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how its done

 

On this page you will find about dream signs, intent, moving into a lucid, techniques, links to the WILD page, links to the Gatekeeper page, how to get higher in lucid dreams, a lucid check list and links to webpages dealing with lucid techs.

 

STAGE 1 - Priming the brain

Tell me How! - The good thing is you're already half way there. Just reading about lucidity can make you lucid when you sleep. You're priming your brain to take in the information that this "can" happen and "will" be exciting. To increase your chances you need to read as much as you can about the subject, so use the links page and search the Internet. The following general advice should get you having DILD's (Dream-Initiated Lucid Dreams) basically lucids that occur whilst already dreaming.

Dream journals -You might never have paid any real attention to your dreams ever in your life. In fact, you may never really remember any dreams you have, and think you never dream. Not dreaming is impossible; We all move into a dreaming phase of our sleep a few times in a night. You might not remember them when you wake but you are having them.

You need to train your mind that dreaming is important to you. You need, in short, to improve your dreaming recall. Keep pen and paper by the side of your bed and make it your routine to record every scrap of dream you can remember on waking. If you can't remember any of your dreams at all, and you want to lucid dream, you'll have to take more drastic measures. Set a loud alarm for a time in the morning one hour before you normally get up. This should interrupt a dream.

Just keeping a dream diary is one of the best ways of becoming lucid. If you are lazy and don't do it, you can't moan about not having lucid dreams. Your dream recall will improve, and putting the focus on your dreams will help to make your regular dreams more vivid, which can be pleasant in itself. Click here to see online dream journal.

stag on building footscraper

Become aware all the time - not just of what goes on in your nighttime adventures but every day. Don't passively walk around use every moment in the day to observe the world. Many people walk around eyes mid level or gaze dictated by modern advertising of shops and billboards. Break this habit by looking above and below your normal eye level, examine objects and scenes in more detail, eventually this more questioning gaze will follow you into your dreams.

Look what I found just walking today, perched on top of a building above a hairdressers was a bronze stag? And hidden away at ground level embedded in the side of a building was a cast iron foot scraper with women's face in the design, objects I'd passed by for years!

 

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'll glance at your hands and then the phrase "am I dreaming?" will pop into your head! Bingo. You get lucid.

Dream signs or dream themes will become noticeable after you've done your dream diary for a while. Are you always dreaming of being in the office working on the computer? That's a dream theme and the computer is a dream sign. Once you've managed to find your dream sign or dream theme, all you need to do is perform a reality check everytime you see your dream sign in the waking world. Everytime you sit down to work like you were doing in your dreams ask yourself "Am I dreaming?"

street twins

yellow warrior

Resting and Intent - Intent is very important in lucid dreaming. Before you sleep the last thing on your mind should be the repeated phase "I will have a lucid dream tonight and when I become lucid I will visit the Lucid Crossroads" or whatever you've decided you what to do when lucid. The amount of times I've woken into lucidity in a dream and just run around having fun then woken up and thought "Oh no I forgot I to practice my karate in my LD (lucid dream) etc.

Resting is also an essential part of becoming lucid each month. The quest for lucidity takes a lot of focus and you need to rest the brain for a while. This resting will happen naturally as lucid dreams seem to have a cycle in their frequency. I'd go for 2 weeks focusing on getting lucid, keeping a detailed dream diary, doing reality checks and having intent before you sleep, and then 2 weeks of resting by just keeping rough dream diary and that's all.

STAGE 2 - Pushing through the barrier

Moving into a Lucid - Ok, stage 1 was the basics, that should, given time, give your mind the subconscious memory to enable you to recognise when you are dreaming. Now here's a section you'll not find much about on the internet, how do you move into a lucid dream and how does it feel. Hopefully this section is worth it cause I've been pulling back from entering my lucids for a while now to observe and document this part.

In a DILD's (Dream-Initiated Lucid Dreams) you tend to enter in a split second, one moment you were dopey headed dreamer the next your training has triggered your brain to ask the all important "Am I dreaming?". Bam! Your there, its a shock, but a very welcome one, it takes every ounce of self control not to just go running off doing cartwheels screaming "I made it!"

DILD's are not very predictable, however, but to achieve the more quick fix methods like MILD and WILD we have to get a sense of the the fine balance between awake awareness and our asleep body in order to leap into a lucid dream from this point.

in a lucid dream

 

zone out 1.

Above, the place you're physically sat whilst day dreaming.

outside view 2.

Above, The view from your physical eyes.

Right, The view from your "minds eye".

Hooking into the LD - To hook into a DILD you have to programme your brain, that is because your normally in deeper sleep where as MILD and WILD happen near or from being aware and awake and you can question and adapt easier.

What I need to get you to be able to do is take dreamy headed daydream imagery and bring it into focus. I mean this literally, when you daydream your mind is split between the place you're physically in (1), looking at (2), and the scene playing out in your mind's eye (3). In fact your "mind's eye's" imaginings might be become dominant and you have tuned out the world around you although its very difficult to get realism like you normally get looking out of your eye's. Mind's eye images are flickering ghost images.

When you try to get to a lucid state from awareness or sleepy morning wake up you'll need to close your eye lids and gently allow this minds eye imagery to form. The key for us is to get this flickering ghost image (3) to become a full three dimensional bright dynamic scene (4).

minds eye 3. knights 4.

This shift has to happen without falling into unconscious sleep, after much trial and error trying to notice what I'm doing I've found that, I engage with the minds eye imagery to make this happen.

Engaging means not having unfocused eyes behind your lids. We need to use our real eyes and trick the brain in to believing the mind images are actually input from those eyes! You need two approaches to get this working, firstly look at image 3, just like a TV picture this image has no depth for our real eyes to key into. We have to make our minds imagery like a 3-D diorama that you get in a museum (5, 6).

If image 4 was my mind's eye imagery I'd try and focus with my physical eyes (behind closed lids) over the shoulder of the first knight and into the crowd.

5. diorama 6. diorama scene

7. minds eye focus 8. close minds eye

Stare at the woman in a black cloak who faces away from us(7), in your mind will her to turn round and engage us(8). This always works for me as soon as the person turns round you get a shock as there eyes meet yours, it very personal and you feel like this person is a separate mind to your own.

A. eyes B. lucidity opening

C. lucid vision

Big thanks to the Medieval Siege Society for the use of their photo.

Eyes have that real power to engage(A), I always try to catch the eye of any person or creature in this type of imagery, the closer I can get staring them in the face the better. When you get that engagement the scene will brighten to be just like a normal visual scene(B).

Unlike a TV picture this won't be flat but like a 3D diorama (5,6) a bright, living, breathing, moving scene that fills your vision (C). Step in! I actually try to grab a person or part of what I see and pull myself in.

stepping in a lucid

LD Technique (MILD)

Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD) "Yawn." You come round in the morning with that last dream still in your head. Good. Now you can try a MILD, a technique named by Stephen LeBerge.

1. Before you turn over and go back into your dream, try and recall as much of the dream you were having as possible.

2. Now as you return to sleep, concentrate on your intention to remember to recognize you're dreaming. As you close your eyes and imagine the dream you were having as you woke say to yourself, "This is a dream and I will wake to lucidity,".

3. You can force the dream by imagining how the dream would continue if you had not of woken up. Even though you are entering the dream again do not let yourself stray and lose yourself too deeply, look at the details in the dream like you would do if you were walking down the street and looked around the scene.

4. I focus on the people in the scene, I relax but I focus on them and I try to make eye contact and engage them (use the techniques in Pushing through the barrier above).

5. I find MILD to be the fastest of all the techniques to achieve lucidity because you have a very short period to recognise you are dreaming before you fall back into the dream so it either happens or it doesn't.

6. When you get that engagement the scene will brighten to be just like a normal visual scene. I then try to reach out and grab part of the scene, this seems to make me lunge into the vision and I'm there!

hypnogogic image4

WILD Technique

Wake Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD) WILD man! Don't let anyone tell you that WILDs aren't the holy grail of lucid dreaming. In a nut shell you lay down on your bed or in a comfy chair, close your eyes, relax, go through the WILD process and you're there! Click the image left to see a full page illustrated guide with animation on how to WILD.

the gatekeeper

The Gatekeeper technique is based on an combination of different techniques that have worked for me over the years but it is most firmly based on WILD and Buddhist clear light practices. Click the image on the right to see a full page illustrated guide with animation to teach you the gatekeeper technique.

gatekeeper

Mayan Dreamspell WHITE Lunar WIND tshirt

Buy at the Crossroads store served by CafeExpres

Stabilizing lucidity

Get me higher! So now, hopefully you can become lucid. You might find it difficult to remain focused and lucid. You could get a very low-level lucid. Have no fear. Here are some tricks to help.

Movement - Movement can really help focus lucidity. Try spinning on the spot, your arms out to the side like Wonder Woman. Run around. Do some triple somersaults. I don't care if you've not left your bed for 5 years, you'll still be able to wipe the floor with any Olympic gymnast you can think of.

Don't speak, think - I often wake up from a lucid dream because I'm speaking or shouting in my dream. I don't know why but the lips seem to be prone to getting un-paralyzed easily. Try telepathy (thinking your speech) instead. In the dream world it's possible to communicate without using your voice!

Ask for clarity - This is your brain. You understand plain language. Ask for better lucidity. Say something in your mind like, "Increase Lucidity NOW!" Really shout it in your mind.

Look at your hands - Look at your hands and really focus on the details like the lines on them etc (don't be shocked if they look funny, sometimes your body image gets distorted in a lucid dream). You can also do this to any object. Many people use the ground.

Get your butt over to the Crossroads - You can ask the receptionists to help you increase lucidity. Also, the Crossroads is a calm place where you can deepen lucidity before departing to your own particular lucid dream.

The Lucid Crossroads is another good way of doing reality checks. Print out the images from this site (see downloads page) and put them on your wall, read the textual description and look at the images, I've tried to design them and write in an evocative manner so your mind thinks "this would be a very interesting place to visit and I can almost feel it now". When you go to open a door, pause for a second think about what this would mean if you where lucid when you opened that door the Crossroads could lay beyond. Hopefully the blue people, mad scenery and big sign asking you if you're dreaming should also be hard to ignore and eventually filter into your dreams! blue storm

CHECK LIST (how to get lucid)

1. Write your dream diary everyday and look for patterns in your dreams like dream signs to help you get lucid.

2. Observe everyday life closely, don't take everything at face value, look beyond what others might miss or disregard.

3. Give yourself a reality check a couple of times a day (the more you do the easier it is).

4. Read all you can about lucid dreaming. Prime your brain for what it needs to do. Check out movies or videos from youtube that might relate to what you want to do in a lucid, like this.

5. Try to either use MILD, WILD or the Gatekeeper techniques at least a few times a month.

6. Give yourself a rest, get your lucid dreaming into a routine/cycle that fits in with your lifestyle.

7. Enjoy : )

 

Dreamteams and online dream journal websites

Dreamteams are small units of 6-7 dreamers who write their dream journals online in small private forums, discuss dreams and dreaming projects as a group. Dream groups can really help focus and encourage your dreaming mind and thus improve your chances of having LD's.

Dreamjournal - straight online journals no dreamteams

Places to discuss issues on this page

Ld4all forum - largest lucid forum on the net, for all your lucid needs and questions.

Astralpulse forum - again mainly for astral posting but you can talk about lucidity in the Welcome to Dreams section.

Other relevant pages at the Crossroads

science of lucids

astral projection page

crossroads guides

Pages on the internet similar to this one

Oniros guide to lucidity

Sweet dreams take on lucid technique

DreamLight Cues for Eliciting Lucid Dreaming at ASD

FoolsGuide to lucid dreaming at the lucidity institute

 

Other lucid websites on the internet

Association for the Study of Dreams

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