So you came here wondering about lucid dreaming?
It's OK – we've got your back :-)
Since 2008, we've shown over 25m visitors from around theworld all about the art of dream control.
So you're in the right place.
Grab a cup of tea whilst you're here and take your time.
We'll go through 8 proven tactics you can start using tonight.
But first, let's cover some basics about lucid dreaming.
On 'Lucid Dreams,' Juice WRLD explores the mental anguish he feels after experiencing a break-up. 2018, the track peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. This mix contains Odell Beckham's bets highlights for the New York Giants with the song lucid dreams by juice wrld. If u enjoyed be sure to subscribe to help. 'Lucid Dream is a woody-spicy floral is an olfactory exploration of lucid dreaming, and an ode to the potential hidden in every one of us. Lucid dreaming, a semi meditative state in which a person is aware they are asleep but are able to control their surroundings has been practiced since antiquity by Tibetan monks.Many of the world's greatest artists, musicians and scientists sourced their. Lucid Dream was released theatrically in South Korea on February 22, 2017, distributed by Next Entertainment World. Prior to the film's theatrical release, the American entertainment company Netflix acquired the rights to distribute Lucid Dream worldwide. Vice President of Communications for Netflix Asia, Jessica Lee, said, 'We are looking.
What is a lucid dream?
A lucid dream is any dream in which you become aware that you're dreaming!
Collections 4 1 1 – organize your desktop icons desktop. This simple realization triggers your waking consciousness during the dream, enabling you to do any number of cool things, such as:
- Explore your dreamworld with total clarity. Everything you see, hear, touch, taste and smell will be as authentic as reality. It can be truly mind-blowing to discover this virtual world.
- Fulfill any fantasy. Fly over mountains, have dream sex, go base jumping, shapeshifting, time traveling, dinosaur spotting, ninja fighting, meet your hero or visit alien planets.
- Overcome personal psychological issues. In the safety of the lucid dream environment you can face your fears, phobias, anxieties, nightmares and past traumas.
- Tap into your inner creativity. In surreal and unexpected ways, you can compose music, seek original artistic imagery and solve technical problems, just like these famous folk.
Experts agree that everyone has the potential to lucid dream.
But only a small fraction of people learn how to do it on a regular basis.
This site is for people who are serious about learning the art of lucid dreaming and exploring its real world applications.
Is lucid dreaming scientifically proven?
Yes. There are many examples of scientific research that prove the existence of lucid dreaming.
In fact, lucid dreams provide credible explanations for night-time phenomena which until recently had no scientific explanation - such as alien abductions, astral projection and out of body experiences.
The first scientific proof of lucid dreaming emerged in 1975 from the British parapsychologist Dr Keith Hearne.
He recorded a set of pre-determined eye movements from his lucid volunteer, Alan Worsley, via an electro-oculogram (EOG).
For the first time there was communication between someone that was asleep (and dreaming) and the outside world!
More recently, this 2009 study by the Neurological Laboratory in Frankfurt revealed significantly increased brain activity during lucid dreams. An EEG reading showed a significant increase in brainwave frequencies at the 40 Hz (or Gamma) range while lucid.
Indeed, the researchers concluded that this justifies the classification of lucid dreams as a new and separate state of consciousness.
Intriguingly, the research also showed heightened activity in the frontal and frontolateral areas of the dreaming brain.
Which also happens to be the seat of linguistic thought and other higher mental functions linked to self awareness!
In 2014, this remarkable study out of Frankfurt University revealed that lucid dreams can be induced with 'zaps' of harmless electrical stimulation of the brain.
When non-lucid dreamers were given 30-second jolts of electrical current to the frontal cortex while asleep, they reported spontaneously vivid dreams in which they fully recognized they were dreaming.
So fear not – there is an abundance of science on the topic of lucid dreams and every year more studies are being published.
What can I do in a lucid dream?
A fully lucid dream can be perfectly tangible, rich and visually detailed.
Instabro 5 2 3 – browser for instagram passwords. When probed, it can generate seemingly impossible levels of self awareness - such as 360-degree vision, multiple simultaneous dreams, and even visual representations of the fifth dimension.
Because all of this takes place in your mind, the dream world is infinite.
No laws. No boundaries. No limitations. Anything you can conceive of comes true.
You can literally take control of your dream and warp The Matrix like Neo. Fly and soar over cities like Iron Man. Slow down time like the dream levels of Inception. Have sex with celebrities. Fight like a ninja. Re-live childhood memories. Base jump. Survive death.
But a lucid dream is not merely a fantasy playground.
Dream theories suggest it's a chance to interact with other parts of your psyche (by talking to different dream characters) and even your co-conscious inner self (by talking to the very fabric of the dream).
Several respected journals have published studies on how lucid dreams have helped veterans suffering from PTSD, athletes seeking to gain an edge over their competition and even children suffering from unusual phobias.
Once you know how to become lucid in dreams, you will discover a strange new world (an entire universe, actually) of which you are fully aware and can manipulate with the power of thought.
Lucid Dreaming Basics
Alright, so now you know a little about what lucid dreaming isand what it can do for you - now we'll talk throughsome ways you can actually induce them.
But let us (as ever) first begin with the basics.
The most important thing you can do to spearhead your waytoward lucid dreams, is start keeping a dream journal.
This will supercharge your dream recall.
Chances are, you probably don't even remember too many dreamsat the moment. Right?
But writing them down each day will gradually help to formmore concrete memories. After all, what good is a lucid dream if youcan't remember it?
And the second most important thing is to practice our reality checks.
With these, we ask ourselves throughout the day 'Am Idreaming?'.
Over time, these repeated checks seep into yourdreams as dream signs, triggering the realisation that you're dreaming (and therefore making the dream lucid).
And lastly, lucid dreaming calls for a decent boost in self awareness.
These three tenets together form the foundation of a solidlucid dreamer.
So, with that being said – let's look at 8 different tacticsyou can use to start experiencing lucid dreams for yourself.
1 – Use Hypnagogia
If you haven't heard of hypnagogia before, it might sound alittle funky!
But rest assured, it's nothing to be scared of. We are talkinghere about the colourful swirling patterns that appear on the back ofyour eyelids while you're dozing off.
This is a signal that you are in the half asleep, half awakeborderland state where lucid dreams are born.
By using visualisation methods we can use this visualhypnagogia to transition into a lucid dream. Check the full technique here.
2 – Manipulate REM Sleep
Lucid Dreaming Guide
You need to know that lucid dreams occur (mostly) during REMSleep.
First, understand that you sleep in 90 minute cycles and thateach night you have 4-6 of these cycles.
In fact, lucid dreams provide credible explanations for night-time phenomena which until recently had no scientific explanation - such as alien abductions, astral projection and out of body experiences.
The first scientific proof of lucid dreaming emerged in 1975 from the British parapsychologist Dr Keith Hearne.
He recorded a set of pre-determined eye movements from his lucid volunteer, Alan Worsley, via an electro-oculogram (EOG).
For the first time there was communication between someone that was asleep (and dreaming) and the outside world!
More recently, this 2009 study by the Neurological Laboratory in Frankfurt revealed significantly increased brain activity during lucid dreams. An EEG reading showed a significant increase in brainwave frequencies at the 40 Hz (or Gamma) range while lucid.
Indeed, the researchers concluded that this justifies the classification of lucid dreams as a new and separate state of consciousness.
Intriguingly, the research also showed heightened activity in the frontal and frontolateral areas of the dreaming brain.
Which also happens to be the seat of linguistic thought and other higher mental functions linked to self awareness!
In 2014, this remarkable study out of Frankfurt University revealed that lucid dreams can be induced with 'zaps' of harmless electrical stimulation of the brain.
When non-lucid dreamers were given 30-second jolts of electrical current to the frontal cortex while asleep, they reported spontaneously vivid dreams in which they fully recognized they were dreaming.
So fear not – there is an abundance of science on the topic of lucid dreams and every year more studies are being published.
What can I do in a lucid dream?
A fully lucid dream can be perfectly tangible, rich and visually detailed.
Instabro 5 2 3 – browser for instagram passwords. When probed, it can generate seemingly impossible levels of self awareness - such as 360-degree vision, multiple simultaneous dreams, and even visual representations of the fifth dimension.
Because all of this takes place in your mind, the dream world is infinite.
No laws. No boundaries. No limitations. Anything you can conceive of comes true.
You can literally take control of your dream and warp The Matrix like Neo. Fly and soar over cities like Iron Man. Slow down time like the dream levels of Inception. Have sex with celebrities. Fight like a ninja. Re-live childhood memories. Base jump. Survive death.
But a lucid dream is not merely a fantasy playground.
Dream theories suggest it's a chance to interact with other parts of your psyche (by talking to different dream characters) and even your co-conscious inner self (by talking to the very fabric of the dream).
Several respected journals have published studies on how lucid dreams have helped veterans suffering from PTSD, athletes seeking to gain an edge over their competition and even children suffering from unusual phobias.
Once you know how to become lucid in dreams, you will discover a strange new world (an entire universe, actually) of which you are fully aware and can manipulate with the power of thought.
Lucid Dreaming Basics
Alright, so now you know a little about what lucid dreaming isand what it can do for you - now we'll talk throughsome ways you can actually induce them.
But let us (as ever) first begin with the basics.
The most important thing you can do to spearhead your waytoward lucid dreams, is start keeping a dream journal.
This will supercharge your dream recall.
Chances are, you probably don't even remember too many dreamsat the moment. Right?
But writing them down each day will gradually help to formmore concrete memories. After all, what good is a lucid dream if youcan't remember it?
And the second most important thing is to practice our reality checks.
With these, we ask ourselves throughout the day 'Am Idreaming?'.
Over time, these repeated checks seep into yourdreams as dream signs, triggering the realisation that you're dreaming (and therefore making the dream lucid).
And lastly, lucid dreaming calls for a decent boost in self awareness.
These three tenets together form the foundation of a solidlucid dreamer.
So, with that being said – let's look at 8 different tacticsyou can use to start experiencing lucid dreams for yourself.
1 – Use Hypnagogia
If you haven't heard of hypnagogia before, it might sound alittle funky!
But rest assured, it's nothing to be scared of. We are talkinghere about the colourful swirling patterns that appear on the back ofyour eyelids while you're dozing off.
This is a signal that you are in the half asleep, half awakeborderland state where lucid dreams are born.
By using visualisation methods we can use this visualhypnagogia to transition into a lucid dream. Check the full technique here.
2 – Manipulate REM Sleep
Lucid Dreaming Guide
You need to know that lucid dreams occur (mostly) during REMSleep.
First, understand that you sleep in 90 minute cycles and thateach night you have 4-6 of these cycles.
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep happens at the end of eachcycle – and mostly in the later cycles of the night.
So, by manipulating our sleep patterns, we can target REMsleep phases.
The easiest and most popular way to do this is with the Wake Back To Bed (WBTB) technique.
It revolves around tricking your body clock by briefly waking ataround 3am.
3 – Go WILD
If you thought that sounded cool, wait until you try a Wake Induced Lucid Dream (WILD).
This is the big daddy of lucid dreaming techniques and is alsothe hardest to master. With this method, we snap straight from wakinginto a lucid dream - bang!
It can be done in the middle of the night, or just as you fall asleep (whenyou get into bed at your normal bed time).
Think of a WILD as simply a form of meditation – where youmaintain awareness whilst your body falls asleep.
After all, that is the underpinning principal of luciddreaming: mind awake, body asleep.
See the full instructions here.
4 – Use Sleep Paralysis as a Spring Board
Talking about your body falling asleep…
Ever had that awful feeling where you're awake, but your bodyis frozen and it feels as if you're pinned to the bed, unable to move?
Maybe, maybe not.
But if you have, you're not alone.
It's more common than you may think, with upto 40% of adultssuffering at one time or another.
Sleep paralysis occurs when your body falls asleep and entersREM Atonia. This is the special state that keeps your body still atnight – and from physically acting out your dreams!
Just sometimes, it misfires a little – and we wake early(hence, sleep paralysis).
Well, the wonderful thing about lucid dreaming is with asimple change in mindset you can easily convert sleep paralysis into aninstant lucid dream!
At which point you can take control and turn it from somethingscary into something wonderful!
So if you do get the odd bout of sleep paralysis, countyourself lucky as you have on your hands a simple guaranteed gateway to lucid dreams.
5- Explore Supplements
In fact, the official name is ‘oneirogen'.
Meaning a substance that creates a dream like state ofconsciousness.
There are many options to choose from and lots that aresurprisingly effective. Various societies, from the Aztecs to themodern day Xhosa of East Africa have sacred oneirogens that play apivotal role in their culture - so it's a fascinating area to explore.
There's no need to go artificial, as simple natural herbs canassist in inducing some of the most vivid and colourful dreams you canimagine.
So think less 'supplements' and more 'ancient oneirogens'.
For a full list check out our lucid dreaming supplements vault.
6 – Listen to Brainwave Audio
If supplements don't take your fancy, you might be interestedin checking out what's known as ‘brainwave entrainment'.
These are special audio tracks that you listen to whilstyou're dozing off.
Some folks find these really help to enter the deepmeditative state that is perfect for lucid dreaming.
And while it's right to be sceptical, you should know that a2008 meta analysis suggested that this audio technology is actually alegitimate therapeutic tool!
There are various forms available, such as binaural beats andisochronic tones. You can check out more details here.
7 – Try a Device
Believe it or not, there are also headbands, masks andbracelets that aim to assist you in reaching lucid dreams!
They use various technologies such as EEG and Heart RateMonitoring to detect REM Sleep.
During which, they aim to introduce an external stimuli – tohelp you recognise that you are dreaming and become lucid.
But it's most definitely a case of ‘caveat empor' (buyerbeware in latin, just in case you wondered) with these.
To date, lucid dreaming devices have not proven especiallyeffective. Although this could be set to change next year with some recentinnovations…
For now you can check out our devices vault!
8 – Check out the Rausis Method
OK, we'll end this list with a little-known mind hack!
It's well worth trying as it's proven one of the mosteffective new techniques to come of the lucid dreaming scene in thelast few years.
Invented by Swiss dream researcher Jean Rausis, it's a quick andeasy way to inject a dream sign into your REM Sleep.
All you need is an alarm clock and a mobile phone (or an appwith two alarms).
Check out the full method here.
How do I control my dreams?
Phew, so we just covered off a few of the most popular ways we can induce lucid dreams, but you've probably still got a bunch of questions…
So, we're not finished just yet.
Let's talk dream control – and what you should do onceyou've managed to establish lucidity.
Dream control kicks in the moment you become lucid (when you recognize that you're dreaming).
The more conscious you become of the dream environment, the easier it is to manipulate. There are a few different ways to shape your dreams as they occur, for instance:
- Actively will what you want to happen, like waking life (e.g., you walk up to a wall and will your arm to push through it). This is the most intuitive method but not always the most effective if your lucidity is waning.
- Say your desire out loud and let the dream present it (e.g., say 'I have super powers and am the sole survivor of a zombie apocalypse'). You'll be empowered by your own words and the dream will oblige.
So, controlling your dreams takes a little getting used to.
That's because a lucid dream is a completely new and unique environment to you - in which your conscious and unconscious collide.
When fully lucid, you'll find that you can exert considerable control over your lucid dreams. Or you can passively enjoy this state of heightened awareness, watching the dream unfold in its originally intended state.
The golden rule for lucid dream manipulation is this:
If you truly, sincerely expect something to happen.. it will happen (just like Neo).
How do I stay lucid?
Beginners often find their lucid dreams end prematurely. Usually it's the sheer excitement and adrenaline rush that causes you to wake up.
Other times, you can simply forget you're dreaming (remember, the brain functions differently during sleep and it's easy to forget things).
To make your lucid dreams last longer, cultivate a calm and focused mind set in the dreamworld.
Regularly remind yourself that you are dreaming, to stay mentally grounded.
A simple way to enhance your lucidity (and thereby prolong your lucid dream) is to rub your hands together while saying 'I'm dreaming'.
This kinetic sensation stimulates the conscious brain, while drawing awareness to your dream body and away from your physical body that is laying asleep in bed.
Such techniques have enabled me to experience lucid dreams as long as an hour in real time.
How do I summon dream characters?
If you're anything like me, you're fascinated by the idea of ‘dream characters'.
In your lucid dreams, you can seek out or summon any person, dead or alive, fictional or real.
A good way to do this is to first heighten your lucidity, then visualize and expect the person you want to meet just out of sight.
Ask the dream out loud to manifest that person too.
Don't be afraid to ask for unexpected consequences:
'show me myself in 10 years', 'show me my ideal partner', and 'show me how my great-great-great grandchildren will live' are all valid requests of the creative lucid dream state.
How do I change the scenery?
Making the dream scene morph in front of your eyes can sometimes be difficult.
Your conscious self simply doesn't expect it to happen, because that is its experience of waking life.
This mental block is typical of a beginner because it requires more confidence and a lucid state of mind.
Not to worry! Established lucid dreamers have been working the dream world long enough to have come up with some excellent solutions.
In the case of changing the scenery:
- Locate a 'dream door': one that stands randomly in the middle of any landscape, and step through to another world.
- Pass through a mirror portal: a liquid-like mirror that leads to another dimension, and emerge in any scene you choose.
- Change the channel on a TV - then jump into the screen and allow the image to become 3-dimensional around you.
- Turn away from the scene - and imagine a new location emerging behind you. When you turn back, everything will look different.
- Spin around and imagine a new scene appearing when you stop spinning.
In fact, there are lots of creative solutions to issues of dream control.
The important thing to remember is that your conscious expectation plays a major role.
Stay confident in your ability to summon giant goldfish, teleport to the Bahamas or fly like an eagle.
You'll soon find that absolutely anything is possible inside a lucid dream.
What Next?
If you're keen to learn how to lucid dream as quickly as possible - or you simply want to expand your existing skills - check out the World of Lucid Dreaming Academy.
Lucid Dream Song 2018
This is our premium online education platform - consisting of 30 proven modules, guided meditations and brainwave audios..
Plus you get access to our private forums, real-time chat, monthly Q&As and exclusive guidance from lucid dreaming authors, researchers and expert teachers.
Your learning will progress to the next level with the help of a supportive community to answer questions and share experiences!
We highly recommend you try it out now!
Tags
I do a lot of weird things while sleeping. I talk, walk, and experience vivid dreams, all without conscious awareness. Despite the fact that my dreams are often absurd, I don't question their content while I'm in them. (Oh, I've been hired to make a documentary about Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz and his wife Julie, a US National Soccer Team player, for ESPN's 30 for 30 series? Of course my neuroscience background has landed me on the shortlist of filmmakers who would be considered for this position.) However, some people are able to correctly recognize that these bizarre circumstances have a logical explanation: they're dreaming. In On Dreams Aristotle wrote, 'for often, when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.' This realization unlocks a world of potential for the dreamer, limited only by imagination. Frederik van Eeden tirelessly recorded 352 such dreams over sixteen years, publishing several in a scientific paper in order to illustrate the characteristics of what he called lucid dreams.
On Sept. 9, 1904, I dreamt that I stood at a table before a window. On the table were different objects. I was perfectly well aware that I was dreaming and I considered what sorts of experiments I could make. I began by trying to break glass, by beating it with a stone. I put a small tablet of glass on two stones and struck it with another stone. Yet it would not break. Then I took a fine claret-glass from the table and struck it with my fist, with all my might, at the same time reflecting how dangerous it would be to do this in waking life; yet the glass remained whole. But lo! when I looked at it again after some time, it was broken. It broke all right, but a little too late, like an actor who misses his cue. This gave me a very curious impression of being in a fake-world, cleverly imitated, but with small failures. I took the broken glass and threw it out of the window, in order to observe whether I could hear the tinkling. I heard the noise all right and I even saw two dogs run away from it quite naturally. I thought what a good imitation this comedy-world was. Then I saw a decanter with claret and tasted it, and noted with perfect clearness of mind: 'Well, we can also have voluntary impressions of taste in this dream-world; this has quite the taste of wine [1].'
When I first tried to investigate lucid dreams–dreams in which the dreamer is aware she is dreaming–I fell into an internet rabbit hole filled with youtubers explaining astral projections (willful out of body experiences) and websites trying to sell nootropics. Lost in the land of woo, I wanted to dig deeper into the science behind lucid dreaming, and figure out if I could train myself to wake up in my dreams. So, put on your helmets fellow oneironauts, we're going dream exploring.
When van Eeden coined the term lucid dreaming, he chose the word dream quite carefully. He pointed out that others wouldn't believe that volition was possible within dreams and would assume that he must be experiencing some 'sort of trance, or hallucination, or ecstacy [1].' We know that dreams occur during rapid-eye
This image shows EEG, EOG, and EMG electrode placement for a polysomnogram, and their different outputs during wake, deep sleep, and REM. Notice the awake-like EEG activity, eye movements (EOG), and flat EMG signal (indicating temporary paralysis) during REM.
Lucid Dreams 2018 Id Roblox
movement (REM) sleep, which is characterized by awake-like patterns of brain activity (measured by EEG) and temporary paralysis of the muscles (measured by EMG), which prevents you from acting out those dreams. In order to figure out whether lucid dreams occur during REM sleep, all you'd need to do is devise a plan to recognize moments of lucidity in a polysomnogram, a comprehensive study that monitors EEG, EMG, and eye movements (EOG) during sleep. You may recognize the challenge inherent in the question. How can someone who is asleep convey that they are lucid? One brave soul tackled this project for his PhD thesis (which you can download in full here) by leveraging a part of the body that is exempt from paralysis during REM sleep, and whose rapid movements give rise to its name: the eyes [2]. Experienced lucid dreamers were brought into a sleep lab where they were instructed to move their eyes from left to right eight times when they became aware that they were dreaming.
Note the clear ocular signals on the left and right EOG traces [2]!
Once this eye-signaling system was established, it became clear that lucid dreaming occurred during unambiguous REM sleep. Lucid dreams lasted for an average of 2.5 minutes and typically occurred in the few hours just before waking, coinciding with the longest periods of REM sleep [2]. They started anywhere from 2 to 51 minutes into a REM period, and didn't seem to affect the quality of sleep on that night in any measurable way.
There's another layer here that's worth taking a quick detour to explore. Why should your eyes move in your physical body the way they do during your dream? It turns out that there's a lot of research into REMs during sleep and their association with awake visual processing, implying their potential to signal changes in visual imagery within dreams [3]. By leveraging lucid dreamers' awareness and control within their dreams, researchers have found that certain dream acts translate to measurable changes in the physical body. For example, lucid dreamers who hold their breath while dreaming also do so in real life, and dreamed sexual activity is accompanied by physiological responses similar to those observed in wakefulness [4]. Other evidence suggests that the brain activity that accompanies muscle movements performed during a lucid dream–like clenching your hand into a fist–may be more similar to brain activity during actual movements than the activity that is observed when you're asked to imagine clenching your hand into a fist while awake [5]. This suggests that your dream movements are more like real movements, apart from the temporary paralysis, than imagined ones.
It's a challenge to find participants who are both willing and able to lucid dream on command in the lab, but researchers are eager to discover the patterns of brain activity associated with lucid dreaming. A couple studies have found evidence for increased activation of the prefrontal cortex during lucid dreaming, compared to normal REM sleep [6,7]. The area's typical relative deactivation is responsible for the socially inappropriate behaviors and inability to reason logically that we sometimes experience during dreams. While we need a lot more research to confirm these findings, lucid dreaming could even be used to glean insight into consciousness itself, which remains one of neuroscience's biggest mysteries.
If, like me, you find the possibility of controlling your dreams appealing, you're probably wondering, 'Can I teach myself to lucid dream?' In his thesis, Hearne tried to induce lucid dreaming with a simple experiment; he told subjects he was going to spray them with water while they slept and, if they dreamed of water, that should be a signal that they're dreaming [2]. While subjects successfully incorporated water into their dreams of washing babies, being spit on, and even getting peed on by a cat the experimenter had let into the lab, none became lucid within the dreams [2]. Another researcher similarly felt this was a learnable skill and, in a three-year dream-journal turned scientific paper, detailed his success with the mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD) method [8]. Essentially, after waking from a dream, you stay awake for ~15 minutes and then attempt to fall asleep into the same dream, telling yourself, 'Next time I'm dreaming I want to remember I'm dreaming,' and visualizing yourself realizing you're dreaming within that dream [8].
As someone whose daily life is frequently incorporated into my dreams, I've started implementing reality checks with the hopes I'll perform one while sleeping. My google calendar regularly dings to inquire, 'Are you dreaming?' Then, I examine the environment for logical flaws in my waking life, assuming that when I eventually perform one while asleep it'll be clear that I'm dreaming. Once you learn about reality checks, you may start noticing that things are off in your dreams. Yes, the whole thing is very much like the movieInception, though I haven't gotten Leonardo DiCaprio to personally point out the inconsistencies of my dream world just yet. In a recent dream I spilled nearly a pound of shelled walnuts on my kitchen floor. Upset with my clumsiness, I no sooner thought to clean them up when they sank and incorporated themselves into the tile. I immediately realized that wasn't the type of thing that could happen in real life and, proud of myself for so quickly succeeding in my quest to lucid dream, bragged about my accomplishment upon waking. Or so I thought. I woke up again, for real this time, and realized the walnut incident had been a dream within a dream. I was surprised to find van Eeden noted a similar feeling, having 'the impression is as if I had been rising through spheres of different depths, of which the lucid dream was the deepest [1].' The idea of layered dreams within dreams certainly recalls Inception, and leads me to my personal biggest fear.
What if you can't distinguish between real life and dreams? It hasn't worked out so well in pop culture, be it Mal jumping to her death in Inception or Will taking Bob's advice in Stranger Things, assuring himself he's just having a nightmare, only to be taken over by the shadow monster. Of course, this concept isn't new. In Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly, a story from the third century BC, Zhuang Zhou dreams about being a butterfly and awakens as a man wondering whether he dreamed about being a butterfly or if he is in fact a butterfly dreaming about being Zhuang Zhou. Presumably most of us aren't good enough architects to construct dream worlds that are indistinguishable from our own, but if you have any trouble distinguishing between what is real and not real, lucid dreaming probably isn't for you.
One of the incredible potential upsides is the effect lucid dreaming can have on your waking life. If you've ever carried a grudge well into the day based on something
'how could you do those things you didn't do?!' The Awkward Yeti
someone did in your dream that you know they didn't really do (because it was in your dream), but you're still a little mad at them for, you're aware of the many ways in which dreams influence your mood. In the same way, a dream spent playing with an adorable kitten can set you up for a great day. Unless of course, like me, you wake up distraught that you don't actually own that little fluffball and spiral into a depression over losing your dream kitten. (I'll find you one day, Earl Grey!) In addition to the potential for a mood boost following excellent dreams, lucid dreaming may also help nightmare sufferers escape a scary situation by realizing it's just a dream.
I hope one day I'll be able to question why the FBI would go through the trouble of placing a tracker on my car only to give me a speeding ticket, but until then I'll keep questioning my waking reality, getting plenty of sleep, chronicling my dreams, meditating, and employing any other trick I come across to help me on this journey.
References
[1] van Eeden, F. (1913). A Study of Dreams. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 26, 431–461.
[2] Hearne, K. (1978). Lucid Dreams: An Electro-Physiological and Psychological Study, (Ph.D. thesis). University of Liverpool, England.
[3] Andrillon, T., Nir, Y., Cirelli, C., Tononi, G., & Fried, I. (2015). Single-neuron activity and eye movements during human REM sleep and awake vision. Nature Communications, 6, 7884.
[4] LaBerge, S., & Rheingold, H. (1990). Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. New York: Ballantine Books.
Lucid Dreams 2018 Movie
[5] Erlacher, D., Schredl, M., & LaBerge, S. (2003). Motor Area Activation during Dreamed Hand Clenching: A Pilot Study on EEG Alpha Band. Sleep and Hypnosis, 5, 182–187.
[6] Voss, U., Holzmann, R., Tuin, I., & Hobson, J.A. (2009). Lucid Dreaming: A State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming. Sleep, 32(9), 1191–1200.
[7] Dresler, M., Wehrle, R., Spoormaker, V.I., Koch, S.P., Holsboer, F., Steiger, A., . . . Czisch, M. (2012). Neural Correlates of Dream Lucidity Obtained from Contrasting Lucid versus Non-lucid REM Sleep: A Combined EEG/fMRI Case Study. Sleep, 35(7), 1017–1020.
[8] LaBerge, S. (1980). LUCID DREAMING AS A LEARNABLE SKILL: A CASE STUDY. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 51, 1039-1042.
Images adapted from pixabay, flickr,publicdomainpictures, J Neurosci Neuroeng, and pixabay
