Lucid dreaming gives people a safe environment for addressing psychological issues. Canadian researcher Bei Linda Tang, whose work focuses on both ordinary dreams and controlled dreams, suggests expanding these methods. The author lists notable figures who have found answers to their questions in dreams, including Dmitri Mendeleev, René Descartes, Mahatma Gandhi, Salvador Dalí, and Paul McCartney, to name just a few.
Tang has identified four contexts in which people can cope if they are facing a psychological problem, such as trauma or a phobia:
1. In their waking lives, through conscious, rational, and logical means.
2. In regular dreams, where the subconscious processes emotions.
3. In lucid dreams, where the dreamer intentionally creates the necessary narrative.
4. In guided dreams, which are regular dreams whose plots are programmed in advance.
The author induces guided dreams using breathing exercises and visualization techniques. She also supports related practices such as yoga nidra, shamanic rituals, and hypnosis. In one of her experiments, nine of ten participants reported that they better understood their problems after a single group session, and tests showed a 31% improvement in the group’s overall psychological state.
Have you ever programmed a regular (non-lucid) dream?
The preprint of the article was published in December 2024 on SSRN.
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