Everyone has those dreams when they just don’t want the dream to end or maybe even alter it to their own liking or perhaps intensify the emotions and feelings of it. But alas, dreams end and leaving you wishing it were real. Although this can’t be changed, but taking control of your dreams is possible and by that I mean total control over the content, the emotions, the duration and everything in between. Some people do it without knowing, yeah, control their dreams, but such people are rare. Otherwise, everyone can control their dreams and the phenomenon is called Lucid Dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming and can actively participate in the dream. Today, we take a comprehensive look at the phenomenon and tell you everything about it that you need to master your dreams.
Background
The term lucid dreaming was coined by Dutch author and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden in his 1913 article “A Study of Dreams”. The term lucid was used by van Eeden in its sense of “having insight” and the paper was highly anecdotal and not embraced by the scientific community.
First properly recognized in Celia Green’s 1968 study “Lucid Dreams”, lucid dreams aren’t something new. Mentions of the phenomenon can be traced back to 415 AD in a letter written by St. Augustine of Hippo and Tibetan Buddhists and Bonpo have been known to practicing a form of Dream Yoga since the 8th century to maintain awareness during dreams, but lucid dreams came to the public scene just a few decades ago.
Why dream lucid/What can you do with lucid dreaming
Well, for starters, lucid dreams are fun. You can do things which are physically impossible or in other words you can bend the laws of nature in your dreams; you can fly, you can experience superhuman strength, you can travel the universe, you can build your own little planet if you like, you can do things which you are afraid of doing in the real world and you can even meet the girl/guy of your ‘dreams’. Each one of us has experienced those dreams which border on reality in terms of emotions and experience and lucidity gives you the power to prolong those moments and even create them as you will.
Lucid dreams are not merely entertainment though; they can help you overcome your fears, phobias and difficulties in the real world. For example, you can practice public speaking in your dreams and researchers have often found that when we face our fears in our minds first, we increase the likelihood of overcoming them in real life. The process of rehearsing mentally through lucid dreams allows the power of our unconscious mind to find solutions for dealing with the limitations and fears that hold us back in real life. Lucid dreams give you the ability to face your fears head on without any consequences, if there are any in real life that is, and let you overcome those.
