Lucid dream (if it exists) as explained in class is the ability to control what goes in the dream because of awareness of being in a dream. I experience quite often about once a week something supposedly called sleep paralysis. That is apparently where you are wake but cannot move, make a sound or physically open the eyes. This is different from being awake and relaxed as described in class, as it is awake and panic.

The first few times, I was actually frightened and felt I would enter Limbo or something if I couldn’t break out of the sleep. This is different from being awake and relaxed as described in class, as it is awake and panic. After its steady occurrence, I learned that I was in full control of what was going on, and just try to sleep through it. I believe this would be in the deep sleep stages of REM, where it is difficult to wake up.

After sleeping through it I feel I am now in full control of my dream, and to be fair it is enjoyable,  and takes focus to remain in the dream. Many times I found myself not in full mental exertion and I would break out of the dream ever so slowly. With practice and experience during the sleep I became able to remain in control for a decently longer time.

I therefore do believe Lucid dreaming is a thing, since the control you get is phenomenal, from tasting to feeling to really vividly experiencing the dream like it is real life.

I find that the way to Lucid dream is to unfortunately sleep more than you need to. When I am dead tired, I pass out and wake up in a second it feels. When I sleep for long unnecessary and try to force myself to sleep more than needed I enter lucid dreaming. Like Freud suggested, I feel when we sleep excessively more often times it is a chance to escape from external problems, and therefore the dreams give us a chance for wish fulfillment to get past those problems.

Now for an example. My favourite and most recurring lucid dream seems to be playing in a soccer game always. it’s so real it’s amazing. It feels like a full 90 minute match, and I play with players who I either play with currently or watch professionally on the tele. I get to control my passes, shots, decision making, technique and work rate. It is literally just like a game. I believe this is lucid dreaming because I have had dreams playing in soccer games where I have had no control of how I played, and I am able to compare the two. However, what keeps me wondering if there are variations of lucid dreams is that I think it is real life, but I can control it. I am not aware that I am in a dream but I can control it still. It feels real.

The outcome of classical conditioning can be taught, and is most likely always used to teach animals and people to produce behaviours. Like discussed in class, the pigeon that turns in circle to get its food is an example of classical conditioning.

When my dog was just a puppy, she seemed to have learned to produce a certain behaviour without us meaning for it. This all started because of the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus, her dog treat. Now, either she was smart, or we just shouldn’t have followed this dog training book:

My puppy always got into the newspaper and would chew it all up aggressively. The book instructed us to award the puppy with a treat whenever the puppy gets out of mischief as a form  of reward. Her unconditioned stimulus was that she would never get anxious and salivate for a treat when she would chew up newspaper. She learned to just get into the newspaper for the sake of her expecting the outcome of receiving a treat literally whenever she felt like it. Her salivating and expecting a treat by getting newspaper was her perhaps accidental or just smart conditioned response because of the conditioned stimulus of the newspaper. When she did not get her treat she would make it known! Do not train your dogs this way!