I have recently found a point of fascination in a division of the science of sleep called lucid dreaming. What makes lucid dreaming so strange is that it changes, somewhat, the way how we think of dreaming. Not many people are capable of initiating or maintaining a lucid dream, but for those who can, it can be a useful or pleasurable experience.
Lucid dreaming is when an individual comes to the realization, during a dream, that they are truly dreaming. At this point the dream can be altered according to the persons will, becoming almost like daydreaming.
When a person is dreaming, usually the events in the dream are remembered as being decidedly weird. The same is true for a lucid dreamer as well. The difference is that at a certain point in time the dreamer notices these discrepancies which is called the pre lucid dreaming stage. They eventually come to the conclusion that they are dreaming. When that happens, then the person might actually start to change the dream to a more desirable outcome. For example they may be able to fly or get promoted finally get to go out with a certain individual.
I happen to be a rather regular lucid dreamer. With some of my dreams becoming lucid as I sleep and others I initiate from a waking state of mind.
An example of a wake-initiated-lucid-dream is what I often use to fix a nightmare situation.
A wake-initiated-lucid-dream, also known as WILD, happens when an individual slips from a waking consciousness straight into a dream with no loss of self awareness. From there on that person can control the outcome of a dream.
So in the case of a nightmare scenario, I’ll have awakened from a particularly frightening dream and be lying there awake and scared, trying to assure myself that it was a just a dream of no real world relevance. Once I convince myself of such, I plan the best way to change the outcome of the dream to something that I can safely sleep with.
Usually if I don’t do this the nightmare will continue to plague me repeatedly for the rest of the night.Once I have a plan I close my eyes and deliberately call to mind the point in the dream where everything began to go bad. Doing this, relaxing and at the same time thinking about my alterations, allows me to slip back into sleep in control of the dream. After that it’s easy to tame the dream and get back to sleep. If I manage to do this quickly then I don’t lose too much sleep.
Another type of initiation is MILD- Mnemonic initiated lucid dream. In this method one reminds themselves to either look for something unusual or particularly telling in a dream to identify it as a dream. A classic example that used to happen to me regularly as a child and still occasionally does, is when you really need to use the toilet and you make your way to the bathroom. But eventually you realized that something about the bathroom or where ever you are is not normal. It’s tilted, people are going in and out, or some other bizarre part of the scene alerts you to a problem with this dream reality. You then realize that you are indeed dreaming and not where you are supposed to be and either direct your self to some other activity or you awaken so that you can go to the real bathroom. In this case you stop yourself from potentially ruining your bed.
The only real problem with lucid dreaming is that after investing time and effort into initiating a lucid dream it is very annoying to awaken prematurely, ruining the dream. This has never happened to me before but I imagine I would be very frustrated if I had worked hard to set up an enjoyable dream and then hear an alarm clock or awaken to go to the bathroom.
Asides from that, lucid dreams are all fun and interesting. Not everyone has what it takes to dream consciously, but I would definitely suggest you try; you may be pleasantly surprised dreaming up awesome fantasies in no time.
Check out this link for a list of all the things you can do with lucid dreams and how to learn how to lucid dream.
http://www.lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html#dreamcontrol
Sources
Lucid Dream
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreams
Psychophysiology of Lucid Dreaming http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html
