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?

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.

Normal sleep helps us refresh ourselves for the next day. However, if you were a lucid dreamer, you would be able to control the period of time when you were dreaming.

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.

If you want to become a lucid dreamer, there are two major ways to accomplish it. The first way is called DILD, or dream-initiated lucid dream. That's when you're in the process of having a dream, realize that it's happening, and retain your sense of consciousness inside the dream.

The second method is called WILD, and stands for wake-initiated lucid dream. This is when you start out awake and fall asleep, but do not experience a change in consciousness levels. This is the process of simply entering a dream, the same way you'd walk through a door, instead of waking up inside the dream.

So, what methods are used to induce both of these kinds of lucid dream experiences?

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)

This technique was developed by Dr. Stephen LaBerge, one of lucid dreaming's lead scientists. The method used here is telling yourself that you'll remember something in your dream. Once in the dream, you'll see this object, recall what you told yourself, and realize you're 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 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)

This method was described before. If you would like to achieve a lucid dream this way, all you have to do is to keep your mind awake while you body falls asleep. This is perhaps the most interesting way of entering a lucid dream. It is as if you are getting ready to watch a movie. You are in the real world, you sit on your couch, you turn on the TV and press play (starting to sleep), the screen is black (in the same way as when your eyes are closed), and all you have to do is wait for the movie to actually 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.

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.

With self-hypnosis and a conscious preparedness before you go to sleep anyone can practice lucid dreaming. - 31521

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