What is lucid dreaming?
For many of us, dreaming is something that we do not pay much attention to. In fact, most of us don’t even recall a single dream in the morning. We might have been chased down by a monster, been kissing someone who we secretly love or been flying like a super hero. As kids we all have experienced dreams that we can still recall today as grownups. Amazingly, after all those years, we have somehow stopped to recall what we loved to experience back then. It almost feels like we have stopped dreaming in a way.
Lucid dreaming is being “aware” that you are in a dream, and using that knowledge to control the dream. In a lucid dream, everything is as realistic as waking life – perhaps even more so. The extra 90% of your brain is “unlocked” and you can use the time to accomplish extraordinary things. Chat with Einstein, express your inner fantasies, overcome fears, invent new products, design a screenplay…. With lucid dreaming, you can reclaim the third of your life you spend sleeping – and turn it into a practical self-development workshop!
Lucid dreaming is dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. The term was coined by Frederik van Eeden (see Green, 1968), using the word “lucid” in the sense of mental clarity. Lucidity usually begins in the midst of a dream, when the dreamer realizes that the experience is not occurring in physical reality, but is a dream. Often this realization is triggered by the dreamer noticing some impossible or unlikely occurrence in the dream, such as meeting a person who is dead, or flying with or without wings. Sometimes people become lucid without noticing any particular clue in the dream; they just suddenly realize they are in a dream. A minority of lucid dreams (according to the research of LaBerge and colleagues, about 10 percent) are the result of returning to REM sleep directly from an awakening with unbroken reflective consciousness. The basic definition of lucid dreaming requires nothing more than becoming aware that you are dreaming.
Lucid dreaming is basically dreaming while being aware that you are dreaming. If you are in a lucid dream, you will usually have some power over your dream anything from being able to fly or making an object or room appear behind a door or inside a pocket, right up to being able to change into animals and create a whole world! It is like being a director of your own movie. Lucid dreams have been scientifically proven to exist. You can read how Stephen LaBerge, of The Lucidity Institute, answers the question – what is lucid dreaming? – at his website http://www.lucidity.com Lucid dreams have been scientifically proven to exist. Stephen LaBerge, of The Lucidity Institute, used a special machine to track eye movements during a dream (these are linked to your eye movements within the dream). He asked lucid dreamers to point their eyes left and right in quick succession and this movement was recorded on the machine.
Lucid dreaming is being aware that you are dreaming while still in the dream. It may or may not be accompanied by active control of the dream. Lucid dreaming can be fleeting, as events in the dream overtake the dreamer’s focus, or it can be so complete that even awareness of waking life and its memories are fully available within the dream. Psychologists sometimes use lucid dreaming as a tool to help patients ‘dismantle’ recurring nightmares. By becoming aware in the moment that a nightmare is only a dream, the lucid dreamer can choose to face and conquer the danger or threat, gaining a sense of power that spills over into waking life. There is growing support that there may be very practical uses for developing the skill of lucid dreaming and dream control. For example, overcoming phobias and practicing for upcoming events in which one wants to succeed are ways in which lucid dreaming can be helpful.
