What Is Lucid Dreaming?

Lucid dreaming means dreaming while you know that you are dreaming. The term was used by Frederik van Eeden who used the word "lucid" in the sense of mental clarity. Lucidity usually begins in the midst of a dream when the dreamer realizes that the experience is not occurring in physical reality, but is a dream.

Often this realization is triggered by the dreamer noticing some impossible or unlikely occurrence in the dream, such as flying or meeting the deceased.

Sometimes a person becomes lucid without noticing anything in the dream; they just suddenly realize they are in a dream. A minority of these lucid-dreams (according to the research of La Berge and colleagues, about 10 percent) are the result of returning to REM (dreaming) sleep directly from an awakening with unbroken reflective consciousness.

The basic definition requires nothing more than becoming aware that you are dreaming.

High Level Lucid-Dreaming

However, the quality of lucidity can vary greatly. When lucidity is at a high level, you are aware that everything experienced in the dream is occurring in your mind, that there is no real danger, and that you are asleep in bed and will wake up shortly.

Low Level Lucid-Dreaming

With low-level lucidity you may be aware to a certain extent that you are dreaming, perhaps enough to fly or change whatever you are doing. Probably not enough to realize that the people are dream representations, or that you can suffer no physical damage, and that you are actually in bed.

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