Wouldn?t it be nice to have a lucid dream, to be aware you are dreaming and control what happens? Of course you do, but how does one learn to do this?
You’ll need to think about why you want to be a lucid dreamer, as well as the benefits of it. First, we’ll take a look at normal sleeping.
Before we look at lucid dreaming, think about normal sleep; you get into bed, close your eyes for a certain length of time, and either dream or just see black for a few hours and then wake up! It isn’t very interesting now is it?
Normal sleep is just a method of refreshing ourselves for the busyness of the next day.However, it could be a lot more interesting if you could control the period of time in which you’re dreaming.
What if rather than being an active observer, you can be the one who can lead your dream to be whatever you want, rather than your dream leading you? This is what a lucid dreamer is; someone who is in total control of their dreams; able to explore new worlds that are not bound to the physical, societal and time-space laws of the real world.
If you want to become a lucid dreamer, how do you manage it? There are two main ways. The first is what’s called a dream initiated lucid dream, or DILD. That’s when the dreamer realizes they’re dreaming in the middle of a dream, restoring their consciousness without leaving the dreaming state itself.
WILD refers to a wake initiated lucid dream. You slip into a dream before you are fully asleep. Instead of going to sleep before you dream you simply enter into the dream with your mind still conscious.
So, what methods can you use to induce these kinds of lucid dreaming states?
Dream Recall
You will need to learn how to remember your dreams if you want to be able to have lucid dreams. It is referred to as dream recall, the ability to remember your dreams. If you can remember your dreams you are more likely to realize when you are dreaming because many of the dreams you have will be the same or almost the same.
The best way to practice dream recall is through keeping a dream journal. This is a tool in which you write down whatever you can remember about your dream so you can recall it in the future. Do this right after you wake up - dreams are harder to remember the longer you wait.
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)
Dr Steven LaBerge is a leading scientist who studies lucid dreaming. He was the founder of MILD. This method involves telling yourself you will remember your dreams or perhaps an object in the dream. When you see the object while dreaming it will trigger your mind into knowing you are in a dream.
WBTB refers to Wake Back to Bed
The process here is to go to sleep, doing nothing but setting your alarm to wake you up a few hours later (5 or 6). Once you wake up, DO NOT go back to sleep. Instead, do something else like read for a while, or think as much as you can about lucid dreaming for around an hour then go back to bed.
According to Dr. LaBerge, this technique has a success rate of about sixty percent. That’s because you’ve awakened in the middle of the sleep process, while you’re still in the middle of an REM cycle and not completely aware. It’s like telling your mind that you’re interested in lucid dreaming.
Cycle Adjustment Technique
Created by Daniel Love, this method involves setting an alarm to wake you one and a half hours before your normal wake-up time. Once you get used to this early time, alternate your alarm between a normal time and the early one. When your alarm is set to wake you normally, you’ll find your body’s already ready to wake up early. That makes it more likely that you’ll wake up in your dream, and dream lucidly.
Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)
This method is described above. If you’d like to use it, the thing to do is to keep your mind awake during the process of your body falling asleep. This is one of the most interesting ways of entering lucid dreams, and is a lot like watching a movie. Just like when you’re watching a movie, you start in a state of readiness, and prepare yourself.Then, you’ll either hit play or start to fall asleep. The screen and what you see when your eyes are closed are both black. Just wait for your movie or dream to begin.
You need to stay aware; it is a lot like self hypnosis. This is not a good exercise to try when you are tired as your mind may not stay as aware. Try to focus on things that require brain activity such as doing math puzzles, jogging or anything to keep your mind active. Breathe evenly and focus on relaxing every part of your body.
They now have tools you can use to make it even easier to induce lucid dreams. You can get dreaming masks and devices with strobe lights to help you get into the right state of dreaming.
One of the easiest, most reliable methods to induce lucid dreaming is by listening to binaural beats and special sound frequencies through headphones.
These work by synchronizing the two hemispheres of the brain and have the effect of almost instantaneously changing your brainwaves to the REM frequency needed for a lucid dream to occur.
Combined with self affirmations and sessions of self hypnosis, these methods make it easy to become a lucid dreamer. You just need the practice and determination
Tags: conscious dreaming, dream control, lucid dream, lucid dreamer, lucid dreaming, lucid dreams