On the colorful streets of Havana, Cuba
From Chevy Bel-Airs to Ford Fairlanes, you see an almost candy-like assortment of cars on the streets of Cuba.
Wondering why these old, colourful cars line its streets? Up until the early 1950s, Cuba was one of the largest buyers of American cars. But soon after it fell into a communist regime, a trade embargo was imposed, and Cuba stopped importing new cars. So, over the years, old cars have been revamped and Cuba is now said to live in an "automotive time warp"!
Dream Away
The concept of dreams has given sleepless nights to many, and has long captured the public imagination through cult films like Waking Life, The Matrix, Inception and the underrated series The OA.
While there still hasn’t been a concrete answer to why we dream, recent studies have shown they can help reduce symptoms of anxiety and increase creativity and enhance learning. Taking from this, a hotel in London’s Kimpton Fitzroy has curated a ‘room to dream’ experience. It is a world-first initiative that has been created to help people experience lucid dreaming.
So how does it really work?
Through a VR set. We know that there’s been a boom of AR/VR in the hospitality sector for virtual tours and for people to partake in immersive storytelling. This experience just takes it up a notch where you are able to enter a hypnagogic state without being hypnotised. The process can help people control their dreams and face situations that cause them anxiety, reducing it in their waking lives.
“In the same way that a hypnotherapist takes a strand of the conscious mind down into the subconscious and implants a changed way of being, the same is possible in a lucid dream,” Charlie Morley, a lucid dreaming researcher and the creator of the experience told CN Traveller.
Lucid dreaming is going mainstream
Especially as part of sleep tourism. With more people looking towards vacations as an escape from their daily lives and as an opportunity to get better quality sleep, this comes as an effort to accommodate that need.
Several hotels around the world are capitalising on this trend by creating meditation pods and purple rooms. But Kimpton Fitzroy is the first to introduce the concept of achieving consciousness during sleep. Guests are provided with a calming tea infused with a few drops of mugwort tonic, known to induce lucid dreaming and viola! You are in a waking dream in a matter of minutes. Would you give this unique holiday a shot?