Lucid dreaming is dreaming in which a person is aware that they are in a dream. With this awareness, a person can choose to do whatever they want to do in the dream, unconstrained by the rules that govern normal life.
In Richard Linklater’s 2001 film about lucid dreaming, Waking Life, one character offers a fairly incisive comment about why more people don’t lucid dream given how enjoyable it can be:
The trick is, you’ve got to realise that you’re dreaming in the first place. You’ve got to be able to recognise it. You’ve got to be able to ask yourself, “Hey man, is this a dream?” See, most people never ask themselves that when they’re awake, or especially when they’re asleep. Seems like everyone’s sleep-walking through their waking state, or wake-walking through their dreams. Either way, they’re not going to get much out of it.
In lucid dreaming, a key technique to attain lucidity is the ‘reality-check’. As described above, you need to get used to asking yourself: ‘Am I awake? Is this real?’. You can then check this by seeing if you can levitate themselves or objects. If you can, that’s usually a pretty good indication that you’re dreaming! Another good question that you can ask yourself is ‘how did I get here?’ If you can’t answer that question or it doesn’t make sense that’s usually an indication that you’re dreaming.
The point of the reality check is that when we’re dreaming it often feels real. That’s why nightmares are frightening – because we think they’re real and we get caught up in what’s happening and don’t stop to ask ourselves basic questions.
In the same way, when we’re distracted – by social media, or emails that aren’t really that important, or any of the myriad distractions of modern life – we can often feel that the thing we’re doing is necessary or important when it really isn’t. We can lose sight of what we are trying to achieve and get swept along by what’s happening around us. In this way it’s very easy to sleepwalk into automatic behaviours that waste time
So I think there’s a strong case for pursuing a lucid life – one in which we aim to be aware of what we are doing at any given point in time, rather than just letting life happen to us. Just as in lucid dreaming, the reality check is a pretty useful tool for thinking about things – questions like:
– What am I trying to achieve?
– What am I doing right now? (useful when you’re aimlessly flicking through a twitter timeline)
– Will doing this help me achieve what I want to achieve?
– Will I be glad I did it a year from now? (useful for sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of tasks)*
Of course, reflection is essential for the long-term as well – setting life goals and working out what you really believe is important. But cultivating good day-to-day habits and not letting yourself sleepwalk through the day is essential too.
Bonus mini-post! On Lucid Dreaming
The above isn’t really about lucid dreaming but references it a lot. There’s quite a lot ‘out there’ about lucid dreaming but it’s still a relatively little heard of phenomenon, probably because no-one has quite worked out how to make money off of it (yet).
Chances are that you’ve probably experienced a lucid dream by accident. It tends to happen when you’ve woken up, been awake for a while then fall back to sleep.
If you want to consciously try and have more lucid dreams then two basic beginner tips:
– Start doing reality checks. Set an alarm if needed to remind yourself. If you get into the habit when you’re awake it will prompt you to do so when you’re dreaming.
-Keep a dream journal – i.e. a note of your dreams. Try and make notes as soon as you wake up. This is the most time-consuming bit, but also fascinating because you will realise exactly how much you dream (that you forget when you’re not actively motivated to try and remember it). Keeping a journal is essential to helping you become more aware of your dreams in the first place.
Some people take this further by setting alarms to wake themselves up (e.g. at 4am) and then falling back to sleep (to take advantage of the natural tendency for this to happen after a sleep interruption), but the above two points will take you a long way. Happy dreaming!
*See also this post on setting life goals / now vs tomorrow
