To Dream or Not to Dream.

Do you dream every night, or do you wake up with no memory of anything and feeling more tired? 

A lucid dream should not be mistaken by normal dreaming, as there are many ways in which we dream. 

Lucid dreaming can leave you feeling restored, whereby a stressful dream (normally the result of feeling stressed and over-tired) can leave you waking more tired than ever, and even more stressed, and even a little shaken from the dream.

I always find myself with a scattered sleep pattern after the new year. I have wild dreams, too many late nights from a scattered sleep pattern, and sometimes wake up feeling more exhausted. When I should be feeling fresh and recharged from taking some time off throughout the holidays.

Self-diagnosis, I don’t think it’s from stress, but rather from a scattered sleep pattern from trying to get back into a proper sleep routine after the holiday period.

And this got me thinking about how much my routine does change every year after Christmas, and why my sleep patterns are all over the place in the new year. With weird dreams or no dreams at all.

Dreaming is often the doorway to seeking answers to questions about life, spirituality, religion, love, and varying other subjects we are often seeking answers for.

It is here, in the dreamscape, we often do find a way to resolve issues when we are awake. But often we don’t remember the answers, as we are not lucid enough to remember the dreams at all.

Dreams have fascinated people for centuries. With famous scholars, writers, meditation gurus, musicians and even philosophers have claimed their talents came to them through meditation and dreams, when they channelled the right energy to power them to be great people of our time.

I read a great article from one of my favourite magazines Breath, where they wrote about how lucid dreaming and good sleep patterns can help you feel renewed, revitalised, and even resolved.

Though they did give a disclaimer the practice of lucid dreaming is not recommended for everyone, and anyone with a pre-diagnosed mental health condition should seek proper advice on how to meditate for lucid dreams and then some.

But for anyone else, willing to try and work out a fresher way to kick off their new year, here are 5 ways to prepare your body for a better sleep pattern and to hopefully achieve lucid dreaming:

1. Be more mindful: try incorporating yoga and meditation into your daily routine. I do yoga 3 times a week, which is great. However, I am finding meditation before bed helps me feel more relaxed for sleeping. I use a meditation app that plays a 30-minute meditation for me on my phone, whilst listening to a thunderstorm in the background. And you can make the thunderstorm (or any other background noise) run for as long as you like to ensure you stay asleep and don’t wake after the meditation. The app will automatically shut off when the meditation has run the time/length you set, and your phone switches off also. 
   
2. Keep a dream diary: If you connect more with your dreams, you may find you will dream more. This is because you are writing down what you remember from your dream and finding ways to connect to it and why you dreamed it in the first place. It’s also a great way to remember if you have had that dream before, as it often happens at moments of stress in your life, and you dream about the same dream as it’s relevant to the same type of stress you are going through.
   
3. Invest in a good dream translator: This can be in the form of a book, or something else you track down that help you diagnose and break down the dream. This is super handy for those times when you discover you dream about the same type of content most nights (normally determined when you keep a dream diary). This can be that you always dream of flying, or driving, gardening, or something else. 
   
4. Set an intention before sleep: Try setting an intention before you shut your eyes for the evening. A similar process to what you would do before you start yoga, or meditation, where you set yourself an intention for the class, the session, the day, the week, the month or even the year. It can be something like ‘focus on better health and wellness’ or focus on cleansing the soul and being more free’. Doing so can often reflect in your dreams and give you some guidance in the dreamscape.

Sleep well, and dream good.