Are you ready for dreaming with awareness and dreaming with control, while the body sleeps? Is dream possible with control or is it just a science fiction? Nobody can easily get clear about this statement. Usually, REM sleep is the stage in which people dream. So, Lucid dream might be new to some, but actually it has a long history, and still it is practiced today in dozens of indigenous worldwide cultures. Lucid dream is sort of a dream sate in which you can consciously attain dream awareness even you are in the dream. Most importantly, it really allows you to control over the directions and characters in the dream to your all desire. Really amazing!
Lucid dreaming is not mysterious one - pills, headsets, VR goggles, and dream machines are not required but some simple techniques can make it possible for almost anyone. To enter the world of lucid dreaming; several techniques are less suitable to a regular daily work schedule and may be like interruption in your sleep, but if you can focus more on the various techniques and lucid dreaming in general, your lucid dreams will be the more frequent. For your convenience, we have put some effective techniques along with brief introduction of Lucid dreams.
Lucid dreams generally occur while you are in the middle of a regular dream and suddenly realize that you are dreaming. Many of us might have already enjoyed wonderful experiences in their created dream worlds without knowing the fact that they had Lucid dreams. They get confused between reality and dream when wake up. It's really an interesting theory. In general terms, the dream state has described as being an entry into the unconscious, so how can one perhaps be conscious during dreaming may surprise everyone. Conscious awareness during the dream state is the only aspect that makes Lucid dream unique from common dreams.
Here, you, yourself, are the architect and main character of your dream. Gradually, you start to have more personally relevant and transformative applications such as overcoming fears, exploring states of consciousness, or rehearsing challenging events of waking life. You may glad to know that if you have Lucid dreams, it would fill you with excitement after awakening also help us to face the day with a positive attitude and give us strength and motivation to discern between illusion and reality. Lucid dreaming really makes you more mentally wise, capable and happy as a person. It provides a multi-sensory experience so that you will represent all of your dream senses in the same way as you experience in the waking reality: touching, tasting, hearing, smelling and seeing. So, why not acquire awesome extra-ordinary experiences with Lucid dreaming…..
Sleep Interruption
A sleep interruption element is shared by many of the techniques. It is the process of decisively awakening during your normal sleep period and falling asleep a short time later for 10 to 60 minutes. Not so hard, you can easily do this with quiet alarm clock that brings you to consciousness without fully waking you. Make sure that you should not reset the clock in your sleep; if so, place it on the other side of the room, forcing you to get out of bed to turn it off. You can also try other biorhythm-based options, wherein one drinks lots of fluid particularly water or tea prior to sleep, forcing one to get up to urinate. This is a natural part of the MILD technique which trains you to arise immediately after your dreams end.
Sleep Continuity
Disrupting sleep decreases attempts at lucidity so keep required care to have continuity in sleep. For example, avoid drinking water for about an hour before going to bed as it may have trouble primarily falling asleep. Also, try to avoid caffeine and sugar before bed. As well, exercising during the day is a great way of preparing your body for sleep but not inside the three hours before bedtime.
Techniques for increasing the number of ‘lucid dreams’
WBTB
It stands for Wake-Back-To-Bed, little similar to sleep interruption. Here, you need to wake yourself up after 4 to 6 hours of sleep, just get out of bed and stay up for anywhere -between a few minutes to an hour- before going back to bed. People who sleep too deeply need to modify, just by changing your sleeping place, or the way you sleep return to sleep somewhere different than where you usually sleep. All these are necessary to teach your body that these different surroundings mean you want to have a more conscious sleep rather than a deeper sleep. Thus, more your level of consciousness during sleep the more your chances to have lucid dreams. Even, it is believed that MILD/WBTB combination increases your success rate for lucid dreams.
MILD
It stands for “Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams" or “Mnemonically Induced Lucid Dream"
Here, interested people should concentrate on their intention to remember or to recognize that you are dreaming. You can also repeat a short mantra in your head, like “Next time I'm dreaming, I will remember I'm dreaming”. Just keep repeating and visualizing the mantra until you are sure that your intention is set in your mind or you fall asleep. Even after stopping, you still try to make sure the last thing in your mind before falling asleep is your same intention to remember to recognize that you are dreaming. Make sure that you repeat this until you have fallen asleep, hopefully you will re-enter the dream, and also you will recognize the dream-sign and lastly become lucid.
WILD
It stands for “Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream” or “Wake-Initiation of Lucid Dreams”
WILD technique is similar to self-hypnosis, even some people believe that WILD is not actual dream but it is sort of astral projection. It is better to induce in the early morning after waking up or in afternoon naps because the sleep cycle will continue with a REM period at that time. For WILDs to occur, make your body to complete relax, now just tense your body starting from your shoulders and working downwards then back up to the face. This relaxation, meditation, or trance techniques should make your body feel slightly heavy and relaxed. Eventually, you will likely enter sleep paralysis without losing conscious awareness of your body. You will also get a tingling and buzzing sensation which might be so strong that you feel that you will die, but they are safe.
In case, you become completely paralyzed then also just imagine your dream hand or spirit hand going up and leaving your physical hand behind. That means, you should have two separate bodies, a dream one and a real one. Remember that, you should control your dream body only if you control your real one, you will wake up. Now, just try to roll out of bed into your dream world. You will still be paralyzed after waking up from a lucid dream that you started using one of the WILD techniques. This phenomenon accompanied by hallucinations.
Diamond Method of meditation
It can shortcut the overall learning curve of Lucid Dreaming. Try to visualize your life, both awake and dream-life on a diamond during meditations. You can call this diamond the Universe, others God, and even your Spirit. Point of the view is that to begin to recognize that life is happening all at once and only our Perception arranges our dramas into linear or timed order. This method is also known by Remote Viewers and just a slight shift in awareness.
Also, try some simple tips:
- Just repeatedly ask “Am I dreaming?” question during the day and try to perform some reality checks whenever you remember. With practice, you will automatically remember it during your dreams.
- Keep a dream journal may be the most important step towards lucid dreaming. Just keep your journal close by your bed at night and write in it immediately after waking. This recording helps you find it easier to repeat your dream as well to recognize your common dream elements. It also helps you to recognize things that are unique to your dreams.
- You can also mark an “A” which stands for “awake” on your palm. Whenever you notice the “A” during your waking hours just challenge whether you are awake or asleep. After regular practice, you may see the “A” in your sleep and become lucid eventually.
- Try to immerse yourself in the subject of lucid dreaming by looking on lucid dreaming websites, read books about it, watch movies with lucid dreaming such as Waking Life, Vanilla sky, Inception, etc…
All mentioned tips and techniques to lucid dreaming success are just depends on your practice, practice, practice. It takes long for 10min only at most a day. The two most important things to remember are to practice and be consistent for the most success!
