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 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.
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?
Normal sleep is just a method of refreshing ourselves for the busyness of the next day.However, it could be a lot more interesting if you could control the period of time in which you’re dreaming.
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.
So if you want to become a lucid dreamer how do you do it? There are actually two ways. The first way is having a dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD), which is where the dreamer is in a dream and then realizes that they are, restoring their sense of consciousness within the dream.
The second method is called WILD, and stands for wake-initiated lucid dream. This is when you start out awake and fall asleep, but do not experience a change in consciousness levels. This is the process of simply entering a dream, the same way you’d walk through a door, instead of waking up inside the dream.
So, what
methods can you use to induce these kinds of lucid dreaming states?
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 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 technique was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of the lead scientists in the field of lucid dreaming. To use this method, just tell yourself about an object or element that you will remember. When you dream, there’s a good chance you’ll see this element, then realize that you’re dreaming.
To use this method, first go to sleep. Set an alarm beforehand to wake you up a few hours later (about five or six). Once you wake up, don’t go back to sleep. Read for a little while, or think about lucid dreaming for a while, then head back to sleep.
To use this process, go to sleep with an alarm set to wake you up five to six hours later. When you wake up, don’t go right back to sleep. Instead, do something else, like think about lucid dreaming or read a book, for about an hour. Then go back to bed.
Cycle Adjustment Technique
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.
This method was mentioned above. To achieve a lucid dream using it, all that’s needed is keeping your mind awake while your body falls asleep. This is one of the most interesting ways of having a lucid dream. It’s as if you’re getting ready to watch a movie - you start in the real world, sitting on the couch, and turn on the television and press play when
you start to sleep). The screen begins black, just like when your eyes are closed, and all you need to do is wait for the movie or dream to start.
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.
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.
In recent years, the advance of technology has brought us new devices to help us dream lucidly. These include strobe lights, dreaming masks, and other gadgets thought to assist with lucid dreaming.
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!
Tags: conscious dreaming, dream control, lucid dream, lucid dreamer, lucid dreaming, lucid dreams