We’ve gone over what lucid dreams are and hinted on how to have them, but we haven’t answered a very important question: what is the point in trying to have a lucid dream? To answer that question, you need only realize that becoming aware you are dreaming presents you with the opportunity to take absolute and complete control of your dreams. In your dreams you are not bound by any physical or imposed restraints—anything is possible. The possibilities of your dreams are limited only by the confines of your own imagination. That premise creates the impression that lucid dreams are used only to create our own pseudo-realities; that is only half the picture. There are also some serious practical uses for lucid dreams in which you should consider, and we’ll get into all of that now.
Below are some common reasons for lucid dreaming, broken down into the following categories:
Adventure and Excitement
To fully experience lucid dreaming, you have to remember that you are not governed by any laws in your dreams: you have complete freedom. Instead of walking to school or work, you can fly. While in mid-flight you may spontaneously decide you’d rather explore the elusive depths of the ocean without a breathing apparatus, or travel at incomprehensible speeds and explore the endless heavens around us without a ship. Or perhaps you’ll remember a book or a movie that captured your soul—perhaps you’ll become the main character of that book or movie and live for a short while in that story. Or maybe you’d just like to live your own life, with the added bonus of not being restricted by any consequences of your actions. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to tell off your boss, or push your car to its maximum speed (and beyond) on an open stretch of highway. Regardless, it will likely take a while for you to fully appreciate the idea that you can do whatever you imagine—you’ll likely think things are not possible during your first few lucid dreams, and be unable to do them.
Social Practice
If you have never experienced lucid dreaming before, you are probably just vaguely skimming through this site while only half paying attention—you are completely unaware of how incredibly and profoundly vivid and realistic lucid dreaming can be. Indeed, it can be so realistic that you can use it to rehearse for situations you may encounter in life. Have you ever wished to have a moment back so that you could change it because at the time you weren’t sure what to do? Lucid dreaming clearly cannot do that for you, and dreaming of that moment isn’t very beneficial since it will simply instill a greater longing to have that moment back. You can, however, try out new behaviours and test yourself under different situations and scenarios, and learn from the results. In this respect you can perhaps prepare yourself for moments that have not yet happened, and perhaps prevent yourself from making otherwise inescapable mistakes. Remember, we all make mistakes because we all have things we need to learn. Some things are perhaps best learnt without having to do so at the expense of others. Some examples of using lucid dreaming for rehearsal are for social events, public speaking, difficult or awkward confrontations (such as firing someone, or even proposing marriage), etc.
Of course, everything is controlled by your own mind, so in whatever situations you find yourself dreaming about you’re essentially guessing how others will react. Clearly this is not that exact because it’s not all that often that we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to know someone well enough that we can fill in all the “blanks”; thus, a lot of guessing will be done on your part to determine how others will react in your dreams. In some situations responses are relatively easy to predict, especially when you factor in your own experiences and insight into who people are. Be careful not to convince yourself that you know someone well enough that you’re sure how he or she will react, however—just because we acted one way in one situation doesn’t mean we’ll at all act similarly in another. Regardless, you of course have the ability to create similar moments indefinitely, which allows you to better prepare yourself for a wide range of outcomes. Remember that you’re just rehearsing though…don’t become lost in your pseudo-realities.
Stopping Nightmares
Most of us look forward to sleep because it is a very peaceful time and allows us to unwind and forget, for a short while, the endless unrest of our waking lives. Some people, however, dread falling asleep because they are plagued by incessant nightmares. Lucid dreaming can play a very important role in alleviating the fear of nightmares. With dream control you can completely alter the setting and context of your dream, effectively defeating your nightmare. Even if full dream control isn’t achieved, being consciously aware you are dreaming will lessen the devastating effects nightmares can have on you: knowing a situation isn’t real drastically attenuates the fear or intimidation that would normally be associated with that situation. Lucid dreaming may also rid one of nightmares permanently, and may actually be psychologically beneficial because it provides one with the opportunity to face up to his or her fears on his or her own terms, which is usually not that possible in the waking world. Lucid dreaming can provide you with the opportunity to realize that your fears are perhaps unfounded and help you find the confidence to overcome them in the real world.
Problem Solving
This is a very interesting aspect of REM sleep. Sleep is seen as a time of rest; it may seem strange that the brain is highly active during REM sleep, comparable to when awake. Some studies even suggest the brain is most creative during the period between waking and REM sleep, although those studies are beyond the scope of this site. A possible explanation to the heightened mental abilities of the brain during sleep is the lack of sensory input—the brain is not focused on our senses, such as sight, hearing, etc. Thus, the brain can focus more readily on creative problem solving. Problem solving while dreaming obviously can be quite difficult since one would really have to focus on one’s intent and prevent extraneous interference from distracting him or her. I’m sure we all appreciate how easy it is to become distracted in our dreams, losing sight of something that happened moments before as something completely new happens.
Miscellaneous/Not so Practical
The four reasons for wanting to induce lucid dreams I’ve given thus far are rather practical and easily understood and accepted. There are those who sleep at night and use their dreams for more fantastic/controversial purposes. I don’t have much experience or knowledge in this area, but I will share what I know. One of these uses for lucid dreams is called dreamscaping. Dreamscaping seems to encompass a number of things, one of which is sharing a dream with someone else—not simply having an identical dream, but rather, actually joining someone in a dream; it is sometimes also known as collective dreaming. I cannot say whether this is possible or not, but there are those who swear it is. The idea itself I think is fascinating—to actually be able to find someone else while dreaming—but again I cannot say whether it is possible or not.
Another use that falls under this category is called astral projection. Astral projection is another term for an "out of body experience"--something I'm sure we've all at least heard about. This involves travelling to distant locations without our bodies, or even simply the sensation that we've left our body but haven't gone far. I again know nothing about this, but the Lucid Crossroads site presents more information on OBEs here.
A final use that I’ll place in this category might hit a little closer to home to most people than the others. Some of us explore our dreams simply looking for answers to questions that we otherwise cannot answer. That previous sentence speaks volumes, so I’ll leave it at that.
If you’re interested in reading about others’ reasons for having lucid dreams and their experiences, you can visit the Lucid Experiences forum on our message board. To read more about not-so-practical uses for lucid dreams, try Beyond Dreaming on the message board. Next, we’ll discuss how learnable lucid dreaming really is.
