Meaning of a Dream

Copyright © Nick Newport of Lucidology.com (Part 1 of 5)

If you're new to lucid dreams and OBEs and you're wondering what to do first, well here it is. Here is the big secret that I wish I had known when I first got started with lucid dreams and OBEs. You're about to find out why waking sleep paralysis is the holy grail for new OBEers because it's how you can access your subconscious without having to practice using any visualizations at all.

If you've ever woken up in the morning and found that you couldn't move or make a sound for a few minutes, you've had sleep paralysis. This used to happen to me and I had no idea why or what it was. But as it turns out, this was the trick that opened the door to frequent OBEs for me after having insomnia for years.

Sleep Paralysis Protects You During Sleep

The question is "what is sleep paralysis and how can you use it?" Sleep paralysis is a protection mechanism your body uses when you fall asleep. If you were to dream you're doing something very active, such as running, and you weren't in sleep paralysis then you would move your limbs when you're asleep and you'd wake yourself up. To prevent that from happening, your body disconnects your voluntary muscle system from your mind so that you can dream all you like without waking yourself up.

Usually You Enter "Mind Asleep, Body Asleep"

Normally you're not aware that of this happening because by the time your body shuts itself down in sleep paralysis, your mind is already asleep and unaware of what's happening. In other words you enter a state of 'body awake/mind asleep' before entering 'body asleep, mind asleep'.

"Mind Awake, Body Asleep" is What We Want

The whole trick to lucid dreaming is to enter a subconscious focus without losing awareness. Here's how waking sleep paralysis does this for you.

Sleep Paralysis Puts You in a Subconscious Focus Automatically

When you're awake your brain is in what's called a 'beta' state. Beta means your dominant electrical brain waves are oscillating at around 14 to 30 cycles per second.

When you enter sleep paralysis, your brain automatically puts itself in "dream mode" which is called a 'theta' state. Theta is slower than beta and is around 4 to 7 cycles per second.

Knowing this secret allows you to avoid one of the major mistakes most people make when first starting out in OBEs.

Most Books Say to do OBEs in One Step... This is a Major Mistake!

Most books on OBEs say to simply induce an OBE in what is basically a one step process. Going directly from a waking state to an OBE is possible but it's difficult so this is not what I recommend you start out with.

The Trick is to use Two Transitions to Success, Not Just One!

Instead, you'll progress much faster by making it a two step process. You first use the sleep commands we'll cover later to trick your body into falling asleep and enter sleep paralysis.

You then use exit techniques we'll cover later to convert waking sleep paralysis into an OBE and separate from your physical body.

Most People Discover Sleep Paralysis by Waking Up in it!

Now, how do you do that? The way you'll usually become aware of sleep paralysis is that you wake up in it and find you can't move or make a sound.

Waking sleep paralysis often feels like there's a heavy lead blanket on you. It's not that there is really anything on you or that your muscles have become weaker. The feeling is because your brain has to send a stronger nerve signal than normal to get the same muscle movement. That makes it feel like you're having to overcome some kind of resistance when you try to move.

This feeling also usually makes it feel like it's harder to breathe but it's actually a natural sleep process. Sleep paralysis happens every single time you fall asleep.

Is Sleep Paralysis Dangerous?

You may be wondering if waking sleep paralysis is dangerous and if there's a way to break free. Sleep paralysis is not dangerous because it's something your body does every night. Plus, here is a secret "safety release" trick you can use to free yourself from paralysis so you always have a backup plan.

How to Break Sleep Paralysis 100% of The Time: Use Deep Breathing to Contrast Sleep Breathing

The only way your body knows for sure if your mind is awake is if you move. This is a problem when you're in 100% sleep paralysis which is preventing you from moving. Luckily waking paralysis is limited to your voluntary muscle system like your arms and legs. Your breathing is semi-involuntary so you still have control over it even in deep paralysis.

If you enter sleep paralysis and decide you want break free and wake up, simply change your breathing pattern to something other than the sleep breathing pattern your body is in. The most effective way I have found to do this is to begin breathing deeply and slowly.

After 10 or 15 seconds your body will notice the change and bring you out of paralysis. Not many things are 100% reliable in lucid dreaming but this has worked for me every single time.

How to Find Out if You Have Sleep Apnea

A very few people have reported that they woke up in sleep paralysis and noticed that they weren't breathing at all. The problem is not the paralysis itself, but that they had an existing health condition called 'sleep apnea'.

Sleep apnea basically means that you stop breathing when you're asleep. So this is one of the side benefits of using waking sleep paralysis to have OBEs: you'll find out whether or not you have sleep apnea.

Keep in mind there's a big difference between the normal "heavy lead blanket" feeling that comes with sleep paralysis versus not breathing at all. If you find you stop breathing entirely then you may have sleep apnea and should see a doctor about it. If you only feel the heaviness sensation then everything is normal.

"Accidental" Versus "Deliberate" Sleep Paralysis

So far we've talked about the case where you somehow manage to wake up in sleep paralysis. However that's basically an uncontrolled and accidental process. The question is what can you do to make it happen more consistently?

Toward Consistency: What if The Body Falls Asleep First?

The idea is to flip the sleep order around so that instead of entering "body awake, mind asleep", you enter "mind awake, body asleep".

When this happens you're actually aware of the process your body goes through when it falls asleep. This is our main secret trick for doing visualization-free lucid dreams and OBEs. This transition is the most important skill to learn in this part of the course.

Why? Because when you can put your body to sleep without losing consciousness at any point, you have 100% perfectly clear dream recall. This is called a Wake Induced Lucid Dream or WILD. It's as easy to remember what you did in a WILD as it is to remember the last 15 minutes or so of normal waking awareness. With this method, you don't have to think back through and hazy dream phase like you normally do with most dreams.

If You Actually Succeed... What Does it Feel Like?

So what does it feel like to actually watch your body falling asleep?

Instead of waking up in sleep paralysis and with the heavy lead blanket feeling, when you induce paralysis consciously you actually have the sensation of the heavy lead blanket being laid on your chest. It often feels like it begins at your feet, comes up over your chest and ends at your head. When that process is complete you're in sleep paralysis.

So how to get this process to happen consistently? Here is the key. And this one fact is so important and so critical that I'm giving it a big fancy name. It's called the "Fundamental Theorem of Sleep Paralysis".

The Fundamental Theorem Of Sleep Paralysis

The Fundamental Theorem of Sleep Paralysis is that if you wake up and fall asleep without moving at all, sleep paralysis becomes extremely likely.

Sleep Paralysis is Most Likely when The Body was Recently Asleep

And when I say, without moving I mean you wake up and don't move your eyes, don't open your eyes, don't scratch any itches, you don't move at all in any way. The idea is that your body doesn't really know for sure if your mind is actually awake or not. If you don't give it any signals otherwise, it will assume that the mind really is still asleep and re-paralyze itself.

The Next Step: The "Stop, Drop & Roll" Sleep Commands

The foundation skill you need to develop this knowledge into a full-blown induction is to fall asleep quickly. So in the next section I'll show you how you can make your body first ask for permission to asleep and then I'll show you how you can tell it "yes it's time to fall asleep". This trick is called the "stop drop and roll" sleep command and once you have it you'll never have a problem with insomnia again and you'll dramatically accelerate your OBE progress.

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Nick Newport is the author of Lucidology, a website dedicated to teaching people how to have lucid dreams and out of body experiences from a waking state. To learn more about Nick Newport's visualization and timer techniques, subscribe to his website for free at Lucidology.com.

Sleepwalking is a bizarre sleep disorder, where sufferers can find themselves performing daily routines in their sleep - like doing housework, raiding the fridge, making phone calls, and in extreme cases leaving the house altogether.

Sleepwalkers have no memory of their somnambulism so the condition can go unnoticed for some time. Common causes of sleepwalking include:

Sleep deprivationEmotional problemsIncreased stressFever or sickness

It's actually a myth that sufferers are acting out the movements of a dream. Most cases occur in NREM sleep - a deep sleep where dreams are fleeting and few. This is also why it's very unlikely that you could actually sleepwalk while lucid dreaming (and even if you did, you would probably realize and wake up very quickly).

"After spending some money in his sleep, Hermon the Miser who so infuriated that he hanged himself"

Gaius Lucilius

Some 18% of people (1 in 5) have recurring bouts of this automatism sleep disorder. Unlike other sleep disorders, men are more prone to sleepwalking than women. It's more common in children and young adults, who spend more time in Slow Wave Sleep (up to 80% of the night) when parasomnias occur. Sleepwalking begins when you move your legs in your sleep, in synchronization. This triggers coordinated movement. People have been reported to eat, bathe, urinate, dress, drive a car, whistle and even commit sleepwalking murder. Sleepwalkers have their eyes open so they can see what they're doing. But unlike the movies, they don't walk about with their arms outstretched...

Sleep talking is another parasomnia where people talk in their sleep. It happens during the transition of one NREM cycle to another, when you become partially awake. It can also happen during REM sleep, in which case you literally verbalize your dream speech!

Sleep talking is linked to several other sleep disorders:

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) - loud or emotional sleep talkingSleepwalking - performing waking movements during sleep Night Terrors - screaming or shouting during sleepSleep Related Eating Disorder (SRED) - eating during sleep

Sleep talking is very common in young children, but the majority grow out of it. Only 5% of adults appear to sleep talk on a regular basis.

Dion McGregor became a celebrity in the 1960s when his roommate began recording his nightly sleep talking monologues. Apparently they were hilariously detailed and explained what was happening in his dreams - including a hot air balloon trip to the moon!

Sleepwalking can be quite disturbing if you don't know what you're dealing with. So here are a few tips to employ next time a loved one goes walkabout at night.

First, trying gently guiding the person back to bed.

They may want to complete their sleepwalking task first (eg, they may be dusting if they think the house is dirty). In this case, help them out, then guide them back to bed. Don't be embarrassed - they won't remember any of it!

If you're not sure what their goal is, you can just ask them. They may be slow to respond or may not respond at all - just keep your questions simple.

Don't be surprised if they do strange things, like urinating into a pot plant or eating invisible food. They are acting out automatic responses from waking life and are not fully aware of their surroundings nor what they are doing.

It's shocking - but it's true. Confirmed killers have walked free from court because they used the sleepwalking murder defense. About 68 sleepwalking murder cases have occurred to date, and have led to new laws and definitions of murder.

The courts now recognize that you can't be held responsible for acts which you can't willfully control. This includes acts of automatism - including spasms, reflex actions, convulsions, acts under concussion... and walking in your sleep.

Here are two of the most high profile sleepwalking murder cases.

The idea of sleepwalking murder is chilling for two reasons. In the first instance, we have the subconscious mind making decisions without rational waking logic. While the body acts with automated responses, the unconscious guides its overall behavior as if there is no consequence - as if in a dream world.

Secondly, what if sleepwalking is used as a murder defense by malicious killers and they get away with it? How can a jury truly understand what happened in a person's brain retrospectively - whether the crime was a true act of automatism?

Fortunately, sleepwalking murder is a rare occurrence. And the act of sleepwalking itself has absolutely nothing to do with lucid dreaming.

You can sleep soundly tonight :)

The Man Who Never Slept may sound like an urban legend - but it's actually the title of a BBC television documentary about Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI). This is a tragic genetic disease that kills its victims through total sleep deprivation. It affects only a few dozen families around the world and often strikes after the child-bearing years are over. It is a cruel disease, but the study of total insomnia has taught us a lot about the human brain and the need to sleep.

The man who never slept was named Michael Corke, a music teacher from Chicago. He slept fine all his life until one day, shortly after his 40th birthday in 1991, Corke began having trouble sleeping. In the following weeks, his sleeplessness grew worse and his health deteriorated. Eventually he was plagued by total insomnia - he could not sleep at all.

Doctors were baffled by Corke's condition and he was with Multiple Sclerosis, even though insomnia is not a symptom of MS. Nobody understood why he couldn't sleep, or why sleeping pills and barbiturates made it worse. Tragically, Michael Corke died in hospital after six months of total sleep deprivation.

After hearing about the man who never slept, I researched Fatal Familial Insomnia by reading The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery by D T Max. I learned about prion disease (the underlying cause of FFI) and its affect on the brain, concluding that total sleep deprivation eventually equals death.

That is, until I was contacted by a man named John Alan Jordan, who claims he has not slept a wink for the past three years following a severe fever. Jordan believes he was the victim of molecular poisoning, which caused prolonged fever and subsequently total sleep deprivation. There is no name for his condition - he calls it total insomnia - and his sleeplessness is yet to be explained by science, which is why he wants to raise awareness of his condition today.

This is Jordan's story.

As a teenager, John Alan Jordan was a high achiever. He had excellent grades in Biology, Physics and Electronics. He went on to work as a laboratory assistant at a leading dairy company in England.

A few months into his new job, Jordan lost his temper in the lab and abandoned normal safety procedures. He decided to retrieve the plastic milk bottle samples without wearing any protective gloves. By doing so, Jordan exposed himself to broponol kathon (used for dyeing cows' milk cells), ammonia, hydrochloric acid and industrial strength detergent (used to clean the sample bottles).

Jordan continued to work like this for several weeks. But soon, he began to feel more tired than usual. "It would seem to me the detergent molecules passed the blood-brain barrier and contaminated my cerebral spinal fluid, leading to an effect on the temperature control mechanism of the hypothalamus," Jordan explained. "It made me gravely ill for two years with a very high temperature."

When he finally recovered, he found that his memory had deteriorated significantly. Jordan went to see a neurologist but the brain scans showed everything was normal. He then asked to be referred to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with schizoaffective disorder (which presents itself with mood swings and psychosis). Jordan rejected this diagnosis, on the basis that his memory still hadn't recovered. Neither did it explain his fever.

Jordan's mental and physical symptoms grew worse. "From around Easter 2006 I stopped sleeping altogether. Sleeping pills and all the usual things any human being might try do not work on me at all... So I just meditate and get lost in my own thoughts when I feel the need to rest." This enables Jordan to slow his brainwaves and relax his body, but is no substitution for real sleep.

Today, Jordan feels largely alone in his condition. He acknowledges that it is exceptionally rare for humans to go for extended periods with total insomnia - much less survive and be able to function normally. However, at just 40 years old, he now suffers from premature dementia and memory problems. Seeing the deadly effects of Fatal Familial Insomnia, and knowing that readers would be incredulous about his condition, Jordan points to the famous Vietnamese farmer, Ngoc Thai, who has not slept for 33 years - also after a severe fever.

Born in 1942, Ngoc Thai is well known for being "the man who never slept." At the age of 31 he came down with a severe fever and has suffered from total insomnia ever since. Amazingly, Thai insists that his sleep deprivation gives him no physical symptoms; now in his sixties, he is still able to carry two 110-lb sacks of rice more than 2 miles to his house every day.

Over the years, Thai has tried many medications and traditional folk remedies to cure his insomnia. Nothing worked. Doctors who have examined him say he is in good health, albeit with a slightly weakened liver function. This could be related to his sleep deprivation, or linked with his diet or even the number of sleeping pills he's taken over the years into order to lose consciousness. In 2006, Thai told Thanh Nein News, "I don't know if the insomnia has impacted on my health or not, but I'm still healthy and I can do the farm work normally like others."

Scientists are yet to study Ngoc Thai in any detail. However one specialist, Dr Wadhwa, says the explanation could be in perception. Wadhwa believes that some insomniacs just can't tell the difference between sleep and wakefulness: "The subject may feel they are merely resting when in actuality they are sleeping," he says. "They may also be having micro naps - very short naps lasting minutes." Whether this is accurate or not is still to be decided. The only way we'll know whether total insomnia exists (beyond Fatal Familial Insomnia) is if further study is done on total sleep deprivation sufferers like Ngoc Thai.

How about the woman who never slept? Back in the 1970s, it was reported that a Spanish woman named Ines Fernandez had not slept for more than 30 years. Incidentally, despite suffering from total sleep deprivation, Fernandez did not suffer from Fatal Familial Insomnia.

Her story began in the summer of 1943. Fernandez was standing at the door of her cottage near Caceres in southwest Spain, watching a religious procession pass by. "I suddenly yawned and a searing pain went through my head," she said, "and since then I have never slept. I have taken thousands of pills and medicines and consulted many doctors, but nothing has been of any use."

"There were long, agonizing nights sitting in my armchair next to the bed watching my husband sleep soundly. Now he's gone and I can't stand the terrifying loneliness of the night." At 57, Fernandez lost her husband and became increasingly nervous and frustrated. It prompted specialists in London and New York to help find a cure for her total insomnia.

In her 30 years without sleep, Fernandez was treated by a neurosurgeon, Dr Padios Abril, who said, "I have never known a case like this. I now think an operation would be useful, but it would have to be in England or America, where such specialist clinics exist." The doctor described her condition as chronic cholecystitis (inflammation of the gall bladder) and total insomnia, adding that the sleep section of the brain appeared to permanently impaired.

Whether total sleep deprivation is caused by fever, illness, genetic mutation or psychological disorder, it remains an exceptionally rare condition.

However, if you feel you are suffering from some form of transient, acute or chronic insomnia, my advice is to see a doctor and get diagnosed because there may be an underlying cause. Only then can you understand the best way to treat your condition and start enjoying better quality sleep once again.

The more comfortable you are in your bed, the more likely you are to get a good night's sleep. That's a fact - pure and simple. While there are many factors that contribute to a restful night's sleep, the two biggies are: The type of mattressYour sleep posture

In fact, a better mattress and the right sleep posture can even enhance your ability to lucid dream - if you know what features to look for.

A brand new mattress can be quite an investment. However, if you're shopping for beds anyway (or just replacing an old, dingy mattress) spending time choosing the right mattress for you is worthwhile. Here are some tips to help you get a good night's sleep.

You have plenty of mattress options available to choose from, so do your research before making a decision. Mattress Wiz is a useful source of mattress reviews.

Once you have an idea of what mattress interests you most, compare mattress prices online - as salesmen are notoriously pushy. (Then go to a showroom and test a few out so you know exactly what you're getting.)

Here are a couple of mattress types that will help ensure a good night's sleep. Memory Foam Mattresses and Toppers - While memory or latex foam mattresses typically have a higher price point, for restless sleepers they are worth the investment. The Visco foam contained in most memory foam mattresses hugs all contours of your body. This helps to eliminate tossing and turning as well as providing relief to pressure points. As a more affordable option, a mattress topper also helps proper alignment of the spine, whichever way you prefer to sleep. Innerspring & Coil Mattresses - Traditional innerspring mattresses also provide excellent support and can relieve back pain - just make sure you select the right level of firmness for your body. The coils are present throughout the entire mattress, helping to evenly distribute your body weight, support the lower back, and keep the shoulders and waist from sinking during sleep. They usually come in soft, medium and firm and should be tested out beforehand.

Since lucid dreaming occurs during the REM stage of sleep (roughly 90 minutes after sleep onset), it's essential that you're comfortable all through the night. While your mattress plays a big part in your comfort, posture is also important. Here are some sleep posture tips to help you get a good night's sleep. Back Sleepers - If you're a back sleeper, experts suggest placing a pillow behind your head and tucking another pillow underneath your knees. This helps to relieve pressure on your lower back. Side Sleepers - Besides being the healthiest sleep posture advised by chiropractors, side sleepers also tend to have more success with lucid dreaming. Place one or two pillows underneath your head and neck to help ensure proper spinal alignment. Then place an extra pillow in between your knees to open up your hips and prevent your knees from knocking. Stomach Sleepers - If you're a stomach sleeper, try tucking a pillow underneath your hips to relieve strain off of your lower back and neck. Keep in mind that you may find it difficult to lucid dream on your stomach, so try to sleep on your side or back if you can.

By ensuring that you are as comfortable as possible from the moment your head hits the pillow, you're likely to have more success learning how to lucid dream. What's more, with the right mattress and proper sleeping posture, you're going to wake up feeling better rested after a really good night's sleep.

Why do we sleep? You have done it every day since you were born - but have you ever stopped to properly ponder this question?

Scientists are yet to establish a unified theory of sleep, mainly because sleep really is a dark area of research. In fact, it wasn't until the 20th century that scientists discovered the human brain is highly active during sleep. Before that it was dismissed as a meaningless area of research.

In this article I will outline some basic facts about sleep which will come in useful in your quest for lucid dreaming...

In the human brain (in fact - in all mammals and birds) sleep has two phases:

Rapid Eye Movement a.k.a. REM sleepNon-Rapid Eye Movement a.k.a. NREM sleep or Slow Wave Sleep Each phase has its own physiological (body), neurological (brain) and psychological (mind) features. They flow together to form sleep cycles.

In the late 1960s two scientists, Rechtschaffen and Kales, defined a typical sleep cycle, displaying varying levels of consciousness. It looks like this:

A complete cycle lasts around 90 to 110 minutes. So eight hours of sleep will give you around five of these sleep cycles per night.

Notice how we are in NREM sleep for the most part. REM sleep only lasts for about 10 minutes at the end of the cycle. However, as the night goes on, some NREM cycles get shorter and REM sleep increases.

Dreaming is more common in REM sleep, although it does also occur during NREM sleep. Now take a look at the features of a normal sleep cycle.

Brainwave frequencies descend from (8-12 Hz) to theta waves (4-7 Hz). You begin to lose muscle tone, causing twitches and hypnic jerks. You have hypnagogic hallucinations and lose self awareness.Brainwaves show sleep spindles (12-16 Hz) and K-complexes. You lose nearly all muscle tone as sleep paralysis takes over your physical body.Brainwaves descend to delta waves (0.5-4 Hz) - the lowest frequency marking a deep sleep. This is the dreamless stage where sleepwalking mostly occurs. Delta waves are more pronounced as you enter deep slow wave sleep. The deepest form of sleep.Brainwave frequencies jump to highly active beta waves (12-38 Hz). You have bursts of Rapid Eye Movement and muscle twitches. The most vivid dreams happen during REM sleep. Your sleep cycles are controlled by the Circadian clock. This is an internal timekeeping device that the human brain uses to control body temperature and release certain chemicals (called neurotransmitters) at the right time.

When your brain releases the neurotransmitter adenosine at night, you begin to feel sleepy and your body temperature falls. Similarly, in the morning when the Circadian alarm bell rings, your brain releases other neurotransmitters to wake you up.

That is why early risers often find it difficult to sleep in. Their bodies have already been stimulated with wake-up juice. The fact that Circadian rhythms exist tells us that regular sleep is key to our survival.

Having covered sleep cycles, we can move on to the functions of sleep. Why do we sleep - spending a third of our lives in the land of nod?

Sleep is a natural state of rest seen in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. But the variation in the amount of sleep required is stunning:

Bats........................20 hours
Lions......................13.5 hours
Laboratory rats......13 hours
Domestics cats.......12.5 hours
Baboons.................9.5 hours
Humans..................8 hours
Pilot whales............5.5 hours
Asian elephants......3 hours
Roe deer.................3 hours
Giraffes...................2 hours
This has inspired some evolutionary theories of sleep. One theory is that animals who are lower in the food chain sleep less - because they are more vulnerable to attack. However, a conflicting theory suggests that sleep protects us from predators, since we are curled up in a quiet place out of harm's way.

However, both theories have gaps. If we are deprived of sleep, our bodies eventually force us to regain some of that lost sleep - even at the risk of attack by a predator. Why do we sleep at such high risk?

All day long, we are zipping around in a highly active anabolic state. This is marked by the constant growth and repair of the body's immune and nervous systems, as well as our muscles and bones.

Because this requires so much energy, being awake may only be a temporary state. We use this time to feed and reproduce. That's all. So why do we sleep? Simply: to gain relief from this hyperactive state.

Sleep also allows us to heal our bodies. In a study on rats, sleep deprivation actually slowed down the healing process of burns. Besides the immune system (our ability to fight disease) sleep deprivation affects our metabolism (our internal chemical reactions). It may also help us save energy for when we most need it.

However, animals in hibernation actually have to catch up on sleep when they emerge. Simply resting in a dark, quiet place does not fulfil their need for sleep if they don't shut down their conscious brain. Something critical happens to the mind during sleep. This may hold the key to psychological reasons why we sleep.

"That, if then I had waked after a long sleep,
will make me sleep again;
and then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again"

William Shakespeare

Sleep may help the human brain get better organized - by filing away important memories and discarding unwanted information.

In a study by Turner et al, 40 people were allowed only 26 minutes sleep per night. They were given cognitive tests which showed their working memory deteriorated by 38% over four days. Without REM sleep, they found it much harder to complete memory tasks and solve problems.

Other sleep experiments have shown that "procedural memory" (your ability to perform certain skills) is dependent on REM sleep. Similarly, "declarative memory" (your knowledge of facts) relies on Slow Wave Sleep.

Dreaming appears to be a by-product of REM sleep. So is it possible that the the main reason why we sleep is to dream? If so, why do we dream?

The functions of sleep are still unfolding. We understand the natural sleep cycles and the effects of sleep on the human brain and body. However, there is no unifying theory that answers the question "why do we sleep?"

Science has more work to do yet...

Sleep Paralysis Kit is a breakthrough course that explains step-by-step how to stop sleep paralysis nightmares once and for all.

It's written by Ryan Hurd, a long term sufferer of this horrendous sleep disorder and a proficient lucid dreamer himself. I'm excited about this book because it's an absolute first; for this is a subject matter that has been shrouded in mystery for years.

Here, Ryan delivers a holistic approach to journeying past the fear and the nightmarish terrors, and transforming the phenomenon into visionary experiences like lucid dreams, out of body experiences and creative hypnagogia. That is nothing to be sniffed at: for chronic sufferers, Ryan literally offers a way to turn your worst nightmares into your greatest lucid fantasies...

Sleep paralysis is a troubling sleep disorder characterized by the feeling being unable to move while waking up or falling asleep. Sometimes this state comes with terrifying hallucinations of someone in the room, who approach the bed and hurt or molest the victim. While it sounds like something out of a horror story, the underlying paralysis mechanism has been felt by about 40% of the world's population at least once in their lives. But for some people, the sadistic creatures come night after night.

The good news is that sleep paralysis nightmares are not a curse but a misunderstood kind of dream state. They have biological causes that are triggered when we are sleep-deprived or under stress. Still, knowing that SP and its visions are "normal" does not stop the fear which can induce your worst possible living nightmares.

If you suffer from this condition medically known as isolated Sleep Paralysis (iSP), then you need to read Ryan's book. It has practical solutions you can apply to your SP episodes to rid you of your night time ghouls and restore peace to your bedroom.

Ryan Hurd presents a practical how-to guide to successfully:

Identify your SP triggers, including food and drinksLearn about herbs and supplements to quell your anxiety Create a more restful bedroom environment for fewer nightmaresRecognize the warning signs and learn how to quickly ground yourselfDevelop your own safe ground when those creatures sit on the bed

And that is only the beginning. Ryan is a tenacious researcher who has personally experienced sleep paralysis nightmares for 20 years. Then, some five years ago, he taught himself how to transform his SP terrors into positive visionary states. He goes on to explain how sufferers and explorers of borderland states can:

Face the SP attacker with courage and ask for what you wantMeet helpful dream figures, such as ancestors and angelsTransform your paralysis into an out-of-body experience or lucid dreamDiscover supplements that help induce vivid dreamsExperience healing dreams and spiritual ecstasyInvite sensual dream encounters after sleep paralysisUse these dreams to problem solve other aspects of your lifeDissolve fear and build courage in your dreams and waking lifeBeautifully illustrated, this 100+ page sleep paralysis guide also comes with a practical worksheet for establishing your own SP management plan. An added bonus is the one-hour interview with Jorge Sevilla, PhD, author of Wrestling With Ghosts: a Personal and Scientific Account of Sleep Paralysis.

Ryan's sleep paralysis guide also contains valuable insights for anyone who induces lucid dreams and out of body experiences. As explorers of the sleep-waking border, we are all more prone to encountering the sleep paralysis phenomenon from time to time. This is not a bad thing. As Ryan explains, your beliefs and attitudes to SP directly affect the outcome... Bring your fear along and it will predictably turn into your worst nightmare. Bring courage, and you can turn it into amazing lucid dreams and unimaginable states of bliss.

Such is the importance of this book that it contains a foreword by lucid dreaming pioneer Scott Sparrow whose book, Lucid Dreaming: Dawning of The Clear Light, was the very first book published on lucid dreaming in the US in 1976. Scott explains that after 40 years in dream research, he never had an answer to the sleep paralysis riddle. "After reading this book, I can finally say that someone has finally lifted the veil on this strange and often disturbing experience," he says.

"Most importantly, this book is the product of Ryan's own struggle to understand and benefit from his SP experiences. Through his own extensive experience with sleep paralysis, Ryan Hurd has turned lead into gold, and now has gold to share."

Sleep Paralysis Kit is very easy to follow, divided into three clear sections. I have never suffered from iSP as a chronic sleep disorder but have of course run into it occassionaly through my quest for lucid dreams and OBEs. I found all three parts immensely useful - never again will I worry about encountering fearsome Strangers on the sleep-wake border. Indeed, the final chapter explains how to induce sleep paralysis deliberately, so you can enjoy visionary dream states on demand...

Part I is a practical guide to stop having sleep paralysis nightmares and take control when it does happen. It contains tips that will help you break SP tonight. Next, it turns to lifestyle changes that can lessen your susceptibility, which takes most people about two weeks to cement into practice. Finally, it addresses the psychological aspects of SP, including how to let go of your fear.

Part II is a focused study on the apparitions that occur in 1 in 5 SP experiences. First, it reviews the latest theories about how apparitions form; these terrifying visions are the most misunderstood aspect of SP. Next, it provide some concrete strategies for preventing them from escalating into nightmares. Sometimes, the SP apparition can lead you on a journey to self-discovery. In fact, this "Stranger" is also connected to a long history of helpful figures such as spirit guides, angels, and ancestors. This section thoroughly explores these intriguing possibilities.

Part III is a guide to thriving with SP. This section includes advanced dreaming techniques that are possible once you have mastered the lessons in Part I and II. Effective tactics are covered for inducing out-of-body experiences, lucid dreams, and hypnagogic reverie, all of which can be accessed from a sleep paralysis state. The last chapter teaches how courageous dreamers can increase the odds of SP in order to access extraordinary lucid dreams and visions.

A very fascinating part of this book is the explanation behind sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. Scientists have had little to say about these night time apparitions until recently... and so Ryan pieces together the theories of these waking nightmares. From the threat vigilance system, to neurotheology and spirits, to cultural influences, to psychic dimensions. No stone is left unturned.

Ryan explains: "REM dreaming is, neurologically speaking, a visionary state of mind. Activation of the limbic system brings strong emotions, combined with an enhanced access to long-term memory - and a depression of short-term memory so we don't tend to question who or where we are. Add the intense firing of the parts of the brain that brings mental imagery, and you have dreaming: a potent mix of visual-emotional metaphors that link to our deepest memories and experiences." Few writers have the ability to take such an abstract concept and explain it so succinctly, but this is what Ryan does.

The book goes on to reveal the connection between sleep paralysis nightmares and lucid dreaming, out of body experiences, near death experiences, alien abductions, angel visitations and other vision states. You will learn exactly how to develop an SP episode into a lucid dream or OBE, as well as communicate with your Stranger and watch them evolve into a helpful ally.

As Ryan so eloquently puts it: "Sleep paralysis is a portal to all the dreaming worlds. The question is not so much, Which world do I want to enter? but Which one do I want to explore first?"

Here's what the dream research community has said about this book:

"People who suffer sleep paralysis inevitably focus on their fear and discomfort, but rarely do they recognize that this strange experience also holds a huge potential for mind/body growth and enlightenment. Ryan Hurd, a brilliant researcher and emerging leader in the field of dream studies, offers a brand new perspective on sleep paralysis that provides both practical help and inspirational guidance. Hurd's excellent new book gives clear and effective advice about how to diminish the painful symptoms of sleep paralysis, while leading readers to a deeper appreciation of the incredible power of the dreaming imagination - a power that can promote greater health and conscious awareness in all of us."

- Kelly Bulkeley, PhD, author of Dreaming in the World's Religions: A Comparative History

"If you suffer from sleep paralysis, buy this book. Inside it are powerful techniques, real knowledge and experienced advice from a former sleep paralysis sufferer. Using practical techniques, insightful advice and scientific research, Hurd takes the SP sufferer on a journey from intense fear to real hope and empowerment. Benefit from his insight, and learn how to resolve your sleep paralysis for good."

- Robert Waggoner, author of Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self

Sleep deprivation is a lack of sleep that is needed to function normally. It can be caused by working night shifts; traveling through multiple time zones; sleep disorders like insomnia; stress; depression; the menopause; scientific studies into sleep and dreaming; or interrogation and torture.

However, the main cause is at the root of our busy modern society. We just don't have enough time to get everything done.

This problem causes American businesses to lose $100 billion in lost productivity each year. Worse, tired workers are thought to be responsible for many major disasters - ranging from the giant oil spillage of the Exxon Valdez, to the nuclear meltdowns of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.

However, in the realm of science, staying awake for lengthy periods is useful for sleep experiments. Scientists can learn a lot by looking at a person's behavior, as they encounter confusion, hallucinations, cognitive problems and micro sleep.

If you've never gone for more than 24 hours without sleep, you won't be familiar with the effects of long term sleep loss. But sufferers of insomnia will tell you: it is definitely not a pleasant experience.

Whereas insomnia describes chronic sleeplessness, anyone can experience short term sleep loss as a side effect of some other problem. The physical effects of sleep deprivation affect the whole body, including:

aching musclesblurred visiondepressioncolor blindnessdrowsinessloss of concentrationweak immune systemdizzinessdark circles of the eyesfaintingconfusionhallucinationssymptoms of drunkennesstremorsheadachesherniahyperactivityimpatienceirritabilitymemory lossnauseapsychosisslow reaction timesslurred speechweight loss or gainconstant yawning "There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock"

Author unknown

Recent studies also show a link between sleep deprivation and obesity. People who are deprived of sleep find it harder to break down sugar, increasing the risk of diabetes and obesity in the long term.

Interestingly, when they finally manage to sleep, sufferers of insomnia are more likely to have lucid dreams. Perhaps this is because the normal sleep cycles are thrown out of balance and conscious dreams are more easily triggered.

Needless to say, the physical effects of sleep deprivation are wide-ranging and severe. In fact, if you go for long enough without any sleep, the result can be deadly. This is the case for sufferers of Fatal Familial Insomnia, a rare but incurable sleep disorder that causes total sleeplessness and ultimately death.

Scientists use sleep deprivation studies to isolate the functions of sleep. By looking at how our minds and bodies are impaired after little or no sleep, we can see exactly why sleep is vital to us all.

The most famous sleep deprivation studies involve attempts to break the Guinness World Record. In these experiments, volunteers went for many days and nights without any sleep at all. They allowed researchers to monitor them to see the mental and physical effects of sleep deprivation. Here are two of the more prominent world records:

The New York DJ, Peter Tripp, set a world record for sleep deprivation in 1959. He went for 201 hours (8.4 days) without sleep. He spent most of the time in a glass booth in Times Square, and the rest in a hotel room across the street, set up as a laboratory to monitor his reactions.

The stunt produced strange results. After three days, Tripp began to find things hilarious that weren't funny at all. At other times, he became upset for no reason. He was also confused, asking why there were bolts in the window frames.

By day four, he was suffering from hallucinations and paranoia. At first they were simple patterns - like cobwebs on the doctors' faces, or imagining that paint specks on the table were insects.

But soon his hallucinations became 3D. Tripp imagined mice and kittens scurrying around the room...

Eventually, Peter Tripp became psychotic. He rummaged through draws looking for non-existent money. He accused a technician of trying to harm him. He then claimed he was not Peter Tripp but an imposter. Nothing made sense to him.

On reaching his 200-hour target, Tripp was made to stay awake for one final hour while doctors did more tests. They left the EEG in place as he finally closed his bloodshot eyes and entered a deep 13-hour slumber.

He may have been physically restored, but Tripp's family soon noticed a difference in his personality. His wife said he was moody and depressed. He fought with his boss, became involved in the payola scandal, and was fired from his high profile job as a radio DJ. He went on to have four divorces. Some would say the sleep stunt changed Peter Tripp forever.

Randy Gardner beat the world record for sleep deprivation at the age of 17. A typical high school student from California, Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours (11 days) without using any stimulants. His stunt was part of a school science project on sleep patterns.

The effects of sleep deprivation on Randy Gardner included moodiness, problems with concentration and memory, paranoia and hallucinations. After four days, he had the delusion that he was a famous American football player winning the Rose Bowl. He also mistook a street sign for a person.

On the 11th day, he was asked to subtract seven repeatedly, starting from 100. He stopped when he got to 65... and said he had forgotten what he was doing.

Yet later that day, Randy Gardner held a press conference where he spoke without slurring his words and appeared to be in excellent health.

After his marathon, Gardner slept for nearly 15 hours and returned to a normal sleeping pattern within days. Unlike Peter Tripp (who incidentally used stimulants to stay awake) there were no reports of any long term personality changes.

Peter Tripp and Randy Gardner are known as the most famous sleep deprivation studies, because they involved rigorous scientific testing. They are the most widely cited examples of sleep deprivation today. However, a few other Guinness World Record attempts are worth mentioning.

Less than a month after Randy Gardner's feat in 1964, Toimi Soini of Finland stayed awake for 276 hours (11.5 days). In 1977, Maureen Weston of the UK went without sleep for 449 hours (18.7 days). She began to hallucinate towards the end but reported no lasting effects from her rocking chair marathon.

However, if you are thinking about doing a sleep deprivation stunt of your own - forget it. Guinness World Records no longer recognizes this category because long term sleep deprivation is thought to pose serious health risks, both physically and mentally. It could even trigger other sleep disorders.

What's more, sufferers of chronic insomnia could be staying awake for far longer than these record attempts, which would be unfair to them.

What a shame that the UK's Tony Wright didn't know this when he stayed awake for 266 hours in 2007. He thought he was outdoing Randy Gardner, and hadn't even heard of Toimi Soini. A spokesman for Guinness World Records simply said: "People who attempt records should make sure their research is accurate or they may be very disappointed."

To learn more about sleep deprivation, check out End Your Sleep Deprivation - a website created by Dr Dement, the father of sleep medicine, and the students of Stanford Sleep and Dreams. They share their expert knowledge on the science of sleep so you can sleep healthily and live alertly.

Each and every night, your brain passes through five stages of sleep. Passing through all these stages takes about 90-110 minutes and marks one full sleep cycle. So, if you sleep soundly for eight hours per night, you're getting five full sleep cycles.

Let's take a closer look at the five stages of sleep:

Stage 1 is a light sleep and you are easily woken. You begin to lose muscle tone, causing twitches and hypnic jerks (suddenly jumping awake from a doze). You have hypnagogic hallucinations, swirling light and color patterns which hypnotize your mind into a restful sleep. Stage 1 also marks the loss of self awareness and most sensory attachment to the physical world. Your brainwave frequencies descend from ALPHA through THETA state (4-7 Hz). Stage 2 is marked by a loss of nearly all muscle tone (sleep paralysis or REM atonia) so your physical body can't act out your forthcoming dreams. Although your brainwaves have slowed further, they do show brief bursts of higher brainwave activity called sleep spindles in the lower BETA range at 12-16 Hz. You spend around half of all your sleep in Stage 2; a light dreamless sleep. Stage 3 is the beginning of a deep sleep, also known as Slow Wave Sleep. It is harder to rouse someone from a deep sleep, but if you are woken you will feel especially dopey and confused for a couple of minutes. Brainwaves have descended to the DELTA range of 0.5-4 Hz, the slowest frequency you'll ever experience. Once again this is another dreamless stage of sleep, however it is also the most likely time for sleepwalking to occur. Stage 4 is the deepest kind of Slow Wave Sleep. This stage replenishes your energy both physically and mentally, and without enough deep sleep (such as when sleeping on a long-haul flight) you won't feel refreshed in the morning. Your brainwaves are now exclusively in the DELTA range. REM Sleep marks the onset of dreaming. After submerging itself through the deeper stages of sleep, brainwave activity returns to the THETA range (4-8 Hz) through BETA (12-38 Hz) and Rapid Eye Movement denotes dreaming. If you are woken from REM sleep you'll dive back into this stage when you next return to sleep. REM sleep is important to healthy brain functioning for many reasons, including the creation of long-term memories. This is also where lucid dreaming occurs, signified by even greater brainwave frequencies sometimes as high as the GAMMA range of 38-90 Hz, marking a highly active brain state.Your longest and most memorable lucid dreams will usually occur in the fourth and fifth sleep cycles (after about six hours of sleep). This is where periods of REM sleep become longer, as shown below:

The graph shows REM sleep occurring at the end of each sleep cycle. This is your dream time - which finishes off each sleep cycle.

If you don't wake up to an alarm, you'll find you often wake directly from a dream, which makes it much easier to remember. When this happens, don't move and just allow yourself to gently re-enter the dream, while thinking "I'm dreaming".

This graph also shows how it's essential for lucid dreamers to get sufficient shuteye and not miss out on REM sleep by cutting sleep short. Indeed, the more chances you have to sleep in, the better. Sleeping-in allows extended REM time in the morning, more vivid dreams, and more chances to become lucid.

When you're deciding how many hours to sleep each night, also consider how many sleep cycles that will give you. For instance, a 7-hour sleep will wake you up in the middle of your fifth sleep cycle (assuming each cycle takes 90 minutes). This cuts you short and prevents your fifth REM phase. It's much healthier to wake up after the cycle is complete and in a light Stage 1 sleep of your next cycle.

Do you repeatedly wake up "on the wrong side of the bed" each morning? It's likely your alarm clock is interrupting your final sleep cycle at a crucial point. If you can, allow yourself to wake up naturally each morning. Otherwise, go to bed earlier and give yourself the extra minutes needed to complete the cycle.

So, how many sleep cycles should you aim for each night? Four? Five? Six? It seems that the amount of sleep required differs from person to person, however as a rough guide experts have come up with the following chart based on age:

We can measure the length of dream time using an EEG machine which reads brainwave activity. Dreams are directly correlated to REM sleep - to the extent that your eyes can move and track in the same direction you are looking in the dream.

The brainwave readings tell us that REM sleep at the end of the first sleep cycle lasts only a few minutes. Much of the first cycle is dedicated to non-REM sleep, driven by the need for physical rest. So, these early dreams are often fleeting. You are unlikely to remember them and they're unlikely to yield lucid dreams.

As you sleep on through the night, your REM phases grow longer in each sleep cycle. By morning, your fourth or fifth sleep cycle (ending when you wake up for the day) may allow for 45-60 minutes of uninterrupted REM sleep. It's perfect for lucid dreaming.

"My dream lasted a lifetime!"

Every now and then I hear an urban myth or even a first-hand claim that someone had a dream that encompassed an entire lifetime.

I've only once had such a dream, while taking the dream herb, Calea Z. Time seemed to stretch and I felt like I was in this dream for years. But as vivid as the dream was, I didn't literally experience those years, minute-for-minute. It was more like watching an epic movie that spans 200 years in the space of two hours, yet you feel like you were there longer.

Generally, the timeframe of regular dreams are in line with reality. However it's always difficult to judge the length of a dream from the first-hand perspective of dreaming it. Whether you're lucid or not, time can be distorted in dreams - and there are few "constants" against which you can measure the passing of dream events.

So, if you feel a dream lasted for days or years, it's just your perception of events in the dream that made it seem to last so long. I don't believe that such dreams - however mind-blowing in their realism and adventure - are comparable to the experience of real time passing in the waking world.

This also means you can't get "stuck" in dream limbo for 70 years ;)

Like regular dreams, lucid dreams can last anywhere from a few seconds up to an hour (and possibly even more). For me, a typical lucid dream lasts 10-20 minutes.

Most beginners find their lucid dream collapses within a few seconds because the emotions of becoming lucid are so overwhelming. However with a few simple dream stabilization methods, you can massively prolong your lucid dreams.

As soon as I learned how to prolong my lucid dreams, it opened up a world of possibilities. My dream world posed a new adventure playground, in which I could travel anywhere and do anything I wanted to with complete clarity and awareness. What's more, these stabilization techniques serve to enhance the dream clarity and my ability to control it, while preventing me from waking up prematurely.

For more lessons in lucid dreaming, check out my course The Lucid Dreaming Fast Track, which teaches anyone my proven strategy for having lucid dreams.

With Halloween around the corner, it's socially acceptable to talk about ghosts and spirits for the next couple weeks. We decorate out homes with fake gravestones and spider webs, dress ourselves up as scary-sexy zombies-vampires, and watch creepy movies on the television. After November 1, all the costumes and decorations go into a box, the Halloween candy is shipped to remainder stores for deep discounts, and we forget about the ghosts and ghouls until next year.

Unless you regularly experience sleep paralysis, that is.

For those few of us with a penchant for SP and its attendant visions, the veil between worlds is always a bit thin. For those of us who wake up and find we cannot move, nor cry out, and - what's more - there's a vampire standing in the doorway, every night contains a prospect for encountering this spooky underworld of consciousness.

Chances are, if you are a lucid dreamer who has tried lucid dreaming methods that disturb the sleep cycle - such as wake-back-to-bed (WBTB) or supplements like galantamine - you have run into sleep paralysis once or twice. You may have also found that the rules are a little different with SP. That's why I recommend all lucid dreamers familiarize themselves with this misunderstood state of consciousness, and, in particular, look into it as an opportunity for a powerful spiritual experience.

By "spiritual" I don't mean the vague, scented-candled and New Aged concept about the interconnectedness of the universe, but actually the experience of contacting spirits. This is the original definition of spiritual.

Spirits: what else to call the monsters, ghosts, and wispy creatures that show up at the foot of the bed during a bout of sleep paralysis? They aren't human, they certainly are not from this material realm, and calling them "hallucinations" is only a distancing method that banks on character assassination, an attempt to rationalize that what's plainly here is not here. When someone uses the term hallucination, it deflates the experience and suggests it is meaningless.

So I call these uncanny encounters sleep paralysis visions. This restores their potential value and primary reality, and is closer to the other traditions of the world that are more accepting of seeing nebulous things in the night. SP visions are not random, but have powerful psychological effects that influence a person's beliefs for the rest of their lives.

Why do I think these visions are meaningful? They are one of the original sources of fairy tales, myths and religious stories around the world, including visitations from the dead, encounters with angels, sexual molestation by demons, succubi and witches, and quite possibly some modern alien abduction narratives.

They are real encounters, happening when the mind is awake and alert. But let's not be fundamentalist about what "reality" is either. These encounters are not happening in what we term consensual reality, that realm we ordinarily share and make group observations, but rather occur during a range of altered states that are most easily accessed through sleep, but also can be accessed by trance, hallucinogens, and shamanic techniques such as drumming and chanting.

I prefer to call this liminal reality, an anthropological term that comes from the Latin as "threshold." When we are in sleep paralysis, we are in between worlds: ordinary reality where our bodies are sleeping, and the dreamworld, where our imagination is keeping company with some very old and powerful creative energies that appear to play with everything we think we know and turn it upside down. In sleep paralysis, we are literally trapped in the threshold between worlds.

At this point, I should point out that while we know quite a bit about the physical mechanisms of sleep paralysis, we know very little about the visions themselves. Rebecca's introductory article is an excellent place to start, covering the causes and the symptoms of this hybrid state of awareness, as well as how sleep paralysis relates to REM sleep. An easy way to think of it is Mind Awake, Body Asleep. Knowing that SP occurs as REM intrusion into Stage N-1 sleep - the lightest stage of sleep - may be helpful for those who think they are going insane.

Let me be clear: you are not going insane. No, apparently this is part of normal life; we just aren't allowed to talk about it in polite society because it is the reservoir for just about every taboo our culture holds.

The physiology of REM defines many features of this unique vision state, including the predominance of negative emotions - especially fear and horror, as well as intense sexual longing and unparalleled access to long term memory. In other words, our childhood fears and longings are prevalent in SP visions, as our the myths, tales and belief structures that cemented when we were young and more accustomed to dealing with extreme fear and existential horror.

This modified REM brain state allows for the default expression of SP visions:

the scary encounter with an unknown figure that simply watches from behind a hooded cloak the terrifying experience of ghost rape that nonetheless results in orgasm contact with a vampire, alien or teethy creature that seems to drain you of will, courage and possibly more.

But physiology is not destiny. Many people, myself included, have had SP encounters with figures that are warm, inviting, and radiating with healing light. Others speak of contact with the recently deceased, or of figures dressed in period clothing that want nothing more but to ask a few questions. What starts as a SP attack can transform into an otherworldly journey - the kind we see in the Old Testament - as well as out-of-body experiences and lucid dreams.

Positive sexual encounters in SP are possible too, although I suspect they are under- reported due to the nested taboos of admitting the enjoyment of intercourse with a ghost or invisible being. Interestingly, just a few weeks ago the pop star Kei$ha admitted to having sex with a ghost, and her account was immediately denounced as a PR stunt to correspond with her new single Supernatural.

Maybe, maybe not.

When you go looking, you find these encounters are hidden in plain sight. Kei$ha isn't the first celebrity to admit having sex with a ghost: ten years ago, Lucy Liu says she went there (and enjoyed it), and Anna Nicole Smith also publicly recounted a having multiple sexual encounters with ghost when she lived in Texas.

Skeptics may doubt the power of these encounters, but don't worry about them: skeptics are just trying to protect their world view. As lucid dreamers, we know that reality is malleable. The same is true of SP encounters. Our own beliefs about what is possible while we are in contact with the "Stranger in the room" can influence what we perceive. In many cases, I have watched the sleep paralysis entity shape-shift as my own thoughts, fears and attitudes shifted.

Like lucid dreams, the figure is unstable, and often has a "doppelganger" effect that mirrors our own beliefs. You can see a similar effect in lucid dreams when standing in front of a mirror. It can be an intense exercise - as you flow back and forth between self- love and doubt - but it's well worth the trouble.

Yet, I am convinced the identity of the Stranger is more than our psychological projection in the moment; it is not "just" a recreation of our worse nightmare. Rather, each night visitor should be considered a unique, autonomous constellation of energy that has a range of visages. I wish I had a pat answer on who they are and where they come from, but I would be lying to say I understand. As a researcher, and in my own SP encounters, I try to maintain openness to the experience and a suspension of disbelief. This is called the phenomenological attitude: it's basically a Western version of meditation.

Notice your thoughts; notice your attitudes and fears as they occur, but then set them aside and breath in the new moment.

I have found this practice to be very difficult, but ultimately rewarding. In my experience, the identity of the SP entity can shift into a more communicative figure, although there is still a tremendous range of identities possible. On the other hand, sudden spikes of fear or distrust can cause the Stranger to take on a more "trickster-like" role, and the event can quickly go downhill into full-on nightmarish horror again. If this happens, you can always wake yourself up using a variety of SP awakening techniques.

The phenomenological attitude doesn't wash away the presence, but rather can be seen as a process of cleaning the doors of perception. When you're stuck in the threshold between dreams and waking, in that liminal space, a clean threshold comes in handy.

So when you find yourself face to face with the ghosts, goblins and werewolves of sleep paralysis visions, remember that the each moment brings new possibilities. Some may always choose to wake up, and that's fine. However, if you choose to go through the threshold - using the mind's ability to be open, discerning and above all compassionate - many new doorways will open beyond this first gate.

For more about the history, culture, science and - most importantly - how to work with sleep paralysis visions, I invite you to check out my ebook on the topic: Sleep Paralysis Kit.

Ryan Hurd is a dream researcher, blogger and author of several books and e-courses on sleep, nightmares and advanced lucid dreaming. He is the editor of DreamStudies.org and a board member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. In late 2012, look for him at TEDMED.com as a Challenge leader, tackling the problem of sleeplessness in our society.