Dreams that work: how and why to induce lucid dreams

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

In a dream, you can strengthen your muscles, become a communication genius and believe in yourself. The main thing is to realize in time that you are sleeping …

At one time, one ancient Chinese sage woke up after a delightful dream in which he saw himself as a moth fluttering from flower to flower, and thought: “Who am I: Chuang Tzu, who dreamed that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly that dreams that she - Chuang Tzu? The question, as they say, stuck: more than two thousand years have passed, but people are still asking them.

Why are Lucid Dreaming Necessary?

Scientists have found that for the brain there is no difference between real memories and fictional ones. He reacts to the fictitious experiences That music playing in your head: a real conundrum for scientists in exactly the same way as to those that actually delighted or poisoned his life. And if so, dreams can have on us - our attitude to life, self-esteem, and so on - no less effect than actually experienced events.

Here's what you can do in a dream:

1. Work through the existing psychological trauma. For example, to meet again with a person who once offended you in reality, and tell him to his face that you cannot be treated this way.
2. Do what seems impossible. For example, take off or lift an incredible weight, fixing the feeling of "I can" inside yourself.
3. Overcome some trials, having received positive reinforcement of your own courage.
4. Agree with night monsters and gain a successful experience of finding compromises that will come in handy in real life. In a dream, it is enough to turn to the monster catching up with you - and it will either melt into thin air, or it will turn out to be quite negotiable and even pleasant to talk to. The fears that we meet face to face dissolve in dreams - this is how the protective mechanisms of the human psyche operate.
5. Strengthen your muscles. If you dream that you are working out in the gym, then your muscles, on which the brain will focus during sleep, will really become a little stronger. Of course, you should not hope that in a dream you will be able to overcome excess weight or, for example, outline the triceps. But such sleep exercises will help keep the muscles in good shape, which will be a good help to real workouts, increasing their effect.
6. You can even sleep twice. Placebo sleep affects cognitive functioning: falling asleep also inside sleep, thanks to which after a short rest you will feel vigorous and full of energy, as if you have rested just as much as you need.

Dreaming is an almost endless playground, a mental training room where you can hone the necessary skills, including physical ones. But, as with any fitness room, you can't just get into this workout. You will need a key, a kind of subscription. It is called lucid dreaming.

Is it possible to wake up without waking up

Lucid Dreaming has long been the subject of Lucid Dreaming research. Dozens of scientists around the world are working on this to recall oneself in a dream and by mental effort, without waking up, launch a dream script along the chosen path in order to pump the necessary skills. Remarkably, it was successful. In particular, the lucid dreaming guru, American psychophysiologist Stephen LaBerge, believes that almost everyone can learn to control sleep. It is only important to practice a little.

To learn to be aware of oneself in a dream and correct the "dream reality", some only need training for a week, says LaBerge.

For most, lucid dreaming begins during normal sleep, when a person suddenly realizes where he is. However, there are also advanced people - people who are able to go into a controlled sleep directly from the state of wakefulness, without a temporary loss of awareness. This is aerobatics, to which they go step by step.

How to induce lucid dreaming

Ask yourself more often: "Am I sleeping?"

When this short introspection is brought to automatism, the brain will begin to scroll the question during sleep, which will increase the chances of becoming aware of itself inside the dream. Thanks to this, you can change the course of events in a dream and correct traumatic moments.

Check reality against reality

Pinch your nose with two fingers and don't open your mouth - can you breathe? If you can, this is a dream. Look at the palm and fingers - are they crisp? If the picture is blurry, this is a dream. Take a look at the clock, remember the time, look away for a couple of seconds and look at the clock again - is the time the same? Repeat one more time. If the time is different every time, this is a dream.

It is also desirable to bring such checks to automatism.

Keep a dream diary

Put a notebook next to the bed, in which, as soon as you wake up, write down what you dreamed and what experiences you experienced when you returned to reality. And don't neglect your daily entries! It is proved by How Dreams Work that 5 minutes after waking up people forget up to 50% of the sleep content, and after 10 minutes - even up to 90%. It is because of this that dreams have less impact on real life than they could. A diary will increase the effectiveness of lucid dreaming and teach you to be more thoughtful about dreams in general.

Look for signs of sleep

The diary from the previous paragraph will help you with this. After a few recordings, you will most likely find that there are some recurring signs in your dreams: situations, events, things, characters. Remember them by regularly scrolling in your head. Seeing such a sign, you will immediately understand that you are in a dream, and this will facilitate the start of a lucid dream.

Engage in self-hypnosis

Before falling asleep, repeat several times: "I will be aware that I am dreaming" - or any other phrase with the same meaning. Psychophysiologists call this mnemonic lucid dreaming. After a while, this mnemonic phrase will start to start the automatic process of waking up in a dream.

Start a light alarm

According to the observations of psychophysiologists, spontaneous exits into a lucid dream most often occur when a person is in the REM sleep phase and at the same time feels some kind of weak external influence. For example, hears a soft sound or feels a light touch.

The problem is that such an impact can wake up not only in a dream, but also pull the sleeping person into reality. To minimize the risk of truly waking up without ever experiencing a lucid dream, it is best to use an alarm clock. Start it on fire 5 or 6 hours after you are supposed to fall asleep - and then the changed illumination, most likely, coincides with the REM sleep phase and will help you wake up inside the dream.

What you need to remember

If you have trouble sleeping (insomnia; stress causing over-sensitivity; constant overwork that makes you "sleep like a dead man"), then lucid dreaming will be much more difficult to achieve. Therefore, before looking for the key to a virtual training room, deal with existing physiological problems and try to establish healthy sleep.

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