dreams~~~

      

            Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of our dreams”. But what exactly are dreams? According to the dictionary, a dream is a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. But where do they even come from? Sigmund Freud believed that our dreams were derived from hidden meanings and messages about traumatic experiences, hidden desires, and insights into our unconscious.

            There are several types of dreams-including daydreaming, nightmares, normal dreams, and the ever-so favorite lucid dreaming. Lucid dreams are ay dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. In relation to this phenomenon, Greek philosopher Aristotle observed, “often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what when presents itself is but a dream”. Everybody loves lucid dreaming because we all do it. Isn’t it awesome when you can remember you dreams and feel like your living in them?

            Lucid dreaming is also scientifically proven. The first proof of recorded lucid dreaming was in a sleeping laboratory in the United Kingdom in 1975 by a researched named Dr. Keith Hearne. . The researchers used brainwaves, blood flow, and eye movement data to validate higher levels of consciousness during lucid dreams. A more recent study in 2009 by the Neurological Laboratory in Frankfurt came to the conclusion that brain activity highly increases during lucid dreaming. The research showed heightened activity in the frontal parts of the brain. The most recent study however, in 2014, again in Frankfurt, revealed lucid dreams can be induced with zaps of electrical stimulation in the brain. Additionally, they discovered that lucid dreaming can be an explanation to alien abductions, saying that when “victims” say that they were abducted, it could have actually just been a dream that they were remembering (Rebecca Turner).

            What is really awesome about lucid dreaming is that you can actually train yourself to do it. Imagine being able to have full control of what you dream? You can have control of the dream the moment that you become lucid. The more conscious you become while in the dream, the more control you have. You can either passively watch your dream unfold, or have control and run your dreams the way you would like too.  They say the golden rule from dream manipulation is making it real in your mind, makes it happen in the dream (Rebecca Turner).  Happy dreaming! J