Paul Tholey

Life and work

The story behind the role.

German psychologist (1937–1998).

Paul Tholey (14 March 1937 – 7 December 1998) was a German Gestalt psychologist, and a professor of psychology and sports science at the University of Frankfurt and the Technical University of Braunschweig. Tholey started the study of oneirology in an attempt to prove that dreams occur in color. Given the unreliability of dream memories and following the critical realism approach, he used lucid dreaming as an epistemological tool for investigating dreams, in a similar fashion to Stephen LaBerge. He devised the reflection technique for inducing lucid dreams, consisting in continuously suspecting waking life to be a dream, in the hope that such a habit would manifest itself during dreams. Tholey's research included the examination of the cognitive abilities of dreamers, as well as the cognitive abilities of dream figures. In the latter study, nine trained lucid dreamers were directed to set other dream figures arithmetic and verbal tasks during lucid dreaming (Cognitive abilities of dream figures in lucid dreams, 1983). Dream figures who agreed to perform the tasks proved more successful in verbal than in arithmetic tasks.

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