December 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Lucid dreaming means dreaming while you know that you are dreaming. The term was coined by Frederik van Eeden who used the word “lucid” in the sense of mental clarity. With practice nearly anyone can experience lucid dreams.
Lucidity is not the same as dream control. It is possible to be lucid and have little control over the dream. However, becoming lucid in a dream is likely to increase your ability to deliberately influence the events within the dream. With practice you may extend the amount of control that you have over dream events. Many lucid dreamers choose to do something permitted only by the extraordinary freedom of the dream state, such as flying.
Some people have objections to lucid dreams. They say that it is un-natural and could be harmful to the psyche. In my opinion this is not true at all. Perhaps if all of our dreams were lucid and controlled there may be some harm, but with our lucid dreams spread out among many “normal” dreams we have plenty of time for non-lucid dreaming.
While we are in a dream our mind accepts what we see and feel as reality. We often find ourselves in very unusual circumstances when compared to our waking life. You could be living in a different house or driving a different car. The sky could be green and the river yellow. In most cases we accept these things as being true. Why doesn’t the mind “think” ‘Hey! I don’t have this vehicle’ or ‘This isn’t where I live!’ or even ‘Hey! I know the sky isn’t supposed to be that color!’
This is what I call incongruities. Things in our dreams that are not “normal”. We must wonder, and many have, why our mind so readily accepts anything we experience within our dreams as being real. We know there are no monsters. We know the proper colors for things. We know our home and our daily life. While we are dreaming we often forget these things and we believe what we see in the dream.
Just knowing this and thinking about it can actually help you on your way to a lucid dream experience. An incongruity is one of the triggers to lucid dreaming. A trigger is that which inspires or begins lucidity.
Here is an example of this from one of my own lucid dreams:
I was driving a blue Ford Bronco down a dirt road. I think it was a late 70’s model. There was a young boy in the passenger seat. I was giving him a ride because his motorcycle had run out of gas. The bike was in the back. Suddenly I realized it. I did not own a blue Bronco! In the dream I slammed on the breaks and held my hands up. “I don’t own a Ford bronco!” I said, “I am dreaming!” from that point on I was lucid.
A recurring dream or nightmare can also be used as a trigger. If you have a recurring dream make a conscious effort to realize that you are dreaming the next time you are in that situation. If the dream involves a certain person or place try to think as you go to sleep, “The next time I see that house I will know that I am dreaming”. Since the dream is recurring it wont be long before you see that house, person, etc. This may take several attempts. Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work the very first time.
Another technique that works for a lot of people is asking yourself “Am I dreaming?” and leaving notes for yourself. Several times a day ask yourself the question aloud. Also write the question on a note and put it on the refrigerator. Put the same message in other places where you will see them throughout the day. Many people will find them self asking that question or seeing the question written on a note while they are actually dreaming. This will trigger a lucid dream.
My first lucid dream, that is the first one I had when I was trying to achieve lucidity, was triggered by a flying dream.
Try to go to sleep in the same place and around the same time as much as possible. It is best to sleep with silence as music or other sounds can affect your dreaming. If you do choose to listen to music while you are going to sleep choose soft and soothing music, preferably without vocals. Use the same music each time. Before you go to sleep concentrate on a trigger. My first time I said, “tonight I will fly”, aloud several times and I concentrated on it. The second night I had a flying dream but I did not become lucid. On the fourth night I had another flying dream and at that time I became lucid. I was then able to fly to wherever I wanted to!
The trigger or combination of triggers that you use will depend upon you. If you have a common dream theme this is a great trigger. Just concentrate on the next time that you see or experience that you will be dreaming. Think of it as often as you can while you are awake.
Lucid dreamers often comment to themselves in dreams. You may say aloud, “This is a dream! I know that I am dreaming.”
Make a list of questions that you have about dreams. Read the list often and look over it several times and concentrate on it before you go to bed.
Can you read text in a dream? Can you add numbers in a dream? These were some questions I had on my list at one time. I had read in a dream book that it was not possible to read text or to calculate numbers in a dream, but I didn’t believe it. I eventually found myself lucid in an office. I walked over to a calendar on the wall and I read the text describing a New England farm house. I turned to another man there and said, “You see? You can read text in a dream!” I turned back to the calendar to read again and found that the words had completely changed. That amazed me and I commented to the other man about it. Next I walked over to a desk and found a calculator. I added and subtracted numbers and came up with correct answers. Yes, you can read text and perform mathematics in a dream. I proved it to myself beyond any doubt and with more confidence than I ever could have by reading anything about dreams.
Keep a Dream Journal
Keeping a dream journal is one of the most effective tools to achieving lucid dreams. Try to write down your dreams as soon after you wake up as you can. Don’t just write a narrative of what took place in the dream. Record your thoughts and emotions felt. This will help you later on as you develop your dreaming research. Be sure to note all major elements, such as people, places, animals, etc.
Keeping a dream journal will also help you a great deal in understanding your non-lucid dreams. As you continue to write in your journal and re-read your previous entries you will begin to see parallels with your dreams and your life. Gradually you will be able to recognize what the symbols in your dreams are really saying to you.
Once lucid in a dream, people can often choose their actions and exert some deliberate control over the dream content. This ability has been utilized in the laboratory to study lucid dreaming and dream psychophysiology. For example, proof that lucid dreams occur in REM sleep was achieved by having subjects give a prearranged distinct signal with deliberate eye movements to mark the points in time when they realized they were dreaming. The dreamers’ reports of the eye movements they had made in the dreams corresponded exactly to their physical eye movements as recorded by means of electro-oculograms on a polygraph record. Reports from experiments conducted using eye movement signaling in lucid dreams can be found in the literature (Dane, 1984; Fenwick et al., 1984; Hearne, 1978; LaBerge, Nagel, Dement & Zarcone, 1981; Ogilvie, Hunt, Kushniruk, & Newman, 1983).
What Are The Benefits of Lucid Dreaming?
The scientific study of dreaming and REM sleep
A variety of psychological and recreational applications.
Lucid dreaming can be a powerful tool for overcoming nightmares
In therapy, lucid dreams appear to be promising for providing personal insight, assisting with integration, and as a safe environment for experimentation with new behaviors (LaBerge & Rheingold, 1990).
Many lay people are attracted to lucid dreaming because it offers an outlet for fantasy, an opportunity for adventure unfettered by the laws of physics or society, and free of risk. As such, lucid dreaming is for many a source of creative and inspiring recreation. Anecdotes indicate that lucid dreams are helpful for artistic creativity, problem-solving, and practicing skills for waking life (LaBerge & Rheingold, 1990).
Dreams hold the most vivid mental images attainable by most people. Lucid dreaming is probably the best method for achieving the benefits such as enhancing physical performance, learning, remembering and facilitating healing.
REFERENCES
Dane, J. (1984). An empirical evaluation of two techniques for lucid dream induction. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgia State Univ.
Fenwick, P., Schatzman, M., Worsley, A., Adams, J., Stone, S., & Baker, A. (1984). Lucid dreaming: Correspondence between dreamed and actual events in one subject during REM sleep. Biological Psychol, 18, 243-252.
Hearne, K. M. T. (1978). Lucid dreams: An electrophysiological and psychological study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, U of Liverpool.
LaBerge, S., Nagel, L., Dement, W., & Zarcone, V. (1981). Lucid dreaming verified by volitional communication during REM sleep. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 52, 727-732.
Ogilvie, R., Hunt, H., Kushniruk, A. & Newman, J. (1983). Lucid dreams and the arousal continuum. Sleep Research, 12, 182.
LaBerge, S. & Rheingold, H. (1990). Exploring the world of lucid
dreaming. New York: Ballantine.
Much has been written regarding dreams and their meanings or purpose. Mankind has been fascinated with our dreams since the first dreamer awoke and wondered about what their visions meant. Since ancient times we have looked to our dreams to find signs of what our future holds. The first written dreams we know of were in 4000 BC. The earliest writings we have on dreams are primarily texts on their religious and spiritual significance.
Most people will spend about one third of their lives asleep. Our dreams are a real part of us but too often they are disregarded. Dreams can give us insight and understanding of our personal lives. They will help us to understand our past, present, and sometimes our future. All we need to do is to pay attention to our dreams and get to know them.
Dreams can hold a message for the future.
We have different types of dreams. Often our dreams consist of imagery from our most pressing thoughts and/or personal experiences. Sometimes, however, our dreams can be special. Our dreams can communicate with us if we allow them too. All we need to is listen.
I believe that there are two main types of prophetic dreams.
Those that come to us from our “deeper” self, who is much more aware of certain things than we are on a conscious level, and those who may potentially have come from an “outside” source.
Here is an example from my own dream experiences:
I dreamed of death. All I could remember from the dream was seeing a hand laying in gravels. The most noticeable thing was the ring on the hand. It was my ring. I recognized it without any doubt. Even though this was the only image I could recall from the nightmare I knew that the dream was about a death. I could feel it strongly when I woke up. I had all but forgotten the events of the dream but the emotions were still vivid.
The ring was an Army Boot Camp ring made very similar to a class ring. After I had the dream I never wore it again. Eventually I sold it to a friend of mine who had attended the same boot camp. A few years later I received a call. My friend had been murdered. He was found laying in rocks and dirt with that ring on his hand.
Did my dream forewarn me of this event? I think it is a possibility. What was the dream trying to communicate to me? I had assumed that the dream was about my death. I had also assumed that the ring was somehow a participant in my death. I stopped wearing the ring as though that would prevent the warned death. Perhaps the dream was simply telling me that my friend would die with that ring on his hand.
Whenever we have a dream that we consider to be prophetic or to have a “meaning” we are faced with the difficult task of interpreting just what the dream means. Dream Symbols most often have very definite meanings but these meanings can vary widely from one person to the next. That is why we cannot rely too much on definitions given in Dream Symbol Dictionaries.
In order to understand the meaning of the symbols within our own dreams we must come to a better and deeper understanding of ourselves. We have to learn what these symbols mean to us because that is how our dreaming mind sees them.
Anything within your dream can be a symbol. An example of a symbol in a dream is a snake. A snake can have many different meanings to different people. As with all other dream symbols they can also have a different meaning for the same person at different times in their life. You also have to look at the symbol in the context that it appeared. What other symbols were present in the dream?
The best way to gain a better understanding of what your dream symbols mean to you is to develop your own dream symbol dictionary. Keep as detailed of a dream journal as you can. Don’t just write down a narrative of what occurred but record your feelings and emotions too. As you continue to write in your journal and re-read your previous entries you will begin to see parallels with your dreams and your life. Gradually you will be able to recognize what the symbols in your dreams are really saying to you.
“Everyone believes the world’s greatest lie…” says the mysterious old man.
“What is the world’s greatest lie?” the little boy asks.
The old man replies, “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”
(An excerpt from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. A fable about following your dreams.)
Do you believe you have no control over your life? Are you who you are today, by choice or by fate? Will a change in your actions create a change in your life? Many people have given up on their dreams… they say, “Dreaming is only for the rich. When you have money, you can dream. When you have no money, don’t dream.”
That’s true… not everyone is lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon. If you are lacking in funds, it’s going to be difficult to start living life the way you want to. Money buys you freedom to follow your passions. But you don’t have to give up on your dreams, just because you lack money. Depending on where you are brought up, you will face limitations depending on your family finance, culture, and environment. Some of us are born to have easy lives, while some are born to take a more challenging path. Perhaps the limitations and obstacles you face today are part of your journey — you must overcome them to grow stronger on the path to achieving your goals.
When we are young, we all seem to have clear idea of what we want to be when we grow up. But somewhere along the way, these dreams get buried under the reality of daily living. The focus shifts from ‘living the dream’ to just ‘finding a good job with a stable income’. “Survival first”, as they call it. The sad part is that many people spend much of their lives doing what they don’t like, so they can finally earn enough to start doing what they do like. I say, that’s a great way to bury your happiness and turn into an economic slave. Doing what you dislike, day after day, will numb the sense of joy within you. Soon you will feel that your life has no greater purpose, and there is nothing to look forward to but work, work, work…. You will have forgotten how much fun it is to spend your time doing the things you like to do.
*~The Secret to Living Your Dreams~*
It’s painful if you don’t make enough money to live comfortably. But what’s more painful is if the work you do has no meaning to you. Everyday you can drag yourself to work, perform meaningless actions, and then drag yourself back home. Apart from sleeping, work takes up the majority of our time. So if you’re not enjoying your work, you’re not enjoying your life. And life is so short, isn’t it? We probably have less than a hundred years to make our mark in this world. And you never know… you fail to look while crossing the road and BOOM! You could be gone tomorrow. So why spend your life doing something you don’t like to do? We don’t slog three-quarters of our lives just so we can enjoy one-quarter… we might not live that long. Realize that the essence of your life is happening right now — you are walking a path; making your journey through life. And if the work you do, is not designed to help you fulfill your higher purpose in life, then perhaps you are walking in the wrong direction. No point taking this path… change direction.
For your dream to stay alive, you have to act on it. It’s like a fire that grows brighter and stronger if you fan its flames and keep adding wood. If you leave the fire alone, never doing anything to keep it alive, it will burn itself out. When you fail to act on your dreams, they die.
A little girl called Leanne wants to be a ballerina. But her family is poor and unable to afford the fees of the fine arts dance school. Her father tells her not to dream because dreaming is only for the rich. But her mother says, “Lea, you can be whatever you want to be. As long as you put your heart into it, and never give up. Always hold on to your dreams because when there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Leanne remembered her mother’s words. She paid her way through a college degree in the fine arts, using money she earned from working full-time. She was talent scouted by the Royal Dance and Music Theatre of England, where she began her illustrious career as a ballerina. Earning in British pounds, she made more than enough to support her family and give them a comfortable lifestyle.
Leanne had a choice… to fervently believe in her dreams, and do whatever it takes to achieve it, or believe the World’s Greatest Lie… that at some point in her life, she lost control, and fate took over. She had to have the courage to step up to her dreams, and not give up just because she lacked money. If she listened to her father and put her love aside because dreaming was only for the rich, then she wouldn’t have lived to experience her passion. She would pass on from this world, with the music still left within her… buried under some obscure belief that she could never make money doing what she loved to do.
There is music within you, and you only need to coax it out. The daily grind forces us to forget what we love to do. Imagine you’re retired… You have enough money to live comfortably, but not to splurge. How would you spend your time? What activities would you find purpose in? What would you do to amuse yourself? If you have an idea of what you would love to do but are not doing, then schedule some time everyday to do it. Making time for what you love is just like fanning the flames of your passion — the fire can only grow stronger. It’s what will bring a sense of purpose and meaning into your life; that spark of joy and wonder.
The happiest people are those who enjoy their work. They’ve managed to make money doing what they love to do, just like Leanne. And this can happen for you… if you are willing to reject the World’s Greatest Lie. Realize that you always have control over your actions, and therefore your results. The only time your start to fail in life, is when you stop believing in your ability to make a difference. You don’t need a silver spoon; you don’t need to be a genius. What you need is a sincere belief in yourself and willingness to take action towards your dreams. Believe me, you have what it takes. Just follow what British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill said in World War II: “…never give up, never give up.” And you’ll win the war.