I've been hearing a lot about lucid dreaming and how people use it practice, experience, and grow.
I've heard a lot of claims about lucid dreaming among some young people I know well locally (who post here from time to time). I don't get the impression that lucid dreaming is really as beneficial as they think it is. Some cases I know about from personal observation involve disturbing sleep cycles so much in pursuit of lucid dreams that the young people failed in work environments or crashed and burned in their university studies. Getting a normal amount of sleep (for you, that leaves you feeling rested when you wake up in the morning) is very important. It's a lot more important than what kind of dreams you have.
may do more for many young people in high-creativity careers than lucid dreaming. There is a better research base, by far, for the writing self-help than for lucid dreaming. Try it and see how it works. Best wishes for much success in improving your personal insight and problem-solving.
AFTER EDIT: An issue to consider whenever participants on Hacker News discuss self-help strategies is how reliable the research base is. People who only use the University of Google Library to do research will often find websites by advocacy groups that are pushing a solution that may not have been tested. Fortunately, Google's own director of research, LISP hacker Peter Norvig, has written a guide to reading research reports
that reminds us all about what to look for when someone reports some new, amazing treatment. Check out whether lucid dreaming has really been well evaluated with sufficiently large sample sizes, control groups, and other marks of good research.
I've heard a lot of claims about lucid dreaming among some young people I know well locally (who post here from time to time). I don't get the impression that lucid dreaming is really as beneficial as they think it is. Some cases I know about from personal observation involve disturbing sleep cycles so much in pursuit of lucid dreams that the young people failed in work environments or crashed and burned in their university studies. Getting a normal amount of sleep (for you, that leaves you feeling rested when you wake up in the morning) is very important. It's a lot more important than what kind of dreams you have.
I think a writing intervention
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/Faculty/Pennebaker/H...
may do more for many young people in high-creativity careers than lucid dreaming. There is a better research base, by far, for the writing self-help than for lucid dreaming. Try it and see how it works. Best wishes for much success in improving your personal insight and problem-solving.
AFTER EDIT: An issue to consider whenever participants on Hacker News discuss self-help strategies is how reliable the research base is. People who only use the University of Google Library to do research will often find websites by advocacy groups that are pushing a solution that may not have been tested. Fortunately, Google's own director of research, LISP hacker Peter Norvig, has written a guide to reading research reports
http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
that reminds us all about what to look for when someone reports some new, amazing treatment. Check out whether lucid dreaming has really been well evaluated with sufficiently large sample sizes, control groups, and other marks of good research.