Your dream is over...or has it just begun?*
July 26th 2010 03:00
Dreaming, in particular lucid dreaming, is a hot subject these days because of the success of Inception.** Lucid dreams have been been depicted in film before (Paprika and Waking Life come to mind), but far from being a film convention, the practice of lucid dreaming is an ancient one that goes back to at least 1000 BCE, where it is mentioned in the Mandukya Upanishad. Many theories exist as to how one can be trained to lucid dream, however--meditation and keeping 'dream diaries' are methods that are known to work.
My Experiences in Lucid Dreaming
I've been a lucid dreamer since I was a child. I wish I could say that I had consciously willed myself to have lucid dreams, but the truth is I seemed to have them effortlessly, and it wasn't long before I was able to exert some control over them.
People who don't have lucid dreams may envy those who do--especially if they believe that lucid dreams are as interesting as the ones we see in movies. Although I do have the occasional fantastic and surreal dream, many of my dream tropes in adult life are ordinary. Frequently I dream about food and shopping for books. Once in a while I have dreams where I tell someone off. I often have dreams where I fail an academic exam, or have forgotten to complete a school assignment.
But whether pleasing or disturbing in content, lucid dreams have one drawback. Because I know that I'm not really kicking ass as a Buffy Summers-esque superhero, the victories aren't thrilling. Because I know that my son was not really abducted, I don't wake up with heart pounding; I just stop or change the dream. Recognising the dream is almost like killing it.
Dream Recall and Control
My childhood interest in dreams helped me improve dream recall and obtain a certain measure of dream control. It's only now as an adult that I find my grasp on dream recall loosening. I don't get as much sleep as I ought to, and upon waking most mornings the last thing I want to do is write in a journal (who has time for that?). The dreams I now remember best are the ones which I 'replay' mentally at least once after waking up. For some reason, the level of control I have hasn't changed, though perhaps I just don't remember the dreams that were out of my control.
My ability to control dreams is limited: I can change dream plots, but usually not people or settings. I can tell myself to wake up, and also to go back to sleep and continue a dream when I want. One odd (and mildly creepy) dream trope of mine is seeing people only from the neck down; else, their faces are somehow obscured. The blurry-face scenes in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remind me of these dreams, and like Jim Carrey's character in the movie, I can't make those faces reveal themselves no matter what I do.
Dreaming Words and Numbers
Supposedly, it's very hard to read in dreams.*** Years after I knew this, I realised I could actually do it through no conscious effort on my part. To be precise: I don't just dream that I read; I can read words and sentences in dreams--at most, a few pages. There may be a correlation between this ability and the amount that one reads (I read a lot, and expansively).
I have more problems reading numbers. I had a frustrating dream in which I was making a call from a pay phone. Yet the numbers on the number pad kept shifting, and I would end up hitting the wrong buttons. Though I tried repeatedly to 'force' the numbers to remain static, I couldn't press the correct numbers.
Dreams take place in the world of imagination, emotions, and irrationality. Dreams often feature impossible things, while some real-world behaviours don't translate in the dream world (see how reality checks work--this idea is an integral part of Inception too). I believe this is why the text I read in dreams is sometimes ungrammatical, and why pressing a specific sequence of numbers is so difficult.
Some psychologists theorise that dreams simply function to process information, which would explain why so many of our dreams reflect what's happening in our daily lives. It might also explain why my grown-up dreams are pretty banal compared to ones I had as a child, and even as a teenager, when life was freer. It makes me wonder: When I am further in my career; when my children are grown; when I have fewer bills to pay; when I have more time to myself...Will the dreams of childhood return?
* From the song "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche.
**Like everyone else on the planet, I saw the movie and wrote a review of it. If you want to read a review of Inception that's not glowing nor fawning (gasp!), here it is.
*** In "Perchance to Dream", an episode (clip here) of Batman: The Animated Series, Batman has a dream (induced by the Mad Hatter) that his parents weren't murdered. The episode shows how Bruce Wayne might have led an idealised, if dull and stereotypical, life without his alter ego. Batman realises he's dreaming when he finds that the text in newspaper and books is garbled. But if anyone should be able to read in dreams, I think it'd be Batman!
Goya's The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
My Experiences in Lucid Dreaming
I've been a lucid dreamer since I was a child. I wish I could say that I had consciously willed myself to have lucid dreams, but the truth is I seemed to have them effortlessly, and it wasn't long before I was able to exert some control over them.
People who don't have lucid dreams may envy those who do--especially if they believe that lucid dreams are as interesting as the ones we see in movies. Although I do have the occasional fantastic and surreal dream, many of my dream tropes in adult life are ordinary. Frequently I dream about food and shopping for books. Once in a while I have dreams where I tell someone off. I often have dreams where I fail an academic exam, or have forgotten to complete a school assignment.
But whether pleasing or disturbing in content, lucid dreams have one drawback. Because I know that I'm not really kicking ass as a Buffy Summers-esque superhero, the victories aren't thrilling. Because I know that my son was not really abducted, I don't wake up with heart pounding; I just stop or change the dream. Recognising the dream is almost like killing it.
Dream Recall and Control
My childhood interest in dreams helped me improve dream recall and obtain a certain measure of dream control. It's only now as an adult that I find my grasp on dream recall loosening. I don't get as much sleep as I ought to, and upon waking most mornings the last thing I want to do is write in a journal (who has time for that?). The dreams I now remember best are the ones which I 'replay' mentally at least once after waking up. For some reason, the level of control I have hasn't changed, though perhaps I just don't remember the dreams that were out of my control.
My ability to control dreams is limited: I can change dream plots, but usually not people or settings. I can tell myself to wake up, and also to go back to sleep and continue a dream when I want. One odd (and mildly creepy) dream trope of mine is seeing people only from the neck down; else, their faces are somehow obscured. The blurry-face scenes in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remind me of these dreams, and like Jim Carrey's character in the movie, I can't make those faces reveal themselves no matter what I do.
Dreaming Words and Numbers
Supposedly, it's very hard to read in dreams.*** Years after I knew this, I realised I could actually do it through no conscious effort on my part. To be precise: I don't just dream that I read; I can read words and sentences in dreams--at most, a few pages. There may be a correlation between this ability and the amount that one reads (I read a lot, and expansively).
I have more problems reading numbers. I had a frustrating dream in which I was making a call from a pay phone. Yet the numbers on the number pad kept shifting, and I would end up hitting the wrong buttons. Though I tried repeatedly to 'force' the numbers to remain static, I couldn't press the correct numbers.
Dreams take place in the world of imagination, emotions, and irrationality. Dreams often feature impossible things, while some real-world behaviours don't translate in the dream world (see how reality checks work--this idea is an integral part of Inception too). I believe this is why the text I read in dreams is sometimes ungrammatical, and why pressing a specific sequence of numbers is so difficult.
Some psychologists theorise that dreams simply function to process information, which would explain why so many of our dreams reflect what's happening in our daily lives. It might also explain why my grown-up dreams are pretty banal compared to ones I had as a child, and even as a teenager, when life was freer. It makes me wonder: When I am further in my career; when my children are grown; when I have fewer bills to pay; when I have more time to myself...Will the dreams of childhood return?
* From the song "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche.
**Like everyone else on the planet, I saw the movie and wrote a review of it. If you want to read a review of Inception that's not glowing nor fawning (gasp!), here it is.
*** In "Perchance to Dream", an episode (clip here) of Batman: The Animated Series, Batman has a dream (induced by the Mad Hatter) that his parents weren't murdered. The episode shows how Bruce Wayne might have led an idealised, if dull and stereotypical, life without his alter ego. Batman realises he's dreaming when he finds that the text in newspaper and books is garbled. But if anyone should be able to read in dreams, I think it'd be Batman!
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