Is Lucid Dreaming Possible
and Legit?
Lets Compare Lucid Dreaming
to Nightmares and the Dreams
Between.
Ben Colandrea
A Little Vocabulary
• REM – Rapid Eye Movement – REM sleep is the period
of time when dreaming occurs and can be followed
with irregular heart beat and irregular breathing. REM
sleep is the fourth and deepest stage of unconscious
sleep and is necessary for a restful sleep.
• Sleep Paralysis – Can occur while sleeping or when
awoken, sleep paralysis is a harmless paralysis that
will probably leave the dreamer frightened. To avoid
sleep paralysis a healthy amount of sleep and exercise
will help to quell the sensations. Often sleep paralysis
will lead to nightmares of quicksand or voiceless cry's
for help.
• OBE – Out of Body Experience – Typically occurs after
strong vibrations, OBE’s are the step up from Lucid
Dreams in which the body creates an astral body which
can travel anywhere outside of the physical body,
sometimes entering realms similar to near death
experiences.
First Lets Differentiate the
Different Types of Dreams
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•
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Lucid Dreaming
Repetitive Dreams
Predictive Dreams
Nightmares
– All Dreams while may not be real, seem real due
to the memories of the specific person that are
recreated.
– Dreams can reveal new ideas such as solutions to
problems or can expose ones weaknesses and
fears
Lucid Dreaming
• Known basically as knowing that one is
asleep and in a dream, Lucid Dreaming can
be broken into two levels: Low-level lucidity
occurs when the person has some realization
to actually dreaming though lacking some
illusions needed to achieve high-level
lucidity, where the dreamer has full control
and understanding of doing anything without
consequence.
• Lucid dreams are extremely entertaining as
they are mostly the formation of the
dreamers wants.
Diagram of Lucid Dreaming Test
Figure 1. A typical signal-verified lucid dream. Four channels of physiological data (central EEG [C3-A2], left and
right eye-movements [LOC and ROC], and chin muscle tone [EMG]) from the last 8 min of a 30 min REM period
are shown. Upon awakening the subject reported having made five eye movement signals (labeled 1-5 in figure).
The first signal (1, LRLR) marked the onset of lucidity. Skin potential artifacts can be observed in the EEG at this
point. During the following 90 s the subject "flew about" exploring his dream world until he believed he had
awakened, at which point he made the signal for awakening (2, LRLRLRLR). This signal, made in non-lucid REM
shows that the precise correspondence between eye movements and gaze is not an artifact of lucidity. After
another 90 s, the subject realized he was still dreaming and signaled (3) with three pairs of eye movements.
Realizing that this was too many, he correctly signaled with two pairs (4). Finally, upon awakening 100 s later he
signaled appropriately (5, LRLRLRLR). [Calibrations are 50 microV and 5 s.] (Lucid
Dreaming)
Results of Lucid Dreaming
• As defined in the experiment in the previous
slide, Lucid Dreaming is very real and
possible. Lucid Dreaming is possibly caused
by a lower responsiveness allowing for the
brain to go into dynamic stabilization or DS.
This makes sense because DS occurs during
REM sleep (the time when dreamers dream),
and the part of the brain affected by DS is
used for conscious thought. Dreams can be
considered an unconscious awareness, and
Lucid Dreams can be considered a controlled
unconscious awareness.
Repetitive Dreams
• Typically in the form of nightmares,
repetitive dreams or recurring dreams
can take shape in different forms, while
still bearing the same issue. In other
words, displaying the same
complication in different ways.
Typically traumatic events cause
repetitive dreams, which can cause
fatigue if the person continues to wake
up.
Predictive Dreams
• Often caused by a fear of a certain
upcoming circumstance, Predictive
Dreams, while not always false, provide
minor or major insight on the future.
Some of these dreams find themselves
as completely fictitious towards a
future event, while still other predictive
dreams have been true to the dreamers
peril.
Nightmares
• Nightmares are most importantly a bad
dream. While ineffective to reality
themselves, nightmares can cause morale
depletion, causing decreased self
confidence. Children are more susceptible to
nightmares because they are new to the
world and have more to fear. Children are
also more in tune with the atmosphere, for
example sensing emotion. With this said they
can pick up extra problems that others may
not perceive as such, or even notice.
Final Comparison
• While nightmares are solely the inspiration of
fears, they can further amplify the fear of the
certain instance. In contrast, lucid dreaming
can occur as a result of a change in
hormones within the body and provide a
more freeing experience then the sleep
paralysis often paralleled with nightmares.
Both however, seem to occur more so with
children because they are more susceptible
to the atmosphere.
The Affects of Lucid Dreaming
on Reality
• Lucid Dreaming is a powerful idea that can
be the vision for inspiration. While not only
offering peace of mind and solutions to
problems that the normal mind would not
realize or notice, Lucid Dreams can lead to
OBE, which is an amazing entity in itself.
• While extremely entertaining, Lucid Dreams
also relax the mind, and in fact prove that the
mind is clear of thoughts before the dream
occurs, which is a good thing.
The Affects of Nightmares on
Reality
• The older a person is the less potent
nightmares typically are. A child who
experiences a terrible tragedy and suffers
repetitive nightmares from the event may
begin to fear falling asleep, causing severe
exhaustion and many other problems if the
condition does not improve. While older
people typically have more problems, older
people (at least 30 years of age) have too
much on their mind and will fail to have a
comfort level that will clear their mind and
allow them to have a nightmare or a dream
for that matter that they will remember in the
morning.
Conclusion
• In conclusion dreams can be a
powerful force that should be
respected, but following them may
cause problems for the dreamer. All
dreams can be insightful, even
nightmares which can tell people what
fears to quell.