What does dreaming lucidly mean? What is the difference between the normal dreams that we have, compared to lucid dreaming? The main difference between the two, is that when we lucid dream, we are actually ‘aware’ that we are dreaming. Lucid dreams are usually more vivid, and are usually based on the things we wish to happen.
Another unusual aspect to lucid dreaming is that the dreamer – once aware that they are dreaming, can usually control their dream. In this aspect, they can somehow change the dream to how they want it to go. It has been found in experiments with sleepers, that people can be trained to control their dreams. This takes practice, but it can be done.
There are different stages to lucid dreaming that the sleeper goes through. These can begin from the very lowest level of the dream stage. This is where the sleeper seems to be vaguely-aware that he or she is dreaming. However,at that stage, the sleeper is not rational enough to be able to comprehend that the events and imagery that they see within their dream, is not real – or have no threat attached to them.
Obviously, the highest level of lucid dreaming is where the sleeper is fully-aware that they are actually in a dream. They have complete control over what happens within their dream, and can control events to their liking. For many people though, controlling their dreams can be extremely hard to do without practice. Below, are a number of exercises that you can do in order for you to be able to control your lucid dreams.
Keep repeating, as you go through the day, ‘Am I dreaming?’ These words should be combined with reality checks that you should perform, whenever you repeat the sentence, ‘Am I dreaming?’
It would also be a good idea if you took with you to bed a small pad and pen. This will be your dream diary, it is most important to write down, immediately after you wake, what you have been dreaming. If you do not want to write down what you have dreamt, then take with you any sort of mini recorder device, and speak into it immediately after waking.
Your brain should still be holding the dream imagery and that will help you to recall nearly everything about what you saw and experienced in your dream. By doing it this way, it enable you to recognize those common elements within your dream that you will recognize immediately.
When you take a nap, a few hours after waking up, lucid dreams seem to occur more frequently. Your brain can be trained to lucid dream and you can also train your brain to recognize when you are actually within the dream. Write the letter ‘A’ on the palm of your hand, when you notice the letter ‘A’ on your palm during the daytime, challenge yourself as to whether you are awake or asleep. Do this often enough, and you will soon find that when you catch a glimpse of the letter ‘A’ in your dream, that will then be the trigger, that will kick off lucid dreaming.
There are other methods by which you can induce lucid dreams, one of them is by rubbing your hands together. if you look at the palm of your hands, just before you go to sleep, and repeat the words, ‘Tonight, while I dream, I wil see my hands, and realize that I am dreaming.’ Keep repeating the words, ‘Tonight while I dream, I will see my hands and realize that I am dreaming.’
If you begin to feel tired do not worry. Once you enter sleep you should, at some point, see your hands. If you do not, then simply repeat the process the following night. You have to remember that the brain is a powerful muscle, and as such can take in even the most minute and unimportant details during the daytime. It stores these details within the subconscious, to be brought for in some future dream sequence.
For instance you may happen to glance at a rat, or a matchstick, on the pavement, during the day. More often than not, you will think nothing about them at all…they are unimportant. Yet, your brain has stored them deep within your psyche. One night, while you dream, suddenly they are brought forward from your subconscious mind.
The matchstick – and indeed the rat – may then take on an importance that would be impossible in the waking world. This is how the brain works, by storing every single image we see. A day later, a month or years down the line, those images we have seen in the waking world,suddenly hold prominence within our lucid dreams.
To sum up, lucid dreaming, as explained above, is different from normal dreaming, in that the sleeper is ‘aware;. Indeed the sleeper suddenly becomes aware that they are dreaming, and thus are then able to control their dreams. The imagery within lucid dreaming is very very vivid, so vivid in fact, that many sleepers actually mistake lucid dreaming for the real world. However, as in all types of dreams, lucid dreaming holds a certain dream-like and ethereal quality and atmosphere to it that real life does not have.
By practicing the points above, you too will be able to lucid dream, and, furthermore, control your dreams to the way you want them to go.
