Humans spent more than one-third of their entire life sleeping. However, sleeping is not peaceful for all. Many of us are used to see nightmares which create negative impacts on our mental state. But now, Dr Denholm Aspy, from the University of Adelaide's School of Psychology has formulated three effective lucid dreaming techniques which can be used to control our dreams.
A potential way to cure nightmares
Denholm Aspy believes that these three uniquely formulated techniques will help to cure nightmares, which pose a significant threat to the calm sleep of many people all around the world. According to Aspy, using these techniques, the dreamer will be aware of the fact that he is asleep, and can control the dreams effectively.
The concept of lucid dreaming is well known among people for years, but the success rate is pretty low due to lack of concentration and misguidance. Denholm Aspy believes that the three techniques he introduces now are very effective in triggering lucid dreaming which will provide a colorful experience to people.
The three techniques which can be used to induce lucid dreaming are as follows.
Reality Testing: This is the first tip which acts as a platform to trigger lucid dreaming. This step involves checking your environment to know whether you are dreaming or not.
Wake back to bed: Entering a REM sleep period is very much essential to induce lucid dreaming. The best way to enter a REM sleep period is by waking up after five hours of sleep and staying awake for some time. Falling back again to sleep helps the user to enter the REM period easily, and in this time, dreams are more likely to occur.
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD): This step involves waking up from sleep after five hours. After going to sleep again, the dreamer should repeatedly affirm that he or she is going to sleep. It is always recommended to repeat the phrases "The next time I'm dreaming, I will remember that I'm dreaming" for more effectiveness.
During the study, Aspy found that 17 percent of the 47 people who combined all the three techniques successfully entered the lucid dream within one week.
"The MILD technique works on what we call 'prospective memory' - that is, your ability to remember to do things in the future. Importantly, those who reported success using the MILD technique were significantly less sleep deprived the next day, indicating that lucid dreaming did not have any negative effect on sleep quality," said Aspy, reports Mirror.
