Can You Lucid Dream Without Knowing It
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I'm fascinated by dreams. I know I'm not solitary in this. Every bit a sleep expert, I'g constantly existence asked most dreams. People want to know what their dreams mean (I'm often as stumped as anybody else about the strangeness of dreams). People want to know what purpose dreams serve (scientists who report dreams are still searching for an answer to that very big question).
I'm especially fascinated by a particular blazon of dream: lucid dreams. In lucid dreams, the dreamer is enlightened of the fact that he or she is dreaming. During lucid dreams, dreamers often can even manipulate or control their dream as it's happening.
Dreams have preoccupied humans for as long as we've been dreaming. And we've always been interested in how to control our dreams, to use them for creativity and insight. Thinkers and discoverers from Aristotle to Edison to Einstein have tried to harness the ability of dreams to take advantage of this gratuitous-flowing, no-boundaries class of consciousness. That involvement continues today, as nosotros explore new ways to intentionally cultivate lucid dreams.
Let's take a await at some of the latest scientific discipline on lucid dreaming—what it is, why information technology happens, and how nosotros might be able to train ourselves to become lucid dreamers and accept greater command of our dream worlds.
What's it similar to have a lucid dream?
Have y'all ever been in the midst of a dream and found yourself thinking near the fact that you're dreaming? Perhaps you've had a moment of self-enlightened laughter at the oddity of a dream, or been able to temper your fear of a frightening dream episode because your mind grasps that what you're experiencing isn't "real." Have y'all ever been able to control the circumstances or the activity of your dream—as though yous were the manager of your dream "movie" and not only an actor in information technology?
Cocky-awareness of dreaming and the ability to control dreams are two primal characteristics of the experience of lucid dreaming. They don't always occur together, still. People who experience lucid dreams may have self-sensation within their dreams, but not the ability to command dream content. And the lucidity of our dreams can exist fleeting—that'due south to say, bursts of cocky-awareness within dreams may be very brief.
If you've never had a lucid dream, it can be catchy to imagine what this is all similar. Remember for a moment about what "regular" dreaming is like. During non-lucid dreams, we feel dream experiences every bit though they're actually happening to u.s.a.. Information technology's only after we awaken and recall our dream—fifty-fifty if that recall lasts for only a moment before we lose our dream retentivity—that nosotros gain an sensation of having been dreaming.
The departure between this commonplace, non-lucid type of dream and a lucid dream is the ability to reflect on what's happening in our minds as information technology is happening. That self-sensation of our thoughts is what'south known equally metacognition. It'south generally understood that metacognition—an agile power of the human mind while awake-all but disappears during sleep. Lucid dreaming appears to be an exception.
In lucid dreams, at least two states of consciousness—a wake-like, metacognitive state and a dreaming state–appear to exist mixed together. In this extraordinary mixed state of consciousness, we tin both feel our dream and see ourselves dreaming—and mayhap fifty-fifty control those dreams equally they unfold.
Why exercise we have lucid dreams?
Non all of the states do dream with lucidity. It appears to be pretty mutual for people to experience a lucid dream at some point in their lives. Inquiry suggests that more than half of usa may have at least 1 lucid dream during our lifetimes. But regular lucid dreaming is much more rare than that. And in that location appear to be a very small-scale number of people who not only feel lucid dreams regularly, but likewise tin exert some control within those dreams.
Scientific studies have shown that our brains behave differently during lucid dreams than in other states of slumber and dreaming. Research has institute lucid dreamers displayed significantly higher encephalon wave frequencies than non-lucid dreamers.
Lucid dreamers also appear to have increased activeness in regions of the brain's prefrontal cortex, areas of the brain that are typically inactive during sleep. These parts of the brain are deeply involved with conscious awareness, a sense of self, besides as language and memory. Recently, for the showtime time, scientific report documented that the brain action of lucid dreams shares several characteristics with the waking state of metacognition.
It'southward non articulate why some people take lucid dreams, while others do non, or why some people experience lucid dreams quite frequently, while most of us may just take this experience a handful of times in a lifetime.
Merely in that location are some interesting clues nigh what may distinguish lucid dreamers from not-lucid dreamers. Some research indicates that certain personality traits and cognitive styles may be linked to lucid dreams. Imagination and creativity have both been associated with more frequent lucid dreaming. Introspection, and a tendency to rely more heavily on internal thoughts (rather than external information) accept likewise been linked to lucid dreams. Enquiry shows that people who tin effectively split their attention between different tasks, or points of focus, may exist more apt to have lucid dreams. There's also some indication that people who experience nightmares more often may be more decumbent to lucid dreams.
And some research suggests that stronger overall dream recall—a greater power to remember all types of dreams later on waking—may be linked to a greater capacity for lucid dreaming.
Recently, studies have shown lucid dreaming is more common in people with narcolepsy. In narcolepsy, brain activity is atypical, and some of the neural activity that promotes wakefulness and suppresses sleep are altered. This results in poor slumber control, intense and persistent daytime sleepiness, difficulty sleeping at night, and dream-like hallucinations. People with narcolepsy tend also to accept more nightmares and better dream recall than people without the disorder.
Some fascinating contempo inquiry conducted by scientists in the United Kingdom has as well linked lucid dreaming to sleep paralysis, another hitting sleep feel. Sleep paralysis occurs when we wake from slumber unable to movement or to speak. Both sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming appear to be related to transitions in and out of REM sleep. During REM sleep, the body is largely paralyzed (a status known as REM atonia). And REM slumber is a sleep stage characterized past bright, active dreaming.
This inquiry showed an association between the frequency of slumber paralysis and the frequency of lucid dreaming. It also highlighted some important differences between the two sleep phenomena. Sleep paralysis was connected to higher stress and to lower sleep quality. That's not surprising to me, given how upsetting and scary episodes of sleep paralysis tin exist. On the other hand, lucid dreaming appeared to exist a much more positive slumber experience. In this report, lucid dreaming was not associated with stress or reduced slumber quality. It was linked to more positive waking heedless experiences, and to more vivid waking imagination.
Tin we induce lucid dreaming?
This a big question, for dreamers and scientists alike. How tin can nosotros encourage lucid dreaming?
Y'all might be request: why would people want to encourage lucid dreaming? We don't know the fundamental purpose of dreaming. Merely dreams have long been idea to be vehicles for emotional processing, trouble solving, idea exploring and creativity. Since ancient times, dreams accept been thought to exist a forum for both healing and discovery related to our waking lives. In our modern historic period, rigorous scientific report has given us data to support all of these long-held thoughts about the usefulness of dreams.
Scientists, sleep experts and therapists (including me!) are interested in the specific potential of lucid dreams a therapeutic tool. Working intentionally with lucid dreams can be constructive in reducing the intensity, frequency and emotional disruption of nightmares. In a lucid dream setting the dreamer has the chapters to push dorsum against negative and disturbing dream narratives, emotional content and events. In a real sense, the dreamer may exist able to re-script a cream to create more positive, empowering, calming outcomes. That makes lucid dreaming potentially useful in a range of psychological situations, including the handling of waking-life phobias and traumas, issues with mood, and in relationships.
Lucid dreams have also long been sought as a style to enhance creativity—and that continues to exist true today. People are understandably curious near how to mine their dream worlds to unlock creative powers, as well as to enhance other cognitive skills. And permit'southward face information technology: it's pretty thrilling and cool to contemplate being able to control our dreams, and bring about self-sensation and self-reflection within them. The feel alone is enticing and desirable for many people.
Means to promote lucid dreams
There are a number of techniques and tools being explored by scientists as means to increase lucid dreaming. Studies show that the drug galantamine, which is used to care for dementia, may be effective in increasing the frequency of lucid dreams. Galantamine works to stop the breakdown of acetylcholine, a brain chemical that is an important facilitator of reflective thinking, reasoning, and memory. Acetylcholine too is involved the the regulation of REM sleep. Research is besides exploring how sensory and environmental cues might be used to stimulate lucid dreams.
If you're interested in cultivating your ain lucid dreaming abilities, there are some techniques y'all can endeavour on your own.
Reality testing . This simple technique involves checking in with your surroundings throughout your waking twenty-four hours. As you observe your waking environs, ask yourself: am I awake or am I dreaming? This practice may spur the mind to ask this question inside your dreaming consciousness.
Wake back to bed, or WBTB . Using WBTB, a person sleeps for v-6 hours, then deliberately wakes for a period of time—equally fiddling as ten minutes, or up to an hour—before going back to sleep. The idea here is to ship yourself immediately into REM sleep (which occurs nigh abundantly in the last third of the night), where most, if not all, lucid dreaming occurs. (One annotation: don't employ WBTB if information technology shortens your sleep amounts or leaves yous feeling tired and shortchanged on rest. Lucid dreaming isn't worth actually losing sleep over!)
Mnemonic induction of lucid dreams, or MILD . This is 1 of the all-time studied lucid dream techniques. It uses intention to stimulate self-sensation in dreams. Before going to slumber, say to yourself: "The side by side time I'm dreaming, I will remember I am dreaming." You can besides use Balmy with specific dream recollections. Take a moment to recollect a dream y'all had recently, and think specifically virtually an oddity or bibelot in that dream. (Perhaps street signs were in a strange language, or the furniture in your living room was all rearranged.) Visualize yourself returning to that dream and recognizing that bibelot, while also saying to yourself the same intention from in a higher place.
A 2017 report investigated these techniques and establish that using all three together was constructive in stimulating lucid dreaming.
Enhance dream recall . Strengthening your power to remember your dreams is ane way to potentially develop your ability for lucid dreaming. Keeping a dream journal is one way to increase dream call back. Keep the journal at your bedside. As shortly as you wake, write downwardly everything you retrieve about your dream. There's also some pretty interesting contempo enquiry showing that Vitamin B6 can help raise our memories of dreams.
Scientists at Australia'southward University of Adelaide establish that taking a high-dose (240mg) of vitamin B6 supplements before going to bed for v consecutive days led to greater dream recall. You tin increase your vitamin B6 intake by eating whole grain cereals, legumes, fruits (such as assistant and avocado), vegetables (such as spinach and murphy), milk, cheese, eggs, red meat, liver, and fish.
Meditate . Meditation is a exercise of mindful awareness, of attention to the present moment. Practicing meditation during your waking solar day volition help you lot develop your chapters for awareness of where your mind is in the moment. That skill may translate into the dream world, increasing your ability for self-awareness—aka lucidity—in your dreams. A 2015 study found that meditation and mindfulness were connected to more frequent lucid dreaming. Other research shows meditation has benefits for dreaming as a whole. Mindfulness practices accept been shown to reduce negative and disturbing content in dreams. And as I've written about before, mindfulness practices, including meditation, can help you sleep better overall.
Let me know your experiences with lucid dreaming, and any questions you have about our dreaming lives! I'll proceed to talk about lucid dreams every bit we learn more most this extraordinary course of dreaming. Until then, hither'south a link to all of my articles about dreaming.
Sugariness Dreams,
Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com
Dr. Michael Breus
Michael Breus, Ph.D - The Slumber Doctor is a Diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine and a Young man of The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and one of simply 168 psychologists to pass the Slumber Medical Specialty Board without going to medical school. Dr. Breus is a sought after lecturer and his knowledge is shared daily in major national media worldwide including Today, Dr. Oz, Oprah, and for fourteen years as the sleep expert on WebMD. Dr. Breus is the bestselling writer of The Power of When, The Sleep Doctor'due south Nutrition Plan and Expert Nighttime!
Source: https://thesleepdoctor.com/2019/02/26/are-you-a-lucid-dreamer/
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