So You Want To Be A Lucid Dreamer…
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?
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.
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?
Instead of having to observe passively, you could be the person who leads your dream to be whatever you would like.
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.
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
A simple place to start when you would like to lucid dream is in dream recall. This is where you can remember and perhaps recite your dream in part or in whole. You are very likely to have the same dream more than once in your life and being able to remember them will alert you the next time you have that particular dream.
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 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.
According to LaBerge, this technique has about a sixty percent success rate. That’s because you wake up in the middle of your sleep cycle, with your mind not fully aware, and are still in the middle of your REM cycle. This results in something a lot like telling your mind you want to dream lucidly and having it obey!
Cycle Adjustment Technique
This technique was created by Daniel Love, and involves setting an alarm that will wake you an hour and a half before you’d normally get up. Once you’re used to waking up early, alternate between the early alarm and your old alarm. When you’re waking up normally, your body will already be expecting the early alarm, and make you more likely to “wake up” in your dream.
Wake-initiation of Lucid Dreams (WILD)
When you consider all the methods and techniques wake initiated is by far the most intriguing way to enter lucid dreams. What you have to do is manage to keep the brain aware while the rest of you falls asleep. You can enter your dreams much like entering a theater. You go into watch the movie, set down and the light go down, (sleep) dark envelopes you just before the movements on the screen appear.
Several ways to stay aware but not awake include imagining descending or going up stairs, chanting, counting, breathing control, counting your breaths, and relaxing your body from head to toe. This all falls under self hypnosis. Don’t do this when you’re tired, or you’ll simply fall unconscious.
First, it was cds and DVD’s now we have devices that will help you lucid dream. Masks and other electronic apparatuses can be used to recognize REM sleep and give you a light buzz or light to make you aware that you are dreaming.
The most reliable and easiest way of inducing a lucid dream may be listening to binaural beats sound frequencies through 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!
Lesley Groft is a writer for the popular http://www.luciddreaminginfo.com site. You can enjoy the incredible experience of being a lucid dreamer and you can try it yourself when you get twenty nine Free lucid dreaming Audios when you visit here.