Lucid dreaming is a form of sleep when your mind is aware that you’re dreaming. It gives you a certain amount of control over your dreams. Your thoughts and emotions feel realistic, and you’re aware of them. The storyline, people and place are all in control. It is helpful for people with anxiety or who experience nightmares.
How to Lucid Dreams?
Sleeping every day at the same time forms a routine. It can help your brain achieve the state of deep sleep faster and increase your chances of lucid dreaming.
Techniques for self-induced lucid dreaming:
• Waking up and sleeping again
Put an alarm for few hours before the morning, wake up and try sleeping again. It will give you a better chance of entering REM sleep and lucid dreaming.
• Talking to yourself
Before sleeping, keep reminding yourself that you’re going to lucid dream. Talking to yourself helps your brain register it better and improves your chances of succeeding.
• Wake-induced
Another method is wake-induced lucid dreaming. In this method, you can lay on your bed without moving and keeping your mind awake until you enter a state of hypnosis in which your body is asleep and your mind sharp.
Risks of lucid dreaming
Although this is considered a safe activity, lucid dreaming does involve certain risks such as:
Sleep-related problems:
Due to the brain being awake even while sleeping, this could result in a sleep disorder. Sleep paralysis is a common disorder for those experiencing lucid dreaming, which can be scary and severe.
Lucid dreaming might make you lose touch with reality and confused due to dream cognizance.
Benefits of lucid dreaming
Apart from the risks, here are some benefits of lucid dreaming:
• Battling mental health
For people battling mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares can ruin sleep quality and worsen the condition. Lucid dreaming allows relief from nightmares with controlled dreaming and a better experience to reduce stress and anxiety.
• Enhance creativity
A study has proven that creative people or video gamers are much better at lucid dreaming than the rest. It could be because creating your dream landscape and situation requires creative thinking. Thus lucid dreaming can help boost your creativity.
