Tactics Of A Lucid Dreamer
So you want to lucid dream. Well that’s a good start, at least you know what you want to do; but how exactly do you go about it?
You also need to think about exactly why you want to become a lucid dreamer. What are the benefits of dreaming lucidly? To help us find the benefits, let us first look at ‘normal’ sleep.
Why is lucid dreaming different from normal sleep? When you lie down to go to sleep, your eyes close and hopefully you go to sleep. When you wake up you remember dreaming something or you don�t remember anything at all.Kind of strange when you think about it.
Normal sleep just seems to serve the purpose of simply refreshing ourselves in order to live out the next day. But what if you could control that period of time that you have dreams?
How would you like to control what you do while in your dream? Control the events that happen in it in any way you like. A lucid dreamer is in complete control of their dreams.They are able to enter the spiritual realm of existence far removed from what exists in the physical waking hours.
How can a person achieve this? How do you learn to be a lucid dreamer? DILD refers to a dream initiated lucid dream. You need to realize you are dreaming. In other words, if you are dreaming and know it, you are having a lucid dream.
Method number two is a wake initiated lucid dream, or WILD. This is when the dreamer begins awake, then goes to being asleep, but without losing consciousness. The dreamer enters their dream as though via a door, instead of waking up inside a dream he or she is already having.
So what are the actual methods used to induce these two types of lucid dream experiences?
Remember your dreams.
If you’d like to lucid dream, perhaps one of the most successful way of doing so is known as dream recall. Dream recall is simply the ability to remember one’s dreams. By remembering your dreams, you are able to recognize them when you are sleeping, because most likely, you will have the same dream, or at least aspects of it, more than once.
Writing down everything you can recall dreaming, this is called keeping a dream journal. The more you do this the more likely you will be to remember your dreams. If possible do this as soon as you wake up as this is the time when you will remember the most about your dreams.
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)
This is a technique that was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists studying lucid dreaming. The intent here is to simply tell yourself that you will remember something, like an object for example and then in the dream, when you see this object you will realize it is a dream.
Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)
The way you do this one is, only plan on sleeping for a few hours like five or six. Set your alarm if you need to so you will wake up. After you have slept the few hours and wake up, stay up. Find something to do to stay awake. Do a little house work; Think about what you might like to do in your lucid dreams. Return to bed in an hour.
According to Dr. LaBerge, this technique has a success rate of about sixty percent. That’s because you’ve awakened in the middle of the sleep process, while you’re still in the middle of an REM cycle and not completely aware. It’s like telling your mind that you’re interested in lucid dreaming.
Cycle Adjustment Technique
Daniel Love came up with this way to accomplish lucid dreaming. Start getting up an hour and a half earlier. After you get used to this, go back to getting up at your usual time. Since you are used to getting up earlier but don�t have to now, your mind is still thinking you are awake, therefore you will be more likely to be aware in your dream.
Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)
The trick is to keep your conscious mind aware and let your physical body sleep. This can prove to be very interesting. Lay back, close your eyes and wait for your dream to begin. Imagine you have put a movie in the DVD player and you are waiting for it to begin. Focus on the black screen until your dream begins to play out.
There are several different ways to hold onto awareness, including imagining going up or down a flight of stairs, chanting, counting numbers, breaths, or anything else, breathing control, and muscle relaxation. These and other self-hypnosis methods will give you something to concentrate on, but don’t do this when you’re tired, or you may lose consciousness.
They now have tools you can use to make it even easier to induce lucid dreams. You can get dreaming masks and devices with strobe lights to help you get into the right state of dreaming.
The best and easiest way to achieving the state of lucid dreaming is by using headphones.You should listen to sounds that naturally alter your brainwaves, these are called binaural beats.
These work by synchronizing the two hemispheres of the brain and have the effect of almost instantaneously changing your brainwaves to the REM frequency needed for a lucid dream to occur.
Anyone can learn to be a lucid dreamer. Practice the self hypnosis and keep telling yourself when awake that you will be aware when you are dreaming. This will prepare you for your lucid dream experience.