Bio

I'm (1989-present) a student and father living in Seattle. When not tending to school and child, my home allows for a very active lifestyle. Snowboarding, backpacking (The Narrows was my favorite), and several other hobbies are how I spend my free time. I travel constantly and have become an amateur mechanic to help save on expense. I have been in phlebotomy for a decade and have left the field to pursue a higher education. I am currently attending a local community college.

I am new to Wikipedia but am excited to help contribute to its diverse community. Pursuing my education I will not only have use for it in research throughout my learning, but also to submit and update information in the field i am pursuing. Studies being performed and published throughout my education and career that I am involved in can be shared with the world by me! I am focused on the field of psychology but have strong interests in physics, sociology, art, and astronomy. Having yet to pursue an education in any of these fields, I imagine I could pursue making contributions in those fields.

Article Critique

Article review

Lucid dreaming is a fantastic topic I have been eager to learn more about and one I have been fascinated with since adolescence. In recent years I have been struggling with the topic as it affects me on a semi-regular basis. I cannot often decipher my dreams from my memories, and point of fact, this is part of why psychology is such an intriguing field to me. My brain not only gives me the ability to perform tasks like writing this essay, while simultaneously also breathing, pumping blood, filtering toxins, processing data (at record speeds for me), but also, can categorize my thoughts, dreams, and memories in separate compartments (as I like to think of them). The trick is trusting it to do its job I suppose, and with unlimited variables affecting my brain, body, and psychology at pretty much all times, who is to say I should trust my brain? Lucid dreaming seems to be where the vail breaks, or at least seems to waver slightly. It makes me wonder if lucid dreaming is easily achieved without the intention of doing so. Or maybe the vail can permanently waiver allowing a disconnect in where to store certain thoughts and memories. I am doing what research I can for this project, but thorough research takes much more time than this assignment will allow. I have done personal research and even experimented with dream journals and lucid dreaming about 10 years ago (which could have had its own effects). My favorite ‘documentary’ is called “Waking Life” and it is an amazing, slightly distorted, animated documentary. It is really one of a kind. The article for lucid dream in Wikipedia was incomplete as well as defining 'facts' that are more experiences from people fascinated with the idea of lucid dreaming. I expected something more complete, defined, and also neutral. I want Wikipedia's information to be robust and insightful, and after reading the lucid dream page on Wikipedia, I found four points that are worth discussing: the origination of the term lucid dream, controversy within, presentation of the article, as well as citations and research.

Origination of term

As for the Wikipedia article on Lucid Dream (I tried Lucid dreaming, however it is not a page. Maybe because it is a verb not a noun) I was not impressed in the least. The definition of what it is was very vague and I was even able to expand upon with a citable addition. However, the research was very focused and it did cited several notable references. Most notable to me was the study of Frederik van Eeden and his classifications of dreams. The article pointed out the term ‘lucid dream’ was coined by him and that he was the professor most experienced in lucid dreaming at the time. The citation led me to his very detailed personal records. All in form of a journal documenting his experiences. He did use the term Lucid dreaming among his several other dream categories. His writings do refer to similar studies as reference for proof but in the end seems more of his experience than factual studies. Also noting other instances in the history section, prior to Frederik van Eeden, that reference lucid dreaming. It is difficult to determine if they were using the term "lucid dream" or if it used to paraphrase their description. I am inclined to believe this is not the true origination of the term, although I have yet to confirm its origin.

Controversy

The controversy I tend to find through research on the topic is the difference in belief whether one is awake or conscious during lucid dreaming or rather deep in sleep only under REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Regardless of such controversy it seems highly agreed upon that lucid dreaming experiences take place during what appears to be REM sleep but also with added brain functions that are not found elevated in standard REM sleep. Since this leaves the theory open It makes me wonder if a failure to allocate dream memories is due to the brain not knowing it is asleep. The article seemed bias toward the opinion a dreamer experiencing a lucid dream is in-fact sleeping deeply.

Presentation

The presentation of the article is basic, but also well done. It makes me wonder if this was created for an assignment for a class. They titled categories under sections and also provided detailed facts related to the topic. Citations are placed so I can easily navigate them as I review the article. Photos (related or not) bring a sense of completion to the page. Aesthetically it is very pleasing, which I appreciate as an amateur pianist (very amateur) since I only fell in love with reading music because they design sheet music based on aesthetics. Except for the beginning of the page, which doesn’t implore you to read on being so sparse, it is a fairly robust beginner page for Wikipedia.

Research and Citations

I was not fond of the information extrapolated from the citations given. Some of the links don’t even work because they are out of date or inactive. I Especially disliked under the history section where they divide the category into sections by century. My thought being if I am going to research a topic and use Wikipedia to do so, I want a fully researched, fact-based article with several references of the topic, both correlating to history and origination of the topic. And nothing notable happened except for one persons experience every hundred years? I believe there is more out there than that! Now I am still researching to find out if the term Lucid dreaming was ever used before 1913 as the article stated and cited. I’ve not researched enough yet to change such a fact and stand behind it, but even the article itself references a professor using lucid dreaming far before the 20^th century. The most disappointing note about the references and history in the article were distant individual experiences being used as factual information derived from studies. It seems more like an assembled pile of ideas and experiences put together nicely to please the eye.

Summary

Although I was not very impressed, this article has given me some resources to look into as well as some new research and experiences to think about. The article was well composed and informational to those without any idea of what the topic is. In short, I simply wish there was more information gathered to put the article together so it would provide an educational impact to those experienced in the topic as well as those who are unknown to it. I am still eager to learn more about lucid dreaming and to pursue my career in psychology. I will just have to reach far outside Wikipedia for such a topic until myself and fellow Wikipedians further research and update the lucid dream article.