Sunday, June 30, 2013

What is Lucid Dreaming?


In our world today, lucid dreaming is a relatively unknown terminology. Many people are even unaware of the existence of such a phenomenon. Before we proceed to discuss the very nature of this phenomenon, I will like us to take a look at my very first experience. It went as follows:
"It was a cloudy night and I had the intention of putting into practice all I have learnt about lucid dreaming. That night, as I fall asleep, I conceptualized the existence of a very big mountain in my heart. I pictured myself standing on top of the mountain and within few seconds, I got myself acquainted with the whole features existing in the scenario. I was completely mesmerized. The feeling was so intense that I lose all physical awareness a situation that fully brought me into the dreamscape.
Then all of a sudden, the cloud came down to the extent that I could feel it with my hands. I stood there admiring the beautiful birds that were flying in between the clouds. I suddenly had that urge to join them. Being full aware of the fact that I was dreaming, I knew I can beat the law of gravity. Without thinking twice, I leapt off the high mountain and started flying alongside the birds. 
What I experienced was just a typical lucid dream. So, what exactly does that means? Well, lucid dreaming is a very unique form of dreaming in which the dreamer is fully aware that he or she is actually dreaming. The term “lucid” was first used by Frederik van Eeden to describe the sense of mental clarity. Generally, lucid dreaming occurs in phases. It usually begins in the middle of a dream when the person suddenly realized that the events occurring before him or her is not taking place in the physical world, but rather in the dream world. Such realization can be triggered, if the dreamer encountered an impossible action in the dream. Some good examples of these impossible actions include; a human being that is flying, meeting someone that is dead, flying a car, etc. Sometimes people become lucid without noticing any particular clue in the dream; they just suddenly realize they are in a dream. According to a research carried out by LaBerge and his colleagues, about 10%  of lucid dreaming result when one directly return to REM sleep from an awakening with unbroken reflective consciousness.
Even though lucid dreaming is basically all about dreaming, when you are fully aware of that fact, the quality varies greatly. Base on quality, we may differentiate Lucid dreaming into high level lucidity and low level lucidity. Under high quality lucidity, the dreamer is fully aware that everything experienced in the dream is occurring at the dream world and hence, there is nothing to fear. It’s really complete in the sense that the dreamer knows very well that he is asleep in bed and will definitely wake up to face the real world. Thus, as long as lucid dreaming is concerned, the high-level lucidity is of higher quality.
Conversely, under the low-level lucidity, the dreamer will only be partially aware that he is in a dream world. The extent of this awareness may just be enough to fly or alter what the dreamer is doing, but not enough to realize that the people are dream representations. Thus, the dreamer in this case is neither aware that he will suffer no harm nor that he is actually sleeping in the bed.
Practically, lucid dreaming can be defined as the ability of one to consciously direct as well control his or her dreams. During such transformations, the inner dream world is converted into a physical and real living entity – a living entity where everything you see, hear, feel, taste and even smell seem to be occurring in the real world.
Most times, lucid dreamers feel fuzzy and distant. This is because lucidity always occurs during altered states of consciousness, meaning that the brain is overburden whenever it switches into waking mode during the dream. During lucid dreaming, the conscious brain is always awake.  Such work is never experienced by the brain during the normal dreams when human self awareness is completely closed down.
Lucid dreaming is a very wonderful, safe as well as natural state of the body. Literally, it cannot be refer to as an out of body experience because the dreamer is still fast asleep on the bed, even though he still has the option to wake up, if he really wants to. During lucid dreaming, the senses are always alive, and this gives the dreamer the unique ability to explore the inner workings of his subconscious mind without any form of restriction.
So how does this unique phenomenon originated? The earliest known incident of lucid dreaming can be traced back more down a thousand years among the Tibetan Monks. These monks are known to have a sort of dream control, philosophical called Dream Yoga. Thus, the concept of conscious dreaming is never a new phenomenon. However, it was during the 20th century that the Dutch psychiatrist, Frederik Van Eeden coined the name "lucid dreaming", to defined “mental clarity in dreams”.
By 1960s, the concept became so popularized. This was largely due to the promoting activity of Celia Green, who explained the scientific potential of self awareness in dreams. She was actually the very first scientist to link the term with REM sleep as well as false awakenings.
Is lucid dreaming the same thing as dream control? Well, the answer is a very big no. Lucidity is not synonymous with dream control. In reality, it is possible for you to have a very limited control over your dream content whenever you are lucid. You can only have absolute control over your dream content when you are unaware that you are in the dream world. Nevertheless, lucidity can boost your ability of influencing the course of events.
Is there any scientific prove for lucid dreaming? Of course we do have such. The first ever scientific fact was formulated by a British parapsychologist, known as Keith Hearne. He studied the eye movement signals of his volunteer known as Alan Worsley and this study was made in a very perfect laboratory condition, which was similar to what is obtainable under the lucid dream state.
However, it was Dr Stephen LaBerge of Stanford University that carried out a very convincing scientific analysis of the phenomenon. His findings were formally published in some of the science journals.

1 comment:

  1. Nicely written article :)
    Here's my shorter version! hope it helps the others too!

    http://westeppingout.blogspot.my/2015/11/finally-how-to-lucid-dream.html

    ReplyDelete