You’ve heard about lucid dreaming and you’re sure that it is something you want to try.However, you are at a loss as to how one becomes a lucid dreamer.
It can be helpful to know why you would like to be a lucid dreamer. What do you have to gain from the process? In order to find the profit in lucid dreaming we should begin with the normal dream process.
When you go to 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?
This kind of sleep allows us to get the rest we need to go about our activities the following day. Have you ever wondered, though, what it would be like if you could actually take control of your dreams and dictate their events?
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.
This sounds great, but how can you become a lucid dreamer? There are two ways to reach this state – one is by having a DLID, or dream initiated lucid dream. These are instances where the dreamer has taught themselves to recognize that they are having a dream and start to assert control over the direction of their dream.
The next way is called wake initiated lucid dream (WILD); in this process, you go from wake to sleep stage with no loss of consciousness. To put it more simply you walk through the door from here to your dreams instead of just happening upon them
Now that we know the basic how, what are the fine points to entering either one of these lucid dream realms?
Dream Recall
The easiest place to begin your lucid dream search is in dreams you have already had. When you can remember your dreams, you will be able to recognize when you have that dream again. Many times, we will have the same dream or part of a dream over and over.
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)
This simple process has you taking no action except to set an alarm that will waken you in less time than you normally sleep. For most of us about five or six hours will do it. After the alarm awakens you do not try to fall back to sleep. For about an hour you should read, watch TV or concentrate on lucid dreaming then go back to sleep.
According to research, this technique has about a 60% success rate. What has happened is you were awakened during an intense time of REM sleep. Your brain will not be completely aware that you are awake. Many times since REM stages tend to be longer, the episodes of lucid dreaming will be as well.
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 technique involves maintaining mental alertness even as your body shuts down for sleep. Think of it as if you are in a movies theater, with the film soon to begin; your closed eyelids are like the black screen just before the movie starts.
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.
Like many other areas of our life, technology has made its mark. Today you can find several electronic devices that can aid you in inducing lucid dreams. There are masks that can detect when you enter REM sleep then use a vibration, sound or small lights to induce lucidity.
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.
With self affirmations and self hypnosis combined with binaural sound, being a lucid dreamer is a goal which anyone can reach.
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