Green Comet

Lucid Dream

Update
Further study of lucid dreaming. From the article:

Tales of lucid dreams date back to antiquity. Aristotle may have been the first to mention them in Western literature in his treatise On Dreams. “Often when one is asleep,” he wrote, “there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream.”

If you want to have a lucid dream, there are a few strategies you can use to up your chances. Besides regularly questioning whether you’re awake and setting an intention before bed to become lucid, you can keep a dream diary. Getting familiar with common characters, events or themes in your dreams may help you recognize when you’re dreaming.

Lucid dreaming often gets lumped in with near-death and out-of-body experiences. They’re all thought of as windows on a reality that’s normally closed to us. In one sense that’s true. They aren’t part of our normal reality. But lucid dreaming is not like the other two. NDEs and OBEs are usually the result of trauma or other radically altered states, such as anesthesia or the effects of other drugs. Those are not the kinds of experiences you want to have any more often than you have to. Lucid dreaming, on the other hand, is something you can do every day with no ill effects. If anything, people say it makes their lives better.

Another indication that they’re different is that, while a high percentage of the material on NDEs and OBEs concentrates on the magical and mystical, many of the people talking about lucid dreaming just want to sell you stuff. Supposedly their products will allow you to enjoy lucid dreaming with next to no effort.

Lucid dreaming is defined as dreaming while aware one is dreaming. It may or may not include the ability to control the dream. There are all sorts of tips on how to do it. Here’s one that I know works. When you go to bed, spend a few moments going backwards through that day’s activities. When you wake up, spend a few moments going backwards through that night’s dreams. You should have your first lucid dream within a week.

Lucid dreams have mystical associations. The truth is, they’re just fun.

rjb