John Smith making another title look like child’s play (no audio)
From 1994-1995 I had the great pleasure of training with wrestling legend John Smith, 2-time gold medalist and 4-time world champion (domestic freestyle record of 80-0; international freestyle record of 100-5).
He was famous for his low leg attacks that made even Olympic finals look like textbook demonstrations.
The problem was, of course, that I was in New Hampshire at boarding school and had never met John Smith. I only trained with him 45-60 minutes per night while I was lucid dreaming. I went on to have my best career season, which culminated with a more than 20-0 record before the national championships…
I’ve since used lucid dreaming to:
– Accelerate skill acquisition (example: yabusame)
– Reactivate “forgotten” languages in less time
– Cultivate zen-like present-state awareness and decrease needless stress
Lucid Dreaming 101
I applied to Stanford University because I wanted to refine my clinical understanding of lucid dreaming: the ability to become conscious during dreams and affect their content.
This isn’t new-age nonsense, either. It’s been tested in the strictest of lab settings.
Dr. Stephen LaBerge of Stanford was considered the world’s foremost researchers in the science and practice of lucid dreaming, and he had pioneered proving its existence. How? It turns out that eye movement, unlike the rest of the skeletal muscular system, is not inhibited by REM sleep. Subjects could memorize horizontal eye patterns (e.g. left-left-right-right-left-right-left) and repeat the patterns upon becoming lucid, which researchers could observe, all while recording brain activity with an EEG to confirm that the subjects where, in fact, in a dream state. Tibetan monks have been practicing lucid dreaming for thousands of years, but it was considered fringe speculation until it was captured in a controlled environment.
There are now dozens of studies that explore the incredibly cool world of lucid dreaming and hint at applications (search “lucid dreaming” here on PubMed).
I recently had dinner with former PayPal employee Mark Goldenson, who was a researcher in both Stephen LaBerge’s lab and Phil Zimbardo’s psychophysiology lab at Stanford, and the conversation convinced me that sharing the basics was worth a post.
For those interested in experiencing lucid dreaming, here are a few simple training methods, including:
Step 1) Develop dream recall –
Have you ever thought that you didn’t dream on given nights, or perhaps not at all? If I were to track your REM sleep, as I have mine on even “dreamless” nights, you quickly realize that this isn’t the case. Undeveloped recall is to blame.
Put a pad of paper next to your bed and record your dream immediately upon waking. Immediately means immediately. If you get dressed first, or even stare at the ceiling for a minute, dream recollection will be nil. Expect that you might not get more than a few lines for the first week or so, but also expect to get to multi-page recall ability within 2-3 weeks. This alone will make you look forward to going to bed.
Step 2) Identify dream cues and/or do reality checks –
Some people, like Mark, can use their dream log to identify common dream elements that recur from night to night. Water seems to be particularly common. These elements are then used for “reality checks”: asking yourself if you’re dreaming when you see these cues during waking hours, and then testing.
Testing entails doing something like trying to fly (not recommended) or looking at your environment for clear indications of dream state. The latter is my preference, and I typically skip the dream log and default to a few simple tests at set action (every time I check the time or walk through a door, for example).
Since working memory can only hold around 7 +/- 2 bits of information, and you are constantly creating your dreamscape in real-time, there are a few things that change if you look away and then look back at them:
a. Text (e.g., written signs)
b. Digital clocks/watches. Fascinatingly, analog clocks appear to keep accurate dream time, which, in my case, also corresponds to real time passing.
c. Complex patterns
For the last category, I like to look at wall brickwork or floor patterns, look away, and look back to see if their orientation (e.g. horizontal vs. vertical) or tile/block size has changed, asking “am I dreaming?” If there are changes, guess what? You are either on some strong hallucinogens or you are dreaming. If you’re dreaming and answer in the affirmative, it is at this point that you will become lucid.
Step 3) Induce lucidity —
MILD
There are a number of techniques that help induce lucidity. One such technique tested by LaBerge, referred to as Mnemonic-Induction of Lucid Dreaming (MILD), involved — in my case — waking up in the middle of the night, setting the intention to lucid dream for 10-15 minutes, then going back to bed. I have found this to work best when I wake 5 hours or so after going to sleep (not just to bed). Here is a longer description from LaBerge’s FAQ.
I have also found duration of sleep to be an important variable. It will often be easiest for novices to achieve lucidity if they sleep to excess — more than 9 hours (think Saturday or Sunday mornings) — and then use the snooze button to wake every 10-15 minutes for another hour. This juxtaposition of waking and sleep blurs the lines and seems to make the lucid state easier to achieve.
Ancillary Drugs
Three drugs, in my experience, also seems to assist with induction: huperzine-A (200-400 mcg), melatonin (3 mg), and nicotine (standard patch). I don’t suggest combining them.
Huperzine-A is an acetyl-cholinesterase inhibitor, tested in Chinese clinical trials for treating Alzheimer’s, and will increase the half-life of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at the synapse. This is my preferred tool if I’m using chemical assistance. Melatonin is involved with setting circadian rhythm and its release is controlled by the pineal gland and suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN). Dreams on melatonin tend to be more colorful and more chaotic, as is also the case with nicotine. Nicotine is my last choice, as it is addictive and can cause total insomnia if you don’t time it properly. If you happen to be quitting smoking and will be using the patch regardless, be sure to put it on immediately prior to bed so the blood nicotine levels (and stimulant effects) peak well after you’ve fallen asleep. Mistime it and you’ll be one grumpy bastard the next morning.
Step 4) Extend lucidity duration
This is where things get a little strange, or even cooler.
The first few times you achieve lucidity, you will likely be so excited that you will wake yourself up. Two effective techniques for extending lucidity are spinning (a la a piroutte in place) and looking at your hands. Both techniques, I believe, originated with Carlos Castaneda, but LaBerge was the first to test them and quantify the effectiveness of spinning vs. hand rubbing:
…the odds in favor of continuing the lucid dream were about 22 to 1 after spinning, 13 to 1 after hand rubbing (another technique designed to prevent awakening), and 1 to 2 after “going with the flow” (a “control” task). That makes the relative odds favoring spinning over going with the flow 48 to 1, and for rubbing over going with the flow, 27 to 1.
Source: Lucidity Institute
Step 5) Once you’ve flown all over and had sex with every hottie you can think of…
Try to explore memory and performance. Indulge in the flying and sex binge, as all newbies do — no reason to rush that phase, of course — but then expand your carnal horizons in other directions.
Have fun and sweet dreams…
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
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dude,
Well, it’s hard to point out a book – I’d read all, but you can start with the road to Ixtlan and Art of Dreaming. There is also Tensegrity – sth like Tai-chi but with intention of gaining power – it’s described in Magical Steps, and there are workshops of it – though I never trained it so it’s hard to say – nonetheless it is a practical use of Castaneda knowledge.
And in the meantime keep walking 😀
Thank you Leszek!
Great post on an interesting subject.
On an unrelated, oddball note: ever tried to create a psi-ball?
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Psi-Ball
Best
Aki
Thanks for the post,
I had good bit of those lucid dreams – nice. But often it did get to the point of *out of body experience*. Feeling enormous speed and vibration – scary staff, so I’d always try to wake myself up.
I’ve had lucid dreams. They’re absolutely insane. I usually get them after meditating before sleep though more than any other time. It’s hard to stay in one longer than a few seconds at first.
Alright so I bought your book a few weeks ago. Still reading through it–great stuff. I have been meaning to visit the blog but never made the effort.
Then I go searching for Vibram FiveFingers shoes and end up here to watch your video review–total coincidence. Then I see a post on the FoodScanner which I was just looking for the other day as I move from a cutting phase to bulk up time–thanks for the reco.
Then I see this post about Lucid Dreaming which I was really into (having read LaBerge around 2005) and I had to post something!
You really have a lock on your audience! You talk about the New Rich a lot. I am starting to think there is a New Geek group forming. Active, athletic, business-oriented, socially capable people that aren’t afraid to geek it out.
But I digress…my main point is this is probably the best blog I have ever run across and it’s great to see how many other people embrace the New Geek philosophy.
Subscribing now…
🙂
Tim,
I sat next to Dan Gable at the Iowa High School Wrestling Tournament Finals last night. I figured you would appreciate that!
Been slow going on the blog lately, I’m looking forward to some new posts!
Take care,
Nathan
Hey Tim, what book would you recommend for those of us who are wanting to explore with lucid dreaming?
I’m not sure what Tim has read, but the classic intro to lucid dreaming is anything by Stephen LaBerge, who is the psychophysiologist who confirmed lucid dreaming as a state of consciousness in the sleep lab. He’s got a “concise guide to LDing” that comes with a CD.
I also recommend Robert Waggoner’s “LDing: gateway to the inner self,” which also discusses the out-of-body experience connection, as well as pitfalls and stages to learning how to lucid dream. Waggoner has a sort of Jungian bent, meaning that he interprets dream figures to often be representations of the ego, and other “self-like” constellations.
I tried to do this last night and it the first time in a long time that I can remember my dreams…but I have a question how realistic are these dreams
Tim,
Good stuff! I’ve tried LaBerge’s book techniques and also a number of other techniques, described in books by Robert Monroe or Sylvan Muldoon. They’ve all worked for me.
Have you tried Remote Viewing (see Joseph McMoneagle’s and David Morehouse’s books) and if so what’s your take on it?
Simon Cleveland
I lucid dreamed most nights for years, but between my party years in New York and laziness have fallen dreadfully out of practice. I really need to start again.
I found in the early stages of learning that two very useful tactics to induce it were
a)to absolutely commit to writing my dream down first thing, which seemed to work as a sort of autosuggestive trigger. Notably, it seemed not to work if it was a half-assed commitment.
b)to fall asleep while performing rhythmic breathing and body awareness meditation. Vivid mediation imagery would often dovetail seamlessly into dreams with no discernible border.
On the waking world front, I had the great pleasure of attending Oklahoma State wrestling camp in the summer of ’99 with John Smith heading things and the varsity team as counselors. Even with how many on the team were 4x state high school champions, NCAA champions and the like, it was John that stood head and shoulders above the pack. I recall one camper who outweighed John by 25lbs and was 18 years his junior, and had just one a state championship wrestling with him during takedown drills. Not only could the kid not even come close to talking him down, but Smith was so fast that half the time the kid grabbed air instead of leg and was left sprawled out on the mat and looking foolish. Truly a sight to behold.
Perhaps I’ll take a trip back to camp tonight and see what I can learn…
Here is an answer to my own question from Laberge’s Exploring the World of Lucid dreaming:
Q. Won’t all these efforts and exercises for becoming lu-cid lead to loss of sleep ? And won’t I feel more tired
after being awake in my dreams? Is it worth sacrificing my alertness in the daytime just to have more lucid
dreams ?
A. Dreaming lucidly is usually just as restful as dreaming nonlucidly. Since lucid dreams tend to be positive expe-
riences, you may actually feel invigorated after them. How tired you feel after a dream depends on what you did
in the dream—if you battled endlessly and nonlucidly with frustrating situations, you probably will feel more
tired than if you realized in the dream that it was a dream and that none of your mundane concerns were relevant.
You should work on learning lucid dreaming when you have time and energy to devote to the task. The exercises
for increasing dream recall and inducing lucid dreams probably will require that you spend more time awake
during the night than usual, and possibly that you sleep longer hours. If you are too busy to allot more time to
sleeping or to sacrifice any of the little sleep you are getting, it’s probably not a good idea for you to work on
lucid dreaming right now. Doing so will add to your cur-rent stress, and you probably won’t get very good results.
Lucid dreaming, at least at first, requires good sleep and mental energy for concentration. Once you learn the
techniques, you should be able to get to a point at which you can have lucid dreams any time you wish just by
reminding yourself that you can do so.
I actually didnt know that I was lucid dreaming until about a year ago, I would usually call what I was doing, “narrarating” my dreams. Like an author who writes a book. I can say that the predestination technique works, where you tell yourself to lucid dream for 10 to 15 minutes, But in my case I only needed to say what I wanted to accomplish before bed. I watched the show Man vs Wild on the discovery channel and afterward I wished earlier that day that I could travel through the wilderness with Bear Grylls and then I thought it one more time, having no clue that I would dream about it. Well when I did go to sleep sure enough I saw Bear Grylls and we were headed to an island and needed one of those small planes to get there and I visualised the plane on the river and the dock and there were even two passengers happily waiting to travel with me. Well, somehow, a hurricane started and the storm was going to destroy everything. At this point Bear Grylls dissappeared and the two people who were with me were left, one of the women looked at me with such fear in her eyes that I thought she was real, but then I felt like I had a responsibilty to help them and then I remembered that I conjured this up, so as the wooden dock was destroyed I looked at her and said “There’s nothing to worry about, because your just a figment of my imagination” and then an angry howl went off inside my head and the storm of grey proceeded to engulf my conciousness and so I said “and then the plane came down and rescued them, carrying them away..” I’ll stop there because it gets more interesting but thats how it goes, maybe if you not only think about it but perform some physical action like touching an object that has to do with it or watching a show, for instance it will better solidify your lucid dreaming.
I just stumbled on this article on dreams control and video-games:
http://www.livescience.com/culture/video-games-control-dreams-100525.html
I was wondering whether somebody can find some cool ways of experimenting with it…
I realize that the post is quite old, but I thought I’d add a short comment since I have some experience in the matter.
When I was in elementary school, I tended to be a bit scared of the dark. I’d always have a tape playing (usually Roger Whittaker whistles or the like) and I’d tuck myself in really well. I mean, I’d do my best to pull the edges of the blanket in under myself all around, so nothing could get in. I often thought I saw spiders crawling across the floor of my room at night, and occasionally I know I did 🙂
Anyway, I also recall being in the bathtub downstairs, and I was ABSOLUTELY convinced that a vampire had knocked a hole in the ceiling and come through in bat form, then hid somewhere in the house. I think I fell asleep in the bath.
For some reason, dreams usually tended toward the disturbing, at least the ones I remembered. I still recall some of the weird ones, like reaching up to pick an apple and, as I picked it, I grew to about 1000 pounds. Another was chasing a creature(?) that later reminded me of Chucky, which would fly around the room on a balloon string.
I think the discomforting dreams and the tendency to smother myself combined somewhat to give me quite a good handle on lucid dreams for a long time. I got in the habit of biting my tongue or finger, just hard enough to leave an impression. If it didn’t hurt or if it felt like I bit deeply but didn’t, I was dreaming. I was too young for the amorous binges, but I did enjoy flying and was glad to avoid nightmares. I remember one in particular in which several doors in the house were filled with static, like a television screen. When I asked my step-mother why, she said ‘because your’e dreaming, if you go through, you’ll wake up.’ So I goofed off until I was ready to wake up, then POOF! it worked.
The odd thing is: it left me afraid I was dreaming, when I was actually awake. I was constantly checking to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. I did often get a false-wake, so I’d often be frightened by something unnatural happening while I thought I was fully aware. Even now, knowing what I do as an adult, I’m still feeling an odd apprehension writing about this.
My most recent lucid dreaming episode, I only remember because of the shock I took to go lucid. I recall sitting on the toilet (I think I was just sitting on the lid, I don’t recall) and the mirror was directly across from me. My reflection was standing. Both my dream-self and my reflection screamed rather emphatically, you can imagine that seeing a wrong reflection would be fairly disturbing. It kicked me into a lucid dream, but I honestly don’t know what happened after that. I may have awakened shortly thereafter.
I believe that my dreams seem rather vivid, but interestingly enough, I cannot “visualize” things in a waking state. I can imagine them using words, but when I try to ‘draw a picture’ in my mind, I get only the barest sketch. I’d love to have some dream-lovin’ :p
I’m very interested in lucid dreaming and found this website after I had a session of it and was utterly confused how it came about. I hadn’t realized but I had used the MILD method almost flawlessly. The weird thing? I started it after falling asleep to the end of Vanilla Sky. Thanks for the tips! I would also like to see a more in depth piece on Lucid Dreaming.
Quazi
woah great site, it’s just made me dig out my copy of Vanilla Sky!!
Great! I’ve had a couple of lucid dreams myself but still training myself to have them by will. I’ve read the book of Stephen LaBerge and even bought the novadreamer years ago. I paid $800 dollars for it but in the end it didn’t worked for me. I then got involved with the books of castaneda and read the art of dreaming. That time I could remember all my dreams. After practicing the techniques that he describes I finally got a hang of it. He’s talking about the seven gates of dreaming. I’d like to know what your thoughts are regarding those seven gates?
I can add that vivid dreaming comes about with increased levels of melatonin- and that psychoactive drugs like marijuana and LSD are known to increase melatonin levels.
Melatonin is produced in the pineal gland near the mid-brain in response to signals from special receptors in the retina-which detect the absence of light-or night-time and turn on melatonin production via the pathway tryptophan to serotonin to melatonin.
Melatonin is broken down in stomach acid and is very poorly absorbed across the intestinal lumen.
It’s too early to be up, and I might have a million typos, but while all is fresh in my mind, I have to pound this post out.
Tim, I realize you probably won’t get this post, personally, but since you’ve studied the subject.
I’ve been lucid dreaming since age 7 ish, about the time I felt “fully conscious” … so I’m experienced, and I can tell when it’ll happen. I usually pick flying b/c it’s incredibly fun… but tonight I dreamed that way most of the night, and it went to a new level. I got to try on, and live it being in another body. A kind of reincarnation. AMAZING.
I’ve been keeping track, and noticing what I do in a day b/f lucid dreaming, and diving far deeper into it than I would ever admit, except the subject is out there, so it takes the teeth out of it. (I thought everyone dreamed this way. THen I couldn’t meet almost anyone would did. So, I started keeping quiet about it. It’s been so incredible, I thought I was either going mentally ill, or dying slowly. I’m a very reasonable person, but highly creative, so I don’t find too many like me. I haven’t seen or operated for “a box” most of my life.)
I am so fascinated by your study of this and techniques (which worked really well for me btw) that I wanted to attempt to contact you (or your fans, or both), and start a conversation to go to collaborate in the whole bit– “work” collectively and dive in further.
I’m a writer, (with a blog and a regular column in a local publication, and a few writing credits under my belt.) I’d like to start a book project with who ever is willing.
(If any of you are, please FB friend me, but referring to this specific message/post) I’m Lisa Colon DeLay, so we can start chatting, etc. I’ve just started a learning group page. do a search.)
Thank you for bring the topic to the fore, Tim.
Cheers.
This post is so relevant to the movie Inception
briliant stuff!
a couple of times I was in lucid dreaming.
It was fantastic to fly!
I read that in a dream sky is very beautiful and different, so next time i’m going to remember to look at it
I’ve been lucid dreaming sporadically for many years and I am a long-time member of one of the internet’s main lucid dreaming websites.
It floors me that the skill of lucid dreaming, in my opinion one of the most amazing a person can possibly learn, has still not reached the main stream yet. You’d think the prospect of doing literally anything with no consequences would stir the interest of millions. I can’t help but wonder if this stems from a lack of imagination.
I get a buzz every time I read another blog post about lucid dreaming and realize how many more people are discovering it. I’ve been doing it for years. It’s one of those things that you really can’t appreciate fully until you’ve experienced it for yourself.
I have always wondered about using lucid dreaming for getting better at certain skills. I hope to practice my guitar in the lucid dream state one of these days. I think Paul McCartney heard the melody to “Yesterday” in a dream.
Hey Tim, Awesome post. I was so psyched after reading this, I went and attended a meetup group on dreaming here in NY the same day. It was a great experience.
Btw LaBerge’s FAQ talks about a device called NovaDreamer. Have you used it ? Any idea if it’s any good?
Hi Tim and the world
Wow! I mean WOOW!!
Gotta try this!!
I’ve just made o quick-to-do list and some questions popped-up. Wouldn’t it be cool to ‘get jiggy’ with some 2-d (anime) characters or some other ones (Jill Valentine (Grrr!) anyone ;)? Sounds Really interesting, I’ll check back on you later :D. Wouldn’t it be cool to talk to Mona Lisa too and find what’s the buzz about (I’m not your average art connoisseur … heck I’m not at all)?
Would any of you be jealous if your mate got funky with some other person than you (came to my mind after reading one comment)?
I’ve had some LD-like experiences but it’s all foggy and cloudy, and yes, usually what I dream b4 I wake up remains in my memory.
A state close to what was described as neither awake nor asleep can be attained with some sleep depravation (such as all-night pc games :D). In that state I observed that my mind is extremely agile when dealing (modifying, adding, creating something – new that kind of thing) with non-logic stuff like music, pictures, shapes. A real fountain for the artists among (and inside of) us.
I love this post Tim. Will start tonight 🙂
Love you all
First night report: WOW! Noted like 4 main (longer) dreams and a lot of shorter ones. I didn’t realize I dream so much at night!
The first goal was attained: dream recalling is almost (95%) there.
Work will continue.
Thank you everyone for tips, tricks and a big hug to ol’ Timmie.
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Hello Tim.
I’ve been reading your stuff for a little over a year. I’ve seen your blog posts about lucid dreaming and changing the quality of your dreams by using supplements such as caffeine and nicotine.
I’ve been living in France for a couple of years. Last night we had some friends visiting from Belgium so we went to a Savoyard restaurant.
I was reading the menu and a fondue with “trumpets of death” mushrooms caught my eye so my wife and I ordered it. She helped our friends eat their raclette so I ate most of the fondue.
When I went to sleep, I had very intense vivid dreams.
I was watching one of your “Random Episodes” awhile ago and you mentioned that you might be going to Paris. I would strongly suggest that if you do come over here that you either order a fondue that has these mushrooms or you specifically request an omelet with these mushrooms to eat before you go to bed.
I’d appreciate it if you let me know how it goes.
Also, if you are coming to the Geneva region for anything I’d like to hear about it… I live just over the border.
Andy
Thanks, Andy! I definitely will 🙂
Step #6
Write down the dates in your dream journal. Every night recall the dreamscape you visited twenty nights previous. Go to bed with this dreamscape in your mind and you are likely to find yourself there again. Every twentieth night!
The Mayan calendar uses a 13:20 system. Everyday has a ‘tone’ for a total of twenty. Shamans in Mexico have used this sustem for thousands of years.
See you in dream time…
This is a very interesting direction to go for me. I am a mindset and consciousness specialist and coach, and I am noticing, that when a client’s or my consciousness is at an all time high, it is easier to cause lucid dreaming. If I understand it correctly, you call lucid dreaming where the dreamer retains their capacity to direct their dream, instead of just being a hapless victim of it, good or bad dream, anything that you aren’t causing you are a victim of.
I am working on a project of teaching and exploring the idea of getting unstuck, and all my current lucid dreams are taking me into situations where getting stuck with a situation or mood is predictable, and I play and replay the situations with different unstucking moves, it is amazing.
I really appreciate the insight, without this article I would not have been quite aware of what’s happening. Thank you.
I’ve never woken up when I realized I was lucid, but I have dreamed of waking up plenty of times. The mind doesn’t even have to try very hard at this. Two nights ago I became lucid, and then that dream immediately faded away, and I was sitting with my laptop. It took me almost a minute to convince myself that it’s impossible to actually wake that way, and that I was still dreaming.
Your next book should definitely be about the mind.
Hey Tim
I am a junior competitive fencer and am very interested in the benefits that Lucid dreaming, and other such techniques to ‘Accelerate skill acquisition’ (such as those demonstrated in your Yabusame documentary) , pose. As such I was wondering if there where any other resources (books, websites, etc) that you would recommend for more information on learning and applying these techniques or for learning them with a more sport orientated focus.
that been said I have only recently started my dream journal and look forward to the all experiences ahead (the, um, “flying” in step 5 sounds like fun…)
thanks a lot for the great post
Al Dunham
I love lucid dreaming!!! Any tips on making the dreams more realistic and life like? I can sort of control them but there so fuzzy… please help!
What a refreshing overview of lucid dreaming! I love your frank approach, there are plenty of awesome tips for newbies here. I have been lucid dreaming for 13 years and feel there is still so much to learn. My dreaming subconscious never fails to surprise me. I have a lot to talk about with my dream figures too and they provide me with really cool insights. Right now I am trying to develop recurring dream figures I can call upon to see if they are continually represented by the same part of my subconscious, or whether they are projections of something different each time depending on the dream. I’ll put my results on my website when I figure it out! Thanks for raising awareness of lucid dreaming on your blog! Rebecca.
I love LD!
I only did it once but it was one heck of a experience.
I am really interested in the ‘Learning/Skill Part’ of this..
How does one improve skill while dreaming?
What exactly is meant by “going with the flow” ?
@Alex: if you click the link there’s another link
http://lucidity.com/NL7.34.RU.SpinFlowRub.html
that takes you to an article by LaBerge “Prolonging Lucid Dreams”.
In it, the techniques of Spinning, Rubbing Hands and Going with the flow are explained:
A. Spinning When in a lucid dream and the dream began to fade, while they still felt their dream body, they were to spin around like a top, as rapidly as possible. Beginning in a vertical or standing position, they were to turn around on a point with their arms outstretched. It was indicated that it is important to experience a vivid sense of movement. They were to continue to spin until they were in a vivid dream scene, or awake. They were instructed to repeat to themselves over and over while spinning, “The next scene will be a dream.”
B. Going with the Flow When subjects were in a lucid dream and the dream began to fade, they were to persist in doing whatever they were doing in the dream before it started to fade, ignoring the fact that the dream was fading. Also, they were to repeat to themselves while carrying on with their dream activity, “The next scene will be a dream.”
C. Rubbing Hands Together When subjects were in a lucid dream and the dream began to fade, while they still felt their dream body, they were to vigorously rub their (dream) hands together. They were informed it was important to experience a vivid sense of movement and friction. Participants were to continue to rub their hands until they found themselves in a vivid dream scene, or awaken completely. Also, they were to repeat to themselves over and over while rubbing their hands, “The next scene will be a dream.”
I recommend you to read thoroughly articles of Lucidity Institute
I just tried 200 mcg of Huperzine A (swallowed) & 5 mg of melatonin (sub-lingual) last night. Prolly about 20 min before I fell asleep. Also had a .5mg of Klonopin a few hours before bed. MOVIE TIME! Woke up refreshed. Woke up once about 3 to 4 hours in (which is my sleep issue) and went right back to sleep. Nice! Thanks!
Stupid question if anyone knows. this is all new (I think) but wondering if this was lucid dreaming as a teen, and sometimes even as an adult, when I would have a horrifying nightmare that awoke me, I would think about it and then concentrate on how to make it end better – defeat the monster, save my child from disaster, etc. as I fell back asleep. I think it usually worked and when the nightmare restarted, it generally ended better. At least that is what I remembered when waking.
Is this what lucid dreaming is?
Also, is this related (albeit very tangentially) to the story line of “Deception Point”?
Any answers/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Will definitely look into Casteneda’s books and all the great info listed in the post.
BTW – LOVE 4HB (and of course 4HWW) Have implementing both, already lost almost 20 total inches, but weight is slower though hopefully muscle since seeing more definition.
Bob,
Ah, a question I’m qualified to answer. How refreshing.
To answer your first question, I don’t know what you would call changing the course of your dream before falling asleep, but it’s not lucid dreaming. A lucid dream specifically involves a moment of looking around, and saying, “Holy s**t! I am dreaming RIGHT NOW!” Or something to that effect.
Stephen LaBerge, a researcher, did experiments with this some decades ago, and found that a lucid dreamer could communicate in a very basic way with the outside world through eye movements, which would require practical knowledge that there is a dream in progress. Very interesting stuff, if you want to google it.
As for the movie, I’m not familiar.
I’ll give you a couple of suggestions for lucid dreaming:
Start writing a dream journal every morning, the moment you wake up. Put enough detail that you’ll be able to remember the dream later. Once you’ve got a few, look for recurring themes. (for example, some of mine are: riding in a bus, driving badly, being casually nude, losing teeth, losing the kids). Find the ones that would rarely/never happen in real life, and then remind yourself before bed that if they ever happen, to check if you’re dreaming.
Another tip, that is remarkably effective for me: Fall asleep while not very tired, after waking up in the morning. This, of course, depends on your schedule, but I’ve achieved this on days that I, say, got up expecting to go to work, getting ready, and then realizing that I was off, and going back to bed. If it’s difficult to go back to sleep, then you’re doing it right. It’s not easy to induce artificially (getting up, walking around, going to bed). But, if you find you have the opportunity, remember to try the above technique, as well as Tim’s tips, and anything else that you read which seems do-able.
Hope I was of some help. It’s not quick, or easy, but the realization that you’re dreaming, and you know it, makes it all very worth it.
Kevin, thanks. And I misspoke. The movie is Inception – w/Leonardo di Caprio – which I found very entertaining as well as though provoking with the ideas of planting ideas into the subconscious. Cool sci-fi stuff.
Actually was another good movie deception (but nothing to do w/dream states).
i had a lucid dream about 3 nights ago but i was wondering if someone can help me with what i experienced and make sence of it. after i realized i was dreaming i instantly jumped up to the sky and flew. i could feel it and it all felt so real. but a second later i got a view of my self lieing in bed being thrown around i guess because of the affects of the flying then i was able to wake myself up.
I had my first lucid dream last night and it was amazing. I flew through the galaxy and took a look into my subconscious. Since I had never had one of these dreams before, I was trying to figure out what had triggered it. I was more physically exhausted than usual, but now that I’ve read about vitamin b, I’m pretty sure it was all those cucumbers I had as a part of my late dinner.
Can this lucid dream can be incorporated to what some Chinese people are saying: “Astral Projection”. Anyway, I always have lucid dreams way back from college until now. I’m dreaming of money and relationship.
By the way, thanks for sharing this post. I learned about scientific bases about lucid dreams.
Thank you for this post, Tim. I’ve found lucid dreaming to significantly reduce anxiety I was experiencing due to my little brother getting very sick. I was doing some unhealthy things to cope, but lucid dreaming is somehow bumping back on the right track. I’m working out again, eating better and of course, sleeping better. Much appreciation.
I try and try but i just cant do it on purpose. Once it happened on its own but I never replicated the same sensation.
Aca, the first time I succeded I was working hard to relax my body – I was tensing then releasing parts of my boty from feet to head, again and again until I lost feeling of my body – it was as if I had no hands or legs – they disappeared 🙂 I then tried to roll out of my body (I tried to achieve Out of Body Experience), but each time I tried I moved my body and had to start relaxing again. Finally after three hours, exhausted, I gave up and, curling into embryo position tried to fall asleep. After a moment I felt something like a mighty crack and I found myself speeding through a dark tunnel at the end of which there was point of light. When I got out of tunnel I found myself just above train tracks, below high voltage cables. I zigzagged myself somehow between those cables and shot up. I was in the middle of town. all around were buildings, trees, people. Everything was shining as if it was emiting light. I was overfilled with emotion of freedom. It lasted a few seconds and then I heard crack again and I was lying on my bed again.
Later I found where exactly I was – I flew out from below a bridge over train tracks, in the center of my town….
The proces was so hard that I gave up and never tried again, but it demolished some barrier and since then I had many unplanned excursions.
Since then I had many examples when this approach worked – a hardcore trying to solve a problem and then “give up” and doing something else – always shortly afterward I had an “Eureka!” moment and the solution was so obvious and easy that I wondered why I haven’t thought about it earlier.
I’m writing a blog about dreaming and why you dream. I am especially interested in lucid dreaming. I am trying to accomplish this by looking up different methods on the internet. I am a student at Shelby High School and if you could help me or give me tips on how to dream lucidly. Thanks,
Michael
I loved the part you shared about learning quick through lucid dreaming that would be rather tough through normal means. But, I still doubt, whether this would really be helpful for spiritual evolution, if we go ahead with our wish satisfaction.
This article might help me for tonight. thank you. i shall now share my opinion of lucid dreaming.
i think I’ve managed to lucid dream before, by just know its just a dream. sometimes thought, when i do realize it is a dream, i can’t control my my actions. so instead, its as if I’m in some other persons body, thinking for my self.And well, this may sound absurd, but i think i may have broken some dream barrier that somehow aloud me into others dreams. simply just look for them. I think one knows i did something to them, so she glances at me when she found out i exist. My my dreams are so mysterious.
i read somewhere that marijuana can reduce and even stop rem sleep, when you’re supposed to dream the most.
has anyone else heard of that, or is it bull?
Lucid dreaming is awesome! It’s your ticket to do ANYTHING you want!
I’ve done a lot of research on lucid dreaming and I’m curious: From what I’ve read, they say that once you start having lucid dreams, it’s almost impossible to go back to “regular” dreaming. When you lucid dream, it seems like your mind is constantly working on the lucid dream experience during sleep and you’re not giving the brain an opportunity to work out any of that day’s stressors through metaphors.
So here are my questions:
Has anyone been able to go back to “regular” dreaming after doing lucid dreams for an extended period of time?
Does it feel like you’ve even slept that night or do you find that you need additional sleep by either sleeping longer or taking naps?
Thanks in advance for your responses!
Yes, you can always revert to a less conscious version of yourself!
To return fully aware as we were once when we were enlightened is an effort, even though it shouldn’t be so since it’s just our true nature, but our mind and the every day outwardly life continuously brainwash us and keeps us unconscious.
So about your question….
If you are worried that you will loose your dear unconscious sleep no worry Gregg, just watch for few hours a movie or play video games on your PC late at night and you are back into unconscious dreams.
I used to have 3 lucid dream/astral projections 3 times a week for almost a year, 15 years ago, and even if they were many and consistent I had to work hard for them, then I stopped all my meditations and practices and I lost my lucidity in my dreams. Sometime if I woke up at 5pm and then went back to sleep I had a kind of partially lucid dream, but most of the time I had only dreams in which as I say the dream was dreaming me! 🙂
Moreover the first part of the sleep, the deeper part, your mind goes into a very deep unconscious real and even if you have lucid dreams, after meditating many hours a day, most of the times they will happen at the end of your first sleep just before you wake up, so you will have good 4 hours of deep replenish sleep anyway.
But this is just my opinion that applies to my life others might have a different experience and a different opinion about it.
I wish you sweet, replenish, relaxing, adventures, magical conscious dream!
🙂
Not often commented on is just how extremely good the ‘sound and vision’ actually is. In fact in my experience it is at least as good as real life, and enhanced in some respects. I have had lots of lucid dreams over the years and being of a scientific mind type I always initially study the ‘environment’ within the dream. What is quite amazing is the level of seemingly perfect seamless virtuality that we can see and hear in our dreams. This includes the level of detail down to the micro level of what you would normally see with a magnifying glass, and real life detailed scenarios of natural landscapes including grassy banks with flowers and all moving lifelike in a breeze. Sounds also seem very natural. A difficulty often seems to occur when attempting to speak, but this does not prevent speaking, just makes it difficult. To me, this is a truly amazing aspect of lucid dreaming, as normal dreams for me although I can remember them as often vivid, to study this vividness real time is awesome.
I can confirm that spinning around does help maintain the dream state and also that when looking into a mirror you can see yourself – even though the reflection morphs and has it not been an accurate representation of myself the twice I have tried this. Interestingly, last time I noticed that there was someone standing slightly behind me, watching – my subconscious? Presumably I still have one even when dreaming.
A feature that I have noticed is that the dream while being controlled to some extent by myself often behaves independently. An example of this was when trying to get a small group of people interested in me undertaking a flying demonstration – I wanted to show off to them, (by jumping off a high wall in a garden and flying over their heads). But I had to shout at them before they would pay attention and even articulated hat it actually was my dream so could they please pay attention… which was quite amusing even within the dream! Interestingly they appreciated the flying and clapped their approval – which surprised me as I was not expecting it – as I say who’s dream is it? And yes, I can confirm that when you hit the ground hard it does seem to hurt (at least a little)! There have been occasions where the ‘reality’ of the dream was so good that even though I knew I was dreaming but with all my normal thinking capacity, doing something very scary like throwing myself under a moving train – looked so ‘real’ that I could not do it, my conscious sense was screaming at me that it looked too dangerous.
I believe that the really interesting point here is that we clearly have the capability to create a fantastically good virtual representation of real life and perhaps beyond what we have actually experienced. What does this mean for future technology – presumably tapping into this ‘dream’ state will become increasingly easy and attainable, joining them together (likely we all use similar functions that may be linked)? Perhaps even recording from neural senses/brain activity the ‘moving pictures’ within the dream? Interfacing with modern computer technology to create a fully enabled virtual reality? And perhaps we can learn a lot more about animal behaviour from watching their dreams?
JP
Here another way to keep the lucid dream going when your sight gets foggy…
Last night I had a very interesting lucid dream and all of sudden my sight went out of focus, a voice was telling me that I could wake up but strangely this time, another voice also told me that if I wanted I could keep on LD.
So I thought I should now do one of the techniques to regain my lucidity.
I tried spinning, rubbing hands or letting myself fall back (previously I let myself fall back already twice) but I was too tire to do that and I was already in the fog, and I had little or no control over my dream body.
So the same voice that told me that if I wanted I could remain awake suggested me to look at the dream like I would look at a TV which was going through a momentary interference, and wait without doing anything but still watching the TV hoping for the image to come back by itself.
Guess what? It came back 5 time.
For 5 times I lost my vision and control over the dream and 5 times I was tempted to react, force my way into the dream or wake up for good, but instead I just waited like one does when is watching maybe a nice movie and a boring commercial pops up all of sudden. We know that the movie will start again and some don’t even move just wait patiently, and that’s what I did. I realized that trying to force my way out or giving up all together were not the right moves.
Now in few words I have another way to prolong the dream.
I just thought this technique to prolong my dreams, not sure if it’s new or old, if someone already thought about it or talked about it previously somewhere but I thought to share it anyway so that I maybe could be helpful for someone one day in his dreams.
Remember remain the watcher without moving and just hoping for your sight to come back again, that’s all it takes.
Last thing… I have mentioned that previously I let myself Fall Back twice.
For some people this technique is used to keep on dreaming, for me instead it’s used to enter a state of deeper Dream Level and also to prolong the dream in a more vivid one. In fact while I was falling I could feel my brain fizzling with energy almost like it was rearranging its cells, it was pleasurable but I was also not sure if it was ok that my brain would do that.
I mention this because I want to point out that I was in quite a vivid dream, not particularly colorful but I was very conscious and this awareness maybe was the key why I was able to just wait for the dream to come back into focus.
So in few words try this method if you remember it while you are dreaming but know that it’s a method to refresh your dream watchfulness and maybe before it is important to go to a deeper Dream Level because this method in my opinion might be good to stretch the already stretched but only if the material to stretch it’s a good one! 🙂
It would be nice to hear others opinion and experiences on this method.
Golden Aware Dreams
Netra
I remember having lucid dreams naturally when I was younger, but I remember also having lucid dreams that ended up happening about two weeks prior to the dream which was weird to me. Anyway, I just tried your method, without the drugs of course, and it did work but weirdly I did have the type you spoke of. I didn’t mind, because it was still a great expirience. However, I ended up being able to record the first dream but after I had dreams about dreaming and the recording them in my diary, Then when I woke up I only had the first dream recorded only out of the half page I wrote in the dream which I found funny. This is normal right?
Ryan, did you mean you used my method or someone else?
If you were referring to mine… then great, I have to work on it more to understand the mechanic behind it. But it’s promising. Definitely trying to grab some leftovers from your fading dream, or thinking that the dream it’s over and moving the physical body to wake up are not the right moves when you want your Lucid Dream to continue.
So I guess I will try this method more and maybe post more info about it later on.
About your question….
Yes it’s normal to forget even some of the lucid dreams we had during the same night especially if they are many.
One good method to remember lucid dreams is to do what I call the “lucid dream summary” into the dream.
It’s not super easy and most of the time it can take a little energy but it will help you to recall every LD especially if you are getting better at LD and you start having more than 4.
This is basically a memorization technique…
When you have a story to remember find key words in the story and then remember only those. The conscious brain will remember the key factors and the unconscious brain will fill up the rest. So before going to sleep you can tell to yourself, maybe in front of a mirror that every time you finish a dream you review the main events of the dream just finished.
I have done it few times and when I do it I can remember many LD in a row.
So realize you are in a dream, watch your hand, touch the ground, spin, etc. to gain consciousness, then have the LD, when you are about to lose energy stop all activity, either wait and wait for the TV static to go (my latest technique) or start doing other techniques to regain energy then review only the key points of the just passed LD. Something like… fly, walk through walls, jump. If you flew somewhere then you walk through a wall then you jumped somewhere else. It takes a sec and this little summary will stay within your brain like a solid milestone, and then go for your next LD.
I hope this can help.
I was able to go back to regular dreaming after doing lucid dreaming for about two months. It is a great experience, but not something i’d recommend doing for an extended period of time. It just makes you want to sleep more because your dreams are so much more interesting and exciting then actual life. I found that I spent a lot of time in real life thinking about lucid dreaming. I still have lucid dreams every once in awhile, which is just fine with me.
My dreams lately have been so vivid. I now feel lucidity is the next step! I instantly thought of Napoleon Hill as did Ron in the earlier comments. I want to try to master these techniques to aid in my success. Thanks for breaking down some steps.
I do not dream and it is very hard for me to get to sleep. How can I dream again?
@Sporty Gal: The best way to fall asleep fast and sound is to deeply relax your body lying in your bed. There are many techniques, but the fastest in my experience is to contract muscles in a part of your body, for example your hand, keep it contracted for a few seconds, then release tension. Then you “follow up” the feeling of relaxing the muscles, telling yourself in your head – “my hand is getting more and more relaxed, it is inert, I don’t feel any need to move it, it’s so heavy”. At some point you’ll feel that your hand is getting warmer, then you’ll feel little tickling in your hand – as your muscles relax your blood can get inside capillary vessels which were squeezed by contracted muscles, and now your cells are getting nourishing blood and are singing with joy. This is extremely pleasant feeling.
Usually I start with both feet, then move up the legs – both calves, thighs, pelvis area, abdomen, chest, both hands, forearms, arms, shoulder belt, neck, face. With experience you’ll be able to relax faster and faster – the entire cycle took me over half an hour at the beginning, then got shortened to less than 5 minutes. Some people can relax fully in a minute or two 🙂
Full relaxation is extremelly pleasant feeling of warm, peaceful numbness, total abandon without any worry. When you fall asleep in this way you’ll wake fresh and full of energy.
If you keep your mind awake (in the observer mode) you have a chance to jump into lucid dream without falling asleep first. Imagine yourself that you’re in a high hunting tower. You’ll hear strange sounds, see people walking by, talking, calling you. You simply don’t react, feel yourself lying motionless. At some moment you’ll notice that you’re no longer lying – that you’re moving. At this moment look at your hands. Tada! You’re in lucid dream! 🙂
Good luck!
Sporty Gal, I second what Leszek said. Be more in the body and it will be easier to remember your dreams, but don’t just try to do it before going to sleep, use your day to be more in the body and that will help you even more. Read or listen to eckhart tolle to understand better what it means to be more present during the day. Oprah has a great website with an entire webcast seminar, for free, on him, called A New Earth. I found it very useful.
Entering the Dreams for me is like sliding down on a slide into water (the dream world). If your slide is too high (being in the Mind all day) then you will slide with great speed and as soon as you touch the water you will be unconscious. Instead if your slide is not very high (being aware in the body during the day) then your speed will be slow and it will be easier to wake up when you touch the Water.
Feel the body whenever you can during the day, feel your aliveness, your presence and that will remain with you in your dreams, and puff you are in Wonderland awake 🙂 easy as that.
Bye
Netra
Sometimes I feel as though my mind is not at rest. I hear voices and see people but it seems I am still awake and I know I am dreaming. I wake up really tired as if my brain has never rested our I may have a song in my head that had not yet been created. Have I experienced lucid dreams all this time?
@Sporty gal: No, LD are unforgetable experience – you’ll see when you achieve it. Whar you described are hipnagogic effects – see hypnagogia on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
They come in state between sleep and wakefulness and are usually connected with what you were doing during day. You are moving your eyes watching them so after prolonged periods they can be tired and painful.
Composing music in the state between dream and wakefulness is my favorite hypnagogia. I believe that’s the way the genius composers wrote their best songs – just after a hypnagogia state – already perfect.
Edison used hipnagogia to solve his problems and find new ideas. He sit in silenced room in a comfy armchair, his arms laying still on armrests, hands protruding forward, holding metal balls, and metal bowls on the floor below his hands. When falling asleep his muscles relaxed automatically and balls falled from his hands making noise which wakened him. This way he awakened remembering his hypnagogia and could write down the solutions and ideas he saw in this state.
As for you, I wrote before – you are to watch the visions and listen to the sounds passively, not following them, not reacting to them in any way. Keep being aware of your body lying in the bed and just let those visions pass. At some moment you’ll discover that your body is no longer lying in bed, that you’re moving. Look at your hands then and you will find yourself in lucid dream.
I just want to say thank you. I tried the muscle exercises that you suggested and I also inhaled and exhaled even breaths until asleep. It took me no time at all to drift off. I woke up feeling rejuvenated and not tired like normal nights. I also believe that I experienced my first lucid dream. I was asleep and was aware that I was asleep but could envision my entire bedroom. I was able to write on my bedroom walls in glowing letter in which I did not understand. This dream was incredible and it felt really good to be able to control my actions. I want more and would like to learn all I can about this fantastic thing called lucid dreaming. Thank you once again for your suggestions. I cannot wait to go to sleep tonight.
I’m happy for you 🙂
Good luck!
i ended up here through school the other day. i was looking up things on wiki and clicked on lucid dreaming. i never heard of it and it sounded intersting so here i am. btw has any tried doing the thing out of inception? is it possible? to dream within a dream?
Why do we stop LD as we get older ? I recall extended flying sessions during LD as a kid, and yes “great” sex post puberty (easy to be great when you never had any). But why do we stop entering the LD state, or why does it wake us up when we briefly enter it ? Is it that we loose the ability to project in the imaginary ? As we grow older we have to face more and more “concrete”, “down to earth” problems, we don’t play pretend anymore. Is that why we end up waking up upon entering LD ? so sad anyway, can’t wait to practice those technics and hmmm… practice mandarin
Kev
Hi everyone, I need some help with something I am experimenting….
After trying many techniques I realized that the best technique to make Lucid Dreams more vivid, longer and to keep awareness too, for me, is to let Myself Go Backwards.
When I do that I start to fall into a tunnel of light blue light at great speed, and I can even feel into my physical body that my brain cells are sparkling with electricity.
When that happens all of a sudden I reach a what I call a “Veil Level” (usually there is a big veil covering me when I land at the level, strange! ) at each Veil Level I can decide to stop and experience the World at that level.
Closer to my question….
The other day I went down two Veil Levels and all of sudden I felt this urge to keep on falling, I was on a roll, but instead of letting myself go backwards I found myself on a cliff and I instinctively jumped into dark blue water.
Now jumping into dark blue water is not usually what I like to do, many times in my dreams these waters are full of huge Killer-wheal like monsters.
Surprisingly this time there were none but I felt afraid they could appear sooner or later so I put some Mana (Energy) under my feet and got out of the water.
Now the questions…
Has anyone experienced something like I did?
Has anyone adventured as I did by falling back into dark blue water in their Lucid Dreams? Any tips about it!
I am sure anyone hides their fears and their unknown subconscious somewhere differently from me; maybe someone would not want to fall in a “rabbit hole” backwards at great speed like I do but instead sees water like a place that can have a paradise like Atlantis. So basically I am looking for someone’s opinion about this who has my same dynamic in the Lucid Dreams-DarkWaters=fearful Unknown and it has overcome it and traveled into it or even passed it.
Thanks for reading
Net
I know this is a old subject but thought I would offer my 2 anyway.
I ID from very young age and learned to do it at will buy the time I was about 12. I continued to ID at will until I was 17 the reason I quit was to do with being utterly exusted the entire day following. As a teenager I made the safe assumption that my brain was not getting the rest it needed. I still ID on occasion but almost always wake myself up so I can get some rest. (READ THAT SENTENCE OUT OF CONTEXT ;).
Has anyone ells had that problem as well? I would love to be able to do it again.
Thank You.
Neal
I noticed the same thing Neal, but there are many factors to take in consideration.
LD can drain easily my energy…
1)When In my LD I rush to do stuff, like flying, sex, going through walls, destroying stuff, psychic powers, etc.. without relaxing here and there and especially letting myself to fall back (basically this is a technique of relaxation into your LD). I spoke about this in a couple of my posts.
2) When I choose the wrong time to wake up. Finding the right time is very important, sometimes maybe it’s best to let the inner clock to decide and doing LD everyday might be tiring after a while. I also noticed that if I meditate for too long before going back to sleep (2nd time) I will more likely drain my energy but if I don’t meditate enough my lucid dreams are not going to be that real.
3) If I am on my side I will mix the lucid dream with a little of unaware dreaming and this mixture can tire me easily. Instead if I can relax my belly and muscles with a relaxation before going to sleep and be on my back (not easy to do in my case) then the LD is a pure LD and as I go in I come out, it might not last long but when I did it I came out refreshed. So since this one can be shorter it’s important to find the right timing and meditation to relax especially the belly. In that position a tight belly can prevent the physical body from falling asleep while the brain remains still active.
4) What I do during the day is also something to take in consideration. If you do many mental activities during the day, it will take me more energy to remain conscious into my LDs. So taking long walks, a bath before going to bed and trying to watch little or no tv/computer and even reading (all mental activity) can help a lot. So in this case the going into LDs become smoother and more natural giving me more chances to awake refreshed.
5) Last thing… I don’t know if this is also your experience, when I LD at the very beginning I find myself facing 2 options in my mind. I can either jump and go for the things I would like to do or wait for an energy to drag me around, almost like and invisible comfortable “Cable Train Chair”, the times I choose the train chair waiting for things to come to me instead of going out there to hunt them down I always woke up refreshed.
At the end others opinion can most likely not work for you so I guess it’s always best, since you have had so many years of experience with LDs, to ask to yourself or to some sub personalities into your dreams how to do that and I am sure you will receive the answer that will work best for you. Remember the wisest advisors into your dreams are usually Animals! 🙂 But that’s for another post.
Thank you Netra.
I’m grateful for your suggestions and will surly give some of them a try.
I don’t seem to be able to cost, pretty much once I have control I keep it until I wake whenever that is. which seems unusual comparing to other posters. fortunately I can wake at will otherwise I’d probably went mental years before.
Thanks again.
Neal
You Welcome Neal. It’s great you have an inner clock that tells you when to wake up. I do too and when I follow it everything goes smoother and more natural. Usually we tend to lose energy when we try to push LD too much. It’s also great that you can remain lucid until the very end of the dream. Sometimes if you think that the LD is over wait a little, don’t move and keep watching with the eyes of your mind and you might get some bonus LD. 🙂
I was thinking to share some of my experiences with supplements to help LD to happen more frequently.
I tried several and the one that works for me because it’s not too intrusive and doesn’t interfere with my natural falling asleep again (some will keep you awake for too long) it’s 10mg of Vinpocetine with 500mg of Acetyl L-Carnitine. I take that after waking up early in the morning and I have to say I seem to have almost every night a LD. I also take Krill oil (great for dream recall) before going to sleep at night and now I am also trying Phosphatidylserine 100mg before going to bed at night.
My recall after Phosphatidylserine seems having improved but I will only be sure when my krill oil will run out and I can test how just taking PS affect my recall.
All I am taking is very low in quantity and very light on the stomach because I believe that in order to LD it’s important to have a light stomach, a relaxed body and specially “Focused Eyes”.
When I first started LD my only technique was to stare at the darkness of my closed eyes for 1 or 2 hours before falling asleep in the evening and in the morning, preceded by some Kundalini meditation (Osho’s meditation, simply while standing I would shake the body to release tensions accumulated in the body.)
At that time this meditations would just work great for having 3 LD nights a week but at that time I wasn’t watching any TV and I had no PC. What happens during the day is crucial for having longer and more vivid LDs, it’s all connected, in my opinion.
Happy Lucid Dreaming.
Netra
Step 5 made me laugh so hard!!! My ribs actually started to hurt.
Honestly, the 2 things mentioned in step 5 were at the top of my list before I ever read this. It is nice to see that other people think the same way I do 😀
Steven, that’s nice to hear that someone has or had a similar experience.
Was the “Cable Train Chair” what made you laugh :).
I wander if that happened only to me or is a common recurrence with some lucid dreamers!?! It’s like being taken care by the flow of life. Letting the invisible unconscious decide what’s important to see instead of following the desire-mind and go for desires repressed during the wake state of life.
What’s the second thing that is at the top of your list?
It would nice to hear more about your experience.
Happy dreaming 🙂
Like several others who have posted, I to have enjoyed lucid dreaming long before I heard the term. I was afraid of the dark as a child and had developed the habit of pinching myself when afraid of odd noises in my room while trying to fall asleep in the old house where I grew up. When your a kid every pop and creak of the house settling is a ghost…right. I had started to notice I was pinching myself, but not feeling the pinch. This is how I discovered lucid dreaming. I was dreaming of pinching myself, not actually doing it. Once I found that I was dreaming and consciously aware of it, I could do what ever I wanted to do. I loved my nightly adventures. it was truly amazing. I continued this for years. From about the age of 9 until my late teens. I grew tired of sex and flying so I started robbing banks, riding motorcycles and took up ice skating….lol. In my late teens I stopped trying to control my dreams. It was not a conscious decision to stop, I just basically stopped trying. It seemed to be very easy when I was younger. Now at 39 years old, I find it very difficult to engage in this awesome stress relieving activity. Is there a vitamin or anything I can take that’s not to harsh. that will encourage this awesome dream state?
Many ask why is it that though when at puberty/adolescence they had great time with LDs, but at some time in late teen they stopped having them.
My answer is – your life got caught in routine. You do everything everyday the same way. There is no thrill of learning something new, you turn and turn in a wheel of repeated usual doings.
Wake up, wash, eat, go to work, work, eat, work, go home, eat, watch TV, surf internet, eat, wash, sleep – again and again, at nausea.
If you look closely, you’re asleep during the day, going through motions automatically. No wonder you dont awake in your dreams.
Solution? Wake up in your day to day life. Try different ways of doing things – that will make you conscious during the day – which will make you more conscious of your dreams – to the point of waking up in them.
Try different path of going to and from work. Do little changes in daily routine – for example learn a new way of tying your shoes, each time at restaurant eat different dishes instead of those you order usually. Go for a random walks – when at fork in the road toss a coin (or a dice) to choose direction randomly.
Soon you’ll get enough awareness to get back to your lucid dreams.
Very interesting and informative article. I had experiences of lucid dreaming when I was a child not knowing anything about lucidity at that moment in time. Also, I had experiences of lucid dreaming when I had high fever and at that time, I was able to close my eyes and go into this wonderful state of mind.
please don’t criticize me for asking this, but how real do lucid dreams seem, even though you know that it’s a dream? say, if you were doing some dirty things in your dream, and when you “finished” if you know what i mean, would you feel it? would the “climax” feel real? would it feel like your actually having sex, is my main question.
Someone sometime long time ago said that this world is made of what dreams are made of. Someone else said the world is Maya=a dream. Someone instead said that our attachment to this reality is an illusion like dreams.
Someone else said that sex is in our brain not in our genitals, that’s why some stupid people around the world for being more spiritual have cut them out but still feel sexual desire.
I haven’t met these people so I cannot confirm their views of life, and I can give only my opinion and motivate you to have a full experience so that you can truly say how real is love or sex in dreams.
For me is pretty real but depends on how deep I am into my dream world, deeper, more awake in the dream, and in a more vivid dream I am and more intense the encounter with other beings or thought beings can be.
At the end in my opinion you are just releasing the same chemical into your brain you are releasing when you have real sex + the visual mental images and strangely enough even tactile sensations the only con is that you wake up alone! 🙂
I
thank you very much Netra. 🙂 see, im kind of lonely, and a lot of people tend to shun me, so… this town i live in is not a good town to look for my soulmate. which is why im moving soon. but i’ve had great sexual desire, and i want to take care of that in the most harmless way possible. No prostitutes for this guy! o, and another question. (worst question to ask after something like i asked, but they’re COMPLETELY unrelated to one another. i wont put the 2 together. that’d be… odd. 😛 ) how easy is it to make a cartoon character appear in a dream? i thought of this just now before i came back on here to check if you had answered. it’d be pretty cool. AFTER i get all the pervert out of me, i’d like to see some of my cartoon characters up close. of course, my brain would make the thought, but whatever. 🙂 and thank you again for answering my question before.
You are welcome Zack. Remember all I say is just my opinion.
And in my opinion the only con I mention before about sex in dreams balance all the pros. Awake life should always come first. To have a beautiful life first should be the priority then having vivid dreams becomes an incredible plus that makes life even more beautiful.
🙂
I stumbled upon this page today as Last night I had a WILD LUCID DREAM with aid of a LD book and pill. I was scuba diving a wreck dive in some cold dark waters with a buddy of mine. I realized I was dreaming when we decided to take a nap inside the newly sunken ship In an air pocket. I bought some Lucid dreaming pills off of amazon just to see if I could get lucid dreams more and more and a small book comes with the one product, Ironically named “lucid Dreams” lol- and It said to look for really weird scenarios and test to see if your dreaming. SO, I thought “boy, this does seem really dangerous, and really darn weird., Then just as clear as day I was lucid” I decided to go along with the story of the dream as I enjoy scuba diving and I was really interested to find out what was coming next. It was a blast of a time and seemed like it lasted a full day underwater. There were monsters, sex, suspense, old friends – I mean I couldnt have directed a better movie than what I watched last night!!
i became interested in LD.. well.. yesterday when my friend had one for the first time and said it was really cool. i had never heard of it before and have only had one once before a few years ago and it was one of those ‘false wakening’ ones. although, i didnt know it was a lucid dream as it was so realistic. i walked down the stairs to get some cereal and got an almighty shock when a load of random people popped out from everywhere and started attacking me. i then awoke startled, thinking i was still in the dream and was scared to go back downstairs… is this normal??
The event of being attacked or being followed is very common.
In the past I used to be attacked a lot when I was in a vivid dream or even in normal dream, then one day all changed.
Now I am just followed and spied from someone, and that’s normal too.
In the past I thought it was something bad inside of me then after a little soul searching I realized that who we are right now is the bad part of us and who follow us is our inner-self who wants to rejoin with us or according to our present us “kill us”. The Ego is afraid to be terminated and sees this presence near us like a dark presence, but most likely is the other way around. Maybe it’s our mind that can only see black that interpret the other self in us as dark. If you think about it, when we close our eyes what what is that we see?
The other day after few months I had put lucid dreams on a side I started again to do my practice for inducing them and right away I had two the first and the second night (today is the forth night, is always good to take a break every other night or two). During the first one I also think I was about to astral project but I was scared and it didn’t happen.
Now a little info on the difference between the two from my point of view, even if I don’t astral project I learned to realize which one is which. After lucid dreaming for a while I found myself almost glued to the bed with this strange energy all around me. It was like I could feel electricity in the air and on my skin, the place was dark but I felt I recognize the atmosphere then I felt a Dark Presence which my mind translated as a Dark Ninja and I heard with him a buzzing noise. Right away my mind interpreted that as something bad like he wanted to do something strange to me so I pulled myself up with all my effort faked like I was some kind of feline and sent the message to him not to get close and so I jumped off the window and of course he followed like a shadow would do, then I woke up.
At night I always listen to the dreams I record in the morning. That gives me a better prospective on what happened 12 hours before. In fact all seemed more clear when I listened to the tape.
The intensive sensitivity I had on my skin, the electricity around me and the room were the perception of my 2nd body, the Energy Body. Instead the buzzing noise coming closer with my dear shadow friend was the noise that many say to hear when they are about to leave their astral body.
So in a nut shell what I want to say is that I don’t think that what one sees in dreams is always what one sees really because most of what we see that we don’t know very often is interpreted by our small mind (mind in Italian is =mente, which also means it lies) as dangerous. Our mind, I don’t know if you noticed, always want to give an interpretation even when it doesn’t know what it sees. Animals at times are interpreted as hostile if they are too big and of the wild type and people in darkness or people who come towards us are considered automatically enemy by our mind.
To finish, I also want to mention how astonished I am by how quickly I was able to have very lucid dreams after so many months I didn’t have any lucid dreams or even dreams.
The only things I do is to be in darkness and watch the darkness with closed eyes so that I can gather watchfulness energy in my eyes which will be used to remain awake when the sleep comes, and when I wake up at 6am I take 1 5mg of Vinpocetine and 1 500mg of acetyl l-carnitine.
For me these type of combination work great and it doesn’t interfere with my sleep and help me to have a lucid dream almost 90% of the time. Other supplements keep me too awake or even are too aggressive like Galantamine. I had a horrible experience with that. Good Krill Oil is great to increase dreaming recall, that reminds me I have to go and get some.:)
I hope my experience was of some interest to you.
Happy Lucid Dream!!!!!!:)
Nice, I have done it before If my memory serves me right, I just don’t have any idea that this lucid dream really is possible. great post, I will try to do the steps and practice lucid dreaming. It’s kinda fun if there is no harm doing it. Thanks
Oh it’s possible all right. Everyone can do it- it’s just that, like other skills in life, it’s easier for some people than others. Nevertheless, if your desire/will is strong enough, it WILL happen, and you’ll only want more!
I only realized that lucid dreaming wasn’t that common less than a year ago. when I overheard some coworkers talking about it i was surprised because i frequently have done that. Lucid dreams are common for me, the best experiences being where I explore a fictional world that i created in my own consciousness. I often can recall my dreams and think about what happens in them for hours after i have awaken. I don’t consciously have any cues that i am sleeping, when i enter a dream and stand wherever it may be i just either dream or realize right away that i am in a dream. I often will notice that my dreams may be foggy, and that could be a cue, and when i know this i have a tendency to wait in my dream because for some reason sometimes i need a buffer period before i can manipulate my dreams to be exactly how i want it. for instance the walls i imagine wont have enough detail to my liking and i wait until they satisfy me. I also have revisited places in my dreams, and instantly i know i am dreaming. I once had a really bad lucid dream when i moved into a new house, because i was in my own room in the dream i tried to watch tv. when i couldnt see my tv where it was supposed to be at i realized i was dreaming. then i got scared cause i began to wonder whether my house had ghosts. long story short, It sucks to get choked by a white naked ghost when you know it isnt real yet feel as if it is…
i was asleep once and i felt myself punch myself in the nose… do you know a reason for that?
After watching Donnie Darko a few times, I became interested in this whole lucid dreaming, and more so, what I could learn from them. I had a few question that I haven’t been able to answer myself as I’m not a master of lucid dreaming yet. I’m not sure if these are probable at all, but i thought i’d ask.
Humans only use i think around 12% of their brain capacity right? If I was dreaming, could I somehow open up that other 88%? lets say i wanted to know how to speak french. I’ve heard and seen people speak it many times, so my brain “knows” the words themselves. If i told myself i can speak french, would i be able to access the part of my brain that i normally couldn’t and speak french?
What if i wanted to go back in time and have a conversation with Nikola Tesla? Could i imagine a time machine behind me, step into it, close my eyes and then open them and be living in the late 1800’s? And if all that worked, could i introduce something like a calculator to him and see how he would react to it? Or would he react exactly as i “think” he would react?
My opinion from my own experience and from reading about it is that you are the one who decides what to experience into a dream so if you want something very intensely, most likely if you will focus all your energy in that direction you will eventually have in the close future some remarkable results, of course depending on your conviction and your inborn potentials.
Learning a language from past passive hearing or remembering a language you have learned in a past life is quite possible but according to what I heard in order for you to remember your past life or reaching your 100% brain power you have to go through your birth trauma. Yes sure you can remember flashes of a past life without going through birth but those won’t be much of a French lesson! 🙂
Moreover, in my opinion lucid dreams are just a travels into the thoughts World at the thought level and it might take a little more deep traveling to go behind the mind to reach to the state of Mind (or no-mind) in which your small mind become your tool instead of you being the tool of it. The case in which we are victim of our unconscious thinking is when we live in the Matrix but we are not conscious of the Matrix so basically our awareness is broken down to the 10%, the smartest people intellect case.
Going beyond the small mind of everyday life by being aware of ourselves 24/7 is the preparation that then will allow the opening of the doors for the other 90% to rush in, and according to whom did it, it will rush so fast that will feel like a lightening, hence enlightenment.
In the opinion of many enlightened masters 100% of total brain power is the state of no-mind when you see that you are not just a small bio-computer but much much more. Now you want to do all this to speak French? Maybe it’s best to grab a French book and practice a little every day and then wake up in a year or so and wala` you speak French, don’t you think so?
Time machine?! If I only had a penny for all the times I wished I had a time machine and went back to fix my past or to learn about the mysteries of life, but more I thought about that and more I realized that my dreaming to go back into a past that is gone and gone for good was deeply rooted into not accepting my present life totally. Which it’s funny how the two things kind of interconnect with each other. According to the enlightened master of the history you can’t be at your 100% unless you are totally into the here/now. ? The irony of life.
I hope my personal opinion on the interesting topic you brought up helped you a little.
Ps: Last night I had a lucid dream in which I woke up at a table in front of a person that had a look in the eyes that reminded me of someone (me or better my thinking eyes) he kept on talking nonstop, then I said, “STOP” he stopped for an instant, then again talking to himself. I said stop again and he barely stopped and looked angry then I understood, it’s impossible to stop him and if I talk to him I just nourish his conversation even more.
So I stood up and flew away.
Only later I was able to understand what was happening.
He was the representation of my rational mind which always talk even when I am silent and that it is impossible to stop it by force and that the only way to stop it is to walk away and most interesting, nobody was holding me at the table listening to it only my unawareness to be there was holding me there.
Keep on consciously dreaming.
Hi,
I was wondering about a dream I had once… I was on a flying aircraft carrier with my friends and enemy planes kept on attacking it. My aircraft reacted exactly how my brain thought it should of which I find creepy.
Hope you can reply.
P.S I woke up and thought about it, fell asleep again and was right back in the action.
Will.
Are lucid dream as amazing as they are said to be or are they like the dreams you have when you are younger or is that the same thing?
Lol I tried the water thing- I needed to pee in my non lucid dream.. Let’s say I woke up with a wet bed.
I have found a personal idea that dreams or lucidity can be measured into the brain chemistry so that the brain itself can recall these different levels of experiences to the point of being increased upon meditating. Activating our chakra should lend the ability to raise neuron-chemicals in our brain to become intensified and lend the capability for our brain to process this ongoing information, to memorise, remember and learn as much needed from the experiences. If we involve the silver cord into astral projection then we can estimate that the whole experience means our brain is working but shuts down, only activating a part of the brain. It then releases different chemicals into the mechanism so that events can be later remembered with the possibility to even experience the travel in a relaxed state. While astral projection seems to take practice to control it may provide sense into the fact that our chakra maybe the source to producing such intense events and send signals to our brain to produce enough chemicals to remember, recover and to function properly without too much damage to the brain mechanism. As for dreams these might have already been created into a different frequency of dimension in which our brain releases chemicals to recall, learn and work properly from it. To even repair daily activities when these sorts of chemicals are being released into the brain, help to restore from a hard work of brain exercises. These dreams might as well be a part of our chakra interacting into different dimensions and connected with our organ senses to release emotions, fears, past events or symbols into the feature and simply fix issues. Though if we argue that the brain itself can induce dreams using extra chemicals, this scenario concludes that the chakra and brain work in group. The brain will aid our chakra to become more valid and let our mind to experience more intense imaginations.
Actually I found my body turned to lead, like a lead blanket over me after a marijuana dose, I found it gave pleasant dreams, with no bad side effects
I love to see that global awareness about lucid dreaming is growing every day all around the world. Many people started playing with it just because of curiosity but after some time realized it is a part of bigger picture like meditation and spirituality is. World is changing, many times i feel it is going wrong way but events and people like these are bringing back hope that eventually truth and general well being will be on first place. I am editor of website about lucid dreaming where I tend to teach people about this phenomena. Many don’t even know about it, some heard but didn’t know what it is and big majority is thrilled when figure out that everyone can learn to be lucid.
Cheers
I have lucid dreams where I can feel touch, heat, cold, pain, and pleasure. I hear things and smell things that are not real. However I also have sleep paralysis with tactile hallucinations. where I am awake and conscience and controlling my hallucinations and able to feel them. It’s the best. But sometimes its scary when I’m not able to control it because of the possibility of hallucinations that are scary and cause physical pain and discomforts.
the best way to notice if your dreaming or not is to cover your nose, and try to breath , obviously if you can its a dream
Hey. Ok, so the thing is i have add and i take meds for it. At night, I always take melatonin, but I either never remember my dreams or I never have lucid dreams. I really want them though… Any tips? Im trying really hard, and the worst part is I’m only 14.. Am I strange or abnormal? Please help.. Im bullied and I feel this is my only way to make up for my misery.. Thank you.
I have been having lucid dreams for many years and have only now realized that it is not uncommon. I have many set dream patterns. When one of the set repeats itself, if find myself feeling happy (while asleep) that this set has repeated. Then I find myself taking measures to change the undesirable outcomes that I experienced the previous time. In the process I create/dream newer undesirable outcomes. But I often wake up telling myself what all I should do to change the new set of undesirable outcomes.
Even during my high school days, I would get dreams of integral signs moving around asking other mathematical symbols to interact. Some of them would be illogical and these would be an example of the undesirable outcome that I would try to set right the next time around.
I also try to dream the same the next night so that I can change the outcome. I have been able to tell myself what to dream on a particular night though not always successfully (about 20% success).
On the whole it gives me a lot of entertainment.
The first mention of WILD in the comments is interesting because it is also very close to a description of something called the ‘Death Posture’ developed by the english visionary artist Austin Osman Spare to evoke a visionary state of mind between waking and sleep akin to death – where the body could be brought to silence so the soul could enter the interior. Judging by his amazing artwork he must have been on to something very similar to lucid dreaming.
Tim,
My brother and American Dad introduced me to Lucid Dreams, so I searched it and stumbled upon this page. When i was about 11 I had found out that you could see girls naked in your dreams if you took control so… but since about 13 I haven’t been able to remember my dreams. I have a few questions though before I try it at 100%:
When I dream, I have no control over what I do or others around me do, it’s just like a movie where I’m the camera filming it. Have you ever experienced this before?
When your Lucid can you feel or smell?
What do these weird and grotesque reflections look like?
Thanks,
Luke
I lately have a dream sucking water from cameras ex FabiolA arena Gonzales the one who try to kill me the one who try to save me.
Paul AI http://www.jack-nicholson.info
Hi! I think I’ve been doing this for quite a long time now. But I didn’t realize what it was until my friend told me. I usually control my dreams, altering them whenever I don’t like what is happening. e.g. changing sceneries and clothing and stuff. But when I wake up, Im really tired and I was wondering if it’s the lucid dreaming that’s making me tired. I feel like i’ve been working really hard even when I’m sleeping. Is that natural? Should I keep trying to control my dreams more?
Thanks!
Try not control your dreams but just focus on waking up in them. Try to look at your hands when you are in the dream and say “I am awake in a dream”.
You can repeat that during the day to help you out to do it during the dream.
Then once you wake up if you are running too much after desires or running away from monsters yes you are using up your mental/awareness type of energy and your body basically wakes up in the morning like it has been sucked out.
Two ways for not waking up without energy are:
1) Imagine that you are sitting on a chair and wait for an invisible current to drag you around different places.
2) Let your self fall back and go into deeper state of dreams where you are closer to your center and you have more energy to use and there you can full around longer and also see deeper colors, smell, taste and touch in a more realistic way. 🙂 I hope this helps.
Everybody can change what they are doing or make a choice in their dreams, same as in real life. A lucid dream is when you actually alter the people or things with you or the environment around you.Did this help?
Sam,
Controlling your dreams is NOT what lucid dreaming is!
Lucid dreaming is simply knowing you are dreaming WHILE you are dreaming(not upon awakening). While in this state, it is like a very realistic virtual world where you can do just about whatever you want! Having control of your surroundings is just another aspect of it. Personally, lucid dreaming is way more fun(and easier) when you D’ONT try to control anything but instead, explore. It’s like free vacations!
Clary Sage essential oil induces lucid dreaming too.
I also had good experience with prolonging lucid dreams with spinnig and rubbing ones hands.
The challenge for me is to remember this fact when you are lucid dreaming.
I have been having lucid dreaming and never knew it. i am going to try this and see if i can accomplish full control. the only thing i fear is a possiblity of going into an inception kind of state…is this possible? please let me know.
This is plagiarism by Stephen LaBerge, who spent many years in India learning the Yoginitra- a type of meditation or a process where we try to switch off our conscious mind and try to see things using our subconscious mind. Instead of giving credit to the origin of this science, Dr. Stephen has went on to call it his own research for financial gain, without ever stating the source of its existence. Its laughable he even calls it “Lucid Dreaming” to cover up the piracy. Taking someone’s idea and repackaging it in a better and marketable way is “maybe” acceptable and some might call it entrepreneur ship, but stealing science and art, claiming it as owns research, copyrighting it and then profiting from questions the integrity and credibility of the person.
Tim – you have a great site, and a good cerebral visitors – thought i did make this clarification on the topic.
@Harry:
You are right that some WILD attempts in Lucid Dreaming resemble the Yoga Nidra practices. But the DILD Technique / critical awareness technique was invented or reeinvented by the german psychology professor Paul Tholey. In his book exploring the world of lucid dreaming Dr. LaBerge gives credit to Prof. Tholey.
The MILD Technique was indeed invented by Dr. LaBerge and has nothing to do with Yoga Nidra.
And in ‘Exploring the World of Lucid dreaming’ Dr. LaBerge explains that his first encounter with lucid dreaming was at a speach by a tibetian buddhist.
Lucid dreaming techniques are also very common in tibetian traditions.
Hey I’m 14 and I THINK I have been lucid dreaming. When I wake up in the morning to my alarm clock, I go back to sleep. I can hear in my head my mom yelling at me to get up, but in a dream. So then I can pretty much control my dream down to the last detail, even though I’m still a little groggy in my dreams like I usually am in the morning.
This is the weird part. Sometimes when I’m having a “lucid dream”, or whatever I have that I described above, I will wake up and then discover that I was dreaming about waking up, but only in a dream. So it’s a dream within a dream. It’s actually kind of maddening because I spend so much time getting ready for school in my dream, and then I discover that I am now twenty minutes late and had not even started.
The reason that I searched “how to lucid dream” on google though, and got sent here, is because obviously I want to have a better understanding of lucid dreams and how to control them. I’m not gonna lie, sex with any woman seems pretty sweet ;). But I also want to be able to use my dreams as a chance to learn more about myself, and possibly (I read this above) “study” in my dreams or practice things.
I tried last night, but to no avail. All that I really did was repeat in my head “I will have a lucid dream” over and over because I heard it worked. During the week though, I usually have to get up at 6:30 and go to bed at 12:00 but could definitely find a way to get homework done earlier if it meant lucid dreams. How much sleep do you recommend that I get every night (I understand that I may be a little behind on my sleep cycles)? Has anybody else had the same morning dreams I described? What do you think is the best method for me to learn how to lucid dream(by the way, I have ADHD, so it makes it hard to focus sometimes :P)?
Thanks, Sam Evans
“trying to fly (not recommended)”
NO, RECOMMENDED. Why does everyone think you’d have to try from somewhere up high, like jumping off a roof or out of a window? Hello, it’s a dream! Take off from where you stand, just like Superman!
It has worked for me on at least 3 occasions, although sometimes I freak myself out and have to remind myself that the ceiling isn’t really there, so it’s okay to smash through it…:D
Nice article and tips.
I began lucid dreaming by doing something very simple: Each night before going to sleep, I simply looked at the palms of my hands, and softly suggested, “Tonight in my dreams, I will see my hands and realize that I am dreaming.”
I would do this for about five minutes, then go to sleep. Within three nights, I dreamt of walking through a building when my hands popped in front of my face, and I thought, “My hands! This is a dream!”
The basic idea came from the book, Journey to Ixtlan, by Carlos Castaneda. But in my own book, I elaborated on the basic idea. Lucid wishes!
Ive heard from a friend that he had a lucid dream. He laid on his back with his arms spread out and closed his eyes but tried not to fall asleep his brain sent signals to his body like itching but he ignored it to tell if he was asleep then it felt like a heavy brick was on his chest the he felt like he was sleeping