A short YouTube talk (Charlie Morley, via Mindvalley) listing five claims about lucid dreaming: (1) children naturally lucid dream (Harvard study claimed on ages 6–16), (2) lucid dreaming produces a gamma brain state that boosts waking energy and mindfulness, (3) lucid dreaming reactivates the prefrontal cortex and can engage neuroplasticity enabling skill rehearsal and improvement, (4) lucid dreaming is an effective intervention for recurring nightmares and PTSD with reported use by military veterans (speaker gave a 2019 talk to the UK Ministry of Defence), and (5) reports of lucid-dream healing via visualization/placebo effects reducing waking ailments. The speaker invites viewers to learn more via his Mindvalley Masterclass.
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With so much misunderstanding out there about what lucid dreaming is and how it works, I want to give you the facts, five facts about lucid dreaming that might just blow your mind. Number one, children naturally lucid dream. A recent Harvard study looking at children from the ages of 6 to 16 found that most kids reported regular lucid dreams as part of their childhood development. The fact that kids naturally lucid dream tells us two important things. Number one, lucid dreaming isn't some alien imposition that we force upon the unconscious mind. It is a natural, spontaneous arising of the human psychology. We don't need to learn how to lucid dream, we need to remember. Because as children we knew how to do it already. Lucid dreaming gives you more energy. This is a weird one, because a lot of people think that lucid dreaming is going to make you feel tired. Actually, quite the opposite is true. Once we become lucid, the brain often moves into a gamma way brain state. This is a brain state usually associated with people who've done more than 10,000 hours of meditation. But because lucid dreaming is a natural state of meditation, the brain moves into gamma spontaneously. So of course, when you wake from a lucid dream, you wake with a brain that has been bathed in gamma. And gamma is going to give you more energy and more mindfulness in your waking state. You can rewire your brain through lucid dreaming. I know this sounds far out, but once you become lucid, the prefrontal cortex becomes reactivated. And once the prefrontal cortex is reactivated, neuroplasticity becomes engaged. This is the capacity of the human brain to rewire itself in favor of a newly learnt skill or a repeated action. Scientific studies have shown that if you practice a certain athletic discipline within the lucid dream, the brain rewires itself, actually allowing yourself to get better at that athletic discipline in the waking state. Lucid dreaming has been scientifically verified as such a powerful intervention for recurring nightmares that military veterans. Veterans are now practicing lucid dreaming as a way to integrate their post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, lucid dreaming for the treatment of recurring nightmares in veterans has been so effective that in 2019, I was invited to the Ministry of Defence in London to give a talk to 300 Ministry of Defence employees about the power of lucid dreaming and its potential to help military and ex military veterans. Lucid dreaming is such a powerful treatment for trauma integration that there's now even a practice called lucid dreaming therapy in which psychotherapists use lucid dreaming techniques with their client to help them integrate their trauma. There's even the potential for lucid dream healing. Subjects report going into the lucid dream and applying certain visualized healing techniques that through the power of the maximized placebo that occurs within the lucid dream state leads to a reduction of waking state ailments based on a lucid dream healing. So there you have it. Five facts about lucid dreaming that you probably didn't know. Want to come and learn more? Join me at the Mindvalley Masterclass. See you there.
