Awake in Your Sleep
Dreams are all too often more exciting than reality. But if you could control them, they'd be even better... endless food, sunshine and hanky-panky. You'd never want to wake up. Rayna Khaitan explores lucid dreaming.
Your eyes open to the serene sight of your bedroom. At first, you feel a bit puzzled, for only seconds before you were traipsing through Cairo with a bouncing, sylvan bunny in search of fireworks and mittens. But as you blink into the daybreak, your mind uncloaks that familiar revelation - you were only dreaming.
Drowsily, you saunter into the kitchen, mulling over the absurdity of your nocturnal odyssey. The green LCD reads 6:09. Soon, you’ll need to scuttle off to the humdrum world of work. You grab a glass and lift the tap, but not a drop of water drips out. Lifting your head beyond the faucet, your eyes once again meet the time: 10:23. 10:23?! That doesn’t make any sense.Just then, the buzzer rings. Who could it be? You’re certainly not expecting guests. One peek out the window should explain, and yet, as you draw back the curtain, the frayed silk turns in your hand to liquid blue. And it is then that the jarring thought hits you - “I never woke up. I am still dreaming.”
[D]RE[A]M
It is this instant - this self-aware moment of realizing you are dreaming while still asleep - that the lucid dream is defined and initiated. When lucid dreaming, the mind not only explicitly recognizes that it is in the dream state, but it also thinks as though it were awake.
Over the years, scientists have determined that lucid dreaming occurs during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of slumber, the period in our natural sleep cycle in which we dream most intensely. They have also witnessed that the brain often registers dream events in the same way it processes real-life actions. And yet, there remains an at least tenuous separation between the physical world and the dream world. For example, even with active attempts to make sensory contact with things like their blankets and pillows, the lucid dreamer simply cannot perceive outside the dream world. However, beyond these conclusions, scientists still know relatively little about what causes lucid dreaming and why certain individuals are predisposed to inducing it.
With all this mystery surrounding the issue, how can you even go about identifying a lucid dream?
In the scenario illustrated above, “dream signs” precipitate discovery. As the term suggests, dream signs are common indicators of the dreamscape. They help individuals ascertain whether they are wandering the waking world or sifting through their subconscious.
Dream signs may vary from individual to individual, and range from the unfathomable to the plausible, but prevalent cues include: flying or moon-jumping, appliance or gadget breakdown, encountering environments or people from the past, dramatic changes in time or text on second glance, inexplicable shifts in location, and bizarre twists in physical characteristics.
There are several techniques dreamers can use to achieve lucidity, including altering their normal sleep cycles, meditation and auto suggestion. Auto suggestion, like the other methods, involves dissipating all of the day’s tensions. With the mind and body relaxed, the individual can then become receptive to making the lucid dream a reality by repeating a mantra such as, “My mind is now open to lucid dreams. My mind is now open to lucid dreams…”
Perhaps the most important aspect of lucid dreaming is developing the ability to remember that it actually occurred. It is said that by regularly recording your dreams in a journal immediately after you have them, you not only improve dream recall, but you also encourage general dream awareness.
Defying Logic
Finding clarity in the twilight haze of dream is merely the first step. Experienced lucid dreamers exert an astonishing degree of control. By remaining calm and confident, using certain tricks like spinning the dreamself like a top, and practicing routinely, dreamers claim it is possible to continue lucid dreaming to accomplish all sorts of wild - almost inconceivable - feats. Seasoned lucid dreamers have been known to drift with the stars in space, assume the protagonist of their favourite films, and even travel through time.
By studying the physiological characteristics of lucid dreamers in more detail, scientists hope to uncover what truly distinguishes the dreaming mind from the waking one. Is the difference merely in the degree to which our motor system operates, or is there something more?
So the next time you find yourself lost in the land of dreams, give yourself a whirl, and use your imagination to decide what comes next. Your experience could lead to discoveries that scientists can currently only dream of…
Find other articles in the Beautiful Minds series here.Or you might be interested in one of these other beauties:
- Interesting - The future of mind control
- Cool - Computer games that read your mind
- Books - A teaspoon and an open mind
- Funny - Superstition: all in the mind?
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Title image: Ove Tøpfer
Other image: Till Achinger
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