How do I manage my dreams? Expert advice

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Scientists have proven that dreams can be programmed, so you can watch whatever you want at night, the main thing is to follow certain rules.

After studying the experience of people involved in lucid dreaming, we have compiled a list of techniques that will help you control your dreams. Let's note right away that even if you train hard (4-5 times a week), lucid dreams will begin to come, at best, after a few months. After all, even experienced oneuronauts (the so-called those who can control sleep) rarely see more than 15 controlled dreams per month. By the way, we have provided the recommendations with the memories of some of these same oneuronauts.

Our expert:Roman Buzunov (buzunov.ru), Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Medicine, Head of the Sleep Medicine Department of the Barvikha Clinical Sanatorium (sleepnet.ru) and his scientific advisor for therapy, member of the board of the National Society for Sleep Medicine and Somnology.

“Modern science allows for the possibility of controlling dreams. For this, it is necessary that a person's consciousness does not turn off during sleep, which can be achieved with many months and even many years of training. However, science is not able to accurately differentiate a lucid dream and an unconscious one, so oneuronauts have to take their word for it. My point is that no research equipment can determine what a person is dreaming about and whether he is really building a chain of events himself. Nonetheless, research from Stanford and Harvard Universities, as well as the California Institute for Associated Research, shows that when subjects dream, brain activity is activated and close to the state of wakefulness. On this basis, we can say that lucid dreams exist. Science is also well known for a similar phenomenon when a dream is embedded in wakefulness. This condition is noted in those suffering from narcolepsy, a neurological disease in which "waking dreams" are noted during awakening or falling asleep. On the one hand, a person feels that he is in a room in his bed, on the other, a snake is crawling along the ceiling."

Memorize dreams

If you are one of the lucky few who can remember dreams in detail, consider that the first step towards lucid dreaming has been taken. Are there almost no memories? We'll have to do more workouts.

Start a special notebook and every time, just waking up, write down what you saw in your dream. For a start, these can be scattered moments or objects - even the smallest details matter. Over time, you will remember whole episodes. Later still - dreams in whole.

It took me a year to learn how to control the plot of the dream. True, I did not study every day: during periods of workload, I could take two-week breaks. And even in his free time, he often remembered his hobby only on weekends.

Alexey, 30 years old

To better remember the dream, I learned to wake up immediately after it ends. Wake up, make a record - and continue to sleep.

Timur, 27 years old

Learn to be aware that you are asleep

Without realizing that everything that happens is a dream, you will not be able to control and change dreams. It turns out that it is not easy to do this with an almost deactivated consciousness. When a dozen described (at least partially) dreams appear in the notebook, analyze them and, on a separate sheet, make a list of sleep signs - objects, actions and situations that are repeated most often. This list needs to be regularly updated and re-read. The signs of dreams, if you remember them properly, will play the role of beacons, informing that at this moment you are in a world fictional by your own consciousness. Moreover, for one person completely different dreams often begin in the same way: for example, you are walking in the park with Nikita Dzhigurda and you are eating an ice cream. At such moments, you can very quickly realize that you are already asleep.

I have been engaged in lucid dreaming for six years. Found that the list of sleep symptoms is limited and may not be expanding. I have not replenished it for two years: it still has 19 signs.

Vlad, 38 years old

Develop critical thinking

It will help you realize that you are in an imaginary world. It is necessary to exercise critical perception of the world even during the waking period so that state control works automatically. For example, when talking to a friend, try to take off (what if it's a dream?). Or read what is written in the newspaper, turn away and delve into the text again. Since memory in a dream works in a limited mode, practitioners assure that in dreams, letters and numbers almost always change, it is worth looking away from them.

Train your inner speech

Try as often as possible not just to think, but to pronounce thoughts in your mind. When the inner voice becomes as familiar as a stain on jeans, it will be able to "wake up" during sleep. If you do not just think, but also articulate desires, then it will become much easier to influence the course of events in a dream.

Thanks to lucid dreams, I got rid of my nightmares. First, I learned to wake up during scary moments. And then - just change the course of events. It is enough just to say: "It would be great if the lion that rushes after me turned into a kitten!" And he turns.

Masha, 26 years old

Engage in self-hypnosis

During the day and, most importantly, before falling asleep, suggest to yourself that this night you want to be aware of the state of sleep. And also pretend you are asleep. Moreover, you need to fantasize using several signs of sleep from a notebook. Decide that you want to perform some specific action tonight - for example, take off.

Our memory is arranged in such a way that even if you, falling asleep, do not understand that everything that happens is unreal, you can still remember that you need to rise into the air. And you will probably get up. Sooner or later, your brain will understand that this is impossible in real life, and then you will have every chance to ride the dream.

I can't draw up the whole plot of the dream in advance. That is, I can, for example, in the waking state, decide that I want to fly. But where I will do it and where I will fly, I have to decide already in a dream, changing the environment with the power of thought. And I also manage to change it with the help of a door: it is enough to decide where you want to be and enter it.

Max, 29 years old

Dream before bed

Immersed in fantasies, you can enter your own sleep directly from the state of wakefulness. To do this, you need to go to bed, relax and, without straining, start dreaming with your eyes closed. Observe superficially the images that appear in the eyes. Very soon they will begin to turn into coherent plots, and you, without realizing it, will gradually fall asleep. After hard training, you will be able to transfer what you thought about into a dream, and become a good director.

I understood why almost everyone who starts lucid dreaming starts flying first. This is the simplest action one can do in a dream!

Lida, 31 years old

Choose the time

Dreams that come in early in the morning are easier to control for two reasons. Firstly, you, immersed in lucid dreams, are close to the state of wakefulness, and therefore, in order to concentrate attention, the brain needs to rest. Secondly, the last dreams are the longest and best remembered. It's easier to watch them if you sleep for, say, six hours, get up at the alarm, do something for an hour and a half, and then go back to bed. Sleeping after a forced awakening requires at least a couple of hours to catch at least one phase of REM sleep, which repeats approximately every 90 minutes and is characterized by rapid eye movements (hence the abbreviation). Most often, dreams come during this period. As you go about your business, remember to tell yourself that you want to have a controlled dream, and think about what exactly you want to see. You can also wake up, lie in bed and fall asleep again. True, in this case, the opportunity to see a lucid dream will be lower: you have every chance of not having time to get distracted from past dreams and you will see their continuation. And the attitude to control what is happening to the brain may not have time to reach.

I see detailed dreams when I sleep for about twelve hours. Apparently, for 8 hours I do not have time to rest.

Peter, 38 years old