Keith Hearne - Biography

Biography

He is most well known for his research in lucid dreaming (in which the dreamer becomes fully aware of being in a dream, and the dream may be manipulated by mere thought) for his PhD (‘Lucid dreams - an electro-physiological and psychological study’) - completed in 1978 at Liverpool University, England. In the course of that research, he was the first person to discover a method for the dreamer to signal from within the dream (April 1975), using eye-movements - so circumventing the profound bodily paralysis of REM (dreaming) sleep. Hearne has made his PhD available for free download (www.keithhearne.com). The original chart-records are on permanent display at the Science Museum in London.

His first degree (BSc) was attained at Reading University in 1973. He then gained an MSc from Hull University in 1975 (Thesis title: ‘Visual imagery and evoked responses’).

Among Hearne’s many discoveries in his PhD work were: that the lucid dream is a true dream occurring during REM sleep; that lucidity is invariably preceded by a ‘pre-lucid REM burst’; that the dream operates in real time; that the ocular signals may act as event-markers for electro-physiological monitoring of dream events, such as ‘flying’; that respiration may also be altered volitionally in the dream.

In addition, Hearne discovered the ‘scene-shift effect’, relevant to dreams, in hypnotic imagery - a seemingly universal effect whereby (using Hearne’s procedure of getting the high-imagery subject to ‘freeze-frame’ an image ‘projected’ onto a board and then to trace the imaged scene) the individual pictorial elements automatically re-arrange themselves into a different picture for the next scene - maintaining the same number of characters, objects and colours. The implication is that the dream follows a pathway of least-effort in its construction.

Another of Hearne’s discoveries, the ‘light-switch effect’ refers to a consistent report between subjects in lucid dreams, and also in ordinary dreams, that it is not possible instantly to increase the subjective ‘brightness’ in a dream, using a switch say, although a light might be switched off and then on again. It is as if there is a ‘ceiling’ limit on dream brightness, which may vary over time, but cannot be exceeded, suddenly, at that time. The dream-producing process seems to compensate, deceptively fooling the dreamer, by providing a fake reason why the light does not come on (e.g. it is ‘fused’, or strangely ‘missing’).

Hearne suggested the F.A.S.T. (False-Awakening with State-Testing) technique for encouraging lucid dreaming in 1982. Someone enters the subject’s bedroom every half hour or so after say 6am. They may speak and then go out. Since the subject is expecting the person to enter the room, it is likely that they will at some point dream that the person is there. If the subject automatically goes through a series of state-testing tests (e.g. attempt to switch on a light (the light-switch effect can strongly indicate dreaming); attempt to ‘float’; jump off a chair, say (gravity is often reported reduced in dreams); do the objects around look normal?; is your body normal?; outside the window, is the season correct?; is it possible to alter a detail in the scenery?; can you push your hand through an object?; pinch your skin and feel for any strange texture; look in a mirror), no-matter how real the situation seems, they may discover that they are in fact dreaming - so prompting lucidity.

Hearne also invented the world’s first 'dream machine' (US patent 4,420,001), intended to produce an artificial stimulus into the dream, in order to trigger ‘lucidity’. A ‘dream machine’ is on permanent display, along with Hearne’s original ocular-signalling chart records, at the Science Museum in London.

The first academic, printed, publication of his signalling discovery and lucid dream research was: ‘Eye-movement communication from lucid dreams: a new technique and initial findings’ was in April 1977.

Hearne’s book The Dream Machine (free download at www.keithhearne.com) described his pioneering PhD, and other research concerning dream lucidity. In recent years, Hearne collaborated with the late David Melbourne on a book, The Dream Oracle (published by The Foulsham Press, UK) which introduced a completely novel way of obtaining direct information from the unconscious in ordinary dreams, without needing ‘interpretation’, using Melbourne’s discovery of the ‘alphabet-dream-code’.