We all dream, and some of us are aware of that fact whilst sleeping. Some of our dreams seem to predict future events, whereas others seem to have a meaning hard to discover. The Hollywood Movie “Inception” is all about dream manipulation – and raise the question whether lucid dreaming is real.
Modern oneiromancy (from the Greek Oneiros) is interpreting dreams from a psychological perspective. Freud claimed that our dreams are the processing of emotions and unconscious thoughts we had during course of day.
Historical Perspectives on Dreams
But long before psychoanalysis has been developed, dreams were seen differently. The interpreting of dreams has a long tradition in human history, and many books have been written ever since.
In ancient history, dreams were considered as a supernatural form of communication or as divine intervention. People sought help from priests and magicians to discover the hidden meanings of their dreams and to gather help before making decisions.
For the occult, dreams are in a sense more real than the perceived realty of the day. For the old Icelandic tradition, the people we meet in dreams wanted to visit us – therefore it is not a coincidence when we see them in our dreams. (Ever dreamt of your Ex? So annoying.) Interesting to know, dreams for the Icelandic tradition are not representing our past, but our future. Quite contrary to what modern psychology tells us.
The interpreting of dreams is not as easy, for the symbols of our dreams often represent the opposite: Losing something can represent the actual finding of something in “real” life.
How to recognize lucid dreams
Controlling your dreams seems to be the ultimate goal to achieve, however, I do not think this is a good idea. But despite of the awareness of dreaming, lucid dreams have another side to them, which could never be the topic of scientific explanations.
I often had dreams which came true, but more so, they were revealing. For real. But without going into details about my vivid dream life, the question is pressing for some to know how to tell whether it is was “normal” or a lucid dream.
Signs of Lucid Dreaming
1. Distinct Beginning and Ending
The most important thing to know about lucid dreams: they have a distinct beginning and ending. Normally, dreams start in the middle of something, have no endings, and do not have a coherent story line. You jump from this to that, and you can vaguely remember the coherencies when you wake up. This is way it is so hard to tell someone about your dreams.
On contrary, lucid dreams start just like the beginning of a movie, have a coherent storyline and are ending accordingly. It is relatively easy to remember them; and to talk about them without making a fuzz. Like you would explain the storyline of a movie you just watched.
2. Lucid Dreams are Reality-Like
Lucid dreams are not strange in a dream-like sense. Dreams often make no sense. Something is weird, the dimensions are blurred, the people are talking about stuff that absolutely would not make sense in real life, you jump from scene to scene, some fantasy-like stuff is happening, you can fly, you can see monsters, all that kind of dreamy stuff. Short, they are full of that kind of stuff that only can happen in dreams, or Hollywood movies.
Lucid dreams are different, because there is no such strange fantasy stuff happening. Lucid dreams are reality-like, not surrealistic. This makes them exhausting to have.
3. Lucid Dreams are revealing their meaning
There is no sense in interpreting this kind of dreams psychologically. There is no deeper meaning to be found, for they are already revealing their truth. They do not speak to you in symbols.
4. People appear as themselves
People appear as themselves. They are not representing someone else, like a mother- or father figure, even though you might not know them in person. I found that sometimes people visiting me to tell me something they can not tell someone else.
5. You can remember lucid dreams forever
Period.
Said that, I hope you do not chase to have lucid dreams or trying some techniques to control your dreams. I cannot recommend doing so. In sleeping state, we have the chance to let got of the ever-controlling mind – if not, even sleep becomes hard work.
As always, so much more needs to be said on this topic.
Love, Leni