All right, so this time we’re diving into some really fascinating stuff. You ready for this? It’s all about how our minds actually go about building those complex and sometimes just plain bizarre worlds we experience when we’re dreaming. Yeah, it’s mind-blowing when you really start to think about it. And we’ve got some great material to work with. Exactly, especially the building of dreams section. It really gets into the nitty-gritty. Exactly. Especially the building of dreams section really gets into the nitty gritty. And the goal here is to, well, I guess you could say extract the coolest, most useful insights from all this research and see what it tells us about this incredible creative process. And, you know, especially LaBerge’s Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, they’ve got this really nice blend of like hard science and practical techniques and even personal stories from people who’ve really explored their dreams. It definitely changes how you think about dreams. You know, before I started looking into this, I kind of just saw them as these random, meaningless firings of neurons. Yeah, I get it. But actually, it’s way more deliberate than that. Like our minds are actively building these realities like from the ground up. So to even begin to wrap our heads around how that happens, it seems like this idea of schemas is essential. You know, they’re described as the actual building blocks of how we perceive and think, not just in our waking lives, but in our dreams, too. Exactly. Think of schemas as these mental blueprints, our own personal private theories, as LaBerge calls them, about how things work in the world. Okay, I think I’m starting to get it. So, like, are these the frameworks our minds use to kind of organize information? You got it. They group together typical features or, you know, attributes related to objects or people or even whole situations. There are these little packets of knowledge that our minds can quickly access. So to really illustrate this, the material brings up this really neat little story about Nasruddin walking into a shop. Ah, yes. A classic example. Do you want to set it up? Sure. It’s so simple, but so effective. Basically, Nasruddin just walks into a shop and asks, have you any butter and pound packets? And that’s it. That’s all we get. But just those few words. Our minds immediately go into overdrive, right? Totally. I mean, I instantly pictured a whole shop in my head. The shelves, the counter, a shopkeeper standing there. You even assume without being told that they’d even sell butter there, right? It’s crazy how much we just automatically fill in. Right. It’s your shop schema kicking in and effortlessly filling in all those missing details, like you said. And it all feels so natural and obvious. We don’t even think about it. So we assume without a second thought that the shopkeeper is there to sell things, that the shop has a way in and a way out is probably on a street with other stores. Our brains are just amazing inference machines. Right. And whether we’re navigating our everyday world or, you know, floating through this weird dreamscape, it seems like this process is always running in the background. Absolutely. And a really important point here is this. Most of the time, we’re not even aware of it. These schemas are operating automatically, like influencing how we act and perceive without us consciously analyzing them. It’s kind of like, well, the material gives this example of being at the opera. So like your opera schema tells you how to behave. Sit still, face the stage, be quiet. And nobody has to explicitly tell you that, right? No, it’s just part of this like shared understanding of how you’re supposed to act in that situation. Precisely. It’s all thanks to these schemas working behind the scenes. And it’s fascinating, you know, how the material points out the link between these schemas and stereotypes. It makes you think because it shows how easily unconscious assumptions can get baked into our understanding of things. Yeah, that’s a bit unsettling for sure. It is, but that’s why it’s so important to be aware of these mental processes. And it’s not just about static situations. You know, LeBurge actually talks about different levels of activation for these schemas. They can operate at like an unconscious level or a preconscious level, or even with our full awareness. You know, the ocean example he uses is a perfect illustration. Oh, yeah. The one where just hearing or reading the word ocean triggers a cascade of related thoughts. Exactly. So you might instantly think of fish or seagulls or waves. That’s at the conscious level, right, where it’s all right there in your mind. Exactly. But there’s also this pre-conscious level, like information that’s just bubbling beneath the surface. For example, you might not be actively thinking about ships, but the ship schema could be primed, ready to be accessed, like that word on the tip of your tongue. Ah, I get it. So if you then saw a drawing that was kind of ambiguous, maybe it could be a ship, maybe not, you’d be more likely to see it as a ship because that schema is already activated. Exactly. So fascinating how much is going on under the hood without us even realizing it. Isn’t it? It really highlights how these mental models are constantly shaping how we see the world, even outside of our direct awareness. And that applies to our dreams too, right? Right. Okay. So we’ve got the building blocks, blocks the schemas but what actually acts as the architect like what decides how these pieces are put together to create the specific dreams we have yeah because they’re so different from each other well the material points to expectation as a really major player it’s like a powerful architect shaping the dream world so like we tend to expect dreams to have certain features like gravity, space, time. Because those are the constants in our waking life, right? Right. And that’s where Freud’s idea of day residue comes in. Our recent experiences kind of bleed into our dreams. Absolutely. Whatever we’ve been thinking about, events we’ve experienced, conversations, all of it’s readily available and can easily weave its way into our dreams. It makes sense when you think about it. If something’s been on your mind all day… It’s likely to show up in your dreams that night. Makes total sense. But it’s not just the immediate past, right? Like our long-term interests, the stuff we’re preoccupied with. Worries, fears, those can all influence our dreams too. Like LeBerge talks about that minister who dreamt of Nebuchadnezzar after seeing his image in an inkblot test. Just a random encounter sparked this whole dream. It really shows how interconnected everything is. And the dream version one and dream version two scenarios really highlight how these different expectations can create totally different dreamscapes, even from the same basic starting point. Oh, absolutely. Remember, both versions start with City Street at night. But in version one, the dreamer’s expectation is danger. So a shadowy figure appears. Right. But in version two, they’re expecting to meet a friend. And what happens? They have a friendly encounter, same setting, completely different experiences just because of their expectations. It’s powerful stuff, isn’t it? Shows how much influence our assumptions have on our dreams absolutely and what i find really interesting is that we basically assume we’re awake even in our dreams and that actually messes with our perception while we’re dreaming that’s a great point because we expect to be awake we unconsciously try to make sense of all the weird inconsistent things in our dreams right like instead of just accepting that hey i’m in a dream anything unconsciously try to make sense of all the weird, inconsistent things in our dreams. Right. Like instead of just accepting that, hey, I’m in a dream, anything goes, we try to apply waking logic to it all. And come up with these crazy, elaborate rationalizations. It’s like our minds are trying so hard to fit everything into a framework that just doesn’t apply in dreams. And that actually probably makes it harder to realize we are dreaming in the first place. Yeah, absolutely. Because instead of going, wait a minute, this is nuts. I must be dreaming. We just roll with it. Okay. So that brings us to this really intriguing idea, the power of belief in building our dreams. It’s like what we believe is possible or impossible. Those beliefs actually set the limits for us in our dreams. And it seems like that’s even more powerful than any actual physical limitations we might have. It’s true. Our beliefs can be incredibly powerful, especially in dreams. Like, the material mentions this anecdote about P.D. Spensky. He was convinced you couldn’t say your own name in a dream. And guess what happened every time he tried? He woke up. His own expectation created the very limitation he believed in. That’s wild. But then there’s Celie Green and Patricia Garfield. They said it wasn’t impossible to say their name. It was just… Disruptive, maybe. Yeah, something like that. And you yourself said you’ve easily said your name in a lucid dream. Oh, yeah, many times. It’s a perfect example of how our individual expectations play a role. If you think it’s going to be impossible, it probably will be, at least in the dream world. That Henry Ford quote really comes to mind here. You know, whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right. It’s so true, especially in dreams. Our beliefs really do become self-fulfilling prophecies. They shape what we experience as possible. really do become self-fulfilling prophecies. They shape what we experience as possible. Okay. So to recap, we’ve got schemas as the basic building blocks shaped by our expectations from waking life and ultimately limited or expanded by what we believe is possible. It’s a fascinating picture of how our minds actively construct these dream worlds. But for me, the most exciting part is this idea of intentional building, like actually manipulating our dreams. And that’s where lucid dreaming comes in. Yes. It’s like we’re no longer passive observers. When we become aware that we’re dreaming, we can actually interact with that world, change things even. It’s like suddenly realizing you have superpowers. And there are techniques we can use to make those lucid dreams last longer, like focusing on your hands or the ground beneath your feet. Those can really help to ground you in the dream. And then there’s a spinning technique. It’s supposed to be a way to extend those lucid dreams and even shift to totally new dream scenes. How does that work? So while you’re lucid, you start spinning your dream body. But the key is to maintain awareness throughout the entire experience. So you don’t slip back into that passive state. Exactly. And often this spinning will trigger a scene change in the dream, like you’re being transported somewhere new. But it’s important to do a reality check after you stop spinning. Reality check. Like how do you do that in a dream? Just ask yourself, am I really awake? Look for anything that seems off or out of place. That’ll tell you if you’re still dreaming. You want to avoid those false awakening. False awakening. What’s that? It’s where you think you’ve woken up, but you’re actually still in the dream. Oh, wow. That’s trippy. your senses so strongly with this spinning, it might actually reduce your brain sensitivity to outside stimuli. So it’s like you’re blocking out the real world. In a way, yes. And there’s also this idea that like when you vividly imagine something using one sense, your sensitivity to real world input from that same sense goes down. So focusing on that spinning sensation might be blocking out the subtle signals from your physical body. That could keep you from waking up. Fascinating. It is. And on that note, there’s some advice on what to do if you do happen to wake up too soon. It sounds kind of funny, but they say to play dead. Play dead in real life. Well, yeah, just lie perfectly still, relax every muscle. Okay, I can see that. You’re tricking your brain into thinking you’re still asleep. Exactly. And sometimes that’s enough to slip you back into REM sleep and potentially back into that lucid dream. Worth a shot for sure. And once you achieve lucidity, what can you do to hold on to it? One big one is using inner speech, those silent affirmations. Like reminding yourself this is a dream exactly that constant reminder can be really powerful in keeping your awareness from fading you know preventing you from getting so caught up in the dream that you lose that lucidity it’s like you’re constantly anchoring yourself to that awareness exactly and this ability to interact with our dreams to manipulate them It opens up some really incredible possibilities, especially when it comes to creative problem solving. The material even calls it a mental workshop. A workshop for the mind. I like that. And they give some amazing examples like that department store manager who used lucid dreaming to figure out new store layouts. Right. And remember that chemistry student who was solving complex equations in their dreams? With a 95 percent success rate? That’s just wow. It is pretty remarkable. And then there’s the person who used it to remember a list of baby names. See, it’s not just about the big, complex stuff. Even everyday problems can be tackled. It does seem like in that relaxed, open state of a lucid dream, we can tap into things we might struggle with when we’re awake. You know, the material actually talks about how this might be related to the stages of the creative process. Like we’ve got saturation, incubation, and then… Illumination. Right. And lucid dreaming might be a way to boost that illumination stage by giving us access to what’s called tacit knowledge. It’s that stuff we know how to do but can’t easily explain. Ah, like riding a bike. You just do it. But explaining how is a whole other thing. Precisely. Lucid dreams might be a way to tap into this kind of knowledge for other things, like solving problems that have been stumping us. So like that story about the math competition participant who dreamt of a reference book? Exactly. They couldn’t find the answer while awake, but in the dream it just came to them. And it turned out the answer was actually in that book. And this idea of mental modeling in dreams, using them to visualize abstract concepts or work through problems, that’s a really exciting area. Like Fariba Bogzaran, she used lucid dreams to explore her own artwork. And it even inspired her to learn this whole new technique, paper marbling. So much more to dreaming than we realize. It’s not just random. It’s a tool. A tool for innovation, for self-discovery, for, well, the material even mentions using it for better decision making. That’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Imagine playing out different scenarios and seeing the potential outcomes all within the safe space of a lucid dream. It’s like a consequence-free test run. And they talk about building this lucid dream workshop for ongoing creative breakthroughs. Like Robert Louis Stevenson’s brownies, who supposedly helped him write. It’s a lovely image, isn’t it? A team of dream helpers always there to inspire you. Okay, but let’s move on to another amazing potential use for lucid dreaming. Overcoming fears and anxieties. I mean, that alone is pretty incredible. Oh, it is. Having a safe space to confront those anxieties, work through them, it’s so empowering. And the material uses this great analogy of a child who’s afraid of the dark. Because when you’re lucid, you know it’s not real. Right, exactly. So even if scary stuff comes up, there’s this awareness that it’s all just a dream that gives you a level of control you just wouldn’t have in a regular nightmare. And there’s that example of the person who kept having this nightmare with a monster, but once they became lucid, they were able to confront the monster and actually transform it into something else entirely. Wow. Talk about taking control. It’s a really powerful example of how facing our fears and dreams can help us diminish their power in our waking lives. And Thole’s research is really interesting here too. He suggests that a gentler approach to those scary dream figures can actually be more effective than fighting them off. Like trying to understand them instead of just attacking them? Exactly. Maybe it’s about integrating those shattery parts of ourselves instead of trying to suppress them. Now Patricia Garfield’s experience is so powerful. She actually chose to endure a perceived danger in a dream and then she realized that the real obstacle was her own fear. That’s a profound realization, isn’t it? It is. And the material actually lays out a six-step process for resolving nightmares with lucid dreaming. You know, recognize your dreaming, choose a new entry point into the nightmare, plan a new behavior, re-dream it, evaluate the results, and if it keeps happening, keep applying that new approach. It’s a really structured approach, giving you a way to take charge. I like that. And it’s amazing how even kids can do this. The examples they gave are so cool, like the kid who told the scary dinosaur to eat spinach instead. Yeah. And the one who imagined a soft landing when they were falling from the tower. So creative. They instinctively get this idea of dream control. And that sense of agency, that control, it’s something we can apply to what the material calls rehearsal for living. It’s this idea of using lucid dreams to practice for real life situations. Like a mental training ground. Exactly. And it’s not just mental either. You know, there’s a real connection between our actions and dreams and our physical responses. Like those Stanford studies that showed physiological changes happening based on what people were doing in their dreams, singing, for instance. Yeah. Well, they also studied sexual activity in dreams and saw real world physical responses. Exactly. It really underscores that our brains and bodies don’t completely separate those experiences. And Thole’s work with athletes is fascinating, too. He helped a skier learn a new jet maneuver through practicing it in his lucid dreams. Wow. So he was literally training in his sleep. And they give other examples, too, like people rehearsing for meetings, practicing presentations. Even navigating tricky social situations. It’s like getting a chance to run through it all in a large stakes environment. And build your confidence. It’s like exposure therapy, but for anything you can imagine. Precisely. You can experiment with different ways of communicating, work on that performance anxiety, and really solidify those skills all within the safe space of your mind. And even more powerfully, the material suggests that experimenting with new behaviors in your lucid dreams might actually make it easier to use them in waking life. So like if you’re working on being more assertive, practicing that in a lucid dreams might actually make it easier to use them in waking life. So like if you’re working on being more assertive. Yeah. Practicing that in a lucid dream could. Translate to being more assertive in real life. That’s amazing. Okay. So we’ve covered a lot, but there’s this one last piece that I found really intriguing. The material touches on the potential for having these really profound, maybe even mystical experiences in lucid dreams. Of course, it acknowledges that it’s tough to say for sure what these experiences mean, but they can feel incredibly real. Oh, absolutely. They often involve things like intense light, a feeling of interconnectedness with everything, a sense of being outside of time. And Tibetan dream yoga actually offers a framework for understanding this. They see lucid dreaming as a way to explore the nature of reality itself and to realize that both dream and waking experience are… Subjective. Yeah, like not as fixed and solid as we tend to think. Right. Tibetan dream yoga emphasizes three key insights about dreams. That they’re similar to waking perception, they’re constantly changing and unstable, and here’s the mind-bending part. That our waking perception might be just as unreal as our dreams. It really challenges our assumptions about what’s real and what’s not. So lucid dreaming can be a tool for deep self-discovery. But as the material says, it’s important to keep an open mind, not take everything at face value. To question, to explore. That’s the key. Absolutely. So as we wrap up, let’s bring it all home for you, our listener. What we’ve explored today is this amazing ability your own mind has to build the worlds you experience, not just the one you walk through every day, but the incredible, often strange worlds of your dreams. And by understanding the roles of schemas, expectations, and beliefs in this process, we start to see how much influence we actually have over our own inner landscapes. And through practicing lucid dreaming, we can take that influence to a whole new level. We can boost our creativity, solve problems in new ways, conquer our fears, even rehearse for real life challenges. The possibilities are pretty incredible. They are. It’s like realizing you have this whole untapped world inside you just waiting to be explored. And on that note, here’s a final thought for you to ponder as you go about your day and maybe as you drift off to sleep tonight. Think about how your own beliefs, those deep-seated ones and even the ones you might not be fully aware of, how they might be shaping not just your dreams, but your actual everyday experience of reality. What might become possible if you started to gently examine those beliefs? What could you unlock? We encourage you to dive into the techniques of lucid dreaming if you’re intrigued, and please share your experiences with us. We’d love to hear about your explorations in this incredible inner world.