Ok
hopefully I convinced you that lucid dreaming is real, it can be fun,
or it can be useful. Now we get down to it, how to lucid dream itself?
How do you notice your dreaming? It seems such an unconscious activity,
dreaming, it just happens and most of the time you don't remember
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Dream
Diary ~ Well its impossible not to dream but its
quite common not to remember your dreams. What we all need to do
is improve our dream recall and make our dreams more vivid and real.
The way to do this is to make a dream diary, make it the first thing
you do when the alarm wakes you, don't go back to sleep for 5 minutes
write down the last dream you were having, try to recall all the
details you can. As your getting up and getting ready for the day
go over the dream, the places and people in that dream and how you
felt in the dream itself. If you do this everyday your dreams will
become more real rich and interesting Just keeping a dream diary
and knowing that lucidity exists can make you pop into a lucid state
whilst asleep.
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Dream
signs ~ You work in the day as a bank clerk but
when you dream you always seem to become a trapeze artist, wake
up! Look for the odd things in dreams, some of the classics
can be that electric devices can not work (but sometimes they can).
Light switches are a classic example. You'll find it very difficult
to read in a dream, and the same when you're lucid. That is because
language is processed in the left part of your brain and dreaming
is a right brain activity. When you look away and look back at an
object/person or scene does it change when you look back again?
You might have noticed
the flaw in this reasoning: "Most things are odd in dreams". what
you need to do is force yourself to test yourself when dreaming,
in which case you need REALITY CHECKS.
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Reality
checks are the starter motor of lucid dreaming, if
you can't question the reality of what's happening around you in
your dreams then you'll never get lucid. But how do you remember
to check reality when you're dreaming? Well, most lucid dreamers
use techniques like looking at their hands during the day then asking
the question (out loud or in your head), "Am I dreaming?" The theory
is, if you do this enough during the day, when you dream, you will
glance at your hands and then the phrase "am I dreaming?" will pop
into your head! Bingo. You get lucid.
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I
used a wrist watch that bleeped on the hour, when it bleeped I asked
myself am I dreaming, the theory was I would see the watch in my dreams
and I would ask myself the same question. Upto now I've never seen
the dam bleeping watch (I can't seem to turn the bleep off now) but
doing it so many times in a day just naturally filtered into my dreams.
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I now seem to question
my dreams alot more and just spring into lucidity about 3-4 times
a month (I've been too busy to keep a dream diary but I get more
with its help).
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Read
all about lucidity or watch a film ~ Just reading
this site will get your mind excited enough about lucid dreaming
to have one and saving one of the images onto your desktop or printing
them out will remind your brain when you see it (I will have a Lucid
Dojo download section soon). In fact reading all you can about lucidity,
really saturating yourself will put you on the right track. There
are some good movies around to do with lucid dreaming at the moment,
"Waking Life" and "Vanilla Sky", I think I must
have been the last lucid dreaming in the world to have finally viewed
them but Waking Life in particular is worth the watch.
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Making
eye contact ~ Recently I've become lucid in dreams
because of the people in my dreams and how near I am to them. Like
in real life making eye contact is important and the way you hold
eye contact, how long with what intenseity can convey many meaning
from love to hate. If you find yourself looking into the eyes of a
person in your dreams hold the stare if you can believe me its the
sure fire way of getting past that dream/lucid barrier. Just reading
this should make your mind recall this in a dream and try to carry
out your actions. Now my dream characters tend to stare at me which
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What's
it like when you first become lucid? I had some lucid
dreams as a kid but of course back then I could never name them.After
that I don't remember having a lucid till much later, in fact it
was only after I started karate that they started to happen spontaneously
like when I was a child (I believe its the controlled breathing
in certain set form etc).
When it first happened
after I knew what it was in my adult life it was like being hit
by a bolt of lightning. I was normally dreaming about an old house
I use to live in when I was a kid, the dream was vivid but I wasn't
yet lucid. I was in my sisters room and noticed that it layout was
different to my memory and that when it hit me. "I WAS DREAMING"
bam it felt like I was rushing though my own body and then I'm there
in the room as real and as life like as you could ever imagine,
absolutely amazing.
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In a lucid
dream a few days ago I slowed down the process of entering the dream
to see if I could find out about the border area. I was creeping
up behind a sentry in a jungle and as I got nearer I realized I
was unarmed and I'd have to break his neck. This was the thing that
broke up my usual acceptance of the dream as even the thought of
doing that to someone is disturbing and breaks my waking morals.
I realized I was dreaming but instead of instantly zapping into
the scene I held back viewing the image like a projection in a movie
theater. The detail was astounding, the sentry was smoking a cigarette
and I casually watched the trail of smoke drift into the air from
behind him. To enter a scene like this, relax and then focus on
the detail and sort of reach out with your dream hands to grab either
a person of a piece of the dream image.
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Getting
the really high lucid dreams
You may
enter a lucid dream and it automatically be high its hard to tell
the difference till you had a low one and then you'll notice a big
split between the two. In a low
level lucid your waking mind can act very sleepy
and unconnected. Think of it like being woken up in the night, your
mind takes a little time to remember who you are, what your doing
etc etc. You do realize your dreaming but you might find it difficult
to access your memories and you tend to just accept what's going
on in your dream and walk around and act in a very unquestioning
way. You can easily slip back into your normal dreaming state from
a low lucid
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In a high
level lucid your waking mind can recall everything
about yourself, you feel fully alert, the environment that looked
a bit dislocated from your dream senses now looks real and solid.
All your senses are available to you, touch, taste, smell sight
and hearing but some you have to tune in to notice them. I always
awake in my bed after a high lucid instead of slipping back into
dream.
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No
matter if you wake into a low or high level lucid state try to do
one or all of the following to stabilize your lucid dream and make
it higher.
Look
at your hands and rub them together ~ Bring your
hands upto your face and look closely at the detail you can see
there, now rub both of your hands together vigorously. (practice
this in your waking life)
Press
a nerve point ~ Press the acupressure point beneath your
nose by running one of your hands up your arm, over your shoulder
and to the point under the nose. Now press firmly against the point,
this works in real life to stimulate mental alertness (try it) and
it will help your become switched on in the dream world.
Spin around
on the spot ~
The act of stimulating the centers of motion and balance in the
brain will make your mind more alert (another good reason to do
martial practice). Spin around on the spot in a bit of a comical
wonder woman way but don't hold your arms stiffly out, let centripetal
force of your spin carry them up and out.
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Ask for Increased
lucidity ~
Try not to speak too much in a lucid dream as I find your real lips
can move and may wake you. Speaking isn't really necessary as all
people in your dream can read your thoughts, so try that.
Try shouting the phrase
"Increase lucidity, Now!" or "Higher lucidity,
Now!" etc. If
you can try to combine it with the feeling you might get before
you perform a set piece of your art or before you fight an opponent.
For those that believe in it, let the ki/chi/prana wash over your
body spreading down from the head to the limbs by slowly breathing
out.. Your eyes should be wide, your mind in an extremely focused
state but a focus that is not about thought but about emptiness.
The eyes should feel like they are fixed on a spot miles into the
distance and if there is an object in the way it becomes as if its
almost not there, it should feel like you could melt lead with that
stare. If you can cultivate this in real life it will really help
your lucid state, you'll noticed its happened by the washing electric
feeling and the fact every hair on your body will be stood on end
even in warm sun.
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Keeping
the high lucid ~ After doing at least one of the
above you should recall your dream intention (what you want to do
in your lucid dream this time). If you don't have a dream intention
you tend to wander around a bit and try to think of what you want
to do. "Thinking" is a real killer, try to have an empty
Zen type mind at all times, you should have thought about exactly
what you want to do when lucid when you were awake (Like get to
the Lucid Dojo and practice).
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The
quick guide to lucid dreaming and Lucid Dojos site map |
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The learning
pages at the Crossroads, not martial based but some other techniques
and ways of waking up in your dream. |
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Shared
dreaming ~ Shared dreaming and shared lucid dreaming
is not a scientifically accepted phenomenon, however plenty of people
have reported it and this site and the Crossroads site is geared towards
dreamers sharing lucid dreams together. I've had a shared dream but
not a shared lucid dream... yet. The Crossroads site has more information
about shared dreaming. |
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