
Originally Posted by
Ryan Hurd
Importance Of Idle Time
Surprisingly, many people will have their first lucid dreams after an intense
immersion, not during. This could be due to dream delay, a process in which
dream content reflects waking life after a period of time. Freud was on to
something with his concept of day residue, in which memorable parts of the day’s
activity are reflected in the dream the next night. However, researchers have shown
that the delay can range up to nine days.80 Social pressure can also inhibit dreams.
Cognitive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow, has much to say
about the importance of idle time for all creative projects. Taking time off from a
serious pursuit—be it an invention, a puzzle, or a quest to go lucid—allows
“simple rules of association” to form.81 He uses the metaphor of serial versus
parallel processing in computers: when we relax our intentionality, ideas are
calculated simultaneously, rather than in a logical step-by-step process. Somehow,
from this heap of confusion we discover new solutions and creative breakthroughs.
78
To say it another way, the path towards conscious
dreaming is to know when to let your unconscious do
the work for you.
Bookmarks