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Lucid dreamers tried to become wolves
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This one is weird.
A study published in the International Journal of Dream Research this month asked 98 regular lucid dreamers to try something a bit more radical than flying through walls.
They were told to become wolves.
Once lucid, participants were told to drop to all fours, imagine fur covering the body, and tune into a wolf’s senses - paws, ears, mouth, tongue, smell, sight.
About a third of them said it worked. Eighty-five percent reported at least partial bodily change. A handful said they could actually smell things in the dream - which is rare, smells almost never show up - and some of the reports get downright strange:
“I felt aggression. I felt an ‘animal’ mood for a while; that was something wild and unpleasant,” said one participant.
A second part of the study asked people to become the opposite sex in their dreams. Seventy-nine of ninety-nine reported some success, though most found this one noticeably harder than turning into a wolf. The researchers reckon social conditioning gets in the way.
Two write-ups landed this week:
Lucid Dreamers Tried to Become Wolves. Some Say They Grew Fur and Felt Animal Instincts (ZME Science) - punchy take with the wildest quotes.
Lucid dreamers can rewire their minds to experience life as an animal (PsyPost) - the deeper read on shamanic animal-shifting, Jung’s collective unconscious, and how the brain keeps a mental map of the body.
Caveats up top: all self-reports, the researchers are a private company rather than an academic institution, and the work did not get ethics approval. Worth a grain of salt for all of those reasons. But if even some of these experiences are real, it says something interesting about how loosely our bodies live inside our dreams.
Best,
Jake
P.S. Our friend Ryan Hurd has a brilliant community for experienced lucid dreamers over at the Dream Portal - worth a look if you want to connect with other practitioners.
P.P.S. Come say hi on Facebook, YouTube, Discord, or TikTok. And if you want to go deeper, the Lucid Dreaming Fast Track Academy is waiting for you right here :-)
This one is weird.
A study published in the International Journal of Dream Research this month asked 98 regular lucid dreamers to try something a bit more radical than flying through walls.
They were told to become wolves.
Once lucid, participants were told to drop to all fours, imagine fur covering the body, and tune into a wolf’s senses - paws, ears, mouth, tongue, smell, sight.
About a third of them said it worked. Eighty-five percent reported at least partial bodily change. A handful said they could actually smell things in the dream - which is rare, smells almost never show up - and some of the reports get downright strange:
“I felt aggression. I felt an ‘animal’ mood for a while; that was something wild and unpleasant,” said one participant.
A second part of the study asked people to become the opposite sex in their dreams. Seventy-nine of ninety-nine reported some success, though most found this one noticeably harder than turning into a wolf. The researchers reckon social conditioning gets in the way.
Two write-ups landed this week:
Lucid Dreamers Tried to Become Wolves. Some Say They Grew Fur and Felt Animal Instincts (ZME Science) - punchy take with the wildest quotes.
Lucid dreamers can rewire their minds to experience life as an animal (PsyPost) - the deeper read on shamanic animal-shifting, Jung’s collective unconscious, and how the brain keeps a mental map of the body.
Caveats up top: all self-reports, the researchers are a private company rather than an academic institution, and the work did not get ethics approval. Worth a grain of salt for all of those reasons. But if even some of these experiences are real, it says something interesting about how loosely our bodies live inside our dreams.
Best,
Jake
P.S. Our friend Ryan Hurd has a brilliant community for experienced lucid dreamers over at the Dream Portal - worth a look if you want to connect with other practitioners.
P.P.S. Come say hi on Facebook, YouTube, Discord, or TikTok. And if you want to go deeper, the Lucid Dreaming Fast Track Academy is waiting for you right here :-)
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Sent by World of Lucid Dreaming · 1952 Gallows Rd, Vienna, VA 22182
Sent by World of Lucid Dreaming · 1952 Gallows Rd, Vienna, VA 22182
