Way back in the early 1990s, AG Krishnamurthy taught this to us at Mudra: ‘One needs to first dream the dream before they can realise the dreams’. He would ask you to leave the campaign and promise to react after he had slept over them. He, in a way, used his subconscious in dealing with the reality by connecting the dots in his Lucid dreams.
I have heard creative teams keeping busy thinking and many getting the answers in their dreams. In earlier times, there was grass which worked equally well in connecting the dots and helping you dream disruptive ideas which you presented with equally enhanced confidence over a drink. Nowadays, things are different, cost control and legal constraints don’t allow many of these creative solutions. So, what is left is dreaming and what if we could have a way to really leverage them for our probortunities. In the past, I have also discussed what if we could insert an advertisement in someone’s dream.
What are Dreams?.
‘Dreams are important’, and dreaming is an integral part of life. I pity the people who can’t dream. How can they live within the constraints imposed by reality?
Dreams are nothing much but a collection of images, thoughts, emotions, expectations that one involuntarily experiences in sleep. These can cut across situations, emotions, expectations and experiences.
Why Do We Dream?
Dreams just happen! No one really knows why we even dream. In the absence of any definitive theory, I rely on Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams. He suggested that dreams represented unconscious desires, thoughts, and motivations. The dreams mostly deal with what is suppresses and unwarranted within the coordinates of social expectations, norms and taboos. According to him, dreams are just ‘a disguised fulfilment of repressed wishes’.
Dreams do not need any special occasion to happen. They happen when everything is looking up. And when everything seems bleak. We see dreams with an open eye and we try to realise such dreams.
The Real Dream.
There is another type of dream, the one we see with eyes closed. Dreams ensure we deal with emotions, memories and any associated experiences in a positive way. These dreams are fluid. They have their own way to give us directional hints on what to do or what not to do.
Unfortunately, most of us forget 95% of dreams by the time we open our eyes and rest within the few minutes. A faint trace of the dream at times tantalisingly remains in our memory and usually is of no use other than further confusing us.
What if you could remember dreams?
If you do believe that dreams are important and I am sure you would want to remember them. What if you could actually get up in between the dream, go to the washroom and rejoin your dream where you left? I do that sometimes. I am a few of the lucky ones, who remember their dreams quite clearly for a few hours.
What if you could control what you will be dreaming tonight? Lucid dreamers do that. The real test Lucid dreaming is the ability to know you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming! A lucid dreamer can objectively even control and question the dreams.
Dreams are unconscious Mind’s consious way connecting the dots.
Think of the brain as a computer. Let us look at your normal laptop. RAM is our images and scenes during the period we are awake. The incidents are the files that are being created, junked and archived at a fast pace. Hard Disk is the area which is constantly busy in storing these images etc. However, when you are dreaming is like you switching off the terminal, there is no use for RAM but the files in your hard disk memory are now super activated. Your brain, which is conditioned to generalise, distort and delete to find patterns is in its unique way interpreting all the data and memory that has been collected throughout the day. It is creating patterns that will help it understand and predict things including your emotions and reactions. In this slack time ( sleep) it is busy creating the grid it can understand.
While the brain finds, create and archive the patterns, the screen captures a few of these visuals, sound and smell, and that is what your dreams are made of. Dreams are sometimes linear but mostly completely chaotic, randomised way of data processing and presentation.
In fact, dreams are the most creative phase. And, what if we could really control what we are going to dream today and remember what we dreamt?
Three Basic Questions About Dreams.
Once you are open to the idea that dreams are there for a reason, and that they try to signal or reach out to us to tell us something that our consciousness is unable to interpret. Three questions come up immediately for consideration. How can we control what we dream? How can we better remember the dreams we see? And, once we remember, how to interpret the dreams?
Experiment To Experience LUCID dreams.
Like every experiment, LUCID dreaming needs some support and practice. Few parameters must work in coordination to make it happen before you reach a stage where you can command yourself to see the dreams you want to see. It will not happen on day one, it will take time, but someday you will be able to command your dreams.
Dream Journal.
Dreams are subconscious interpretations. There has to be a relationship between the period one is awake, and the signals dreams may be sending. You may have a Diary, if not, then start keeping one. A diary captures memories and interpretation of activities during the sleepless hours. Now add to it a Dream Journal. When you wake-up, try remembering details from the dream you saw. Note it down diligently in as much detail as possible.
Decoding the Lucid Dream.
So, this is your data and it needs interpretations. Try making sense of the signals you are getting in your dreams and the experience during the period when you are awake. There are some accepted codes dream readers use to interpret dreams. Still, they have to spend a lot of time to understand the person before they can interpret them properly. Like the child, ever dreamers dream language is different.
Understanding frequent dreams help. There are things, object, locations and events that are repeated. All these will help in better interpreting the dialect of your dreams.
So, keep a diary, tell yourself what to dream and keep the dream journal with as many details as possible, including people, locations, sound, feeling and even odour. Create your own codebook and check it against the experiences during the day.
There are also apps and music to take you into deep REM ( Rapid Eye Moment) which is the Lucid dream stage. You may want to experiment with music and possibly some smells.
No Stimulants to Dream.
Lucid dreams are deep state dreams, and they last for a short time. Hence a good nights sleep is an essential requirement. And for that, you must avoid stimulants like tea, coffee, drugs and drinks.
Controlling the Lucid Dreams.
Now comes the self-fulfilling directive. Tell yourself about the thing that you will be dreaming about. Try to be in a state of rest an hour before you sleep. No Tv, No social media, no blue screens. Just keep thinking of the probortunity you wish to dream about.
Lucid dreaming is controlled dreaming. However, there is a tendency to lose controls during the dream. No harm in it. But, lucid dreaming is addictive. It makes you realise that reality has different perspectives and is multidimensional. The mind interprets things differently when it is awake, and while it is trying to connect the dots in your sleep and dreams. You will have to decide what works for you. Some can self-guiding, some demand and some request their brain to serve the dream they want.
DIY or Ask for help?
For someone like me LUCID dreaming is natural and as I remember them in quite a details, I have been reading, understanding and experimenting on how to decode a frequent dream. You can do get to Lucid dreams and decoding them using the process they have detailed above. However, it will be more of a trial and error way. And it will take time. If you are in a hurry, you could invest time and resources with someone like me who has been experimenting and has reasonable success in decoding dreams. Watch the catchphrase, reasonable success.
Or the other way could be to legalise Marijuana.
Blog/28/2020 first published with MxMIndia in Wednesday column KotMartial
