Lucid Dreaming – Living Your Dreams
- Monday, January 15, 2018
- By Tatoru Yuki
- 0 Comments
Note: This article was sent to a buyer who was known to prey on new freelance writers on Freelancer.com. He/she offered to pay USD11 for every 1 hour worked, and there were no upfront payments. Allegedly, the payments should come through on their own after a few days, but he/she was able to remove the payment methods and his account was deactivated, causing the payments to not go though at all.
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Lucid Dreaming – Living Your Dreams
What are Lucid Dreams?
Imagine if you can control your dreams – you’d know to run away when you
see hints of your dream becoming a nightmare, or even make the unwanted dreams
go away and replace the scene in your dreams to pleasant ones. Want to go to a
rock concert and be in the VIP seat? You got it. Surrounded by kittens? That’s
doable too. That is the power of lucid dreams; you can live in it and control
your dream world as if you are living several lives at once.
Is Lucid Dreaming Real?
Yes, it is! It’s very real. In
fact, a research by Keith Hearne on lucid dreaming which dates back as early as
1978 have proven its existence. In this research, the test subject and him had
agreed on a specific eye movement pattern for him to perform should he enter a
lucid dreaming state. Once the test subject entered a state of lucid dreaming,
he performed the eye movement patterns which they agreed upon.
Is Lucid Dreaming Dangerous?
Contrary to popular beliefs, lucid dreaming is not dangerous since
everything is only happening in your dreams. With enough practice and
mindfulness, your dreams will not be scary in nature at all. Once in a while,
you might experience sleep paralysis since lucid dreams usually occur when
you’re in REM sleep. During this sleeping stage, your brain suppresses your
body so that it will not move around while you are asleep. As such, when your
awareness peaks while you are lucid dreaming, sometimes we wake up while our
body is still suppressed, resulting in auditory hallucinations & body
paralysis. It may sound difficult, but once you relax & remember than it is
a natural thing to happen, you can overcome a sleep paralysis.
How Can I Get Lucid Dreams?
Practice is the key to
everything. According to experts, previous trials have allowed individuals
learning lucid dreaming get their first lucid dream within 21 days. With some
practice, you too can start living your dreams. Below are some practice that
you can try to start getting lucid dreams in no time.
Method #1: Meditation
By practicing mindfulness and
self-awareness in meditation, you can engage your senses – sight, hearing,
touching; the possibilities are endless. You can lie down and relax your body
slowly from your head to your toe, focusing on your breathing. Try to keep your
mind on your breathing rate as much as you can, and redirect your focus to how
your entire body feels while breathing when you feel your focus slipping away.
In some time, you might feel as if you are floating, or start hearing voices
and sounds. You are slowly getting there simply by meditating.
Method #2: Reality Check
This is extremely important if
you want to be awake and alert in your dreams. Your form of reality check can
be anything – a pinch on your wrist every now and then, looking at your watch
and see time move forward, or writing something on your hand and glancing at it
every now and then. Since these actions are in real-life, the same events will
seem different in your dreams. A pinch won’t be painful, time does not move,
and any writing on your hand will not appear in your dreams. Once you have a
habit of doing reality checks, you will notice that you are not in real life
and you can start controlling your dreams.
Method #3: An Early Alarm
To get into the REM sleep stage,
you need to be ever-so-slightly awake. Set an alarm about an hour or two before
you are due to wake up, and make sure that your alarm ringtone is not too loud
or is at least relaxing. When the alarm rings, shut it off instead of pressing
the snooze button. In the duration before you are supposed to wake up, you will
experience another stage of REM sleep while being more awake than you have been
the past hours you were asleep. Keep doing reality checks and focus on your
breathing – you will get your lucid dreams in no time!
What are the Benefits to Lucid Dreaming?
Everyday life can be stressful
and tedious – there’s always so much responsibilities to handle, and plenty of
tasks needing to be completed. However, by being able to lucid dream, you can
escape from reality just for a little while. Once you have grasped the concept
of lucid dreaming, you can choose to be anywhere with anyone whenever you wish.
After all, why waste your dreams on something insignificant when you can
control them and dream of anything you want?