Sunday, July 4, 2010

An Exciting New Experience As A Lucid Dreamer

By Lesley Groft

You have heard about lucid dreaming and think it is something you would like to do. That is a good starting point but exactly how do you begin and what are the steps to being a successful lucid dreamer?

It's important to think about why you'd like to become a lucid dreamer, too. There are a number of benefits to dreaming this way, but first we should look at normal sleep, so we'll understand them.

Have you ever considered the process of sleep before? Every night you make preparations, crawl into bed and go to sleep. You may have dreams or nightmares or all may just be dark for a few hours, it is rather boring isn't it?

Instead of having to observe passively, you could be the person who leads your dream to be whatever you would like.

Consider the idea of taking control of your own dreams. What would it feel like to purpose what direction your dreams would take you? Explore new worlds that are only limited to your control and imagination. This is what it means to be a lucid dreamer, kind of the ultimate fantasy world where you call all the shots.

Are you are ready to begin but remain unsure of how any of this is possible? That is ok we are getting there, there are two way to enter lucid dream state. The first is a dream initiated lucid dream, (DILD). This happens once you have already begun to dream and during the dream, you come to the realization that you are indeed dreaming. At this point, you have brought an element of control to the dream because your conscious mind is now involved.

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 exactly do you induce either one of these lucid dream states?

Dream Recall

If you're interested in being a lucid dreamer, one of the most successful methods you can use is dream recall. This is the ability to remember your dreams. By developing this ability, you'll be more readily able to recognize them while you're asleep. That's because you're likely to have the same dream or dream elements on more than one occasion.

To make dream recall easier you can keep a dream journal. This is a notebook or pad of paper that has the sole purpose of recording your dreams. Whenever you have a dream, you should write all you can remember in the journal as soon as you wake up. The longer you are awake the more details of the dream that will be lost.

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD)

Developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge the idea is to tell your self to recall an object or situation from your dreams, before you go to sleep. You can look back to your dream journal for an example of a recurring them like a pink haired woman. Anything that when you see it in your dream will tell you that you are in fact dreaming.

Wake-Back-to-Bed (WBTB)

To use the wake back to bed method you need do little initially beyond setting your clock to wake you up. Set your clock for about five hours sleep give or take an hour, once the alarm goes off get up and do something. Read a book, your dream journal anything but going back to sleep, after approximately an hour you may go back to bed.

In studies done this method has 60% of the time. When you are interrupted in the middle of sleep, you are interrupting rapid eye movement sleep. This is the time when dreams are the most active. Therefore, you stop in the middle of your best dreamtime only to return to sleep a short time later, improving your chances of entering lucid dream state.

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 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.

To get into this correct frame of mind if you will there are a few tricks you can use. Focus seems to be key so try to focus your mind on things like your breathing, counting, perhaps chant or meditate. In a way, you are practicing self-hypnosis. Use this technique when you are not extremely tired, perhaps during a late nap.

Recent technological advances mean that dreaming masks and other useful devices have been developed. They contain strobe lights and other devices that are believed to induce lucid dreaming.

If you want to increase, your chances of success use the method that has proven to be the best. Using a set of headphones listen to binaural beats at the right sound frequencies during sleep.

These work by synchronizing your brain's two hemispheres. They almost instantly allow your brain waves to reach the frequency that occurs in REM sleep and which is needed for you to be a lucid dreamer.

With self-hypnosis and a conscious preparedness before you go to sleep anyone can practice lucid dreaming.

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