Lucid Dreaming - What Is It And Is It Possible?

Who doesn't want to dream whatever they want. In our dreams, sometimes strange and hair-raising things appear without us wanting them to. What if we could dream whatever we wanted? Is it even possible and, if so, how can we achieve it?

Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming? When you dream whatever you want. You can be anyone in your dream, you can travel anywhere, you can do anything you want and you do it consciously, which means you control your dream and everything happens the way you want it to.

What Is Lucid Dreaming?

Lucid dreaming means, that while you are dreaming, you realize, that you are dreaming and depending on how much you are able to control and manipulate your dream, the story of your dream will be in your hands. Is there something you want to do, but you feel it is impossible? Is there something you want to achieve, but it is also too far away? Would you meet your favorite performer or actor? You can achieve it, you can do it, the opportunity is here.

The good news is that it is possible. If you use the right techniques, you will be able to dream consciously. Lucid dreaming is now being studied and researched all over the world. When we are in the R.E.M. phase during sleep, in other words the rapid eye movement or dreaming phase, the parts of the brain responsible for thinking, logic and conscious activities are reduced in favor of rest and the intensity of the parts responsible for emotions is increased.

In lucid dreaming, the functioning of these areas is not reduced, and we are able to use our brain, so to speak, to think and make rational decisions to influence our dreams. I don't have to worry about what's going to happen next or about waking up from my best dream.

Can Lucid Dreaming Be Dangerous For Humans?

Research has not led to any results showing, that lucid dreaming poses any danger to humans. On the contrary, the part of our brain, that is responsible for thinking is much larger, more powerful and therefore works much more efficiently during lucid dreaming.

You can access areas of your mind, that you wouldn't be able to access when you're awake. For example, you can access your subconscious mind and control its contents in different ways. You may be able to clone yourself and talk to yourself, or you may even be able to conjure up a past self from your childhood and talk to yourself that way.

You may be able to practice any skill during lucid dreaming. If you want to get better at something, say you're learning to play the piano and you want to get better at it sooner, you can even practice that. Or practice writing skills for writing better blogs. How cool is that!

If something negative happened in the past, for example, you can simply rewrite it in your dream and live it the way you want. You can be able to go back into the past and change it for your own good. The only negativity I can bring up about lucid dreaming is, that you might become addicted. If you only dream nice and good things all the time because you want to, why not do it every night.

Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis can occur while practicing lucid dreaming techniques. This is a very frightening thing. It happened to me once. When I woke up from my dream, a human figure was trying to punch me next to my bed. In this state your brain is conscious, i.e. fully awake, but your body is not. In this state, because of sleep, your body is paralyzed and you cannot move for a few seconds or even a few minutes.

There are sleep paralysis reports of seeing a figure come into the room, scratching the wall, whispering in your ear or various creatures appearing to sit on your chest and snarling in your eyes. This is because you can't take a deep breath while you sleep and you feel a pressure on your chest. That's why you see the creature sitting on it. Hence the term nightmare pressure.

Skilled lucid dreamers do go through sleep paralysis, but it doesn't last long for them, and sometimes it doesn't even appear. Within moments they slip through it and are lucid dreaming afterwards. The phenomenon of beings or figures during sleep paralysis is not dangerous, but the experience is permanent.

Now that you know, that lucid dreaming is possible I will share some basic techniques with you.

Keep A Dream Diary

Experienced lucid dreamers also kept dream diaries in the beginning. They say that without it, lucid dreaming cannot succeed. The point of a dream diary is to write down your dreams down and try to recall every detail. Usually we don't remember many dreams, but this is a skill you need to develop to be able to lucid dream.

The Three Big Categories Of Lucid Dreaming Techniques

• D.I.L.D. (Dream Initiated Lucid Dreaming)

In this category, you realize you are lucid dreaming while dreaming. You can practice this by asking yourself several times during the day if this is a dream or reality. How did you get to where you are. You check several times to see if you are awake or dreaming. After a while this will become a habit and will show up in your dream, where you ask yourself if you are awake or dreaming and then you realize, that you are actually dreaming.

• W.I.L.D. (Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming)

In this category, you fall from being awake, or conscious, into lucid dreaming. This can be practiced by relaxing yourself and maintaining your awareness and falling asleep while maintaining your awareness. Of course it is not as simple as I have described here. It is difficult, because if you are not conscious you fall asleep, and if you are conscious you cannot fall asleep.

• W.B.T.B. (Wake Back To Bed)

In this category, you wake up early in the morning so you can easily fall back asleep. You use this to lucid dreaming.

There are many techniques other than these, but that was not the point of this article. Depending on the person, it may be possible to lucid dream after a day or two, but some people will only be able to do it after a week or two. What takes a lot of practice is to maintain lucid dreaming, because if you fail to maintain it, the dream will be destroyed and you will wake up.

I hope you found this article interesting. Let me know in the comments, if you have ever lucid dreamed or if you would like to try it. Have you ever had a sleep paralysis and how did it affect you?

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