You suddenly find yourself at the edge of a platform. Looking down, you see that you are high above the ground on a skyscraper. In a textbook moment of dream analysis, you start falling. Typically, you’d wake up in a screaming, sweaty panic, ripe for analysis on what in your life feels so out of control, or like it is pushing you over the edge. What if you didn’t fall? More aptly, what if you could stop falling? Imagine a dream state where it feels as though you ‘wake up’ in the middle of your fall, but you’re still dreaming. You look around you and realize that you’re dreaming. Just like that, you wake up. Sitting awake in your bed, you feel weird and you wonder how you could have gained consciousness in your dream without being awake. You’ve practiced lucid dreaming, which is the ability to recognize you are dreaming, with in your dream. Lucid dreaming is a practice of sleep awareness.
Lucid dreaming can be taken a step further into control. Go back to the dream, to that moment where you become aware that you are dreaming. Almost instantaneously that realization is accompanied with another, one of empowerment: it’s just a dream. This isn’t real. You can change things. Then, you change course. Perhaps you grow wings, you turn into a bird, you stop mid-fall, midair, you wake yourself up entirely. You’ve now controlled your dream to work in your favor. Inception is alive and well, in your mind.
Dream control can be empowering for men in recovery who often feel like they are out of control of their own minds, including their dreams. Especially in the early phases of recovery, it is common for men to experience using dreams, where they come across their drug of choice and relapse in their sleep. Through treatment, men are learning how to be empowered in saying “No” to relapse in many different circumstances they might encounter. Relapse or using dreams can feel all too, frighteningly real, making them the perfect playground for practice. Saying “No” in real life is an exhilarating experience of empowerment. Turning a waking world into a dream world where addiction is no longer part of the story is unimaginable. Likewise, turning a dream world into lucid controllable fantasy is also beyond the imagination.
Tree House Recovery in Portland, Oregon is teaching men how to find freedom from addiction. Inspired by the power of the great outdoors and the philosophies of evidence based treatments, our program helps transforms men’s lives inside out, creating sustainable change for a sustainable recovery. Call us today for information: (503) 850-2474
