Writer, philosopher and psychologist Celia Green had already recorded one track for the em:t label – In the Extreme, which was featured on 1995's \"2295\" compilation. A quote from Green also featured on the CD's sleevenotes. In the Extreme featured Green reading extracts and epithets from her books The Human Evasion and Advice to Clever Children. Em:t judged the track to have enough merit to commission an entire album featuring Green, with an overarching theme, and thus Lucid Dreams was created.
The bulk of the album is taken up by Celia Green reading extracts from her book Lucid Dreams: The Paradox of Consciousness During Sleep, as well as some new material. Green describes the phenomenon of lucid dreaming and its many aspects; its relation to waking life and perception, its erotic possibilities, relation to nightmares, and so forth. Interspersed among these are instances of actual dreams, read out by voice artists.
The example dreams included are often from well-known or notable people, including Oliver Fox, Ernst Mach and Marie-Jean-Léon, Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys. Both Fox and d’Hervey de Saint Denys were very interested in dreams and dreaming, and both experienced fully lucid dreams.
The instrumentation and vocal effects that create the album's unique atmosphere were the work of Chris Allen, Will Joss, Tom Smyth and David Thompson, and the album was constructed by recording Green's narrative and the \"case studies\" at the Institute for Psychophysical research in Oxford, with the ambient music, noise and soundscapes added later at Square Centre studios in Nottingham. The recordings all took place in 1995. One of the two male voices reciting the anecdotal case studies is that of Will Joss, the sound engineer of the album and a lynchpin of much of em:t's output.
In common with all other em:t releases, the album's cover is a library photograph of an animal, courtesy of the Designer's Republic – in this case, an extreme close-up of the eye of a parrotfish.
