Lucid Dreaming (My Lucid Dream Last Night)

A lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming.
During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment.^[1][2][3]
The term 'lucid dream' was coined by Dutch author and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden in his 1913 article A Study of Dreams,^[4] though descriptions of dreamers being aware that they are dreaming predates the term.

 Last night, I had quite a frustrating "nightmare" that I was able to transform into a lucid dream. I was frustrated because of damage to camper that I was using for business parked at an airport. However, I had to fly out on emergency, so I could not follow through on finding out what happened and who damaged it. When I got back to airport, I looked for now missing camper, and started asking around, but nobody seemed to know anything. It was very busy, so I waited until later in between flights in slack period. There I saw a well-dressed intelligent - looking woman behind the information desk, so I went up and asked her about the van. She did not hesitate, and said yes, Mr. Alexander. We have it in the parking garage for you, here follow me. When I got down there, I was surprised that it looked brand new. She told me that "we know what happened to your van, and it was one of our vehicles that hit it, so we took completely care of it."  I translated this into my frustration at finding people to help me with my interviews, so I  kept asking, and now I have one very happy volunteer, with more on the way. My volunteer is a retired Red Cross Nurse, who used to work with vets. in palliative and hospice care, and enjoyed hearing their stories then and now as an interviewer. I am interviewing another lady who I read about being in charge of "Backpack Journalists". Mostly high school students, that have been interviewing Vietnam Vets. Linda, the leader, has a lot of high tech hardware, which she is willing to help me with, and said she would even go to some interviews with me. A plus is that she is a full time teacher at the Citadel, which I have always expected help from and have called a few times. Anyway I feel good about being tenacious asking and being patient for positive results, sort of like the dream.

 

Early references to the phenomenon are found in ancient Greek writings. For example, the philosopher Aristotle wrote: 'often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream'

In Eastern thought, cultivating the dreamer's ability to be aware that he or she is dreaming is central to both the Tibetan Buddhist practice of dream Yoga, and the ancient Indian Hindu practice of Yoga nidra. The cultivation of such awareness was common practice among early Buddhists.^[8]

The first peer-reviewed article on the subject was published by Stephen LaBerge at Stanford University, who developed such techniques as part of his doctoral dissertation.^[24] In 1985, LaBerge performed a pilot study that showed that time perception while counting during a lucid dream is about the same as during waking life. Lucid dreamers counted out ten seconds while dreaming, signaling the start and the end of the count with a pre-arranged eye signal measured with electrooculogram recording.^[25][26][27] LaBerge's results were confirmed by German researchers D. Erlacher and M. Schredl, in 2004.^[28]
In a further study by Stephen LaBerge, four subjects were compared either singing while dreaming or counting while dreaming. LaBerge found that the right hemisphere was more active during singing and the left hemisphere was more active during counting.^{[29]
I did an all night workshop led by Stephen LaBerge at Berkeley Ca. in 1986 and found out I have a propensity to be able to "live" in my dreams with some presleep visualization. Ron Alexander}

 

Ron Alexander Lucid Dreaming can be used for: 1. Solving problems 2. Unleashing Creativity 3. Stopping a nightmare 4. Healing the body 5. Focusing on specific issue. 6. Enjoying fantasy and adventure 7. Finding inner peace.