What is lucid dreaming?

The word lucid means clear, to have a lucid dream is to be aware of fact that you are actually dreaming. In this state, you are aware of all the events that occur in your dream. It is important to draw the distinction between lucid dreaming and normal dreaming. In a normal dream you wake up not remembering the details of your dream; some even wake up without remembering that they dreamt. On the hand, a lucid dreamer may be control the dream from beginning to end.

To lucid dream, you must go through 5 stages of sleep. At stage 1, you close your eyes and your muscles begin to relax. At stage 2, (also known as spasm), your heart rate slows, your body temperature drops and your body prepares to enter deep sleep. Stages 3 & 4 are deep sleep stages (also known as delta sleep); at this point you drift towards REM. At stage 5 you enter REM, this is where intense dreaming takes place, at this point your brain sends messages that put your whole body into paralysis, this prevents you from acting out your dream, lucid dreaming occurs at this stage.

Your goal as a lucid dreamer is to maintain your awareness without waking up; most importantly you must control the dream. One who has perfected this ability is able to take the dream to wherever he or she wants to. Some lucid dreamers have claimed to possess matrix like abilities when lucid dreaming. A lucid dreamer is able to control his or her immediate environment, when it gets to hot; you change the climate around you; even the color of things. Lucid dreaming is not at all complicated; anyone may lucid dream with practice. To get better at it, you should try waking up every 90 minutes (the length of a sleep cycle), you should also write down your dreams as patterns often appear, making it evident that you are dreaming. The key to taking control is practice, for example, one who has mastered lucid dreaming will see a strange beast and chase it away, one who is still learning would yell upon seeing the beast (and wake up).

Lucid dreaming has been described as a feeling that can not be matched, it is particularly practical because you may use it to solve real life problems, as seen in the design for the moon base; it came to the designer in a lucid dream. A lucid dream allows an individual to tap into the power of the brain.