For many of us, the state of dreaming is generally understood as an experience that lies in a void beyond the reaches of consciousness. And, this may be the case for much of the world’s population considering that many of us, despite the often disconnected nature of night fantasies, are completely oblivious to the fact that we are dreaming as the dream plays out. However, often people experience what is known as a lucid dream, in which the dreamer is aware that he/she is in a dream. Such a phenomenon not only influences the dream experience, particularly the ability to steer the plot of the dream by consciously making choices, but may advantageously affect the waking experience.
One of the most prominent intrigues of the lucid dreaming phenomenon is the idea to construct a narrative while sleeping. If one is conscious of the dreaming state that he/she is within, then that individual has obtained the opportunity to determine the events that take place in a dream. Many people view lucid dreaming as granting the opportunity to achieve wonders; build castles and coronate yourself as king or queen. Fly to amazing heights or delve beneath the surface of the earth. The point is simple. However, the effects extend beyond mere storytelling into the realm of nightmare avoidance. Once a dreamer becomes lucid, he/she can alter the course of a dream if it begins to become more frightening.
A 2008 study proves that performing a specific task while lucid dreaming can improve your performance in that activity while awake. Also, pedaling back to the nightmare remedy point, Utrecht University of the Netherlands attempted to train dreamers to fight nightmares by noticing elements within the dream to notify them that the experience was only occurring in their heads.
Lucid dreaming may be used to achieve more practical needs such as remedying nightmare, but it may also be used to achieve fantasies to a certain degree, since the experiences are conscious yet lack tangibility. With either route, the dreamer is given the opportunity to build an empire to which you have sole control. It is an empire that, ideally, may be used to accomplish the phantasmagorical secrets of the most shadowy realms of our minds. To some degree it makes me think, that sleep, for some, can become preferable to waking life; not only can you construct pleasures, but it is also much simpler to battle adversary since you can easily erase the frightening lines of the narrative and replace them. With that said, I think relying on dreams to sustain us denies us a basic need to reap the fruits of our accomplishments. Transience, however blissful, is difficult for our species to accept, and transience is indeed to be expected; after all, even the greatest empires have been known to fall.
Work Cited
Wen, Tiffanie. "The Ways to Control Dreaming." The Atlantic. The Atlantic, 10 Apr. 2014. Web. Jan. 2016. <http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/the-ways-to-control-dreaming/360032/>.
