Thread: Education and Career Paths for the Lucid Dreamer

I've seen this same question brought up many times on our forum and felt it would be beneficial to have a thread specifically for the discussion of possible future careers or jobs having to do with sleep, dreams, and lucid dreaming. This is by no means a complete list, but each career I've listed below is here for a reason. I compiled this list from biographies of people who are all currently doing work directly related to lucid dreaming.

If you're mostly interested in the type of work done by Stephen LaBerge, then you would probably want to get your undergraduate degree in Psychology, and then work toward a Ph.D in Psychophysiology or other related field. As you prepare to go to graduate school, you would need to find where professors are doing research in your area of interest. You can determine that by looking at the authors of research papers on lucid dreaming, and seeing what colleges or universities they are at. With a strong academic history, you can apply to graduate school, and hopefully a professor in your area of interest will agree to be your adviser or major professor.


Careers in Science

Sleep Technologist
Trained in Sleep Technology and relevant aspects of Sleep Medicine, sleep technologists assist in the evaluation and follow-up care of patients with sleep disorders. Sleep Technology is recognized as a separate and distinct allied health profession. The scope of practice of sleep technologists enables them to work in sleep centers, laboratories for sleep related breathing disorders, home environments, and non-facility-based settings under the direction of the sleep specialist.

Spoiler for Sleep Technologist:

Sleep Technology, also called Polysomnographic Technology, is a separate and distinct, multidisciplinary, allied health-care occupation embracing a unique body of knowledge and methodological skills. Overnight polysomnography is a standard tool in Sleep Medicine for evaluating sleep-related pathophysiology, sleep architecture, and sleep integrity. Specifically, it is a complex evaluation used as a quantitative measurement of multiple physiological parameters during sleep, combined with expert observational reporting. Sleep technologists, technicians and trainees are the technical group specially trained to perform polysomnography and other technical evaluations used for the diagnosis and treatment of sleep/arousal disorders. They are health-care professionals who work as part of a team under the general supervision of a licensed physician to assist in the education, evaluation, treatment and follow up of sleep disorders patients of all ages. They follow accepted standards of care, including American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) Practice Parameters, which are the foundation for clinical/technical decision-making and for provision of patient-sensitive care. This profession employs a unique set of diagnostic tools used in the interest of establishing diagnoses and developing future therapeutic interventions, which require expertise in the specialty of Sleep Medicine.

Sleep Trainee/Technician/Technologist
The first position, Sleep Trainee is an entry-level position. The second position, Sleep Technician indicates successful completion and mastery of certain tasks. The third, Sleep Technologist indicates the individual has mastered tasks and successfully passed the certification process through the BRPT.

A Sleep Trainee develops competency in and performs the basics of polysomnographic testing and associated interventions under direct supervision of a Sleep Technician or a Sleep Technologist.

Education and/or Experience: High school diploma or GED plus 6 months of direct patient care experience or 1 year of postsecondary education. OR current enrollment in an accredited educational program leading to an associate degree with an emphasis in polysomnography.

A Sleep Technician performs comprehensive polysomnographic testing and analysis, and associated interventions under the general oversight of a Sleep Technologist (RPSGT) and/or the clinical director (MD, PhD, DO) or designee. A Sleep Technician can provide supervision of a Sleep Trainee.

Education and/or Experience: Successful completion of a polysomnography program, of no less than one year duration, associated with a state licensed and/or a nationally accredited educational facility. OR a minimum of 6 months of experience as a Sleep Trainee with documented proficiency in all required competencies.

A Sleep Technologist works under the general supervision of the clinical director (M.D., D.O., or PhD) or designee to provide comprehensive evaluation and treatment of sleep disorders. This may involve polysomnography, diagnostic and therapeutic services or patient care and education. A Sleep Technologist can perform the duties defined for a Sleep Technician and may provide oversight of other staff.

Education and/or Experience: Successful completion of an accredited educational program leading to an associate degree with an emphasis in polysomnography. OR successful completion of a polysomnography program of no less than one than one year duration associated with a state licensed and/or a nationally accredited educational facility or equivalent experience and documented proficiency at all competencies required of a Sleep Technician. AND Certification by the Board of Registered Polysomnographic Technologists as a Registered Polysomnographic Technologist or equivalent.

Psychophysiologist
Psychophysiology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of the interrelationships between the physiological and psychological aspects of behavior (SPR). Being truly interdisciplinary, it incorporates researchers from a large number of disciplines like psychology, medicine, engineering, anatomy and neuroscience.

Spoiler for Psychophysiology:

Psychophysiology is the branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes. While psychophysiology was a general broad field of research in the 1960s and 1970s, it has now become quite specialized, and has branced into subspecializations. For example, Social Psychophysiology, Cardiovascular Psychophysiology, Cognitive Psychophysiology, and Cognitive Neuroscience.

Psychologists are interested in why we may fear spiders and physiologists may be interested in the input/output system of the amygdala. A psychophysiologist will attempt to link the two. Psychophysiologists almost always study the psychological/physiological link in intact human subjects. It is this perspective of studying the interface of mind and body that makes psychophysiologists most distinct.

Psychophysiology is closely related to the field of Neuroscience and Social neuroscience, which primarily concerns itself with relationships between psychological events and brain responses. Psychophysiology is also related to the medical discipline known as psychosomatics.

Many measures are part of modern psychophysiology including measures of brain activity such as ERPs, brain waves (electroencephalography, EEG), fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), measures of skin conductance (skin conductance response, SCR; galvanic skin response, GSR), cardiovascular measures (heart rate, HR; beats per minute, BPM; heart rate variability, HRV; vasomotor activity), muscle activity (electromyography, EMG), changes in pupil diameter with thought and emotion (pupillometry) and eye movements, recorded via the electro-oculogram (EOG) and direction-of-gaze methods.

Psychophysiological measures are often used to study emotion and attention responses to stimuli, during exertion,and increasingly, to better understand cognitive processes.

Summer Internships Available at the Health & Psychophysiology Lab at Harvard University

We are currently accepting applications for summer interns at the Health and Psychophysiology Lab at Harvard University. We offer a ten-week summer internship program designed for undergraduates who are interested in conducting research at the intersection of social psychology, emotion, psychophysiology, and neuroendocrinology. Interns work approximately 30 hours a week, which includes weekly tutorials and lab meetings. Most interns receive funding from their own university, but there will be a few stipends available.

If you are interested in applying to be a summer intern, please email your resume/vita to the Lab Manager, Carrigan Denny-Brown, carrigandb@wjh.harvard.edu

Jobs
Society for Psychophysiological Research

Typical Job Qualifications:
Minimum BS degree Ph.D. preferred in psychology, sociology, anthropology or related social science with 1 to 3 years experience in behavioral analysis. Expertise with physiological sensors and signals, human testing, and statistics, particularly multivariate analysis, is required. Proficiency with statistical packages and techniques (specifically SPSS, hierarchical linear modeling, and structural equation modeling) and Matlab is desired. Working knowledge of neurophysiology is a definite plus.

Neuropsychologist
Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain related to specific psychological processes and behaviors. It is scientific in its approach and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science. In practice neuropsychologists tend to work in clinical settings (involved in assessing or treating patients with neuropsychological problems, forensic settings or industry.

Spoiler for Neuropsychology:

Experimental neuropsychology is an approach which uses methods from experimental psychology to uncover the relationship between the nervous system and cognitive function. The majority of work involves studying healthy humans in a laboratory setting, although a minority of researchers may conduct animal experiments. Human work in this area often takes advantage of specific features of our nervous system to make links between neuroanatomy and psychological function.

Clinical neuropsychology is the application of neuropsychological knowledge to the assessment, management, and rehabilitation of people who have suffered illness or injury (particularly to the brain) which has caused neurocognitive problems. In particular they bring a psychological viewpoint to treatment, to understand how such illness and injury may affect and be affected by psychological factors. They also can offer an opinion as to whether a person is demonstrating difficulties due to brain pathology or as a consequence of emotional or other (potentially) reversible cause. Clinical neuropsychologists often work in hospital settings in an interdisciplinary medical team, others work in private practice and may provide expert input into medico-legal proceedings.

Cognitive neuropsychology is a relatively new development and has emerged as a distillation of the complementary approaches of both experimental and clinical neuropsychology. It seeks to understand the mind and brain by studying people who have suffered brain injury or neurological illness.

Functional neuroimaging uses specific neuroimaging technologies to take readings from the brain, usually when a person is doing a particular task, in an attempt to understand how the activation of particular brain areas is related to the task. In particular, the growth of methodologies to employ cognitive testing within established functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to study brain-behavior relations is having a notable influence on neuropsychological research.

Biochemist
Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. Typical biochemists study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms.

Spoiler for Biochemistry:

A degree in biochemistry or a related science such as chemistry is the minimum requirement for any work in this field. This is sufficient for a position as a technical assistant in industry or in academic settings. A Ph.D. (or equivalent) is generally required to pursue or direct independent research. To advance further in commercial environments, one may need to acquire skills in management.

In college, students take many biology and chemistry classes in addition to the required calculus, physics, and other core classes. Basic classes in biology including (but not limited to) microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics, cell biology, and genomics are focused on. All types of chemistry are required with emphasis on biochemistry and organic chemistry.

Employment

The most common area of employment for biochemists is in the life sciences field where biochemists frequently work in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry. In this field biochemists would be in a research role. The current national average salary for a biochemist is approximately $69,000 per year. In some areas this average may be as high as $160,000+ or more - it depends on the abilities and experience. Fresh out of school they can make anywhere between 15-32 dollars an hour.

Academia is also a promising avenue for biochemists. As principal investigators at an academic institution, biochemists can pursue their own research agenda. It is not uncommon for biochemists in academia to also be involved with their own biochemistry start-up companies. Biochemists in academia are also involved with teaching undergraduates, training graduate students and collaborating with post-doctoral fellows. Because of a biochemists' background in both biology and chemistry, there are many other employment areas such as medical, industrial, governmental and environmental fields. The field of medicine offers related careers such as nutrition, genetics, biophysics and pharmacology; industrial needs include everything from beverage and food technology to toxicology and vaccine production; while governmental and environmental fields require biochemists to work on everything from forensic science and wildlife management to marine biology and viticulture. This incredibly wide range makes biochemistry an extremely flexible career choice.

Clinical Psychologist
Clinical Psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration.

Cognitive Psychologist
Cognitive Psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes. It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.

Experimental Psychologist
is a methodological approach rather than a subject and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception, attention, consciousness, learning, memory, thinking, and language. Recently, however, the experimental approach has extended to motivation, emotion, and social psychology. Experimental psychologists conduct research with the help of experimental methods. The concern of experimental psychology is discovering the processes underlying behavior and cognition.

Hypnotherapist
A hypnotherapist is a therapist who utilizes hypnosis as a primary tool for assisting clients to achieve their goals. A hypnotherapist often differs from other therapists because they focus on the role of subconscious behaviors and influences on the client's life.

Parapsychologist
Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to investigate the existence and causes and conditions of psychic abilities, near-death experiences, out-of-the-body experiences, apparitions, reincarnation memories, regression memories, prophecy, astrology, ghosts and life after death. Parapsychological experiments have included the use of random number generators to test for evidence of precognition and psychokinesis with both human and animal subjects and Ganzfeld experiments to test for extrasensory perception. Parapsychological laboratory and field research is conducted through private institutions and several universities. Privately-funded units in psychology departments at universities in the United Kingdom are among the most active today.

Research Scientist

College Professor



Careers in Metaphysics and Spirituality
There are plenty of career paths for the lucid dreamer in the field of metaphysical sciences if that's more your thing. The University of Metaphysical Sciences is just one such online university offering a variety of bachelors, masters, and doctorate degree programs in metaphysics, divinity, counseling, etc.

Metaphysician
With a degree in metaphysics from University of Metaphysical Sciences you can become a Metaphysician. A Metaphysician helps people learn how to change their reality by working with the underlying thoughts and emotions that cause the problems and create manifestations of suffering. This is a different kind of doctor, one who works with the energy that creates disease and illness, rather than treating the resulting symptoms in the physical body or reality. It is most important to reach deeper into the roots of the problems, the etheric layers where it all starts in pre-matter. By changing the inner landscape, the outer landscape, as pertains to the universal laws of nature, must change with it.

Spiritual Counselor

Holistic Life Coach

Doctor of Divinity



Creative Careers
Keep in mind, that being a lucid dreamer can give you a leg up and have a positive effect on just about any job. For example, many well known artists, musicians, authors, directors, etc. have drawn inspiration directly from their dreams.

Artist

Musician

Author

Director