Welcome to Lifehacker's Lucid Dream Workshop. Each week we'll learn a little more about the mysterious realm of sleep science, dreams, and how to "wake up" when we're fast asleep.

I tend to have very vivid dreams. I recently dreamed that I hit a home run at Wrigley Field as a member of my favourite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, for example. But I also dreamed the clown from It came to haunt me at the top of every hour as I roamed a crowded casino.

I don’t wish that I’d finished university. I dropped out one semester early, for exactly the kind of media job that I’d hoped to work toward after graduating. So why have I had the same dream for years, where I’ve gone back to school for one last semester, moved away from my wife and into a dorm, and I’m already late for class? And how do I stop having that dream? Apparently I can’t.

In my recurring nightmare, I have done something awful, truly heinous. What that dreadful thing is is unclear, but what is certain is that I'm about to be caught for it -- so I'm running. And running, and running, and running and always just about to be caught. Now this has the standard nightmare emotional content of terror, but the dream throws in some shame, too, just for an extra f-you from my subconscious. I always wake up shaky and distraught.

Good times.

Remembering your dreams after they happen, or being aware you're in a dream while you're having it can be fun, but not exactly easy to do.

If you've ever woken up from an unpleasant dream, upset with someone you know, you're not alone. It happens to everyone, and there's a pretty simple explanation as to why it happens.

Nightmares plague your mind and ruin your sleep, but lucid dreaming can help -- if you can be brave.

Becoming lucid while you dream is actually the easy part, oneironauts. Now we're going to learn how to hold on to it and make our nightly adventures last. Welcome to Week Four of our Lucid Dream Workshop.

Now that you know what lucid dreaming is, and you know the benefits and risks, it's time to give it a solid try. Get ready, oneironauts -- we're about to take off the training wheels. Welcome to Week Three of Lifehacker's Lucid Dream Workshop.

Lucid dreams can be more than escapist fantasy, but in order to reap the benefits of your slumbering mind, you must first tell your brain that your dreams matter. Welcome to week two of Lifehacker's Lucid Dream Workshop, oneironauts.

I don't mind bad dreams. When you wake up, the dream fades away. What utterly terrifies me, though, is when my brain wakes up but my body cannot move. That's sleep paralysis, and it affects anywhere between seven and 40 per cent of us.