Dream

Dreaming is the subjective experience of remembered and imaginary images, sounds/voices, words, thoughts or sensations during sleep, usually involuntarily. The scientific discipline of dream research is oneirology. Dreaming has been associated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a lighter form of sleep that occurs during the latter portion of the sleep cycle, characterized by rapid horizontal eye movements, stimulation of the pons, increased respiratory and heart rate, and temporary paralysis of the body. However, this association has been questioned since it may be that dream recall after REM sleep is common and because dreams are more easily recalled after waking from light REM sleep.

Lucid dreaming

:Main article: Lucid dreaming

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Researchers often define lucid dreaming as simply "being aware in a dream that one is dreaming". Many others define a lucid dream as a dream in which the dreamer has full awareness that the situation he is in is a construct of his mind, and thus can analyse the situation logically and react accordingly. Such full awareness adds numerous extra abilities to the dreamer. The dreamer usually has control of the direction of the dream and can thus explore the dream world. This control is particularly helpful during nightmares, when the dream self can turn round and face the attacker to confront or destroy it. When lucid, the dreamer usually has direct control of the dream environment, and hence can do things impossible in real life, such as making new objects appear, polymorphing, or flying. Lucid dreams can occur spontaneously, especially during youth, but for lucid dreams to occur more frequently, dedication and practice is almost always necessary.

Related Topics:
Awareness - Nightmare - Flying

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lucid dreams can be categorized into Dream-Initiated Lucid Dreams (DILDs) and Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreams (WILDs). DILDs start as non-lucid dreams, but at some point in the dream the dreamer realizes they are dreaming. In a WILD, conscious logic and reasoning is preserved while the dreamer transitions from waking to dreaming, and the dreamer is lucid from the beginning of the dream. These uses of "WILD" and "DILD" have mostly fallen into disuse (or rather they mostly never came into use), though "WILD" is often used to refer to any technique in general that happens to induce a wake-initiated lucid dream, by moving directly from conscious wakefulness to conscious dreaming.

Related Topics:
Reasoning - Waking

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lucid dreamers are those who practice lucid dreaming frequently for personal or spiritual gain. They usually induce lucid dreams through the use of one of many induction techniques. A common technique, known as MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams) and developed by Stephen LaBerge, consists of remembering to recognize that they are dreaming the next time they have a dream.

Related Topics:
Spiritual - Stephen LaBerge

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~