I used to have spontaneous lucid dreams every now and again, and my father used to know what this was and he explained it, you know, this is a lucid dream, and I was very fascinated by this. I've been interested in lucid dreams ever since I was a child. Today, lucid dreaming and how you can control your own dreams.ĭenholm Aspy: Lucid dreams are when you know that you're dreaming while you are still asleep and inside of a dream. Sana Qadar: You're listening to All in the Mind, I'm Sana Qadar. Laura Joy: I'd picture myself doing something that I found difficult in dance class and I'd practice doing it, you know, jumping from the tops of buildings onto other tops of buildings and just picture myself doing these jumps or these turns, so that I wouldn't feel as anxious or nervous about the upcoming performance or the dance or the routine or something. Sana Qadar: Over time, Laura began to realise that she wasn't just aware of these dreams, she could influence them, even control them. So a hand would come down from my forehead and kind of grab me out of my dream and then take me on an adventure. Laura Joy: My earliest dreams always consisted of flying, being able to feel myself flying over…whether it was oceans or countries or cities, but also with the feeling that I was getting pulled out of my dreaming state into the lucid dream by hand. Sana Qadar: She was eight, it maybe nine years old, and disability to be aware that she was dreaming felt completely natural. And that's when I kind of realised that perhaps my dreams were a bit different. Laura Joy: When I was talking to friends at school as a kid we'd talk about our dreams and things like that, and I said to other kids that I knew that I was dreaming and I thought that that was a normal thing, and then I was kind of met with looks of, like, 'oh wow, that's different' or 'that's crazy' or 'I don’t know that I'm dreaming, I wake up and I don't even know that I've dreamt some nights'.

Sana Qadar: Growing up, Laura Joy thought her dreams were normal.