1
00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:10,119
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain stuff,

2
00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:13,560
Speaker 1: it's Christian Sager here. Have you ever heard of lucid

3
00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 1: dreaming before? Well, Lucid dreaming is simply being aware that

4
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:22,360
Speaker 1: you are dreaming while you're in a dream, and it's

5
00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:25,480
Speaker 1: not a new thing. Aristotle wrote about it, and Tibetan

6
00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:30,240
Speaker 1: Buddhists have been practicing dream yoga called milam for centuries.

7
00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:34,680
Speaker 1: A Dutch psychiatrist named Frederick van Eden actually came up

8
00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:38,560
Speaker 1: with the term lucid dreams in nineteen thirteen, and it's

9
00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:43,360
Speaker 1: become popular in some scientific circles since the early eighties,

10
00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:48,520
Speaker 1: largely because of the work of psychophysiologist Dr Stephen Leberte,

11
00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:54,880
Speaker 1: a Stanford grad who founded the Lucidity Institute in Researchers

12
00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:59,000
Speaker 1: have confirmed that lucid dreaming is possible. The way they

13
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:01,960
Speaker 1: do it is by having sleepers give you a distinctive,

14
00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:07,280
Speaker 1: predetermined eye movement signal when they become aware that they're dreaming.

15
00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,240
Speaker 1: So how does that work? Well, generally people are dreaming

16
00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:14,360
Speaker 1: when they're in the fifth stage of sleep r e M.

17
00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:19,880
Speaker 1: Sleep or rem REM is marked by rapid eye movements,

18
00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,960
Speaker 1: paralysis through the rest of our muscles rises in heart rate,

19
00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:27,640
Speaker 1: breath rate and blood pressure, changes in body temperature, and

20
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:31,800
Speaker 1: acceleration of brain wave oscillation to the type we have

21
00:01:31,880 --> 00:01:35,040
Speaker 1: while we're awake, which are alpha waves. These are all

22
00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:40,000
Speaker 1: part of REM. Note that some of these can happen

23
00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:44,320
Speaker 1: during other stages of sleep and transitions between those stages,

24
00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:49,000
Speaker 1: signaling what's known as covert REM dreaming. So you can

25
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 1: monitor for these signs and your predetermined signal with machines

26
00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:57,160
Speaker 1: like a polygraphed or an e G or an e MG.

27
00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,640
Speaker 1: But what about the whole thing about controlling dreams, right?

28
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:03,960
Speaker 1: That sounds cool, Let's get back to that. Some researchers

29
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:08,040
Speaker 1: are skeptical that it's possible. That's because there's no empirical

30
00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:10,919
Speaker 1: way to test for it. We don't know enough about

31
00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:14,519
Speaker 1: how memories work or how dreams work to see and

32
00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:18,800
Speaker 1: experience what people are thinking or dreaming, so we've only

33
00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:22,160
Speaker 1: got their reports to go on. Sure, some subject report

34
00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:24,720
Speaker 1: being able to control their dreams, but even when people

35
00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:27,840
Speaker 1: are trying to be honest about their memories, they can't

36
00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:33,320
Speaker 1: always succeed. That's because memories are electrochemical patterns in the brain,

37
00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:36,480
Speaker 1: and every time we call one up, we change it.

38
00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:40,280
Speaker 1: Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Some research indicates that

39
00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:43,480
Speaker 1: the harder we're trying for perfect recall, the more we

40
00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:47,720
Speaker 1: mess our own memories up. Okay, but you are here

41
00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:50,639
Speaker 1: because you want to learn how to control your dreams. Right.

42
00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,600
Speaker 1: There are lots of books and workshops that are totally

43
00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:58,639
Speaker 1: willing to help you at varying expenses. Of course, this

44
00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:01,200
Speaker 1: is another reason why we're skept to go about lucid dreaming.

45
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:04,080
Speaker 1: Here at how stuff works. But here are some tips

46
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:09,080
Speaker 1: for lucid dreaming no dream control promised. First, you could

47
00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:12,519
Speaker 1: practice mindfulness while you're awake. This is what they call

48
00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,240
Speaker 1: reality testing. Throughout your day, pay attention to how it

49
00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 1: feels to be awake and the cause and effect nature

50
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:21,880
Speaker 1: of reality. Like when you flip a light switch, a

51
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:24,640
Speaker 1: light turns on, and if it doesn't, there are steps

52
00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:27,280
Speaker 1: you can take to figure out why. Well. The idea

53
00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:29,880
Speaker 1: here is that by being more aware of what it's

54
00:03:29,919 --> 00:03:32,680
Speaker 1: like to be awake, you'll be able to notice differences

55
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,760
Speaker 1: while you're dreaming. Secondly, keep a dream journal when you

56
00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:40,280
Speaker 1: wake up, immediately right down what you remember of your dreams.

57
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,040
Speaker 1: The immediacy is important because we tend to forget dreams

58
00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:48,880
Speaker 1: much more quickly than waking events. One Freudian era dream

59
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:53,240
Speaker 1: researcher by the name of L. Strumple hypothesized that that

60
00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,320
Speaker 1: is because the strength of our memories is based in

61
00:03:56,400 --> 00:04:00,600
Speaker 1: association and repetition, which we don't get in dreams the

62
00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:04,040
Speaker 1: way we do in waking activity. The idea here is

63
00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:08,000
Speaker 1: that by paying closer wakeful attention to your dreams, you'll

64
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,480
Speaker 1: be able to recognize them while you're asleep. Third, disrupt

65
00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:16,200
Speaker 1: your dream cycles. Set an alarm to wake yourself up

66
00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:20,239
Speaker 1: after ninety minutes after bedtime. That should give your brain

67
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:23,919
Speaker 1: enough time to cycle through the sleep stages and reach REM.

68
00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:26,919
Speaker 1: Or set an alarm to wake yourself up a couple

69
00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:30,240
Speaker 1: hours early, stay awake for about half an hour, then

70
00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:32,640
Speaker 1: go to sleep again. The idea here is that by

71
00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:35,640
Speaker 1: waking yourself up in the middle of rem sleep, you

72
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,760
Speaker 1: should be able to remember your recent dreams more clearly

73
00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:44,480
Speaker 1: than usual. And finally, there's Laberge's MILD technique. And that's

74
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:48,560
Speaker 1: MILD in all caps because it stands for pneumonic induction

75
00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:53,280
Speaker 1: of lucid dreaming. This is one of Laberge's most famous techniques.

76
00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:55,960
Speaker 1: When you wake up from a dream, try your best

77
00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,600
Speaker 1: to remember it fully, and when you go back to sleep,

78
00:04:58,960 --> 00:05:01,640
Speaker 1: keep telling yourself that you're going to remember that you're

79
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,640
Speaker 1: dreaming during your next dream. The next step is to

80
00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 1: picture yourself back in the dream that you just had

81
00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 1: and look for a sign that the dream is a

82
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:16,200
Speaker 1: dream and not reality, like the fact that you're flying

83
00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:21,040
Speaker 1: through the air with wings. Leberts calls these dream signs.

84
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:25,120
Speaker 1: At this point, remind yourself that you're dreaming and continue

85
00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:29,680
Speaker 1: the visualization. Keep doing this until you fall asleep. If

86
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:31,799
Speaker 1: you liked that and you want to learn more about

87
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:34,800
Speaker 1: lucid dreaming, my other show, stuff to Blow Your Mind,

88
00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:37,719
Speaker 1: has a real deep dive into the topic where my

89
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,800
Speaker 1: co host Robert and I talk all about lucid dreaming,

90
00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:45,680
Speaker 1: it's history and all of the dream types that Frederick

91
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:52,560
Speaker 1: Van Eden came up with. Check out the brain Stuff

92
00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:54,960
Speaker 1: channel on YouTube, and for more on this and thousands

93
00:05:54,960 --> 00:06:11,280
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.