All right. So I'm going to share about the healing benefits of lucid dreaming. So at our last gathering, somebody actually asked a question, what are the benefits of lucid dreaming? And we kind of listed them off just like from our different experiences as lucid dreamers, and I thought it'd be nice to have a little bit more of a container around it. And as I started to explore this topic, I realized there are so many benefits to lucid dreaming. And so for this particular share, I'm just going to focus on the healing benefits of it. And so the first one that I'm going to start with is grief. So, grief is actually something that we can work with in lucid dreams, because once someone has died, that doesn't end the relationship the body is no longer here, but the relationship can continue. So through lucid dreaming, we can create an intention to meet somebody who has died and our dreams and there could be resolution of some sort if that wasn't able to happen in waking life or while they were alive, or it could be sharing time with them. I know that I do this with my mom quite often. She has turned into a dream sign for me, which is great. And sometimes I choose not to wake up so that I can just be with her and that and I feel like it's a way of continuing my relationship with her and really keeping her alive. And then another piece of that is healing with our ancestors and ancestral work and so we can actually go into our dreams, we can make an intention to meet our ancestors and create more connection with our ancestors through dream work. Another benefit is really creating a more of a connection between your mind and your body. And through doing this, we actually can heal our sleep. So we all know that sleep is really important and a lot of us choose to kind of put that off to the side but with lucid dreaming, we have to be able to sleep right to be able to dream. And so in order to be able to sleep we have to really make sleep hygiene or priority, which then we are able to experience I know I've experienced this myself when we are going throughout our day and really paying attention to what we choose to do like when we choose to eat when we choose to exercise. When we choose to go to bed when we choose to turn off our screens. We can see how those things impact our sleep. We can actually experience how they impact our sleep. And so that to me has been revelatory and really is experiencing even more so the connection between body and mind we have the ability to transcend any kind of physical limitation that we may have. So if we're not able to see in this life then we are able to see if we are not able to walk we are able to walk I have a really sweet story about working with a hospice client who was only able to be in bed. And I actually worked with her a little bit in her dream. She brought it up with me. She said Is there a way that you think a creative way that I can experience walking again and and she actually ended up running in her dreams and she I don't think that she was necessarily lucid. But she made the intention to do that. And she was able to do that and it was really beautiful. To see the joy that she was able to experience from that. Also, increased self compassion. I think this is really healing right? So not only in our daily life, also with grief. This is also really important and this is something that I focus on in my grief work with clients is self compassion. And so with lucid dreaming, we're becoming more aware of our mind and to create relationship with our mind, we become more aware in waking life. And in order to be self compassionate with ourselves. We have to recognize our thoughts. If we're not able to recognize our thoughts, and it's really difficult to be compassionate towards ourselves. And so lucid dreaming can really support us and recognizing what we're thinking, what we're experiencing and then create a bigger container to really embrace that. Another one is resolving nightmares, and reoccurring dreams. So we can look at our dreams after dream journaling and go through and be like what are we what reoccurring dreams are happening here? A really common one that I hear all the time is trying to find a bathroom. Anybody ever experienced that one? Yeah, right. And so know, I've experienced it too. And so we can look at that and be like, Okay, what is that? What can be curious about it be curious about the reoccurring dream. Why is that showing up for me? And then we can become lucid in the dream. Maybe maybe finding a toilet can be a dream sign, right? It can make us lucid, and then we can go and find the toilet if we still need to find the toilet in our dream or we can wake up right? And so looking at our reoccurring dreams can also be really healing because there might be something going on in the subconscious that we're not aware of. And that can be a way of us being curious and looking at that particular point and and maybe healing that in our dreams. Another one is nightmares. I've experienced this in my life. And what a nightmare is for me is a dream that doesn't have resolution that causes fear or anxiety. Right? And so nightmares for me have felt so real right? Like we get to really experience what it really feels like to be in fear. And through that our ego is just so tight and contracted and doesn't believe that it could possibly be a dream. And the beauty of lucid dreaming with this is that we can recognize that it's a dream. And we can turn around and we can look at whatever is chasing us. We can recognize this is a common one for me. All be in my dream. And I will be thinking I can't wake up. I'm in a dream and I can't wake up. Oh no. What am I going to do and because I have these these dreams in which I think I've woken up and then I haven't woken up and then it happens over and over and over again. And what I've realized for myself is Oh That in itself is a dream sign. If I can recognize that I'm having that thought I can't wake up in the dream that in itself can be Oh, yes, a false awakening. Exactly. So false awakenings can be a dream sign, but that thought of, oh, I can't wake up. What am I going to do? I can't wake up. I'm stuck in this dream. It's a dream sign. And so that's what I'm personally working with. Right now. That thought in itself can be so scary for me that I won't be able to wake up that I won't be able to interact with other people again, that it creates such a contraction. So look at your own lives and see like are there reoccurring dreams that you're having or their nightmares that you're having? How could you work with that and you're lucid dreaming. And then you can also work with phobias. So I was curious what were the top five right now because I know this like changes over time depending on the generation that is alive at the moment. And right now it's heights, snakes, public speaking, spiders, and the fear of social interactions. Really interesting, right? Yeah, a lot of compassion around that for me. I'm I'm guessing I don't have any research about this, but that could be because of what we experienced with COVID. Right. And so the dream world can be this safe container to experience things that we're afraid of, like snakes, like public speaking. Like maybe going into a party and failing into a room or maybe going on a date. You can practice going on a date.