Sleep On It

So, last week was crazy. I travelled to Hawaii, slept by the beaches all the while sipping on Piña Coladas and then this really attractive model came up to me and asked me out, and the rest is just history. Best trip of my life... but then I woke up. What a throwback to the creative writing essays from 7th grade, but this time I actually have a reason to write that way. Let’s talk about the potential of lucid dreams, what are they really? How do they work?

Everyone has had their phases during quarantine where either they have juggled between different activities such as binging Netflix shows all day long, or trying to follow the latest Chloe Ting workout. Lately, I have been addicted to one such activity, and that is online gaming. Before you think ‘Oh, he’s that gamer kind of guy’, let me put a stop to those thoughts right there. My latest addiction has been online chess.

Spending 4-5 hours playing chess every night right before sleeping has been my routine for the last 2 months. This might seem pretty normal because substitute it with watching Netflix or reading, and it might just be the life of any other person, but one thing that stood out in this routine and has left me wondering, are the dreams. My dreams are so vivid that I can actually see strategies of chess that I could implement in real life while playing, and have consequently won many matches by implementing them after waking up the next day. After even ruling out the fact that I might have a supernatural ability, I came to realize that in reality, I just spent so much time thinking about chess during the day that my subconscious mind was inundated with constant thoughts of chess without me even realizing it, which was clearly evident in my dreams.

This got me wondering, what if I could somehow make all the mistakes that I might make in a game, and instead make those mistakes in my dreams and then try out all the possible permutations and combinations of moves or solutions in my dreams. Could I then implement the best ones during a chess game in real life? Turns out that this is actually possible by a concept called Lucid Dreaming.

Lucid dreams are when you know that you’re dreaming while you’re asleep. You’re aware that the events flashing through your brain aren’t really happening, but the dream still feels vivid and real. You may even be able to control how the action unfolds, almost as if you’re directing a movie in your sleep. Studies suggest that about 55% of individuals may have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetime, but they probably don’t happen often and usually only a handful of times in a year.

Lucid dreams are actually most common during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, a period of very deep sleep marked by eye movements, faster breathing, and increased brain activity. A person usually enters their REM sleep cycle about 90 minutes after falling asleep. This cycle lasts for about 10 minutes, and as you sleep, each REM period is longer than the one before, finally lasting up to an hour. There are certain individuals who have just been blessed with the ability to control their own dreams, but there are also people like us, who need to google ‘How to Lucid dream’ in order to get a glimpse of this fascinating phenomenon.

There have been numerous studies conducted which show the significance and implications of lucid dreaming and different techniques that can be adopted to induce it manually.

Dream Diary: Jolting you back to your teens when your mom would tell you that journaling is good for you and would help reduce all that teenage angst- she was right… almost. Turns out, keeping a dream journal or diary is a reliable method for initiating lucid dreaming. When you write down your dreams, you’re forced to remember what happens during each dream. It’s said to help you recognize 'dream signs' and enhance awareness of your dreams. For best results, log your dreams as soon as you wake up and it's also recommended to read your dream journal often. According to psychologist, Ann Faraday,

Writing the next day's date in the dream diary asserts a conscious thought to remember dreams, which communicates the intention to the subconscious mind to which it then responds by fulfilling that desire.

This mental action causes the conscious and subconscious minds to work together towards the common goal of remembering dreams which in turn helps to induce lucid dreams.

Wake-Initiated Lucid Dreaming (WILD): A Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD) happens when you directly enter a dream from waking life, an ‘Inception’ like concept, I know. It’s said WILD helps your mind to stay conscious while your body goes to sleep. It requires you to lay down and relax, until you experience a hypnagogic hallucination or a hallucination that occurs as you’re just about to fall asleep. A practice that sounds simple enough to read, however it is one of the harder techniques to achieve lucid dreaming. A common way to increase chances of experiencing a WILD is by practicing the other lucid dreaming induction techniques.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD): You wake up after sleeping for around 5 hours and tell yourself several times that the next time you dream, you will remember you are dreaming. This uses prospective memory - the act of remembering to do something in the future - to trigger a lucid dream. Certain steps can be followed such as recalling a dream, reality checks, lucid affirmations such as “The next time I dream, I will remember that I am dreaming”, and visualisation of the dream after waking up. These steps increase the frequency of lucid dreams a person can have.

Drugs: Finally, if all else fails, you can always fall back on trusty medicines. Certain drugs have side effects of inducing a state of consciousness in your dreams. Drugs to use for such a purpose are Galantamine, Donepezil and Rivastigmine which are also known as Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, usually prescribed for the treatment of Alzheimer’s. The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is thought to help modulate REM sleep, and these inhibitors help this compound to aggregate in the brain, by inhibiting an enzyme (called acetylcholinesterase) that inactivates acetylcholine. Since lucid dreams only occur in the REM phase, the accumulation of acetylcholine induces the REM sleep cycle which in turn increases the chances of lucid dreaming. A load of big, technical words just to say that the chemical which causes the REM cycle to occur is increased in amount by the use of these drugs.

All in all, lucid dreams can be a way where you get a space to try things that you may want to try in the real world and in your life, but without the harsh implications of making mistakes. Not to sound like a studytuber with a CEO morning routine, but lucid dreaming can be a revolutionary way to help make your dreams productive too! Many people might have a preconceived notion that achieving a lucid dream is difficult and out of their reach, and while some people are naturally able to do this, there is still hope for the rest of us to give it a shot!

*This blog does not encourage or support the recreational use of harmful drugs for entertainment purposes.