Inception Is Real, Y'all. Well Sorta
So I had a very Inception-y experience today. It involved what some people call “sleep paralysis”. This term I prefer to use sparingly since it refers to a whole set of experiences and syndromes involving the science of human sleep, why we sleep, why we dream, and then the concept of lucid dreaming.
The paralysis part refers to those times when you know that you’re woken up, but you feel unable to move for a few seconds or even minutes. It’s quite common, and happens more to some than others. The human brain has evolved to mostly shut down the body’s main motor functions during sleep as a safety measure. Think not falling out of bed, or say, 20,000 years ago, some hunter not falling off the mountain he was sleeping on. Waking up with this feeling can be terrifying to some people, especially if it’s not common for them. It usually goes away very quickly.
I experience a certain type of this paralysis constantly, so I don’t find it as frightening. It’s happened so much that I even have ways to will myself to move, with varying degrees of success. The difference in my case is that I often have the experience that I’m fully awake, in the room I’m in, maybe talking to someone, watching TV. Suddenly I start feeling weird or shaky, like I can’t move, then realise that I’m not awake. Returning to reality is often hard and I need to try and slap my leg in the dream so my body will catch on and do the same. Suddenly I wake up and realise no one is there, the room is dark, the TV is off. It’s momentarily panic inducing. This all sounds very science-fiction, I know. But it’s a real thing and happens to many people.
Now to lucid dreaming. This is a much studied concept wherein the person dreaming is aware that they are in a dream and in most cases can guide or control it. Some people can do it well, for others it’s a hokey mystery. I’ve practised lucid dreaming since I was a young child. I’m pretty good at it. You can train yourself to be better at it. Learning the way to tell you are dreaming, and then trying to let the dream guide you before you try to change things in it. This is real, and it’s definitely what the producers and creators of Inception were studying with the film.
In a lucid dream, you will suddenly get the impression that something’s not right, and say to yourself ‘oh hey this is a dream, ok’. Then you just go with it, follow where the dream is going, maybe try to change a few things, turn left instead of right, etc. You know you are dreaming because it’s not possible to read in dreams. That’s usually my tell. At some point, things will change, maybe become more bizarre, take on a darker tone, and one jarring thing will happen, jolting you awake. “The dream collapses.” That’s not a new concept.
I like to practise dreaming during the day, because when taking naps outside of your normal day/night sleep cycle, you are more prone to these types of dreams. Your brain is fully operational rather then slowing down preparing for the night sleep cycle.
Today I was able to have 3 lucid dreams. The first two were pretty cool. In one I was in a neat little town walking around with no shoes on trying to find the apartment I was moving into. I went into a weird bar by mistake and everyone looked at me, and a girl said “Where are your shoes?” zapping me awake. The other one I was in this quaint beachy house, wandering around, it felt like I was there on some vacation. I was able to explore most of the rooms and could even look out the windows. Then I walked into the kitchen-dining area. A whole completely mysterious family was there eating and talking and laughing. They all turned and stared at me, I woke up immediately. (Think of the typical “naked at school” or whatever dreams.)
The third dream was the most insane and intense lucid dreaming experience I’ve ever had. I was in my room, in my bed, and had just woken up, there was light streaming through the window. I wasn’t sure yet if it was a dream or not. My dad was calling me from the other room, I walked out of mine, and my living room was full of bizarre rainbow Christmas tree-like sculptures. They were everywhere, even making it hard to walk around. I felt like they were closing in on me. I was aware I was dreaming and ran out to my back room to try and take hold of the dream. The TV was on, but some random man was watching it. And he waved at me. I was freaking out by this point, I ran back through the tree-room into my bedroom. The walls were completely covered with bizarre text. I was screaming “Wake Up Wake Up!” which usually works. But it didn’t. Then I heard my phone ringing, and picked it up but couldn’t really read it, I answered and it was my brother. He made no sense and the phone kept ringing and I kept tying to answer. Eventually I was running through my house screaming “WAAKEUPPPP” as the phone kept ringing. It seemed like hours. Suddenly I actually woke up, horrified, my heart pounding, out of breath and my cell phone was in the bed underneath me, ringing. And it was my damn brother calling. How bout creepy stuff right there.
I’m not going to make any connection to the phone call in the dream and the real one being the same, I’m not one who believes much in those sorts of thing, it was mostly just such a horrible dream, not being able to wake up, and then finally a coincidence like that. I have never not been able to wake up from a dream like that in which I knew I was dreaming. The actual time I was asleep was probably less than ten minutes.
Sleep is a very strange thing, and we still don’t fully understand why we do it, what it’s for, or why we dream. I am taking a break from trying to dream for a while. To the point I’m afraid to sleep, just a little bit. Not like Freddie Krueger style but you get my drift. Thanks for reading. -c
The paralysis part refers to those times when you know that you’re woken up, but you feel unable to move for a few seconds or even minutes. It’s quite common, and happens more to some than others. The human brain has evolved to mostly shut down the body’s main motor functions during sleep as a safety measure. Think not falling out of bed, or say, 20,000 years ago, some hunter not falling off the mountain he was sleeping on. Waking up with this feeling can be terrifying to some people, especially if it’s not common for them. It usually goes away very quickly.
I experience a certain type of this paralysis constantly, so I don’t find it as frightening. It’s happened so much that I even have ways to will myself to move, with varying degrees of success. The difference in my case is that I often have the experience that I’m fully awake, in the room I’m in, maybe talking to someone, watching TV. Suddenly I start feeling weird or shaky, like I can’t move, then realise that I’m not awake. Returning to reality is often hard and I need to try and slap my leg in the dream so my body will catch on and do the same. Suddenly I wake up and realise no one is there, the room is dark, the TV is off. It’s momentarily panic inducing. This all sounds very science-fiction, I know. But it’s a real thing and happens to many people.
Now to lucid dreaming. This is a much studied concept wherein the person dreaming is aware that they are in a dream and in most cases can guide or control it. Some people can do it well, for others it’s a hokey mystery. I’ve practised lucid dreaming since I was a young child. I’m pretty good at it. You can train yourself to be better at it. Learning the way to tell you are dreaming, and then trying to let the dream guide you before you try to change things in it. This is real, and it’s definitely what the producers and creators of Inception were studying with the film.
In a lucid dream, you will suddenly get the impression that something’s not right, and say to yourself ‘oh hey this is a dream, ok’. Then you just go with it, follow where the dream is going, maybe try to change a few things, turn left instead of right, etc. You know you are dreaming because it’s not possible to read in dreams. That’s usually my tell. At some point, things will change, maybe become more bizarre, take on a darker tone, and one jarring thing will happen, jolting you awake. “The dream collapses.” That’s not a new concept.
I like to practise dreaming during the day, because when taking naps outside of your normal day/night sleep cycle, you are more prone to these types of dreams. Your brain is fully operational rather then slowing down preparing for the night sleep cycle.
Today I was able to have 3 lucid dreams. The first two were pretty cool. In one I was in a neat little town walking around with no shoes on trying to find the apartment I was moving into. I went into a weird bar by mistake and everyone looked at me, and a girl said “Where are your shoes?” zapping me awake. The other one I was in this quaint beachy house, wandering around, it felt like I was there on some vacation. I was able to explore most of the rooms and could even look out the windows. Then I walked into the kitchen-dining area. A whole completely mysterious family was there eating and talking and laughing. They all turned and stared at me, I woke up immediately. (Think of the typical “naked at school” or whatever dreams.)
The third dream was the most insane and intense lucid dreaming experience I’ve ever had. I was in my room, in my bed, and had just woken up, there was light streaming through the window. I wasn’t sure yet if it was a dream or not. My dad was calling me from the other room, I walked out of mine, and my living room was full of bizarre rainbow Christmas tree-like sculptures. They were everywhere, even making it hard to walk around. I felt like they were closing in on me. I was aware I was dreaming and ran out to my back room to try and take hold of the dream. The TV was on, but some random man was watching it. And he waved at me. I was freaking out by this point, I ran back through the tree-room into my bedroom. The walls were completely covered with bizarre text. I was screaming “Wake Up Wake Up!” which usually works. But it didn’t. Then I heard my phone ringing, and picked it up but couldn’t really read it, I answered and it was my brother. He made no sense and the phone kept ringing and I kept tying to answer. Eventually I was running through my house screaming “WAAKEUPPPP” as the phone kept ringing. It seemed like hours. Suddenly I actually woke up, horrified, my heart pounding, out of breath and my cell phone was in the bed underneath me, ringing. And it was my damn brother calling. How bout creepy stuff right there.
I’m not going to make any connection to the phone call in the dream and the real one being the same, I’m not one who believes much in those sorts of thing, it was mostly just such a horrible dream, not being able to wake up, and then finally a coincidence like that. I have never not been able to wake up from a dream like that in which I knew I was dreaming. The actual time I was asleep was probably less than ten minutes.
Sleep is a very strange thing, and we still don’t fully understand why we do it, what it’s for, or why we dream. I am taking a break from trying to dream for a while. To the point I’m afraid to sleep, just a little bit. Not like Freddie Krueger style but you get my drift. Thanks for reading. -c