Dreams And Lucid Dreaming
Many people want to experience a lucid dream. If you’re among them, the first thing you need to think about is how you want to go about learning.
You’ll need to think about why you want to be a lucid dreamer, as well as the benefits of it. First, we’ll take a look at normal sleeping.
Before we look at lucid dreaming, think about normal sleep; you get into bed, close your eyes for a certain length of time, and either dream or just see black for a few hours and then wake up! It isn’t very interesting now is it?
Instead of having to observe passively, you could be the person who leads your dream to be whatever you would like.
Lucid dreamers are in complete control of their dreams. This allows them to explore new worlds in their mind and expand the scope of their dreams. Lucid dreamers can also conscious choose not to have nightmares – they just change the dream.
If you want to become a lucid dreamer, how do you manage it? There are two main ways. The first is what’s called a dream initiated lucid dream, or DILD. That’s when the dreamer realizes they’re dreaming in the middle of a dream, restoring their consciousness without leaving the dreaming state itself.
The second way is having a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD); where the dreamer goes from being awake, to being asleep with no change in consciousness. In other words, the dreamer enters their dream as if it were a door, rather than just “waking up” in a dream.
So, what
methods can you use to induce these kinds of lucid dreaming states?
Dream Recall
If you’re interested in being a lucid dreamer, one of the most successful methods you can use is dream recall. This is the ability to remember your dreams. By developing this ability, you’ll be more readily able to recognize them while you’re asleep.
That’s because you’re likely to have the same dream or dream elements on more than one occasion.
The best way to practice dream recall is through keeping a dream journal. This is a tool in which you write down whatever you can remember about your dream so you can recall it in the future. Do this right after you wake up – dreams are harder to remember the longer you wait.
Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)
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)
According to LaBerge, this technique has about a sixty percent success rate. That’s because you wake up in the middle of your sleep cycle, with your mind not fully aware, and are still in the middle of your REM cycle. This results in something a lot like telling your mind you want to dream lucidly and having it obey!
According to Stephen LaBerge, there is a 60% success rate of this technique. The reason why is that you would have woken up during the process of sleep, meaning that your mind is not fully aware of this, and are still in the middle of REM cycle. So basically, it’s like going to your mind and telling it that you want to lucid dream.
This technique was created by Daniel Love, and involves setting an alarm that will wake you an hour and a half before you’d normally get up. Once you’re used to waking up early, alternate between the early alarm and your old alarm. When you’re waking up normally, your body will already be expecting the early alarm, and make you more likely to “wake up” in your dream.
Created by Daniel Love, this method involves setting an alarm to wake you one and a half hours before your normal wake-up time. Once you get used to this early time, alternate your alarm between a normal time and the early one. When your alarm is set to wake you normally, you’ll find your body’s already ready to wake up early. That makes it more likely that you’ll wake up in your dream, and dream lucidly.
Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)
Several ways to stay aware but not awake include imagining descending or going up stairs, chanting, counting, breathing control, counting your breaths, and relaxing your body from head to toe. This all falls under self hypnosis. Don’t do this when you’re tired, or you’ll simply fall unconscious.
A number of ways to stay aware are counting, imagine climbing or descending stairs, chant, control your breathing, count your breaths, and concentrate on relaxing the body from their toes to head. (This all falls under the term ‘self hypnosis’.) It is best to do this when you are not tired, like in the afternoon.
The most reliable and easiest way of inducing a lucid dream may be listening to binaural beats sound frequencies through headphones.
Definitely the easiest and most reliable way of inducing a lucid dream however is by listening to binaural beats sound frequencies via headphones.
These work by synchronizing the two hemispheres of the brain and have the effect of almost instantaneously changing your brainwaves to the REM frequency needed for a lucid dream to occur.
Combined with the self hypnosis sessions and affirmations to prepare your subconscious mind beforehand, becoming a lucid dreamer is something that everyone can now experience!
Do You Want To Lucid Dream?
If you are not quite sure what it is, Lucid Dreaming is actually pretty simple. Lucid Dreams are those where you are aware of the fact that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. How lucid exactly your lucid dream is depends on how much control you have over the events of the dream, how stable the dream is and how many of the events of the dream you can remember once you wake up from it.
Having control over the dream is the most important part of a Lucid Dream. It’s an amazing thing to be in a dream yet to know that it is in fact a dream. You are in the driver’s seat of your dream and you can experience anything you have ever wanted to.
Just think about this for a moment. A Lucid Dream is like reality in every aspect; you can se, feel and use all of your senses, but with the knowledge that you are perfectly safe and can do literally anything you want. Lucid dreaming is a virtual reality experience far beyond the capabilities of any computer technologies to produce.
More and more people are learning how too use the skill of Lucid Dreaming. Most of us have a Lucid Dream from time to time but just think how wonderful it would be to be able to have a Lucid Dream anytime you want!
If you truly want to open up a new path into some pretty amazing experiences then you probably want to learn just what you can do with these dreams. Imagine, if you will, being able to create your own universe, your own movie saga, create novels and book, or even experiment and design things all in the state of peaceful relaxation and slumber. You could even time travel and speak to people you have never met or have not seen in many years. Your dram has no limits!
Having regular Lucid Dreaming experiences is something which until recently it took months to achieve. People would spend as long as a year in training to have their first Lucid Dream – and it remained out of reach for some people no matter how long they tried.
Some Simple Ideas that May Produce a Lucid Dream
Some people report that certain foods can encourage Lucid Dreaming if consumed shortly before sleeping – Mustard, Orange Juice and dairy products among them.
Some other people have noted that pickles, ice cream, popcorn, and even fish have assisted them. These may not be as effective in aiding Lucid Dream occurrences. The idea that some people claim is that these foods containing high sugar, high fat, and even high acid content, prepare your brain for the session. They even claim that they prepare your brain to recall the Lucid Dream afterwards. The main issue is that these foods hamper the body and minds ability to produce restful sleep.
Can Technology Assist You?
New advances in technology have made it easier for people to experience Lucid Dreaming. Some of these devices use LEDs – there are sleep masks and eyeshades which can detect REM sleep and set off a LED, reminding the sleeper that they are dreaming. This then lets them take control over their dream.
One of the most exciting developments in Lucid Dreaming comes to us from the world of audio technology. Audio researchers have discovered a process called binaural beats, in which different frequencies are played into each ear.
Binaural beats serve to induce a synchronizing in both hemispheres of the brain. As if instantly these two special frequencies induce the brain to produce a state of REM sleep. This is where your Lucid Dream can begin.
If you have always wanted to experience Lucid Dreaming for yourself, binaural sound presents the quickest and easiest way to begin.
What To Expect With Conscious Dreaming
Also called lucid dreaming, conscious dreaming is a state where you are aware that you are in the middle of a dream and can then start to control the goings-on of the experience. You can do anything that you can imagine while having a lucid dream, as soon as you understand that you are dreaming.
The idea of being able to do anything you want in your dreams is amazing to think about, but anyone can learn to do it. It is not hard at all to do and offers an outlet for living out your fantasies and releasing your hidden desires.You can learn step-by-step proven ways to achieve the state of lucid dreaming.
First, you have to know what your goal is; are you looking to be able to get more enjoyment from your dreams or would you like to use this ability to help you improve your life in other areas? Whatever the reason, decide what it is that makes you want to discover conscious or lucid dreaming.
After you define the reasons for wanting to learn to dream consciously, you can learn the steps to get your mind on the right level. You need to be in the right state of mind to be able to lucid dream. A good place to start is recalling your dreams. This means to remember any dreams you have had.
To start conscious dreaming, you have to learn to recall the dreams you have. The way which seems to help most people with this is to keep a dream diary by your bed. When you awake, write down every detail you can remember from your dreams. Do this as soon as you wake; our dreams have a way of slipping away from us quickly.
Keeping a dream diary trains your mind to recall and recognize dreams; this makes it easy to “awaken” during a dream and start asserting control over it.
Hypnosis is another widely used method for lucid dreaming. It is a good way to get into the state of mind you need to begin lucid dreaming. A hypnosis session works quickly to help people to recall the tiniest details in their dreams. This can be done in only a few sessions. Once you have this level of dream recall, you are ready to proceed with conscious dreaming.
You may wake up suddenly when you are having a conscious dream in the beginning. This is not unusual. Go over the events in your dream as you drift back to sleep. If you focus on them hard enough, you will go back into the same dream and perhaps control the events and the outcome of them.
Another method which many find useful for inducing conscious dreaming is to wake up a few hours earlier than normal. Simply set your alarm about two hours early and then go back to bed after awakening. In these last few hours before you are accustomed to waking up, it is much more common to have lucid dreams. These dreams can be hard to tell from simply laying awake and daydreaming! This is a good way to begin conscious dreaming.
Figure out your sleep patterns, as this will help you to figure out when the best times for you to have conscious dreaming experiences are. Don’t short yourself on sleep too much though; being sleep deprived makes it harder to have lucid dreams.
However, you may be glad to find out that lucid dreaming can help to alleviate insomnia and other sleep problems. When you learn how to use the ability of conscious dreaming, you can train your mind to stop the worries which keep you up.
You may think that learning lucid dreaming takes years of practice, but in fact it’s not so hard at all to learn – with just a little practice, you can be a conscious dreamer too!
In fact, conscious dreaming is something that everyone can do. Just practice and use these techniques to develop your own lucid dreaming abilities – you’ll find that it has a lot to offer.