Sleep paralysis and Lucid dreams.

 

So, I decided to write a post about lucid dreams and sleep paralysis.

"The true definition of fear is known by a person who has faced sleep paralysis." This is not an experience that anybody can have.

But I think some of you guys have experienced this. Actually, no one knows whether this is a mystical thing or a normal brain function. Because this isn’t an experience that everyone can have.

Alright, let’s see…    #sleep paralysis

When you are going to sleep, you know that you don’t sleep right away, right? It happens step by step. But when this sleeping process starts, you want to wake up suddenly, but no matter what you do, you can’t. That’s not it; also, you get a feeling that someone is sitting on your chest. Some feel they are being dragged away. Some people see faces at this point. Or different noises by your ear. You start to feel like it’s the most dangerous feeling that someone can ever have. You can hear some whispering voices in your head, and they start to echo. Then you suddenly wake up with a shock. Then you can’t fall asleep properly throughout the night.

Some people may have experienced the above incidents. Being able to watch places in a dream just like in reality, it feels like you are visualising places with your astral body. If you are in a room when sleep paralysis happens, you start to see what’s outside the room. If you have ever experienced one of these by accident, know that you are somewhat special…

Alright, this sleep paralysis has been explained scientifically like this.

We are like a machine when it comes to sleep. We sleep like a computer shut down. That means the first step is closing the eyes. Then your brain signals every organ in your body that you are going to sleep. So at this point, all your primary body functions, like walking, talking, or hand movements, are not controlled by the brain. They are in shutdown mode. When this happens, you become paralysed. For us, sleeping is a temporary paralysis. So when your body becomes paralysed, that signal has to go back to the brain so that the brain will also sleep. Although these events happen in different time durations, a normal sleeper can’t understand the difference. But a sleep-paralysed person can identify these differences, which means that although your body is asleep, your brain is awake! So when you realise your body is out of control, you wake up suddenly shocked and scared. This may be a 3-4 second incident, but it feels like a half-hour experience. So you wake up totally scared in your mind.

If you get too scared and you want to prevent this, you need to try shaking or moving your toes as soon as you realise it’s another paralysis. You will understand then that you can wake up softly.

Mental stress and lack of sleep cause sleep paralysis more.

#lucid dreams

A lucid dream means that you know you are dreaming while you are in a dream. This is a subject taught in cognitive science. There are two major differences between a normal dream and a lucid dream. In a lucid dream, you know that you are in a dream, and you can feel the interactive surroundings in the dream. But in a dream, you don’t know that you are in a dream, and you don’t feel the surroundings most of the time. People learn how to lucid dream to fulfil their fantasies or things they are unable to gain in the real world (Various foods, clothes and also to fly!) 

How to train lucid dreaming…

Normally, ask yourself if I am dreaming or not 6 times a day for a reality check. If you make this a habit when you are dreaming, you tend to ask yourself the same question. Then you can realise whether you are in a dream or not.

Reality check:  This is an examination to detect that you are in a dream when you are dreaming…

Try to train by holding your breath for some seconds or looking at your arms and counting your fingers. (In dreams, your hands are difficult to see; something is always off about them in dreams.) Also, you have to get used to remembering dreams. For that, keep a dream journal. (As soon as you wake up, write down what you saw and interacted with in your dreams.) If you wake up in the middle of a lucid dream, write it down in the book and go to sleep again. Sometimes, when you sleep again at that time, you might enter a lucid dream right away.

There are some medicines to ease access for lucid dreamers. Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, and cheese are some of them. Also, there are lucid dream music tracks you can hear while sleeping.

There are some more ways to practise lucid dreaming. The easiest is to understand that you are dreaming while you are in a dream. If you can confirm that most of the work is done. To do that, there are some tricks. The easiest way is to count your fingers in your day-to-day life. If you practise that often, you get used to it, and after some time, you will count your fingers without thinking about it. That makes it easier when you are lucid dreaming; when you count your fingers in the dream, you become aware that you are in a dream. Also, there are some other tricks too, like shouting out loud or running fast in a dream.

But please understand this: don’t get addicted to this, because it becomes harder to resist lucid dreaming if you get addicted to it. Addiction to this causes you to get the things you don’t have in real life from the dream. There are also side effects if you keep lucid dreaming, a practice for a long time. You should know that too much of anything is not good in the end! Also, I'm not responsible for any actions caused by trying this after reading the post. This post was written only for some general knowledge about sleep paralysis and lucid dreams.

I'll see you guys in the next post. Thank you for reading, and please comment on your ideas below. 

Live your life with purpose!