By Catherine Thomas


When most people talk about lucid dreaming, they would immediately think of the spiritual aspect of the practice. In fact, it is interesting to note that the term in itself refers to clarity or having clarity while being in the dreamworld. To shed a nice light on the topic though, it is important to look at the lucid dream meaning from both a spiritual point of view and a scientific point of view.

In the beliefs of Buddhism and Hinduism, there is a certain dreamworld that people enter when they fall asleep and it is a place where one seemingly cannot control him or herself. However, there are some people who have the ability to know that they are in a dreamworld and can take control of the surroundings. These are the people who are more self aware about the world around them than the others.

Now, this belief states that when one is self aware of the dreamworld, then he or she is also aware that the physical world is also an illusion where the soils rest. If one knows how to extract the truth from the dreamworld, then he or she also knows how to seek the truths from the physical realm. One can actually say that these people have an innate, profound wisdom to them.

Now, this is somehow linked to some scientific research stating that people who can lucidly control their dreams have a different cognitive ability compared to most people. One of the most notable studies comes from the duo of Patrick Bourke and Hannah Shaw from University of Lincoln. Their hypothesis would be that lucid dreamers have a higher cognitive ability for out of the box thinking.

In order to test this theory, they studied sixty eight students from ages eighteen to twenty five. They all recorded their experiences with their dreamworld journeys in which they were then asked to solved some puzzles that were rather complex. The hypothesis was that the lucid dreamers could handle these complex puzzles better than those who do not control their dreams very often or those that cannot at all.

When the results came out, it did show that those who often experience this phenomenon solved more puzzles by twenty five percent compared to those who cannot. The conclusion is that those who have this ability are actually born more creative and more complex when it comes to solving hard problems. Since creativity is found more in children, it is no surprise that children experience it more often.

The researchers then added that these people are able to take on the most complex problems and make them simple. This is a cognitive ability that most people have a hard time acquiring. In fact, some of the methods that these people come up with are not the types that average people would think.

Now, if one would look at the definitions from the spiritual view and the study results, there is actually confluence. According to spiritualists, these people are truth seekers while according to scientists, they are problem solvers. In any case, both seek out the truth and can break down complexities with their self awareness.




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