The Amazing World of Dreams

We all dream whether we remember our night visions or not; dreams have fascinated many for countless years, and inspired works such as paintings. Night time can also be a time of discomfort, in the form of nightmares which plague children just as much as adults. Even today the true purpose of dreams remains unclear; even some animals appear to dream, though of what similarity to humans is unknown.

Lucid Dreams

If you are fortunate to have a lucid dream this simply means that you were aware that you were dreaming while you were actually still dreaming. The virtual world which the brain creates for your sleep is so convincing that often we are fooled into thinking that we are awake, i.e. experiencing real life. However, as we dream we can sometimes spot minor imperfections which reveal to us that we are actually dreaming.

So, what's so special about lucid dreaming? Not much unless you take advantage of your lucidness while dreaming. Generally, when we dream we go with the flow and have little say or impact on how the dream progresses, but when lucid we have the power to dramatically affect the dream in some way. Since a dream is built upon imagination, lucidness allows one to achieve what is not possible in real life and without any consequences, such as getting hurt.

Some may use a lucid dream to prepare for an important speech, for example; see what kind of reaction the dream characters give you. And then there's really using the power of lucid dreaming, such as to fly without wings. Or summon mighty powers to combat evil entities in a super hero style movie sequence. The limit is your imagination!

To initiate a lucid dream, the most common approach is as mentioned above, to realize you're dreaming by spotting something wrong. If you're wearing a watch in your dream check the time, look away, and then check it again. If the time has changed by more than just a few seconds then you are certainly dreaming. This is a common (but useful) flaw with dreams, similar situations I've had are writing that changes or the name of a shop change.

This does not guarantee lucidness but with practice you'll get there. It is supposedly during the last hours of sleep that you are more likely to have a lucid dream, so what time you go to bed and awake are obviously important. But I do believe that lucid dreaming is something that can be learnt, not something that you have to be born with. As for myself, I've had lucid dreams since young but only recently I discovered that there was a proper term for it.

Even when you do become lucid, staying in that mode can be difficult and therefore natural that you slip in and out of the lucid state. However, there are techniques to remain lucid such as spinning around on the spot, though personally I've yet to try out that technique. While dreaming, you should realize when you're about to loose lucidness perhaps because you're about to wake up, this warning should give you enough time to act.

Don't worry if you do wake up, if you fall back to sleep soon afterwards it can actually increase your chances of having a lucid dream again. You might also want to tell yourself that you will have a lucid dream, or say what you will dream about. I once outlined before falling asleep what I would dream about and it worked, so that is one way to control your dreams without having a lucid dream. Similar, when I was much younger I told myself that I would not have nightmares if I slept facing a certain way and regardless of the fact that I most likely turned over more than once during the night, I now rarely have nightmares.

When lucid during dreaming, probably the most fascinating thing to do is explore the world that your brain has created for you. Sure it may seem like the real world but it's not quite as it seems, more as if a horror film in some ways. And then there are the people to talk to; test their reactions or just observe them, assuming that you're surrounded by humans...

If you were planning to talk to someone or ask them something tomorrow, you may get the chance to ask their dream equivalent while lucid. It makes you wonder what judges their response (assuming they give you one) since you don't know how they'll reply in real life. Therefore, the brain must decide what would be the most obvious answer to your question judged by what you know about that person. Surely you've asked someone something and have already predicted what they will most likely say to you, especially a best friend or a member of your family?

I'm not so sure about out of body experiences but while I was having a very lucid dream, towards the end I realised that I was waking up because I could sense my real body as opposed to my dream body. This gave me enough time to finish my tests before I woke up; I checked a pile of DVD or video game cases on the floor in the living room and they had changed size and the pictures on the front were now different to when I had last checked.

Why is it that mechanical objects, electrical and electronic devices in dreams don't behave as they should do? In the past I've dreamed that I've used a gun despite that not being the case for real life (most likely influenced by films and video games), so it's not hard to understand why the gun never fires any bullets or is slow to react. But then there are computers which I have used a great deal, they too are often suspect in my dreams.

In dreams I can get really worried because I'm using a computer or building something electronic and it goes wrong, only to realize after I've awoken that it had only happened in a dream. This could, of course, represent my fears of making a mistake big time, and that's been playing on my mind. The point is that dreams can appear so real yet if we open our eyes and spot the mistakes in the dream then the power of being lucid can be ours.

I do have the idea that because dreams have been with us humans for generations, before technology was invented, then maybe them misbehaving in our dreams is because they're not treated the same way by our brain as other things, like people, that are more natural to us.

So, if lucid in a dream, it's a good idea to do some tests if you can remember and I have been fortunate enough to have done that a few times. I must warn you that being lucid and trying things out isn't a good idea if you sleep walk, which is just as well that I don't otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do some of the tests that I have in my dreams.

It appears that you can be lucid in a dream from the start or more usual for me, I realize that I'm dreaming later on because of suspecting that something isn't quite right, or it just happens almost naturally. There are also different levels of lucidness, I might be aware that I'm dreaming but not take advantage of that understanding or I can be lucid and use that power in some way.

Dream Oddities

What is it with light in dreams, when younger I could never turn on a light in a room in a dream, even after changing the lightbulb! This is of course very much a pain as the room would be in complete darkness and thus difficult if not impossible to see any detail. But later on in life I have had dreams where I have managed to turn on a light but generally the level of light in one dream is the same as in any other. Having said that, I have had dreams where I'm outside and It's clearly set at night because it's very dark.

Ok, when I'm dreaming that I'm playing a video game seeing the character I am watching or controlling from a third person view is no surprise since I play mainly third person type games. However, why is it in some dreams that I see myself from a third person view and most of the time it doesn't occur to me that I'm actually dreaming?

In a dream you can be happy enough in one place but then find yourself somewhere totally different, as if transported there in seconds. In one dream, for example, I thought I was on holiday which is hundreds of miles away from where I live and then I ended up home. Speaking of being on holiday, when away I usually dream about being home as if my brain has yet to realise I'm somewhere quite different and when actually at home it's quite rare for me to dream that I'm on holiday. This can confuse me somewhat when I awake as I have to remind myself that I'm actually at home or still on holiday.

Whether you can feel pain in a dream is something that can be argued but for me most of the time it's wonderful that I can survive an attack and not feel any discomfort in the dream. I've been bitten by zombies in my dreams and not felt any pain, that might be to do with playing video games and watching films since the most they can do is affect your emotions and in the case of video games provide a bit of feedback (i.e. a rumble effect).

Dream Symbols

I will always maintain that dreams are very personal, yet there do exist for sure a number of common dream symbols having a set meaning. The brain seems to be clever at integrating these symbols into dreams to get a point across that are familiar to us such as every day objects and that which we may use with our hobbies.

I often dream about famous people in particular soap opera stars, usually actors and actresses from the TV drama EastEnders. I've always liked the drama Holby City which follows EastEnders for one day a week but when I had a short dream in which I chatted to one of Holby City's actors I at first thought very little of it.

First of all, in the dream I mentioned to who I though to be Elliot Hope (from Holby City) about when he played Nigel in EastEnders to which he was not pleased. This suggests that in the dream I was actually talking to the actor Paul Bradley who plays Elliot in Holby and played Nigel in EastEnders. That said, though I don't think I was in a hospital (where Holby City is mainly set) in the dream, if he was meant to have been the character Elliot, I actually broke the fourth wall.

But there might have been a pun in the character's name since Elliot's second name is Hope. It gets better, in the program Holby Elliot has a son called James, which is my name. So, his name almost speaks a message, James Hope; James, have hope? But this might be due to both Elliot and James featuring a lot in recent episodes of Holby City and I've already thought to myself about the 'hope' pun before having this dream. But what this might mean is that my brain chose Elliot to serve as a dream symbol knowing I would be aware of the significance.

Common Dream Themes

Dreams are very personal yet there are without a doubt certain themes that pop up again and again, from person to person, throughout the years.

School

Those who enjoyed their time at school or college most likely have far more pleasant dreams involving school yet I cannot pretend I had a good time at school. Even after leaving, I still have frequent dreams about school, though usually more relaxing than a few years ago. More often than not, in the dream I would find myself in a usually crowded corridor sometimes with a friend walking with me, knowing that I had to make my way to the next lesson.

This presents an obvious predicament in that I have no idea of what my next lesson is, since I have no way of finding out the time (or didn't think to check my watch) and the one time I actually had my planner I couldn't read it (as reading text in a dream is often difficult if not impossible). Fortunately, I would just arrive at any class and join the end of the queue or enter the class and sit myself down. The dream would end then, as if this was the perfect time to stop; that I had achieved a certain goal.

The reason for this type of dream is most likely because of the troubled time I had at school, though to be fair the school themed dreams I had were rather tame, though annoying. There are variations of this type of dream that I've had, as listed below:

When I sat myself down in class having just entered a random room, the teacher actually pointed out that I was in the wrong class (as would a teacher in real life). This is very rare for me and it gets more interesting; another boy realized that he was in the wrong class too. This is almost like someone else having the same dream as me who joined me in my humiliation that night. But this might just reflect the first couple of days at a new school, not knowing my way around the building well.

In another dream, I was determined to escape school; while in the playground I would fly away far enough to put enough distance between me and the school, then return to the ground. This is clear in representing my desire to leave school, which of course eventually came true, explaining why I don't have this school variation type dream anymore.

Recurring Dreams

Having the same or similar dream more than once could be joyful yet bad dreams as repeats is something that are just horrible. To me, the reason for recurring dreams is if we miss what the dream is trying to tell us perhaps to improve our life when we're awake.

School dreams are a common recurring dream that I had but now that I've put that time behind me I have them very rarely. Another recurring dream I've had is that of being in the kitchen and turning the gas on or trying to turn it off and having trouble, worried that I would burn myself. I think that dream is about loosing control so it's a reminder to get back into the driver's seat so-to-speak.

Can Dreams Show the Future?

Predicting lottery results or the fate of someone you know, whether dreams allow you to see the future is a debate that is likely to exist for a long time to come. It's easy to say that there is no way a dream could show the future of which I would normally agree, that if anything at the very most it could only be coincidence. But, one particular dream goes beyond what I just said. To outline, a dream I had one Sunday morning made no sense to me until I arrived at Church. Maybe coincidence, but the dream I had the night before had shown me what we would be learning in Church that day, without any prior knowledge of the theme of that service.

What Influences a Dream?

The most obvious is events that have happened in your life, perhaps from the day before or even many years ago. One reasoning as to the purpose of dreams is to deal with our experiences, to help us with our emotions so thoughts that have been on your mind lately are likely to make there way into your dream. I have found that it can take quite a few days before dreaming about something that has happened not long ago.

Your senses while sleeping certainly affect your dreams, I have had dreams that begin pleasant and then for no reason turn into more of a nightmare; when I awoke I found that I had been sleeping on my arm in such a way it caused discomfort. Another time I've dreamed of needing to go to the toilet but still needing to go after, this is because I needed to go for real. Temperature also may affect your dreams, I seem to have lucid dreams when it is warm indoors as opposed to cold or hot.

Dreams that Influence Art

Dreams have served as inspirations for writings, films, paintings and other forms of art, and have even helped people solve scientific problems. As someone who plays video games often I dream about playing games that have unique ideas that I have not seen before, such as ways to defeat a boss or to progress further into the level in some way. Because of this and the ability to influence a dream when lucid, I named my video game engine that I programmed as a hobby My Dream, promoting anyone who plays the game to create their own worlds.

I have only scratched the surface of dreams and in time you too can learn more about your own dreams.