Let's learn to control our dreams!
And other people's minds.
But we'll start with dreams.
Anthony here for DNews and you guys have been asking a LOT about Lucid Dreaming lately.
I've been able to do it fairly consistently since I was about 13, so I thought sure- I
can talk about that.
A lucid dream is one where you know you're dreaming.
You can also potentially control it- you can turn a nightmare into a good dream, fly, go
places you've never been, do some sexy things- a lot of my teenage ones were about sexy things.
So how does it work and how can you do it?
The how of it is complicated.
We're not even entirely sure why we dream, which is what makes lucid dreaming so valuable
to scientists.
Studying the brain of someone who can dream about exactly what they're told to can help
create a sort of control group so researchers can see just what's happening in different
brains during similar dreams, and maybe finally figure out just why it happens.
We do know this - dreaming is sort of a whole brain activity.
The pons system of your brain stem initiates it, your limbic system adds emotions, and
your prefrontal cortex puts it all together.
But the parts of your brain associated with self-awareness are are turned off.
In a study run by the Max Planck Institutes of Psychiatry, they found that people who
can have lucid dreams can switch those parts of their brain on- be self-aware AND dreaming
at the same time.
So, if you want to make yourself a flying robot sex god in your dreams, how do you do
it?
Step one: keep a dream journal.
Whenever you wake up, write down as much about your dreams as you remember- you'll start
to recognize certain patterns in them.
That'll make you more likely to notice them when you're dreaming.
You should also start reality testing.
Throughout the day, stop and ask yourself: "Am I dreaming?"
Then test things around you to make sure you aren't.
Flip a lightswitch.
Look at your watch a couple times.
If you're dreaming, the switch won't do anything and your watch will be keeping really, really
strange time.
Once you're lucid, it's hard to stay lucid and sleeping.
Your body either wants to wake up or keep dreaming as usual.
People who are new to it tend to wake up right after they notice they're dreaming.
If you feel like you're waking up, you're supposed to look at the ground and spin around
in your dream.
The technique was discovered by Stephen LaBerge, a psychiatrist who studies lucid dreams- his
theory is that familiar motion like that engages your senses and makes your brain focus on
the dream.
So there you go.
Go forth, you dream explorers, and report your results back to me.
Unless it's sexy stuff.
That sort of dream is just for you, okay?
If there's anything else that you want us to make a video about, definitely leave it
down below.
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