MINDFULNESS
Lucid Dreaming
Did you know You could Control your Dreams?
Most of the best and worst things happen to us in our life is when we are dreaming. No one ever wants to be in a nightmare. What if I told you that you can influence(control) your dream. There is this notion called “Lucid Dreams” which happens when you are aware that you are dreaming. You will be able to realize all of your intellection and emotions as the dream goes on. If mastered, you could also be able to control the dream by changing the plot, people involved, or the environment you are in. How cool would that be, manipulating your own dream which you thought — “you didn't even have the authority to exit from the dream/nightmare”. I was transfixed by this entire riveting idea of “controlling my dream” the minute I got introduced about it.
The Science Part
Dreams are often banal, confusing, blurry, and are involuntarily fleeting. They are nothing but the stories the brain tells us. Sleep happens in cycles. Every complete sleep-cycle takes about 100 minutes. When you sleep, your brain switches cycles in between REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Dreams often happen during REM sleep. REM is the acronym for Rapid Eye Movement. In REM sleep your eyes move rapidly in distinct directions. Generally, the REM sleep period happens around 80-90 minutes after you fall asleep. In this period, your brain is extremely active and your heart rate increases. During this phase, an amino acid known as glycine is released from the brain resulting in the body becoming paralyzed. This paralysis prevents injury by stopping us from acting out during a dream. The first period of REM typically lasts 10 minutes. After every REM sleep cycle, the period gets longer, and the final one may last up to an hour. During non-REM cycle, your brain waves, heartbeat, and eye movements successively decelerate.
How To?
I got introduced to this whole “dream-controlling’ thing when I was reading an article by Psychology Today titled Your Lucid Dreams. I got so fascinated by this idea and researched about it everywhere humanly possible. I stumbled upon many techniques while researching about it.
1. Induction Techniques
Lucid dreaming mostly happens randomly, but there is a possibility to initiate lucid dreaming through induction techniques. Induction techniques are activities that are performed while falling asleep. So far, these techniques have been most reliable at inducing lucid dreams.
- Wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD)
In this technique, you have to remain conscious while transitioning from the awake phase to the dream phase. Just lay down on the bed and try to be conscious until you dream.
- Wake back to bed (WBTB)
In this technique, you are supposed to wake up 3 hours before your normal waking time, get up for a few minutes, and then go back to sleep. When you go back to sleep, you’ll be more likely to enter REM sleep while you’re still conscious. The weeny awakening in between sleep cycles increases cortical activation in the principal brain areas which are involved in lucid dreaming. Generally, If you wake up around 7 am, so just set your alarm at 4 am and you will be good.
- Mnemonic induction of lucid dreams (MILD)
In this technique, one repeats a mantra to an extent that he doesn't forget to do the specific task he is assigning himself. For example, if you keep telling — “I am gonna read that book” repeatedly to yourself, you will eventually read the book by making yourself remember again and again. Just tell yourself that “you will lucid dream tonight”. In this way, you will implant this idea in your mind, hereby remembering when to lucid dream. You can do it before bed or when you wake during W-B-T-B. This technique uses prospective memory to become lucid.
2. Reality Check
This technique instructs you to give yourself a reality check once in a while. You can just pinch yourself to check if you are dreaming or not. Did you know that your degree of consciousness is akin when you’re awake and dreaming? By increasing your awareness while you’re awake, you can augment your consciousness while you’re dreaming. Reality Check is a kind of mental training. It increases metacognition by training your mind to notice your own consciousness.
3. Journaling
How often do you remember your dreams? Not much, right! It gets almost impossible to recall what went down on a dream after an hour of your waking time. What if you wrote down any details you could possibly remember about the dream just after you wake up, every time you have a dream. In this way, you will force your brain to memorize the dream and your brain will eventually get used to remembering your dreams.
The Closure
First and foremost, let me just say that there does not exist any reliable and successful technique to induce Lucid Dreams across all individuals. All of the procedures aforementioned are idiosyncratic. Some of them worked on me and some didn't. So, keep that in mind. Sorry, I didn't mean to demoralize you there, its just pure facts. The absence of reliable techniques is due to the act of less scientific-research in this area.
Facts
- Over a lifetime, a person may dream for five or six full years.
- Lucid dreamers report willing themselves to fly, fight, or act out sexual fantasies.
- Researchers believe that dreaming affects in memory consolidation and mood regulation.
- An estimated 55 percent of people have had one or more lucid dreams in their lifetime.
- Only 23 percent of people have lucid dreams at least once a month.
- The ancient Egyptians thought of dreams as simply a different form of seeing, with trained dreamers serving as seers to help plan battles and make state decisions.
- The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that dreams were equal parts of predictions of future events and visitations by the dead.
- A recent study of 169 Australian participants shows that induction techniques induce lucid dreams most successfully.
Ignorable Section
Lastly, Have you watched the movie Inception yet? If your answer to this is “no”, then I don’t know what to say to you. You, my friend, are missing out on a lot of things. There is a whole movie based on lucid dreaming, what else do you want. It’s a literal masterpiece and is one of my favorite movies. I am sorry for getting a bit side-tracked there. Okay, I am gonna cease my “jibber-jabber” here.
