Real Life 'Inception': How To Guide Your Dreams (VIDEO)

The hit film "Inception," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, has been sitting at the top of the box office for three weeks now. The film centers around the idea of manipulating your dreams. But did you know that, for some people, dream control is a reality?

Turns out, there is a whole body of science around tapping into the power of your dreams. Psychologists sometimes prescribe this type of "lucid dreaming" -- the ability to become conscious mid-dream and thus, control your dream world -- as a form of therapy for people with post-traumatic stress or reoccurring nightmares.

"You can tell yourself at bedtime that you want to dream about a particular topic, that you want to be lucid in your dream," said Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D. a dream researcher at Harvard University and author of "The Committee of Sleep."

Experts say you'll be more likely to be able to have lucid dreams if you sleep 9 or 10 hours a night, as REM cycles get longer and deeper.

WATCH:

Comments

[Pippen]

02:52 PM on 08/05/2010

I do this whenever I can. I have PTSD and it works. I did years ago when I was a college swimmer. The power of the mind over the body is much more profound than the average person understands. Some students and doctors of medicine and pyschology see it but since we still know very little people often treat it like the occult. Knowing a little is like have a loaded gun and waving it around.

Pyschology and mechanics of the human mind is an area we need to understand much more. We can heal ourselves and help our healing without such high doses of pharmaceuticals.

When I know I have the time to sleep 8+ hours I conscientiously determine my dream catagory and wake enough in the dream to actively influence the direction of my actions or protagonists. I fly from time to time which is really cool too. I love it when I fly most of the time.

[mmichael]

01:50 AM on 08/04/2010

Hey if you're into dreaming you should go check out Uprophecy.com it's a shared dreaming website.

[clairdelune]

09:37 AM on 08/03/2010

Now that is one superficial report!

[SilentSolidarity]

04:46 AM on 08/03/2010

What? The movie was about guiding a dream? Thanks for spoiling it HuffPost!

[Tommygun264]

05:28 AM on 08/03/2010

They tell you that in every advertisement for the film. Or did you tune out all of the dialogue in the preview and think Leonardo and Helen's characters were standing in the middle of Paris and calmly watching the distant edge of the city rise up and begin to roll over them like a wave in "real life"?

[wellingtonian]

06:29 AM on 08/03/2010

That's like saying 'Finding Nemo' is about finding Nemo, you didn't find out much!

[lastshot54]

08:35 AM on 08/03/2010

lol

[mamacat]

03:05 AM on 08/03/2010

The movie may help us to be more open to the idea that our brains are occasionally much more powerful than what our science can so far explain.

[neomonkey]

03:01 AM on 08/03/2010

Hate to burst everyone's bubble, but this is nonsense. Dreams are just hallucinations, caused by DMT, which is naturally produced by the body. If you do "lucid dreaming," all you are doing is perhaps starting a dream with a certain topic, but the dream will be simply hallucinations. Sorry.

[Tommygun264]

05:42 AM on 08/03/2010

Perhaps if you had studied and actually attempted to experience lucid dreaming, you might burst some bubbles, but simply denouncing something without citing any factual sources or personal experiences, you just come off as close-minded.

After I was struck by a large truck that ran a stop sign while I was riding a motor scooter and nearly killed I underwent treatment for PTSD related nightmares and waking dreams of the incident which included lucid dream therapy. One thing the therapist in the video didn't mention that I found very helpful was keeping a pen and notebook by my bedside so I could write down my dreams and nightmares as soon as I woke up, then reviewing my notes later in the day. The process is gradual and takes weeks, but the more you study & concentrate on your dreams when awake, the easier it gets to become aware that you are in a dream and once you realize you are in a dream, you can control the environment within your dreams. Dreaming is a chemical process within the brain, but how you react within your dreams is a matter of mental discipline. It's just like staging a fire drill, so you condition yourself to act responsibly in a stressful situation.

[johnsopinion]

06:47 AM on 08/03/2010

So, you're saying we can now eliminate research into psychology
because we know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that all things
mental are actually chemical and a pill will fix it?

The pharmaceuticals will LOVE you!

Your moniker-- "neo" and "monkey" --says it all.

[Asmodean1]

02:26 AM on 08/03/2010

I saw the movie, i liked it. But it is a movie and has nothing to do with this story of dreams. In the movie people "build" a tailor made dream. Then go into it for "reasons". Our real dreams, the dreams that you and I ahve every night are not any way someting from this story to this movie.

[BannedInBoston]

01:26 AM on 08/03/2010

I've dreamt lucidly on occasion. You can do it if you make up your mind to do and give yourself the autosuggestion that when you're dreaming, you will realize but stay asleep. I tend to have very real-seeming dreams, so this can be difficult. I remember once recently that while I was dreaming, I did an experiment to convince myself I WASN'T dreaming. There was a stationary train car nearby. I went around, knelt down, and tapped one of the wheels. It felt solid and I though to myself, yep, real....

[Mannock]

01:26 AM on 08/03/2010

I dreamed of fish...and I had fish for supper.

[jheinze007]

01:11 AM on 08/03/2010

Sweet, lucid dreamscapes, to all fellow wanderers in dreamland!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJqwuFOU-Wk
"Beimschlafengehen", from "Four Last Songs", Richard Strauss
Text: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Last_Songs

[jheinze007]

01:04 AM on 08/03/2010

Sweet, lucid dreamscapes, to all fellow wanderers in dreamland!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJqwuFOU-Wk
"Beim Schlafengehen"
("Going to sleep") (Text: Hermann Hesse)

Nun der Tag mich müd' gemacht,
...soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
freundlich die gestirnte Nacht
wie ein müdes Kind empfangen.

Hände, laßt von allem Tun,
Stirn, vergiß du alles Denken.
Alle meine Sinne nun
wollen sich in Schlummer senken.

Und die Seele, unbewacht,
will in freien Flügen schweben,
um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
tief und tausendfach zu lebe

Now that I am wearied of the day,
I will let the friendly, starry night
greet all my ardent desires
like a sleepy child.

Hands, stop all your work.
Brow, forget all your thinking.
All my senses now
yearn to sink into slumber.

And my unfettered soul
wishes to soar up freely
into night's magic sphere
to live there deeply and thousandfold.

[BikeFreak]

12:38 AM on 08/03/2010

I can only remember my dreams when I am exhausted. Otherwise, I recall nothing.

[BannedInBoston]

01:22 AM on 08/03/2010

I can still remember very vivid dreams I had as a kid. In fact, they seemed so real, I almost couldn't believe it when I woke up. Now, not so much.

[dianabfm]

12:28 AM on 08/03/2010

My 17 year old daughter has been able to have lucid dreams for 2 or 3 years without even trying. Sometimes she's had dreams that she wished were lucid because she didn't like what happened in them. Most of the time, she's able to control her dreams, though.

[jheinze007]

12:12 AM on 08/03/2010

My next quest is to travel back in time to ancient cultures, that I have identified with deeply in this lifetime, Rome, Egypt and the Ottoman Empire! Recently, I was very much aware of traveling through Victorian London (late 1800's, not very ancient), but unfortunately, I was not the director of the dream, rather just interrelating with a host of unknown, savory characters! Have any you, ever traveled back to a different time and place, and been aware of the minutest details, concerning your surroundings?

[BannedInBoston]

01:38 AM on 08/03/2010

Yes. I've done past-life regressions under the direction of a therapist and also on my own. I've also had flashes of past lives IN dreams. It sounds like that's what you're describing. When you're doing a directed regression it's like being in a 3-D hologram that you can fast-forward, etc. Strongly recommended. I would also suggest journaling these kinds of dreams when you have them spontaneously.

[johnsopinion]

06:52 AM on 08/03/2010

Yes. I was one of the crew (a surveyor) that laid out Washington DC when it
was just a village. ?!?

[jheinze007]

12:11 AM on 08/03/2010

I got to the point of being aware of the various senses, especially the sense of touch, forcing myself to look at my hands, and then observing them, as my palms felt and explored an antique cabinet and mirror directly in front of me. I then commanded myself to look down at my feet, which I saw, being totally aware that I was dreaming. I often have had quite intense lucid- dreaming whenever I take GABA and/or Mucuna Pruriens, just before bedtime. Even the combination of L-Argine and L-Ornithine, has induced lucidity in my dream states. But the most fascinating aspect of dreams, I find, is when they come true, or at least a certain aspect of them does!
During certain, lucid flying sequences, I have purposefully commanded my body to fly up to high altitudes and then glide along, looking down at the earth far below me! The sense of flying and feeling of the wind rushing by me, I was most aware of.
Oh yes, and one of the oddest dreams I ever had, was waking up from a dream, only to be keenly aware, that I was not awake at all, but still in a dream state, inside a house with loveliest of surroundings! So, it was a dream within a dream, and it was beautiful!

[jheinze007]

12:44 AM on 08/03/2010

The above should read L-Arginine!

[BannedInBoston]

01:47 AM on 08/03/2010

Way cool. I've had a lot of flying dreams too. Also, dreams of what I call "dreaming of waking". (I once dreamt that I woke, got out of bed, went into the bathroom, shaved, got dressed, and thought I was all ready to go to work, when I discovered I was still asleep! Sometimes I fly by myself, though gaining much altitude is hard. For that, I use a spaceship. (I've gone to the Moon and Mars in dreams, though they were quite different from what you read about in science news stories.)

Thanks, BTW, for the "chemical advice". I'll give all those substances a shot....