A lucid dream is a dream where you have some degree of control over your dream environment, characters present in that very dream or the characters you have summoned in your dream.
Depending on how much control you have over your dreams, Lucid dreaming can be categorized into following sections or Levels.
- IGNORANT LUCID DREAMS:
This is the ground level of lucid dreaming.
When children have nightmares they have an inbuilt ability to turn that bad dream into good and pleasant one or to wake up from that dream.
Some children have the habit of littering in bed until an age where they realize that it’s a dream and if I take a piss here I would actually be wetting my bed.
In such cases they have some degree of control over the dream without even knowing it. - SEMI LUCID DREAMS:
In this level of lucid dreaming one might gain a sudden realization that he is inside a alien reality and then the person might realize that he is dreaming but the experience is brand new for the person and he does not know how to stabilize fading matter,
how to maximize his conscious awareness, how to check whether it is reality or just a dreamscape and then slowly his awareness fades, loses track of lucidity and he falls back to sleep. - FULLY LUCID DREAM:
It is the dream when you realize fully that you are dreaming and you realize the fact that this dream is all constructed by your brain so you can consciously control the environment and the characters present in that dream or you can summon new characters, to be fully lucid you need to practice lucidity, know few easy and effective techniques and have a lot of self confidence which I will explain to you from my very own experiences in the next blog.
Eventually we do realize that the dreams we all see are actually planted into our visual cortex by our brain,
so in your first lucid dreams the summoned characters would react to your action as they would react in the real world as your subconscious mind is controlling their actions but as you will keep practicing you can also learn to control their response consciously to a higher level.
Actions in lucid dreaming like flight and sex actually simulates muscles needed for those actions in our real body so these feelings are most enjoyable and most vivid while your FULLY LUCID DREAMING state and these two actions are practiced by beginners the most. - THE DISSOLVING STATE OF LUCID DREAMING:
It is the final and deepest form of lucid dreaming. Achieving it is the goal of every lucid dreamer. Generally we can only lucid dream about the environment and persons which are present in our memory. We cannot imagine something we have never seen, tasted or felt before but in the dissolving state the participator first starts the lucid dream then dissolves the dream and move forwards in a state where he is surpassing the physical and conceptual quantities ( the imagery, sounds, tastes, smells) of the dream yet completely lucid and fully aware.
This is a Buddhist technique named the TIBETAN DREAM YOGA. A similar practice in Hinduism and yet deeper then the Tibetan dream yoga is YOGA NIDRA which lets the practitioner increasingly stay aware about the inner world by following verbal instructions and the final goal of yoga nidra is reaching the most relaxing state of mind named Samadhi.
And the phenomenon of SLEEP WALKING and FALSE AWAKENING is also related with lucid dreams.
The occurrence of LUCID DREAMING is scientifically proved. The term was first coined by Dutch Psychiatrist Fredrik Van Eeden on 1913 and scientifically analyzed and proved in 1968 by Celia Green though it has been practiced since thousands of years ago in both western and eastern cultures. In western culture, ancient Greek writings referring to lucid dreaming were found. Even Aristotle wrote about lucid dreaming.
In eastern culture the practice of the TIBETAN DREAM YOGA was started more than 1000 years ago and writings about YOGA NIDRA is found in Upanishads, considerably referring to a pre-historic time.
