Research paper
Introduction
There is a state of mind in which any human being can experience anything imaginable.
Lucid dreaming is the state of consciousness in which the individual becomes aware of dreaming while being in a dream; it is the ability to recognize that an experience is a dream, rather than any sort of waking reality.
Lucid dreaming overview
Conscious dreaming is a fascinating aspect of the human mind. Everyone, in theory, has the ability to learn to lucid dream, because everyone dreams every night. This ability to create surrounding environment is the natural gift of the human mind. Lucid dreamers develop a special mechanism that notifies them of being in the dreaming state. From this point, such people can do as they choose. This freedom, hard to imagine and even harder to believe with our highly constrained brains, is astonishing, exhilarating, and inspiring.
People have long considered dreams as something that is beyond their control. Such phenomenon has always attracted great attention in all the religions around the world. Just as the symbolic experience of “vertical ascent” in a dream, lucid dreaming has been associated with increasing spiritual awareness in virtually all the world's religious traditions.
The Tibetan Buddhist tradition for instance, has fixed the ability to differentiate dreaming from regular waking experience, on a regular basis while still being in asleep state, as the “spiritual skill” of the primary importance, that is necessary to surpass the horrors and seductions of the “after death world,” (known as the “Bardo Thodol,” the “Bardo of Dying and Becoming”). The Tibetan Buddhists, who have been practicing a type of dream yoga (similar to lucid dreaming) for a long time, maintain that the ability for dreaming consciously while being alive, prepares the individual to come to the highest spiritual result that a human can possibly experience and it is delaying the achievement of “Nirvana”, and consciously and willingly choose a reincarnation instead, that might add to the “relief of the suffering of all sentient beings,” rather than be led to reincarnation by rising fear engendered by the horror of the “Bardo” world. Those who will succeed in accomplishing such state of awareness in the after-death before-rebirth “Bardo” world are called “bodhisattvas” - that means “future Buddhas” or “Buddhas in training.”
Among the most famous opponents of this theory was Carl Jung. Although he declared lucid dreaming to be impossible in his early career, his later introduction to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and with the increase of lucid dreams of his own did open his mind further to this extraordinary state of awareness.
Lucid dreaming history and lucid dreaming as metacognition
Not until the late 1970’s did the scientists possess proof that a person could recognize and become aware of consciously dreaming. The exploration of lucid dreaming question has made a long way since and thankfully to Green, Tholey, Hearne, LaBerge, Woresly, Garfield, Blackmore and others for their essential scientific contribution, we can now be acknowledged of such an astonishing phenomenon. The most valuable of those by far were made by LaBerge, who has been working and practicing in this field for almost 30 years.
“As it was discussed in the works of the mentioned authors, attending lucidity in dreams requires evaluation of experiences as they happen in the dream, a process termed “metacognitive monitoring”. Dream lucidity is often accompanied by the ability to deliberately distinguish the nature of the experience by choosing between alternative courses of action. In the dream state, such choices can take a variety of forms, thus affecting the imagery and course of events.
In reports of lucid dreaming, people describe the ability to actually remember the circumstances and environment of conscious life, to think clearly, and all that while being in a dream world that seems extremely real. These accounts sharply contrast with the common characterization of dreams as typically lacking any reflective awareness, or true violation.
These examples illustrate that highly rational, reflective thinking and the intentional action are often possible during lucid-control dreams. In lucid-control dreaming people are explicitly aware that their current experience is occurring within the global context of the dream, and that they possess the ability to intentionally regulate the aspects of the dream experience. The explicit awareness of the state holds the potential to change the experience in many ways, depending upon the clarity of the dreamer’s subsequent reasoning about the state. Whether people are actually able to fully regulate their behavior in dreams may depend, to some extent, on the degree of lucidity they maintain. In dreams, control appears to be highly correlated with, but not an inevitable consequence of, lucidity. Thus, metacognitive monitoring leading to explicit awareness of being in a dream state and the ability to intentionally regulate the course of the experience based on this knowledge are the most important features of this phenomenon.
Based on this data, some dream theorists take the position of lucid dreaming being not really relevant to dream theory because it’s too infrequent occurrence, is a difficult skill to develop, or is the product of personality type or demand characteristics. The concept of unconscious dreaming is also antithetical to psychodynamic models of dreaming as well as to recent models of consciousness and cognition, which contrast the assumed unconscious, unmonitored processing involved in dream cognition with the assumed conscious, monitored processing involved in waking cognition.” (Kahan, 1994).
Lucid dreaming techniques
“Today, lucid dreaming has become a reality that is enjoyed and explored by huge numbers of people. However, in order to bring its potential to the fullest, research advances are needed. Present training in lucid dreaming requires more time and efforts than most people can spend on this. Despite the fact that assisting technology for achieving such state already exists, significantly increasing person's chances for experiencing lucid dreaming, still cannot fully guarantee it.
Research of the factors that might be responsible for lucid dreaming state could result in ability for a person to consciously dream at will, thus providing a reliable access to any experience possible; it is more than just a remote possibility. Scientist do have a lot of information about the REM sleep phase, the sleep state in which an individual can experience a lucid dream, and great progress has been made in understanding the changes in brain activity changes during the lucidity in the dream .
Experimenting in lucid dreaming is absolutely secure, so business, politics, ecology, athletics, or any business idea can be tested in the world of dreams model. Practicing in conscious dreaming can improve overall performance and help to avoid costly mistakes in reality. The potentials of mental imagery and hypnosis will be also available to everyone, due to dreams being the most vivid image of all available; it is available even to those who cannot create vivid mental image to enter a deep hypnotic state while being awake. This enables the possibility of enhanced healing possibilities, based on the studies of mental imagery, which can help people to shorten the time it takes them to recover from illness or surgery, as well as stimulate the physical skills restructuring following the injury.
Many of the present techniques and innovations for conscious dreaming have emerged during the last 30 years, as many people want to explore their personal dreaming environment. Currently, these methods are available to potential dream researchers: State-Testing, Intention, Reflection-Intention, MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams), WBTB (Wake-Back-To-Bed), WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dreams), CAT (Cycle Adjustment Technique) and others. These mental exercises involve mind trainings to become more cognitively aware during dreaming, so that person can become lucid. In addition to these mental methods, electronic techniques, such as sleep masks, were invented. These include the DreamLight, NovaDreamer and DreamMaker. These electronic devices were designed to signal the dreamer during REM sleep, in order to helping them to realize that they are currently in the dreaming state and to become lucid.” (Gackenbach, LaBerge, LaBerge, 1988).
Conclusion
Starting with the ancient ages people have been experiencing lucid dreaming, but no scientific data on this phenomenon was available until recently. Being a state of mind, during which a human being is capable of experiencing almost anything with no relation to the waking reality is a great possibility for the whole mankind to explore, improve performance and avoid mistakes that cannot be avoided in real life. And with modern techniques lucid dreaming might come true for all people.
References
Gackenbach, E., LaBerge, J., LaBerge S. (1988). Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain: Perspectives on Lucid Dreaming. New York: Plenum Press.
LaBerge, S., Greenleaf, W., & Kedzierski, B. (1983). Physiological responses to dreamed sexual activity during lucid REM sleep. Psychophysiology, 20, 454-455.
LaBerge, S., Rheingold, H. (1990). EXPLORING THE WORLD OF LUCID DREAMING. New York: Ballantine. Retrieved from: http://www.lucidity.com/EWLD6.txt
LaBerge, S. (1985). Lucid Dreaming. New York: Ballantine. Retrieved from: http://www.lucidity.com/LD8DFM.html
Kahan, T., L. (1994). Lucid dreaming as Metacognition: implications for cognitive science. Santa Clara. Retrieved from: http://www.scu.edu/cas/psychology/faculty/upload/Lucid_dreaming.pdf
