Today I have read a very interesting article. I really encourage you to read it too and to watch the video which is linked there. I will nevertheless also describe myself, what is written and said there and why I find it so important.
The article is about lucid dreams. Lucid dreams are dreams, in which you suddenly recognise that you are actually sleeping and within a dream. The interesting thing with lucid dreams is, that you do not wake up, once you realise that you are within a dream, but the dream goes on, only it will not be a normal dream anymore. A normal dream is like a story that you experience, like a book, that you are reading, only that you really see, hear, feel, smell and taste the events, instead of just think and imagine them. You can however not directly influence these events, you can not while you dream decide that you want to dream something else and change the dream to another one. This is not possible in normal dreams.
In lucid dreams this is however possible. In lucid dreams you can e. g. fly, but not because you dream to fly for some reason, but because you actively decide to fly and you will be able to fly after deciding to do so. You can do whatever you want, you can be whereever you want, you can create whatever you want. Everything will be and happen as you want. Everything is possible.
Now lucid dreams happen very seldom and you will not be able to remember most of them when you are awake. (Personally I already had a few of them, but I doubt that it were more than 10 in my whole life so far – I am 21 years old) There are however certain techniques to induce or increase lucid dreams. These techniques are basically 2:
1. (When awake) try to often ask yourself the question “Is this actually a dream?” Your brain will get used to ask itself this question and will probably also do it when you are dreaming.
2. Try to do something outside of the normal realm of reality such as hovering above the ground or reaching through a wall. Naturally it will not work, but the repetition will remind you to randomly try your test while you are dreaming. If the test proves you are asleep then you can begin creating a new dream, start flying or go wherever your imagination takes you.
So far, go good, but what is the meaning of all this. It is certainly an awesome experience, but why is it of such an importance, that I feel the need of writing a post about it? The answer is, because you can actively train your brain, your mind and your spirit whit this. It may well be, that, when we still were pure Neanderthals, all our dreams were lucid dreams. Maybe this was the actual and main reason, why we are dreaming anyway. Imagine a natural lifestyle in the wilderness. You are experiencing a really dangerous situation, like meeting a cave bear and you survive this situation. The next time you sleep, you will dream about it and be able to train this situation to be better prepared next time, when it happens while awake. You could also do that beforehand, after someone told you and described to you a cave bear. The wonderful thing about this, is that there are absolutely no limits, you can dream (and thus train) each and everything. You can train, how to survive a meeting with a cave bear, how to use a bow or how to fight with a sword, but you can also train things that are only important to survive this modern age of madness, like being able to have social contact – even with strangers. Maybe this was one of the main things that made our Neanderthal ancestors so superior to us modern humans, the fact that their dreams were lucid (which is so far only a hypothesis by be though). They could prepare each and every thinkable situation in their dreams and could thus far better cope with these situations in reality.
At this part I want to repeat the second technique to induce/increase lucid dreams:
Try to do something outside of the normal realm of reality such as hovering above the ground or reaching through a wall. Naturally it will not work, but the repetition will remind you to randomly try your test while you are dreaming. If the test proves you are asleep then you can begin creating a new dream, start flying or go wherever your imagination takes you.
So, you try/pretend to do something, that is actually not possible, which eventually enables you in some way, to make it indeed possible. Pretend to make real. I don’t know if you think what I think, but there is only one word coming to mind, that can describe this: Sorcery!
Maybe the main point (or one of various major points) of of Sorcery in antiquity was exactly this: to enable us to do what our Neanderthal forebears could do by nature, having lucid dreams (within the realm of dreams and death).
Hail Hypnos! Hail Óðinn! Hail Hoðr!
About Forests, Mountains and Rivers 
A litte update: “…the fact that their dreams were lucid (which is so far only a hypothesis by me though).”
It seems like it is not only a hypothesis by me, but at least also by the psychologists Paul Tholey and Kaleb Utecht. See here (for the german speakers):
http://de.scribd.com/doc/193849396/Paul-Tholey-Kaleb-Utecht-Schopferisch-Traumen-Der-Klartraum-als-Lebenshilfe#scribd
I have had many dreams cone true, unfortunately I have never been able to lucid dream 😦 I will try this.-Heidi
I meant come true, sorry.
I have been trying it for 2 months now and had 2 so far (both within the last 1 or 2 weeks and both very simple and short).
The most important thing is to keep a dream diary. Everyone is dreaming several times a night, but most people cannot remember most of their dreams. Before I startet keeping a dream diary I remembered about 1 or 2 dreams a night and not every night. Now it is almost every night 2 – 3, at one day even 5 or 6. The point with this is, that you will learn to know your dreams better and know better what is typical for them (personally I often dream of rivers and of riding my bicycle through the forest). The better you know what is typical for your personal dreams, the more probably it is that you recognize them while dreaming.
I think the most interesting thing with lucid dreaming is, that it makes us able to communicate with our own subconsciousnes, thus it makes us able to learn about ourselves and recognize ourselves. I think this is in particular interesting if we compare it to the ancient European, pagan reincarnation believe, where children chose, who they want to let to reincarnate as them. So, actually they do not chose, they recognize, they recognize themselves within the dead ancestor. And to recognize yourself, you have to know yourself. And learnig to know and really understand yourself can be done with lucid dreaming.