Understanding Lucid Dreaming

[Music]

i study

dreams for a living everything from

recurring dreams to sex

dreams to nightmares but as a dream

scientist

there’s one aspect of dreaming that i’ve

always been

particularly fascinated about and that

is

lucid dreaming lucid dreams are those

in which you know that you are dreaming

while you’re still

in the dream i know how cool these

dreams can be

because when i was in college i had a

lucid dream

that changed my life it was a long

and unusually vivid dream in which i was

wrongly convicted of a crime

incarcerated

stabbed by an inmate and later managed

to escape

by sprinting across the prison yard and

leaping

over this 15 foot barbed wire fence

but it was only when i landed on a field

of snow

on the other side of the fence in my

dream that i realized

something was wrong the prison yard

behind me

it was covered in grass not in snow

and my stab wounds they had magically

healed

and come to think of it that miraculous

15 foot leap

well that didn’t make much sense either

only one explanation did make sense

i was dreaming

i picked up some snow in my dream and

marveled at the coldness permeating my

hand

i knew that my real body was asleep in

my bed

but everything in the dream looked and

felt so real

it was mind-boggling i then threw a

snowball at the first person i saw

a rather large man standing nearby

curious about how he’d react the man got

upset

and threatened to punch me out and when

he took a few steps in my direction

i panicked forgetting for a moment that

i was dreaming

i later encountered other intriguing

dream characters

including this one gentleman who tried

to convince me that the whole thing

wasn’t a dream by the time i finally

woke up

i was hooked i wanted to learn more

about this incredible

experience i just had and so

because of this lucid dream i became

a dream scientist

a few months after i had this dream i

became aware of these

fascinating studies coming out of

stanford university

researchers there had showed that while

in rem

sleep the sleep stage most closely

associated with vivid dreaming

lucid dreamers could use these

pre-agreed upon

eye signals such as repeatedly looking

left right to communicate with the

researchers

while they were asleep and dreaming

it turns out that the eye movements

lucid dreamers performed in their lucid

dreams

could be picked up by electrodes

monitoring their actual

eye movements under their closed eyelids

in the sleep lab you can see what these

eye movements look like

in this video

and here’s an example of what these

lucid eye signals look like

on a paper tracing

having someone become aware that they

are dreaming

while they are sleeping in a lab that’s

pretty cool

but having them communicate this to you

from inside their dream

that’s mind-bending this research

not only proved that lucid dreams are

real

but also that lucid dreamers could use

these left right left right

eye signals to time stamp the exact

moment at which they start and

finish specific tasks in their dreams

these eye signals they tell researchers

where to look in their recordings for

example

between signal one and signal two

for corresponding changes in that

person’s

brain and bodily activity

a variety of skills like singing

counting doing squats even having sex

in lucid dreams have been studied in

this way

in sleep labs around the world

what these studies tell us is that the

events we experience in our dreams

produce effects on our brains that are

remarkably

similar to what we would expect if we

experience the corresponding events

during wakefulness in other words

to our brains dreaming of doing

something is pretty much equivalent to

actually doing it moreover

it now appears that two-way

communication with lucid dreamers may be

possible opening up a whole new frontier

in this line of research

but offering an innovative way of

exploring dreams

isn’t the only benefit of lucid dreaming

several studies including from our own

laboratory

have shown that lucid dreams can be used

to treat nightmares

and pilot data indicates that lucid

dreaming can foster

creativity or even be used much like

imagery rehearsal techniques to practice

motor skills like skiing

or playing darts more fascinating still

lucid dreams allow you to

explore and interact with parts of your

mind

your unconscious if you wish in ways

that you can’t

in non-lucid dreams or

during wakefulness for that matter

now when people give talks on lucid

dreams

they often emphasize how easily anyone

can learn to have them

or how you can do anything in a lucid

dream

but truth of the matter is it’s really

not all that simple

only about 20 percent of people report

having lucid dreams

even once a month and those proficient

lucid dreamers

that do the left right left right eye

signals in the lab

well they represent less than one

percent of the population

and studies have also found that up to

half of lucid dreamers

report not being able to change much

if anything in their dreams

so while lucid dreaming is a learnable

skill

it often takes considerable time and

effort that being said

if you’re interested in learning to have

lucid dreams

well here’s a few steps to get you

started

first keep a dream diary

this will greatly improve your dream

recall

second while awake get into the habit of

asking yourself

am i dreaming whenever something unusual

happens to you

think about how you got there and what

was going through your mind

right before you asked yourself this

question

the idea is to develop a critical frame

of mind while you’re awake

that will hopefully carry over

into your dreams

third perform daily reality checks

actions meant to determine if you’re

awake

or dreaming they include things like

reading or pressing your fingers up

against your palm

they’re called reality checks because

unlike in waking life

they tend to misfire in dreams

if you try reading a book in your dream

for example

the letters and words may make little

sense

or appear to jump about or change

if you look away and back at the text

again

one reason this happens is because when

you’re dreaming

there is no physical page or book

in front of you all the sentences you

see

are created by your imagination so it’s

hard for your brain to keep

track of all of these phrases as the

dream

unfolds

as for pressing a finger against your

hand

it might go right through your palm or

create some other

unusual sensation because

well you’re dreaming

now if you’re like most people

once you realize that you are in fact

dreaming

you’ll want to use this awareness to try

to influence

what happens next in the dream

many lucid dreamers find that willing

things into existence

doesn’t work very well what does work

is expecting things to happen in the

dream

here’s how to do it suppose

you’d like to make a fancy house or a

yummy dessert

or a particular person appear in your

dream

take the time to imagine the object or

scene

then slowly turn around in your dream

expecting that scene to be there

chances are that the person or object

or something pretty close to that will

be there

you can also use this expectancy effect

to make objects appear in your dreams

for example by telling yourself that

you’ll find the object

behind some furniture

or even inside your pants pocket

some experienced lucid dreamers will

open

doors in their dreams envisioning

whatever they want

waiting for them on the other side

but this expectancy effect only works

if you’re convinced you can do it if you

have any

doubts well here’s what can happen

when my friend sarah was a young girl

she’d often dream of this

large menacing wolf chasing her through

a forest

when she told her father about this

dream he told her

the next time she had the dream she

should face the wolf

and tell it stop you can’t hurt me

this is a dream

well a few weeks later sarah had her

dream again

but remembered the words her father had

told her to say

as soon as she finished repeating her

father’s words

the wolf came in close

looked her in the eye and growled

is that so then

he ripped off her arm with a vicious

snap of its jaws

so what went wrong

well sarah may have said the right

things in her dream

but part of her was also afraid of what

the creature might

do this sense of fear was probably

registered by her brain and contributed

to the dream’s unnerving ending

a similar dynamic can be seen in people

who

while in the middle of a fantastic

flying dream

start to wonder how it is that they are

able to fly

and promptly tumble back to earth

so what we feel and think in our dreams

often plays a role in how the dream will

unfold

over the past few decades science has

made

significant progress in our

understanding of lucid dreams

but there are many challenges ahead we

still don’t have a good understanding

of the neural underpinnings behind lucid

dreaming or

the brain-based processes that can

facilitate their occurrence

and we still don’t have a safe and

reliable way

of inducing lucid dreams or of making

them last

longer and we’re

ways away from understanding how the

brain goes about

creating the people we encounter in our

dreams

many of whom do and say things

as if they had their own thoughts and

feelings

when i started this talk i mentioned a

character in my lucid dream

who tried to convince me that the whole

thing

wasn’t a dream i dreamt about him again

on several other occasions and in

one lucid dream i asked him

if he ever dreamt

he said of course i do

whenever i’m asleep

only i try not to wake up

whenever you’re in my dream

when i asked him why he grinned

and said because

you’d disappear

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