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'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.
Why lucid dreaming? When you go to sleep, you normally get into bed, close your eyes for a length of time, and then you either dream or aren't conscious of anything for a while before waking up. Normal sleep isn't very interesting!
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?
What if rather than being an active observer, you can be the one who can lead your dream to be whatever you want, rather than your dream leading you? This is what a lucid dreamer is; someone who is in total control of their dreams; able to explore new worlds that are not bound to the physical, societal and time-space laws of the real world.
If you want to become a lucid dreamer, how do you manage it? There are two main ways. The first is what's called a dream initiated lucid dream, or DILD. That's when the dreamer realizes they're dreaming in the middle of a dream, restoring their consciousness without leaving the dreaming state itself.
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.
How do you go about achieving these two states of lucid dreaming?
Dream Recall
If you're interested in lucid dreaming, dream recall is one of the most effective ways of learning to do it. Dream recall is the ability to remember your dreams. If you remember them, you're more likely to be able to recognize them while you're asleep. That's because most of us have the same dreams or dream elements more than once.
The way to practise dream recall is by keeping a dream journal. The dream journal is meant as a tool to write down anything you can remember about your dream, in order to recall it for the future. This should be done right after waking up; otherwise dreams will become harder to remember.
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 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.
Cycle Adjustment Technique
This was created by Daniel Love, and what it is, is setting your alarm to wake you up an hour and a half before your normal time. Once you've adjusted to waking up early, alternate your alarm to wake you up normally and early. During times you are to wake up normally, you're body will already be ready to wake up early, and therefore, you will be likely to be awake in your dream.
Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)
This method was described before. If you would like to achieve a lucid dream this way, all you have to do is to keep your mind awake while you body falls asleep. This is perhaps the most interesting way of entering a lucid dream. It is as if you are getting ready to watch a movie. You are in the real world, you sit on your couch, you turn on the TV and press play (starting to sleep), the screen is black (in the same way as when your eyes are closed), and all you have to do is wait for the movie to actually start.
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.
Technology has moved on in recent years, and there are various devices like dreaming masks and other scientific appliances which contain such things as strobe lights to induce lucid dreams.
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.
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!
