In a number of programs designed to gain greater access to the brain’s potential, lucid dreaming and dream control appears to be a key exercise.
Some brain programs that employ lucid dreaming:
- Shichida Method
- Silva Method
- Photo Reading
Although there are programs to help you gain control of your dreams – in other words, have lucid dreams – it was interesting to discover that playing video games could develop the ability for lucid dreaming. I discovered this when I stumbled upon the article “Your brain on video games: lucid dream, pov changes, resistance to nightmares” while researching the effects of video gaming on the brain.
In a study by Grant MacEwan University psychologist Jayne Gackenbach, they found that hardcore gamers:
- experience more lucid dreams than non-gaming individuals
- are often able to switch between a third- and first-person point of view much in the same way they do in video games
- are able to control their dream like a video game
- have more fantastic, imaginative and creative dreams compared to non-gaming individuals
- have grown resistant to nightmares and are less affected by them
Does that mean that if I played more video games, I would be able to develop the ability to have lucid dreams? That depends. The study looked at hardcore gamers and according to its definition, a hardcore gamer is “someone who plays and has played video games more than two hours per session, doing so for several sessions over the course of a week, since before third grade”. So maybe not. Then again, this study is preliminary and there are still a lot of questions about it. Although conventional methods for developing the ability to lucid dream may still be the way to go, it is always interesting to be aware of other possible methods. Who knows when we might learn enough to implement them effectively?
Shen-Li Lee 