This only has happened a few times. The first two times happened about a week apart and I felt like I was "critically thinking" about conspiracies and brainstorming ways to save myself and everyone else or something like that and I had a huge list of them to think about in my head it was really weird, but it's not like I was awake or something, I don't even remember what happened when I woke up but I know it happened. The second time, which was today, I was thinking in my sleep how my mind is messed up and I'm slowly becoming a slave each and everyday and that I need to make a change in my life as soon as possible because I'm living in a bad lifestyle. And I was really afraid of this and I knew it was real, and I reminded myself throughout my sleep to remember it when I woke up or something. It was weird. What is this? Why is this happening? Lol. I am a somewhat paranoid conspiracy theorist and I am afraid of my environment, I want to move somewhere far away.
the first happens in my dreams all the time. its really the same as when i'm awake except its in a different universe where some things work a little different. the second only happens when i'm awake. which is why my sleeps and dreams are such a wonderful escape from it.
I know exactly what you mean, I occasionally experience outbursts of lucid "critical" thinking as you call it. Sometimes I actively find a solution to the problem I face in my dream using my knowledge and/or personal experience, at other times I can recall memories, while on other occasions I surprise myself to think about and take in consideration an element of my daily life the same I would do if I was awake to take a decision in my dream. This kind of overlapping in between elements of both aspects of my existence is pretty weird, and usually the main cause of some absurd thinking going along the lines of "I should be careful now because of this, and that, and this element from my daily life that happens to be related to my dreamy issue and could potentially impact its outcome was it not for the fact that my daily and dreamy lives are not related in any way, but I'm not fully grasping it yet cause I'm sleeping so I'm still afraid it could fuck my dreamy things up!"). The best tho, by far, is when I happen to realize I'm in a dream and from then on I consciously influence its content, what a blast.
Many problems can be solved within dreams, the most poignant in my mind right now is the story of Elias howe's dream of cannibals with spears- inspired the modern day sewing machine. I believe our dreams are meant to help us solve problems, and look at things from another perspective. I too have had experiences with this, another weird thing that happens if I spend entirely too much time on any one particular activity in my waking life- it tends to continue on into a dream from time to time....like work, or video games, etc.
