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Dr Keith M. T. Hearne (BSc MSc PhD) Psychologist, Composer, Writer
The man who opened up the universe of dreams to Science

LUCID DREAMING DAY – 12^th April, each year- 12 April 2025 – 50 year anniversary

50 years ago (12th April 1975), English psychologist Keith Hearne was the first person to discover a way of getting subjects who experienced ‘lucid’ (conscious, controllable) dreams to signal to the waking world by making coded eye-movements – so circumventing the bodily paralysis of REM (dreaming) sleep. Hearne discovered all the basic phenomena of lucid dreams.

Encouraged by Prof. Allan Rechtschaffen of Chicago University, Hearne then embarked on a 3-year study at Liverpool University (supervised by Dr Graham Wagstaff) for his PhD. He also invented the world’s first ‘dream machine’.

Lucid dreams are an unusual type of dream in which you become perfectly conscious, with full critical faculties, within the dream state. This advance opened a huge new area of dream research, into ‘inner space’.

Daniel Love suggested in his book (Are you dreaming?) that the date should be internationally recognized each year as Lucid Dreaming Day. The date 12^th April 2025 celebrates as the 50^th anniversary of Hearne’s discovery. His PhD thesis and his book (The Dream Machine) may be viewed/downloaded free from this website.

Message from Dr Keith Hearne: I am so very grateful to all those who have congratulated me for my discovery of ocular-signalling from lucid dreams, and all my subsequent research into sleep and dreaming. Happy lucid dreaming!

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Dr Hearne supports Daniel Love’s exciting project to boost lucid dreaming through Love’s book: The Lucid Dreamer’s Guide to the Cosmos. Click here for the link: http://kck.st/1NSjUJN

^{Photo by Bryan Johnson}

Dr Keith Hearne & Dr Clare Johnson

at the March 28th 2015 Talk in London for the Dream Research Institute celebrating 40 years of lucid dream research.

FREE DOWNLOAD of Hearne’s famous PhD! Click:

https://www.keithhearne.com/phd-download/

WORLD’S FIRST SLEEP-LAB RESEARCH INTO ‘LUCID’ DREAMS. FIRST DISCOVERY OF EYE-SIGNALS FROM LUCID DREAMS IN April 1975 (WAY BEFORE A CERTAIN AMUSING AMERICAN), DISCOVERY OF THE FIRST DREAM-MACHINE, DISCOVERY OF ALL THE MAIN PHYSIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF LUCID DREAMS, DEMONSTRATION THAT A LUCID DREAM IS A REM DREAM OPERATING IN REAL TIME, THE PRE-LUCID REM BURST, THE LIGHT-SWITCH PHENOMENON, THE SCENE-CHANGE EFFECT, etc, etc, etc.

ALSO, DOWNLOAD FREE HEARNE’S SEMINAL BOOK THE DREAM MACHINE (Click on Books by Dr Hearne – top right of this page)

Dr Keith Hearne (BSc MSc PhD) is an internationally known psychologist, from Britain, who conducted the world’s first sleep-laboratory research into ‘lucid’ dreams (in which the dreamer becomes fully aware of being in a dream) for his PhD – completed in 1978 at Liverpool University. He devised the ocular-signalling technique and invented the first ‘dream machine’. The original sleep-lab chart records from his pioneering research, and a dream machine, are on permanent display at the Science Museum in London.

He is also a composer and has written many works including a full Requiem (with additional Ave Maria, Nunc Dimittis & Magnificat), a Musical, a Guitar concerto, a Holocaust Memorial piece, and a Ballet. The full-length ballet was written in collaboration with Dame Gillian Lynne, who choreographed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, Cats, etc. Some of the ballet pieces have been recorded by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

He is the Founder/Principal of the European College of Hypnotherapy and a therapist of renown. He has lectured widely, and introduced several major new therapeutic techniques. He teaches hypnotherapy, as well as the more esoteric subjects of past-life therapy and spirit releasing therapy. Over the years he has been frequently in the media, especially television, in the U.K. and abroad.

(If you are seeking his expert help as a psychologist/hypnotherapist, please click HERE).

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Science (including Lucid Dream research)

Books by Dr Hearne

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