Emotional Saliency

• One major theme in "Inception" is that the main character, Cobb, has trouble keeping his emotions out of his dreams. This affects his ability to do his job, as his emotional trials wreck havoc on his own dreams and even influence the dreams of others when he enters into them. In addition, his wife Mal is so obsessed with the vividness of her dream-life, she mistakenly thinks her waking life is a dream.
  
  Does emotional salience play a role in real world dreaming and lucid dreaming? Certainly many people can attest to experiencing vivid emotions in their dreams. Are lucid dreams more emotionally salient and more vivid? Yes, they often are. Perhaps due to the heightened awareness involved in lucid dreams, they can even feel more "real" than waking life. Undoubtedly there are many philosophical and neurobiological discussions about what makes certain events feel "real." In any case, lucid dreams often possess a high degree of this sense of reality. For this reason, lucid dreams are a great opportunity for pursuing exciting, emotionally salient and sometimes even emotionally healing experiences.
  
  Many of the lucid dreaming experts interviewed in WAKE UP! Exploring the Potential of Lucid Dreaming have found ways to utilize emotional salience in dreams as a tool for growth and healing. For example, Beverly D'Urso has had great success in using lucid dreams to find closure in her relationships with deceased loved ones. Some of George Gillespie’s most profound spiritual experiences occurred in his lucid dreams. Whether you are interested in lucid dreams for self-growth, spirituality or fantastic adventures, you will likely find vividness and emotional salience that you never find anywhere else.