Parapsychologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists have been working for years to check the possibility of astral projection. According to researchers, astral projection or astral travel is an out-of-body experience that enables a person to visit different realms. The concept relies on the thoughts the soul or consciousness can escape out of the boundaries of a physical body. A plethora of researches explains the two phenomena in detail. However, lucid dreaming is an experience in which the dreamer can view and direct the thoughts in his dreams. In addition to the physical universe, people also desire to explore the universe of their minds. This desire got displayed in different series like Behind her eyes. In this Netflix series, Emma Watson gets training to experience the world of astral projection. So, the desire to enjoy this out-of-body experience is not new. However, research is ongoing to understand the proneness to both phenomena.

The basic meaning of astral projection and lucid dreaming

To explore the mind’s universe, people generally followed two techniques that are astral projection and lucid dreaming. Don’t mix both terms because they are different. Astral projection is a guide on how to travel out of the body. You can say that it is the capacity to separate one material body from a spiritual one. While in lucid dreaming, the dreamer becomes conscious about what he sees in the dream. Throughout a lucid dream, the idealist may get a grip over characters, the sequence of events, and the situation in the lucid dream.

How do motives and situations of astral projection & lucid dreaming differentiate?

Motives, causes, and the environment in both states are poles apart. The most widespread rationale behind inducing a lucid dream comprises wish accomplishment, prevailing over fears, and healing. But the actual reason behind astral projection is unknown, and an out-of-body experience is a medical mystery.

What goes on during astral projection and lucid dreaming?

You can prepare your mind to dream whatever you want during a lucid dream. The thing that affects is that dreamers remember all the experiences. In astral projection, people generally encounter their sense of self within their physical bodies. Comparable to this in astral projection, you may think you are out of yourself, and you look at your physical body from another point of view.

Another question that matters is what you feel during both conditions. In lucid dreams, you do not experience any alteration in your physique; but, it resembles actual dreaming. Comparatively, you may feel floating outside your body, and you look down at your body from a height at a distorted perception.

Is there any training to induce both states?

Of course, some techniques induce astral projection as well as lucid dreaming. For lucid dreaming, techniques like reality testing, dream journals, MILD, WILD practices help for experiencing it. Moreover, people interested in experiencing near-death stages also try astral projection. There are no scientifically applied methods for astral projection. However, psychological techniques are used to induce lucid dreaming.

Lucid dreaming happens in reality, while the experience of astral projection is something hypothetical.

The intentional effort of recalling something about to happen in the future helps people achieve tasks without external help. For example, some peoples have the God gifted ability to wake up before the ringing of the alarm. It is because their prospective memory keeps them aware while sleeping. So, induction of lucid dreaming is successfully achievable by improving your memory.

So, the ability to remember upcoming events helps one to realize that he is dreaming. But you need to rehearsal for improving this memory. For example, you must try to be aware of your dreams while sleeping. Practice for a couple of weeks, and ultimately your prospective memory will get improved. Once it gets developed, it will be easy for you to induce LD.

You can go through the Role of memory in lucid dreaming to understand the correlation between LD and prospective memory.

Importance of prospective memory for MILD technique

Prospective memory is more helpful for people who can keep themselves conscientious. People who strictly follow their routine develop an internal biological clock that reminds them of their tasks during sleeping. For example, some patients automatically remember to take their medicine without any external reminder. It is due to his prospective memory.

That's why LD practitioners recommend using your subconscious memory for experiencing lucid dreaming. Mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming (MILD) relies on the development of prospective memory. In this technique, dreamers use different exercises to improve presumptive memory. Once they boost their memory, they automatically experience lucid dreams.

How significant is prospective memory for lucid dreaming?

Experts recommend imminent memory as the most successful skill for inducing lucid dreaming. As mentioned above, the core of the MILD technique is prospective memory. It is a self-explained concept that lucid dreaming is useless if you cannot recall it. So, it is the prospective memory that remains turned on while sleeping. So, it helps you to remember the dream events with ultimate clarity.

You can estimate the importance of prospective memory for lucid dreaming from the fact the techniques helpful for LD mostly use presumptive memory. The reason is that there are two types of memories working in the human mind, Retrospective and prospective. Retrospective memory helps to call the past events. So, it turns off automatically while sleeping because we don't dream of our past. So, it's the prospective memory that remains active and helps induce lucid dreams.

How to improve your prospective memory?

Some experts suggest doing reality checks for improving the imminent memory. The stronger a person's memory, the better he can experience lucid dreams. To analyze your memory health, you can bother yourself by seeing a particular object in your dreams. For example, if you encounter a cat ten times in your walking life, do a reality check in your sleep on seeing a cat. Think, whether you are sleeping or not. It will polish your memory.

Verdict

The final verdict is that prospective memory plays a significant role in lucid dreaming. However, the person who is more aware of himself in waking life is more conscious in their dreams. It means they are more suitable for developing prospective memory in Lucid dreaming.

If we surge into the world of lucid dreaming, we will find that the concept is far different from pop dream psychology. For experiencing lucid dreaming, you need proper training in inducing LD, and when people become experts in lucid dreaming, they can automatically trigger LD from their hypnogenic state. So, you can use lucid dreaming to get confidence, solve your problems and bring creativity.

However, lucid dreaming is not possible without getting aware of your dream. Awareness of the LD is possible by questioning reality. It means you need to perform actions in the waking world that help you perceive you are not dreaming. In the context of lucid dreaming, these actions are reality checks. So, once you get an expert in doing reality checks, you will induce LD daily. Lucid dreamers can consult different handbooks on lucid dreaming for further understanding.

How can you explore the world of lucid dreaming?

Although lucid dreaming is a thrilling experience, people find it difficult to induce LD. Following are some tips to explore the world of lucid dreaming:

Keeping reading journals

A dream journal helps you to improve your dreaming skills. You can read different journals to get in touch with the ongoing tricks for LD. Moreover, the dreaming experience of people clicks new ideas for your dreamscape in mind.

Increasing the time of REM sleep

REM sleep is the period during which lucid dreaming is enjoyable. So, Lucid slumbers must get more REM sleep to increase the chance of lucid dreaming.

Trying induction methods

Lucid dreaming practitioners recommend various techniques to induce LD. Mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming is the most effective method for instant induction of LD. You may try other methods like WILD or wake back to bed tactics for this purpose.

Use of oneirogens

Oneriogens are the plants that help induce LD. Different oneirogens or organic extracts from the dream plants are buyable online. Accompanying these oneirogens with induction techniques will help you explore the world of lucid dreams instantly.

Practicing reality testing

Differentiating reality from dreams is essential for triggering lucidity while sleeping. For this, you can try various methods to question the realistic world. Try to do things impossible in the real world but doable in dreams. For example, try to fly in the air like birds. If you can't do this, it means that you are waking. While experiencing LD, you will be able to fly, and the practice of reality checks will make you aware that you are dreaming.

What are the perks of inducing lucid dreams?

Exploring the unseen horizons of lucid dreaming will improve your motor skills. Different scholarly articles and websites quote lucid dreaming as healing physical and psychological defects. Several famous people did this and got remarkable results, like Hellen Keller. She was blind and used to imagine the world via lucid dreaming, and it improved her cognitive abilities for thinking and feeling the world.

So the endnote is that exploring lucid dreams also helps you with your hidden talents. Moreover, you can use LD for polishing your skills like gaming, etc.

Sleep is a vital part of a person's routine for a healthier life. Sleep grants time to our brain to detox, our bodies to take rest and our minds to explore the boundless world through dreams. A remarkable fact is that we dream approximately 2,190 days or 52,650 hours, almost six years of our lives.

Lucid dreams give power and control to dreams. So, it is necessary to achieve lucid dreams with a positive attitude. One of the craziest things is to hit lucid dreaming with music, and it can be used to accelerate lucid dreams.

Reddit provides you with the website content, social news, personal experiences, and scientific findings related to LD in one place. So, you don’t need to go on different browsers, and you can look for the images, text, and video experiences of lucid dreamers at once. Moreover, the hyperlinks available in the Reddit content can directly transfer you to the original document.

You might think about whether disabled people can experience lucid dreaming or not? The answer is yes. Lucid dreaming opened a gateway for people to improve their innate skills or to recover from a disability. From a vibrant athlete to a person in a wheelchair, anyone can enjoy their favourite movements during LD.

Lucid Dreaming occurs when you recognize that you are dreaming. You can realize your thoughts and feelings while you dream. You may also be able to control Lucid Dreaming. You may be able to change people, environments, and stories.

A recent statistic showed that 50 percent of the global population experience lucid dreaming. But people are trying to learn the art of lucid dreaming nowadays, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. Such people attend special workshops and pieces of training to induce LD. However, learning these skills is not so easy as it appears.

In everyone's life, there are some situations when they have to decide and choose a path that may impact their future. For example, someone might think about becoming a director of a film and performing as an actor of the same? It may involve thinking about the plot, the whole scenario, scenes, and the story's end. After knowing all aspects related to that, they can decide to be an actor or only director. Actually, at that time, their brain is working and making decisions by consciousness.