TheBlueprint
Designing A Line Of Thinking
Lucid Dreamers
Dream
The state of the body in which all of our muscles are relaxed and people experience a fuzzy movie playing for them! This fuzzy movie also sometimes includes people known as the dreamer.
Dreaming is a very interesting phenomenon that takes place in our minds during sleep. There are many types of dreams which people see but the rarest and the most amazing ones are 'Lucid Dream'. A much lesser-known form of Dream. These dreams are much rarer than people might think. Only 0.2% of dreams a person has in a year are lucid dreams.
Their occurrence even though very rare happens quite often in people with hypertension and panic attacks.
What is Lucid Dreaming?
Since it is not that common an occurrence, not much is known about them. But, whenever someone has one, they experience that they exist in a dream-awake-like state, where they know that the world they are in is not real but everything around them seems real.
According to some research, during a lucid dream, a person may control their dream. The people can have control over the characters, narrative, and environment of the dream. Much information is not available about the process by which we can control our dreams. Usually, people say that sometimes when they are in a normal dream and something just doesn't fit right a dream converts into a lucid dream. This is usually only for a short period and is mostly due to a very graphic occurrence in a dream.
How do lucid dreams occur?
A lot of research has happened to find the cause of Lucid dreams and how some people have them, but to date, the mystery remains unsolved and unfolded! There are some assumptions that scientists have come up with about the cause of lucid dreams.
They only occur when someone knows something is not real and is experiencing it in their dream. It is a situation where a person is not completely awake but not completely asleep as well. The dreams mostly occur during 'Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep'. REM sleep is the fourth stage of sleep where most dreams occur. During REM sleep a person's eyes move rapidly while closed and the blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, and brain activity increases. When there is a shift in the brain activity towards waking during REM sleep, dreaming causes lucid dreams. The scientists call it a 'Hybrid' situation where a person is dreaming as well as waking.
Lucid dreams don't occur frequently, and everyone does not experience this. According to some studies, there are physical differences in the brain anatomy of people who have and don’t have lucid dreams. Scientists say that the prefrontal cortex of people who have lucid dreams is bigger. It is the part of the brain where tasks like decision-making and recalling memories happen.
The picture below shows how a person’s brain is during lucid dreaming, REM sleep and when a person is awake.
Are lucid dreams harmful?
Some researchers say that lucid dreams are in some ways good as well as harmful for us. They can affect and disturb the sleep of a person. A person might not be able to sleep properly because of lucid dreams. Disturbance in sleep can affect memory, alertness, and stress and a person can have high blood pressure issues, diabetes, etc. For those with mental health disorders, lucid dreams can create confusion in understanding what is real. Lucid dreams can also benefit people in some ways. They help in reducing the anxiety of a person, also they can help to build up one’s creativity and help in problem-solving.
~Arushi and Sukhnoor