Lucid Dreams Techniques

Background Information and Techniques

We all know how real dreams can seem. Lucid dreams are even more real - and have the advantage that you are in control. They are the ultimate "virtual reality".

A lucid dream is as vivid and real as the "real" waking life. Yet you know you're dreaming; you can control the dream. In a lucid dream you can go anywhere, meet anyone, do anything. Anything you can imagine, you can experience as real.

Life's too short, we need to live every minute to the full. Lucid dreaming is a technique that allows us to make use of some of those hours otherwise wasted in sleep. In our lucid dreams we can put our dreams to some purpose: analyse our dream symbols, face our challenges and have fun!

People have been having lucid dreams for as long as the human mind has been dreaming. The first known use of the actual term "lucid dreaming" was by Frederik van Eeden in his work "A Study of Dreams" which was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research in 1913. (Van Eeden also wrote the novel Waking Life) along with the work of people such as Stephen LaBerge.

It's important to recognise that lucid dreaming - "lucidity" - occurs in the middle of true sleep. The imagery you experience on the edges of sleep - the hypnagogic & hypnopompic states - is not lucid dreaming. Those states, fun as they are, are more akin to daydreaming. Imagine that but a hundred times sharper, more detailed and more real - that's the lucid dream experience. In a lucid dream you are totally conscious yet still asleep. You'll know it when you experience it.
These pages will discuss some of the basics of lucid dreaming and introduce a few simple induction techniques to guide you through the process. Unless you're one of the lucky few you won't be able to have lucid dreams immediately. It will probably takes weeks or even months of work to learn lucid dreaming. Don't give up - the experience is worth the wait.

Lucid Dreaming Techniques
Learn How to Have Lucid Dreams

People have been having lucid dreams since long before the name was coined. Some lucky people seem to know how to have lucid dreams without even trying. Most of us have to learn lucid dreaming like any other skill.

You can buy various commercial devices to assist lucid dream induction. Some of these are designed to trigger a stimulus during REM sleep (when we do most of our dreaming). Whilst such devices can be an effective aid, most people can learn to dream lucidly without them.

The techniques for lucid dream skills are actually quite simple although they might take weeks or even months to get results. The key is simply to realise that you are dreaming. Then you become "lucid" whilst still asleep. You are conscious yet not awake.

There are essentially two aspects to this induction process:

Learning to recognise your dreams

Habitually questioning your state of consciousness

I've broken these two steps down into a few simple elements on the pages that follow, these should guide you through the process.

It doesn't work for everybody, but don't give up too soon. Some people learn lucid dream skills in a week, others take months before they first achieve lucidity. It's worth persevering.

Steps to Lucid Dreaming

Once you've "got it" and started to dream lucidly, you'll probably find that the biggest difficulty is waking up too soon. If that's the case then you might also want to use the spin technique.

Step 1: Question Your State

"Am I Dreaming?"
To become lucid you have to realise that you are dreaming. The best way to do that is to get into the habit of asking yourself: "Am I dreaming or awake?".

Simple, yes? Well, yes and no. It's easy to ask the question but it's also too easy to automatically answer "of course I'm awake". You need to stop and think.

You will always feel awake. You need to prove it to yourself.

Reality Tests

How can you test whether or not you're dreaming? The old idea of pinching yourself doesn't work - you can feel a pinch in a dream. Here are a couple of alternative suggestions:

Replay the last few hours or minutes.How did you get here? Where were you previously? Where are you going? In a dream, the answers to these questions are difficult if not impossible.

Try reading something.Reading more than a few words of text in a dream is difficult, the letters tend to flow and mutate. It's especially difficult if you try to read the same sentence or page twice.

Check for your dream signsSee the dream signs page for more detail.

Try to flyFlying is one of the easiest things to do in a dream, yet few of us manage it in "real" life. Be sensible - don't try jumping off the roof. Just stand still and imagine yourself lifting off the ground. If you are dreaming, chances are it'll work.

You can probably think of other ways of testing your state - use whatever works best for you. Don't worry about what other people will think, they won't have any idea what you're doing.

For this questioning to work you need to do it frequently. Get used to quesioning whether you're dreaming or awake any time something unusual happens, any time you find yourself in a surreal or bizarre situation. You might even like to write the question "Am I awake?" on the back of a business card so that you see it every time you open your purse or wallet.

Get into the habit of questioning your waking state frequently and thinking carefully about the answer. You might find tha alone habit is enough induce lucid dreams. However most people need to also use the other techniques on this site.

Step 2: The Dream Diary

Recording Your Dreams in a Journal

To become aware that you're dreaming, you need to know what your dreams are like. You need to be able to recognise them. To do this you will need to spend some time recording your dreams. You need to start a dream diary (also called a dream journal).

As always, some people are lucky. They remember almost all their dreams without any trouble. The rest of us tend to remember a few fragments - some people remember nothing at all.

Dream recall can be improved. Like anything else it's a matter of practice.

If you want to have lucid dreams then start a Dream Diary today. Get a notepad and a pencil and leave them by the side of the bed. Don't shut them in a drawer or put them across the room - you need to be able to grab them quickly without thinking about it. For this reason a pencil is probably better than a pen as you won't worry about getting ink stains all over the place!

Every time you wake up - be it morning or middle of the night - grab your notepad and jot down everything you can remember about your dreams. Record in your journal the location, people involved, even just vague feelings and emotions.

The dream memories will initially fade fast. As you write the first few words down the rest of the dream will fade away. This will improve with practice, over time you will be able to recall more of the dream. Sometimes memory of the dream will come back unexpectedly later in the day - write it down!

A good idea is to keep two Dream Diaries. The notebook by your bed will be your "rough" dream journal. Things will be scribbled in here whilst still half asleep and will probably be barely legible. Later on - within an hour if possible - transfer these notes to the "real" Dream Diary. The very act of reading and writing the dream again so soon will help to encourage your dream recall and can sometimes bring back other fragments.

Some people are happy just to use an nordinary notepad for their main Dream Diary. Others prefer to buy a special journal, perhaps one that is leather bound or personalised, in order to make the dream diary "special".

Make a point of reading through your Dream Diary frequently, especially just before going to bed.

Under no circumstances should you show anyone your Dream Diary. Dreams are intensely personal, some of the things we dream we wouldn't want to share even with our closest loved ones. If you know that your Dream Diary might be read by someone else, you will tend to subconsciously censor it. Make your Dream Diary private - and honest.

A Dream Diary is a fascinating thing in itself, you might find all sorts of insights into your subconscious. In the context of lucid dreaming the purpose of a Dream Diary is to help you recognise your personal dream signs.

Step 3: Dream Signs

We all have occasional "recurring" dreams. On a subtler level, after you've been recording your dreams for a while you'll start to notice certain "themes" recurring. These are your Dream Signs - the clues that you are probably dreaming.

Once you have a few weeks of dreams recorded in your Dream Diary, sit down quietly and reread it all the way through. Make a note of all the recurring themes and images you come across. You'll probably be surprised at how many there are.

You might find it useful to sort these Dream Signs into categories. What categories you use is entirely up to you - the whole business of lucid dreaming is very personal. You might have "people, places and things", or "actions and emotions", or any other organisation.

Common Dream Signs

Some dream signs are common to many people, others will be intensely personal. Here are a few very common dream signs:

Difficulty reading wordsThis has already been mentioned under Question Your State

Flashing lights

Flashing lights are an easy dream sign to spot and some people buy lucid dream induction devices such as the DreamMaker (a replacement for the old Nova Dreamer).

Ill-defined light sourcesExcluding flashing lights, the ambient light in dreams usually seems to come from nowhere. There's always enough light to see by. In fact turning light switches on and off rarely works in dreams. That leads on to:

Problems with mechanical objects

Mechanical objects either don't work or work in an overly simplified or complex manner. For example, the cord from electrical devices either runs directly into the wall without a plug or goes via a spaghetti-laden junction box that looks like something from a 1950s SF film!
Dead peopleVery often dead people are alive in our dreams. If you find a particular person appearing frequently then this is a good Dream Sign to note. Obviously you won't see that person in the "real" world, however you can train yourself to question your state every time you think of them.

Personal Dream Signs

Here are a few of my own personal dream-signs:

Running for a trainThis is a standard "anxiety" dream of mine. Usually I am on one platform of the station and the train is about to leave from another platform the other side of the station.
Lost shoesFor some reason I frequently realise in a dream that I have lost a shoe - usually only one not both!

BirdsLucid dreams for me sometimes include birds. Dreams like this often begin as unpleasant ones, possibly a result of early exposure to the Hitchcock film "The Birds"! Lucid dreaming allows me to take control of an otherwise unpleasant experience.

The best Dream Signs are actually those that also occur in "real" life. That makes it easier to train yourself to recognise them.

Lucid Dreaming Step 4: Noticing Dream Signs

By now you've learned how to question your state, you've kept a Dream Diary and analysed it to learn your personal Dream Signs.

You're almost there!

In fact, you might already be dreaming lucidly. If not there's just one step left to lucidity.
You need to start noticing your Dream Signs in the waking world. Depending on how many Dream Signs you've identified, you might want to start by concentrating on just the most common or you might want to look out for all of them.

Remember, Dream Signs don't have to be spectacular. In fact the best ones are those that you might normally not even notice.

Light bulb blown? Has it really, or is it just a mechanical light source not working?

Car won't start this morning?

Late for the train?

Every time something happens that could be a Dream Sign, stop. Take a deep breath then ask yourself "Am I awake or dreaming?" Remember to think carefully about the answer.

Sooner or later the answer will be "I'm dreaming!". At that moment you'll become lucid.

Have fun! If you wake too soon, try the spin technique. You might also like to consider creating a dream guide for yourself.

Fonte: http://www.here-be-dreams.com/lucid/index.html