Lucid Dreams “The Creative Visualization Pill”

A colloquium paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the Pre Diploma presentation.

Mentor: Prof. Sanjay Jain

Sarang Sheth

UG Sem 8

Product Design

MIT Institute of Design

Now I am aware that it’s a tiring cliché to link a thesis on dream manipulation with the

movie Inception. Anytime someone would ask me what I was writing my colloquium on, I

would reply saying “Dream Manipulation”, and the first thing they would say in return

would be, “Oh, like Inception??”

The reason I chose to begin with a quote from Inception is the fact that the film clearly

outlines what I’m trying to explain. It is backed up by tonnes of research. Let’s not discount

the fact that I’m also a little lazy.

I came across this wonder, called Lucid Dreaming by accident, on 9Gag, a website dedicated

to trolls and gags.

This intrigued me because I, on rare occasions, have had partial control of my dreams.

“Cobb: You create the world of the dream. We bring the subject into that

dream and fill it with their subconscious.

Ariadne: How could I ever acquire enough detail to make them think that

it's reality?

Cobb: Well, dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? Its only

when we wake up then we realize that something was actually strange.”

- Inception (2010)

What exactly are dreams?

Back in the day, people believed that along with physical recuperation, sleep allowed the

mind to rest. But why would the brain then conjure up these fantastical visions when our

body was at rest? Something you would be forced to see, interact with, and then, forget

once it’s over? This puzzled a lot of people. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis,

went to define dreams as projections of the subconscious, in his book “The Interpretation of

Dreams”. Psychotherapist Joe Griffin went on to deduce dreams to be metaphorical

translations of waking expectations. Dreams are definitely reflections of the past, generally

in metaphor. Every detail within your dream, isn’t merely a figment of your imagination, it is

a detail picked up from the subconscious brain. The brain creates a metaphorical scenario

using objects, environments, and characters from your past, things you might not even

remember, but are embedded in your memory. This scenario is played out to fulfil an

expectation or persisting desire within the mind. The dreams never make complete sense,

because most of the time, they are distorted. We however don’t notice that, while we are

dreaming, because the brain disables the part responsible for logic and judgement. This

allows the dreams to continue undeterred. It is a common myth that our dreams just last 30

seconds, but seem like forever. The reality is, that a dream can even go on for as long as 40

minutes, and we can have as much as 5 such dreams in one night of sleep, and shattering

the myth of Inception, the time we spend in dreams, is equivalent to real time. This was

discovered by eminent sleep researcher William Dement. We don’t have an exact

recollection of the time we spend dreaming simply because the dreams are forgotten by the

brain, as soon as they are over.

Why do we dream?

In ancient times, sleep was known as temporary death, and the dreams we saw were

supposed to be supernatural visions of the future. Scientists later cast aside this theory,

terming dreams as metaphorical projections of our subconscious desires. The brain uses

dreaming as a way of fulfilling desires you hold back in your waking life. You carry this

emotional burden in your head, and the dream world acts as a perfect scenario to fulfil the

desire, without any possible repercussions, thus reducing stress levels. Experiments were

conducted on animals, operating on the part of their brains responsible for dreaming. Once

these animals stopped dreaming, they became a whole lot more irritable, stressed, and

jittery.

Heather Jones, a case study, had suffered a stroke, causing damage in her parietal lobe, the

part responsible for creating dreams. As a result, she stopped dreaming altogether. What

was noticed was that although she fell asleep easily, her sleep was nowhere comparable to

fitful sleep, and just at the time the brain is supposed to be dreaming, she would wake up.

This would happen regularly during one sleep session. Scientists then determined that

dreams were a mechanism to keep us asleep, and to make sure we had a fitful, comfortable

sleep.

Interesting fact #1 : Not just people with parietal lobe damage, but people with severe

personality disorders tend to lack dream activity! And people with sensorial handicaps tend

to dream just like they live their normal lives. For example a person born blind will have

dreams lacking vision, but enriched by other senses. However, if the person lost eyesight

after birth, they tend to have visions comprising objects, people and scenarios that they

experienced till the time they lost sight.

What about nightmares then? How would a nightmare help fulfil inner desires? They don’t.

Finnish scientist Antti Revonsuo says that nightmares are more helpful than dreams.

Nightmares are an evolutionary step ensuring human survival. Nightmares are a rehearsal

for the daily struggle to survive. Nightmares generally contain life-threatening events that

can prove to be a potential hazard to our existence. Our mind forces us through these

simulations repeatedly, to prepare us, in the event that we find ourselves in a similar

situation. People having suffered in the Gujarat earthquake, for example, may have

repeated nightmares of being in an earthquake. The brain makes them actively participate

in the nightmare, battling for survival in the simulated earthquake, so that the next time

their life is in danger, they are well trained/prepared. This is a very powerful tool, because

the brain can make a person go through these hyper-real experiences with absolutely no

threat to their physical being.

Apart from that, nightmares also serve the purpose of indication. If there’s something

physically wrong with you, or the world around you that you may need to know, or anything

negative at all that requires attention, the nightmare serves its purpose by recurring. We

tend to remember our nightmares, because most of the time, they jolt us awake. That’s the

time we remember a dream. With the case of an exceptionally scary nightmare, we jump up

awake, scared by what we saw. We dwell on the contents of the dream, and that’s when

our nightmare goes in to long term memory, which generally doesn’t happen with dreams in

general.

Interesting fact #2 : Rather than the

conventional assumption that the word

nightmare derives itself from the word

mare (female horse), the word is actually

of Anglo-Saxon origin. It is derived from

the word maere, used to describe an evil

spirit (incubus) supposed to descend on

sleeping people with the intent of sexual

intercourse. It is just a matter of

coincidence that the mare was a part of

the myth. (Alongside, is an image of The

Nightmare, an iconic oil painting by Henry

Fuseli, depicting the incubus and the horse

tormenting a sleeper.)

Interesting fact #1 : Not just people with parietal lobe damage, but people with severe

personality disorders tend to lack dream activity! And people with sensorial handicaps

tend to dream just like they live their normal lives. For example a person born blind will

have dreams lacking vision, but enriched by other senses. However, if the person lost

eyesight after birth, they tend to have visions comprising objects, people and scenarios

that they experienced till the time they lost sight.

How do we have dreams?

Dreams are the mind’s way of fulfilling supressed desires or emotions. The brain plays out a

scenario, and makes us actively participate in it. However, the body goes through a series of

complicated changes prior to dreaming. The core body temperature is dropped, and the

rate of breathing is regulated. The mind then paralyses all muscles in the body linked to

voluntary movement, so that we don’t begin acting our dreams out. It although doesn’t

paralyse the eye muscles, as our eyes move freely when we dream. This is known as Rapid

Eye Movement, or REM, and is deeply connected with our ability to visualise, or day-dream.

Notice, that even when someone thinks deeply, their eyeballs roll backward, the eyelids

shut, and begin fluttering in a fashion very similar to the way they do when in REM.

Scientists believe that there is a strong connection between REM and the evolution of

culture in prehistoric man. Man was the only animal with an imagination and with creativity.

Our species was the first of its kind to be able to reminisce about the past, and/or visualise

the future with vivid distinction and detail. This slowly led to the cultivation of tastes, and

subsequently, culture.

Some people suffer from a strange disorder known as the REM Sleep Disorder, where the

brain is unable to paralyse the voluntary muscular system. As a result, these people begin

acting out their dreams, making it hazardous for them, as well as the people around them.

This is known also as sleep-walking, and it’s frightening because the sleepers appear as if

they are completely awake, their eyes remain open, they act out their complete dream, but

on waking up, have no recollection of doing any of the things they did. Research shows that

this sort of disorder generally leads to more serious diseases like Parkinson’s Disease.

And finally, when do we dream?

The phenomenon of sleep can be subdivided into cycles or stages. There are five stages of

sleep, and this complete cycle occurs up to 4-5 times in one 8 hour sleep session.

The first stage of sleep is a really light one. It lasts for not more than 10 minutes, and the

sleeper can be easily woken up from this stage. However, they won’t get the feeling of

having slept for a long time. Also, the phrase “falling” asleep comes from this stage, where

the body gets the sensation that it’s falling downwards, and sometimes, the muscles

involuntary clench suddenly, as if bracing oneself for impact.

The second stage shows rises and falls in brain and muscular activity. This stage is said to be

the body and mind’s way of entering deep sleep.

The third stage is known as the beginning of deep sleep. This is when the brain starts

producing delta waves. It is a precursor to the deepest of the NREM (Non-REM) sleep

stages.

The fourth stage is the deepest stage of sleep. The muscular activity is limited to a minimum

in this stage, however your muscles do not paralyse. Being woken up from this stage makes

the sleeper feel slightly disoriented, initially.

The final stage of one sleep cycle is referred to as REM sleep. It can last from 10 minutes to

about 90 minutes. This is when the body is completely paralysed. The brain suddenly

becomes highly active, and polysomnographic tests (sleep tests) can’t tell the difference

between being asleep and being awake. This stage is therefore referred to as paradoxical

sleep, since mentally, the sleeper is virtually awake. This is the stage primarily responsible

for dreams. The dreams that occur in the REM stage are extremely powerful and

emotionally charged. A part of the limbic brain, known as the amygdala is highly activated in

this stage of sleep. The amygdala deals with memories, as well as powerful emotions,

mainly of a negative nature, like aggression, or fear. This can explain why people have

unpleasant or depressing dreams, because the amygdala deals with those emotions. Prof.

Patrick Macnamara postulates that people who are depressed spend too much time in REM

sleep, which explains their depression.

While the primary function of REM sleep dreaming is Psychological Repair, people have

determined that sometimes, you can dream during NREM sleep too. These dreams are

relatively rare. The content of these dreams are not as powerful as those of REM sleep. The

function of NREM sleep is mainly physical repair, for example, repairing of tissues,

replacement of cells, etc. We generally don’t remember NREM dreams at all, because our

mind is more focused on physical healing, and since we are relatively unconscious. Also,

since our body isn’t paralysed during this stage of sleep, we sometimes begin acting out our

dreams (or sleepwalking), although this is harmless, since it is a rare but completely normal

occurrence. When people are sleep deprived, it is said that they get too much of NREM

sleep, and the brain starts giving them REM dreams in NREM sleep. This encourages the

body to sleepwalk, and can be quite hazardous.

Interesting fact #3 : While it doesn’t happen often, there have been numerous reported cases of sleepwalkers killing people while sleepwalking. As of the year 2000, there were 68 reported cases in the literature. In order to be found guilty of murder in the classical Western legal system, a person has to have both a mens rea (guilty mind) as well as an actus reas (guilty act), in order to be guilty. For this reason, sleepwalking has been used successfully as a defense to homicide. In other words, because sleepwalkers in their sleep like state cannot form the legal intent to commit murder – the fact that they stabbed someone with a knife, shot them in the face, or bludgeoned them with a hammer – doesn’t mean that they’re legally guilty of murder. The quantity of REM sleep a person gets, decreases with age. The most REM sleep you get is when you’re a child, which is why children have more wild and vivid dreams. Once you start maturing, you get lesser and lesser REM sleep. This explains why adults tend to wake up multiple times in the middle of the night. Just like in the case of Heather Jones (cited above), adults wake up primarily when their mind is said to enter REM sleep; so just as they are about to begin dreaming, they wake up. Interesting fact #3 : We spend 1/3rd of our lives sleeping, and taking into account the fact that we dream for roughly 2/3 hours a night, the time we spend dreaming sums up to a whopping aggregate of 6 years!

Interesting fact #4 : We spend 1/3rd of our lives sleeping, and taking into account the fact

that we dream for roughly 2/3 hours a night, the time we spend dreaming sums up to a

whopping aggregate of 6 years!

Interesting fact #3 : While it doesn’t happen often, there have been numerous reported

cases of sleepwalkers killing people while sleepwalking. As of the year 2000, there were 68

reported cases in the literature. In order to be found guilty of murder in the classical

Western legal system, a person has to have both a mens rea (guilty mind) as well as

an actus reas (guilty act), in order to be guilty. For this reason, sleepwalking has been used

successfully as a defense to homicide. In other words, because sleepwalkers in their dream

state cannot generate the legal intent to commit murder – the fact that they stabbed

someone with a knife, shot them in the face, or bludgeoned them with a hammer – doesn’t

mean that they’re legally guilty of murder.

Why do we dream in metaphor? None of our dreams are logical. We say they don’t make sense because we logically analyse the series of events, and the surroundings, compare them with the past, and through the following, try to make sense of the dream AFTER we wake up. That, however, never seems to happen. Something always seems amiss. You’re either having an active conversation with your dog, or using your smartphone to iron clothes. Everything seems normal in a dream, because our power of logic is deactivated while we dream. This is just to make sure the dream goes on undeterred. Once the dream is over, it is then that we realise that things were amiss. If we remember the dream, that is. Now we know that no matter how surreal our dreams are, they are representational and hold inner meaning. But why do they have to be in a metaphor? Why can’t they just be direct? Imagine this scenario. You’ve just had a fight with your friend. Your brain wants to set things straight, but your ego wants the other person to apologise. You decide to sleep on it. In the ideal dream world, you wouldn’t be setting things straight with this person, you would probably be playing chess, being polite and not killing members of the opposite team. This would be the metaphor for you setting things straight, and being the better person. The reason why you wouldn’t picture a scenario where you were with your friend, in the exact location where the fight began, setting things straight, is simply because that never happened! If you were to have such a dream, and by chance remember it, it would create a false memory. Man distinguishes between a dream and reality purely because of the nonsensical content of the dream! If we had realistic dreams, and remembered them, we would be creating falsified memories, and that would cause a collapse of our intelligence system. Now what if we had realistic dreams, but there was no possibility of remembering them? That would be a better option, wouldn’t it? Erase the dream, and the false memory gets erased. But if we dreamed out scenarios from our lives, and then forgot them completely, that would create holes in our memories. Since the dream revolved around an actual event, erasing the dream would mean erasing the memory of the actual event too. Therefore, the only sensible thing to do was to capture the unfulfilled emotional charge, make up a vivid scenario that contains objects from several memories, instead of pulling out one single memory, and then play the dream out. Dream Manipulation a.k.a Lucid Dreaming When the brain doesn’t paralyse the body while we dream, we act them out. When our brain doesn’t switch off long term memory during our dreams, we end up remembering our dreams. However, the most interesting experience is when the brain doesn’t deactivate our logic while we dream. The brain does this 100% of the time, but with a little practice, we can override this and dream consciously, and we call this lucid dreaming. Google defines lucidity as “free from obscurity and easy to understand”. So, basically when we lucid dream, the brain creates environments for us, but we have free will to do whatever we please within that environment. This opens up a million possibilities! An experienced lucid dreamer can manipulate dream-content at will, allowing them to overcome impossible feats. For example, with a little practice and willpower, it is possible to do the following in dreams. Fly like a bird, split the earth into two, stretch your arms as far as you want to, dine with celebrities alive or dead, turn invisible, etc. Remember how I said that there were a million possibilities? There are probably more possibilities than that! The fact that anything you thought of could be done, or could be made to happen, made lucid dreaming an object of utmost intrigue.

Lucid dreaming is all about having complete consciousness in your dream. It is a phenomenon where the inner brain, or your limbic brain (where dreams are created) actively dreams, while the neo-cortex, or the outer brain, responsible for logical decision-making is actively participating in dream creation and visualization too. However, Lucid Dreaming isn’t easy at all. For starters, how does one magically activate logic

in dreams? Isn’t logic supposed to be ‘switched off’ during dreams? Frankly, that’s the tricky

part. Most amateur lucid dreamers try but fail initially. The entire concept of lucid dreaming

is so exciting, that once you achieve lucidity in a dream, sometimes it gets so overwhelming,

you wake up! “Pinch me, I must be dreaming”. Everyone’s heard of or used this phrase

somewhere or sometime in their life. When you pinch yourself in a dream, you’re not

pinching yourself in real life. The body remains paralysed during REM sleep, where most

dreams occur. When you pinch yourself in a dream, the brain associates that action with

pain, something that’s undesirable, and wakes you up. Similarly while lucid dreaming, the

brain initially senses a shift of control of the dream state from the inner limbic brain, to the

outer neo-cortex. This is regarded as undesirable, and we are woken up.

Before mastering how to stay lucid, it’s important to know how to achieve lucidity.

There are an entire variety of techniques that allow people to lucid dream, both mental

tricks, and physical devices.

How to Lucid Dream?

The basic premise of achieving lucidity is to be able to spot something irregular or uncanny

about a dream. Most techniques rely on being able to train your mind to “spot the not”! A

majority of people who lucid dream maintain what is known as a dream diary. The dream

diary documents every detail of the dream that you can remember as soon as you wake up.

One can spot certain traits or trends within a dream. The next time you notice this recurring

theme, you’re most probably dreaming! The other option is to constantly accustom oneself

to performing random reality checks. The next time you notice something out of the

ordinary, ask yourself, “Am you dreaming?”. Another little trick inception teaches us is the

presence of a totem. A trigger item, or action, that you use as a way to check reality. How

about drawing something on your hand before you sleep? The chances are that your hand

won’t have anything drawn on it, in your dream. More likely, you may not even have the

exact number of fingers in your dream! Another trick is to do something with a determined

consequence. For example, shut your nose and mouth. The chances are that in your dream,

you’ll still be able to breathe, because you remain paralysed in your sleep.

Two other methods, known as the MILD, and WILD methods (funny, yet amazing acronyms!)

are known to dreamers. MILD, or Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, by Stephen

LaBerge, is a technique that involves concentration prior to sleeping. Studies show that if

you focus on something before sleeping, there are 50% chances, that what you thought of

will be a part of your dream content! However, the MILD technique works best if you’ve just

woken up from sleep, and you’re just about to drift back to sleep.

The WILD method, Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming, can be best described by the picture

right at the beginning of this colloquium. The most discerning difference between this

method and the ones mentioned above, are that in the WILD method, you carry your

consciousness from wakefulness to the dream state, whereas in other methods, you tend to

rely on visual or sensorial clues to gain consciousness within the dream. The WILD technique

of dreaming, however, doesn’t boast of a high success rate, and additionally comes with a

few hazards, which I’ll talk about later.

There are also physical products that aid in lucid dreaming. They work by giving you visual

clues, so you don’t need to remember to look for them. The lucidity face mask is a fine

example. It has the ability to sense rapid eye movement, and when it does, it flashes lights

into your eyes. Within the dream, the brain would use this visual cue and integrate into the

dream. So within the dream, one would probably see a light flashing in an adjoining room,

or someone clicking a picture with a flash. This makes it easier to achieve lucidity.

There are certain foods that increase the production of melatonin, therefore making lucidity

more attainable. Did you know that eating a teaspoon of mustard before bed actually does

increase your chances of getting lucid? Making these foods a part of your everyday diet has

been proved to effectively increase chances of having a lucid dream! Other lucid foods

include almonds, cherries, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, oats, yogurt, eggs, fish (especially

salmon and tuna), and many more.

Amateur dreamers sometimes get carried away, and get so excited, that their dream ends

abruptly! Staying lucid in a dream is important too. Knowing that you’re in a dream and that

nothing at all can possibly happen to you is the most useful and important piece of advice

any prospective lucid dreamer can have. For example, jumping from an aeroplane without a

parachute would be regarded as something asinine. You will most certainly plummet

towards the ground, impact yourself against the earth with unthinkable momentum, and

become fertilizer for the soil beneath you. Knowing this in a dream only makes your dream

more realistic. Being able to completely understand that in a dream, you can jump from a

plane and wilfully land on two feet and walk away like nothing happened is what

differentiates dreamers from lucid dreamers. This is going to be difficult, initially. All lucid

dreamers report that none of their initial tries were successful. Additionally, not every

method of achieving lucidity may be the sure-shot method. Just like some people like

chocolate, and others like vanilla, one method may be more effective than another.

Is lucid dreaming dangerous?

We’ve all seen that scene in the movie Inception where Marion Cotillard jumps from a

building thinking she was in a dream, but it was actually waking life, and she plummeted to

her death. Is that sort of disorientation possible in dreams? The answer is actually yes. It is

important to know that when you lucid dream, you must remember never to bring your

waking life completely into the dream state. Erasing the line between reality and

imagination may be a potentially dangerous thing to do. Dreams are never meant to be

realistic, so it is imperative to make sure that dreams always remain bizarre; otherwise

you’ll be left with a lot of illogical memories that will require sorting out. In such a case, it’s

advised to give lucid dreaming and anything fictional a break so that you get a firm grip on

reality.

People who lucid dream frequently tend to get addicted to it. It’s considered a ‘safe

hallucinogen/intoxicant’ and sometimes people tend to overuse it. This may not sound

harmful, but in some cases, people have reported an inability to stop their dreams at will.

Interesting fact #5 : There are certain foods that increase the production of melatonin,

therefore making lucidity more attainable. Did you know that eating a teaspoon of mustard

before bed actually does increase your chances of getting lucid? Making these foods a part of

your everyday diet has been proved to effectively increase chances of having a lucid dream!

Other lucid foods include almonds, cherries, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, oats, yogurt, eggs,

fish (especially salmon and tuna), and many more.

More importantly, the way you behave determines your character. People who lucid dream

too much get into the habit of controlling every aspect of their lives, becoming obsessed

with controlling people/things/situations. This however hasn’t been scientifically postulated

and is quite a controversial claim. Another important thing to remember is to always be

positive-minded during dreaming. Dreaming is a state of mind where the mind is highly

vulnerable. Lucid dreaming while being depressed is never a good idea. Moreover, since the

dream is made in that part of the brain that deals with memories, emotions, and feelings

like fear, or anger (amygdala). Being in a negative state of mind can therefore alter the

dream, which is why after traumatic events, we tend to get bad dreams. One must always

remember that even post a lucid dream, one should never be disappointed with the

experience of a lucid dream.

Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming (WILD) as a procedure poses a few threats too. The WILD

method is never recommended to amateur lucid dreamers. Attempting WILD has a very

small chance of causing you to suffer from sleep paralysis, rapid vibrations and noises that

don't really exist, floating and other out-of-body experiences, and hypnagogic

hallucinations/images, and anxiety. These phenomena occur before sleeping anyway, but in

the WILD method, you’re conscious through this phase, which can be very frightening for a

few people.

What can a lucid dream help achieve?

Initially titled “Why is Lucid Dreaming better than a Rajnikanth movie?” this is where I’ll talk

about the benefits of lucid dreaming.

I guess I’ve said this too many times by now, but a dream is a mental environment with no

laws and no repercussions. We can literally do anything in a lucid dream. How does that

help anyone?

Apart from being able to fly around, jump 50 feet high into the air, and spontaneously turn

people into rabbits for fun and entertainment, lucid dreams can help us overcome a lot of

our psychologically embedded fears. A person afraid of vertigo can learn to overcome

his/her fear by subjecting him/herself to heights within the dream. Knowing that nothing

will happen to you is the key here. Being able to overcome heights in dreams allows us to

overcome our fear of heights in the waking world. As much as they can be used for

overcoming psychological demons, lucid dreaming helps us heal ourselves physically too. A

person who wants to quit smoking, but is addicted to it can smoke cigarettes in their

dreams. The most fascinating part is that the brain generates these scenarios so

wonderfully, that key elements like the release of dopamine, the taste of a cigarette, every

aspect of the experience can be simulated without the physical effects on the body! It is

possible to even have the greatest sexual experiences possible within one’s dream.

Scientists have conclusive proof that within the dream, it is possible to have one of the most

powerful orgasms known to the human body!

As a designer, the technique of lucid dreaming holds the answer to the most complicated

design related problems. Lucid dreaming can be used as a means of lateral thinking, of using

one’s subconscious as a means of creative visualization. This basically means that the next

time you are faced with a problem; while dreaming, all you have to do is imagine that the

solution is right in front of your eyes, and the brain will almost instantaneously create a

highly insightful solution, using past experiences, memories, data, etc. On waking up,

however it is important that one documents all this to preserve detail, because even though

lucid dreamers always remember their dreams, they may forget small yet crucial details.

And lastly, one can use lucid dreaming to access data out of our reach, within our

subconscious. Even if you’ve seen one karate film in your life, within the lucid dream, you

can teach yourself basic karate. People with multiple personality disorders are said to be

able to speak languages that they have never learnt. The mind is a complex device. Having

been exposed to Marathi for the last 4 years of my life, even though I don’t understand a

word of the language, the brain is evolved enough to be able to break down the language

from a syntactic stand-point. The subconscious mind stores the data we don’t need. In a

dream, I can access this entire bank of information and teach myself the Marathi language.

This explains why people who are said to have been possessed are able to speak in satanic

languages, or in languages they wouldn’t have known in their waking life. We must also

know that you can’t teach yourself something you have never experienced in a lucid dream.

For example, one cannot use lucid dreaming to predict the future; because we haven’t

experienced it yet. However, we can use clues from the past to get a rough view of what the

future is going to be like. This may or may not be accurate. People believe this is how

philosophers and soothsayers like Nostradamus predicted the future.

In short, lucid dreaming isn’t fatal. It can’t kill anyone, unless coupled with REM Disorder (if

you know what I mean!) There are always pros and cons to anything in life, and with

something as powerful yet fragile as the human brain, you can’t be too careful, but you

shouldn’t be nonchalant either.

Other than that, it’s a safe haven a person can escape to. A place which every science fiction

movie dreams to explore; and it’s up for free. Lucid dreaming is therapeutic, if not remedial.

It’s staggering, the amount of inventions and creations that were fostered by lucid

dreaming. The benzene ring, the sewing machine, Alice in Wonderland, Inception (of

course!), and many more! A list of eminent lucid dreamers who rely on lucid dreaming as a

method of creative visualization, would comprise the following names : Salvador Dali, Albert

Einstein, Nikolai Tesla, Richard Feynman, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Andy and Lana

Wachowski, Stephen King, Lewis Carrol, to name a few.

In hindsight, as a person who is yet to discover the full potential and brilliance of Lucid

Dreaming, I can only wonder when I’d be lucky to be able to lucid dream regularly, and

without any difficulty; and what would I do with that given ability. One can’t help but

ponder about life too. Visiting the concept of the Matrix trilogy, what if we are just a large

farm of brains living in a simulated world created for our sustenance? What if life itself, is

just a really long dream experience? Is death the end of a dream called life? Does that make

death an awakening? However, there’s one question in my mind that I can confidently claim

I know the answer to... “Is Lucid Dreaming better than a Rajnikanth movie?” With a little

practice, yes!

Bibliography

Documentaries

Dreams – Why We Dream (A BBC Horizon Documentary)

The REAL Reason Why We Evolved To Dream (Joe Griffin - Human Givens Institute)

REM State – The Origin of Culture (Ivan Tyrell - Human Givens Institute)

Books

Dream Interpretation - Leila Bright

Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming - Stephen LaBerge & Howard Rheingold

The Interpretation of Dreams - Sigmund Freud

Mind Performance Projects for the Evil Genius - Brad Graham & Kathy McGowan

Web References

www.dreamdictionary.org

science.howstuffworks.com/life/why-do-we-dream.htm

http://www.hgi.org.uk/archive/sleepanddream2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming

http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/time-passes-dreams/

http://9gag.com/gag/3340430 http://dreamstudies.org/2010/07/19/inception-a-lucid-dreamers-review/ http://www.allabouttbi.com/partsofthebrain/ http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/time-passes-dreams/ http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/benefits-of-lucid-dreaming.html http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lucid-discussion/102671-possible-dangers-

lucid-dreaming.html