 Cool, so welcome back guys. This is, I've brought Giz Edwards on the channel. You may know him from YouTube. He is an experienced lucid dreamer. He's been making videos for a very long time, much longer than me. And yeah, I'm very happy to have you on Giz. So, welcome. Thank you very much. I appreciate that humble intro. So, yeah, just go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, your history, everything people might want to know. Cool. So, as you said, my name is Giz Edwards. I was named after Gizmo the Gremlin and I started making content back in 2007, maybe on YouTube. I was a really early adopter. I want to say 2008 now, never mind. Really early adopter of the platform. And I found my niche by creating lucid dreaming content. So, if you don't recognize the name, you'll probably recognize my face at some point. If you've ever googled how to lucid dream, I suppose, back in the early 2010s. I got very fortunate. I had quite a lot of subscribers at first and I managed to sustain a living from making content on YouTube, which was really, really good, especially given the ad apocalypse era during that time. And what else can I say? I own a company called Future Think Media, which creates media for other companies. And I'm currently in a tech incubation program creating a nifty little tool for content creators, which I can't talk too much about at the moment, but it's going to be awesome. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, the ad apocalypse. That was the one. So, maybe you could, can you tell me what you mainly use or use the lucid dreams for? And maybe what's your favorite thing to do in lucid dreaming? So, the reason, the reason I started lucid dreaming was a little bit different to how other people start. So, well, maybe not actually. So, I started doing lucid dreaming as a way to explore cool things to do, like most people like flying and stuff. But that quickly got quite boring, I suppose for me. Not to the extent that I just didn't want to do it, but to the extent in which I wanted to explore how powerful the mind was. This was back in, gosh, I don't know when this was, this was like 2009, maybe, when I started experimenting with lucid dreaming and what it was doing. And I was into like the expansion consciousness bit at the time. And then I wasn't, and then I was, and then I wasn't, and then I was, and now I'm not waiting to get back into it. So, I would start, I started doing experiments, like trying to invoke different tastes in a dream, trying to have different feelings in a dream as like physical sensations, electrocution, like, I could try and shoot myself at one point because I wanted to feel pain. And there was lots of different things that I wanted to do, but essentially it was just an experiment to see how realistic I could make a dream feel and try and understand how powerful that process can be. And what else did you ask me then? I've forgotten, I got lost. Just what you mainly used it for and what your favorite thing to do was? My favorite thing to do, well, aside from the obvious, which is like flying and things like that, I once had a dream where I actually had a predetermined list of things that I wanted to do in a dream, when I become lucid. And I was in this particular dream, and I became lucid, and I thought, cool, I'll get to do whatever was at the top of my list. And it turned out there was nothing that I wanted to do more at that time than my dog was in front of me, which is weird, because it wasn't on my list. And in my dream, when I became lucid, I realized that my dog was there. And in waking life, my dog had actually died by this point. So I scrapped the list, and I just cracked on and just spent some time with my pet. So I'm less now about trying to do things that are external, for example, the flying, the superpowers, I'm less about that, and I'm more about trying to do things that satisfy me mentally, I suppose, like the cathartic things, like walking your dog. Okay, okay. It's weird. It's weird, but I like it. Do you think that's interesting, actually? Yeah, because I feel fairly similar, although instead of, I guess, things like walking, I've never had a dog, so I wouldn't know how that would feel. But instead of things like flying now, I typically do more exploration of my consciousness and just asking really profound questions to my subconscious and seeing what happens. And I think, to be honest, I think that's kind of a journey that most people go on. They start off how most of us do, where we just hear about this incredible thing, we realise we can fly around in a lucid dream and stuff like that. We do that for a while. But then that does kind of get a bit samey after a while, and you sort of crave something deeper and more interesting and more, I guess, more profound. Yeah, I would 100% agree with you. And it gets really, really interesting depending on your belief to the response you get. So for example, with me, I don't believe in a higher power, so to speak. I believe that when we dream, we dream and it exists entirely in the mind. I know other people have, they believe that dreams are a gateway to higher consciousness or whatever. But I prefer the way that I think, because it makes my brain or everyone's brains individually seem more fantastic. So when you do things in the dream, for example, I once had a dream in which I wanted to know what my greatest fear was. So I asked a version of myself weirdly enough, a reflection of myself, what my greatest fear was. And it told me an answer that I didn't expect because I'm terrified of spiders, for example. But it said your greatest fear is to die alone. Yeah, not physically alone, but just like you've got no friends, you've got no family and stuff like that. But when you wake up, you're like, my God, that was quite profound. But when you think about it, and especially when you think about it from a belief system that I have, which is that was my brain telling me that, it makes you think, well, my brain knows that. And I didn't. And I've had a couple of those experiences where I've talked to the dream, knowing that it's my brain, and it says something quite profound and out of the blue. And it really makes you think, how much do you know without knowing that you know it? Yeah, I think the subconscious mind is far more powerful than we know, basically. Yeah. So I'm interested. I'm curious, actually, what your opinion is on. So you say that you find it fascinating that the brain can do all of that and create the lucid dreaming world and you know, all of the physics and stuff around that. But don't you think it will be equally as impressive if the human brain could also act as a gateway to something much more profound and, you know, other dimensions and things like that? I'm curious. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I quite often have this opinion about God as well, when I think about God. Because I don't know if you can tell from my videos, but I think a lot more than I let on in my videos or than I did. So I think about things like time travel and God and extra dimensions and what the concept of hell would be and loads and loads of different things, like quite weird subjects. But I often think that, like take the God thing, for example, I don't know. And there's no way of knowing. Yeah. And for me, like you, you could have all the evidence. No, sorry, you cannot have any evidence for or against a belief, which is as intangible, untangible as God or higher powers or things like that, because I don't think there is any empirical data. So I have to go on my gut. Yeah. And my gut, my gut tells me that lucid dreams exist just in the mind. But similarly to my belief with God, that's what I believe in. But I have to accept the fact that it might not be true. So even though I believe in that one thing, and we do have evidence to suggest that one thing, I have to assume that there could be evidence of the opposite. So when I when I think about lucid dreaming as a gateway to a higher dimension or expanding your consciousness via different things like that, I go with my gut and tell me that the brain is more powerful than I think. But I have to assume that I don't know everything. And yeah, I would be well open for the idea that that is the truth. But for me, that is time that I've yet to see it. Okay, that's a really good answer, actually. Thank you. Yeah. Cool. So what would be your just bringing it back to basics now for everyone that's just had their minds sort of blown apart? Yeah, sorry, in advance. So what would you say your biggest tip or, I guess, best collection of tips or ideas for beginners mainly who want to lucid dream better or more easily or just more often? Okay. Well, I think I think a big part of why people don't lucid dream is to do with expectation and stress. Because I used to do coaching one on one coaching with lucid dreamers, quite a lot, actually, during a big portion of my time, my life. And quite often, I get the same kind of things spat back at me, which is, I can't wait for my first lucid dream and doing this, this, this and this and this. But by adding that stress, even though it's not a bad stress, it's a good stress. Adding that stress impacts your sleep. And I think stress and anxiety and all the things that are closely linked to those types of things, it off, it offsets your, your hormones, serotonin levels and things like that. And it affects your sleep. So my biggest advice for people is just to relax and lower those expectations. Because it will happen. If you do the necessary steps in order to ensure that you're doing the most you can, it will happen naturally. Aside from that, I think there's a lot of value to be shown with people who sleep a bit more, think a bit more, and write down or record your dreams. Because to be able to lucid dream, you need a longer period of REM, or longer periods of REM, which only happened during the later sleep cycles that you have. By having those later sleep cycles, you need to sleep more. And being able to record your dreams is vital. Because if you don't even remember your dreams, how are you meant to be aware during them, if you just can't even remember them? So three factors, stress, even though it's good, it can be bad, a length of sleep, because that impacts a lot, also stress, and dream journaling. I think those three things, once you get that, ignore the different techniques and the methods and things, just focus on those. That's actually really, really good advice. And I'll say why. So the first two, so recently I bought an Apple watch, because for the first time I thought, why am I not tracking my sleep? That's the one thing I should be tracking. So I got this Apple watch, and I started tracking my sleep. And my sleep quality very quickly declined because I was paying attention to it, and I was tossing and turning, and I'd be thinking, oh, what time is it now? Why am I not asleep yet? And I'd be worried about how bad my sleep score was going to be in the morning. And it took me, it must have taken me at least a week now, to actually have a decent night's sleep since I got this thing. And since I started tracking my sleep, because I was just worried about it, and I just wanted it to happen. I wanted it to be good quality sleep faster. And yeah, obviously that made me stressed. That stopped me sleeping. And yeah, so that's just like, I can sort of confirm that that is true, because yeah. There's actually, my friend at university, he suffers with insomnia quite a lot. And he told me he's got a tracker that his is a different brand or whatever it is, I don't know. And he said, there's two things that come out of doing that. One of them is that sleep trackers can actually make your insomnia worse, because there's a name, which is a name for it, unhealthy obsession with trying to achieve perfect sleep. And it's called orthosomnia. Oh, is that an actual condition? Actual condition. So by using trackers and devices like that, it can actually cause you to have less sleep, because you're worrying about it. It's unhealthy. And the other one, which I can't remember the name is unhealthy obsession with tracking data of your personal life. And having orthosomnia is just one element of that. So it will make an interesting video, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking of making a video about the Apple Watch and sleep tracking. But I'm going to give people these warnings, you know, like, it can cause you to actually sleep worse if you're not careful. Yeah, exactly. Orthosomnia. O-R-T-H-O. Somnia. You committed to a big word, dad. Yeah. Well, orthosomnia. Okay. So, um, oh, well, my next question was going to be what do you find holds most people back? But I guess it would be those two things, right? Or those three things? Um, I don't believe so. I think holds people back from doing lucid dreaming. One of the things that it could essentially be, oh, well, apart from your expectations, which I don't think I've named as one of the big three, the expectations of what you could achieve needs to drastically lower. Um, but aside from those three, I think, yeah, expectations is a, is a big one because people think, and I don't help this at all because I'm the outlier of data because my first lucid dream happened on the first night that I tried. So my success rate was instantly, well, it was 100%. Yeah. And that's bad data. And I think a lot of people see bad data and assume that it's the truth. But realistically, it can take a long time. It can take like two months for you to have your first lucid dream. Oh, it can take longer sometimes. Yeah. Exactly. So I think expectation is how you're going to, or when you're going to lose the dream is, is one thing that holds people back because they're like, Oh, it's not working. And you probably had the same thing, like comments saying, it's not, I'm not, I can't lose a dream. I was like, give it time. It will happen. Stop stressing. Yeah. So, um, expectations, learning those expectations, just the tad is, is really vital. And that probably holds people back because they often quit before they've had their first lucid dream, because maybe they don't think it's real. Yeah. And I think it's another thing that if you've never had a lucid dream, you don't really know what to expect. So your mind starts, you know, puffing it up to be this huge like video game, like dream fantasy land where, you know, everything's amazing. But in many cases, it's your first lucid dream will be, you know, like a few seconds. And then your next one might be just like you're walking down a road or something. I mean, yeah, you have to build these things up, you know? Yeah. Even though my first lucid dream happened on the first night, it was exactly as you just described it was, I realized I was dreaming and then I woke up. Yeah. I mean, that's as short as you can have a lucid dream. Is that? Yeah. Exactly. Cool. Okay. So changing subject slightly, I noticed that you did a sleep deprivation challenge. It was, I believe it was 100 hours. Did you actually make it to 100 hours? I didn't. I made it to 92. 92. So yeah, can you just tell us about that? How was it, you know, what was the experience like? Did you hallucinate, for example? Tell me about that. Well, the experience was hell. As you can probably imagine. Yeah. 92 hours is just under four days. The reason I did it was actually a mind over matter thing. I just wanted to see if I could do it. Yeah. And so I aimed for three and a half days, which was 84 hours. And I just kept on adding a little bit more and more on top. I kept on adding like a little bit. But then I made the gray there of lying in bed, which, stupid, I know, like hindsight is 2020 at the time, that felt like a great idea. But yeah, I've always been interested to see if I could stay awake. And it also played a part in my undergraduate degree in university. My dissertation was actually based on sleep deprivation. So I had previously stayed awake for this 92 hour period of time and thought, well, that's great. I'll write a paper on that and we'll be fine. And then I had to stay awake for 88 hours writing that paper, which was just fantastic. But there's a period of time where you don't know what's going on. Like I remember a few days in, it was like two and a half days. You get kind of stuck in a state of mind where you feel like a zombie, but it's really odd because it's like there's a split in your brain and one side and is the dominant side and it's like you're a zombie. But then you've got this other side which is hidden where you're completely aware of what's going on and what's happening. It's almost like, I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but it's a syndrome called locked in syndrome where you're completely unable to move, but you're conscious inside. Well, no, I've not. Well, often people think they're dead because they don't look to be alive. And it's kind of like that. It's like you're in a locked in syndrome where you just don't know what's going on. And in terms of hallucinations, I did hallucinate. I can't remember what day it was when I started to hallucinate, but normally people hallucinate like things or shapes or demons or really weird stuff like that. But mine was actually kind of pleasant-ish because I think the first hallucination I had was either a rainbow or gas. Okay. I can't remember which one it was. I think it was a rainbow. In my apartment, I just saw a rainbow in my living room and it was a surreal experience, but the one that actually got me up and walking around was when the gas appeared. I thought there was a gas leak in my living room, in my kitchen, rather. And then I realized that the whole apartment block was not gas. It was electric, all electric. So then when I realized that, I was able to walk around in this apartment block and there was gas just filling the air. It was really odd, really odd. But in terms of scariness, it could have been a lot worse, that's pretty real. Yeah. I can't imagine doing that. I mean, maybe one day I'll do it, but I think the longest I've stayed awake is literally just one, you know, missing one night of sleep. So staying awake all night. Oh, I can do that just on the flip of a dime, I really can. I've had issues with sleep deprivation in the past, like tons and tons of nights I've been awake in my life. And staying awake for the whole night is something I can really do quite easily. Staying awake for two nights is actually quite a bit of a push. But I would advise completely against doing it because it can trigger, it triggered something. The first night I stayed awake, it kind of flipped a switch in my brain, I suppose. And I've just never been the same. It's the point actually where my brain at the moment, I'm forgetting quite a lot of stuff. This is probably a more serious note. I'm forgetting quite a lot of things. And I'm unsure if it's because I've got maybe some genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's, maybe there's shrinkage of the gray matter because of sleep deprivation, maybe it's because I'm getting older. I don't know, but it could be one of those three things. So I had to, I didn't have to. Today I bought one of those DNA kit things that you see, just to confirm that it's not Alzheimer's. So my advice, go to sleep. It's not worth it. Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah. Okay. So I guess what we can take from this is maybe don't try a sleep deprivation challenge guys. 100% don't. Yeah. Okay. So moving about the lucid dreaming, what real world benefits would you say lucid dreaming has? Or maybe what are you most excited about in terms of what you can get from lucid dreaming? Like for example improving confidence or maybe, you know, practicing a skill or just having fun? Well, two of those things I think is really beneficial. I used to practice guitar. So I've played guitar for a very long time. And I used to practice playing guitar in the dream. And I used to think it gave me the edge against other people of my age because I hadn't been practicing that long. And I thought, well, maybe it's because I do it in the dream. But realistically, I don't think that really has much of an impact when you're practicing a skill. Obviously, the data, I don't know what the data is, but my gut tells me it's not that significant. But there are occasions where you can practice doing a talk. So public speaking is one of them, or trying to try to solve a phobia or confront a phobia, they're big, big ones. For example, I've had quite a lot of dreams in which I'm trying to get away from spiders, or I've had quite a few dreams where I'm doing public speaking or singing on stage. I don't have phobias about public speaking or singing, but I can see why practicing those kind of things in a lucid dream would have a bigger impact in how you perform things. 100% can see that. Because it's less about learning something external, and it's more about how you feel internally that it's affected. And it's basically a form of therapy, I can't remember what the name is now, there's a form of therapy in which you just get absolutely soaked in the phobia that you're in. I know exactly what you mean, but I also forgot the name of it. Oh my god. The basis of it is like, if you're scared of one, let's say spiders for example, to remove that fear, you would intentionally lucid dream about being surrounded by spiders. Exactly, yeah. That's going to really annoy me, I cannot think of it. Yeah, I can't remember either. But yeah, cool, cool, okay. So coming to the end of this episode now, but what I'd like to end on is I'd like to ask, what do you think a future of lucid dreaming is in terms of how many people might be interested in it, what they might be doing with it, maybe what the technology scene will look like? Firstly, it's called exposure therapy. But to answer your question, I think we've still got a way to go when it comes to hardware technology. I've been given numerous products to review in my life of certain kickstarter programs or whatever it may be in which they claim to be able to make you lucid. For example, there's one that just comes to the top of my mind, I can't remember the name of it, so it's a bit irrelevant. But it was a device that you attached to your head and it gives you electric shocks in your brain when you enter REM and it electrocuted a certain section of your brain or whatever it was, and it was supposed to induce a sense of lucidity. And yeah, that wasn't good. That was a nightmare. So there's quite a lot of these products that I wish worked, but I don't think work. However, technology improves in leaps, it doesn't just improve in like tiny steps. So my hope is that there will be a technology that improves the way that you become lucid, and everybody can try it. And I think that having a place where you can do things whilst you're lucid and can maintain that level of lucidity, because it won't be long in terms of the grand scheme of humanity in which we've identified every aspect of what makes somebody lucid in the brain, and we'll be able to just click our fingers and it will happen. In terms of the lifespan of humanity, I think that will come quite quick. So when that happens, I think it will expand the process of trying to discover things that we can visualize outside because of resources. So what do I mean by that? So for example, a lot of big discoveries were found because of dreams, not specifically lucid dreams, but because of dreams. So for example, the structure of an atom was discovered because of somebody dreaming about something like that. Einstein's theory of relativity occurred to him in a dream. The Eye of a Needle happened in a dream. The book, Frankenstein's Monster, that occurred to Mary Shelley in a dream. The list goes on and on and on. But things like that, where you have the time to be able to consciously affect stuff that happens in your dreams. When that happens, I think that will be a big leap and we'll be able to expand people and society in a way that we just can't imagine. Yeah, being able to tap into the power of the brain in that way, especially for creativity and just inspiration for new ideas, I think that's going to be huge. Absolutely. Well, I mean, it already has been. I mean, as you said, those dreams have changed the world in terms of what those discoveries have then become. So yeah, very interesting. I'm always optimistic about the future of these things. Me too. Yeah. Cool. Well, Giz, thank you very much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Do you have any final words or parting gifts for people or advice where they can find you online? Nothing like that. Well, I would say go to my YouTube channel at youtube.com forward slash Giz Edwards, but that's just not happening at the moment. So you can find me there. I'll eventually post some content on YouTube, but I don't think it's going to be around the field of lucid dreaming because I've stepped back and I've kind of, I think I've done my part in trying to bring lucid dreaming to the forefront of people's minds. You're doing your part. People like Matt, Daniel Love, James and all those good people, they're doing their parts. And I think my time has come to step back from lucid dreaming. But content, yeah, eventually I'll make some. So you can go to youtube.com forward slash Giz Edwards and Twitter. I'm basically Giz Edwards everywhere. Cool. Cool. Cool. Well, thank you very much. And yeah, hopefully we'll see you soon. Thank you very much for having me on and thank you everyone for listening.