As requested and as promised, here is my series on Lucid Dreaming. Thanks to movies like ‘Inception’ lucid dreaming has been growing in popularity even though it has been practiced for hundreds of years. You may have heard about it and wondered “What is lucid dreaming?” The most basic answer is that you are in a dream but are fully aware that you are dreaming. Now that may not sound so remarkable until you begin to consider that a dream is an altered state of consciousness and in a lucid dream you can do anything. You can fly, you can visit anywhere, you can take control of nightmare situations and even defeat scary foes. I first heard of lucid dreaming when I was in my teens and exploring out of body experiences, but I didn’t actively begin practicing it until ten years ago when I came across a book by Stephen LaBerge.
The best way I can describe it is that being lucid while dreaming is like being Neo in ‘The Matrix’. The dream state is the matrix and you’re fully aware that you’re within it and have the power to react and do anything you want within that space.
Has Lucid Dreaming Been Scientifically Proven?
There are those naysayers who claim that lucid dreaming isn’t really dreaming and that the person is actually more awake than they think, similar to daydreaming. There has been at least one study that I’m aware of where the brains of people lucid dreaming were scanned while they were dreaming and there was increased activity in those parts of the brain which are usually inactive when we sleep. I think most sceptics don’t have a problem with the lucid part of dreaming, but they don’t believe there is any opportunity for personal or emotional growth in the act. The Skeptic’s Dictionary states “Some skeptics do not believe that there is such a state as lucid dreaming (Malcolm 1959). Skeptics don’t deny that sometimes in our dreams we dream that we are aware that we are dreaming. What they deny is that there is special dream state called the ‘lucid state.’ The lucid dream is therefore not a gateway to “transcendent consciousness” any more than nightmares are.”
I disagree with this from my own personal experiences and from the vast number of other people who practice lucid dreaming regular and who, like me, have derived help and insight. As I just want to look at what lucid dreaming is here, this is something I will discuss further in my next post.
Check out the video below for a visual explanation of what lucid dreaming is:
Lucid Dreaming Series:
- Read ‘Part 1: What is Lucid Dreaming?‘ →
- Read ‘Part 2: What Are the Benefits of Lucid Dreaming?‘ →
- Read ‘Part 3: How to Lucid Dream‘ →