There are five main types of dreams in addition to lucid dreams: daydreams, false awakenings, nightmares, normal dreams and psychic dreams. Consider the main features of each of these hypnotic states and how each can take you into the world of lucid dreaming.
Lucid Dreams
The best type of dream is the lucid dream and is likely the reason why you are reading this article. Often a lucid dream will spontaneously come from a normal dream, known as dream induced lucid dreams. You can experience lucid dreams a lot more often by simply teaching yourself to constantly question your reality.
You can also guide your brain from a conscious state directly into a dream state in order to have lucid dreams. For nearly 1,000 years, Tibetan Buddhists have used this technique and today it is known as Wake Induced Lucid Dreams. This technique requires two steps: meditation and inducing sleep paralysis. By doing these two steps you can quickly enter the world of lucid dreams.
What Defines a Lucid Dream?
There are two factors that classify a dream as lucid: when you know that you’re dreaming or when you can control and direct awareness in the dream. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to have 100% control in lucid dreams. Sometimes you can only control your own movements or can only watch the action around you. Lucid dreams mean you can also be fully aware of the dream and still have no control; merely being a silent observer of the dream world around you. This is why most individuals use lucid dreams as a way to meet the desires they can’t achieve in reality. However, beyond this feature, lucid dreams also provide you unique insights into the subconscious.
Dream #1: False Awakenings
Have you ever seen Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day? This is similar to the situation experienced with false awakenings. Often you will wake up normally and go about your daily routine only to realize that you are still dreaming. For many this is a bizarre situation and feeling.
False awakenings are often a vivid form of normal dreams. They typically start with you waking up in your bedroom and you conscious brain is able to mimic all the details of your life as they should be. Unless you question reality whenever you wake up then you won’t do well getting out of a false awakening.
How to Shake a False Awakening
Often something shocking or glaringly obvious is required to bring someone out of a false awakening. Either you see yourself in a mirror and you are twenty years older or you are driving down the road and there are no other cars around you. Sometimes doing a reality check when you wake up may not be enough. Sometimes you can’t get your conscious brain to wake up until you perform a specific action. At this time, you often transition into a lucid dream and move on in your dream state.
Multiple False Awakenings
Some individuals suffer from multiple false awakenings in quick succession. Often these individuals find themselves in a never-ending cycle and grow tired of doing the same routine over and over again. If you find this happening to you often then you should start performing reality checks whenever you wake up to give yourself every possible chance to get out of a false awakening. Once you recognize a false awakening, you can go one of two ways: you are shocked into waking up or you enter a lucid dream.
It is important to remember that while false awakenings can be frustrating they aren’t harmful to individuals. While they will be extremely vivid, they aren’t nightmarish. If anything, these dreams provide you with a unique talking point during the next day.
Dream #2: Psychic Dreams
Psychic dreams can come in the form of normal dreams, daydreams, lucid dreams and sometimes even nightmares if they are predicting a disaster. Psychic dreams are those, which predict the future. The rational description is that during these dreams your subconscious is putting together pieces of information and making an intuitive decision regarding the future. However, psychic dreams can also involve you entering a receptive state and getting messages from somewhere else.
Some individuals feel that during any dreams and psychic dreams in particular, the spirit leaves the body and we go to an alternative plane of reality. This means that psychic dreams could be a result of seeing the future in these realities.
Finding Experiential Evidence
People have reported psychic dreams all the time, but it is difficult to find the line between these dreams and coincidental events. Since psychic dreams are random in nature, experiments don’t provide clear results. However, it is still possible to gather your own experiential evidence. Once you are having a lucid dream try to ask about a future event. If you don’t experience anything then ask again. Sometimes you will be surprised with the results you get. Once you wake be sure to record the details and see if your lucid dream ends up coming true.
Dream #3: Daydreams
Studies have shown that most people daydream an average of 70-120 minute a day. When in this state, you are only semi-awake and not asleep. However, you aren’t completely in touch with reality either. Often these states start with a compelling thought, memory or fantasy regarding the future and then your imagination takes over. As you daydream for a longer period, you will become more deeply immersed in your fantasyland.
Despite popular belief, daydreaming plays a vital role in dream research. As with other dreams, daydreams require you to enter a hypnotic trance and let your subconscious thoughts come to the surface. During daydreams, the right or creative part of your brain becomes dominant and you are often unaware of reality. At this time, your deeper worries or concerns will rise to the surface and act themselves out through the daydream. This can reinforce the negativity, so when you find yourself fantasizing about bad situations you should focus on creating a positive outcome.
Rehearsing the Future
Often many successful individuals will use daydreams as a way to visualize success in the future. Athletes use this method in order to win the next big game. Business leaders use this method to prepare for important speech. These individuals all daydream about a positive outcome and therefore help increase the chances of it happening in reality. Sometimes you can use daydreams to look at a past event and reenact it with a different outcome. This is a healthy form of daydreaming that can help you temporarily escape reality and get rid of your frustrations without physically reacting.
Setting a Lucid Dream Intention
Daydreams are also used as a way to initiate your lucid dream state. Make a mental list of what you want to happen during your next conscious dream and visualize how you will get there. For example: you want to play piano, fly to the moon and meet aliens. First, visualize a concert hall, and then imagine flying through the roof and into the sky. Next, you will see yourself landing on the moon and finding a group of intelligent aliens. Here you can have an interesting conversation that provides insights from the unconscious mind.
Next time you enter a lucid state, you will instinctively remember the daydream and start to perform it again in vivid detail. When you don’t take these preparations, you will simply fly around the dream world. While this can be fun, it is better to follow goals and gain the most form your lucid dreams.
Dream #4: Nightmares
Nightmares are considered a normal dream with a scary twist by those in the western world. In the nightmare, you often don’t know you are dreaming so the subconscious mind things that everything is really happening. Sometimes nightmares can be vivid enough that the sensory system is triggered and causes you to feel certain types of pain. This can be an unnerving experience for many.
Dream analysis states that when you are chased by a monster or other dark character in a nightmare this is representative of your evolutionary fear of hunting. Children are more vulnerable to nightmares than adults and therefore, report this type of dream more often. Studies have also found that nightmares are common in individuals who are sick, stressed, traumatized or under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
How to Stop Nightmares
The best way to deal with nightmares or recurring types of dreams is with lucidity. When you question reality, you can recognize a nightmare when it occurs, especially if you plant a monster or other common theme as a dream symbol. Whenever you see this symbol in waking life then you should do a reality check. Then when you see this symbol in a dream, your reality test will take you to a lucid state. At this time, it is only a matter of courage to confront the monster in your lucid state and defeat it.
Dream #5: Normal Dreams
Normal dreams may seem like a contradiction, but it is used to describe usual types of dreams. With these dreams, you have no idea that you are dreaming. For example, a normal dream means you are having a drink with someone famous and don’t realize it, you simply accept the dream as reality.
Each night, individuals have normal dreams. These dreams come from REM sleep and are important to an individual’s survival. Provided you get the necessary eight hours of sleep each night you will have about 100 minutes of normal dreams. The longer and more vivid dreams will occur just before you wake up.
Interpreting Dreams
A normal dream gives individuals an important message from the subconscious mind. These messages come from your thoughts and experience during the day and occasionally memories from a long time ago. During this dream state, the mind will release repressed fears, anxieties and desires through conceptual imagery – a coded language sent by the subconscious brain.
Spontaneous Lucidity
These normal dreams also provide you with a gateway to lucid dreams. When in a normal dream anyone can become spontaneously lucid. All you need to do is consciously realize you are dreaming. This will trigger your conscious brain and the sensory system so your lucid dreams can look, feel, sound, smell and even taste like reality.
Even the most bizarre experiences such as shape shifting can seem extremely real or at least what we perceive as real. If you should forget that you are dreaming then your lucid dream can revert back to a normal dream. This will result in your losing conscious control of your awareness.
Rebecca Turner is an avid lucid dreamer and the creator of World of Lucid
Dreaming, a popular website dedicated to teaching anyone how to lucid dream for free. Visit www.World-of-Lucid-Dreaming.com and begin your own amazing journey to lucidity tonight.
Article Source: U Publish Articles
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