From Our Archives:
From: Vandekeere@aol.com
Subject: [mutual-dreaming..] Tips on LucidDreaming
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 00:06:28 EST
Bird's Lucid Website at
http://hometown.aol.com/vandekeere/life1/index.htm
hERE'S A fiLE i mADE aBOUT LUCIDdREAMING
(((LOOOOONG bUT hOPEFULLY hELPFUL :) ))))))
TIPS ON LUCID DREAMING
*Sorry if a lot of this comes across as common knowledge but I wrote it as a general response to people who request help on lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming is a dream in which you realize that you are dreaming. With practice you can induce lucid dreams, (LDs), and maintain your lucidity for extended periods. Anything you can do while awake you can do in a lucid dream. There are also many things you can do which you can't do in the waking world like flying, taking a free one night vacation to Hawaii, Nepal, or even Mars, going to that board room meeting a day early, brainstorming and problem-solving while having greater access to your sub-conscious, exploring amazing
dreamscapes, encountering dream figures who often have marvelous insight and sage-like advice. The possibilities are literally limited only by your imagination. People speak about following their dreams and having a "dream" or being a "dreamer". I'm talking about "being fully conscious in your dream" and experiencing them with the full awareness that you are in a dream, a lucid dream. It is beyond description the feeling you get once you "wake up" within a dream and realize that you are in fact dreaming. The subjective experience
is best described as euphoric, ecstatic, profound, mystical, awe-inspiring..and all these descriptions are just words which are at best limited reflections of the experience itself -as the map is not the terrain.
There is a lot of scientific research being conducted in this field recently, and as a result, there is also a growing number of books and literature on the subject. I have read most of what is available and will recommend a few good introductory books later. I strongly suggest reading as much on the subject as you can. I've read nearly 40-50 books on lucid dreaming and related topics which I feel have extremely helped my progress. It helps to engrain your
subconscious with the concept which then begins to carry over into your dreams just like if you are reading a detective novel or if you just watched a Sherlock Holmes movie on TV, you may have dreams representing these waking experiences. I find that reading about lucid dreams definitely helped me in the beginning to solidify my intent to have one. So read up!! and if you want a more extensive reading list, let me know and I'll send you a more complete syllabus :)
I don't know what u know already about lucid dreaming but here some basics to get you started:
1) Increase your dream recall and write your dreams down in a journal.
You can't have lucid dreams if you can't remember your dreams
and keeping a journal is a crucial step towards solidifying your intent. By keeping the journal, your mind becomes saturated with the idea that dreams are important which seems to go against the "general consensus" of our non-lucid society.
* if you have trouble recalling your dreams then try these things which help increase dream recall:
-upon waking in the morning, don't move!! stay in bed for awhile and recall your dreams before you flood your mind with everything you are going to do for the day
-if you have trouble remembering them try to change your position in
bed: lie on your right side for awhile, then your back, then left: sometimes the position you where in when you dreamt helps increase recall.
Become familiar with your dreams. Get to know the places, things,
and actions you see and do in your dreams (beaches, classrooms,
rollercoasters, etc,,,) this is why a dream journal is so crucial in identifying your "dream signs"
-do "reality checks", that is, ask yourself frequently throughout
your day "Am I dreaming?" Do this regularly. In the beginning I would set my watch alarm to go off every half hour and then I would do a "reality check".
When you ask yourself if you're dreaming, check your surroundings to
see if you are in fact dreaming. Try to read something like text or a
street sign: it should not be stable or upon looking away and looking back at it again, it will have changed if you are dreaming. I usually test to see if I can fly or levitate myself but I do that often in LDs so you may have to explore which "checks" will work for you. Basically, you're looking for strange or nonsensical things in your surroundings which would indicate that you are dreaming.
-now combine the reality checks with what your "dream signs", what
you dream about, so whenever you are at the beach, in a classroom, or
whatever you find that you dream about, ask yourself if you're dreaming and test it by analyzing your surroundings.
*If you do just these 4 things you're almost bound to have a lucid dream. The key is to be doing these things so often and consistently that your sub-conscious becomes filled with the habit of doing this and eventually this habit will carry over into your dreams and hopefully you will come to the conclusion that you must be dreaming.
The key after becoming lucid in your dream is to learn to prolong and
maintain your lucidity without slipping back into a normal dream or waking up from it. This is a more difficult matter which takes some experience but here are some pointers.
First, don't get overly excited. You may find that your first LDs will be so thrilling that you simply can't handle the "rush" of being conscious during dreams and you will awaken, but don't worry with time you will be able to handle it. For some reason, becoming emotionally excited or any extreme emotions in the beginning will be distracting and counterproductive so try to be calm and not overly excited. (that's a lot easier said than done but with practice it becomes manageable)
Second, if you find yourself lucid in one of your dreams, simply give
yourself verbal commands to help guide yourself and control your dream. I've found this to be the MOST successful approach for me at least. Anything you need you can just summon or intend and with practice you will be your own best guide. For example, in the beginning say, "BE CALM NOW!" or if you are having trouble seeing, say "INCREASE CLARITY NOW!!". I try to always use a positive
form of expression and add a touch of urgency, confidence, and control.
Thirdly, other techniques have been found which work relatively well such as:
-spinning around in circles while lucid
-rubbing your hands together
or any other action which increases your sense of touch
-focusing on any one particular detail in the dream: your hands, the ground beneath you, a stone on the road, a tree, etc...
These all work to certain extents but each have their own drawbacks =
which is why I recommend the "verbal control" technique. For example, if you start spinning the odds are you will create a whole new lucid dream once you stop spinning, and for me sometimes I'd rather stay lucid in the same dreamscape instead of losing my visuals when I spin which usually will create an entirely new dreamscape. If you lose your sight, it makes it impossible to focus on any detail in the dream because there are no visuals, and you probably won't have any sense of a body without visuals so you wouldn't be able to rub your hands together. I find if you lose your visuals you just say, "CREATE
VISUALS NOW!!" I have even found that if you are losing your lucidity you can simply say, "INCREASE LUCIDITY NOW!!". I will say this at regular intervals throughout my lucid dreams and it has a remarkable effect. Use whatever wording you feel is appropriate. The power comes not through the words but through the "intent". You need to intend and expect what you say to happen and then it will.
I've also found that one of the most common things which will end your lucid dreams is having your visuals go out on you. You could accidentally fly into a wall or building or sometimes just be going too fast for the dreamscape to remain stable, and as a result, you will not be able to see anymore. Sometimes it just happens spontaneously especially if your dreamscape isn't stable. If your visuals do go out on you, then you often will find yourself in a black void much like a cave or a womb. If you find that you have lost
your visuals, you may verbally intend more visuals to appear which sometimes works or you can just wait it out. Just DON'T WAKE UP!!!! Hold onto your lucidity and stare into the blackness and eventually a whole new dreamscape will appear. Normally once the dreamscape appears you will already be standing in it and you will be lucid or sometimes you may have to step into the dreamscape. This technique has helped me many, many times, and has allowed me to reenter new LDs sometimes over and over again whenever my visuals "blow out". This method of waiting it in "Limbo-land" for new visuals to appear will really come in handy once you become better acquainted with the
dream realm and want to prolong your lucidity. I usually find that I can successfully use this reentry technique around seven times. Depending on how long the dream is and how well I am maintaining my lucidity, I usually wake myself from the LD after the seventh reentry. I find any more than seven reentries and I may slip into a non-lucid dream and this will slightly garble or fog my overall dream recall.
Here are some tips or inside tricks I have read or picked up along the way. I use them regularly and they seem to work very well. Hopefully, if you add these to your routine along with the top four steps, you should have a lucid dream in no time.
-an incredibly useful method called the MILD technique is when you lie
in bed and say to yourself over and over and over.........."Next time I'm dreaming, I will realize that I'm dreaming" Like counting sheep until you fall asleep but say that instead, over and over. Make it be the last thing on your mind before you fall asleep and that will help enormously. The idea is to wake up earlier than you normally would, say an hour or two before you normally would. Set your alarm early, recall your dreams for the night, get out of bed (*crucial to get out of bed!!!) go to bathroom or kitchen, write down your dreams or read a book for 15-20
minutes (preferably about LDs). They suggest
sleeping for 6 hours then getting up for an hour and then going back to bed to increase your chances for an LD, but I find 15-20 minutes works for me. If it doesn't for you, try to stay up a little longer before going back to bed. The idea is that you need to be relatively awake before you go back to bed, not groggy and sleepy-headed. Then lay back down and do the MILD technique.
This is the most successful way to do it since most of your dreams happen in the early morning hours. Almost all of my LDs happen in the early morning hours between 5 AM and 10 AM by using this technique.
Some other random tips:
-try to have a consistent sleeping pattern. Going to bed and waking around the same times really helps your body/mind get into a synchronistic rhythm which helps increase the odds of becoming lucid.
*be determined to have an LD but detached from it as well otherwise thinking too hard will hurt your results. It WILL come, just believe it will and that will speed it up.
*visualize yourself as flying through the air. This type of imagery before going to bed usually triggers the brain to repeat such imagery later in your dreams and hopefully you'll have a dream where you're flying and attach a reality check to flying so you'll become lucid whenever you are flying. Rollercoaster imagery also works for me. Explore and find what type of imagery involving movement/motion will work best for you.
*I ordered a lucid dream induction tape from the Lucidity Institute and that helped me a lot, but maybe I'm easily suggestible since I do try to focus on having a fluid belief system. Anyway, now I can just replay the tape in my head from memory and it seems to work pretty well. Not sure fire but then again what is :).
*If you're really serious about it and have got some money, buy a NovaDreamer from the Lucidity Institute. It is a sleep mask that you wear to bed and it will flash light cues at you when you are dreaming. It can detect your random eye movements which indicate when you are dreaming and then it flashes a light cue. I have one and it's a great tool especially in the beginning or during dry spells. I think they cost about $250 but in my opinion it is well worth it. You definitely DON'T need one, but it helps. My philosophy is " It can't hurt to try, and if it works I'll keep doing it". You can use them as "training wheels" until you don't need them anymore.
Hopefully that should help you out some. A great book on LDs with the
best methods and techniques is called Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge who is a co-founder of The Lucidity Institute and he also came up with the MILD technique. Check that book out first. It's great and so is Robert Moss' Conscious Dreaming and his second book ,Dreamgates, which is great for the beginner or advanced, but slightly more tailored to the advanced dreamer. There are many other books and authors but I would recommend starting with these because they have more practical, applicable advice. Once
you've gnawed through these, let me know and I'll forward you a more extensive
reading list.
Keep trying and think positive, it WILL come as soon as you commit to doing these things. I started about two years ago and it took me about a month or so to have my first one, and after that I was hooked. I became more "focused" after my first experience because I wanted to have another one. Sure enough, they started increasing in frequency and now I average 1 to 3 LDs a week. I even had one week where I had 25 lucid dreams in a week!!!!! They seem to be increasing in length as well. I have had several where I have been lucid for 20-40 minutes or more, and lately I have even had a few that have been at least an hour or more with me being lucid the whole time. (talk about maximizing experience while asleep J )
I have only recently started experimenting with inducing out-of-body
experiences from an LD but have already had some amazing results. I'd read about out-of-body experiences or astral projection and near death experiences, but I always thought it was just some hair-brained scheme to sell books to gullible new-agers. Once I started lucid dreaming, I opened my mind and beliefs to the experience. Not surprisingly, I have experienced first-hand that our consciousness CAN be projected from the body, and I have had a few "unexplainable" experiences where I saw things while out-of-body which were verified later. There is no "normal" way to ever explain how I could have known these things unless it was a "true" projection, meaning it wasn't obscured with dream material superimposed upon it nor was it just a figment of
my imagination. I saw something while out of body and the next day I checked what I saw and sure enough I had "dreamed true" or had a true projection. From my experience, it seems that there is a spectrum of consciousness, with lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences being just two points on that spectrum. The continuum of consciousness can only be experienced, and I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone as I am no expert, just a seeker and the experience will speak for itself so you be the judge.
I would also like to stress that I have no special talent or gift that you don't already have, unless you don't have an open mind and dedication. It is like any other skill that needs to be developed and practiced. If I can do it, it is inevitable that you can too as long as you believe that you can and know that you WILL. All experience is either helped or hindered by your belief systems so keep in mind that if you don't believe it can be done, then for "you" this will probably be true. So open your mind and start developing this incredible ability today. I guarantee it will fill your life with the wonder and magic. So good luck, and feel free to get back with me if you have
any questions, comments or concerns. I am always willing to help others who are interested since it has changed my life so much for the better. I only wish someone had come to me sooner and clued me in to this incredible experience.
Keep Me Posted and Sweet Lucid Dreams,
Bird
"What one believes to be true either is true or becomes true within limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are beliefs to be transcended." -John Lilly
"If you never stop trying, you are guaranteed to succeed!" -me
