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Why Aren't We Always
Lucid in Dreams?

If becoming lucid in dreams is simply a case of recognizing the bizarre and illogical dream world, then why don't we all become lucid every night? Why do we simply accept our dreams of flying pigs and talking dinosaurs as waking reality?

Scientists have approached this question from three different angles...

1. The Subconscious Performs Therapy in Dreams

According to depth psychology, we must remain non-lucid in dreams so that our subconscious mind can perform its dream world therapy. If we could consciously evaluate every dream symbol as it occurred, the dream would be meaningless.

So, the ability to accept the dream as a genuine waking reality is important for the subconscious mind to do its psychological healing, personality integration or some other catharsis. By this theory, you can only become lucid in dreams if you are relatively free of unreconciled inner conflicts.

2. The Brain Accepts Everything as Real

The brain is an objective organ, and when it comes to analyzing new information, seeing really is believing. Even while we are awake, the brain accepts some pretty weird or illogical experiences as real and genuine. It's up to our conscious brain to determine the difference.

Dreams are like sleeping hallucinations. Studies have shown that both dream and hallucinatory images triggered by the brain stem can be as real as waking perception. This is confusing - and we are so driven to accepting our dreams as reality, that we automatically invent memories to explain what we're seeing. For example, in a dream, you may explain a talking ape by recalling a false memory of a science experiment in which apes were trained to talk!

3. We Have Separate Rules for The Dream World

This approach suggests that the dream world is not bizarre at all, since we dreamed as children long before we learned all of the physical laws of reality. So our subconscious was programmed to recognize fluid, imaginative constructs in dreams before the rigid, logical rules of waking life. No wonder we don't challenge the unreality of the dream world and become lucid in dreams more often.

Dreams and reality differ only in their respective level of expectations; the waking "I" expects stricter reality rules as you mature. The brain understands the boundary between these two worlds as waking up, and is able to adapt to a different set of rules. When this mechanism fails, you have a false awakening. That's when the waking "I" is activated even though you are still inside a hallucinatory dream world. It's then much easier to become lucid in dreams, since you are judging your dream by logical, waking standards.

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