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Controlling Your Dreams

If you live to be 90, you will have spent about 30 years of your life in an unconscious state of "sleeping" and "dreaming".

Lucid dreaming allows you to become conscious of the fact that you are dreaming - while you are dreaming. This awareness can range from very faint recognition of that fact to broadening your awareness beyond what you have ever experienced in your waking life.

What you do with lucidity depends on the levels of skill you develop through experience and practice. As a lucid dreamer, you can influence your dream's structure and characters...but it is not a given that your lucid dream will be about what you want it to be about. Even seasoned lucid dreamers encounter psychological and developmental challenges in their dreamscape.

A regular dream is filled with the convoluted subtleties of the subconscious mind enumerating its issues before a largely unconscious dreamer...but a lucid dreamer has the opportunity to consciously explore at any level.

Lucid dreams usually occur while you are in the middle of a regular dream and you suddenly realize that you are dreaming. You are then "lucid", and may enter one of many levels of lucidity. At the lowest level, you are dimly aware that you are dreaming, but you don't think rationally enough to realize that events/people/actions in your dream are not real and pose no threat. At the highest level, you are fully aware that you are asleep but you have complete control over the actions in your dream. You can control your dreams using the lucid dreaming methods that follow.

LUCID DREAMING TECHNIQUES

1. While awake during the day, don't drink any fluids, and repeatedly ask yourself, 'Am I dreaming?'. With practice, you will automatically remember to ask yourself the same question while you are dreaming - 'Am I dreaming?'

2. Keep a dream journal. This is perhaps the most important step towards lucid dreaming. Keep it close by your bed at night, and write in it immediately after waking. Or you can keep a recording device if you find it easier to repeat your dream out loud. This helps you recognize your common dream elements (people from your past, specific places, etc.). It also tells your brain that you are serious about remembering your dreams!

3. Learn the best time to have a lucid dream. By being aware of your personal sleep schedule, you can arrange your sleep pattern to help induce lucid dreams.


• Studies strongly suggest that a nap a few hours after waking in the morning is the most common time to have a lucid dream.
• Dreaming commonly occur right before waking up and usually run in 60-minute cycles during sleep. If you are working on dream recall, it may be helpful to try waking yourself up during one of these cycles Iinterrupted dreams are the ones you most often remember.

4. Try Stephen Laberge's mnemonic induction of lucid dreaming (MILD) technique.


• Set your alarm clock to wake you up 4 1/2, 6, or 7 1/2 hours after falling asleep.
• When you are awakened by your alarm clock, try to remember the dream as much as possible.
• When you think you have remembered as much as you can, return to your place of rest, imagining that you are in your previous dream, and becoming aware that you are dreaming. Say to yourself, "I will be aware that I'm dreaming," or something similar. Do this until you think that it has "sunk in." Then go to sleep.
• If random thoughts pop up when you are trying to fall asleep, repeat the imagining, self-suggestion part, and try again. Don't worry if you think it's taking a long time. The longer it takes, the more likely it will 'sink in,' and the more likely you will have a lucid dream.

5. Attempt the WBTB (Wake Back To Bed) Technique. This is the most successful technique.

• Fall asleep.
• Set your alarm clock to 5 hours after you fall asleep.
• After you wake up, stay up for an hour with your mind focused on lucidity and lucidity only.
• Go back to sleep using the MILD technique.

6. Try attempting the WILD (wake initiated lucid dream) technique. Basically what it means is that when you fall asleep you carry your awareness from when you were awake directly into REM sleep and you start out as a lucid dream.


• The easiest way to attempt this technique is if you take an afternoon nap or you have only slept for 3-7 hours.
• Try to meditate into a calm but focused state. You can try counting breaths, imaging ascending/descending stairs, dropping through the solar system, being in a quiet soundproof area, etc.
• Listening to Theta bin aural beats for an amount time will easily put you into a REM sleep.
• See the warnings at the bottom, as these are very important.

7. Another technique for overall "dream awareness" is the Diamond Method of meditation, which can shortcut the overall learning curve of Lucid Dreaming.


• When one meditates, try to visualize your life, both awake and dream-life as facets on a diamond. Some choose to call this "diamond" the Universe, others God, and even "your Spirit." The point here is to begin to recognize that life is happening all at once. It is only our "Perception" that arranges our dramas into linear or "timed" order. So just as a diamond just is, each facet if viewed as an individual experience, still is going on at the same time the "Dream Body" experiences as well. This method is also known by Remote Viewers. Remember it is just a slight shift in awareness that this exercise calls for.

8. Try marking an "A" (which stands for "awake") on your palm. Every time you notice the "A" during your waking hours challenge whether you are awake or asleep. Eventually you may see the "A" in your sleep and become lucid.

9. Get into the habit of doing reality checks. Do at least three reality checks every time something seems out of the ordinary, strongly frustrating, or nonsensical, and that habit will carry on into your dreams. In a dream, these will tell you that you are sleeping, allowing you to become lucid.

In order to remember to do reality checks in dreams, you need to establish a habit of doing reality checks in real life. One way to do a reality check is to look for "dream signs" (elements that frequently occur during your dreams, look for these in your dream journal), or things that would not normally exist in real life, and then conduct the reality checks. When these actions become habit, a person will begin to do them in her or his dreams, and can come to the conclusion that he/she is dreaming. Frequently doing reality checks can stabilize dreams. This is also known as DILD (Dream Induced Lucid Dreams). Some tactics include:

• Looking at a digital clock to see if it stays constant;
• Looking at a body of text, looking away, and then looking back to see if it has changed;
• Flipping a light switch;
• Looking in a mirror (your image will most often appear blurry or not appear at all in a dream). However, your figure can be horribly disfigured in a mirror, frightening you into nightmare or a dream.
• Pinching your nose closed and trying to breathe;
• Glancing at your hands, and asking yourself, "am I dreaming?" (when dreaming, you will most often see greater or fewer than five fingers on your hand);
• jumping in the air; you are usually able to fly during dreams
• Poking yourself; when dreaming, your "flesh" might be more elastic than in real life; a common reality check is pushing your finger through the palm of your hand;
• Pinch/poke your arm. In a dream, you shouldn't be able to feel your pinch/bite. However, this may not work since in a dream, actions can still have effects on your body.
• Try leaning against a wall. In dreams, you will often fall through walls.

10. Be Pro-active about your dream. Have a goal in mind and try to accomplish it. Listen to Bin aural Beats. Bin aural Beats are often used to induce lucid dreams, and many assure this method dramatically improves success rate. Theoretically, listening to Bin aural Beats lowers brain frequencies, triggering different effects such as relaxation and dream induction. Look for Theta bin aural beats, as they use the same brainwave frequency used in dreams. You may also want to listen to Alpha and Delta binaural beats as they help you relax and fall into non-REM sleep.

"'Look through previous dreams in your Dream Journal"'. if you start to notice patterns in your dreams, you will notice dream-signs, or certain things that continue to reappear in your dreams. this may be as basic as all dreams are in your backyard, or all your dreams have fans in them. get into the habit of doing dream checks every time you see your dream sign, and eventually you'll see your dream sign IN a dream, do a check and realize you're dreaming.

Lucid Dream Hand Method

As you prepare for sleep each night, sit in your bed and take a minute to relax. Look at the palms of your hands for 30 minutes, and repeat to yourself, "I will dream about", "your own dream". Continue to repeat this phrase, "I will dream about...(fill in the blank)", as you look at your hands. After the thirty minutes, or whenever you get tired turn off the light and go to sleep.

When you wake during the night, look at your hand, and say the same phrase. If you did not see your hands, remind yourself of your intent to see your hands in the next dream. With consistent practice of this phrase each night before sleep, you will suddenly see your hands pop up in front of you when dreaming, and consciously realize, "My hands! - This is a dream!".