When you have these kinds of lucid dream experiences (the unexpected, the surprising), what does it imply? How do you resolve it in your mind or minds?

These surprising LD experiences show us that there is an intelligent awareness beyond our awareness that is co-creating the lucid dream with us. What is this awareness and what does it have to offer? At the very least, it can offer us a unique (and enlightening) perspective on our own lives; I’ve received wise advice during lucid dreaming on more than one occasion. Perhaps this other awareness is what some people call the subconscious, or perhaps it is something else. There is so much about the mind that we don’t understand at this point. Psychology is just starting to scratch the surface and I look forward to figuring out how LDing can contribute to the conversation.

 

As you read more about lucid dreaming and had your own experiences, did you begin to see how lucid dreaming might be useful in helping with emotional health and dealing with inner issues? Have you had any lucid dreams which suggested the potential to improve emotional health and resolve limiting beliefs, etc.? 

Indeed! When compared to waking, dreaming is a more emotional state of mind, and if we suppress emotions during waking then they will come out while dreaming. Thus, I saw lucid dreaming as a way to help better understand these emotions by being able to communicate more directly with the subconscious and other suppressed aspects of the self. I’ve improved my emotional health on many occasions by looking for advice in lucid dreams and receiving some enlightening insights. Typically, this advice altered my perception by simply pointing out things that I had consciously missed. It’s funny how much of our emotions are based on faulty perceptions.

 

In lucid dreams we see that the mind and its contents get reflected into the lucid dream. For example, if we expect trouble with a particular dream figure, then suddenly it becomes troublesome! Does this make it difficult for a beginner to use lucid dreaming to resolve inner issues?

I agree with Tim Post that dream control is really about self-control, so it depends on the person and the level of self-control. Unfortunately, self control is a rare commodity in this age of instant gratification. However, mental training can help greatly in this respect and that is why meditation is particularly useful for lucid dreaming. It is a co-creative process so by learning how to control our mind (i.e. expectations, intentions, etc.), we are essentially learning how to have more influence over the dream content. This idea is also supported by a recent study that found positive correlations between one’s length of meditation practice and one’s degree of control in lucid dreams.

 

Besides the possibility of improving emotional health through lucid dreaming, have you ever explored the idea of improving physical health in a lucid dream? Do you have an example (or recall one from your readings)?

I think physical healing is one of the most fascinating potential applications of lucid dreaming, but it needs more research. All we have at this point are some incredible anecdotal reports of success, so we need more empirical investigations. I remember reading a story of a woman who rid herself of some painful warts on her feet with the help of visualization during a lucid dream. After that, I tried to get rid of a wart on my hand through lucid dreaming but never succeeded.

This led me to ponder why some people experience healing with this method while others do not; there are obviously many factors at play. If we can figure out these factors of success, then perhaps lucid dreaming could be used as a low-cost intervention for some conditions. Science shows us that a mind-body connection exists as well as placebo/nocebo effects so, theoretically, I believe physical healing through lucid dreams is plausible. The power of the mind always astounds me. However, as a scientist I am still skeptical and would love to see more research into this specific area. In fact, this will likely be the topic of my doctoral dissertation.

 

What kind of experiments could you imagine that would provide evidence for physical healing through lucid dream actions?

There are many different ways someone could investigate this concept. One possibility is to study the effects of lucid dream actions on waking levels of chronic pain. Pain is an ideal candidate because it involves both psychological and physiological components; additionally, chronic conditions allow for the time needed to successfully teach lucid dream induction strategies.

By measuring pain levels before and after a lucid dream, we can infer the effects of a person’s actions taken within the lucid dream. If we find a pattern of significant pain reduction after the lucid dream experience from a variety of people, then we can conclude that lucid dreaming might play a role in some elements of physical healing. Still, this is only one possible way to explore the issue and, whatever the results showed, it would only be a starting point for further investigations.