Lucid dreaming is becoming aware, during a dream, that one is dreaming; dream incubation is setting an intention before sleep so that a dream may come on a chosen question; and waking dreams are dreamlike experiences whilst awake, from daydreams to deliberately going back into a dream. Therapeutic Shamanism compares journeys to dreams in being full of symbolic meaning, but does not teach these practices. A shamanic journey is something else, a trance entered deliberately whilst awake, with some awareness kept, that reaches the shamanic realms.
What is lucid dreaming? #
A lucid dream is one in which the dreamer knows they are dreaming whilst the dream is still going on. The psychologists Liat Aviram and Nirit Soffer-Dudek, of Ben-Gurion University in Israel, define it in just those terms, “awareness that one is dreaming, during the dream state”. Some researchers also count the ability to steer the dream, but control is present in only some lucid dreams.1 The dream researchers Fariba Bogzaran and Daniel Deslauriers describe lucidity growing out of heightened self-reflection within a dream, and often bringing more vivid dreams, better memory of them, and a sense of being able to choose and act within the dream.2
Is lucid dreaming good for us? #
The research points both ways. One line of study has linked lucid dreaming with well-being, resilience and a sense of control, and it has been tried as a treatment for nightmares. Another places it among mixed states of sleep and waking that go with stress and unusual experiences. Aviram and Soffer-Dudek suggest the difference lies in what kind of lucid dreaming is meant. In their study of students, how often people had lucid dreams was unrelated to psychological symptoms, whilst more intense lucid dreams, with more control and more positive feeling, went with fewer symptoms. Using deliberate techniques to induce lucid dreams went with more symptoms and sleep problems, and over two months it predicted a rise in dissociation and schizotypal symptoms. Their conclusion is that lucidity is not necessarily a sign of well-being, and that deliberate induction “may harbor negative long-term risk”.3
What is dream incubation? #
Setting an intention before sleep, focused on a particular issue, in the hope of dreaming about it. Bogzaran and Deslauriers trace it back to antiquity and find it in many cultures. In ancient rituals people slept in or near a temple, or in a natural place where the land was known to bestow healing, so that the connection was made with unseen spiritual help and with the forces of the place itself. Today it may be done for oneself, for someone else, or for a wider community, and they describe the intention as “a skillful way to focus the mind on a particular issue”.4
The books in the Therapeutic Shamanism series do not discuss dream incubation. There is one point of likeness, in that a shamanic journey also begins with a clearly stated intention, put to the GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this together with a request for their help.5 The difference is in what follows. In incubation the dreamer goes to sleep and the dream comes as it will. In a journey the practitioner stays awake, enters the trance on purpose, and keeps some conscious awareness of what happens throughout.6 See How do I prepare for a shamanic journey?
What are waking dreams? #
The phrase is used loosely, for dreamlike experiences whilst awake. It covers ordinary daydreams, the drifting images at the edge of sleep, and deliberate practices such as going back into a remembered dream. Bogzaran and Deslauriers teach several ways of re-entering a dream, one of them with a shamanic drum, and say that dream reentry “allows waking awareness and dream awareness to fuse momentarily”.7
Daydreaming is a light trance, one of many we slip in and out of every day, along with driving, jogging, painting, listening to music or staring at a fire. The journeying trance can be as light as a daydream, something easy to snap out of, or very deep, where the shaman loses all connection with ordinary reality, or somewhere in between.8 So what separates a journey from a daydream is not how deep it is. The question is asked directly: what defines a shamanic trance state “as opposed to, say, a daydream?” The answer is contact with the world of the spirits, the experience of a deeper reality beyond everyday surface reality, in which everything is experienced as alive and conscious.9 See What state of consciousness is used in journeying, and do journeys have to be visual?
Is a shamanic journey a kind of dream? #
It is like a dream in one important way, and different in others. Like dreams, journeys are full of symbolic meanings rather than literal truths. They belong to mythosMythos. Metaphorical, symbolic, felt truth: the truth of art, poetry and shamanic journeys. Shamanic reality is mythologically true, not literally true, which is why journeys are interpreted, never taken at face value. More about this, metaphorical truth, and not to logosLogos. Literal, factual, analytical truth: the truth of facts you can check. One of the two modes of truth, alongside mythos. More about this, literal truth.10 What that means for understanding dreams, and how dreams are used in psychotherapy, is set out in How does Therapeutic Shamanism understand dreams?
The differences lie in how a journey is entered and where it goes. A journey is a deliberate, temporary step into shamanic reality, taken whilst awake, with one foot kept in this world, and coming back at will is part of it.11 And it is defined by reaching the shamanic realms, not by how dreamlike it feels. See Is an out-of-body experience the same as a shamanic journey?
Who is really dreaming? #
The language of dreaming is also used the other way round. The shaman is sometimes described as someone who has “woken up”: woken out of the dream of consensus reality, the sleep that most people are in, and able to see and face the truth of things as they really are. With the turning away from shamanism, most of the world fell into an even deeper sleep, an ever more complex and dreamlike consensus reality.12 In that sense the dream is the shared story a whole society lives inside without question, and shamanism is about waking up to see both the world of spirits and human society as they really are. See What is shamanism?
