Lucid Dreams and self-knowledge

Dreams have always been a mystery and a fascination for humanity. For centuries, people have tried to understand why we dream, what the dream mechanism is like, its purpose, consequences and benefits. Fortunately, science has already evolved a lot in this direction. One of the most interesting discoveries in this field, without a doubt, are lucid dreams.

If you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry, as the concept is quite simple. For sure, you have had a lucid dream at least once in your life.

A lucid dream is a dream in which you acquire the awareness that you are dreaming. In other words, it is when you “wake up” in the middle of the dream and find yourself thinking “I’m dreaming!”

Acquiring consciousness during the dream allows you to gain control of the narrative, that is, control the dream, but it is possible to go much further.

The dream is a manifestation of the subconscious. In our dreams, we can access deep layers of our mind, something that we cannot access awake. This, in turn, allows us to evolve, increase awareness of ourselves and acquire a level of self-knowledge that is very important for our evolution.

Self-knowledge is not the only benefit of lucid dreams. We will talk about some of the main benefits throughout this content, but first, we will clarify a very common question.

Lucid dreams: do we all dream?

Yes, all people dream, and this has been proven many times by science. What happens, in reality, is that not everyone can remember their dreams.

The reasons are diverse, but the main one is not to work on dream memory, not to pay attention to dreams.

Exploring the dream universe is one of the most effective and enjoyable ways of self-knowledge.

In order for our conscious mind to be able to activate dream recall, we need to show it that it is important to us. The most effective way to do this is to keep a dream journal. It can be on your cell phone or in a notebook that you always leave beside your bed, but the practice needs to be daily.

People who create a dream journal considerably increase their dream memory, that is, they start to remember much more of what they dream. This, in turn, also greatly increases the chances of having lucid dreams.

4 benefits of lucid dreams

You may be asking yourself

“Why do I need to have lucid dreams? How will this help me on a daily basis? ”

There are many answers to these questions. However, firstly you should know that exploring the dream universe is one of the most effective and enjoyable ways of self-knowledge.

Lucid dreams – You know yourself better

Exploring the most complex levels of your subconscious is one of the best ways to evolve. Having lucid dreams means waking up to a more conscious, free, positive and fulfilled life.

You can overcome fears and trauma

Lucid dreams allow you to know your fears deeply, to overcome them more easily. Through lucid dreams, it is possible to get rid of mental barriers and traumas that hinder their evolution.

You can improve your own skills

Lucid dreams are free from judgment or risk. Many onironauts, those who explore dreams, use lucid dreams to improve important aspects of waking life.

A lucid dream can help you rehearse a presentation or job interview, as well as an important conversation. In addition, lucid dreams also help to work on shyness and anxiety.

Lucid dreams – Relieving stress

One of the advantages of lucid dreams, besides allowing you to explore self-knowledge, is fun. Flying, seeing different galaxies, traveling in time, meeting special people and simply doing impossible things is a real therapy, specially to relieve stress.

Waking up from a lucid dream is waking up refreshed! With all this, of course, you also become more creative and fulfilled in your waking life.

How to remember your dreams with more frequency

Lucid dreaming techniques allow the individual to wake up within his dream and control his subconscious so that he will have full control over his actions while sleeping.

Also known as oneironauts, or explorers of dream worlds, these dream travellers can be on their techniques based on three main pillars: intention, reflection and self-suggestion:

1. The first step is the intention: the individual must have the intention of really wanting to have a lucid dream and they need to make this very clear to their subconscious.
2. Then the second step is reflection: the future oneironaut must question its reality and find references in the real world so that the subconscious knows how to discern both.
3. The final and third step is self-suggestion: it arises when the individual states that they can live a lucid dream.

After understanding these three well-defined pillars, then one must practice them on a daily basis, so that the individual comes to a stage when he can easily decide to have a lucid dream.

In general, people usually forget their dreams in about 10 minutes or less after waking up. With that in mind, be willing to take note of the dreams you had before you even got up or perform any other task. Open your eyes and write down everything you remember, even if you go back to bed afterwards. If you do not want to write, you can make a recording or simply reflect for an instant, gathering as much detail as possible.

Having this habit will condition your subconscious to remember more easily every dream you have, even during the nights you swore you did not dream but simply do not remember.

Reality tests for lucid dreams

In order to make your subconscious identify what is real or not – introducing the individual to lucid dreaming – it is important to practice with a certain frequency during the day brief reality tests, where we can choose around us, reference points to identify when we are dreaming.

During lucid dreams it is common for things to look rather strange and the dreamer does not remember past events with clarity. So, next to the benchmarks determined in the reality tests, also ask yourself “what am I doing here?” or “where am I?”.

In this step, we also return to talk about self-suggestion where, just before bedtime, tell yourself that when you are dreaming, you will be aware that you are dreaming. Being conditioned to this can help the subconscious to send you signals that you are in a dream.

Alarm clock to help you remember your dreams

One of the techniques that can also help you to have a lucid dream is to set your alarm to play 6 hours after lying down to sleep. When the alarm starts playing, wake up, try to remember your dream and then go back to sleep.

Finally, when you realize that you are awake in a dream, stay calm and do not try to do many things at the same time, as this may actually wake you up. Whenever you want to make a decision or take action, tell yourself that this is just a dream and allow yourself to take decisions, to do what you really like.

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