I would appreciate if those of you that are interested in this theory take the time to read it and offer me some feedback.

This theory began opening up to me as I was lying in bed last night, considering some of my dreams. I remembered a dream from the night before, where I was walking toward a place that, in my dream, I remembered being at in a dream a few months ago (I was not lucid, though). I was approaching this place from a different direction, but it was still the same place, with a few differences.

Then I began to come up with my theory. I thought about some of my other dreams, where I would revisit certain areas in my dreams that I had been before. Each time, in the dream, I would partially realize this, yet not fully acknowledge it, unless I was lucid. But when I woke up, I would usually forget the occurance.

So here is a summarized explanation of my theory: I believe that each person has a subconscious world in their mind, that is visited each time we dream. This world has been formed by our experiences, memories, desires, fears, thoughts, etc, over the years. This world is a map of our subconscious, yet is always evolving and expanding from day to day. Where we go in the world is determined by what we've been thinking, what has been happening in our lives, what desires we have nurtured, etc. Certain things might seem to remain the same over the years, though. Those are probably the corest part of ourselves, which can result in emotional recurring dreams and repetitive dream locations. But because of the malleability of our subconscious mind, each location, or objects at the location, are subject to change by the plot of the dream. Maybe a castle on a hill that you visit one night may morph into a warehouse with gunmen another night, since the plot involves some sort of chase or violence. But you still have the very distinct feeling that you've been there before in another dream; and you have. You remember that hill, and the inexplicable feeling associated with that place each time you visit it.

This world is based both upon the conscious world we live in every day, and the substance of our subconscious, which, in the dream-state, is transformed into a visual representation. There is a tennis court that I often visit in my dreams. The tennis court is real, and exists. But each time I visit it in my dreams, which is often, it is slightly different each time, due to the plot of the dream, and the interweaving of the actual place with the subconscious feelings associated with it, which manifest themselves as a visual alterration of the actual place.

So I believe this world is an intricate blending of real-world locations, and visually manifested subconscious substance. When we have a dream where we remember having been there in a dream once before, that is caused by the real-world influence of that place, which is unchanging. But the varying appearance of the location is caused by the changeable subconscious version of the place. So it would probably be possible to actually map out our subconscious world, if only we were able to access it freely in the conscious state and travel through it. But I still believe it is already mapped out in our brain, and always expanding outward as our lives go on, not to mention each place evolving based on our experiences and feelings with those places.

Now, I've mentioned real-world places that comprise our subconscious world, but are there places in our subconscious world that are completely based on our subconscious, and unaffected by real-world influence? Yes. These places are created by our unique and original thoughts and fantasies. These places may consist of real-world objects, textures, and our understanding of the tangible world, but the places themselves are manifested by either a single fantasy, or a combination of different fantasy elements. The balance of the reality/fantasy ratio of the subconscious world depends greatly on the type of mind the person has.

PART 2:

Creative and imaginative persons will tend to have a much more flexible world which contains a greater number of fantasy and subconscious elements. Left-brained and logic-heavy individuals are those that likely dream of very normal places with fewer imaginative elements. These individuals are likely those that dream in black and white. Right-brained and creative individuals experience a dream-world that is very flexible and imaginative. These tend to be those that experience lucid dreams most often, because, since their conscious minds tend to already use creative and imaginative parts of their brain, it increases the connectivity between their conscious and subconscious. Their brains desire to create and form things. When they enter a dream, where everything is being created as it goes, certain key visual and emotional elements can trigger the conscious mind, unifying it with the subconscious, and thus, attaining lucidity. Their dreaming experience becomes much like the conscious creative process of an active right-brained person, and so this creative process of the subconscious branches out to the conscious mind, which, if routinely exercised in creative activity during the day, is triggered by the familiar happenings of the subconscious, and included in the creative process of dreaming. That is why when someone starts attaining lucidity and exerts effort to exercise the mind during lucid sessions and experiment with different ideas, the conscious mind becomes more accustomed to joining the subconscious in dreaming sessions. Thenceforth, when vivid dreaming or particular dream signs occur, the reaction of the conscious mind is much like that of Pavlov's dogs, hearing the bell and reacting to it.

I believe that one key to becoming adept at lucid dreaming is to become very familiar and acquainted with your dream world/dream landscape. Write down all of the different real world places you tend to revisit, as well as the imaginary landscapes or locations that you visit on an occasional to frequent basis. If you begin remembering different imaginary landscapes, you will probably notice that even though they are not true real-world places, they are probably heavily influenced by a certain place or habitat, or a blended combination of different areas that are of interest to you. It is my experience that the only true fantasy dreamworld locations occur during the most vivid dreaming sessions, or during highly controlled lucid dreams. Even in some of my strangest fantasy dreams, if I took a bit of time to dissect different visual elements of it, I begin to see a mesh of real-world influence. But that is hardly an insult to the creative potential of the mind. It is a true wonder that the mind can seamlessly incorporate so many different places, objects, fantasies, thoughts, and emotions into a real-time dreamscape. An interesting part of vivid dreaming is the occurance of some form of synaesthesia. The emotion of an object or place is felt, instead of the isolated internal emotion of self. That is because we are no longer experiencing the world as a body in the world, where we experience emotions caused by input from the outside. But instead, in a dreamworld, we ARE the dreamworld. Each part is a piece of the person. And so, as the dream is happening, we react to and feel each change that takes place during the dream.

For example, a colorful sunlit meadow may be a representation of a certain emotion or feeling you have in real life; maybe representing a desire for peaceful solitude. Every time you have a dream about that meadow or a similar meadow, you wake up with that odd clinging dream emotion, although you may not be sure why or what it is from. You feel peaceful, and almost poignant for several hours. This is because you just experienced a direct contact with one of your core emotions/desires that triggered multiple senses at once. Even after you wake up, that emotion remains active, and will only begin to subside when it becomes ignored or buried under other activities and emotions.

So now, when you experience one of those highly affective dreams that seems to leave a strong afterglow, or aftershock, you can realize that certain parts of that affective dream were expressions of some of your strongest core emotions. This can be useful, because when you learn to isolate what facets of the dream were the strongest affecters, you can try to understand what those things mean to you, and why they have the affect they do. This is particularly useful for dreams that you find perturbing, and that leave a negative vibe on you. You can isolate the negative elements and then find a way to work through the negativity of it. The visual aspect gives the problems and emotions a visual or tangible association, which can make it easier for some people to understand and isolate. This kind of problem-solving drives directly into your subconscious, because you are revisiting a subconscious situation, and then attempting to alter it in a positive way.

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This concludes the extent of my theory and ideas on this subject for now. I will probably later attempt to make an actual essay of it. But for now I just wanted to get the ideas down. Please offer me some feedback if you have any! And I also thank you if you took the time to read it all.