self-reflective and lucid dreaming can be learned as a cognitive skill by varying levels of intention and attention paid to dreaming. After 3 weeks of home dream collection, results showed that four experimental groups had greater dream SR than did a baseline group. The most effective treatment was the mnemonic, wherein attention patterning schemas learned in waking resulted in more self-reflective and lucid dreaming than did either baseline or attention-control conditions. These results provide evidence that dreaming is not single-minded but variable along a self-reflective process continuum, and suggest functional and organizational levels that are consistent with the conception of dreaming as higher order cognitive activity.

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Shifts in levels of self-reflectiveness (SR) across a series of dream reports have been theoretically linked to psychological development. The hypothesized pattern is one of a linear increase in SR. Development of SR within a single dream report has not been addressed and is investigated in the present study. Dream reports, collected in the context of an experimental manipulation to increase dream SR, were broken down into textual information units. Each unit was assigned an SR score and the resulting sequences of SR scores were analyzed. Singlemindedness was found to be a stable aspect of dreaming. The treatment conditions increased the maximum SR reached in the dream reports of the experimental groups and some evidence of group differences in the pattern of changes in SR were found. It was concluded that the induction of lucid dreaming increases maximum levels of SR attained in the dream but does not markedly disrupt the serial organization of SR in dream reports.