New Science on
Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is a well known phenomenon, and has been described and used by many ancient civilisations. It was however denied as a myth by the mainstream scientific community for a long time, but in recent years it has been fully accepted as a real phenomenon. This has paved the way for curious scientists to explore this area of study.

What is Lucid Dreaming?

Lucid Dreaming is a state where the dreamer “wakes up” inside of the dream and becomes aware of that they are dreaming, and thus has some control over how the dream progresses. Dreams and Lucid Dreaming has had a major importance in many cultures throughout the ages. The Aboriginals refer to the dream land as the creation of the world, Native Americans thought of dreams as portals to the spirit world, and Tibetan Monks has been using lucid dreaming as a path towards enlightenment through their ancient practice of dream yoga.

How can one practice Lucid Dreaming?

There are some methods for practicing lucid dreaming that has been studied and confrmed by scientists. The frst is dream recall. This practically mean that when you wake up you write down your dreams, or what you remember from them, in a journal. This helps you to get into the habit of remembering your dreams and to learn about your own dream rhythms.

Another technique introduced by LaBerge is MILD (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreaming). It works like this: When waking up you try to remember as much as you can of your dream. When going back to sleep you tell yourself that you’re going to wake up inside of your next dream. Then, you picture you visualize yourself in the dream you just had, and try to recognize dream signs that is, signs that only happen in a dream (flying for example). At this point, you remind yourself of the fact that you’re dreaming, and keep on visualizing. Continue with this practice until you fall asleep.

What are the benefits?

In Germany, a group of scientists found that “self-reflection in everyday life is more pronounced in persons who can easily control their dreams. The area of the brain responsible for self reflection (among others) is significantly larger among lucid dreamers.” Since lucid dreaming allows you to do almost anything without the need to obey to the physical laws, you can freely explore who you are, your fears, problems or obstacles in life in a very creative way. Actually it’s found that lucid dreamers are better in overcoming nightmares and sharpen creativity and problem solving skills than people that don’t dream.

Also the tibetan monks use lucid dreaming for this purpose. They claim that through lucid dreaming we can train ourselves in fluidity of mind. By using the dream state to practice things like finding creative solutions, traveling to distant places and incorporating different people or types of consciousness, we start to detach from identification with matter, we go beyond our mind and thus realize a higher state of reality and ourselves.

Study Dreams and Lucid Dreaming in Damanhur

In Damanhur there is a long tradition of studying dreams. The research in this topic is done both through theory; science, teachings from other dream cultures and ancient civilisations, the teachings of Falco (the spiritual guide of Damanhur) and through experience and experimentation. To understand and explore a theory one must apply that theory in practice and gain own experience.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Path of Dreams, and to learn how to guide your dreams to become a lucid dreamer, have a look at the Dream course at Damanhur University.