When asked what a typical day looks like for him, Robert Waggoner answers with the first two things that he does in the morning: he wakes up and has breakfast with his wife, President Wendy Wintersteen.

While Waggoner may or may not be known to students as the husband of the university’s president, his story goes much deeper than the title of the president’s spouse.

Waggoner is an internationally acclaimed author who has written two books about a phenomenon called lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming is best described as any dream in which you realize you are dreaming and have become consciously aware within the dream state. Waggoner has had experiences with lucid dreaming since he was a child. At the age of ten, he had a dream that he was in his local public library looking at the books.

He suddenly noticed a small tyrannosaurus rex walking through the book stacks and quickly realized something wasn’t right. At this young age, he had the realization that he was simply dreaming. 

“I realized within the dream, ‘hey, this is a dream,’ so I didn’t know you could do anything, so I just told myself to wake up and I woke up,” said Waggoner of his first experience with lucid dreaming. 

Waggoner’s next major experience with lucid dreaming occurred in 1975 when he was a junior in high school. His experience started after reading a book that referenced lucid dreaming as trying to find your hands in a dream and realizing you are dreaming. Reading this, Waggoner decided to try having a dream like this himself. 

“There wasn’t a technique, so I just kind of made a technique. Each night before I’d go to sleep I’d just look at my hands and tell myself ‘tonight in my dreams, I will see my hands and realize I’m dreaming. Tonight in my dreams, I will see my hands and realize I’m dreaming,’” said Waggoner.

After a few nights of trying his technique, he had a successful lucid dream and became hooked on having these dreams. However, because there was no scientific evidence about lucid dreams until 1981, there were not a lot of people who believed the phenomenon that Waggoner was experiencing.

Waggoner graduated from Drake University in 1981 with a degree in psychology. As a student, he faced many of the same challenges students today face, including financial situations after being the fifth child in his family to attend college.

When he was told about his family’s financial situation before his senior year, he spoke with his high school to confirm he had taken enough credit hours and graduated a semester early. He then worked January to mid-August in a grocery store warehouse from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to help pay for his college education. 

“Just because I’m in the position I am in right now doesn’t mean I don’t understand what it’s like to show up at college and realize that you have financial struggles that you have to look forward to,” Waggoner said. “But I looked at it as a totality. College, of course, is an extraordinary experience and really a wonderful foundation for the rest of your life.”

After graduating, he worked in sales and marketing for 26 years, but in 2007, he decided to write his first book about lucid dreaming. 

After the completion and publishing of the book, Waggoner traveled the world talking to and providing workshops for many different people with different backgrounds in lucid dreaming. In 2012, Waggoner wrote his second book on the science and techniques of lucid dreaming.

“There’s a beautiful part of lucid dreaming; [it] is that there’s all this territory of possibilities that people can see,” said Waggoner.

Currently Waggoner is a co-editor of an online lucid dreaming magazine and was formerly president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. He continues to travel and host workshops on lucid dreaming in the United States and around the world, with events in Prague and Tel Aviv later this spring.

While Waggoner continues working on lucid dreaming, he enjoys his time with President Wintersteen serving as the presidential couple for the university. As the president’s spouse, he spends time aiding in planning events at their home, the Knoll, and on campus as well as being invited as a guest to different events, such as professor medallion ceremonies and being a judge for the upcoming Lip Sync competition with President Wintersteen. In addition to the professional events the couple participates in, they also attend many of the Iowa State sporting events to support the student athletes.

“It’s amazing what student athletes do and how they’re able to juggle being an athlete while being a full-time student,” Waggoner said. “It is really quite an extraordinary achievement.”