Lucid Dreaming

Understanding Lucid Dreaming: A Path to Conscious Dreaming

A lucid dream is simply one in which you realize that you are dreaming. In one form or another, lucid dreaming has been practiced with great seriousness in certain religious and philosophical traditions. Tibetan Buddhism, in particular, has an ancient discipline of meditative techniques designed to encourage not just lucid dreaming, but a continuously unbroken state of consciousness whilst both sleeping and awake.

Lucid dreaming can be incredibly exciting and rewarding. If you are aware that you’re dreaming, you can do things that are impossible in waking life, such as flying, becoming invisible, or traveling to distant times or places. But on a more practical note, interacting with dream characters in a lucid state can help you interpret the meanings of your dreams. Lucid dreams can also help you find creative solutions to problems, work through difficult emotional issues, and promote physical and mental healing. Many people believe lucid dreaming is a path to, or at least a necessary step towards, a form of enlightenment.

The History and Science of Lucid Dreaming

A researcher named Hervey de Saint-Denys introduced the notion of lucid dreaming to the Western world in his 1867 book *Dreams and How to Guide Them*. But the term lucid dream itself was coined by Frederik Willems Van Eeden in his 1913 paper *A Study of Dreams*.

The best-known modern figure in lucid dreaming is Stephen LaBerge, a professor at Stanford University. For nearly three decades, LaBerge has been studying lucid dreaming in a laboratory setting, and he proved that subjects can be taught to dream lucidly, using a technique he calls Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD).

Techniques for Inducing Lucid Dreams

To use LaBerge's MILD technique, you form a habit in waking life of asking yourself, “Am I dreaming or awake?” every time you encounter some common stimulus. Sooner or later, you’ll encounter the same thing in a dream, and if you ask the question while dreaming, you’ll probably figure out that you’re really asleep. Other methods include exercises performed right before going to sleep to focus one’s attention on having lucid dreams, meditating on certain symbols or sounds, and listening to specially designed audio recordings whilst falling asleep.

Lucid Dreaming for Problem Solving and Creativity

With lucid dreaming, it may be possible to intentionally access the creativity of the dream state to help solve problems in your waking life. Before bed, decide on a problem you would like to solve. Frame your problem in the form of a question. For example, “What is the topic of my next book?” or “How can I become less shy?” If you have an illness, you might consider the problem, “How can I regain my health?” Once you have selected a problem question, write it down and memorize it; keep going over it in your mind before you go to sleep. Visualize yourself looking for the answer in your dreams and then, if you fall asleep and become aware that you are dreaming, explore your dream world with your question in mind. Look for any clues that might suggest an answer. This includes seeking out advice from other characters or experts in your dreams.

The Philosophical Wonder of Lucid Dreams

Regardless of the details of one’s approach, anyone who tries to practice lucid dreaming will end up wondering, on increasingly regular occasions, “Is this real? Could I be dreaming?” This is what so many people find fascinating about the notion of lucid dreams: if dream reality is as convincing as waking reality, how do we really know that waking reality is not itself a kind of dream and dreams a kind of reality?

See Also: Dreams, Consciousness, Meditation, Reality