A dream is a wish your heart makes

“A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you’re fast asleep.”

While most people will recognize this quote as a lyric from a classic Disney song, with all fluffiness aside, it turns out that there really is some scientific truth behind it. Despite the fact that we often remember very little from our dreams, we actually experience around three to seven of them each night. Lasting anywhere from a few seconds to as long as 20 minutes, these vivid sequences of images and ideas primarily appear throughout the mind during the rapid eye movement stage of sleep, where the eyes execute continuous movements and the brain is relatively active.

Although the content and purpose of dreams are not well understood, the ability to manipulate them can be achieved through lucid dreaming, a term invented by Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden. In this unique dream state, one is fully aware that they are dreaming, and possesses the ability to exert control over the content of their imaginary experiences to a certain degree. This occurs as a result of increased activity by the parietal lobes of the brain which allow it to be a conscious process.

Photo of Dutch psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden who coined the term “lucid dreaming”. Image obtained via wikimedia commons from user Michiel1972.

So who can lucid dream and what makes it worth doing? Well it turns out that anybody can. It simply requires effort. Aside from the idea that it would be rather neat to control or choose what we dream about, some people lucid dream for more serious and practical reasons. In this sense, studies have shown that the practice of lucid dreaming could ultimately make a person happier. For example, after a rough day, lucid dreaming could be the perfect remedy to relieve stress as it allows you to temporarily escape from reality into an ideal, fantasy world that is ultimately created by you.

In addition, a more sensible and perhaps more obvious use of lucid dreaming would be to simply stop a nightmare. During a nightmare, the power of lucid dreaming will lead you to realize that it is only a dream, and will subsequently allow you to either to wake up or turn the nightmare into something pleasant. With the ability to lucid dream, you can practically dream of anything you want!

See your imagination run wild in a lucid dream. Image obtained via Flickr Creative Commons from user gerardoalmaraz.

Now the question is, how do we initiate a lucid dream? Here is a short video by YouTube user AsapSCIENCE that highlights and explains some of the major steps that must be followed in order to successfully achieve a lucid dream.

With a little bit of practice, you will soon be able to dream of that unrealistic life you’ve always longed for (literally), where you’re happily married to either Ryan Gosling or Scarlett Johansson, or studying at Hogwarts. So start now and dream away!

– Clarissa Ngui