Dreams are like fragments of art and canvas. There are visuals and space in between more visuals to deeply explore. Upon waking, an abstract world fades away and leaves footprints of wonder. When we share our stories, we may find that dreams hold something more. In this exclusive interview, Professor Dax Urbszat shares his thoughts about dreams.
Professor Urbszat is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He is also the co-author of the First Canadian Edition of The Science of Psychology: An Appreciative View.
Professor Dax Urbszat has studied his dreams for over 30 years. Furthermore, he is very experienced in lucid dreaming. This is the ability to gain conscious awareness within a dream.
He describes this moment of awareness as, “It’s that moment of dreaming when you say, ‘Hey, I think I must be dreaming right now !”
Professor Urbszat also teaches students to lucid dream in a fourth year Pyschology course. As part of the seminar, students keep a dream journal and develop the ability to consciously explore their dreams. The success rate is around 85%. Professor Urbszat firmly believes that learning to lucid dream is like mastering any other skill that requires consistent effort.
“In general, we don’t pay a lot of attention to dreams. This is most likely a cultural bias that we have set up in western society,” explains Professor Dax Ubrszat.
For a long time, big names like Harvard Pyschiatrist, Allan Hobson, theorized that dreams were just random neural firings. This was known as the Activation-Synthesis Model of Dreaming. However , Dr. Allan Hobson recently learned to lucid dream and now there is growing interest in the field of lucid dreaming.
“This is changing quickly,” says Professor Dax Urbszat about the study on dreams. “They are now using lucid dreaming for understanding consciousness.”
Throughout history, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of the many benefits of lucid dreaming. For example, lucid dreaming appears to open deep access to problem solving, adventure, creativity and trancendance. Many of these experiences have led to excellent outcomes – including Noble prize awards.
In one lucid dream, Professor Urbszat wrote an entire song.
“It’s called ‘The Song that will Change the World,’ ” shares Professor Urbszat. “The extent of creativity and the things you can do in a lucid dream are limitless.”
Aside from the learning dimension of lucid dreaming, the adventure aspect is described by many as a liberating experience.
“I have been to other planets in space. I have flown down into a volcano in Hawaii,” shares Professor Urbszat on some of his lucid dreaming adventures.
“My favorite thing to do is fly,” he says.
Professor Urbszat also shares a story of transcendance. One of his closest childhood friends from many years ago occasionally appears in his dreams. However, this friend tragically died at a very young age.
“I have lots of interactions with him in lucid dreams,” says Professor Urbszat. “ I don’t think it’s his ghost. The cliché that they live on in your hearts and minds couldn’t be more true in this case.”
Professor Dax Urbszat shares more in this interview about dreams:
Starting from such a young age, you were drawn to the world of dreams. How did this journey all start?
In highschool, a friend gave me a book about dreams. I was always interested in dreams and what they meant. I had an experience before that I didn’t know was a lucid dream. It was was very profound and exciting. It wasn’t until my first year in university when I experienced a lucid dream. Since then, I became intersted in making it happen again.
Carl Jung believed that dreams are like text in a different language and that to decode a dream, one has to learn this new language. Are you a fan of Carl Jung?
Definitely, I find Jung fascinating on a number of levels – including his personal stories . He had an imaginary friend and there are some pretty interesting aspects to it.
His concept of the collective unconscious holds that we carry the experiences of our ancestors. Certain behavioral tendencies and cognitive reflexive patterns of reaction are embedded into our DNA. Images are also part of it.
Interstingly, a person who is born without any eyes is able to dream. Where do they get these images from?
What I get from Freud and Jung is that there are universal symbols and images. However, our dreams are also part of us communicating to ourselves. Therefore, we need to learn and understand the language of dreams. It’s like learning the language of the right hemisphere and understanding pictorial metaphors. It’s about becoming fluid with it.
Though there may exist a common experience with images, you also need to explore what the situation, image or symbol means to you specifically.
Based on your own research and personal findings, how is the study of dreams important to personal development?
Well, we don’t have a good body of empirical research to answer this. But I can tell you what I think. It’s not going to be in the form of empirical evidence that I would like to see. However, as a lucid dreamer yourself, I’m sure you are aware of the entertainment value of dreams. Other benefits include enlightenment, creativy, problem sovling and the practical value to rehearse and practice in your dream. I practiced martial arts and music in my lucid dreams.
Lucid dreaming seems to be an endless form for all different experperiences for a range of different opportunities.
For additional reading on dream exploration, you mention the works of Stephen LeBarge. What other advice can you give to anyone who would like to start studying their dreams and learn to lucid dream?
To have better dream influence, it’s all about practice. Just like learning any other skill, you have to make the cognitive effort to get even more out of it.
I also suggest using the MILD technique by Stephen LeBarge. This is a presleep suggestion. With the MILD (Memonic induction of lucid dreams) technique, pick something simple. For example, you could choose to go to a football game in your dream.
Before going to bed, rehearse the dream in your mind and repeat, “Tonight, when I dream, I am going to a football game.”
Keep it in a dream journal. Keep writing it down until you have that dream. It may take weeks but keep at it.
As a suggestion to stay longer in a lucid dream, you can spin around. Also, if you want to get out of a dream situation, you can also jump up and down to change the dream.
Many people have shared with me the dream experience of their teeth falling out. It seems to be a very common dream. What are your thoughts on this?
Well, there’s lots of things for teeth falling out. In general, we talk about it meaning change, loss , weakness or instability. That’s generally what it means from a global sense. However, different people and cultures have different interprtations of it.
I think in Islamic traditions teeth falling out may mean bad mood or being greedy. In western society, it means a kind of loss – like leaving a job.
It’s difficult to answer. But it is indiciative that there are a lot of different interpretations. This is the problem with using dream dictionaries. There’s just so many other interpretations.
What I would suggest is asking yourself what does it mean to you. It’s important to know how you experienced the dream. Are your teeth crumbling in the dream? This can mean that an argument has cracks in it. Or, are your teeth falling out one by one. Or, is it just two of your teeth falling out. This can mean telling only half a story. So, you see there are different ways teeth can fall out.
For me, I look at the context of the dream and how that fits in with what I am thinking about in the moment. You have to include self reflection into it.
Is there evidence that pets can dream too?
In one study, they destroyed part of a dog’s brain. This part was respsonsible for dream paralysis – It stops the dreamer from getting up and acting out any dreams while dreaming. In this study, when the dog reached REM (rapid eye movement) stage, it got up and acted out its dream. That’s some evidence that dogs do dream. They showed that dogs can bark and wag their tails as evidence of a dream experience.
I also love flying in my lucid dreams. Sometimes, I bounce off the ground and launch myself high into the sky. It depends, sometimes I like to lie on my back and float through the sky. What is your flying style?
I call it the Superman Style.
Some people are fearful of lucid dream experiences. They think of movies like “Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Insidious.” Some are afraid that lucid dreaming is dangerous and may open a paranormal portal of evil. What are your thoughts on this?
There’s just no evidence of this. People have been lucid dreaming for thousands of years.
Some critics of lucid dreaming say that this ruins the natural flow of dreams. Others say that lucid dreaming pollutes the original content of the dream. What do you think about this?
I couldn’t disagree more. First of all, you still you get the natural flow of dreams whether you lucid dream or not. I don’t know anyone who lucid dreams more than they regular dream.
To me, this is the evolution of humanity for all of us to develop this skill. Probably 10,000 years from now, there wont be any human beings who don’t lucid dream. That’s my personal opinion.
It’s really just bringing true consciousness into the fascinating world of dreams.
Author’s note: Thank You , Professor Urbszat, for taking the generous time to share your insight. It is greatly appreciated!
-By Nikita King
