In college, I majored in Psychology and I absolutely loved it.   Amidst all there is to learn about the mind, I found dreams to be the most interesting and underrated subject in the field.  A friend of mine told me about lucid dreaming and I was so intrigued, I made it the focus for a major research paper. 

After reading as much as I could on the subject, one night I tried the recommended techniques and IT WORKED – I had my first lucid dream.   The experience was unlike any other in my life.  I realized I was capable of entering  what seemed like an advanced state of consciousness as I slept.  I was fascinated, and very eager to learn more about it.

To my disappointment, all of my Psychology classes hardly touched the subject of dreams and never addressed the phenomenon of lucidity or the lucid REM state.  Compared to other subject matter, each class only casually mentioned dreams and never went in-depth.   The trend was as follows: 

Dreams in case studies, history of psychology, and academic research of dreams were briefly mentioned as therapeutically valuable, useful for self-integration, necessary for healthy development, and phenomenologically one of the most interesting human traits known to mankind… and then we would promptly move on to the next subject.  

This seemed paradoxical – how could dreams be so important and yet so neglected?  As time went on and I advanced in Psychology, I learn a lot about Buddhism and Mindfulness.  It turns out, many ancient Buddhist practices are now scientifically supported as valuable and efficacious mental health practices (namely Mindfulness). 

Though we never covered lucid dreaming in the curriculum, I later learned that Mindfulness and Lucid Dreaming share the same origin: the Buddhist traditions of Dream Yoga.    

So, for the past 10 years I have studied Mindfulness and Lucid Dreaming in-depth, and I have had countless incredible lucid dream experiences.  The more I learned, the more valuable it seemed to be and so I decided to pursue it professionally.