![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
From time to time, I've written that a dream "ends". What I mean by this is that it feels like it ends from the dreamer's perspective. With the exception of being half-awake and feeling waking life bleed into the recent dream, however, it's near impossible for someone to know that a dream ended.
Firstly: it's likely that everyone dreams each night, though most dreams aren't remembered.
When you dream, it usually lasts less than or around 2 hours within the dream. There have been studies where researchers wake sleeping volunteers in order to know whether they dreamt. Up to 50% of people woken from non-rapid eye movement sleep and 80% of people woken from rapid eye movement sleep remember their dreams.
Now remember that most dream details can slip away in a matter of minutes after waking.
Typically, it's inaccurate to say a dream "ends" because it may be that the latest dreams weren't remembered / were quickly forgotten upon waking.
Many dreams aren't captured by our waking memory. Dream recall training isn't to make more dreams, after all - they were already there, buried under the forgetfulness. We simply found better shovels to dig with.
Of course, lucid dreams would count as dreams.
That's right.
It's possible that you have already had a lucid dream.
Several times, I have come out of an LD shivering with anticipation to write the dream down - only to forget that I had an LD at all. It's later in the day that I remember. How many more of those dreams have slipped past me, had I not built up dream recall and remembered later?
While forgetting a lucid experience may sound unbelievable to beginners who hadn't had any (to their knowledge), it's a documented phenomena among others.
We don't know how many dreams there are per night, but remembering 3+ dreams is no stranger when having strong dream recall. 365 nights per how many years you've been on the planet, and you get ample opportunity to have had a lucid dream that you hadn't known about.
In lucid dream communities, it's often said that having the first lucid dream is the hardest step. But now we know better.
The hardest step has been leaped over. You just may have missed it.
Now, you just have to work on digging deep enough to uncover the newer lucid dreams.
-
Martin, Joshua M et al. “Structural differences between REM and non-REM dream reports assessed by graph analysis.” PloS one vol. 15,7 e0228903. 23 Jul. 2020, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0228903
Nielsen, T A. “A review of mentation in REM and NREM sleep: "covert" REM sleep as a possible reconciliation of two opposing models.” The Behavioral and brain sciences vol. 23,6 (2000): 851-66; discussion 904-1121. doi:10.1017/s0140525x0000399x
Firstly: it's likely that everyone dreams each night, though most dreams aren't remembered.
When you dream, it usually lasts less than or around 2 hours within the dream. There have been studies where researchers wake sleeping volunteers in order to know whether they dreamt. Up to 50% of people woken from non-rapid eye movement sleep and 80% of people woken from rapid eye movement sleep remember their dreams.
Now remember that most dream details can slip away in a matter of minutes after waking.
Typically, it's inaccurate to say a dream "ends" because it may be that the latest dreams weren't remembered / were quickly forgotten upon waking.
Many dreams aren't captured by our waking memory. Dream recall training isn't to make more dreams, after all - they were already there, buried under the forgetfulness. We simply found better shovels to dig with.
Of course, lucid dreams would count as dreams.
That's right.
It's possible that you have already had a lucid dream.
Several times, I have come out of an LD shivering with anticipation to write the dream down - only to forget that I had an LD at all. It's later in the day that I remember. How many more of those dreams have slipped past me, had I not built up dream recall and remembered later?
While forgetting a lucid experience may sound unbelievable to beginners who hadn't had any (to their knowledge), it's a documented phenomena among others.
We don't know how many dreams there are per night, but remembering 3+ dreams is no stranger when having strong dream recall. 365 nights per how many years you've been on the planet, and you get ample opportunity to have had a lucid dream that you hadn't known about.
In lucid dream communities, it's often said that having the first lucid dream is the hardest step. But now we know better.
The hardest step has been leaped over. You just may have missed it.
Now, you just have to work on digging deep enough to uncover the newer lucid dreams.
-
References
Martin, Joshua M et al. “Structural differences between REM and non-REM dream reports assessed by graph analysis.” PloS one vol. 15,7 e0228903. 23 Jul. 2020, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0228903
Nielsen, T A. “A review of mentation in REM and NREM sleep: "covert" REM sleep as a possible reconciliation of two opposing models.” The Behavioral and brain sciences vol. 23,6 (2000): 851-66; discussion 904-1121. doi:10.1017/s0140525x0000399x