TIL - About Lucid Dreaming
Have you ever thought about how would it be to sit on the top of the tallest mountain? Or to have the ability to fly? Or to be sidekick of your favorite superhero? Writing the world's best novel?
Is it possible to do everything we imagine from our comfy bed?
Well, maybe all of this can be done inside a lucid dream. It's the kind of dream where you are aware you're dreaming, and you can even control it.
Lucidness appears when a dreamer realizes while still in his sleep that a certain experience didn't really happen in reality. That it's just a dream. Once you realize you are still dreaming, you get full control over your dream, and that's when the magic happens.
If you haven't practiced this, you might have already experienced a glimpse of how it feels: You dream something amazing, maybe you're swimming through air or scoring the winning points in the NBA finals, and suddenly you realize you are dreaming. But you don't want this moment to end so you desperately try to hold on to it, to prolong this blissful state.
Lucid dreaming was first described by Aristotle way back in 350BC where he wrote: "when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which tells us that what presents itself is but a dream.". Many amazing scientists, artists and other historical figures used lucid dreaming to come up with groundbreaking inventions or create breathtaking masterpieces. Chris Nolan used his own lucid dreaming experience to create movies like Inception and Memento. Nikola Tesla had realistic dream experiments which allowed him to develop revolutionary systems that are basis for modern-day electricity. Salvador Dali was aware of lucid dream existence so a lot of his work was dream inspired. Paul McCartney composed entire "Yesterday" melody in a lucid dream. After he woke up, he quickly replicated what he remembered from the dream, and ran to his friends to ask them if they already heard it somewhere.
How it works
Dreams appear in a sleep cycle phase called "Rapid eye movement" or REM. This phase of sleep occurs couple of times per night, usually about 90 minutes after the previous. It is more vivid and has physiological similarities to a wakeful state during which our eyes randomly move, brain waves are rapid and desynchronized, and the body is "paralyzed" to avoid acting out our dreams which could obviously be very dangerous. As the night progresses, so our REM cycles become longer and longer, making our dreams most vivid in the morning.
Here are some activities that can help us in experiencing lucid dreams.
Have a healthy sleeping habits - Having a good sleeping patterns can vastly increase our chances to experience dream awareness and it will improve the dream quality itself. If you can, establish a regular sleeping rhythm where you'll go to sleep few hours after the night falls down and wake up when the sun rises.
Remember your dream - This phase can be frustrating to beginners because we often find that dreams slip away pretty quickly after waking up and we usually forget most of them. But this phase is very important because we can't expect to be able to control what's happening if we can't even remember them. Simply as soon as you wake up, flex your brain muscles and try to recall what had happened in a dream.
Start a dream journal - Have a journal near your bed and write down everything you remember from a dream. Every single detail, events that happened, emotions you've felt, sounds you've heard, colors you saw. If you don't remember anything, write down something like "I don't remember my dream". You can then look for themes and situations that occur often or regularly and could be used as signs that you are dreaming.
You should also use reality checks (both in sleep and in a wakeful state) to test whether you are dreaming or not. For example, look at a clock to see the time, turn away and then look back. If you are in a dream, clock will usually act unnaturally and display completely different time. This is a sign that you are having a lucid dream. Look at your hands and feet. If they look funny, you are currently dreaming. Another way to do reality check is to backtrack the situation and how you found yourself there, because in a dream, we can find ourselves driving a Harley through a desert in one moment and planning a prison break in the next.
Mild (Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream) technique - This is were you start to experiment. Grab an alarm clock and set it to 6 hours from the moment you fall asleep (this can be tricky for the ones who can't fall asleep that easily). As we saw, our sleep goes through phases of light and deep sleep. That's why one of our last REM phases will end after approximately 6 hours of sleep. After the alarm wakes you, try to remember everything you can or even better write it down in your journal. Then, try to imagine how would it be to enter a lucid dream. Maybe you would like to fly or meet a famous person or create an amazing guitar solo. Repeat a simple mantra "I will have a lucid dream tonight" or something similar for couple of minutes and go back to sleep.
This simple technique can lead to a lucid dream after few days of practice.
Once you are in one of your first lucid dreams, too much excitement can wake you up quickly and prevent you from exploring your dream environment. So don't rush, try to remain calm, observe the situation, sit around, listen to the sounds and engage all senses.
Things to be aware of
There might be some downsides and reasons not to learn this. Having a lucid dream can cause some psychological discomfort. It may face you with your inner world and conflicts you're avoiding. Or lead to some situations that can upset you. Benefits, on the other hand, are more numerous. You can learn to face your fears in a safe environment. Train and practice skills much longer since the time is going slower in a dream. A study performed in 2006 showed that people who had severe nightmares benefit from lucid dreaming treatment and it lead to reduced nightmare frequency.
Lucid dreaming can throw us off to an adventure we're seeking or reveal solution to a problem that's bothering us. It's both exciting and scary. Should we try it?
Hope you liked this! If you do, don't forget to upvote and resteem it. Also make sure to follow @alcibiades to stay updated about future posts .
Excellent article on a subject I have trained with since I was at least 4 years old. Thank you for sharing such ideas and important matter of the soul. Namaste :)
I have lucid dreams all the time. I used to have them almost every night when I would write them down all the time. It is really fun, you can see versions of the future from within lucid dreams if you know how. One day I dreamt about my entertainment center in my house, and I knew I was dreaming so I would put CDs and movies into the machine in my dreams and then I would listen to new versions of the music. In that dream here was a movie coming out that was in the previews that I had not seen, I willed the movie into a Vhs tape, popped it in the "dream machine", and low and behold I was watching a movie that was about to come out in the theater in real life in a few weeks. I also hear hit songs, classical music, you name it, it is so fun! I have tons of the craziest stories from lucid within my lucid dreaming. Hint, looking at your hands while sleeping, and periodically during the day when awake, and you just might realize you are dreaming!
Wow, what an incredible experience! I could only imagine how it feels to see never released movies and hear new music. Being a huge LoTR fan myself, I have always wondered how would it be to wander through Middle Earth. I guess I'll try it now in my lucid dream practice! Thanks for sharing!
Oh. Cool. A colourful mind. :-)
Do not get stuck on the phenomena though. Its a playful dead end.
If you have the mind to it and you feel comfy with LD, you can take it much further.
The best is a LD in a LD! To do that you gotta go to sleep in your lucid dream and keep lucid when you "wake up" and are blasted off into another dimension. I don't know how many dreams in deep you can go, but if you can get at least that one dream in a dream in you are good!
This IS interesting.
Never heard of anybody taking it to that level. Really sounds like 'Inception'.
Guess you have seen the film. And - apart from the usual Hollywood-lala - it describes some of the "stuck on phenomena" part pretty well.
You should really use this rare talent to more than that.
But that depends on your motivation, view and goals.
Unless you are very clear about these three, staying with exciting videos and simply marvelling at what the mind can do may not be such a bad option.
What exactly you want and why is quite a tricky question.
Lucid dreaming is amazing and everyone should take time to attempt it in their life once at the least, great post, thanks for sharing.
I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for the comment!
Perhaps it may be a good idea to check one's motivation first.
After all, these techniques play around with pretty deep levels of psychology.
LD can be used for overcoming psychological barriers and neuroses. But be aware, once you wake up the sceletons in your closet, you'd better deal with them.
Taking drugs while experimenting with LD means opening two doors at a time. Too much draught in mind may not always be a good idea.
Psychologically instable persons (beyond being the odd average neurotic): Fingers off LD. Better get a grip on the awake state first.
Those that do work with this method should perhaps first focus on a positive motivation like learning this technique in order to help others, becoming more useful in society or something like that. May be helpful.
And yes, you can adress your problems, barriers and neuroses pretty directly by LD.
It can really change your life. Either way actually.
But if you are only in it for the funny stories or pics, you may as watch Hollywood movies while smoking funny cigarettes.
Yes, I can see how this practice could bring some issues to a troubled mind. It's an interesting concept and motivations for learning it can be very different. Thanks for the input!
This is really interesting to learn....me and my daughter dream a lot and we always joke about it. Will share this with her. Thank you for the insights.
Have fun you two! Thanks for the nice comment.
Thankyou !
@alcibiades All in all, informative post. Just personally, whenever I read anything like this, I always remember the time when I had experienced sleep paralysis- it was terrible. I would not wish for anyone, even for my worst enemy.
I guess dreaming can be both fascinating and horrifying. Hope your paralysis have passed! Thanks for the comment. :)