What is lucid dreaming?
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WHAT IS LUCID DREAMING?\n\nLucid dreaming means dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. The term was coined by Frederik van Eeden  who used the word "lucid" in the sense of mental clarity. Lucidity usually begins in the midst of a dream when the dreamer realizes that the experience is not occurring in physical reality, but is a dream. Often this realization is triggered by the dreamer noticing some impossible or unlikely occurrence in the dream, such as flying or meeting the deceased. Sometimes people become lucid without noticing any particular clue in the dream; they just suddenly realize they are in a dream. A minority of lucid dreams (according to the research of LaBerge and colleagues, about 10 percent) are the result of returning to REM (dreaming) sleep directly from an awakening with unbroken reflective consciousness.\n\nThe basic definition of lucid dreaming requires nothing more than becoming aware that you are dreaming. However, the quality of lucidity can vary greatly. When lucidity is at a high level, you are aware that everything experienced in the dream is occurring in your mind, that there is no real danger, and that you are asleep in bed and will awaken shortly. With low-level lucidity you may be aware to a certain extent that you are dreaming, perhaps enough to fly or alter what you are doing, but not enough to realize that the people are dream representations, or that you can suffer no physical damage, or that you are actually in bed.
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Unfortunately, there's no easy answer there.  Simply put, a dream is where you become conscious of some activity in the brain that occurs seemingly randomly in the brain while the normal mechanisms that make your conscious reality--both actions and perceptions--are disabled (partially of completely).\n\nThe problem with finding a good scientific answer is that the dream is by definition subjective rather than objective. Science might try to localize where certain brain functions occur in the brain, and they might be able to show what parts of the brain correlate to conscious perception, but they can't -explain- consciousness per se.  Consciousness is subjective, and science is objective.
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Find articles has some very interesting articles on the subject.  "Dreaming for dollars - technology for lucid dreaming - Cover Story."  "Take control of your dreams: the technique of lucid dreaming can help you use your dreams to explore your psyche - includes related article"\n\nFind articles is a good place to find articles that you may be looking for.  Also check wikipedia.org for more sources and information.
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Dreams are our body's way of dealing with stress subconsciously or working a problem out. There's valid reasoning behind the phrase "I'll sleep on it."
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When we dream we release suppressed pictures or thoughts which for some reason we could not release when we are awake. These pictures or thoughts are suppressed in our subconscious mind.If a person is logical what is suppressed make more of a logical event which we call a dream.If he is not logical he still dreams but the dream will be sort of awkward.
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Dreams are the subconscious minds' method of acting out possible scenarios in our own lives. There have been experiments into sleep deprivation...dreaming occurs during the REM (rapid-eye-movement) cycle and at this point the body is paralysed, all apart from breathing equipment and the eyes. This is to stop the body physically acting out its dreams. Nightmares occur when the dreams basically overlap into the non-REM cycle (non-rapid-eye-movement), it is at this point that people sleep walk or talk.\nDuring these experiments, participants were woken as soon as they fell into REM sleep (dream sleep), this stopped them from having dreams. Participants reported that they felt as if they had had no sleep, they eventually started having hallucinations...the body was having dreams during the period that they were awake, they overlapped into the conscious mind, such was the physical need to have dreams.\nNo-one actually knows why people (and animals) have dreams, but researchers have acknowledged their significance in human evolution.
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"...research by Mark Solms suggests that dreams are generated in the forebrain, and that REM sleep and dreaming are not directly related. [2]\n\nCombining Hobson's activation synthesis hypothesis with Holms's findings, the continual-activation theory of dreaming presented by Jie Zhang proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis, and at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. The theory is developed through a series of hypotheses. By introducing a temporary memory stage into the memory process, Zhang first proposed that the memory formed during waking time is not saved directly into the long-term memory; instead it is saved into a temporary memory store. He, then, divides brain into two subsidiary systems: the conscious brain and the non-conscious brain. Zhang hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory. NREM sleep processes the conscious related memory (declarative memory); and REM sleep processes the non-conscious related memory (procedural memory). He further hypothesizes that both conscious and non-conscious subsidiary systems of brain have to be continually activated through their life times. When the level of activation of either subsidiary system descends to a given threshold, a continual-activation mechanism will be triggered to maintain brain continual activation. Zhang assumes that during REM sleep, the non-conscious part of brain is busy to process the procedural memory; in the meanwhile, the level of activation in the conscious part of brain will descend to a very low level as the inputs from the sensory are basically disconnected. This will trigger the continual-activation mechanism to generate a data stream from the memory stores to flow through the conscious part of brain. Zhang suggests that this pulse-like brain activation is the inducer of each dream. He proposes that, with the involvement of brain associative thinking system, dreaming is, thereafter, self maintained with dreamer's own thinking until the next pulse of memory insertion. This explains why dreams have both characteristics of continuity (within a dream) and sudden scene changes (between two dreams). [3][4]..."
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dreaming with your eyes open.
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Yes, sometimes!   The detailed dreams are called lucid dreams. You should research it on the internet.
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Yes. Think of when you dream. Your thoughts do not stop when you're dreaming; they just take on a different form. The left hemisphere thinks in words, the right hemisphere (the dreaming spiritual side of you) thinks in images and that's what you experience in your sleep. When you are in the dream, especially in lucid dreams...your thoughts manifest. In out of body experiences, just thinking of a place takes you there. But on a simpler note, when you are thinking about what you 'should' have said to the person that hurt you and you're consumed with that thought, pay attention, and you will find that your mind is giving you the opportunity to relive the incident in your mind to set it right...it is not there to fuel your anger and your consumption, but to give you the opportunity to 'vent' that. In other words, your mind / self FEEDS (follows) your thoughts and manifests them to satisfy them (to make them happen)...it's automatic...we just are not usually aware of that cuz our emotions cloud our perception of what our thoughts created inside our minds. Now if you want to take that 'thought' further, relax and give form to your thoughts 'visualize' the end result of what you want and it will manifest as quickly as your BELIEF allows it to. Remember, causality is not what we 'perceive' in the material world. Past, present and future are all happening at once and the effect precedes the cause and that's why visualization works. Good luck :)
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Conscious and Lucid dreaming are one in the same. This is where you come to the realization that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. When this happens you have the capacity to the mold the dream the way you would like it to go. \n\nThis actually happens quite often to me.\n\nThe best tip I have to having these types of dreams is to ask yourself several times a day if you are dreaming. By making it a habit to check if you are dreaming when you are not you will also make it a habit to check if you are dreaming when you actually are.\n\nHope this helps.
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DREAMS\n\nAll of us have experienced "dreams". Sometimes they are good other times they are bad (nightmares), while in still others they are just confusing. I have seen many dreams, and actually do not remember most of them. They seem very real, yet you just forget it really quickly. So exactly what are dreams?\n\nWe typically spend 2 hours a night dreaming and in 85 to 90% of REM awakenings a dream is reported (5). The REM stage has always been considered the most intriguing, not only because of its unique features in relation to the other stages, but because of its strong correlation to dreams. It has been experimented that most people who claim to see dreams are awakened from REM (2). REM sleep begins with the pons sending signals to the thalamus, which then goes on to the cerebral cortex. Signals from the pons that shut down neurons in the spinal chord is seen as the source of the limb muscle paralysis. REM's relation with the cerebral cortex is seen as the source of dreams. Some scientists say that dreams are the cortex's attempt to find meaning in the random signals it receives during REM sleep (1). \n\nAlthough it is not fully proven, it is possible to see why the pons sends signals to shut down the limb muscles. In recent years it has been discovered that the paralysis prevents us from harming ourselves by acting out our dreams. There are people with a REM sleep behavioral disorder who act out their dreams and risk hurting themselves and others (6). The opposite of this form of REM sleep behavioral disorder is kanashibari (sleep paralysis) when we our conscious but are unable to move our bodies (2).
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I just recently became extremely interested in lucid dreaming.  I actually just spent the last 2 hours reading about it.  All I've been doing is just going to Yahoo and searching for Lucid Dreaming.  The top search results are more than adequate and will definately help you out.  Here are a few sites that I've bookmarked and refer back to quite often...\n\nhttp://www.dreams.ca\n\nhttp://www.sleeps.com/dreams.html\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreams#Waking_induction_of_lucid_dreaming\n\nhttp://www.lucidity.com/\n\nThis one is extremely helpful.  It's what I just spent the last two hours going reading through and taking notes.\nhttp://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming  \n\nPretty much everything that I have read about achieving lucidity revolves around two things; dream recall and realizing that you're dreaming.   you have to be able to remember your dreams so when you actual do have a lucid dream, you remember it and you have to actually realize that you're dreaming while you're dreaming to become lucid.  I'm still struggling with the dream recall part. Some nights I remember a couple of dreams, others I remember none.  My recall has improved dramatically compared to before I started this whole mess.  \n\nI hope this is somewhat helpful.  I could get into the specifics of achieving lucidity but you can just go to the sites I provided and read it yourself from people who have actually accomplished having a lucid dream.  \n\nGood Luck
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I hadn't heard that before. If they are then it is your own personal truth. I don't think I do believe this statement. Dreams are the minds way of assisting you to sort throught a puzzle or dilemma or problem. Something you might not have even realised consciously that you were pondering. I am talking about the subconscious mind and the unconscious mind. If a dream is not precognitive ie. a vision of a future event (most dreams are not precognitive), then it is a dramatisation by the mind using expressions, images, words etc that are known to yourself. The mind generates a play if you like and you the sleeper are the only audience. So you are the only one who can recognise the images/expressions used in the play to understand what if any underlying message is there. Knowing this then saying dreams are the invention of truth is quite a sweeping generalisation which in fact, does not really tell you anything at all. Sounds like pretentious rubbish to me.
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There is nothing wrong with dreaming,its a healthy thing as long as you spend time in reality as well and have a full life outside of your dreams.Learning how to balance,logic with creativity and dreams is another tool useful to learn.Keep a journal and log all of your dreams,perhaps you will better understand ur inner desires,and be able to face life more joyfully.
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Dreams are a reflection of your thoughts and feelings. They give an insight into your passions, desires and fears on a sub-consciuos level. Dreams are very significant, they tell you a lot, but you must know how to distinguish the pathetic ones from the 'real' ones.
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Dreams. Its a word to be understood properly. Dreams are generated from us, it uses the information which we have some where deep in our minds, it uses all that what we know and make a new kind of event in our unconcious mind.\nSign and Signals are alwyas floting around us, and they are not send by any divine power, as the power is right inside our own self. To understand the sign and act on it depends on how we manage to understand our own self our own power.\nEvery living being is connected with an invisible network and communication between each other is always happening, its our recevier which is capable to filter the signals or no.\nTHIS IS JUST 1% OF WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SAY... WOULD LIKE TO SHARE MORE IF IT INTRESTS ANYBODY...