Rob Gonsalves , Bedtime AviationIn this article, I will subjectively describe what dreams are, how they appear and where is the very border between reality and sleep, and also, I will describe the easiest way to begin to realize yourself in a dream. The fact is that I met lucid dreams very early, somewhere in middle school. I do not remember exactly how this happened. I think it was some kind of protective reaction of the brain to numerous nightmares. Glimpse looked at some articles on this topic and did not find anything similar to my own experience. Therefore, I did not search further, I decided to write my own, so that other materials could influence my opinion as little as possible.
So sleep is just a chain of associations. For example, imagine an ordinary apple. In the waking mode, you imagine only the fruit itself - an apple, nothing more. Green, red, maybe even yellow. But already in the borderline state of sleep, additional details will start to appear very quickly. Any associations associated with an apple. For me personally, apples are associated with unripe fruits, most often - sour. My childhood was spent in the village, even during my school years I went there every summer. And in our garden there was a huge apple tree. It comes to my mind as the brightest association to apples. In a dream, if I think about apples, I will see (remember) first a small green apple, and then a huge tree - an apple tree from this garden. Additional details of the environment, various objects, which even could not be in the garden, will simply begin to appear, they are simply associated with something from this presented picture, then animals and even people can appear, whatever.
Let's say, by the example above, you presented an apple. Immediately behind him will be a memory of an apple tree, then many details will be added to it, for example, grass around and a dog walking around the tree. If you do not concentrate on anything, the picture will be rather vague, often chaotic or even delusional, the details will “flicker”, appear, change and disappear. There was a fence just in the background, and in a second there might already be a road or a residential building, and people were sitting on a tree, or the sun appeared and it began to snow. But if you select any part and concentrate on it, then the dream plot (focus) will immediately move to it. As if your attention is a flashlight, with which you are highlighting the web of memories, and each thread leads to one or more nodes with which this memory is associated. If you concentrate on the dog, it will immediately pay attention to you, or it can turn into a whole pack of dogs. And those who caused you the greatest emotions. Most often, these were negative emotions, they are the brightest, for example - fear. Therefore, it may be a flock of evil stray dogs that will start to surround you, bark and attack you. The apple tree will fall out of focus, you will simply forget about it, and it will disappear. That is how nightmares begin. Further, you follow this chain of associations to an even brighter site. As a result, you are already running away through a dark alley from a flock of evil stray dogs, you do not run fast, everything seems to be slow, and the walls around you are narrowing and now you find yourself at an impasse, there is no escape. Typical nightmare.
So, a dream is just a chain of associative memories, which after a while are perceived (remembered) as something real, as if you saw it with your own eyes and felt it. But this is exactly the memories and it is very easy to change them, if you do this in the course of the “remembrance”. For example, when a dog starts barking at you, you can “remember” that it was on a chain, then the focus of your attention will not go in the direction of attack and this may be a completely harmless dream that will shift to any other details around the tree or dog. The gap between the mental image and the “remembering” of this as something real that just happened is just a few seconds, and at the very beginning, while you are just falling asleep, there can be more than 10 seconds. It is as if you suddenly remember something that you thought about quite recently, but this is already a colorful picture that you have experienced, and not just a mental image. During this time you have the opportunity to change everything.
But the emotions that you experience with this - the most real. It is they who control the dream initially, and not your logical thinking. And in the wakefulness mode, a certain mechanism of restriction works, you will not be able to experience such strong emotions. For example, when you look at something terrible in a video recording, or you discuss it or even just remember, it does not affect you as deeply as if you were directly testing it for yourself (in real life). That is why we can easily talk about anything, such as death, without experiencing sharp emotions. But in a dream, everything is completely different, there is no such restrictive mechanism. I repeatedly fell into a stupor in a borderline state, falling asleep when a chain of associations led me, for example, to the realization of death. This is a panic condition, a feeling of absolute fear and hopelessness. If you have ever felt claustrophobic, you will understand that this is its extreme stage, there is no way out, we are closed here. The only way is to get up sharply and move a little, feel your body, roll over, wake up. Only then did this panic subside and just a sediment remained, and the recollection of that became acceptable.
So let's skip the negative, how is it easiest to meet lucid dreams? The easiest way includes only two conditions:
First: No alcohol
At all. I will not say that this is a mandatory condition, but for the first time it will significantly reduce the probability of lucid dreaming, literally by 99.9% (subjectively). Sleep should be natural, while alcohol and some other substances simply “cut down” the brain. Falling asleep in such a state, you will only reduce the general fatigue of the body, which will struggle against poisoning with all available time, but you will not get any rest and relaxation.
Second: Need to really get tired
The easiest way is to not sleep. Seriously, just skip one night. The easiest way to do this is at the weekend, at least for most people with a five-day work week. In short - wait for Friday evening and just do not go to bed. Do something useful at night, take a walk around the city, dig up the cottage, work, in the end, the main thing is not to sleep. This is normal, our body is very flexible and capable of much, just keep that in mind. Coffee and energy to help you, in extreme cases, although I would not advise them to use at all for this experiment. And in everyday life without coffee, it is much easier to take a nap for 15-30 minutes during the day and wake up in excellent condition, very vigorous. But this is not about that now; you cannot doze for quick entry at all. And coffee is also undesirable.
So, if you did everything right, then, conditionally, Saturday night and you are very tired. This is one of the most beautiful states. Just go to bed, as comfortable as possible, nothing should distract you. Any little thing, like a numb hand or a neck turned too tight, will create additional obstacles very soon. Close your eyes and the first thing you see is black and white noise in front of your eyes. They are also called "goosebumps", this is just random noise (as it used to be in the absence of a signal on the TV). Sometimes, it may look like a blink or even a strobe effect. If not, then just imagine something like that, that will be enough. The most important thing - as often as possible be aware of yourself awake. Remind yourself at every opportunity - I sleep, everything is under control, keep your logical part of the brain active. Try to look at yourself as if someone is falling asleep, and you are watching this, constantly reminding yourself of this. This will help you not to fall asleep in the first few minutes, and then it will become a habit.
Stage 1 sleep
Over time, literally in seconds-minutes, geometric figures or silhouettes will begin to appear in this noise. You will begin to see there certain sequences or images. Maybe even some objects or faces. This is the first step in dreams, and that is how they begin. If you have not seen - look, as closely as possible. Any sequence is a sign, try to develop it. If it doesn’t work out at all - imagine any logical sequence, for example, a circle, then it expands, then contracts, cyclically. Do not be afraid to think about something ordinary, make plans for tomorrow or remember the events of the past day. The main thing - remind yourself that you are conscious, look at yourself from the side.
Stage 2
These silhouettes and images will begin to group and depend on each other. This is the initial stage of association. At this stage, you are still conscious, but it is often quite difficult to control the course of thinking, right now the logical part of the brain starts to turn off, and you fall into that very web of associations (emotional), having only a conditional flashlight in your hands. That situation, when thinking about something important, minor details come to mind and you switch to them, and over time, as if twitching yourself, you cannot understand why you think about it, because you just solved some important urgent problem . Your emotional subconscious takes control of you. It is at this stage that there is often a feeling when you “fall” somewhere, stumble, or just a leg or arm is twitching (it is easiest to determine the second stage on this basis, just remember this for the future).
Stage 3
After some time after thinking about something, visual memories sometimes begin to appear. I wrote about this a little higher - after a few seconds, what you just thought is perceived as something bright, just happened, a kind of visual image. You just remember it over time, even though it was just an ordinary thought, a reflection on some topic. Often there are sounds and voices. This may be some kind of monologue against the background, the voice of the announcer, with an absolutely delusional meaning (if you do not listen, otherwise the focus will shift to this monologue and everything will change). Either you have something asked and an answer immediately comes to your mind, by itself, as if someone else answered for you. This is the very moment when the muscles relax, if you fall asleep sitting on a chair - your head falls to the side and you wake up. If you have not slept for several days (or slept an hour or two a day), over time, this state appears even when you are awake. It looks like visual or sound hallucinations, more at the level of sensations, as if someone is in a room with you, sometimes there is partial or complete paralysis of all the muscles, which passes very quickly.
Stage 4
Superficial dream. This is not a deep sleep, but the most similar state. It is there that one can experience all the advantages of lucid dreaming, as well as acquire habits that will help you in the future. Here come those very “memories”, based on thoughts and images that you thought about a few seconds ago. Here you can practice changing the course of sleep and feel control over it. The most important thing is to forget about your body. At this stage, you have already paralyzed all the muscles and even the slightest hint of body position in real space (in bed, on the couch) can take you out of the dream and wake you up. If suddenly you began to feel your body, even partially, or thought about it - do not move at all, it will surely wake you up, try to shift your attention to anything, think about something pleasant, or about an important matter or problem. And another moment, even if you woke up and felt how paralysis is already passing (a warm stormy wave went through your body like boiling water in the blood), just calm down and not change your position, keep thinking about what was the last thing in your memory. This is the easiest way to return to the dream. Yes it is possible. Partially. If you change your position or turn to the other side, you will have to start all over again, to the extent that you cannot even remember what you dreamed a second ago, even if it caused a storm of emotions. If you want to remember a dream (not even conscious) - try to go back to that side and take the most similar position. From my own experience I can say that the most vivid dreams and sensations occur when you sleep on your right side, or on your back, if you turn your head to the right.
I hope that this article at least a little explained the nature of dreams. If this topic is interesting, I will talk about sleep paralysis, various habits in a dream, even in the unconscious (in my understanding there are three: unconscious, semi-conscious and fully controlled), as well as a story about how I overcame all my nightmares and learned to fly in a dream, about flight mechanics and all that.
Write in the comments about your experience, it's interesting.