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Written by | Proxima Centauri
This is a true story.
A 39-year-old man who witnessed his father shoot his mother at the age of 3 followed by a car accident and the accidental murder of his fiancée. Having experienced too many horrific scenes in his short life of 39 years, he suffered from depression, PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome) and alcohol addiction at the same time, and was often plagued by nightmares, and the horrors of his past experienced were repeated in his dreams, making it difficult for him to sleep.
The psychiatrist made him try to wake up from a nightmare and record the story in the dream, and then consciously tell himself that if he experienced such a scene again, it would be a dream. Then he can try to sleep again, and in the process of falling asleep, he can take the initiative to let the dream he just had replay in his mind, and control the most terrible things from happening.
After a period of training, he began to be able to calmly cope with his nightmares, and the scenes of the dreams became much milder. When the nightmare struck, he could clearly realize: "This is just a dream, there is nothing to be afraid of." ”
. Lucid dreaming
We always hope that the dream will not wake up, and the nightmare will pass quickly, but the truth is often the opposite. This editor will always wake up a second before the food is about to be delivered to the mouth, but every time I am breathless in my dream, the train will always be missed. It seems difficult to control when people wake up from a dream, but if they can clearly realize that it is just a dream when they have nightmares, the fear will be much smaller.
This is Lucid Dream. One sentence to explain: I know it's a dream and can manipulate the development of the plot.
After all, we don't have the habit of carrying a gyroscope with us in our dreams
So have you ever had lucid dreaming? According to a 2016 study, half of the people surveyed said they had experienced lucid dreaming. Another study also said that some people said that it was easier to induce lucid dreaming when having nightmares.
. Half dreaming and half waking
Under what conditions do we dream lucidly? This is also a puzzle that has plagued researchers, and there is still no conclusive conclusion about the mechanism of its occurrence. But at least we can see some changes in the brain when we have lucid dreams.
When you talk about dreaming, you'll talk about Rapid eye movement (REM). This is a phase in the sleep cycle that generally begins after we fall asleep for 90 minutes. As the name suggests, the eyeballs at this stage move at a high frequency. At this time, our brain waves will be similar to those in the waking state, and the brain will be abnormally active. Therefore, it is easiest to dream at this time, especially those dreams with a variety of plots.
As soon as I fell asleep, I felt that I could go to heaven and go to the sea
When dreaming, the visual area of the brain is very active, which also shows that your dream is mainly some image information; the amygdala that controls emotions is also activated, so you will be afraid in nightmares; the hippocampus associated with memory is also quite active, but after the dream, the hippocampus will also sleep for a while, and because there is too much play in the dream, it needs to make up for sleep afterwards. So the hippocampus is the last brain region to wake up, so much so that we often can't remember what we had last night.'
Amygdala: "I was very scared. ”
Of course, there are still many brain regions that are turned off. The first is the area that is in charge of the movement, which is a kind of self-protection, preventing you from stepping out and turning those bizarre plots into reality. So the sleeping person is almost paralyzed. In addition, the area that helps you think rationally, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is also asleep. Therefore, you are irrational and unconscious in your dreams, otherwise you will not dream of plots that you cannot think of in normal conditions.
So suppose, this rational little master wakes up unexpectedly, you can use your reason to tell yourself - this is a dream! That's right, lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming also occurs during the REM phase of sleep, except that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is activated and the amygdala is less active as a balance. So you can stay sane and not be so scared.
. Have a lucid dream?
"Waking up and dreaming" is also a cool thing to say.
So there are many movie plots based on such a setting. For example, this film is called "Waking Life" (Chinese half dream and half awake life). The protagonist travels through different dreams, with a very psychedelic color.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/mp/readtemplate?t=pages/video_player_tmpl&action=mpvideo&auto=0&vid=wxv_1268742138603405312
Or it is based on the dream detective setting, Imatoshi's masterpiece "Red Hot Chili Peppers".
If you also want to acquire lucid dreaming skills, scientists have designed such a set of methods to train lucid dreaming, you may wish to try:
Give it a popular name, "The Method of Returning to the Cage". Set an alarm 30 minutes earlier than your normal schedule, and don't get up when the alarm goes off. Remind yourself in your head and remember to wake up in your dreams for a moment. Then go back to sleep. After training for a while, you may be able to acquire this skill. Also, trying to record your dreams can also help with training.
Usually, however, such methods are used in certain psychotherapeutics. Take, for example, the man we mentioned at the beginning who has been plagued by nightmares for a long time. Psychiatrists use lucid dream training as part of their treatment plan, which has proven to be helpful in reducing the frequency of nightmares.
—————— clearly dividing the line——————
"Xiaobian's intimate reminder:
Trying to fill your lucid dreaming skill points,
Side effects may occur.
Occasionally you can't tell the difference between reality and dreams.
For example, when you see the NEWS OF THE US STOCK CIRCUIT BREAKER,
I thought it was a dream."
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