What does it mean to be lucid?
Have you ever had a dream where you realized that you were in a dream?
That experience is what is commonly referred to as “lucid dreaming”, a phenomenon that has been experienced and discussed dating back to antiquity, but that only recently began to be described and studied as such more recently.
“Lucid dreaming” itself is a term coined by Dutch author and psychiatrist Frederik van Eeden in his 1913 article, A Study of Dreams.
German psychologist Paul Tholey went on to define seven different conditions of clarity that a dream must fulfill to be defined as a lucid dream, with 1-4 being considered indispensable prerequisites of lucid dreaming.
Awareness of the dream state (orientation)
Awareness of the capacity to make decisions
Awareness of memory functions
Awareness of self
Awareness of the dream environment
Awareness of the meaning of the dream
Awareness of concentration and focus (the subjective clarity of that state)
The concept of lucid dreaming is something that I have been fascinated by for awhile, but it is only more recently that I begun to ask myself:
What about lucid living?
In my perspective, “lucid living” is similar to lucid dreaming, in that we embrace conscious participation in co-creating reality. It means having awareness within the “waking dream” of our daily life, and moving from passive experience to active participation.
Sounds obvious, right?
The thing about lucid dreaming and living, though, is that it requires first a deep awareness of the fact that one is dreaming, before moving into the ability to shape the reality of that experience.
And I feel that many of us today are in a state of unconsciousness, moving through our daily lives on autopilot, following scripts that we never consciously chose. We inherit cultural expectations, are boxed into workplace dynamics and expected to comply, and even sucked into the whirlpool of our emotional reactions without really zooming out and asking ourselves just how much we can control and shape these experiences through awareness.
Put simply, I believe that many of us today are so embedded in our routines, relationships, reactions, and conditioning that we forget we have agency in shaping them.
Understanding Lucidity
The concept of lucid dreaming opens a window into something much larger: the nature of lucidity itself. Merriam-Webster defines lucidity as “clearness of thought or style” as well as a “presumed capacity to perceive the truth directly and instantaneously”.
Lucidity is the prerequisite for lucid living, because you can’t consciously co-create what you first can’t consciously observe. And you can’t walk the path between imagination and reality without being able to clearly express and articulate your vision, both to yourself, and to others who could help bring it into form.
Introducing Lucid Studio
This exploration of lucid living led me to conceptualize Lucid Studio, a creative storytelling and cultural strategy studio that exists at the intersection of imagination, culture, and regenerative practice. The principles of lucidity, including conscious participation, are at the heart of everything we aim to do.
We operate primarily from the belief that imagination is a radical act, one that deserves careful and devoted stewardship in order to bring those imaginations into form and help create the more beautiful, regenerative, thriving future we all crave.
Lucid Studio exists to serve both individuals seeking to become more conscious participants in their creative and personal lives, and organizations ready to move from inherited to intentional culture and meaning making. Whether that is through storytelling projects that help people craft their own personal mythologies, or cultural strategy work that helps teams articulate their values and align them with action, we’re laying the groundwork for collective lucidity – moments where individuals and groups become conscious together about the reality they are creating.
The Three Pillars of Lucid Living
At Lucid Studio, we organize our ethos and work around three core pillars:
Vision: the capacity to see and imagine what is possible
Values: the conscious choice of what we stand for and how that ripples into our actions
Voice: the clarity and authenticity with which we express and communicate
These three pillars are deeply interconnected; your vision shapes your values, your values inform your voice, and your voice helps you share your vision and values with the world, to manifest them into form.
When the three are aligned, you are practicing lucid living.
Your Invitation to Lucid Living
The question isn’t whether or not you are dreaming – you are. We all are, moving through the waking dream of cultural, relational, professional, and personal patterns that feel fixed, but are actually fluid.
The question is this: Will you remain unconscious within that dream, or are you ready to become lucid?
This article is just the first in what will be an ongoing exploration through the Lucid Library – an anthology of emergence of the practice of lucid living and the work we aim to do at Lucid Studio. This collection of writings will cover a range of topics, including imagination, conscious culture-making, emotional ecology, regenerative principles, and more. If this intrigues you, we invite you to subscribe.
