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?
Knowing why you have chosen to pursue lucid dreaming is important. How can it benefit ou personally? To know this we can work backwards from what it considered normal sleep.
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?
Normal sleep just seems to serve the purpose of simply refreshing ourselves in order to live out the next day. But what if you could control that period of time that you have dreams?
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’d like to lucid dream, perhaps one of the most successful way of doing so is known as dream recall. Dream recall is simply the ability to remember one’s dreams. By remembering your dreams, you are able to recognize them when you are sleeping, because most likely, you will have the same dream, or at least aspects of it, more than once.
One way to practice dream recall is by keeping a dream journal. This is a tool in which you write down anything you can remember about a given dream, so you can easily recall it in the future. Do this right after you wake up, since dreams become harder to remember over time.
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)
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 Stephen LaBerge, there is a 60% success rate of this technique. The reason why is that you would have woken up during the process of sleep, meaning that your mind is not fully aware of this, and are still in the middle of REM cycle. So basically, it’s like going to your mind and telling it that you want to lucid dream.
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.
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.
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.
Definitely the easiest and most reliable way of inducing a lucid dream however is by listening to binaural beats sound frequencies via headphones.
The sounds bring the two sides of the brain in synch. Your brainwaves are then converted to REM waves the time during sleep when you dream and the frequency at which lucid dreams occur.
With self-hypnosis and a conscious preparedness before you go to sleep anyone can practice lucid dreaming.
Lesley Groft is one of the expert writers for the http://www.luciddreaminginfo.com site. You can enjoy the incredible experience of being a lucid dreamer for yourself and get twenty nine Free lucid dreaming Audios when you visit here.
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