What exactly does waking up in dreams mean?  The experience is no doubt extremely different for everyone, but for me it has always been about becoming fully aware of the challenges, opportunities and lessons that are presented to me in the dream state.  By waking up in dreams, I am able to become aware of all of their subleties and I am also sometimes able to work with my dreams in such a way that I can learn even more from them.

Throughout time, people have been fascinated by the dream state and the things that it can potentially teach us.  People have worked out thousands of different ways of analysing dreams to try to understand the imagery contained within them.  This is not at all surprising – dreams can feel so real and can be so powerful.  They are a strange and magical phenomenon that are shared by all of humanity.  Surely, there must be some wisdom that can be discovered through waking up in dreams.

New studies have confirmed that everyone has dreams, even those people who never remember a single one.  Every night, the brain enters the REM, or Rapid Eye Movement sleep for four or five 90 minute to three hour cycles.  During this period, specific areas of the brain are triggered at regular intervals, creating the images we see in our dreams.  These images can be bizarre, wonderful, meaningful or confusing.  One thing we do know is that by waking up in dreams, we can more easily remember and work with the information that our mind is providing to us in our dream state.  This can be an incredibly valuable tool in any life or on any spiritual path, and indeed, techniques for waking up in dreams are found in many sacred ancient traditions dating back many thousands of years.

When waking up in dreams, one enters the lucid dreaming state.  You are still asleep, still dreaming, but are also able to be conscious of the fact that you are dreaming.  The subject of lucid dreaming has become well recongized by the scientific community at this point in time, and people all over the world are becoming more and more interested in understanding the nature of consciousness, the nature of the dream world, and the meaning that can be discovered by combining those two things.

The term lucid dreaming was created by psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden in 1913.  He described lucid dreaming as follows: “the re-integration of the psychic functions is so complete that the sleeper reaches a state of perfect awareness and is able to direct his attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition.”  This implies that waking up in a dream and becoming conscious is perfectly possible, a claim which had previously been denied by doctors and psychologists.

Later studies discovered that lucid dreams tend to occur during higher periods of cortical arousal.  So, it seems that a certain level of arousal needs to be reached before waking up in dreams can occur.  Several features seem to induce lucidity in dreams – heightened stress levels, or an intellectual recognition that something dreamlike or unreal is occurring.  Once you are able to fully recognize that you are dreaming, you enter the lucid dream state.  After this, it is possible to control aspects of the dream and to remember very clearly the events that happen within the dream state.

Waking up in dreams can be achieved through meditation practice, through psychological and physiological dreaming techniques, and through the use of dreaming herbs.  Elsewhere on the site, I discuss the many different techniques and plants that can be used to work with lucid dreaming.  Once you start working with lucid dreaming you will be amazed how much meaning and knowledge you can bring in to your life.  Your dreams can help you to understand your mind, your body, and your conscious and unconcious lives, and when you are able to become lucid in them you will be able learn a great deal more about all of these things!