Lucid dreaming for emotional healing is getting more and more attention. Why? Because it works.
Here is an example of a time I personally used lucid dreaming for emotional healing.
Ever since I was 5 years old, I have had a recurring nightmare - usually when I have a fever. When I say this was recurring, I mean it was exact - word-for-word identical - every single time. In fact, I have probably had this dream at least 30 times throughout my life. In it, I am 5 years old again and I go into my backyard to see a swimming pool with two huge killer whales swimming in it. For some reason, the sight of this fills me with terror. My uncle then proceeds to jump into the pool and swim with the killer whales. I scream at him to get out but it only makes the whales more and more upset/ dangerous looking.
There is a lot more to the story, but often I would stay in this dream for what felt like hours. I'd usually wake up sweating, absolutely terrified, even as an adult.
One night, I decided that I was going to recreate this dream intentionally through lucid dreaming (which I had become pretty good at over the years). I was eventually able to succeed in doing this and as I began having the dream I started to question why things were happening, instead of reacting the way I usually did. I asked people why they were doing what they were doing. I even spoke to the killer whales in the pool. As weird as it sounds, they spoke to me in a strange language that I somehow understood. We made peace and the trauma never escalated beyond that. At the time, I just remember feeling like this dream experience was incredibly satisfying and looking back I still have positive feelings toward the dream I had that night.
And guess what? I have never had that dream since. It is as if the emotions that were causing this dream to repeat were somehow resolved and I have been able to move past those fears. Interestingly though, I've learned that I'm not the only person who has resolved this kind of issue through lucid dreaming. Here is a fascinating podcast from Radio Lab that's well worth time; it shares a VERY similar story of someone overcoming a repeated nightmare through lucid dreaming.
Since this experience, I have learned about and applied lucid dreaming for emotional healing in a variety of other ways. I have confidence that we are somehow able to confront emotions more directly through our dreams than we are during waking life, perhaps because our emotions are so much more active during dream sleep.
Other ways to use lucid dreaming for emotional healing
When you are in the dream state, you have access to your subconscious mind in a way that you don't during your waking life. And since many of the emotional issues we create are deeply embedded in the subconscious, resolving issues at this time is incredibly effective. I believe that you can accomplish things in a single night that could take decades of therapy to overcome.
Here are just a few of the many ways you can use lucid dreaming for emotional healing.
- Talking to someone who has hurt you deeply - this can be incredibly healing and can often help you prepare to speak to have a conversation that you are afraid of having in real life. Often, I find that in dreaming about a conversation I would like to have with someone who has hurt me, I let go of any negative feelings and simply feel like I have let it go
- Talking to someone who has already died - telling them how much you love them or saying something you wish you could have said when they were alive
- Recreating a traumatic event and changing the outcome - it is difficult to express the relief that can be experienced by changing the outcome of traumatic events in your dreams. (Interestingly, research has actually shown that people struggling with PTSD are often able to from learning how to lucid dream.)
How to use lucid dreaming for emotional healing
First, you need to learn how to lucid dream. This can be done more easily than you might think, especially with the right supplements. Dream Leaf in particular can be helpful at initiating lucid dreams and making them easier to recall in morning. Feel free to take a look at how it works.
Once you have learned how to lucid dream, the sky is the limit as far as what emotional issues you can then attempt to heal through lucid dreaming.