Lucid dreaming has been one of the most life changing experiences I’ve ever had. The ability to consciously enter the dreamworld (4D consciousness) and purposely direct my intent from a level of my superconscious mind has allowed me to have a direct experience of my Higher Self.
Why You Should Master Lucid Dreaming?
You probably know that you dream every night. But did you know that you spend on average two hours in REM (dreaming) sleep? That means that in a year you can spend an entire month dreaming and by the age of 36 humans will have spent an entire year of their lives dreaming! But most of us can even barely remember our dreams let alone control them.
Imagine if yo
u could consciously access and explore, without any limitations, your dreams and super-conscious mind? Lucid dreaming is the ability to become fully conscious while you are in a dream, making the dream experience rich, detailed and extremely vivid.
A true lucid dream can actually feel as real as waking life but with a very marked difference: many of the laws or rules of this world are non-existent or can be greatly manipulated just with the power of your intent.
Although in the Western world lucid dreaming has gained popularity over the last few decades lucid dreaming has long been acknowledged for thousands of years in the East, by Tibetan Buddhists and other mystics as an important milestone on the route of enlightenment and the discovery of the ultimate nature of the self.
Lucid dreaming offers you the greatest altered state of awareness you can think of without the use of drugs or years of meditation. Plus in a lucid dream you could ask to experience states like:
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1
Unconditional Love
Many people who have done Ayahuasca report being engulfed by waves of unconditional love and how this changed their lives. Imagine feeling absolute unconditional love while dreaming and actually waking up with this feeling in the comfort of your own home.
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2
Enlightenment
The pinnacle for those in the spiritual journey is to experience enlightenment. Many believe that in order to have this experience you need 40 years of meditation, self growth and healing. But what if you could get a taste of what enlightenment feels like while lucid dreaming? Good news is you can totally do this.
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3
Embodying Your Higher Self
Ever wondered what embodying your Higher Self would feel like? You can ask to have this experience while in a lucid dream. Get ready for a series of life changing revelations and possibly visions.
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4
Integrating Your Shadow Self
When I placed the intent to integrate my shadow self in a lucid dream I was blown away by what I felt and what I saw. As I was looking in a mirror, two shadows appeared behind me (one male and one female). I turned around and embraced both shadows, as I did this I could feel a massive influx of energy coming into my light body. But what surprised me the most what how ecstatic I felt afterwards, even after waking up.
Not only can you experience these states while in a lucid dream but you can transfer those feelings into your waking life and even more powerful you can ask your subconscious mind what steps you can take, what things you could do, what you require to let go off or what you must heal within you to embody these states of awareness in your everyday life.
When you access your subconscious mind you have access to your Higher Self and this part of you knows what is best for you at any given moment.
The possibilities with lucid dreaming are endless. You can use lucid dreaming to have a blast by flying and exploring the universe, find solutions to life challenges or problems, heal deep emotional wounds, access your deepest creativity, know what is your ideal career, find out how you can become affluent, visit past lifetimes and even the probable futures, create dream characters or form the ultimate master mind group, enhance your immune system, overcome your darkest fears, fulfill fantasies and literally make your dreams come true.
How Can I Learn How To Lucid Dream?
Like any skill, lucid dreaming can be learned and mastered by anyone who has a strong commitment, studies the proper techniques and takes massive action. Lucid dreaming has been proven scientifically through years of rigorous scientific research and has been documented extensively by Dr. Stephen Laberge at the Stanford University and other researchers around the globe.
There are plenty of great lucid dreaming books out there but in my opinion Robert Waggoner is a true master when it comes to lucid dreams. I highly recommend any of his books but if you are starting out with lucid dreaming then I recommend Lucid Dreaming, Plain and Simple.
1) Keep a dream journal:
The dream journal serves multiple purposes that are vital to your growth, development and success in understanding the nature of dreams and ultimately becoming lucid. Yet the core purpose of a dream journal is to form a bridge between your normal waking consciousness and your dream consciousness.
Failure to keep a dream journal will result in poor lucid dreaming results and frustration. If you don’t want to become one of those persons that have “tried” lucid dreaming but never gained lucidity then you must implement the dream journal technique.
It is quite simple, buy a journal that you will use ONLY for recording your dreams and keep it next to your bed. When you wake up from a dream, before you rush to your journal or even move a single muscle, just remain with your eyes closed and remember as many details as you can from your dream.
This includes characters, situations, emotions, thoughts, odd events and whatever else happened during your dream. The primary purpose of a dream journal is collecting dream data. It also includes anything else that might have influenced your sleep and dreaming experience like the time you went to sleep, the time you had the dream, what was your emotional state and mental state when you went to sleep, lucid dreaming techniques used, etc.
A dream journal will help you improve you dream recall by converting short-term dream memories into long-term memories. As well you will notice that with consistent dream journal practice your dreams will become more vivid because whatever you focus upon and bring awareness in your life will become relevant information to your Reticular Activating System. Finally your dream journal data will allow you to become aware of dream signs.
Your dream journal can be used for another key element when it comes to achieving lucidity in your dreams and that is writing down your goal or intent prior to going to sleep and becoming lucid. This step alone is one of the most fundamental and important for successful lucid dreams.
2) Recognizing Dream Signs
We all have had the experience of dreaming something so bizarre and irrational only to have our mind come up with a seemingly “rational” explanation of why that event is happening that we fail to notice that we are actually dreaming. Dream signs are the unique events and elements that highlight the true nature of the dream world and clearly distinguish them from our “ordinary” or everyday reality. You can think of dream signs as glitches in the matrix.
Dream signs can be anything from time distortions, unusual emotions, malfunctioning devices, out of the ordinary consequences, impossible events or changes in environment. Here is a list of some common dream signs:
1) A dream scene suddenly shifts
2) A dream character transforms from one person to another
3) You can fly
4) You are trying to run but you are moving extremely slow
5) Electrical equipment doesn’t work or respond as usual
6) Being in a place you used to live years ago or in your childhood.
7) Hanging out with old friends from high school or college, or past co-workers.
The possibilities for dream signs are endless. The key is to find your own personal dream signs that will become evident as they continue to repeat themselves in your dream journal. Perhaps you constantly dream that your teeth are falling out, doors are jammed, you are back in college even though you graduated or you continue to feel a sense of urgency during your dream.
Recurrent nightmares, for example of being chased or seeing a tsunami come, can be also dream signs.
3) Practicing reality checks
Once you have written at least a dozen dreams you can pinpoint what are the most recurrent dream signs in your dream world. Sometimes a dream sign alone can trigger a state of lucidity but it is often the case where what appears to be an obvious dream sign ends up being “rationalized” or explained by our dream mind as something completely normal.
This is when reality checks or reality testing becomes an essential tool to prove yourself that you are actually dreaming or awake. If dream signs are like a glitch in the matrix then realty checks will be like your totem from the movie Inception.
A reality check is just that, a way to test and prove yourself whether you are dreaming or you are awake. Even though the answer might seem obvious do not be fooled. Scientists have concluded through brain scans that our neurological activity is almost identical whether we are dreaming or awake.
We cannot simply assume that because what we are experiencing at any given moment feels or looks very “real” or “vivid” we are not dreaming. Once you achieve a state of lucidity you will be surprised to find out that the dream world can appear as “real” as the physical world.
Reality checks are the only way we can be certain that we are dreaming or not. Before we explain the best types of reality checks we must first address the key pre-requisite for any reality check, the question “AM I DREAMING?” Anyone who is serious about achieving lucidity in the dream state must often ask him/herself this question on average of 10 times per the day, especially when something occurs that might appear as if you were in a dream.
We are creatures of habit and what we think about the most during our daily lives will soon enough filter through our dream world. This is our main intent, to ask ourselves this question while we are awake and eventually when we are dreaming so that we can prove to ourselves in what state we are in. After you ask the question “Am I dreaming?” then you can perform one of the following reality checks:
1) Morphing text test: you will notice that in our dreams any kind of written text will tend to not be stable or permanent. Often when we are dreaming if we read something, for example a STOP sign, then look away and finally look again to where the text was it will have either changed or completely disappeared. The reality check is simple, read something, look away and read it again. If the text stayed the same then you are more than likely not dreaming. If the text changed then you are in a dream!
2) Digital watches: for some unknown reason digital watches don’t work as they are supposed to. Numbers often change and sometimes don’t even appear to be numbers at all. You can buy yourself a digital watch or if you have a phone with a large digital time display this works well too. During the day ask yourself if you are dreaming and then look at your digital watch, look away and look at it again, did the time change? If the time continues to be the same then odds are you are not dreaming.
3) The nose pinch test: if you are dreaming then there is no reason why you would need to breath right? Some people dream of being underwater for extended periods of time, although you might sense the element of air in your dreams you surely don’t need to breathe. The nose pinch reality check consists of pinching your nose and trying to breathe, if after you have pinched your nose you can breathe, then you are most certainly dreaming. The sensation is so bizarre that for that reason alone this is my favorite reality check.
A great tip is to combine two or all three of these reality checks in a sequential order. This will guaranteed that you will gain lucidity if for some reason your dream mind comes up with a weird explanation as to why a text or digital watch time changed.
You might have heard of other reality checks like trying to fly or turning lights on or off. The challenge with trying to fly is that is not that practical to do throughout your day and electrical malfunctioning tends to be more of a dream-sign than a reality check. Plus you run the risk of your dream mind coming up with an excuse like “the light bulb simply blew up.”
Going Deeper
With these techniques and consistent practice you should be able to start lucid dreaming within a few weeks or even sooner. However you will most likely find out that becoming lucid is only the first step.
After you become lucid the challenge is staying lucid, maintaining control and prolonging the duration of the lucid dream. After you have had a few lucid dreams you can start to experiment with advanced lucid dreaming techniques. In my next blog post I will go over my favorite advanced lucid dreaming techniques some of which allowed me to:
- Have lucid dreams that lasted 30 to 60 minutes
- Have out of body experiences
- Consciously transition from waking state to the dream world