Remember in Inception when Cobb tells the girl that she can create and perceive her world at the same time, and that the brain does this so well that she won’t even realise it’s happening? That’s Inception dream logic, and it’s true.
This is what happens in Lucid Dreaming, or any dream in fact.
The brain, more specifically, the subconscious brain is able to create and perceive the world at the same time, meaning you can create things and explore it as you wish, and do whatever you want while you’re in the dream.
The fact that the brain does this allows us to do some pretty interesting things. Because your brain is creating the world AS YOU EXPLORE IT, it’s almost like a video game that renders only the graphics for the scene that you’re looking at.
The rest of the game doesn’t exist until the graphics engine renders it, which only happens when you go into certain areas and explore in a certain direction.
A game won’t load level 2 when you’re playing level 1, and in the same way a dream won’t ‘load’ the outside world if you’re in a house.. Your mind actually does more than just ‘render’ the world, it creates it. Every time you walk through a door in a dream your mind is creating a world from scratch.
It’s using ideas you have about how the world should be, almost like your residual self image but for things external to you.
This means basically that everyone has a rough idea of what a car should look like and how it should behave, therefore in a dream you’re not ‘creating a car’ but you’re remembering it and your brain places it on the road.
You don’t have to think about things like the physics of a car, or making the individual parts of the engine work in the dream because your mind does that for you. Your mind assumes the car will work and just ‘renders’ it driving along the road. Because your mind does this and makes the whole process automatic, you are able to ‘step in the middle’ of this process.
Experience ‘true creation’ in your dreams
As you’re able to step in the middle of the process, you can be creative and explore the world of lucid dreaming while your mind creates the world around you. You’re just going to experience and explore it! Leave all the heavy lifting to your subconscious mind.
This is something we all do every night. Not everyone is Lucid every night but everyone dreams every night, we just don’t always remember those dreams. Everyone ‘creates and perceives’ their dream world, every time they go to sleep. It’s pretty amazing really, but as Lucid dreamers we can go one step above this and actually get creative.
Because we’re controlling or guiding our dreams, we’re partially conscious while dreaming. This means that in essence, one part of our brain is exploring the other part of it. We’re ‘walking through’ our own minds in a lucid dream and that has some big implications.. I have a ‘beginners guide’ to all of this.. if you’re interested.
You’re literally ‘talking to your subconscious’
As you explore a dream, when you’ve become lucid and self aware, consider the fact that what you see walking around you is more than just a load of dream characters.. The people, objects and places you see are projections from your subconscious mind. The parts of your brain that normally you can’t communicate with on any sort of conscious level are walking around you in the form of people.
Approach one of your dream characters and talk to them!
Ask them what they represent, which part of your mind they are! What they’ll tell you may surprise you, because they’re a pure form of your mind and their answers might be a little unpredictable. Some of the dream characters can represent different character traits that you have. One dream story I tell is when I asked my subconscious a question about my life purpose.
You could be ‘talking’ to your own fear, or your own confidence. You could use this ability to do almost anything. Tell your confidence that you want it to perform better and help you out in social situations. Maybe your mind will reveal the reason you fear a certain thing..
You could approach your fear and tell it to go away or not bother you any more.
You Create And Perceive The World Simultaneously
It’s more than just a random quote from Inception, the implications behind this fact are enormous. You not only explore the dream but you’re also creating it with your subconscious mind. Get in the middle of that process (by becoming lucid) and you’re able to suddenly talk to parts of your mind you probably never even knew existed.
How to use this information
So you’ve learned that you create and explore the world in a dream at the same time. What does this mean? Well, it means you can start better controlling what you do and understanding that you’re walking through your mind. Try some of these things!
- Find something you’re afraid of in your next lucid dream, and ask it what it’s there for. Ask it what it represents, and then write it down in your journal in the morning
- Try going deeper in a lucid dream with binaural beats so that you have more time in the dream to experiment with things
- Try some of these lucid dream experiments and exercises and see what you learn. The results will be different for everyone!
- Have fun!
