Lucid dreaming

I was recently reminded about an article I read in The New Scientist a couple of months ago. It’s not something I’d usually buy but a friend of mine happened to steal it from a motorway service station whilst we were on the way up to Edinburgh. I don’t condone shoplifting but of all the magazines to take then it’s not a bad choice, at least if he got caught he might have been able to claim some sort of intellectual superiority over the security guard. It wasn’t Heat magazine at least. I guess he took it out of boredom. The journey from London to Scotland by car is pretty tough, as a passenger there’s only so much sleeping you can do.

So, out of boredom, I browsed the stolen copy of The New Scientist. To be honest, most of the articles required a level of concentration that I was neither willing nor able to give. Orbits, distances, equations etc.

Seconds before throwing it on the back shelf I came across an article on dreaming. It was called something like ‘How to Direct Your Dreams’. I read it thoroughly and it gave me a seed of an idea for a story/film so I tore it out, hoping to use it for future reference. Now I can't find it.

Dreams, I think, are the lift shafts down into the deepest vaults of our imagination. There’s nothing quite like a vivid dream, one where you wake to a feeling of inexplicable abstract change. When I was in primary school I had a dream about a girl, I’d never met her in real life, didn’t even get a clear image of her face, but for what felt like days after I was still thinking about her. I can still conjure up the raw, intense emotion that the dream stirred in me.

The New Scientist article was about lucid dreams, dreams where the dreamer is fully conscious and aware that they are dreaming. I thought I'd had something similar to a lucid dream but after looking it up I’ve found out that what I had is actually called hypnagogic hallucination, which occurs during and after sleep paralysis. It was horrible the first time I experienced it, no matter how much I tried to talk and move I just couldn’t, but my eyes were half open and I could faintly see the dark shapes of my room. Since then I’ve had it a handful of times (over the last 5 years or so) and I’d say that when it happens it only lasts for a couple of minutes, if that.

I now know, albeit vaguely, the reason behind why it happens. When we’re asleep our body shuts down our muscles so that a) we don’t physically act out our dreams, b) injure ourselves whilst doing so and c) waste energy when we’re supposed to be relaxing. So if your mind wakes up whilst your body is still in the sleep state then in feels like you’re trapped in a void where you can’t move or speak. Also, during sleep paralysis the mind is almost still in a dream state so it’s common for people to hallucinate whilst it’s happening (as the imagination engine used in dreaming is still whirring away).

Hypnagogic hallucinations are thought to be an explanation of why some people are convinced they were abducted by aliens and could also explain the phenomenon of out of body experiences.

In Thai folklore it’s thought that ‘widow ghosts’ are the reason for sleep paralysis, causing it by lying on their victims chest and preventing them from moving. Some young Thai men even paint their finger nails red or put lipstick on before going to bed in order to trick the spirit into thinking they’re a women. Others just do it for kicks.

In East Asia ‘Nightmare Death Syndrome’ is recognized as being a leading cause of death in young men.

Although sleep paralysis isn’t widely discussed in the West (despite 60% of the European and American population claiming to have experienced it) it has played a large part in European folklore, with age-old tales of malignant female spirits haunting dreamers.

In this context the etymology of the word nightmare makes a lot of sense considering that the word mare originates from mara, which is the Old Norse (ancient Scandinavian) word for an immaterial female spirit that seats herself on the chest of a sleeping person and rides them until she infiltrates their dream.

She can ride me any night.

Amongst people who experience sleep paralysis there are some striking similarities in the accounts that they give. The most common is the feeling that there’s a weight on one’s chest, that the shadows turn darker and draw closer, that the bed covers feel like they are slowly being pulled away and that a humming sound can be heard. Everyone who has had sleep paralysis has experienced at least one, if not all of those symptoms.

So I suppose if you’ve never had sleep paralysis before you must be thinking it sounds pretty horrible. For everyone who’s had it, the first few time are always horrible and frightening. After that, for most people, it stays horrible and frightening. But for a few, myself included, it can actually be turned into an enjoyable experience.

It was only after a particularly bad experience of it that I realised the potential of using it to my advantage. It was the third or fourth time it had happened to me, I woke up in the middle of the night and after realising that I couldn’t move a muscle I tried with all my might to get up, but to no avail. After repeatedly struggling to move I eventually managed it. I then pulled off the bed cover, got up and started walking towards my window. Then, before I knew it, I was back in bed, still rooted to the same position. To call my experience of getting up and walking to the window a dream doesn’t do it justice. It was so close to reality that I was genuinely shocked and amazed when I realized that I'd just that second dreamt it.

So, since then, whenever it’s happened (which isn’t very often) I’ve consciously attempted to not struggle and instead relax into it and try to prompt another vivid dream. So far I’ve had no luck, the hardest thing is to not fight against it, it goes against all human impulses not to struggle. When I do manage to get calm I’ve just ended up drifting off to sleep and eventually woken up normally.

The thing that fascinated me so much about that article is its suggestion that if conscious dreaming can be harnessed then there’s nothing stopping us from directing our own dreams.

One of the tips it gives to have a lucid dream is to constantly question, throughout your waking life, whether or not you are actually awake. If you can make this a habit that you seem to do involuntarily then you might also find yourself doing it in your dream. If so, it gives your consciousness a way into the dream and thus the potential to control and shape it as you see fit.

*Corrections & Clarifications

Dear James,

I enjoyed your article immensely, it provided a succinct and humorous reportage of events and developed into a wonderfully indepth exploration of your own experiences. Please note however that your friend stole said copy of New Scientist not from boredom but curiosity and therein lies a world of difference. Curiosity as i'm sure you well know is a trait well-loved in the scientific community and despite my having chosen an arts degree, I consider myself to have something of a scientific mind. I look upon this misreading of events as a slight against myself and consider your judgment impertinent and erroneous. I do not care in the slightest for you to change it, but please be aware of these discrepancies in the future.

I am pleased to hear you are having some success in 'directing' your own dreams. You are also a hero for not once mentioning Christopher Nolan's turd-fest, 'Inception'.

PS: I would have gotten 'Wallpaper' if they'd had it.
PPS: I hope you understand my tongue is placed almost 100% firm inside cheek