Healing through Lucid Dreams
Studies show that for our brain, dreaming about doing something or actually doing it while awake, are actually the same thing.
There are many answers to the question of why we dream. The reason that there are so many answers is simple – it’s because we do not know what the right answer is. But one thing has been scientifically proven and is agreed upon by all – dreams are important for our mental and physical health.
Dream researcher Patricia Garfield describes how ordinary dreams can help us in waking life. According to her, everyone can develop abilities to deal with life’s challenges by creating dreams about them. These dreams can be stimulated by a healthy concern about waking life and not necessarily out of anxiety. This concern is transferred to the dream world where dreamers experience and practice ways of addressing their problems.
Dreams, which helped our ancestors arrive more prepared for an attack by a hungry lion, can help us today to act more freely in waking life in the face of various mental situations. We can develop greater freedom in reality if we deal with our problems in dreams.
The lucid dream offers us a foundation for choosing all of this with awareness and intent. Studies show that for our brain, dreaming about doing something or actually doing it while awake, have the same effect. This finding explains why dreams seem so realistic, because our brain experiences them as real. As soon as we become conscious in a dream, we find ourselves in a three-dimensional space that our mind has built for us. We can act within the “movie” that our subconscious has directed. We can interact with personified aspects of our psyche. We can ask questions, come to terms with, and accept all of our parts as constructing the whole that we are. When we realize that all the characters around us are us, there is no longer any point in running away. In this case, the change occurs in the form of realization but is experienced in the body and causes a change in cellular memory.
Integrated lucid dreaming therapy is called LDT. This work is done by therapists, each with their own approach, who combine work with lucid dreams and therapy for healing and change.
Today, studies focus mainly on the effect of lucid dreaming on seven main areas of life:
Nightmares and post-trauma
Physical healing
Reducing anxiety levels
Sexuality
Athletic performance
Creative problem solving
Spiritual development