Somebody call the BFG

Dreams are powerful things. I've been thinking about them quite a bit of late. A few weeks ago I was having a particularly miserable day, moping about my room and burying my face in my pillow, that sort of thing. That night, seemingly out of nowhere, came a dream of which I can now remember very little. The only lasting memory I have of it was a brief episode involving a large bear. The bear was chained up and in the dream I patted it and stroked its fur. There was something very comforting about this. When I woke up, despite having no idea what I was doing in the dream and what the context of the bear being there was, I felt very cheerful and whenever I called the bear to mind during the rest of the next couple of days my mood was lifted.

It looks as though I've discovered my power animal then. I found it fascinating how something so out of the blue, out of my control and seemingly random could provide so much comfort. I mean, as far as I'm aware I hadn't been thinking about bears that day, or seen any. I hadn't even been hanging around any big hairy people. There was no questioning the effect the bear had had on me though. It had grabbed me out of some form of pit of despair and carried me up to its cave in the mountainside. From there I could look out on the forests and be content again. It even gave me some fish it had caught from a nearby stream. Vegetarian fish of course.

Dreams can lead to exciting circumstances in waking life, such as involvement in Martian conspiracies.

This led me to think about other instances where dreams had had dramatic impact upon waiting life. Having a dream about a negative experience you've had, or having a negative experience particularly person can lead to revisiting sadness for the next couple of days. Similarly, the opposite also happens; having a particularly positive dream about a specific person can significantly alter the way in which you perceive them. As with the bear, these can come marauding out of the forests of the night without warning, no matter how far away you may think you have travelled from them.

This had led me to think what it would be like if it were possible to completely manufacture your dreams. There are techniques that you can use to enable lucid dreaming, but housemate Stu, a former practitioner in this nocturnal art, has said that boundaries still exist. The building blocks that the dreams consist of are still you, your subconscious. At times when lucid dreaming he would attempt something out of character for him, and every time the dream would find a way to restore a natural order fitting with his character. I haven't researched this much, but this makes sense. I mean, if you were able to do this then you could make yourself fall in love with your best friend's mother and have the confidence to make some moves on her. Or the pet dog. If you wanted to. Some people might. That's just an example. A random example. Marauding out of the forests.

If he had a private practice he'd be minted.

Being able to do that would require some Total Recall style technology, or the world's only benevolent giant. It would make a massive difference to the medical world certainly, but probably only in places with state-provided healthcare. Otherwise I would envision it being used in a similar way to that in Philip K. Dick's story, 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale', as escapism, a form of tourism. Sure, that would provide health benefits, but market forces would lead it down a less savoury path. This has descended into a science-fiction tangent. Apologies.

All this makes me feel that lucid dreaming could solve a lot of problems. Psychological positivity is scarily beneficial. As someone who plays a lot of sport and likes to deal in performance, it is astounding seeing the difference confidence makes. It makes you think that a man in a suit walking with confidence could probably get away with anything. Then there's also the way in that you could use your dreams to play around freely with vague ideas you may have bubbling under the surface. Take this (relatively) recent quote from one of my favourite authors, Robin Jarvis, from an interview about one of his latest novels:

"Believe it or not...I dreamt the very last scene in every detail. It's the only time that's ever happened but it gave me everything I needed, the title of the book, the characters and their names and other key 'ingredients'. I had to jump out of bed and write it all down straight away - I got 2 and a half pages of synopsis out of it. It freaked me out a bit."

It could be a beneficial way of exploring things you've been thinking about. Road-testing, you could say. There are also all kinds of stories you hear about people dreaming up songs, waking up and rushing to a piano or guitar to note it all down. It's powerful stuff. I think I may have another go at the dream diary as this is held to be one way of making lucid dreaming easier. Being your own big friendly giant could potentially be a life-changing thing, at least on some levels. Worth a go, certainly, and the hours spent attempting it would otherwise be spent lazing around, lying about and generally being unproductive.

In the words of Neil Buchanan, try it yourself. Put a hand on Jacob's ladder and see where it takes you.