When it comes to "butterfly transformation", people may first think of the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. A couple of passionate men and women turned into dancing butterflies and flew in the flowers... Although they were sad, they also left the romance that has been sung for thousands of years love story. Today, the story of Butterfly Lovers turning into butterflies is widely known, but there is another famous story in history. It is recorded in Zhuangzi Qi Wu Lun that one day a long time ago, Zhuangzu dreamed that he had become a free flying butterfly, flying leisurely among the trees and flowers, feeling extremely happy and comfortable. After a breeze, he suddenly woke up. He was uncertain about whether he was still Zhuang Zhou. He sighed that he had become a butterfly in his dream, or a butterfly dreamed that he was Zhuang Zhou.
This fantastic story of Zhuang Zhou changing into a butterfly actually describes a lucid dream Dreaming). What is lucid dream? The so-called lucid dream is to find that you were dreaming just now and feel that you are awake, but actually you are still in a dream, that is, you do not have to wait until you wake up to know that it is a dream. Lucid dream is also called qingming dream, intellectual dream, self-knowledge dream, etc. It usually has multiple dreams, which means that there are dreams in the dream. It is said that it can have seven dreams at most. The Hollywood blockbuster Inception in the early stage gave us a more intuitive feeling about this. The film described five dreams for us at most, but it has made the audience dazzled and fascinated. In the state of lucid dream, the dreamer can have the ability of thinking when awake. Some people's experience in the dream even seems to be in the real world, so that they can't tell whether they are awake or in the dream. Since I can't tell whether my dream turned into a butterfly or a butterfly turned into Zhuang Zhou, I'm still in a dream. But I thought I was awake at that time. The so-called waking up is just a re dream.
Since human dreams, lucid dreams have existed. But not everyone can realize that they are dreaming in their dreams. A survey shows that about 58% of people will experience this kind of lucid dream in their lifetime, and 21% of people have experienced it at least once a month. The term lucid dream was first used by Frederick, a Dutch psychiatrist, in 1913 Van Eeden. The earliest record that proposed the possibility of the existence of lucid dream science was from Celia, a British psychologist in 1968 Written by Green《 Lucid Dreams 》Celia Green is also the first person to associate lucid dreams with the phenomenon of "false lucidity".
How do lucid dreams come into being? Is there any difference between its mechanism and ordinary dreams? Celia Through scientific research, Green found that lucid dreams are different from ordinary dreams, and predicted that they were related to REM sleep. Later, polysomnography records confirmed that lucid dreams were indeed related to REM sleep. In early research, sleep scientists found that lucid dreams often appeared in REM sleep phase, especially in the later stage of REM sleep phase, so they thought that lucid dreams were a phenomenon of REM sleep phase. However, recent studies have found that lucid dreams occur in a state characterized by REM sleep and lucidity. Humans are always in three states of wakefulness, REM sleep and non REM sleep, and these three states are usually independent and mutually exclusive, but the emergence of lucid dreams can merge them together. Scientists are also trying to find out what is the difference between the brain of general dreams and that of lucid dreams. The results show that the main difference between the two is in the prefrontal cortex on the side of the brain. The lateral prefrontal cortex of human brain is related to our logical thinking and working memory. It is usually closed and deactivated when we dream generally, but when we dream soberly, it seems that an invisible hand has opened the door of this part of the brain. Who is this invisible hand? It is believed that it will not be the "Prince's Kiss that relieves the curse of Sleeping Beauty". It may be the stimulation of some cognitive activity (such as I am dreaming), which gradually revives the activity level of this part of the brain and restores it to the level when awake, with a magical sense like opening a sesame door. At this time, the activity of the brain area in charge of dreams has not been closed, thus forming a state that can recognize, control and guide dreams. At this time, an invisible magic door suddenly opened, and people in sleep will get a sense of sobriety.
The lucid dream is a very wonderful dream experience. The dreamer can clearly realize that he or she is in the dream, and can even further control and guide the content of the dream. It is wonderful because dreams are often unrestrained and can be freely imagined. In them, you are both an actor and a director, just like an old Zhuang Laozi who, like Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, turns into a beautiful butterfly dancing in the flowers. The dream team led by DiCaprio, the hero of Nolan's Inception, has taken the control and guidance of lucid dreams to the extreme. The shocking scenes in the film, such as weightless bundling, flipping corridors, flipping cities, static blasting, collapsed buildings at the seaside, and the pictures of dream stealing teams shuttling around in multiple dreams, are even more impressive. A scholar once said: "When you don't have enough money to buy the thing in your dream, you can buy a dream." For people who can dream lucidly, they don't even need to buy a dream, just do it by themselves. How happy it is to weave one's own dream as one wishes, and gallop with one's best friend and friend on the grassland where "the sky is vast, the wild is vast, and cattle and sheep appear when the wind blows grass"! How fascinating it is to live in the dream world jointly created by the protagonist DiCaprio and his wife Marion Cotillard in Inception with their beloved lover! At this time, the dream became a veritable "what you want to achieve, what you want to achieve".
Stephen, a psychophysiologist at Stanford University LaBerge is an authoritative expert in the field of lucid dreams. He once did some tests on the behavioral reactions of the subjects who entered the lucid dream state, such as estimating time, counting, regular eye movements, sexual activities, etc. The results showed that there was a very obvious correlation between the content of the subject's dream and the physiological indicators reflecting the corresponding behavior. This experiment reflects a very interesting phenomenon: we are really "doing" the behavior in dreams, not just doing it imaginatively. Therefore, we usually use "dreaming" to describe dreams, which is indeed reasonable.
The lucid dream is so magical and fun. How can you let yourself experience lucid dream again? Many scholars at home and abroad have done research on human induced lucid dreams, Stephen LaBerge is one of the most representative. He defined lucid dreams as "knowing the dreams he had while dreaming", and developed many technologies to enable people to enter the lucid dream state at will. In 1987, he also founded the lucid dream association to teach ordinary people how to have lucid dreams. One of the most famous is a method called "lucid dream memory induction". The specific measures are as follows: First, find a place where you can sleep easily and comfortably; The second step is to try to completely relax yourself; The third step is to repeat to myself and believe that "I will wake up after every dream I have, and I will remember my dreams"; Step 4: When you wake up from the dream, write down the dream immediately. Even if you can hardly remember anything, write down your feelings about the dream; Try to find dream signs）， Provide clues for later confirmation that you are in a dream; Step 5: Lie down and fall asleep again, and return to the dream by imagination; Examine yourself repeatedly in the dream, try to find the dream mark, and then realize that you are still in the dream; The sixth step is to practice the fourth and fifth steps repeatedly every time you wake up in the night. Stephen LaBerge believes that most people can have lucid dreams after some training. It is not necessary to have lucid dreams with the help of specific equipment and drugs, as seen in Inception. See here, it is estimated that readers without lucid dream experience are ready to move.
Finally, some readers may ask: Although this lucid dream is wonderful, is it normal or abnormal? Does it have a bad effect on us? In any case, so far, scientists have not found any research results suggesting that lucid dreams can have a negative impact on human physiology or psychology. In addition, lucid dreaming is very important for nightmare It is a good news for people who have been chased by monsters and fallen into the abyss in their dreams, so that they can immediately realize that this is just a dream, which can alleviate the nightmare Their troubles.
