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Lucid Dreaming – The Final Topic in my 2023 Year of Learning in Retirement

In the final month of my 2023 Year of Learning in Retirement, I picked Lucid Dreaming as the topic I’d take a deeper dive into.

To be honest, I’ve been super-busy and distracted and hadn’t even picked a December learning topic when my friend, Chris, sent me a link to the Lucid Dreaming online class.  Chris, who lives in Bali, is an avid meditator, and goal-setter, himself.  He’d just completed The Mindful Guide to Lucid Dreaming class, which was available through the Insight Timer app.

I’d just arrived in Bradenton, Florida and had tested positive for Covid, upsetting my plans to visit both Chris and his mother, who was turning 90, in St. Augustine.

Since those plans were completely disrupted and I had a week of isolation and bed-rest in front of me, it turned out to be the perfect time to learn about Lucid Dreaming.

What is Lucid Dreaming?

Though I can’t be certain I’ve truly experienced it (even after having taken the class) it sounds like Lucid Dreaming is the ability to have an awareness and control your actions while dreaming.

I’ve experienced the awareness piece on occasion, but not the second half – taking conscious action during a dream.

How does the class teach you to Lucid Dream?

First, the class helps you enhance your mindfulness and your ability to control what you’re thinking.  This part was very similar to what I learned when studying meditation. (Makes sense since Insight Timer is an app that includes guidance on Mindful Meditation.)

Many of the exercises began with breathing exercises and an awareness of your conscious thoughts, including when you transition to a sleep and dream state.  It was very handy for me to be listening to this class and doing these exercises while I was feverish and in a half-asleep state already.

As you slip into this dream state and see or experience something that wouldn’t be possible, your conscious mind that’s still half there is able to register, “This is a dream. I am not really pregnant again.”  (One of my recurring dreams is that I’m pregnant yet again. In these dreams, I have lots of babies which I don’t remember having. These are undoubtedly the children resulting from all the other pregnancy dreams.)

OK, back to reality. Next time, I’ll be able to realize that that back pain is NOT about pregnancy!

Recording Your Dreams

So…what you’re supposed to do when you’re conscious enough to remember your dream is this: grab a notebook that you keep by your bed and write down your dream.  If you wait until you’re fully awake, there’s a good chance you won’t remember the dream.

When I listened to this part of the class, I thought to myself: “I’m too sick to even want to move to take the much-needed Tylenol that’s sitting on that bedside table. This will have to wait.”

A couple of weeks later, when I wasn’t so sick, I was having a not-very-interesting dream about my girlfriend group. I also had to pee. I thought, “Since I’m up anyway, I should write down my dream.”  

However, I’ve struggled with insomnia my whole life.  Even though I had to get up to pee, I was still sleepy enough that I went right back to sleep without a problem.  If I had taken the time to write my dream down in a journal, I think it would have made it difficult for me to drift back to sleep. Bottom line: I’m not doing the journaling thing.

Why learn about Lucid Dreaming?

I thought the final few lectures were the most insightful about the benefits of Lucid Dreaming.  Often we dream about things that are bothering us in real life.  If we can interpret and dig into the meaning of our dreams, we might be able to rewrite our ‘dream story.’  This, of course, might be especially useful if our dreams (or nightmares) are related to an anxiety that we need to address.

One of the most difficult times of my life was in 1997 after my brother (another ‘Chris’) died in a car accident. I had dreams every night where he was alive. Then I’d wake up and re-experience the grief of his death.  (The opposite has also happened…. Dreaming that someone has died, and the huge relief in waking up, knowing it was just a dream.)

However, when I was having the nightly dreams that my brother was alive, it became so common that in my dream, I realized it was a dream, and would think, “I don’t want to wake up. If I wake up, Chris will be dead.”

As anyone who’s been through grief knows, it can be a time of deep depression and despair.  Every morning when I’d wake up, again to the realization that Chris was dead, I would sob uncontrollably.

But one night, the dream was different. Chris was there and told me he was OK. He was his typical carefree, full of happy energy self, telling me to stop worrying.  He was so real that it felt like I was really communicating with him in the afterlife. Even after I woke up, it didn’t feel like I’d just had a dream.

Was my experience “Lucid Dreaming”?

I don’t think that experience was “lucid dreaming” because it didn’t feel like a dream.  It could have been my subconscious.  However, the experience was vivid enough that I had a different feeling going forward.  I was still sad that Chris was dead, but I had a sense of peace and a belief that he had been able to communicate with me and reassure me that he was OK. (I just wish he’d have given me a little more information about the ‘after-life’!)

Since that whole experience happened before I knew anything about “lucid dreaming,” I don’t know if it would serve as an example of how we can rewrite our dreams.  However, if you have a recurring dream that upsets you, I think the idea is to ‘day dream’ a different outcome..  maybe one that you overcome the challenge you’re facing. The next time you have the dream, your lucid dreaming skills will help you rewrite your dream to a more positive outcome.  Doing this in your dream (even in your day dream) may change your mindset and feelings while you’re awake.

Summary – Learning about Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming, like meditation, helps us develop more awareness of our minds and our consciousness. 

Dreams can give us insights into our minds.  By having a deeper awareness about our dreams, we may learn how to change the outcomes, not just of our dreams, but of our waking lives.

While I don’t intend to keep a dream journal or work much more on trying to develop my lucid dreaming skills, I’m glad I learned about this unique mind-control skill.

My 2023 Year of Learning continued this month with a deeper dive on ways to hack exercise in retirement. Exercise is critical for our mental and physical health, but finding the time and discipline to do it daily can be a challenge.

As a matter of fact, this month I’ve found it a challenge to do my daily exercise routines regularly, despite being retired! I’m still laying in my bed with my laptop at 10:30am!

One of my self-imposed “rules” is that I have to do a minute of push-ups as soon as I get up, so I get those out of the way first thing! However, with no commitments on this first snowy day of the season, I’m delaying those pushups for as long as I can. And to further justify my lazy morning, I have another “rule” – to write at least one blog post a month about a focused learning project.

Writing this blog post about exercise has reminded me of its importance. It’s great that I’ve gotten into the habit of daily exercise. However, I’ve also learned that it’s OK to miss a day, here and there. In fact, I also have a rule to have at least one day (usually Sunday) to not worry about all my self-imposed rules.

Hacking Exercise for Health – Coursera Class

In the spirit of “focused learning,” I took a Coursera class: “Hacking Exercise For Health. The surprising new science of fitness“.

This was a motivating class! The short videos and assignments described different exercise hacks – ways we could most efficiently make exercise fun and easy.

Most of the class was a review for me; however, the importance of maintaining fitness and building strength are especially important as we age.

The class talked about techniques such as HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training, explaining the science behind building strength and endurance. I was surprised that strength-training can be really effective with resistance bands and by exercising using our own body-weight. Dumbbells and weight machines are not required!

If we are using weights, one of my takeaways was that the first set of reps in weight-building is the most effective. Even if we are just doing strength exercises for 5 minutes we get benefit from it.

Since I travel so often, I wanted to find a way to keep up my fitness and strength regardless of where I was. The class helped me feel much less worried about losing strength if I couldn’t get to a gym.

Strength-Building Hacks

One of the easiest strength-building hacks is just to use your own body-weight and execute exercises like push-ups, planks, lunges, and squats.

When I first started doing a 5-minute strength-building routine, I couldn’t even do one push up! But every day I tried to do one more than the day before and within a month I was able to do 20. Now I do a minute’s worth of push-ups every most mornings. I usually go at a pace of one per second, so get in 60 pushups!

I then go on to do the 5-minute plank routine that’s available on Alexa.

I sometimes add a YouTube strength routine or resistance bands.

I tried The Exercise Coach which uses “exerbotics” and two 20-minute workouts a week. Though this was a cool new way to get in strength-training, it was expensive and required me to go to a gym with the specialized machines.

Now I know that I can get in the benefits of strength-training with resistance bands and exercises I can do these anywhere. Twenty minutes, twice a week is all it takes!

Hacking Exercise by Doing What You Love

One of the best hacks for fitness is participating in sports you love.

Sports I love? My younger self would say, “I’m terrible at all sports!” PE was my worst subject. I hated it and was that kid that always got picked last for team sports.

However, as an adult, I discovered I wasn’t nearly as terrible an athlete as I’d believed. I started running at 39 and loved the races. The annual Bolder Boulder became a big tradition in our family.

Dancing, hiking, and walking are all social and other activities I love. These activities are all great for building bone density on top of keeping me fit!

I’ve written a lot about the benefits of hiking and walking and my obsession with walking at least 10,000 steps every day.

Even though I’ve given up running because of back problems, I LOVE so much about walking or hiking regularly. It’s probably been one of the best things I’ve done for my mental health. I’m usually either listening to a podcast, audiobook, or music or talking to a friend. The combination of exercise, getting outside, and socialization, are all perfect remedies for managing the stresses in my life.

And my bone density has improved! I no longer have to worry so much about a vertebra fracture, so can even do an occasional fun run! I had so much fun run/walking with my granddaughter at yesterday’s Trick-or-Trot. She doesn’t like running, but I taught her about my walk/run strategy (basically to pass the wimpy walkers in front of us.) She ended up getting 2nd place for her age group and I was 3rd place for mine!

Summary

Getting into the habit of daily exercise has been one of the best things I could have done, not just for my fitness, but for my mental health.

It can be tough to find the motivation, but with exercise hacks you can find ways to make fitness fun. It doesn’t require a gym to build strength and fitness. Even doing a little will improve your health and your mood. As they say at Nike, “Just Do It!”

If there’s ever a time to take ourselves less seriously and enjoy life, it’s retirement!

Like many of my monthly learning goals, Improv is a skill that I tried before and liked it well enough to think: I’d like to IMPROVe!

Improving Improv with Play Your Way Sane

I’d read that Improv skills were very much like the skills encouraged in the Agile community… skills to help with teamwork, communication, collaboration, and dealing with uncertainty.

I ordered the book, “Play Your Way Sane: 120 Improv-Inspired Exercises to Help You Calm Down, Stop Spiraling and Embrace Uncertainty” last December and had been waiting for the opportunity to really dive in. Each exercise was a little activity aimed to help become more spontaneous, silly, grateful, positive, and funny!

The exercises were easy and adaptable and absolutely things that didn’t require a group, but rather, exercises that would help us individually become better, healthier, human beings.

The book is split into 12 “lessons”, each with 10 “games.” The “games” are the “exercises” or “activities.” As a big game player myself, I particularly liked Lesson 3: Finding the Game. These exercises were all about finding ways to play games in every-day life. I’m quite an expert in this and have always gamified chores or different aspects of my life.

For the most part, the lessons reminded me of the importance of finding the humor in life. My natural personality is pretty “Type A” driven by lists and plans. Improv is all about spontaneity and thinking fast, but with a chill, laid-back kind of attitude.

Improving Improv at a Broomshticks Meetup

Even though I’m quite an expert in doing exercises similar to those described in Play Your Way Sane, I’m nowhere close to being willing or ready to entertain an audience!

Luckily, Broomschticks Improv is a safe and easy way to simply play improv games without the pressure of performing for an audience.

This Broomfield Meetup group meets monthly and even newbies like me feel welcomed. Once again, improv really is all about just having fun and playing games!

I wish I could be as quick-witted as the experienced players. I think it’s amazing how they can so quickly snap into different personalities and accents.

Improving Improv by Playing with Friends and Family

In the spirit of Improv Games, I always enjoy costumes, photo-booth props, and celebrating unique holidays, like Fall Hat Month. I have a closet full of dress-up clothes and accessories and love any opportunity to celebrate.

It’s also been an awesome month to play games since my son Scotty has been visiting for the past two weeks as he’s recovering from knee surgery. Game-playing is his specialty!

When my grandkids were visiting for the weekend, Scotty taught us all to play The Fishbowl Game which is a perfect example of a good improv game. Players act out different characters while their partners guess who they’re supposed to be.

For the final day of September, creative costumes paid off! Megan, Scotty, and I won a Best Dressed Team Award for the Beauty and the Beast CluedUpp Game! I’d invited my family to join me for this event months ago. They’re all pretty busy, so I was excited that Megan and Scotty were able to play with me!

Megan arrived at my house this morning in a perfect Belle costume. Scotty and I hadn’t really put much effort into our costumes. I was the French Maid Feather Duster and he was the Beast using my gorilla costume and a cutout mask. However, Megan helped us add a few accessories and we looked great!

Scotty really was a Beast and did the entire event on crutches! It was fun to win the Best Dressed award with our “improvised” costumes. (It really helped that hardly any other teams dressed up!)

Summary

Initially, I believed that “improv” was only for those talented people like Wayne Brady who can whip out clever lyrics and witty punchlines instantly. Improv comedy on stage is something I greatly admire but there’s no way I wanted to perform on stage.

However, after this month of focused IMPROVement, I’ve discovered that improv skills have countless everyday applications that can make our lives more fun. These skills are all about adopting a mindset that finds humor in life, and I absolutely love that!