Study dreams
People throughout history have tried to study dreams. It’s a deep subject having to do with everything from why people dream to dreams that seem to be real.
Lucid dreams are often brought up when people study dreams. In a lucid dream a person is aware that they’re dreaming. It’s also known as stream of conscious dreaming because the conscious mind remains alert. A lucid dreamer can change the dream. Every element of the dream can be changed or examined. Depending on the level of self awareness, a lucid dream is nearly real.
Those who study dreams talk about a dream initiated lucid dream. It starts as a normal dream. But at some point the person realizes they’re dreaming.
The other type of lucid dream is the wake initiated lucid dream. This is when a person falls asleep directly into a lucid dream. The conscious mind never becomes inactive in this type. In essence the person is never wholly asleep.
A woman who chose to study dreams was Celia Green. In fact she studied lucid dreams in 1968. And she analyzed all the different aspects of these dreams. She was the first to conclude they were not like other dreams. She associated lucid dreams with REM sleep. This is rapid eye movement sleep. It’s a sleep phase associated with the eyes moving up and down and side to side.
To study dreams Celia also examined fake awakenings. This is a phase of a dream when someone thinks they have woken up. The person, but, is still dreaming. For example, one man reported a dream that he was a king in the Tower of Babel. An earthquake started. The tower crashed to the ground. He woke in a sweat. But then his apartment started to shake. The building fell to the ground. Then he really woke up. Celia theorized that fake awakenings and lucid dreams were part of the same phenomenon. The conscious mind is still in control in both dream states.
Norman Malcolm was prominent when it came time to study dreams. His book was Dreaming, written in 1959. He connected the fact that eye movements within dreams cause the physical eye to go with lucidity in dreams. In the 70’s a subject proved this by sending messages from within his dream. He did this by moving his eyes in predetermined patterns.
The Internet can make anyone an expert when it comes time to study dreams.
