10 Interesting Facts About Lucid Dreaming That Will Open Your Mind

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1. The first lucid dreams were recorded by Ancient Egyptians. The Egyptians were an advanced civilization which coalesced around 3150 BC more than 5,000 years ago. According to Jeremy Naydler, author of Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient

Egyptian Experience of the Sacred, they believed in three bodies: Shat (the corpse

body), Ka (the living physical body) and Ba (the soul).

Ba was often represented in hieroglyphics as a

human-headed birdfloating above the sleeping

body or corpse. Naydler notes that the Ba is the person but in another form. The Ba could

be defined as anindividual in an out-of-body

state. Was the Ba actually the lucid dreaming consciousness?

Robert Waggoner, editor of The Lucid

Dreaming Experience, believes so: I was struck by the concept of the Babeing the part of

one that flies during sleep, trance and after-

death states Many of us have had that experience, whether we call it an OOBE or a lucid dream, of flying around our sleeping body.

For lucid dreamers, trance journeyers and OOBE-ers, the Ba may represent in a historic sense, the first depiction of a mobile awareness separated from the physical host. Interestingly, this mobile awareness, this Ba, seems naturally connected to flying a common and seemingly universal part of lucid dreaming. Though thousands of years separateus from

the Ancient Egyptians, perhaps some of their ancient knowledge remains in our collective

unconscious

2. One in five people lucid dream every month or more.

In 1988, Snyder & Gackenback conducted a scientific survey which found that 20% of people

claimed to lucid dream frequently (every month) while 50% of people had done it at least

once in their lives. So lucidity is not so rare, even if most people dont know the technical name or induce such dreams deliberately. It actually seems quite normal to have spontaneous

dream control especially as children.

One possible reason for this is that children are

more prone to nightmares which can be highly

vivid and emotionally intense. This awakens

the part of the brain responsible for self-

awareness, and gives the young dreamer a

moment of clarity to realize hey I must be dreaming! Some children use this knowledge to wake themselves up, while others transform

the nightmare into a pleasant guided dream.

When I first discovered lucid dreaming in my

teens, I was excited to tellmy best

friend Michelle about it. Oh Ive been doing that for years, she told me. For as long as she could remember, she would use her imagination as she went to sleep and visualize whatever dreamscape she wanted. Then she

would just pop into it and experience dream control perfectly naturally.

It may be surprising how many people you know are already lucid dreamers you just never happened to ask them about it. Since I launched this website a lot of friends have told me they

have the occasional guided dream. Pete hascontrolled his dreams since he was a child too another natural lucid dreamer.

At the other end of the spectrum, a handful of people have written to me saying they always

lucid dream every single night since childhood, and they sleep very poorly as a result, feeling

like their brain never properly shuts down. I really cant relate to this; for me, lucid dreaming is always a conscious choice or a welcome accident, but never a burden. But when any

behavior starts to disrupt your everyday life, then it is a problem that needs addressing and I urge anyone in this position to seek specialist advice from a doctor who can help.

3. When you close your eyes in a lucid dream, you can wake up.

When I was younger I used close my eyes to escape from

nightmares. When I was frozen with terror it occurred to me

that none of it was real, and I had a moment to squeeze my

eyes shut tightly and shout WAKE UP!

Now I never end a lucid dream prematurely if I can help it. But

that doesnt stop me from accidentally closing my eyes in the dream (out of force of habit, not because theyre dry or I need to blink) This almost always causes me to return to my physical body. Apparently, this is not true for everyone, but it

sure is for some.

Luckily, if you do wake up by accident, there is a way to resume the dream from where you

left off. As long as you keep your body still (so as not to disturb the sleep paralysis

mechanism) and close your eyes immediately, you should find yourself back in the dream and

fully lucid. Its like changing channels on the TV. For a few seconds, both realities exist and you are free to flick between them.

4. Lucid dreamers can talk to the outside world.

In 1975, the British psychologist Keith Hearne

achieved a world first: he recorded the eye movements

of Alan Worsley as he slept and engaged in a lucid

dream in the lab. Crucially, the two men had agreed

upon a pattern set of eye movement signals

beforehand. By moving his eyes inside the lucid

dream, Worsley was able to communicate with Hearne

in the outside world, while he was dreaming.

This remarkable experiment proved, for the first time

ever, that consciousness in dreams was indeed real.

Later, EEG readings were able to record a high

frequency GAMMA brainwave state in lucid dreamers,

which provided further evidence of this unique state of

conscious awareness. However, it was Hearnes experiment, later replicated by Dr Stephen LaBerge at Stanford University, that showed us it really is possible for a dreamer to talk with a waking person in the outside world.

But what about the other way around? Can we send messages to a dreamer while they sleep?

Could a two-way conversation be achieved?

Actually, yes to a degree. When we sleep, our brains are largely ignorant to most of whats happening in the outside world. However, for survival reasons, we do have the ability to

retain some awareness and be responsive so some types of external stimulus. So, if someone

gently prods you in the rib while you sleep, you will often feel the prod in the dream, albeit

under a different interpretation (perhaps something as strange as a rat biting you in the side).

Perhaps not surprisingly, this effect seems to be more prominent during lucid dreams and

false awakenings, when your self-awareness is much more intense. For instance, when its raining noisily in the real world, I experience heavy rain in my lucid dreams, too. Its easy to verify this by looking for the stimulus when you wake up.

5. Lucidity arises from a special part of the brain.

The neuroscientist, J Allan Hobson, has theorized about what happens in the brain when a

dreamer becomes lucid. First, we recognize that were dreaming, and this stimulates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain which is responsible for self-awareness and

working memory. This area is usually deactivated during REM sleep which explains why it is not typical to realize that were dreaming or remember all of the detail without serious effort.

Once lucidity is triggered, the dreamer treads a fine line between staying

asleep, yet remaining conscious enough to remember theyre dreaming Interestingly, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is uniquely associated

with the subjective experience of deciding when and how to act. In

Susan Blackmores wonderful pocketbook, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction, she explains how this region is directly connected to

free will and how this may be an illusion created by our own complex brain processes. She also discusses self awareness and the contentious

problem we have when we try to pinpoint the location of our conscious

inner self.

6. Lucid dreaming can be mapped as a state of consciousness.

Susan Blackmores work highlights another important feature of lucidity: that it may be a special state of consciousness distinct from any other. Can these individual states be mapped?

Some scientists believe so.

Here is a diagram Pete whipped up based on Blackmores conclusions and the existing theories of human consciousness. Although it is extremely difficult to know the relevant

dimensions, it is possible to visualize how these conscious states might be mapped in a vast

multidimensional space. Note how some states are easy to reach (being wide awake, false

awakenings and dreaming) while others are far away (deep sleep, sleep paralysis and mystical

experiences).

7. Certain vitamins will increase your dream intensity.

Vitamin B6 (also known as Pyridoxine) plays a key role in brain and

nerve function. Healthy adults need just 1.3 mg of Vitamin B6 each day

and this can be acquired through foods like bananas, carrots, oranges,

spinach, fish, chicken, liver, beans, eggs and nuts. However, to achieve

the dose necessary for greater dream intensity, take a 100 mg supplement

such as Nature Made Vitamin B6.

So, what happens in your body when you take this supplement? Vitamin

B6 converts Tryptophan into Serotonin, which produces much more vivid

dreams. You may wonder why you cant just take a Serotonin supplement, as there are plenty available. Unfortunately, the blood brain

barrier wont let it in directly; the conversion has to take place in the body.

To boost your chances further, eat foods containing Tryptophan around the same time you

take your B6 pill, a few hours before bed. Tryptophan-rich foods include cheddar cheese,

chicken, salmon, lamb, eggs, white rice, flour and milk. So, there really is something to be

said about cheese dreams.

8. Lucid dream orgasms can be real.

Scientists have found that lucid orgasms can sometimes be

accompanied by a real physical response, including increased

heart rate, changes in vascular tissue and other muscular

reactions. Sometimes, however, its purely in the mind although this doesnt make it any less real to the dreamer in their super-sensory dream environment. There is also heaps of

anecdotal evidence to show that men who experience a lucid

dream orgasm also ejaculate in real life.

The problem many people find is that its difficult to hold onto conscious lucidity until the critical moment. Lucid dream sex is

highly arousing and beginner oneironauts will most likely wake

up before the experience has even got going. In this way, sexual

lucid dreams arent ideal for beginners, yet theyre usually the ones most motivated to seek them out for the novelty value.

9. Meditation is profoundly linked with self-awareness in dreams.

There is a proven scientific link between meditation and lucid dreams. I find that the more

frequently I meditate, the more I recognize when Im dreaming. For all its simplicity (switching off conscious thought) meditation helps me to reach blissful places of relaxation

and insight. It also helps to me enter altered states of consciousness at will (great for Wake

Induced Lucid Dreams) as well as increase my physical self-awareness and visualization

skills (for Dream Induced Lucid Dreams.)

There is one thing I frequently rave about on this site and that

is brainwave entrainment. This was the key in my learning

how to meditate. First in the form of binaural beats, and now

in the much more powerful form of isochronic tones,

brainwave entrainment is a scientifically proven way of

molding your brainwave frequencies, to produce altered states

of consciousness on demand.

The most notorious application for audio entrainment is

meditation and this delivers us very close to the lucid dreaming state. I highly recommend beginners invest in a good

entrainment MP3 or CD to kick start their internal voyages in

meditation. My favorite is the Lucid Dreaming MP3 with Isochronic Tones by Meditation

Power.

10. Tibetan Buddhist Monks practice lucid dreaming on their path to enlightenment.

Tibetan Dream Yoga is the original form of

lucid dreaming. It is a philosophical practice

created in Tibetan Buddhism at least 1,000

years ago.

Just like lucid dreams, the aim of Dream Yoga

is to awaken the conscious self from within the

dream state, which they call apprehending the dream.

However, Buddhist monks have more esoteric

goals in mind. Their aim is to harness the

power of the conscious dream state and then

complete a number of set tasks to take them to the next level, including:

Practice sadhana (a spiritual discipline)

Receive initiations, empowerments and transmissions

Visit different places, planes and lokas (worlds)

Communicate with yidam (an enlightened being)

Meet with other sentient beings

Fly and shape shift into other creatures

The ultimate goal in Tibetan dream yoga is to apprehend the dream, then dissolve it

completely. Deprived of physical stimulus via the sleeping body, and conceptual stimulus via

the dreaming mind, they can observe the purest form of conscious awareness through

profound meditation in a lucid dream.

For step-by-step tutorials on lucid dream exploration, check out The Lucid Dreaming Fast

Track, my digital course for beginners and beyond.

Like this article? Then join the Conversation with many others in EWAO !

Written by Rebecca Turner of www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com