Van Eeden, Frederik (1860-1932)
Van Eeden, Frederik (1860-1932)
Dutch physician, author, and poet, who was also actively interested in psychiatry and psychical research and was acquainted with Frederic William Henry Myers. He conducted important research with the non-professional British medium Rosina Thompson and also made valuable contributions to the study of dreams. He coined the term "lucid dreams" to denote dreams in which the sleeper is aware of dreaming, i.e., some degree of waking consciousness persists in the dream state, often a preliminary to out-of-the-body (OOB) experiences. He appears to have had some OOB experience himself, since he described it in one of his novels (The Bride of Dreams, 1918). He also obtained cross-correspondences between his own dreams and the trance utterances of "Nelly," Thompson's control, while Van Eeden was in Holland and Thompson in England.
Sources:
Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.
Van Eeden, Frederik. "A Study of Dreams." Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 26 (1913).