Thursday, September 22, 2016

Reap the Benefits

Finally!  Down to the good stuff.  What really makes lucid dreaming worth it? Well, to be honest, the answer is complex, controversial, and based largely on opinion.  Scientific studies are limited on the subject as generating any control for lucid dreaming remain unreachable.  The vast majority of the so-called "benefits" of lucid dreaming are generated by individuals documenting their own experiences. Before I dive into these awesome side effects of lucid dreaming, remember to keep practicing some of the techniques I went over last week to achieve your goal.  I'll be addressing some alternative methods in the weeks to follow!

So why should you want to learn the art of lucid dreaming?  Well for starters, its completely awesome.  On a more realistic note, however, it can be extremely helpful for your mental wellbeing.  Here are a few benefits I have discovered during my few years of waking up in dreamland.

Memory Retention:
The first thing I began to realize once I started lucid dreaming was my ability to retain information for longer periods of time.  For whatever reason, once I woke up inside of my dream, I developed a habit of sitting down at a desk to memorize various facts and lists from real life.  For example, as an extra credit assignment in my high school earth science class, my instructor offered twenty bonus points to whoever could memorize a song of every periodic element.

Naturally, I wanted to learn the song for the bonus points and obtain a cool future party trick.  After listening to the song for an entire day, I still could only memorize about half of the lyrics. Surprisingly, I had a lucid dream that same weekend and could replay the music over and over again in my head.  Once I woke up, the second half was almost memorized!  While this type of memory practice is rare inside lucid dreams, it still goes to show how efficient one can be with their time while they sleep!

Emotional Development:
Alright so this one sounds extremely cheesy... but its actually very accurate. Perhaps as society considers showing emotions to be considered a more female characteristic, or simply because I have the emotional capacity of a gold fish, discerning what I am really feeling during situations can be extremely tricky.  I mean, we all know how braggadocios boys can get when it comes to who hasn't cried in the longest amount of time.  I have found, however, that sorting through real life issue during a lucid dream can actually highlight certain emotions and help me realize how I feel about a certain real-life scenarios.  Maybe the fact that no one is watching makes it easier to explore feelings and decide how to respond.

Looking ahead:  Keep in mind that these are only a few reasons why lucid dreaming can be so exciting.  There are plenty more out there!  I plan to cover even more benefits including some impacts lucid dreaming can have on physical wellbeing.  Next week, we'll take a look at a more advanced technique used by lucid dreamers to maximize wake-time during the night.  In the meantime, keep up the practice; I promise it has the potential to pay off!  Keep dreaming big!

Image Credits (in order of appearance):
Image provided by Brian Cantoni
Image provided by Panli54

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