10 Things You Didn't Know About Lucid DreamingBy Rebecca Turner

Here are 10 things you (probably) didn't know about the wonderful phenomenon oflucid dreaming - the ability to have conscious awareness during your dreams.

1. The first lucid dreams were recorded byAncient EgyptiansThe Egyptians were an advanced civilization which coalesced more than 5,000 yearsago. According to Jeremy Naydler, author of Temple of the Cosmos: The AncientEgyptian Experience of the Sacred, they believed in three bodies: Shat (the corpsebody), Ka (the living physical body) and Ba (the soul).

Ba was often represented in hieroglyphics as ahuman-headed bird floating above the sleeping body or corpse. Naydler notes that"...the Ba is the person but in another form. The Ba could be defined as an individualin an out-of-body state." Was the Ba actually the lucid dreaming consciousness?

Robert Waggoner, editor of The Lucid Dreaming Experience, believes so: "...I wasstruck by the concept of the Ba being the part of one that flies during sleep, trance andafter-death states... Many of us have had that experience, whether we call it an OOBEor a lucid dream, of flying around our sleeping body.

"For lucid dreamers, trance journeyers and OOBE-ers, the Ba may represent in ahistoric sense, the first depiction of a 'mobile awareness' separated from the physicalhost. Interestingly, this mobile awareness, this Ba, seems naturally connected to

flying - a common and seemingly universal part of lucid dreaming. Though thousandsof years separate us from the Ancient Egyptians, perhaps some of their ancientknowledge remains in our collective unconscious..."

2. One in five people lucid dream every month ormoreIn 1988, Snyder & Gackenback conducted a scientific survey which found that 20% ofpeople claimed to lucid dream frequently (every month) while 50% of people haddone it at least once in their lives. So lucidity is not so rare, even if most people don'tknow the technical name or induce such dreams deliberately. It actually seems quitenormal to have spontaneous dream control - especially as children.

One possible reason for this is that children aremore prone to nightmares which can be highly vivid and emotionally intense. Thisawakens the part of the brain responsible for self-awareness, and gives the youngdreamer a moment of clarity to realize "hey - I must be dreaming!" Some children usethis knowledge to wake themselves up, while others transform the nightmare into apleasant guided dream.

When I first discovered lucid dreaming in my teens, I was excited to tell my friendabout it. "I've been doing that for years," she told me: for as long as she couldremember, she would use her imagination as she went to sleep to visualize whateverdreamscape she wanted. Then she would just pop into her dream and experiencedream control perfectly naturally. Though she didn't know what it was called, she'dbeen lucid dreaming intuitively.

It may be surprising how many people you know are already lucid dreamers - you justnever happened to ask them about it. Since I launched this website six years ago and

made lucid dreaming my career, a number of friends have come out of the woodworkto announce they have the occasional guided dream. It's a coincidence that mypartner Pete has controlled his dreams since he was a child too - another natural luciddreamer.

At the other end of the spectrum, a handful of people have written to me saying thatALL their dreams are lucid, every single night since childhood and they sleep verypoorly as a result, feeling like their brain never properly shuts down. This is a rarecondition, as most people find inducing lucid dreams is a deliberate act or a welcomeaccident, but never a burden. As with all aspects of sleep, it's possible that things cango wrong and specialist help is needed. So if you find it impossible to have non-luciddreams and this disrupts your everyday life, then do see a specialist doctor.

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 fromnightmares. 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 doesn't stop mefrom accidentally closing my eyes in the dream (out of force of habit, not becausethey're dry or I need to blink...) This almost always causes me to return to my physicalwaking 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 whereyou left off. As long as you keep your body still (so as not to disturb the sleep paralysismechanism) and close your eyes immediately, you should find yourself back in thedream and fully lucid. I would liken it to changing channels on the TV: for a fewseconds, 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 Hearneachieved a world first: he recorded the eye movements of Alan Worsley as he sleptand engaged in a lucid dream in the lab. Crucially, the two men had agreed upon apattern set of eye movement signals beforehand. By moving his eyes inside the luciddream, Worsley was able to communicate with Hearne in the outside world, while hewas dreaming.

This remarkable experiment proved, for the first time ever, that consciousness indreams was indeed real. Later, EEG readings were able to record a high frequencyGAMMA brainwave state in lucid dreamers, which provided further evidence of thisunique state of conscious awareness. However, it was the basis of Hearne'sexperiment, which was more famously replicated by Dr Stephen LaBerge at StanfordUniversity a few years later, 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 theysleep? Could a two-way conversation be achieved?

Actually, yes - to a degree. When we sleep, our brains are largely ignorant to most ofwhat's happening in the outside world. However, for survival reasons, we do have theability to retain some awareness and be responsive so some types of externalstimulus. So, if someone gently prods you in the rib while you sleep, you willsometimes feel the prod in the dream, albeit under a different interpretation.

I once dreamed of a rat biting me in the ribs then woke up and found I was actuallypinching myself! Another example is auditory stimulus: heavy rain in the waking

world has transferred to my dream - and once it began raining heavily inside myhouse. Like many a surreal trigger, this caused me to become lucid.

5. Lucidity arises from a special part of the brainThe neuroscientist, J Allan Hobson, has theorized about what happens in the brainwhen a dreamer becomes lucid. First, we recognize that we're dreaming, and thisstimulates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain which isresponsible for self-awareness and working memory. This area is usually deactivatedduring REM sleep - which explains why it is not typical to realize that we're dreamingor remember all of the detail without serious effort.

Once lucidity is triggered, the dreamer treads a fine line betweenstaying asleep, yet remaining conscious enough to remember they're dreaming...

Interestingly, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is uniquely associated with thesubjective experience of deciding when and how to act. In Susan Blackmore'swonderful pocketbook, Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction, she explains howthis region is directly connected to free will - and how this may be an illusion createdby our own complex brain processes. She also discusses self awareness and thecontentious problem we have when we try to pinpoint the location of our consciousinner self.

6. Lucid dreaming can be mapped as a state ofconsciousnessSusan Blackmore's work highlights another important feature of lucidity: that it maybe a special state of consciousness distinct from any other. Can these individual statesbe mapped? Some scientists believe so.

Here is a diagram based on Blackmore's conclusions and the existing theories ofhuman consciousness. Although it is extremely difficult to know the relevantdimensions, it is possible to visualize how these conscious states might be mapped ina vast multidimensional space. This aims to illustrate how some states are commonlyexperienced and easy to reach (being wide awake, false awakenings and dreaming)while others are rarer and tread the far reaches of the human experience (deep sleep,sleep paralysis and mystical experiences).

7. Certain vitamins can increase your dreamintensity

Vitamin B6 (also known as Pyridoxine) plays a key role in brain andnerve function. Healthy adults need just 1.3 mg of Vitamin B6 each day and this canbe acquired through foods like bananas, carrots, oranges, spinach, fish, chicken, liver,beans, eggs and nuts. However, to achieve the dose necessary for greater dreamintensity, take a 100 mg supplement such as Nature Made Vitamin B6.

So, what happens in your body when you take this supplement? Vitamin B6 convertsTryptophan into Serotonin, which produces much more vivid dreams. You maywonder why you can't just take a Serotonin supplement. Unfortunately, the bloodbrain 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 sametime you take your B6 pill, a few hours before bed. Tryptophan-rich foods includecheddar cheese, chicken, salmon, lamb, eggs, white rice, flour and milk. So, therereally is something to be said about cheese dreams.

8. Lucid dream orgasms can be real

Scientists have found that lucid orgasms can sometimes beaccompanied by a real physical response, including increased heart rate, changes invascular tissue and other muscular reactions. Sometimes, however, it's purely in the

mind - although this doesn't make it any less real to the dreamer in their super-sensory dream environment. There is also heaps of anecdotal evidence to show thatmen who experience a lucid dream orgasm also ejaculate in real life.

The problem many people find is that it's difficult to hold onto conscious lucidity untilthe critical moment. Lucid dream sex is highly arousing and beginner oneironauts willmost likely wake up before the experience has even got going. In this way, sexual luciddreams aren't ideal for beginners, yet they're usually the ones most motivated to seekthem out for the novelty value.

9. Meditation is profoundly linked with self-awareness in dreamsThere is a proven scientific link between meditation and lucid dreams. I find that themore frequent and deep meditation I can accommodate into my lifestyle, the moreeasily I can recognize when I'm dreaming. For all it's apparent simplicity, meditationcan ahve prfound meaning and impact on your life, helping you reach blissful states ofrelaxation and insight. It also helps to enter altered states of consciousness at will(great practice for Wake Induced Lucid Dreams) as well as increase self-awareness(powerful for Dream Induced Lucid Dreams.)

One thing I frequently rave about on this site is brainwaveentrainment for meditation. This was the key in my learning how to meditate. First inthe form of binaural beats, later in the form of isochronic tones, brainwaveentrainment is a proven way of guiding your internal brainwave frequencies toproduce relaxed, altered states of consciousness on demand. My current favorites areMeditation Power and Bliss Coded Sound.

The most notorious application for these audio entrainment products is meditation -

and this delivers us very close to the lucid dreaming state. I highly recommendbeginners invest in a good entrainment audio to kickstart their internal voyages inmeditation.

10. Tibetan Buddhist Monks practice luciddreaming on their path to enlightenment

Tibetan Dream Yoga is the original form oflucid dreaming. It is a philosophical practice created in Tibetan Buddhism at least1,000 years ago.

Just like lucid dreams, the aim of Dream Yoga is to awaken the conscious self fromwithin the dream state, which they call "apprehending the dream".

However, Buddhist monks have more esoteric goals in mind. Their aim is to harnessthe power of the conscious dream state and then complete a number of set tasks totake them to the next level, including:

Practice sadhana (a spiritual discipline)Receive initiations, empowerments and transmissionsVisit different places, planes and lokas (worlds)Communicate with yidam (an enlightened being)Meet with other sentient beingsFly and shape shift into other creatures

The ultimate goal in Tibetan dream yoga is to apprehend the dream, then dissolve itcompletely. Deprived of physical stimulus via the sleeping body, and conceptualstimulus via the dreaming mind, they can observe the purest form of consciousawareness through profound meditation in a lucid dream.

Final ThoughtsYour journey to lucidity is only just beginning. To discover more hidden insights aswell as step-by-step tutorials on lucid dream inducation and exploration, check outThe Lucid Dreaming Fast Track, my definitive digital course for beginners andbeyond.

Next: 10 Mistakes Made by Beginner Lucid Dreamers