Website: www.clarejay.com

In 2007 I completed a PhD with the University of Leeds, England, in which I examined the role of lucid dreaming in the process of creative writing. As an integral part of my PhD I wrote a novel, Breathing in Colour, which features lucid dreaming and I drew on lucid dreams at each stage of the creative process to inform my writing. This novel was published by Little, Brown in March 2009. I enjoy writing with strong, dreamlike imagery, and my short stories and poetry have won awards and appeared in anthologies. My second novel, Dreamrunner, is about a man who has violent, moving nightmares, and will be published in 2010.

For the past decade I have also been making collage art which reflects my visual experience of lucid dreams and a selection of these collages was displayed at the 2005 IASD Dream Art Exhibition in Berkeley, California.

I give ‘Dreaming into Creative Writing’ workshops which combine my knowledge of yoga breathing techniques with what I have termed Lucid Writing (Johnson 2006): I guide participants into the writer’s trance as they focus on a vivid dream image, and they write without stopping in a stream of consciousness flow.

At the 2004 IASD conference in Copenhagen, I came first place in the Dream Telepathy Contest with a lucid dream of a tree. In 2005 I came second with a hypnogogic image of a tiger. My combined project of two research papers and a couple of my lucid dream collages won the IASD 2005 Student Award for original research or creative work on dreams.

My favourite lucid dream image of the moment is that of an elephant emerging from the trunk of a giant, venerated tree in the centre of a roundabout in India. My favourite non-lucid dream image is of a monkey-woman giving birth to a smiling baby.

A sample of my work with dreams is featured on my author website and I can be contacted through the blog page: www.clarejay.com

Lucid Dream your way to Creativity Kindred Spirit, March 2009, pp.67-69.

The Role of Lucid Dreaming in the Process of Creative Writing, 2006. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, UK.

Lucid Dreaming and Plot Development Published in the winter 2005 edition of Dream Time, pp.12-15 & pp.34-35.

Writing, Dreaming and Lucid Art and The Role of Lucid Dreaming in the Process of Novel Writing. Published in issue no.34 of The Lucid Dream Exchange, March 2005 pp.18-22

DreamSpeak Interview: An Interview with a Lucid Dreamer Published in issue no.34 of The Lucid Dream Exchange, March 2005 pp.2-7
http://www.dreaminglucid.com/dreamspeakcj.html

A summary of my research can be found on the Dreamers United blog:
http://dreamunit.net/blog-en/

Courrier des lecteurs: Le rêve lucide - quelques experiences (Letters Page: Lucid dreaming - some experiences) Published in issue no.44 of Oniros, 2nd Semester 1995- 1st Semester 1996 pp.35-36

Courrier des Lecteurs: Compte rendu des techniques pour provoquer les rêves lucides (Letters Page: Account of techniques for inducing lucid dreams) Published in issue no.43 of Oniros, 1st Semester, 1995 pp.35-37

Conference Presentations

'Lucid Dreaming, Synaesthesia and Sleep Disorders: Dreaming into Fiction.' 2009 IASD conference, Chicago. Presented in my absence by IASD President, Robert Waggoner.

'Dream Emotions and Word Beauty: Dreaming into Creative Writing.' 2008 IASD Psiberdreaming Conference.

'Lucid Dreaming and the Writer’s Trance – Transforming Dream Images into Literature through Lucid Writing'. 2007 International Conference of the Nordic and North European Network for the Study of Dreams, Lincoln 7-9th September.

Dreaming into Creative Writing workshop. 2007 International Conference of the Nordic and North European Network for the Study of Dreams, Lincoln 7-9th September.

Dreaming into Creative Writing workshop given with Jean Campbell, 2007 IASD Conference, Sonoma, 29th June-3rd July.

'The Observable Behaviour of Lucid Writing Archetypes in Fiction', 2006 IASD conference, Bridgewater, June 20-24.

‘Lucid Dreaming and the Creative Writing Process’, 2005 Dream Writing conference, Kent, England (October 15-16)
Link to conference information:
http://www.kent.ac.uk/kiash/dream-writing.htm

‘Lucid Dream your way to Creativity’, 2005 PsiberDreaming Conference (Sept 18-Oct 2nd)
Link to conference information:
http://www.asdreams.org/psi2005

‘The Role of Lucid Dreaming in the Creative Process’, 2005 IASD Conference, Berkeley, California, June 24-28. Link to abstract:
http://www.asdreams.org/2005/abstracts/rdabstrsj-m.doc (scroll down)