Does lucid dreaming work? How I tried to fix bad dreams brought on by the coronavirus age – USA TODAY

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Here's something I haven't said in 2020: I had the most wonderful dream!

Instead, the world behind my eyelids has recently been a distressingplace to wander.

I don't have nightmares, exactly, but my vivid dreams are decidedly bad. I dream that I desperately need to relieve myself but all of the toilets are broken, or they only have stalls with see-through or too-short doors, or they aren't even toilets to begin with and instead are soiled chairs in an otherwise typicalliving room.

I have dreams that Im on assignment for a story and the person I need to talk to is in pain, or Im late to the interview because of something traumatic, or I thought I was going to an interview but Im actually in school and I forgot that I had to turn in an assignment and I dont even know if Im in the right class.

I spend a third of my life sleeping. I want those eight-ish hours a night to stop being completely stressful. So, I set out to do something about it.

I decided I should become an oneironaut, someone who lucid dreams.

For those of you who have not spent spent hours reading books, perusing Reddit threads and watchingTed Talks on lucid dreaming, an oneironautis someone who explores the dream state whileexplicitly conscious that they're dreaming (though the word is not yet officially defined by Merriam Webster).

Reporter Carly Mallenbaum set out to learn how to lucid dream.(Photo: Teresa Lo)

As I understand it, lucid dreaming can be apractice of holding a mirror to yourself and facing your innermost fears. It can also be a series of scenes thought up by the dreamer, according toDeepak Chopra,renowned doctor, author and alternative medicine proponent.

Deepak Chopra's quarantine diary: He spends time lucid dreaming and doing yoga

"I basically direct my dreams," Chopra toldUSA TODAY in April. "These days I am lucid dreaming conversations with my parents long departed. Im having happy memories of my birthdays and celebrations and going to soccer and cricket matches with my parents, and holidays and laughing and remembering and feeling joyous."

Lucidity Institutepsychophysiologist Stephen LaBerge, who has spent decades researching the science behindawakening in your dreams, points to studies where the visual imagery produced duringlucid dreaming could improvephysical and mental health. For example, someone who solves a problem or confronts a fear while lucid dreaming can wake with a sense of empowerment and courage, according to the Lucidity Institute FAQs.

Sincelucid dreaming is generallyconsidered safe to attempt, that was enough to convince me to give it a try.

Plus, it turns out that some side effects of a global pandemicstaying home, limitedsocial life and sleeping more erratically and more often than ever before make for a lucid-dreaming conducive environment.

People aren't relying on alarm clocks in order to wake them up, so theres less interference to help them recall dreams, and recall is key to lucid dreaming, saysKristen LaMarca, a clinical psychologist in sleep medicine and writer of a concise new dream book, Learn to Lucid Dream.

And since people are more isolated and without their normal routines, she says, it gives themmore room to have more of an inward reflective focus.

I was all about the inward reflective focus. I was ready to do all of the things that I read were important to do in order to lucid dream: Practice more meditation (well, I mostly just did yoga on a fitness app), repeat the mantra Tonight, I will have a lucid dream in bed (when I thought of it), write down what I remember of my dreams as soon as I wake up (this I did religiously) and then go over what happened and what I would have done in that dream were I lucid in it (I did this sometimes).

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I put up sticky notes throughout my apartment that said Am I dreaming? to force myself to ask that question several times a day, with the hopes that making the inquiry would become so routine that my dream self would begin to do it, as well. I read text on a page, looked away, and then reread the text to confirm that the text hadnt changed, something that tends to happen in dreams and can be a sign to your dream self that you are not awake, LaMarca says.

After doing all of this work for a month, Istill was not lucid dreaming.

I wasnt directing any wondrous night visions in my head that connected me with a dead grandparent or put me in the center of the dreamy wedding celebration my sister had to postpone.

But Ipersisted.

According to LaMarca, having a lucid dream "could take weeks, or months, or some people dont have one after years."

I wrote down more dreams, found more themes and rehearsed more scenes.

And then I realized that a toilet I was about to use was broken and inexplicably shared a stall with another toilet.

That sounded like a dream I had before.

Actually it was a dream I was having at that moment! My dream self put this together! I waslucid dreaming!

I could confront my own anxiety, I could ask a dream person why the toilets were in disarray and figure out away to fix them. I could learn about the stressors that my dreams represented and start finding ways to address them.

I did not do any of that. Instead, I immediately forgot that I was in a dream.

But in theshort time that I was lucid, I did do one thing that I can't do in my waking life.

I danced en pointein the bathroom.

It was a wonderful moment. And I'll keep trying for more.

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Does lucid dreaming work? How I tried to fix bad dreams brought on by the coronavirus age - USA TODAY