Dreamscapes - Lucid Dreaming

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As a child, I had a series of dreams in which I worked in a shop. I can't remember now what was being sold, but whatever the merchandise was, it was displayed in glass cases. My job was to keep the cases clean.

The boss, unfortunately, was a mean man. I didn't want to work in the shop anymore. Then a solution presented itself. There was a lantern, and if I held it up, I would awaken from the dream. Somehow I knew I was dreaming, and I knew what to do to come out of the dream.

Lucid dreaming, or the awareness that one is dreaming and can even control the dream, is pretty much the exact opposite of a nightmare. In fact, a 2006 study showed that people who suffer from nightmares benefit from lucid dreaming techniques.

Which implies, of course, that lucid dreaming can be learned. That sounds pretty cool, until you start to look at some of the methods. One procedure is to go to sleep normally, wake up six hours later, think very hard about lucid dreaming for an hour, then going back to sleep. It seems like a lot of work if you just want to experiment. Those with nightmares may find it worth their while, though.

Also interesting is the idea of reality testing. What if you think you might be dreaming, but aren't sure? According to the Wikipedia article on lucid dreaming, you could:

• Pinch your nose and see if you can breath without using your mouth.
• Stick your finger through the palm of your hand.
• Flip on a light switch (the light level shouldn't be affected).
• Look in a mirror. "(In) dreams, reflections from a mirror often appear to be blurred, distorted, incorrect or frightening."
  

Well, if the reality test is scary, what good is that? I've had dreams where I looked in a mirror; the results were mixed. In one, my eyes changed color (nice!). In another, my one eye appeared to be corroding away (not so nice).

But of course, if that last dream had been lucid, I suppose I could have done something about my health issue. It does seem that, for whatever ability we have to control our dreams, even lucid dreaming has its strange aspects. It may yield more vivid imagery and a feeling of giddiness, but it's still part of the noctural dreamscape, a strange reality that will always contain mysterious aspects.