conscious mind—The part of the mind that carries on a person’s waking thought processes.
dream analysis—The process of trying to make sense of one’s dreams.
dream symbols—Dream images that tend to hide their true meanings.
dreamwork—Catching and analyzing dreams.
extrasensory perception (ESP)—The ability to send or receive messages without using the normal senses.
Ganzfeld setup—An experimental technique that cuts subjects off from all sensory input so as to induce a relaxed, dreamlike state.
latent content—The hidden meaning of dreams, often concealed by dream symbols.
lucid dreaming—A technique in which subjects who are aware they are dreaming take control of their dreams. In lucid dreaming, dreamers write their own endings to dream scripts.
manifest content—Dream messages that can be taken at face value.
out-of-body experience (OBE)—A dream in which someone seems to leave his or her sleeping body behind while traveling to other places.
precognitive dream—A dream that seems to predict a future event.
rapid eye movement sleep (REM)—Also known as Stage 1 sleep, the stage of sleep during which dreams take place. During REM sleep, the sleeper’s eyes move as if following the action of the dream.
sleepwalk—To perform simple actions such as walking while still asleep.
telepathic dream—A dream in which the sleeper seems to receive (or send) a message from (or to) another person.
unconscious mind—The storehouse of feelings, thoughts, and memories that the mind keeps hidden. Dreams provide one of the few routes into the unconscious.
warning dream—A dream that alerts the sleeper to danger.
white sound—Unvarying electronic “noise” that researchers use to screen subjects from distracting outside noises.