Oneironautics () refers to the ability to travel within a
dream on a
conscious basis. Such a traveler in a dream may be called an oneironaut.
Within one's dream
A lucid dream is one in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. They are able to exert some or a complete control over the dream's characters, narrative and/or environment. Early references to the phenomenon are found in ancient Greek texts.
Within the dream of another
The idea of one person being able to consciously travel or interact within the dream of another person, known variously as "dream telepathy", "telepathic lucid dreaming" or "telepathic dreaming",
has been explored in the realms of science and fantasy fiction; in recent works, such an interaction is often depicted as a computer-mediated
psychotherapeutic
Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome prob ...
action, as is the case in ''
The Cell
Cell most often refers to:
* Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life
Cell may also refer to:
Locations
* Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery w ...
'', and ''
Paprika
Paprika ( US , ; UK , ) is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers. It is traditionally made from ''Capsicum annuum'' varietals in the Longum group, which also includes chili peppers, but the peppers used for paprika tend to be milder an ...
'', as well as through the direct intervention of another sleeping person, as in ''
Inception'', ''
Dreamscape'' and ''
Waking Life''. The concept is also included in the fantasy series ''
The Wheel of Time'' as an ability "
dreamwalkers" are able to use.
A trope in such works of fiction explores the ramifications of whether the sleeping protagonist should enter the sleeping brain of another as opposed to allowing another individual to enter one's own brain; the entering of another individual's brain often results in unpleasant surprises, depending upon the mental state of the host or the preparedness of the guest.
Roger Zelazny's 1966 sci-fi novella ''
The Dream Master
''The Dream Master'' (1966), originally published as a novella titled ''He Who Shapes'', is a science fiction novel by American writer Roger Zelazny. Zelazny's originally intended title for it was ''The Ides of Octember''. It won the 1965 Nebul ...
'', which applies computer-mediated dream telepathy in a psychotherapeutic setting, focuses on the protagonist's growing struggle to keep his balance as he enters the brain of a fellow psychotherapist who is blind, and subconsciously destructively hungers for the visual stimuli upon which dreams largely depend.
See also
*
Psychonautics
Psychonautics (from the Ancient Greek ' 'soul, spirit, mind' and ' 'sailor, navigator') refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditatio ...
*
Simstim
A thought recording and reproduction device refers to any machine which is able to both directly record and reproduce, via a brain-computer interface, the thoughts, emotions, dreams or other neural/cognitive events of a subject for that or other s ...
, a technology in
William Gibson's
Sprawl trilogy of science fiction novels, whereby a person's brain and nervous system is stimulated to simulate the full sensory experience of another person.
*
Reality shifting
Reality shifting is a term popularized in internet culture in 2018, primarily on YouTube, for the spiritual practice of "transferring" or "shifting" one's awareness to a fictional universe or a parallel universe. The practice is often confused wi ...
References
{{Dreaming
Dream
Telepathy
Spirituality
Subcultures
Oneirology