The Lucid Dreamer's Diary: Your Gateway to a New Reality (ePub)

What is Lucid Dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is the ability to consciously observe and/or control your dreams.

It transforms your inner dream world into a living alternate reality - where everything you see, hear, feel, taste and even smell is as authentic as real life.

Lucidity occurs during altered states of consciousness when you realize you are dreaming - and your brain switches into waking mode inside the dream.

In normal dreams, your self awareness is shut down. That's why they often feel fuzzy and distant. But when lucid, the conscious brain wakes up during sleep.

This is a safe and natural state. It is not anything spooky or paranormal (in fact, out of body experiences are thought to be explained by the lucid dream state). With lucid dreams, you are always asleep in bed.

And if you want to, you can wake yourself up.

But who'd want to do that! When you become lucid, your senses become alive. You can explore the inner workings of your unconscious mind with total freedom.

Tibetan Monks have used dream control for more than a thousand years, in the philosophy of dream yoga.

However, the modern term "lucid dreaming" was not created until the 1800s by the passionate dream researcher Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys.

The concept of lucid dreams became popularized by Celia Green in the 1960s, who pointed out the scientific potential of self awareness in dreams. She was the first to make the link with both REM sleep and false awakenings.

The first scientific evidence of lucid dreaming was produced by the British parapsychologist Keith Hearne in 1975. He did it by catching the pre-determined conscious eye movements from a lucid dreaming volunteer.